Paradise Rediscovered?
The story of the fall of man in Genesis tells us a lot about our problems today. If we will stop regarding the story only as something historical, an account of things that happened long ago and far away, much of the timelessness of God's plan will be opened to us. If we could for a moment consider Adam and Eve not so much as a story about "Once upon a time," we could see it in terms of what has happened and is still happening to us. The same thing happens when we stop viewing the story as a "meaningless old myth that was fine for pre-scientific times, but now we know better." Is not the story of Adam and Eve very similar to our own?
In the beginning, Adam and Eve are placed in a garden called Eden. It was a very circumscribed garden, totally self-sufficient. When we live in paradise we have no need for others, or anything else, for that matter. What could possibly be as good as, let alone better than, Eden?
There were few restrictions placed upon the pair in Eden. They were simply forbidden to be anything but what they were created to be, to do anything but what they were created to do. In other words, "You have free will, like God, but love God enough to let Him be who He is -- you learn to be who you are." It was simple: we were created to enjoy who we are and to love God. It was a wholesome love affair. It was a love between father and children with the gentle respect of loving each other -- without demands or preconditions. He would be Father and we would be His Children. How simple!
The growing up process promised to be a joy. The children would be the children and the Father would be the father. The problem arose when the children wanted to have the attributes and responsibilities of the father. They wanted the knowledge of Good and Evil. They sought the very nature of God. The myth of Oedipus is about this. Psychologists have a field day with it. It is a principle of our life. And how often is this story retold in our relationships with God and all our childhood?
But we could not, and can not, remain children! The temptations are too great. There are dragons in the earth, snakes in the grass, and (pardon the crude joke) even one in our pocket or in our "helpmate's" pocket. God has created us in His image. We have the freedom to become what we want, and with just a little encouragement (or should we call it manipulation) we can see very clearly the advantages of adulthood -- of godhood.
We can quickly see that being a child has, or at least seems to have, its limitations. Free Will begs the question itself. Any vital question, any question about life: Why are we here? Does life have any meaning? What is important in my life? Is death meaningless, or is it merely senseless?
The vital questions may occur during a great crisis, but often they arise for no reason at all. "The serpent was the most subtle...." The essence of the questions he asks shakes us to our very depths. And they are not questions easily answered. Indeed, no simple answer of a few words will ease the yearning that the asking has stirred. The serpent asked questions that require a new perspective: the very nature of good and evil. It requires answers from the very center of life -- a tree in the midst of the garden! And that tree has fruit to make one wise! It can make us responsible, and adult! It can make us God! One bite and adulthood is ours! We can with one taste of the attributes of God's wisdom savor the depths of the real world and find our place in it.
And for that God expelled us from our garden. Actually, how could we stay? We now knew that we were exposed, vulnerable, and naked. Our eyes were opened and we could see that there was much to do. There was immortality to find and a life to build. There were children to raise, with all the pain involved in that. There was a living to make, with the frustration and anxiety implied in that. We must now define who we are: "I'm a banker!" "I'm Johnny's mother!" "I'm Jane's husband!" "I'm a heterosexual!" "I'm tired!" "I'm none of the above; my name is Mable! or Joe, or Dwain...." We also must define who we are not: "I'm not black!" "I ain't no lady!" "I'm not a Jew!" "I'm not you!" And then, of course, there is always the constant struggle with the snake and promise he makes to us: My ego and my godhood.
Of course, now that we are "all growed up" there is no returning to the garden. To return to Eden, we would have to rid ourselves of the knowledge of good and evil. It is doubtful that Adam and Eve would have paid that price. Few people would. We have tasted the wine of freedom, and it is a good vintage. To return would mean separating ourselves from our culture, our country, our family, our careers. It would involve unlearning and returning to the naive (however one manages that!) We have "seen the elephant," as they used to say. "How ya gonna keep em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?" To do so would require a lobotomy.
When we left our childhood, we embarked upon a journey, and like Adam and Eve when they left Eden, we are going we-know-not-where. St. Augustine once said that Adam and Eve, in leaving the garden, made ready the coming of Christ. The Prophets in Israel caught a glimpse of where our journey's end may be. Now that we're out, we're out! But God has not given up hope for us. The journey has taken us out of the security and womb of the garden. We cannot return. Get that through your head! The end of our journey as foretold by the Old Testament prophets and Saint John at the end of the New Testament is not in a garden. Jesus himself left the quiet and peace and the garden and set his eyes elsewhere. Our hope lies not in the garden like children, but in the city of Jerusalem with our Lord.
It is here in our shattered, confusing, dissatisfying world that we shall finally be compelled to desire and seek a Savior. It is in the middle of the crime, corruption, garbage, and tenements of our world that we are called to build the Kingdom of God. Like Jesus, we need the peace and tranquility of the garden at times in order to collect ourselves and pray, but the real work is accomplished in the city on a cross, not in the garden tending trees. Nor should a garden tomb be our place of repose. Our Lord broke free to "meet us in Jerusalem."
We must re-discover our relationship with God, repent, and find out how really meaningless it is to be created in God's image with Free Will unless we have that Will rooted firmly in God. The childhood we lost in Eden is born homeless in Jerusalem (or nearby in a stable and on the way to pay exacted taxes in the heart of that city). It is back in the city, lost to its past, growing in wisdom and stature -- and in favor with God and man. Growing in favor with God! This time using our Free Will as God intended: using it to find out who we are, who our neighbor is, and to find out who our real Father is.
So, Jesus is the new creation, the new beginning (and the new end). He is the new Adam. The prototype of the first, fully human, but without sin: fully in God's image! Fully God! Not grasping at equality, like our first father did, but humbling himself in obedience, even to death! He is the archetype! He is the example of our creation and our purpose. "Greater things than I have done, you will do!" "Come on, Peter, don't be afraid! You, too, can walk on water!" (Yes, there are a lot of exclamation points in that paragraph, but if this isn't exciting, what it?)
Our task is not to rebuild Eden, but rather to go out into the world with Adam and Eve, where the new Adam was crucified. It is on that long journey toward the city, in our insecurity, in our confusion, in our blindness, that we will be compelled to seek help in our purpose. It is only when we face the awesome and fruitless task the serpent set us out on, when we have repented in our dissatisfaction with who God created us to be, and when we are willing to allow him the fullness of time to work out who we are and when adulthood might be ours, when we have "bottomed out" in our role as god of our lives, then it is that we may know again what the inner child really wants in the arms of our Father. It is not the vantage point of your place in the tree, Zaccheus, but a rebirth that follows Jesus along the city road on the Way of the Cross.
God does not want robots or slaves. We have been given a Will, and it is good! We must actively put it to work, building His Kingdom. "Thy kingdom come, on earth.... " There are many who seem to think that Jesus calls them back to the security of the Garden. Many have built a church fortressed against the world. They would look for the safety and peace of the garden with the "dew still on the roses." They would sit apart, assured that they have the knowledge of good and evil, the authority of the Bible (or the Pope), correct worship, and right doctrine. They sit and await the "sweet by and by." The fact is that He has called us to meet Him in Jerusalem, and pick up our Cross, and follow Him. Not "safe and secure from all alarm," but rather at the edge, changing the world and the lives of others by the Good News that God has recreated His Children and calls them FRIEND!
This essay first appeared in The Voyager, a publication of the Celtic Catholic Church, vol. VII no. 3, July, 1994
