Naked

The tickle grew on my upper lip... with barely a thought I rubbed it.

I’m startled when I touch my face.

For thirty-four years my hand has slid across thick hair sprouting across the lower half of my mug.

When I touch my face, or look in the mirror, I am startled... It's not the visage I have known.

It’s naked.

It isn’t nude... There isn’t any artistic subtly about this face. It isn’t along the lines of nudes in art, an appreciation of the human form.

Adding shaving to my morning routine isn't offering the world a gift, that is certain.

It's just a modern custom, scraping off persistent hairs, distancing ourselves from when we were more preoccupied with hunting and gathering.

It’s naked. I'm naked.

I bought a nice razor... one of those fancy ones that has somewhere between three and thirty blades, requiring I skip a couple of meals to pay for refills.

Despite the wonders of this complex grooming tool, all its features still fail to do a thorough job.

Apparently all those blades perform some vital function in the slicing of my daily growth. I suppose the first blade lifts the hair, the second blade admonishes it, the third blade torments it, the fourth blade slices through, the fifth blade grasps the stub... pulling it up, so the sixth blade can sweep across with a closeness usually reserved for miniature electronics.

And still I never quite rid the clearcut of my face of the stumps from the missing whiskers forest.


I take to pulling the blade north, south, east and west, sweeping in hopeful arcs around the chin, over strange patches which defy the best engineering efforts of Gillette and Schick.


I’ve been told I look younger without my beard. I guess the missing grey helps.

I’ve been told I look thinner without my beard. The missing fur used to thicken and round this aging visage.

I'm not complaining over this morning ritual added to showering and ironing and lunch making. It isn’t a complaint over the strange sand paper effect my cheeks develop by the time I leave work. I’m not even complaining about the nicks and cuts I get when I scrape extra hard to get a stubborn patch just under the chin’s edge or along the upper lip.

It’s because I’m naked.

I’m exposed. The wind blows across my face, the rain clings, and beside the chill, I feel I am stripped of the natural protection my face uses to hide from the wind and the rain and the scrutiny of others.

At least Santa still has a beard

I suppose I could argue God intended for beards, it's the natural pattern He gave our bodies, but that point withers against the counterpoint of some scriptural passages (Genesis 17:10).

I was a double major in college, literature and art. A nude is something graceful, beautiful. Smooth lines, beauty He made.

Naked is something else. It's an awareness of being exposed. It is open to view, not just the lack of clothing. We can be naked in many ways.

Genesis describes Adam and Eve's shame over a physical lack of clothing as being naked, it was their awareness that had changed.

Man is the only animal that blushes - or needs to. --Mark Twain

Being naked can be good or bad.

It can be about courage. I try to be naked in this online journal. Good or bad, I try to be honest with myself here (though I suppose I still try to be somewhat discreet).

Part of it is needful for protection, or at least being presentable.

And part of being naked is beyond our control. All the history of modern politicians is exposed to the glare of publicity. The feeling of exposure, of being naked to the world, comes from the awareness that one is being scrutinized.

In faith I am as naked as those orchard thieves. Hiding among trees is no protection from omniscience.

Sitting here at this keyboard I am clothed by my mind, hidden by a screen woven of words.

But when I worship, unbidden, visions of the incredible, or nearly incredible flicker across my internal view. RNA molecules scurrying with their loads of genetic data...

flickering electrons both somewhere and potentially, anywhere...


Neutron stars, less than 12 miles across and more massive than our sun, spinning more than 30 times per second,


planetary nebulae, the dying gasps of ancient stars,


molecular nebular, stellar nurseries with bright blue infant suns...


I see in my mind, I feel in my heart, majesty, beauty, power, grace... I sense intelligence, powerful emotions from beyond the universe I barely recognize as love, caring...

When I worship I feel naked. Laid bare, under the watchful eye of a mighty being.

It is terrifying and satisfying.

This current scraping of my face each morning... I don't know if I can keep up the daily ritual, or grow accustomed to the breeze on bare cheeks.

Some forms of being naked are beyond our control... But some, clothing and facial growths... those are things I can do something about.