Nudi e senza vergogna
Articolo di Lidia Maggi pubblicato sulla rivista “Servitium” n.242 di Marzo/Aprile 2019.
Ritorniamo alla narrazione antica, quella che troviamo come portale d’ingresso della Bibbia: un mito che prova a raccontare gli inizi, non tanto per riflettere sulle origini, piuttosto per consegnarci il principio, inteso come il fondamento dell’esistenza. Sono racconti fin troppo conosciuti, quelli che ripercorriamo; così conosciuti da essere usurati. Come un libro troppo sfogliato, frammenti si sbriciolano sotto le dita della memoria. A dire il vero, non è chiaro se lo sgretolamento del manoscritto dipenda dall’usura o non piuttosto dall’abbandono, dall’incuria con cui questi capolavori antichi sono stati trattati.
Some argue that the usury began with modernity, when the scientific mentality has assessed the scenarios proposed by Genesis as illogical and fairytale. The poetic stories were, then, sifted by the scientific lens and did not pass the examination: the world was not created in 6 days, and let alone began in a garden, with a primordial couple who passes, in the space of a chapter, From the age of innocence to that of awareness, and all because of the fault (or thanks) to the theft of a forbidden fruit.
What do these archaic, mythical stories still have to tell us that stage an imaginative world, where snakes speak and women are taken from the side of man? And if he does not keep this system for our modern, rational and scientific mentality, capable of seeking an order of the world without calling God into question, what to say about the weight of many moralistic readings that, precisely by relying on these ancient narratives, have accused the genre feminine of having brought sin, disorder to the world and having caused the expulsion from the garden? Interpretations that legitimized the supremacy of man on women - because it is the woman who was taken from men and not vice versa! And it is always the woman who has let herself "seduce" by the snake.
The shame for the abuse of the text
The first shame to be recognized is not that staged in the myth; Rather, what we should try, for all those uses of the biblical text that, in the past as still today, have served to legitimize an abuse, a domain: the supremacy of the human on the creation, of the man on the woman, of the white on Black (remember Noah and the curse given to the son Cam for looking at the nudity of the drunk father?), And so on. We should try shame for having deformed these ancient narratives, oscillating from moralist readings to anti -modernist trivializations.
Today, we feel we live in an orphan of great narratives. Most of these will also fail to use the ideologies of modernity; But also asked her, with their trivializing readings of the biblical pages, they have their responsibility in this regard. It is as if we were the younger son of the parable that, after having squandered his inheritance, finds himself hungry, in dirt, and becomes aware of where he fell. Having administered these masterpieces of spirituality and faith, having made them dusty, boring and banal have not only made us poorer, but has removed the great questions that these ancient collective stories asked generations.
Who am I? Why exist? What do you mean to become fully human?
Like the younger son, full of shame, we get up and we get on the way home. We do it in a particular historical moment, in which we feel naked with shared narratives, capable of orienting existence, to open paths, allowing an entire society to mirror themselves and let yourself be questioned. Memory orphans, we wander naked and cold and, in the forest of our present, no voice seem to reach us to ask us: "Where are you?".
In search of the lost meaning
Yet, just like God, in the meaning of meaning, we dare to return to the thick of the ancient text abused or forgotten, to find those stories taken from a distracted and forgetful generation. We return to that primordial garden to listen, rather than a theological story about God, a reflection on humanity, which helps us to find the sense of human. Where are Adam? And where is your brother?
The questions that resonate in the myth are far from extraneous to our reality. The history of the beginnings does not bring us back in time: rather, it helps to read the present, the difficulties in the relationship with the other and with life in general. Not a historical or scientific narrative, nor a religious code, but a wise story, delivered through a symbolic language that, in a miniature, tries to grasp the sense of being in the world and discourages unexpected horizons.
Called to the report
In the book of Genesis, from the beginning, humanity is told as called to the report: "It is not good that man is alone". Nobody is enough for himself. To be happy, we need to deal with otherness: that of God, first of all, which is different from us, even if divine sections live in the human, to the point of being able to see the similarity in this wonderful creature. And also human otherness. Being relational creatures means recognizing that he needs help - "I will help him meet him".
Although we host the breath of god within Us, the sky in us, we are fragile creatures, kneaded of earth; we are not enough for ourselves, we need Relationships. in short, we are far from that omnipotent creature that, sometimes, we claim To be. the desire to appropriate the power to keep everything under control proves To be illusory. we cannot have good and Evil. welcoming this anthropological truth allows us to live in our fragility, our nudity, without feeling shame.
The man and the woman, in the garden, "naked and shameless", are the image of that project of humanity capable of feeling reconciled with one's creature. They are not unaware and childish creatures, which have yet to grow, as we often depict that initial idyllic situation. "In the beginning" is represented the project of a humanity that lives in harmony with one's own fragility, happy to be what it is, naked and without shame.
Human fragility: gift or obstacle?
