Seeing and shame

Based on pages 35-38 from The Theology of the Body in Simple Language

Shame arises only of the knowledge of humankind’s dividedness, of the world’s dividedness in general and thus also of one’s own dividedness.  Shames expresses the fact that we no longer accept the other as God’s gift but instead are consumed with an obsessive desire for the other….In the unity of unbroken obedience one human being stands naked before another, uncovered, revealed in body and in soul, and is not ashamed.  Shame arises in a split-apart world.   

Creation and Fall, p. 101,  Bonhoeffer. 

Nakedness is the third “original experience.”  After the words describing man and woman’s unity, we read “the man and his wife were both naked and unashamed” (Gen 2:25).  JPII says that of all the creation stories, this one is the “key” for understanding God’s original plan for human life.   But how do we understand the meaning of something that we have never directly experienced?  We must enter the meaning of this passage from the “backside” – from its contrasting experience of shame.

Shame is the consequence of having lost original nakedness.  Man and woman begin in each other’s presence as a gift to the other.  In receiving each other as gift, we experience the meaning of our masculinity and femininity in the face of the other.  The fall turned the reciprocity of gift into an obsessive desire.  The personal subject was transformed into an object.  Shame is the response to having been transformed from a personal gift into an object of selfish desire.  It is a defense mechanism against objectification.  Our original parents, before original sin, did not experience shame because they had no need defend themselves against such treatment.   So, shame represents two simultaneous experiences:

(1)   Not being treated as God’s gift to the other, and

(2)   Self-defense against such maltreatment.

The fall radically changed our experience of our bodies.  In addition, it changed our ability to give ourselves and receive each other as God’s gift to one another.  Before the fall, humans were in complete communion with God and each other.  After the fall, sin separates us from God, from each other, and creates a divide within ourselves.  Trusting, mutual self-giving is the antidote.  

Jesus’ words in Matthew 19 – “have you not read that at the beginning the Creator made them male and female?” – prompt us to go back to this original experience, conveyed in “original nakedness.”  Although sin clouds our perception of the original meaning of nakedness, Christ has pierced the veil of shame (Heb. 12:2).  Through him, we can rediscover ourselves as guardians of the gift.  We must defend the body from being reduced to an object of selfish desire, and instead see its true, elevated position as a vehicle of our communion with one another.    

Questions for Discussion

1.     Nakedness without shame connotes a deep communion, intimacy and mutual understanding.   Have you ever approached this with another person?  How did you feel?  What circumstances helped foster this communion?

2.     We have not experienced original nakedness directly, but we have experienced shame.  Reflect on a time when you experienced shame, perhaps because you were being treated as an object, or because you were aware of the rupture between your body and your spirit.  Can you share about this experience?