Shame.

Edition note (Harper Collins edition 2001): beginning around page 58, the word "to" is sometimes depicted as the typo "eo". It's slightly distracting. Also, the edition misses some opening and closing quotation marks on occasion.

from The Great Divorce

'I wish I'd never been born' it said. 'What are we born for?'

'For infinite happiness,' said the Spirit. 'You can step out into it at any moment...'

'But, I tell you, they'll see me.'

'An hour hence and you will not care. A day hence and you will laugh at it. Don't you remember on earth--there were things too hot to touch with your finger but you could drink them all right? Shame is like that. If you accept it--if you will drink the cup to the bottom--you will find it very nourishing: but try to do anything else with it and it scalds.' (Lewis 61)

The ghost in question is ashamed to step out into the light of Heaven because she is see-through and pales in comparison to the solid Spirit beings, and her shame is palpable and debilitating. She cannot shed it and move into absolute joy.

This short passage had me wondering about the true nature of shame. Is it really something that we simply have to accept as a part of us--as a normal, human reaction to our own imperfections as judged by our perceptions of the world and others? Is it then a choice to shed this when we are faced with the prospect of eternal happiness? Does it, then, remain something we cannot be rid of in this finite life? I am not sure.

More than that, how many of us have, on very low occasions, wished that we hadn't been born? Is this statement driven by shame, at its core, rather than the hundred other things we can attribute to it? Is this why it is such an affront to the gift of life--because we are too ashamed of ourselves and cannot break out of it? The idea certainly puts things in a different perspective, especially if shame is something that most of us experience now and again. Are we then saying we prefer death to the collective human condition at these moments?

There is so much to think about. Maybe I am over-thinking all of this. I wish I had someone to ask.