The Conquest of Casual Shame

It’s late January, and I just finished my morning walk. Early rising has always been hard for me, as it is for most. But I don’t hate mornings. If anything, I adore the pre-dawn stillness of the world. It’s a shame I don’t pursue it more often.

Wait — I just wrote that last sentence without thinking, and it’s an abomination. I’m not going to delete it, though, because it proves to the point I was intending to make in this post. You see, it truly was a beautiful morning–cool, dark, and blessedly dry. The three-quarter moon was drifting kite-like behind the frills of lacy clouds. I passed a friend on the road, wearing light-up blinking shoes, and it made me smile. I had my coffee, my warm jacket, and my headphones on. I listened to Exodus, and then talked to God over subtle, ambient post-rock music. It was perfect, as is the soaking calm of the living room where I now write.

But you saw what happened. Even before I started going on about the beauty of the morning, I couldn’t help but type that downer of a phrase, “it’s a shame I don’t pursue it more often.” (And seriously, I didn’t plan it for the sake of a blog post. My fingers did that on their own.)

I wish I could say this is rare for me, but it isn’t. I catch myself making these statements all the time. When I find a new band, a great show, an awesome pizza place, instead of reveling in the the discovery, I begin in a lament: “it’s a shame I never knew about this before.”

Casual shame is such a wet blanket. It follows us around at parties to read us our rap sheet. It saps the joy not only of bygone pleasures, but even those that are just becoming real. And in the end, through the power of sheer embarrassment, it keeps us from making the changes we desperately want to make. “You know your track record on getting up early,” it whispers. “Why even try?”

This is one reason people give up their resolutions by the end of January. They feel guilty for missing a day, and that spoils the following three days. Even while dripping with sweat on the treadmill, they excoriate themselves for not running enough.

I was talking with my spiritual director last week about the changes I’ve been making in my walk with God, and about some more I’m hoping to make. I tell him I’ve been apprehensive about committing again to routines because I know my own history. The ghosts of half-met goals still haunt me, even on sunny, victorious afternoons.

I tell him all this, and he nods thoughtfully.

“Can I tell you what I see?” He says at last. “I think you’ve been on a long journey, and you suddenly have room to give more attention to these issues. It’s like you’ve been walking through this dense section of trees, and you’re just now coming out onto a wide open space.”

A wide open space. I feel this image deep inside me. It speaks to me, not only because I’m a wee bit claustrophobic (just don’t make me sit in the inside of the booth and we’re cool, okay?), but because it makes so much sense. He helps me to see it: I just turned forty. I just put out my first book, which capped off a long, painful, redemptive season. I’m about to celebrate my 20th anniversary. And my life is starting, for the first time in ages, to make a good deal of sense.

If there’s ever been a time to silence that casual shame and embrace the promise of dawn, it is today. This open space is a hopeful gift. A rising sun. I want to sit in the stillness of these possibilities. I want to breath in the wide, valley air.

“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases,” the book of Lamentations tells us. “His mercies never come to an end. They are new every morning.” I believe this, but I want to believe it more. If His mercies really are new every morning, then why carry yesterday’s albatross into today?

I’m starting again, and this wide open space is giving me life. You might not be walking in a prairie like I am. You might be tiptoeing the edge of a mountain ridge. You might be wading through a swamp, or cutting through a thick and dangerous rain forest. Really, I get it.

Nevertheless, the dawn that comes to me comes to you, also. Every day, a new sun rises over all our plains and peaks, our bogs and our jungles, to do battle with the casual shames that tie up our souls. And every day, the light from that sky reminds us of the promise, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

If you liked this post, check out my book, Aching Joy!