"A must read to understand our times."

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“Shame”

 

My grandmother was not a German lady, but quite often she would prepare breakfast consisting of dark beer boiled with plenty of eggs, brown sugar, cinnamon, walnuts and pita bread.

 

On my way to school from grandma’s kitchen I passed by an open patio and the family dining room, then down four steps through grandma’s bedroom. There I would lift a see-through curtain to see across the convenient store full of everything including chocolates.

 

A quick look back to the kitchen as I lifted the see-through curtain was normal for me every morning. If grandma was with her back to me, that was my window of opportunity to enter quickly to the right and grab some chocolates and cookies for my snack on the way to school or for recess time.

 

One morning while grandma was feeding the rabbits and Guinea pigs with some Alfalfa and carrots, I boldly lifted the see-through curtains and turned right to steal chocolates and cookies. Lo and behold what a surprise, my young mother who seldom was home, was sitting on grandma’s chair munching some “Forbidden goodies.”

 

Our eyes crossed only for a second, but it was long enough to blush in shame from the top of my head to the plant of my feet.

 

My mother did not say anything because she was also guilty of the same crime I was about to commit. But the shame of being caught red handed has pursued me all my life.

 

Theft is the crime of taking something that is not yours without permission for you know it is forbidden. The feeling of guilt is followed by embarrassment and the desire to hide. The desire to hide is the first evidence of one having committed a crime. Just remember mother Eve and her husband Adam the conspirator. 

 

“THINGS CHANGED.”

 

The first tragedy is the death of innocence.

The second tragedy is the loss of purity.

The third tragedy is coming to know that which you did not need to know.

The fourth tragedy is to try to unlearn which takes the rest of your life.

The fifth tragedy is the broken relationship with him with whom sweet communion of trust was the daily bread at the cool of the Garden.

The sixth tragedy is that you can run but you cannot hide.

The seventh tragedy is that, “You can be sure that your sins will find you out.”

 

What is worse is that you will avoid the very one to whom you have robbed.

When it should be the other way around.

I have lived close with many people in the last half century of my life.

I have seen change in their behavior toward me, afraid to invite me to their homes so I might not recognize my belongings among their things that were discovered in a moment “off guard.”

 

As sons and daughters of Adam and Eve we also feel entitled to things as though they do not belong to God and illegally appropriate that which is not ours as a vulgar thief.  Then we go around covered with the fig leaves of self-righteousness and we treat others as thieves of nothing else but our rights.

 

Before you jump into conclusions of who is right and who is wrong in a conflict of two proprietors, let me tell you what God thinks of us human beings in general.

“There is no one good, not even one.” This is our Father’s world and let us not forget that.

 

The real conflict is not between black and white, neither is it between rich and poor, not even between China and USA; the real conflict is at a cosmic level between the forces of Good and Evil, Light and darkness. It started back when Adam and Eve stole from God that which was forbidden and not theirs to eat.

 

“God put enmity between the woman and the serpent and between her descendants and the descendants of the serpent. The seed of the woman (Jesus) would crush the head of the serpent and the seed of the serpent (Satan) would wound his heel.”

 

“History is but the conflict of the godly seed and the wicked seed. Nothing more and nothing less.” We are dealing with guilty people; full of shame hiding their nakedness the best they know how. What the world needs is not self-made aprons of fig leaves to cover their shame, but God’s cloth of righteousness made by God and purchased by Jesus on the cross.

 

Only Jesus can remove the shame of your guilt. Let Jesus change your diapers oh little one of the Father who art in heaven.

 

Gerry Gutierrez

 

PS. The recommended reading is the bedrock Genesis 3.

 

Photos: My Grandmother was an Inca princess.

             My mother was a three times beauty queen.

             And I am a regular and vulgar chocolate thief.