Quotes About Shame

What we call Original Sin in Genesis perhaps could, in a sense, be better called Original Shame, because Adam and Eve describe themselves as feeling naked. Some of the first words of God to these newly created people are, "Who told you that you were naked?" (Genesis 3:11). Next, in a lovely maternal image, God as seamstress sews leather garments for them (3:21). The first thing God does after creation itself is cover the shame of these new creatures.

True baptism allows us to reframe, and contain, the reality of evil, without needing to blame anyone else, without any need for shame or vengeance. We are all in this together, and our common wound shows itself in different ways.

Have you ever experienced the embarrassed and red-faced look of shame and self-recognition on the face of anyone who has been loved gratuitously after they have clearly done wrong? This is the way that God seduces us all into the economy of grace—by loving us in spite of ourselves in the very places where we cannot or will not or dare not love ourselves.

Without a transcendent connection, each of us is stuck in his own little psyche, struggling to create meaning and produce an identity all by himself. When we inevitably fail at this-because we can't do it alone-we suffer shame and self-defeat. Or we try to pretend that our small universe of country, ethnicity, team, or denomination is actually the center of the world.

It takes therapists years to achieve the same result and reestablish appropriate boundaries from wounding parents and early authority figures, and to heal the inappropriate shame in those who have been wounded. We all must leave home to find the real and larger home

our religious history has been too guilt-based and shame-based, and not enough of what some would call "vision logic

They are comfortable knowing, and they are comfortable not knowing. They can care and not care—without guilt or shame. They can act without success because they have named their fear of failure. They do not need to affirm or deny, judge or ignore. But they are free to do all of them with impunity. A saint is invincible.

God takes away the shame we have by giving us back to ourselves—by giving us God! You don't get any better than that. Human love does the same thing. When someone else loves you, they give you not just themselves, but for some reason they give you back your own self, but now a truer and better self. This dance between the Lover and the beloved is the psychology of the whole Bible, which we will see poetically described in the wonderful single book, the Song of Songs.

feeling, as he always did these days, a terrible mix of irreconcilable emotions—the shame of his failed marriage, anger at Janine for her part in its dissolution, anger at himself for his own part, and gratitude that they'd managed to be faithful to a bad idea long enough to have this child.

Yes. He loves us all. "No!" Tunic emphatically disagreed. "God does not." Well, fuck him, then, Raymer thought, giddy with heat and blasphemy. Shame on God. "Because a shirker is a coward." No, God is.

Sadie, I can't intervene. He turned up his palms in frustration. I told you when we first met, this isn't an actual physical body. Shame, I mumbled. What? Nothing. Go on.

He hated being filled with terror. It was embarrassing.

Blowfish, did you say? Ah, no. Blofis, actually. Oh, I see, Poseidon said. A shame. I quite like blowfish.

Oh, no," she said. "Apollo and Meg can have one, but I'm keeping the rest hostage until you're back safely. And hurry, dear. It would be a shame if Paul ate them all when he gets home." Percy's expression turned grim. He faced us. "You hear that, guys? A batch of cookies is depending on me. If you get me killed on the way to camp, I am going be ticked off.

You're only as sick as your secrets.

Many people are driven by guilt. They spend their entire lives running from regrets and hiding their shame. Guilt-driven people are manipulated by memories. They allow their past to control their future. They often unconsciously punish themselves by sabotaging their own success.

names that were so bad that when they dared to whisper them (bitch-cunt-whore-poet) to each other beneath the bedclothes, they were like poison in the air.

She felt as if a mist had been lifted from her eyes, enabling her to look upon and comprehend the significance of life, that monster made up of beauty and brutality. But among the conflicting sensations which assailed her, there was neither shame nor remorse. There was a dull pang of regret because it was not the kiss of love which had inflamed her, because it was not love which had held this cup of life to her lips.

it." "You dirty

I'd never go back—I might be frightened, but I'd be ashamed to run.

Are you afraid, son? the count asked, more gently. Y-yes, Father. I wouldn't lie to you, even about that. The count reached out and with an odd, awkward gesture touched Alain on the cheek, a brush more than a caress, almost as he would pat one of his beloved hounds. There's no shame in being afraid, Alain. There's only shame if you let your fear cloud your good judgement.

No, I say. In no moral universe would this not be a crime, I say. I was a child, I tell him. Shame on you, I say. Shame on you, I say. Shame on you. And he laughs and reaches out for me. "You are cute as pie when you're angry," he says. "Come here," he says. "How old are you again?" he says. "Close your eyes," he says.

Never shame your client," Billy Corrigan admonished Duncan long ago, when he had been employed as a junior draftsman only a few weeks, after his first disastrous meeting with Meg and Hank Waxman. "Always make the client feel smart and creative. Let the client think he is a design partner whose ideas fascinate and inspire you.

They thought to use and shame me but I win out by nature, because a true freak cannot be made. A true freak must be born. There