innocence lost...

i just read anj's post return to innocence.  Many times her words and insights into this earthly sojourn often set my mind in motion and move my heart to respond.  Her beautiful words on innocence reminded me of work i did during my years in grad school on genesis 1-3, and i have been mulling over it again, more recently, so reading her words brought many thoughts and here are few of them...

Innocence lost... is it the end or the beginning?   A curse or a possibility, a closed door or an invitation to something other...

So often I think of innocence lost as a darkening. A time when the veil falls and the ugliness of the human condition is seen, when the bleeding begins…and I shudder at the trauma tearing that comes as innocence is stripped away far to young, too soon and with a violence that  destroys any  possibility of seeing, at least for a time…survival becomes the priority

However, as I think about innocence lost, and as I remember watching the innocence fade from the whites of my children’s eyes… ever so slowly as they grew from toddlers to young children to kids, and the realities of the world began to dawn on their formerly insulated lives, I wonder if losing innocence is part of growing up, of maturity, of seeing things with a different lens.  This type of innocence is lost, slowly, not to soon or with a violent shudder, but with tearing, ragged edges, and loss none the less.  There is a cost to growing up, to seeing the truth, and even more to speaking it.

This change in awareness is part of what I am referring to as I wonder aloud about the loss of innocence being a place of possibility rather than a curse…an invitation to something other…a beginning...

Comments

[anj]

Interesting thoughts susie. Yes, I can see where innocence lost is place of possibility. Perhaps there is the natural shedding of childhood inoocence that occurs as one grows and matures, and then there is the ripping away that occurs when one is traumatized or needs to grow up to quickly? Either way, I like how you state it is seeing things with a different lens. This idea of it being an invitation to something other --- I think, as we become adults, and are serving the work of our lives, not working our lives, - it is an invitation to trust and move into the goodness of the Creator juxtaposed with living in the reality of the dark/light of the world. As you write "there is a cost to growing up, to seeing the truth, and even more to speaking it." Often, I think, as women, we have abdicated that responsibility and that cost under the soul-deafening misdefinations of submission and self-sacrifice.

First read - I missed your touching description of seeing it fade from the whites of your childrens eyes. My expereince as a mother was different, but what you have written has given me new vision also. And, I do believe this is a truth that is 'dying' to be heard. That innocence was not lost forever, and that good was not subverted - the truth of Genesis 1-3. Thanks for the discussion - you have prompted me further on this journey.