Sunday Susurrus–Shame

susurrus \su-SUHR-uhs\, noun: A whispering or rustling sound; a murmur 


There are winds of change blowing around here, bloggy friends. No deaths, divorces, or grave illnesses. No loss of employment. No tragedies.

But change, never-the-less.

Today we said good-bye to a young family, the dad of which we’ve known for years. An orphan, we tried to care for him as best as we could. He lived with us here and there, sleeping on the floor or couch when our house was too full to give him a bed, sharing meals and washing laundry. Matt and The Boy were both groomsmen in his wedding and I was honored to sit in his mother’s place on the front pew. Now he and his wife and young son are heading across country so he can work on his masters at seminary. Then, he hopes, on to another masters and a doctorate perhaps. Maybe those will bring him back to North Carolina. But I don’t know. He will be a spectacular professor one day.

Friday was good-bye to a friend I’ve had for 12+ years. A friend who was pregnant with a daughter at the same time I was with Mary. Our girls were born just two weeks apart. She took care of Mary with her daughter when I had to go back to work. They shared birthdays together. We walked through some very sad times on both parts together. Now she’s taken her four kids and left for a new future in Texas. It is right for her, I know. But still there is an empty spot left where she should be. I thought she would always be just down the road.

And then there’s E… she’s off to college in just two short weeks! It’s hard to imagine her not being here, popping in and out from work, school, and friends…. Going for impromptu lunches and having afternoon talks…. It is good and right and a blessing that she has this opportunity. But it is hard. So very hard.

I’ve been working on a project of mine and Mary’s for the whole summer…. I’ll share more of that with you soon….(The photo contains a tiny glimpse) Part of the project has required that I weed through and sort all of the books in our house – no small task! Yesterday I came across Thomas Merton’s Seven Storey Mountain, his autobiography that I read years ago. While flipping through the pages, I found this passage highlighted and asterisked in orange:

“The anguish of this self-knowledge is inescapable even on earth, as long as there is any self-love left in us: because it is pride that feels the burning of that shame. Only when all pride, all self-love has been consumed in our souls by the love of God, are we delivered from the thing which is the subject of those torments. It is only when we have lost all love of our selves for our own sakes that our past sins cease to give us any cause for suffering or for the anguish of shame.

For the saints, when they remember their sins, do not remember the sins but the mercy of God, and therefore even past evil is turned by them into a present cause of joy and serves to glorify God.” (pg. 322-323)

Telling these dear ones good-bye this weekend brought up regrets – regret and shame that we weren’t I wasn’t there more for this young man that so needed a mom….. that I wasn’t more compassionate, more present to the sufferings of this dear friend…. that I wasn’t a better mother, that I didn’t more wisely use this very short time we had with our girl living under our very roof.

And is there sin in these regrets? Yes, I think, probably. Sins of omission maybe, but sins even so. I didn’t love my neighbor (whether friend or family member) as myself.

But these words of Merton’s – oh, yes! It is still my pride that causes me to have this regret, this shame. Pride, the root of all evil. It is only when we have lost all love of ourselves for our own sakes that our past sins cease to give us any cause for suffering or for the anguish of shame….For the saints… do not remember the sins but the mercy of God…

And, my! Hasn’t the mercy of God been great?!

May all pride and self-love be consumed in my soul and I only see my past failings and sins as reason to give God more praise for His unmerited and unfailing mercy and love.

Amen and amen.