What is Shame?

Chapter 26
It was dreary and cloudy and the evening felt dismal. Sam and Simmy were sitting in their cabin, fire blazing cheerfully, wine glasses topped up with the labour of hands that understood vines and had harvested the fruit of them.
"What is shame, Sam?"
"You are the expert on that subject, Simmy."
"Yes! Maybe!" Simmy scrunched her legs up, took the velvet throw and tossed it over her legs before putting her chin on her knees. In this ape-like posture, her body melted into relaxation. She held her wine glass on her knees and peered through the clear liquid at the flames dancing in the fireplace.
"I think the antidote for shame is mercy. Sometimes it may be grace... undeserved favour... but a person who is feeling shame can't even be told that the favour they are getting is 'undeserved.' That would just add to the shame. MERCIFULNESS, a disposition to be kind and forgiving, that is sort of good."
"I felt shame when we invested in what we thought was 'a good soil' organization just to find that 'in the hidden' we didn't agree with how the money was spent," Sam spoke as he stoked the logs.
"As you're getting older and you give up some of your paycheque to charity, you're getting angrier and angrier if you see it is spent without regard for the sacrifice of those who give out of their 'retirement fund' or even 'would love to go on a vacation' fund... things you see everyone around you do but you haven't been able to yet. That seed of anger grows in you, Sam. I hope you aim it in the right direction when it's ripe. As your body aches and groans in it's aging rhythm, your mercy evaporates toward those who don't sacrifice at your level. I understand that," Simmy offered. "I have rarely had a paycheque, and so I have only been able to give my talent. The cross of an artist- seeing too much, experiencing too much, receiving too little."
Sam just stoked the logs, keeping the room cozy.
A bitter spew came from Simmy, not a good laughter but a scornful one, "How many pastors, counselors, teachers do you think have been abused as children? The number should be fairly high if T.D. Jakes is right. He says, 'The antidote is made from the venom.' So, they can't really give sage advice if they 'haven't been there.'"
Sam didn't want to talk about this. So, Simmy just continued her monologue.
"Do you remember the woman who came into the store where I worked last year?"
"Which one? There were a lot of them!"
"Oh, sorry! The one who had bought a home in Mexico, to retire. I asked her if she and her husband went to church. Her face changed, it was like a steel wall came down over her face and she said something like, 'No, we used to but we were so terribly hurt by our friends in church, we will never go back there.'"
Sam tried to remember which story Simmy was recalling. There had been a lot of them in the twenty one months Simmy worked there. "Was she the one who was leaving her money to the children of Mexico?"
"Exactly! Her and her husband didn't have enough respect for any adults anymore and they were going to rescue 'the children.'"