Guilt, Shame, and Ashes to Go

One of the struggles with Lent (and with being human) is that, in Western conversation and in spoken and written English, we have conflated guilt and shame. They are not the same. Furthermore, making them interchangeable does real spiritual and psychic harm to individuals and communities.

Regardless of official definition (denotation), the common understanding of shame (connotation) is to be embarrassed or regretful of who you are. This stems from being told or believing that bad choices or personal struggles are rooted in being a bad person. This isn't even a question of being human and, thus, prone to mistakes. In common parlance, shame is rooted, fundamentally, in being a bad person of little to no redeeming value.

When we hear people saying that people aren't "ashamed" anymore, what is usually meant is either 1)  people "like that" used to not be visible in society and I would prefer for that to be the case again OR 2) they should feel guilty for their choices or actions. 

Guilt is different from shame and has a different function. Guilt is feeling bad about actions or choices. Guilt is not rooted in who you are as a person, but in the fact that you have done things that are not in keeping with who you are (or whose you are). Guilt is the feeling that arises out of regret or remorse. Often guilt makes us double-down on a choice, reiterating that we were correct in our actions- even though we doubt that ourselves. Negative choices can stem from fear, longing, grief, and frustration. We have few communal outlets for acknowledging these realities and, thus, they continue to be motivators toward negative actions, which feed guilt.

Guilt that we do not release can become shame.

Adam and Eve felt guilty because of their disobedience. The guilt grew beyond their ability to hold it in their hearts with the truth that God had made them and walked and talked with them. They then doubted who they were in that relationship and their value. In the resulting shame, they covered themselves and hid.

Ashes to Go is a Lenten practice that is embraced enthusiastically by some Christians and less so by others. Critics rightly note that Ash Wednesday seems like a poor day in the church year for evangelism, especially when Christians don't do a great job of talking about death, sin, and guilt on the other 364 days in of faithful living. True, true, true. The Church is the place where we learn to live and die in Jesus Christ. We model ourselves on his faithfulness.

When I go out, in the COLD, on Ash Wednesday to distribute ashes, I'm not thinking about evangelism in the classical, fundamentalist Christian sense. I'm not there in my robe, hoping someone will ask me about Christ, so that I can pray the "Sinner's Prayer" with them.

What I hope is that someone who has been shamed by the church will see me and feel courageous enough to challenge me on that, so that I might offer an apology and regret for the actions that caused shame. I hope that someone will refuse the ashes, but ask for prayer. I hope that someone will say can I talk with you after this and that I will buy them lunch and listen to their story. I hope that someone will bow their head to receive ashes and that I will pray for them and we will both feel the power of the Spirit in that moment. I hope that I will be able to give information about how to get rental assistance, medical help, spiritual care, or assurance of God's love. This is my evangel- the good news of Christ that I carry into the town square and beyond.

The reality of Ashes to Go isn't that we shouldn't be out, attempting to counter shame and relieve guilt, on this day, but that it shouldn't be the only day that we do it. 

The Divine Being overflows with love for creation. We are part of that creation. Becoming rooted in that truth does not allow the weed of shame to take hold and choke out the grace of that knowledge.

Guilt has a performative function of helping us see how we have strayed from loving God, loving our neighbors, and loving ourselves. Releasing guilt sometimes requires hard work of confessing to God or to one another, reparative work, or learning new information toward a change of heart. Lent is a good time to work on releasing guilt so that we have clearer vision to celebrate the joy of resurrection at Easter.

Were You Wearing A Hat?

Were you wearing a hat when you smashed the window of the church? Was it a hat that I made?

Did you eat a sandwich yesterday- tossing the plastic over your shoulder? Was it a sandwich from the kitchen you set afire? 

Have you come by before? Did you get a bus token, a bathroom, coffee, communion, fustrated? 

Were you alone? Was it a dare? An initiation? A fruitless and annoying search for cash? 

Have you sat in the building for a funeral, a wedding, a high holiday, a low Sunday? 

Did you scoff at the sign about God's people all being welcomed or did you decide that hope had flown in your life, as far as you could see? 

Did it matter who we were? The preschoolers, the elders, the working, the retired, the unhoused, the multiply-housed. 

Or were we just there, where you were- crossing paths at a time that is now linking us both?

You may have already forgotten us, but not we you. 

If you are never caught, we may still yet meet. Sandwich, hat, communion, bathroom, we'd still give them to you.

Were you wearing a hat? Was it a hat that I made? 

Beauty for Ashes

Early on Friday morning, January 29, 2016... a person or persons broke into the church building where I serve.

They smashed a concrete doorstop through a window to enter the building. Additionally, they threw said doorstop through the plate glass office window and then ransacked the office looking for money. Not finding any, they stole a small, inexpensive digital camera and tore up the office. 

They proceeded to the sanctuary where they overturned the baptismal font, shattering the pottery insert that protected the brass font from water damage. 

The saddest damage was found on Sunday morning, where they wrote in the liturgical leader book. 

Right over the idea that the Lamb of God takes away the sin of the world, they wrote "lie". Did they stop to read this and react to that specifically? Do they refuse to believe the body and blood of Christ were given for them? Did they simply not care what the book was?

There was no other damage to the book or in the sanctuary (besides the font). No Bibles torn, no hymnals, nothing to the piano or organ (thank God). So this quick writing seems very specific. 

The worst damage was in the back of the church where they put books and papers on the stoves and turned on all the burners full blast. We have had electric stoves, so it probably took a while for things to start burning, but they did. Eventually the sprinkler system kicked in and one localized sprinkler dowsed the flames. Lots of water pouring through the kitchen and over some of the preschool contents. The kitchen was totaled. 

A person walking his or her dog early in the a.m. saw the strobe lights of the fire alarm system and called the fire department. The alarm system alerted specific church members. 

It was, expectedly, chaotic. 

I was on a ship, but got the news and made many calls... at the rate of $1.99/minute.

We're slowly cleaning up and deciding how to move forward. 

The emotional reactions come and go, but when I look at the worship book, there's only one spiritual reaction: prayer for such a hurting individual. 

In ransacking the office, they opened a plastic bowl I had full of ashes. Last year, I burned 3 years worth of old palms from Palm Sunday. I sieved the ashes very finely and stored them. I had enough ashes for about 500 Ash Wednesdays. The person opened that container and dumped the ashes everywhere in the office. The ash is so fine, it just hangs in the air.

This means that the perpetrator, still a child of God, left Lutheran Church of Hope covered in our still ringing "Hosannas" (God save us!) and the reminder that we are all dust and to dust we shall return.

There's something so poignant about that. I'll try to cling to this as we move forward.


Donations to Lutheran Church of Hope or Hope Lutheran Preschool may be made here: www.mkt.com/hopeak.