Shame and Unemployment

A couple of years ago I saw a friend who has a high profile and high powered position. We were in graduate school together but our career goals and majors were different. I saw her again last month and we talked about getting together for lunch. Since seeing her two years ago, I have avoided contacting her because I am unemployed. Despite what I've accomplished in my career and my affection for my friend, I'm not sure if I can have lunch with her due to my feelings of shame, especially embarrassment, feeling worthless and, most of all, feeling like a failure. Perhaps you have similar feelings.

In his sermon today on Adam and Eve, Peter Lane, rector of St. Paul and the Redeemer, said this about shame:

We want to stitch together some leaves in front of the realities of our lives. That desire to hide ourselves makes it harder to be in relationship with God and others. In that hiding, in that shame, we stop living in the fullness of our creation...So don't hide everything behind  loincloths. God created you with freedom, with skepticism, with desire. Being in relationship with God does not put a damper on all those things, it blows oxygen on them, letting you live richly and fully. (emphasis mine)

The following verse from The Great Litany from Enriching Our Worship spoke to me very profoundly this morning and I offer it to you as a prayer to pray and reflect upon:

 Strengthen those who stand; comfort and help the fainthearted; raise up the fallen; and finally beat down Satan under our feet. (emphasis mine)

As you look for work, negotiate housing, and worry about medical bills,

May you have a holy and fearless Lent.


(I thank Peter Lane for permission to post an excerpt from his sermon).