UNASHAMED
R
ob felt utterly mortified as he and his teenage daughter took her friend back home to her parents. She had gone away with his family on holiday. But Rob had an embarrassing confession. Before he managed to utter a word to her parents, both girls burst out in unison, “We went to a nudist colony!” Two pairs of disbelieving eyes fixed themselves upon Rob. He covered his reddening face and attempted to explain. “We were looking for a park,” he began, and then proceeded to explain how they ended up on a road with an increasing number of bare-bottomed pedestrians. The giggling girls interjected, “We kept telling you it was the wrong way!” Rob clapped his hands over his eyes, “The worst thing was I couldn’t find a place to turn around. We just had to keep going until I found somewhere.” Clearly worried about their reaction, he repeatedly apologised for exposing the couple’s daughter to rather more of an education than they had intended! It may seem like a strange idea to many of us, but ultimately the folks in those colonies are trying to regain something that humanity has lost: to be naked and unashamed. But to be unashamed is so much more than just frolicking about in the buff. It’s about dealing with one of the worst of all human experiences: shame. Adam and Eve were the first to experience it, the moment they disobeyed God:
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realised that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 19
