This book has been on a shelf in my parents' house for 25 years or so. Many times over the last 20 years I have looked at it sitting there and thought "I should read that". This year I finally did.
Back in my final year of seminary I went to a graduate seminar where one of the professors was sharing some of her work on shame. Charlotte differentiated between legitimate guilt over something one had done and shame, which is more of an ontological piece. Shame is about how we see who we are. As such, while guilt can be a motivator for change and repair, shame can, in the end, be incredibly debilitating (trust me, I know the effects quite well).
In this book Smedes differentiates between earned/valid shame (which I think is similar to what many of us would call guilt) and unearned shame. He talks about the sources of that shame, the various things like depression that look like or travel with shame. He talks about the ways shame shapes our lives. And he talks about the cure -- grace.
Smedes is (or at least was almost 30 years ago when this book came out) associated with Fuller Seminary. So he speaks not only using the lens of psychology but also the lens of theology.
I have known shame and grace in my life. There was a time when shame shaped my understanding of who I was. Some days that is still true. But it is getting better -- I think..We live in a world that can be really good at imparting shame. WE need to be just as good at reminding people of the reality of grace,
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