Is Your Divorce Making You Feel Guilty?

    Divorce can come with a truck load of guilt. I liken guilt to God’s smoke detector. It can sometimes be a good thing.  

It’s a thing that came over me on particular day when I was driving around looking for a running shoe store while simultaneously eating a pastrami sandwich packed with sauerkraut.  

Now this is probably something that should only be attempted by a professional stunt driver on a closed course, but not on the hunt for the magic slipper that would make me the prince of runners.  

As I pulled curbside, I reflected on how I should be doing a bit more than just buying a good running shoe. The guilt meter was telling me I needed a lifestyle change. In recent days, driving among six outpatient clinics, I had become a real pastrami-packin', Frito-snortin', Pepsi-slurpin' chaplain.  

As I shut off my engine, I chugged the remaining Fritos followed by a Pepsi chaser. Then I surveyed the area for a trash can where I could ditch the wrappings and trappings of my culinary indiscretion.  

Masking the Frito breath with a mint, I sucked in enough air to feign a runner's physique and walked through the front door. I was immediately greeted by a clerk named Laura.  

After a quick grip-and-grin greeting, Laura straddled one of those funny shoe stools with a little loading ramp and offered me the seat opposing her. With my foot strapped in, Laura began fitting me with dozens of shoes like the princess looking for her CinderFella to fit a glass Nike.  

The problem was that her attention was focused over my shoulder where her colleagues were busy faxing lunch orders to the local sandwich shop, which, judging from their athletic aura, probably included sandwiches stuffed with elephant dandruff topped with air beans.  

From her perch on the wooden shoe horse, Laura fired her first diagnostic question. But the problem was that her psyche was engaged in the food conversation and she misfired, asking me "So, what kinds of things do you eat?"  

Disbelieving her complete lack of diplomacy, I wondered if she had somehow measured the fat in the guilt-ridden sweat of my handshake. Had my friends ratted me out? Had the store's security camera caught me stashing the sandwich trash?  

At any moment, I expected a latex-gloved co-worker to appear pinching a mustard-soaked bag commanding, "We got him now, Laura. This is all we'll need. Book him on charges of 'stuff and run.' "  

Stuttering and stumbling, I apologized. "I'm sorry. I know I have lousy eating habits, but I'm trying to do better."  

"'Scuse me?" Laura said. "I'm hoping these new shoes will encourage better habits," I reasoned.  

"What?"  

"Didn't you just ask what I eat?"  

"Oh, I'm so sorry," Laura said. "I guess I was thinking about what my friends were ordering for lunch."  

Without knowing anything about my eating habits, Laura didn't mean to imply judgment, but it was too late. Flaming guilt had already engulfed my face, and by the looks of things, it was headed for a three-alarm response.  

Two flames of guilt had erupted that day. One was a healthy back-fire of guilt lit to forestall health dangers, but the unhealthy guilt was consuming my integrity.  

In the case of divorce, it can be tough to distinguish the difference between healthy and unhealthy guilt. But usually unhealthy guilt is identified by the incredible amount of energy into concealing things. As we make efforts to get rid of it, hide it, shirk it, and ignore it, serious mental health concerns can result.  

My mother used to say, "Be sure your sins will find you out." I think she was saying something about the remarkable power of the undisclosed or the hidden.  

The energy expended to conceal a problem will often shape a silhouette plain enough for all to see – much like the angel pattern left by children playing in snow.  

As I worked to hide my fast-food bag, mask my breath, and suck in my gut, my unhealthy guilt made every shoe clerk seem like an accuser. When we see people as accusers, we begin to see them in a similar way as did the woman whose execution Jesus interrupted.  

Jesus interrupted her accusers as they readied stones to execute her for adultery. He sent the executors packing with a single qualification: "He who is without sin may cast the first stone." With the sudden disappearance of her accusers, Jesus assured her, "No man condemns you and neither do I."  

People like that part of the story, but often forget Jesus then turned the tables a bit by enforcing healthy guilt on the woman as he added the dismissive mandate, "Go and sin no more!"  

In life, guilt can do many good things inspiring us to work toward the right things in life. But only as we reveal the concealment in our lives will we be able to allow the process of healthy guilt do its work.  

When Laura rang up the sale, the damage was almost $100 and I had only one thought: "I shouldn't be spending this kind of money on shoes. I'm going to have to run 10 miles a day to justify this purchase."  

The guilt was back.


Please e-mail Chaplain Norris at norris@thechaplain.net or by letter at PO Box 19522 Sacramento, Calif. 95819-0522  You may also visit his Web site at www.thechaplain.net where you can see past columns or purchase his book, "No Small Miracles."