Advent:: Personal Shame

Let's get crazy with the concept of reality!

How do you know that the things that have happened to you actually happened?
We rarely need to defend events in our lives that are common. I won't need to plead with you to believe me that I saw a car drive past me on the street. 

"No, I saw it with my own two eyes!! It was a car that was moving at 35-40 miles per hour!"
"I heard the engine as it drove past! You have to believe me."

Most people are going to move past that experience without many questions or doubts. But when you share something that happened to you that isn's as common you will immediately be met with a flood of questions. 

"What do you mean you SAW a UFO?"
"Your coffee was 1,000 degrees? How did the cup survive that heat?"
"So, when did this raccoon dunk a NBA regulation basketball on a 10 foot hoop?"

Now, a healthy skepticism is good when we encounter new information, but have you ever been on the receiving end of lots of skepticism about one of your experiences? It can put our reality into question and we start to doubt if we can trust ourselves. Very often this leads to a whole flood of shame. 

If I can't trust my own lived experience, then I can't trust myself. I must be wrong. I need other people to tell me what is real and what false. This kind of doubt feeds shame. 

Now imagine you are a young woman in a deeply religious town who has an unexplained pregnancy. Who is celebrating your baby bump? Who's believing your angelic visit or story? Do you even bother sharing it with people who will likely scoff and doubt you? Are you the one person who will usher in the God of the universe into the world or the town harlot who suffers from delusions of grandeur? 

These are the questions we'll be looking at this week when we continue seeing our shame in the lives of Mary and Joseph and their improbable reality this Christmas season.