Guilt & Shame personified: a poem and commentary

"Shedding Shame," Katarina Silva 
image used with gratitude & permission of the artist,
copyright Katarina Silva, 2013
All rights reserved

Please visit Ms. Silva's website here to view more of her powerful work. 










Guest blogger and poet:
Kyndall Rae Renfro
with commentary by D. Ellis Phelps


Guilt, be slain, you false accuser,
ha-satan, retreat, you devil . . .
. . . or, might I show hospitality
to my enemy? Give welcome at the door?
What gift is hidden in your lurking
presence? None! None!
cries my wounded child, huddled in fear,
but, “Shh, shh, I will protect you from
our visitor, even as I feed him bread.”
I turn towards the intrusion,
I want you dead and gone!
But I look into your malevolent eyes instead
and wonder what you’ll teach me
as I refuse to cave under torment.
You were going to come in anyway;
might as well seat you at the table
where I can see and study
rather than be stabbed in the back.
Your lips curve in sinister smile,
but I have unnerved you, being so forward.
I will force you to speak clearly.
No sleepy whispers in black masks,
no sneaking in through bedroom window.
You will sit here in my lamp-lit rooms
and I will hear your case, unflinching.
In the inner folds of your long coat
there is a tiny but brilliant diamond.
I can tell by the way you finger the lining
of your gruff garment and by the stance
of your defensive posture that
though you’ve come to pillage and plunder,
you’ve got a prize of your own.
All the stealing intended to distract me
from noticing that what you are hiding
belongs to me. I recognize its glint.
Even through folds of fabric,
it lets off a shine–
it is the small and righteous truth,
searing as the sun, that shame
attempts to hide. It is the gift
of my own vulnerability; it is the treasure
of being who I am without any fear.
Friends: You do not have to bar the door or
wield a weapon; just out-trick the trickster, knowing,
Shame never visits your house
without a diamond in his trench coat.

               Kyndall Rae Renfro


A teacher once said (and I believe this), that guilt is a form of self-inflicted punishment that allows the “guilty” to continue some hurtful behavior (toward herself or another), that the feeling of guilt is a signal to cease that behavior and ask forgiveness (of the self or another).

I really struggled to grasp the meaning of this teaching. I learned, like you, that guilt is also a teacher and that I have much to learn from the experience of it.

After my current understanding of guilt as “permission to repeat hurtful behavior,” arrived, I made a vow to banish guilt from my life by amending my behavior. Yes, I had done some things to others for which I needed to ask their forgiveness, but most of the damage I had done (and sometimes continue to do), I did in the form of insidious self-destruction: Anorexia, alcohol and drug abuse, engagement in toxic relations and on and on and on. In my recovery, guilt is not welcome; only acknowledgement of a mistake made and a new intention to change the mistaken behavior. Over and over again. That is all.

             D. Ellis Phelps

Walking the Woods Together

                                          Self-Portrait with/by Artist Sarah Dinn Dunckel circa 1999


I've been hibernating.  It hasn't helped.  But I think the worst of the dark energy I've been experiencing is over.  For now.  This kind of being possessed or beside mySelf, makes me quite humble.  It makes me understand "salvation" anew every time it happens. 

In fact, ever since the media dethroned Tiger Woods over his sexual indiscretions, I've been wanting to out myself.  I mean, let's just get the whole story out there so "my fans" can make up their minds about me right now.  I don't feel like waiting until you hear it on the news (now that's not entirely likely since I'm neither a star, a politician, an athlete, nor a priest, but you're following me right?).  So here goes.

The truth is, I'm completely human with deep flaws.  I have profound thoughts and sick ones.  Sometimes I feel fearful, depressed, morbid even.  Sometimes I'm sure that All is Well.  I'm more balanced than not most of the time these days.  But I have done drugs (not for thirty years) and delightfully so.  I've drunk too much and driven that way (also not for thirty years, in fact I haven't had a drink at all for that long) and thrown up lots.  I've kissed someone underage and given them pot.  I've kissed another woman (well, actually we were girls then and figuring out how to kiss among other things).  I've kissed a cousin or two (almost lost my virginity to one of them).  I've had multiple extra-marital affairs (another not for thirty years-as you may have guessed, being faithful comes along with being sober).  I've posed naked for a photo shoot.  I'm rather proud of this one.  The young photojournalist (who is now an Episcopal priest) was doing a project for a photography class at UT (that's the University of Texas at Austin-I'll give you the details so you don't have to dig).  She made an A!  My boyfriend and I had the hottest sex ever for days after.  Whew!  I'm glad that's out.   I've screamed profanity at my husband and children and even slapped them all a couple of times.  That's really ugly.  Sometimes, I'm really ugly.

The deal is:  I know it.   And I know, it is only by God's grace that I am as sane as I am today.  I learned what I lived growing up and I've been re-learning ever since I realized  (again by God's grace) that I needed to re-learn.  These days, when I behave badly ( like having a bad mood or a temper tantrum), I ask for forgiveness and expect to get it because I know how to give it.  Believe me, I get as much opportunity to extend forgiveness I as do to ask for it.  And the deal is:  I know I deserve to be forgiven.  So do you.  So does Tiger Woods and on and on and on.  All of us deserve forgiveness.

The trouble is that our culture doesn't nurture the forgiveness concept.  It nurtures the crucifixion concept.  No one is looking in the mirror.  As a culture, we are sufficiently numbed up and distracted by caffeine, tobacco, sugar, alcohol, food, and the Internet and ALWAYS plugged-in to music or texting.  We don't have time to look in the mirror.  We are available to each other 24/7 but not available at all, really.  Especially not to ourselves.  But just you wait until we see someone ELSE doing something wrong!  Kill!  Kill!  Kill! We scream to the rulers.

So you're wondering why I'm ranting about this now?

It's because I've been having a debilitating, unbearably human month or so and I've been feeling ashamed.  I couldn't face you.  I couldn't write about what was wrong (I didn't know what was wrong, how could I write about it?).  I couldn't even paint.  Because still, in my heart of hearts, there is a huge part of me that cannot self-forgive, the part of me that doesn't want me to have this kind of experience, the part of me that wants your approval.  The part of me that is sure you will not like what you see if you see me standing here just as I am, undone and naked in the woods.

When I named this blog, I had every intention of being that authentic with you, of trusting you that much, of trusting the Universe that much.  I didn't.  I confess.  Will you forgive me?  And the next time I disappear for days at a time, will you come find me?  We are, after all, walking these woods together.  And I am hoping that some of you, at least, are out here naked too.