Nakedness.......in all its glory

Who told you you were naked?

I find that question so amusing (which, of course says volumes about me I am sure).  The Creator God is walking in the garden and soon discovers that the beloved humans are hiding because they knew they were naked.  (A very good reason I would think).

One taste of the apple and Adam and Eve become painfully aware of, well, everything.  What was beautiful and a blessing just moments before could now be seen for what it was – in all its glory and perhaps with all its rougher edges. 

We have no idea if that paradise we call the Garden of Eden included the cycles of the seasons that we know today.  We have no idea whether leaves decayed and worms ate apples and sunflowers had a time when their heads drooped when their season passed.

We have no idea whether Eve would have made the cover of Vogue or whether Adam would have turned heads down at the beach.  We have no idea whether Adam and Eve were able to nurture each other, allow room for the other to grow and explore, and be strong in the face of unmet expectations.  Our mental picture of paradise is quite static, and without the wonder and messiness of human conception and birth its population would forever remain at two.  

We only know this world, and although we bemoan its imperfections and downright evil, it is the only world whose picture we can paint with any certainty.  We can paint it in all its nakedness.

To be able to see all that there is to see – that is, to know your own nakedness and that of all that exists around you – if you think about it a minute, you might consider it more a curse than blessing.

That might be why we have spent eons trying to find Paradise again.