The Purchase of Shame

The kingdom of God is that which is good.  The kingdom of the devil is that which is evil.  The two kingdoms occupy the same space and time, though presumably in greater or lesser intensity at each place or time in which they coexist.

This coexistence of the two kingdoms, insofar as they involve us as individuals, is not gainsaid by the powerful notion of the complete depravity of our souls--all of which this depravity must consist in the on-balance judgment of our inescapable tendency to render less-than-perfect (and therefore unholy) everything we touch.  That is not the same as to say that we are entirely bereft of wholesome tendencies.

Indeed, that very Creation that was once called "very good" is still "very good" in our possible appreciations.  Jesus calls our attentions to the wonders of nature and he reminds us that we--though being evil--are still capable of reflecting the virtues of God.  Even if we are reckoned to be "fallen," that state of depravity which is lamented so often in the Scriptures is never so great that it cannot be exceeded by the appearance of still more lamentable examples.

What is important is that this capacity for lamentation be still displayed within us, and directed to our own thoughts and actions--especially because at the end, when all is stripped away, the undiluted causes of our lamentation will be poured upon us.  This is the realm of shame, because guilt is measurable and compartmentalizable, and because humiliation is referenceable to particular contexts.  We are guilty against what we have done, and as measured against what others have done, and we are humiliated in the judgment of others--even if the "other" in question is the God who made us.  But shame?  Shame permeates us, and shame infuses its cast into every perception we have.

It is for the reason of shame, shame that soaks through every element of our still God-created selves and surroundings, that we will suffer the accusations at the very end of the inhabitants of Sodom and Gomorrah.  Not that they are better people than we (or that such relative judgment would even matter), but that their necessarily (though perhaps much attenuated) kingdom-of-God essence would still gain purchase upon everything--even as would also ours.