Naked and [Un]ashamed
So, 4 years ago, I was interning in Seattle with a local congregation. At the time, all of my life had been lived East of the Mississippi with the exception of 3 years in Texas. While I had been on a few trips to the 4 corner states as well as Wyoming and Montana, I had never been to the Northwest.
I wanted to take in Seattle and the surrounding areas in full. I was sent a link of things I must do while in Seattle for the summer. The list had many festivals, including the Center of the Universe in the Fremont neighborhood celebrating the solstice. I love festivals so I figured I’d check it out. My friend said we’d have to go to the parade. I’m not a huge parade person, but why not check it out?
I had told the people I was living with and a gal I had met that I was planning on checking this out. I received some bizarre responses. The gal said it wasn't her scene. I figured she didn’t like crowds. When my friend and I got to the parade, I was a little surprised to see a parade of nude people on bikes. Some in body paint, some not. Looking back, it makes more sense why I got some intriguing comments from people when I said I was going to this. I honestly did not have a clue.
So what is the big deal about being naked anyway? Being naked is being vulnerable. What is it about vulnerability that frightens so many of us? Vulnerability can lead to shame.
Now, the previous summer I was in Boone NC. Imagine McCall with a state university. It’s a picturesque mountain town, higher in elevation than most of the state, and home to home to Appalachian State University. It was a scruffy town with some mountain character. Grandfather Mountain is an iconic destination in North Carolina known for the mile-high swinging bridge. There was a section of the hike that involved climbing a sequence of ladders going up the cliff. The first ladder was still in the trees, so I didn’t get what the big deal was. By the time I completed that climb, now, well above the trees, I had a panic attack almost immediately. My senses were overloaded. The view and the reality of how small I am, how vulnerable I am blew me away.
After arriving in Seattle 4 years ago, I hiked to the summit of Mt. Catherine, a beautiful peak in the central Cascades. Like the ladder climb on Grandfather Mountain, the peak scramble of Mt. Catherine was above the trees and completely exposed.
And, panic attack. This ain’t my first rodeo. Nor will it be my last.
I mentioned it in my hiking experience, but it doesn’t stop there. I have panic attacks. I have had them most of my life. Panic attacks reveal just how vulnerable one is. They affect you physically, spiritually, and emotionally. It takes a certain amount of vulnerability in admitting to y’all that I have them. Publically admitting them takes some of the power away.
In my first year of seminary, I was working for a church, and the first time I presided in the pastor’s absence, I was having a panic attack. During prayer time, I told the congregation that not only do I get them, but that I was having one at that moment. They rallied around me, in a way that was not social distancing, prayed for and with me, and it almost immediately subsided. Being vulnerable, opened up the opportunity for healing.
We can be physically vulnerable, emotionally vulnerable, spiritually vulnerable. Being vulnerable can lead to shame, can cause physical injury, possibly even death. But, we need to be vulnerable. Vulnerability is necessary for living.
Allow me to revisit the scripture reading.
The creation myths in genesis are so rich. As I have previously mentioned, contrary to popular belief, the term myth does not mean fiction, nor does it mean fact, rather, it means story of the people. A story people learn from. Myths are ways of teaching via narrative. They can continually teach as they are told and heard time and again. While some have used these myths to put God in a box as a literal story of our history, gender roles, or other restrictive views, such a view robs us of the fullness of the stories and from the layers of wisdom that can be extracted. I do not see such a story as God’s way of establishing gender roles and the history of the human species, but rather a beautiful and deep way of explaining the human struggle of vulnerability, fallibility, frailty, and self-understanding.
Now, we could spend a month on this chapter and still barely scratch the surface. There are lessons on sin, death, deception, punishment, consequences of action, spiritual warfare, but today I wanted to focus on vulnerability, and that is why I skipped over some of the verses. We can come back to those another time.
During that day’s cool evening breeze, they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden; and the man and his wife hid themselves from the Lord God in the middle of the garden’s trees. The Lord God called to the man and said to him, “WHERE ARE YOU!?”
Those of you who have grown up reading and hearing this story, have you heard it this way before? God angrily demanding Adam and Eve show themselves for punishment? What if it was more like this?
God, feeling for the humans, heartbroken for the frailty, confusion, shame, and other emotions that are natural to the human condition, looked upon them with pity and grief and compassionately asked, “Where…. are… you??”
The man replied, “I heard your sound in the garden; I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.”
God asked compassionately, “Who told you that you were naked?
This is so much deeper than simply our skin exposed without clothing. This is Nakedness of the body, yes but also nakedness of the soul, nakedness of the heart.
The wisdom and knowledge of God, that Eve was deceived into trying with Adam joining in, includes the knowledge of shame and vulnerability. Shame is a result of this sin of Adam and Eve, this sin of humanity, but vulnerability is not. Vulnerability can lead to healing shame. Opening ourselves up to vulnerability can be frightening, can bring on the sense of shame, can put us in physical and/or emotional danger.
So why be vulnerable at all? Is it not safer to remain secure? Protected? Guarded? To hide like Adam and Eve?
Sure, but is it worth living?
I decided to watch the TED talk by Dr. Brene Brown on vulnerability. Although she is dubbed as a story-teller, she is actually a qualitative researcher. She spent years doing qualitative research on vulnerability. Here are some takeaways from her research:
- “connection is why we are here”
- “shame is the fear of disconnection”
- “in order for connection to happen, we have to be willing to be seen, really seen”
- “people who felt worthy and loved believed they are worthy of love”
- “connection is the result of authenticity” which is vulnerability
- “what made them vulnerable made them beautiful” — it is necessary
- “vulnerability is the birthplace of joy, creativity, belonging, love”
- “we can’t numb the perceived negative, frightening, or unpleasant feelings like grief and vulnerability without numbing joy”
How many of us are afraid to be naked (literally or figuratively)? How often do we fear being seen by our fellow humans? Or by God?
Look inward and ask, how am I spiritually naked? Emotionally naked? How does this make me feel? How may I become more comfortable with this?
Had I been afraid of being physically vulnerable, I would have never seen the beauty that is the top of Grandfather Mountain in North Carolina and Mt. Catherine here in the Cascades. If I never had the vulnerability to admit my struggle with panic attacks, I would not have seen any improvement.
In what way do you need to be more vulnerable?
Galatians 6:2 says to bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ. This require vulnerability. Living united requires vulnerability. Living requires vulnerability, otherwise we spend our lives, hiding in the garden, like a scared Adam and Eve.
As stated in Colossians: For in God all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through Christ, God was pleased to reconcile to God’s self all things, whether on earth or in heaven,
Our shame → reconciled
Our fear → reconciled
Our pain → reconciled
Our vulnerability → reconciled
If Jesus Christ reconciled all of creation to God, let us lead one another to such a life, a Genesis 2 kind of life where they were naked, but they were not ashamed.”