What is given at the beginning seems, however, a point of arrival rather than an established starting point, since it is not at all easy to feel good with yourself and with others, to welcome as you are, with your limits and own fragility, reconciled with their own creatural finishes, without wanting to be different. Why, usually, our fragility is perceived as an obstacle to full life rather than as a requirement necessary to become fully human, in relation?
The first sense of shame seems to find a trace in this effort of being with one's partiality. Also of this the story of the origins speaks to us, amplifying and exasperating human inadequacy, up to bringing it to the extreme discomfort. And as if the myth asked who reads: how do you see the human creature? Do you really feel part of the world who lives? Are you in relation to the gifts of the earth he holds and governs? Did this vocation of care made it your own or does it suffer it? And the discomfort generates the conflict.
Here, in the garden, a sibilant voice insinuates, creeping like a snake, the suspicion on the goodness of one's creature. What is narrated in the myth with the first and after - from idyll to the fall, from Giardinc to the desert - is not the chronological story of the human parable rather it is two scenes which, in tension up to the conflict, reveal something deep of the human heart. Going back is ancient art to face the big questions of meaning in front of us without trivializing them. A temporal image to express what we understand with a spatial image today: go to the bottom of things, without staying on the surface. On the one hand, the human condition is represented, in the first scene, by nudity, understood as vulnerability, lived without embarrassment, without becoming a reason for shame.
But immediately, next to this scene, through the art of the story, which puts multiple points of view involved, here is a voice to dissent, that discomfort that lives the human heart inhabits: because good and evil does not Is it in my hands? Why aren't they like God, capable of controlling everything? These questions are addressed by imagining that the antagonist attempts the primordial couple by removing their gaze, making them believe that everything is forbidden for the human creature: "Did the Lord really told you that you cannot eat any tree?".
The limit, in reality, is not represented by the impossibility of enjoying the fruits of the earth, but from the ban towards the fruits of a single tree: that of knowledge of good and evil. Here the human couple lets itself be convinced that it is possible, through the denial of one's limit, to be like God: capable of controlling everything, good and evil, able to cross life without ever losing control. But the human creature, however efforts, for how many means it can have, can it cross life with such a delirium? Don't you risk not living, not to love and refuse relationships? Because the other is always unpredictable, as indeed many events of existence. You can control something, but not everything!
We can control how much we spend, how much we consume, even how much we eat, but we cannot plan our life without something escaping us: a mourning, a disease, a natural and social calamity. Life must be risked, you cannot live in defense. Humanity is this fragile, naked creature, exposed without weather protections in life. Then, the suspicion that God does not want the good of humanity is born, having created the terrestrial so terrestrial.
Shame and fear for one's nudity
The experience of the tree of knowledge of good and evil crumbles the illusion of being as God: after having enjoyed the fruit, the eyes open and humanity, after the delusion, discovers that they are anything but omnipotent . You can see naked and "feel shame". The why. For disobedience? Why didn't he trust God? Why does he find himself ridiculous in his fragility, in the face of his desire for omnipotence? All aspects linked to each other.
The distrust in the goodness of one's vocation leads to the lack of self -esteem and the inability to feel amazement. Who is not how it would like to be ashamed and escapes the gaze. The naked fragility is unbearable, first of all towards others. To hide this nudity, human creatures intertwine leaves to get a dress. Will a few leaves be enough to protect from the cold of the fragility suffered? Later, in hearing the voice of God that he calls in the garden, the two hide between the bushes. The voice of God inspires their fear. What scares them? God? Your vulnerability before God?
The opposite of being naked and not being ashamed, is not being naked and ashamed, but trying fear of nudity. Feel fragile, not armored to face life. "I was afraid because I was naked and I hid I hide." Fear comes from the bitter awareness that we are not invulnerable. The other can protect us but also attack and hurt us.
Myth and reality
The worst happened: reality has passed the myth. We ate the fruit of omnipotence, but then we didn't be ashamed. And if we are naked, we don't notice it: no fear comes to remind us of our condition. We feel protected from the armor of our identity buildings. We do not feel fragile creatures, because we know how to be enough for ourselves. Everything is fine, as long as we manage to have everything under control, starting with the borders, our new skin.
Of course, it has already happened in past eras; But now it happens to us: we have rewritten the ancient myth by changing the ending: the snake of the snake went well beyond its expectations. He clouded our sight to erase our fragility. The worst happened. Now, in the garden, after sharing the fruit, the man and the woman still move unaware, as in the idyll scene. They are naked, but they don't know it. The king is naked, but believes he wears the emperor's clothes, the king of the world. It is far from God, but boasts of having him as his ally: a presence that does not impose any fear, which does not ask questions of meaning, unheard of the safe ears of a shameless humanity.
Evil also hides like this: it makes you believe that you are anything else and does not make you feel ashamed. Against this contemporary declination of evil, which God can save us?
