‘Shame’ is a strange word that means the same thing in two opposite ways. Usually when we say, "It’s a shame" the word means something very mild. It might even be a joke, as when someone celebrates a birthday with a zero in… "Such a shame!", we quip.
On the other hand, shame can be a very serious word. ‘It is shameful’ is not a light statement at all. "I feel shame", would hardly ever be less than the confession of a deeply-felt disgrace. It was in this second serious sense that the godly Joseph Alleyne used the word. He regularly rose at daybreak to pray. No shame there we might think, but his wife wrote of him,
‘He would be much troubled if he heard smiths or other craftsmen at their trades before he was at communion with God; saying to me often, "How this noise shames me. Doesn’t my Master deserve more than theirs?"’
I have always felt that prayer lethargy was a bit of a shame (first sense). I have felt myself moving toward viewing it more as a real shame - in Joseph Alleyne’s sense.
