Padraig had a number of sessions across the
weekend and I had to limit myself from going to them all and becoming an
ultimate groupie (especially after last year’s drunken self introduction to him
in the Jesus Arms!). So the main session
I heard was Padraig’s reflection on naked men in the Bible and in particular
the nakedness of Noah. This was not a
poetry session and so there was not the usual joy of Pagraig’s verse washing
over you and enfolding you (for this there are plenty of talks on the Greenbelt website to
download and finally a book Readings from the Book of Exile
).
This was a different kind of joy.
To focus on one small incident of Noah’s nakedness is risky, and while a
few other Biblical stories were drawn in there was not much of an engagement
with the wider enduring worry that Jews had over naked men. In a week when Prince Harry’s drink fueled
nakedness was making headlines a consideration of Noah’s drink fueled nakedness
was apposite. We puzzled together over
what it was that was so terrible about Noah’s nakedness that led him to curse
his son Ham – it is hard to find anything within the story as it has come down
to us that has the weight to justify this extreme reaction. It is a multi-layered issue and there are no
neat conclusions – even within art the male nude is still a problematic figure
in a way in which the female nude isn’t (while the female nude is perhaps
becoming problematic as we look with feminist eyes this is a very separate set
of problems). What Pagraig gives us is a
space for some grown up thinking with a gentleness that does not exclude
profound confrontations - this was the start of a conversation and not the neatly boxed agenda for change that so many other Greenbelt speakers try to lumber us with .
).
This was a different kind of joy.
To focus on one small incident of Noah’s nakedness is risky, and while a
few other Biblical stories were drawn in there was not much of an engagement
with the wider enduring worry that Jews had over naked men. In a week when Prince Harry’s drink fueled
nakedness was making headlines a consideration of Noah’s drink fueled nakedness
was apposite. We puzzled together over
what it was that was so terrible about Noah’s nakedness that led him to curse
his son Ham – it is hard to find anything within the story as it has come down
to us that has the weight to justify this extreme reaction. It is a multi-layered issue and there are no
neat conclusions – even within art the male nude is still a problematic figure
in a way in which the female nude isn’t (while the female nude is perhaps
becoming problematic as we look with feminist eyes this is a very separate set
of problems). What Pagraig gives us is a
space for some grown up thinking with a gentleness that does not exclude
profound confrontations - this was the start of a conversation and not the neatly boxed agenda for change that so many other Greenbelt speakers try to lumber us with . 
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