Giving Up

"We need to make it easier for people to be honest and apologise, which means that we too must learn how to forgive."

—Jonathan Sacks, "The difference between Shame and Guilt cultures"

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Dear Kate,

When someone tells you that he loves you "just the way you are," you know what he means.

He means he loves things between him and you just the way it is, currently, and suggests you do your best to make this precarious, unsteady current flow.  Don't question each other too much, which is also the best way to not expose this relationship to any questioning at all.  Beneath and above it all, don't question ourselves.  We are good, with nothing to apologize for.  "Let's be alone together; let's see if we're that strong."

"Unconditional love" becomes the biggest condition we demand from each other when (we say) we love.

What is the biggest motivation of your religious activities?  Love?  Delight?  I will let you speak for yourself.

My brand of religion is chiefly about guilt, and when we think we have successfully done away with it, shame.  Let me bring up the most obvious example and leave you with the rest: Why do you read the Bible?  Because you love reading it?  You delight in the words of our Lord?  No, mostly because you'd feel guilty if you don't at least read it somewhat sometimes.  And since you know your heart is not into it, you feel ashamed.  You feel like a fraud and a failure.  You don't want to be found out, exposed.  That's why in church there is almost a conspiracy to not speak about the Bible in general and each other's (non)reading habit in specific.

Do you know the difference between guilt and shame?  Please set aside some quiet time to listen to the angelic voice of Jonathan Sacks I posted above.

Whereas a "guilt culture" is one that allows the possibility of forgiveness, a "shame culture" is unforgiving.  The Chinese culture we grew up in is, of course, a shame culture.  So, as it is, when we try to make Christianity our own, we don't find it too problematic to believe in endless hellfire (in fact, wouldn't want to imagine doing without it, for the refinement of others, of course).  But the idea that God loves to love us?  That we are the objects of His everlasting delight?  That the entire creation is held together in God's unifying gaze of love?  That, we find absurd and impractical.  Love, as we know and give it, is never that trustworthy, never that useful to make things happen for ourselves.

We demur: What is the condition of this love of God?  What is the catch?  What's in it for me?  The most scandalous religious idea is not damnation but love, because we have no imagination for it, little experience of it.  We simply couldn't see how such love is possible—or even necessary to make life work for our good.

As such we must busy ourselves with tasks, good works, to do away our shame of not being really that into God.  He says He loves us lots but we wonder if we could get away with loving Him only a little.  We know Jesus dying on the cross has to do with forgiving us but frankly don't feel why we need it, for sure not the pathetic theatrics.  What we lack in love we prove ourselves with work.  No one can question us when we are busy doing God work.  God can't say we are hiding from Him because we are literally out there doing stuffs in His name, making Him look good.  Who needs delight when there are brownie points to collect?  Who needs forgiveness when there is easier mechanisms to access supreme power, more predictable and reliable formulas, theological and otherwise, to rid of shame?  What's love got to do with it?  We don't want to live at the mercy of any condition we can't control.

In a culture that is unforgiving, no one is ever getting away with anything.  Giving up on God, we give up on love, on each other and everything else.

Yours, Alex