Genesis 3 (Eating The Forbidden Fruit)

I suspect that all of us who have been parents will remember the time when our children first realised that they were naked. Perhaps some of you have a memory that goes all the way back to when you realised that you were naked.

It happens somewhere between five and ten years old if I remember. Up to that point children play happily together without any real awareness of the significance of clothing. Boys and girls take baths together. Nobody cares. And then something happens, and all of a sudden the child becomes quite intent on covering themselves.

It’s not shame, I think, so much as self-awareness. Am I right? I assume that it’s part of that process wherein the child first realises that her mother is not a simple extension of her own body, and then gradually realises that she is not only independent but vulnerable.

However we understand it, this awareness of nakedness, whenever it comes, is certainly a loss of innocence, and I always feel a little sad when this happens.

For there’s no going back once that awareness of nakedness sets in. Very few of us, at least, reach a stage later in life where we regain confidence in our bodies to the extent where we happily parade about in our birthday suits. And even if we do reach that point, I can’t imagine that we ever do so unconsciously like a child does.

I still have a strong memory of being on a boat somewhere, where an unhelpful old woman mildly chastised my daughter Veronica for the fact that her Barbie didn’t have any clothes on. She said, "Oh, your doll is a rudie nudie!" I remember that Ange and I were quite annoyed with the old woman, for Veronica was all of four years old I think, and so her Barbie was certainly not a ’rudie nudie’. If she were 40 years old, and still had a collection of nude Barbies, we might start to ask questions, but at that point she was innocent of that whole field of awareness!

We lament the passing of innocence in our children, though we recognise that it is important too. For we know that ultimately our children need to be aware of their nakedness. Because in this world we live in, they are vulnerable, and until they are adequately aware of that, they will not be ready to protect themselves.

Adam and Even protect themselves by sewing fig leaves together, we are told, and by hiding. The fig leaves may have been of some value. The hiding strategy doesn’t seem to accomplish much.

"And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden.

But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, "Where are you?" And he said, "I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself." He said, "Who told you that you were naked?" (Genesis 3:8-11)

And the reply of both the man and the woman is, "it’s not my fault". And so Adam and Eve compound their initial failure with an inability to accept responsibility.

At the risk of sounding repetitious, life is like that!