Go skinny-dipping

"How? There are a variety of places in the United States where skinny-dipping is encouraged. Descriptions and details of how to reach them can be found at www.swimmingholes.org, click 'Skinny Dipping' under 'National Water-Related Info.'

"There are, of course, many circumstances in which it is illegal to be naked in public — usually because the context suggests sexual aggression or is calculated to offend. Because of that, it is impossible for this book to recommend the romance and liberation of swimming nude at midnight in secluded waterfalls and remote lakes with the moon gleaming overhead. Oh well!

"Choose a picturesque and isolated location. Make a base with your companions near the water. Line each other up, count down from ten, rip your clothes off, and sprint into the water. Have plenty of towels and thick clothes available, so that you can get dry and warm quickly when you emerge.

"You should only skinny-dip with people with whom you know you are safe. Do not risk your own safety by going with people you do not know or don't particularly trust.

"What Should I Expect? As you get over the cold and start to enjoy the physical sensation, you will relax more and more about being undressed. The sense of daring that is common immediately before skinny-dipping gives way to a feeling of being embraced, enlivened, and at home in your own body. Most people find skinny-dipping a very pleasant sensation indeed, and it gives them an increased respect for the human body in which God has placed us. Your sense of self-worth will grow as you realize that in the water, without the clothes and accessories that give away everyone's status, you are all equally important and equally humble. This is how God sees you. To have thoughts like these at a moment when the physical sensation is so exhilarating is extremely uplifting. Reflecting on the event later, you may find yourself aware of the great dignity that God conferred on the human body by choosing to inhabit one when he was born as Jesus. That includes every kind of body — male and female, disabled or able-bodied, conventionally good-looking or not.

"So you will become aware of your closeness to a loving God as you realize the goodness of being in God's image."