Clothing and Nudity on a Biblical Scale

Clothing is a subtle yet powerful theme in the Bible.  So is nudity.

For instance, Adam and Eve's nudity is explicitly referenced in Genesis.  It is also their nudity that they realise and try to cover up.  And finally, in this short story alone, the pair is given hide clothing by God as they leave the garden.  (As a farewell gift or a mark of their shame?)

Noah too, only a few chapters later, has an episode involving nudity.  He got drunk one day and passed out naked in his tent.  His son Ham then stumbled in upon him and was cursed for it.  Not only Ham but his entire progeny.  (Why such a harsh penalty?!)  Ham's brothers had to walk in backwards after Ham to cover Noah with a blanket...

From here the theme of nudity and clothing persists in the Bible, right up to the book of Revelation where those who remain in the end are not naked but dressed in white robes.  Here the chosen people are not covered by (shameful?) hides and blankets but clothes that remind us of the original light of creation.  Or better yet,of  Joseph's magnificent coat given to him as a gift from his father to bespeak Joseph's glory.

Clothing and nudity is a subtle yet powerful theme from beginning to end.

And that's just it, or what I believe is one of the most fundamental patterns of the Bible: the peculiar movement that constantly emerges there from being naked in the beginning to being clothed in glory through grace at the end.

"Naked I came from the womb," declared Job, "and naked I will remain!"  But in faith and truth Job is not naked in the end.  Rather, like those who remain at the end in Revelation, he is clothed in glory through the grace of God.  He is not naked but decked in richer and more beautiful clothes than ever before...

It is the same pattern in the book of Job that holds on the broader Biblical scale.  From Adam and Eve to those who are dressed in the white robes in the end times.  Again and again the movement from being naked to being clothed in glory through grace emerges in the Bible.

Even the hides given to Adam and Eve and the blanket placed upon Noah fit this holy pattern.  Despite their shameful connotations.

Thanks be to Job.

Derrida's Cat

There was a famous philosopher named Jacques Derrida.  In one of his final works he wrote about the animal and nudity.  What I found immediately provocative about this work, which I have only begun to engage, is an experience that he describes with his cat.  Coming out of the shower one day Derrida was caught naked by the cat.

He tells us that in that moment he was ashamed.  He was naked and he was ashamed.

Now I don't know why Derrida was ashamed before his cat.  Shame is not something that I tend to feel when naked before an animal (my dog for instance).  But Derrida says he was ashamed.  He also says that he was ashamed of being ashamed. Standing naked before his cat Derrida was ashamed and he was ashamed of being ashamed.

As to why Derrida was ashamed of being ashamed I like to think that he was harking back to bygone days.  To childhood.  To that time in our lives when we were just beginners in wisdom and there was still pride and joy to be taken in nudity.  When we didn't know or care about our nakedness and we couldn't recognize good from evil. 

I like to think that Derrida was lamenting the loss of a remarkable openness toward others and an acceptance of others that we once possessed as children.  (An acceptance that I find for instance when I stand naked before an animal.  An openness that makes it impossible to feel any shame before them.  Unless I have done them harm.  Or have been too hard on them.)

I like to think that Derrida, in confessing that he was ashamed of being ashamed, was proclaiming the wisdom of nudity.  That while part of our moral development is finding out that we are naked the next step is not covering up or hiding in this state but persevering.  Whether we are ashamed or not.  Whether we should be ashamed or ashamed of being ashamed.

I like to think that Derrida is professing the potential glory of humankind by describing the experience that he has with the cat.

Thanks be to Job.

Learning from Leviathan

I was watching a Nature special the other night on ocean mammals. Grey whales in their ancestral breeding grounds once did ferocious battle with the whalers who would come there. They even earned the name "devil fish" because they fought so hard against their human hunters. (Anyone who has read Moby Dick or chapter 41 of the book of Job should be well aware of this history.)

But here is the remarkable thing: Some time after whaling was prohibited, although still within the same generation of whales that were hunted, the creatures became extremely gentle and open toward their human visitors. They would come up by the boats, look people in the eye, and invite contact with them and their babies. It was quite a moving display in the show, watching people hug and kiss these great beasts. Watching these great beasts revel in the bonds of kinship that no amount of violence could ever destroy.

It led me (and the investigators) to wonder: Was it because the whales are stupid and forgot that they re-emerged from the depths so gently? Was it time that eventually healed their wounds and changed their hearts? Was it an act of perfect forgiveness on the part of the whales?

Whatever the case may be, I believe that we see the healing process at work in this example.  What we learn from these Leviathans whether they realize it or not is that the first step to healing is to stop the violence, just as the whaling operations ceased.  The second step is to then put ourselves out there, no matter how ashamed we may be, no matter how vulnerable we may be by doing so.  The third and final step is to then patiently abide, until those that we have hurt are willing to surface once again, and to do so in a new beginning and fresh start.

What we above all learn from these Leviathans is that there will never be a relationship of trust and mutual prosperity until we are naked together.  It is only in and through this embrace where we clothe each other that there is life and healing.  A relationship no longer wounded by the past.

Thanks be to Job.