Monday 1 March 2010

O happy sin

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. (Gen 3:6)
Being a human, summed up in one verse.  You don't need to believe this is history - it's not history, it's your story.

The fruit was good for food and pleasing to the eye and gave wisdom - so they ate it.  And they gained wisdom.  That's what humans do.  We grab stuff. We gain wisdom.  We die.

It's easy being an animal.  You eat, you sleep, you run away from stuff.  One day you die.  But you don't think about it before its time.

But not for a human being.

You eat, you sleep.  But you belong to the race of apple-eaters.  You have wisdom.  One day you will die.  You know it.  It's coming.  Heading towards you at a rate of one day every 24 hours.  
You can hear the drum-beats, regular as your heart.

It will be here - maybe soon, or maybe long.  But it's coming.

Better to stay in Eden?  If ignorance is bliss, then why be wise?  

Try and forget it?  Live your life to the full (good either way, of course)?
Eat, drink and be merry?

No - because it's there.  And it's coming.  And we're not animals.  We've eaten the apple.  
Pandora's box has been opened.  But there's just one whisper of hope in the corner.
"And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel."
And the curse is cancelled - but more than that.  As if a parking fine was cancelled and the warden gave you £100.  And a new car.  And offered to be your chauffeur.

We could have been children in a garden but we could be citizens of heaven.

We could have been smart animals.  Or maybe we'll end up like angels.

We had a Father in the garden.  Now there's a human on the throne in heaven.  And a lot more on the way.

7 comments :

  1. I recommend reading Eden: the buried treasure by Eve Wood-Langford, which examines the origins of the Eden myth.

    (yours, happily munching on apples and opening mysterious boxes...)

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  2. Thank you for this. I notice that, appropriately, it is published by a company based in Avebury Blvd, Milton Keynes. A street where I have spent many a happy hour shopping, eating and drinking.

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  3. They pestilentious squirrels do massacre all our apples afore we gets so much as a bite, they do.

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  4. Judith, surely you must have a vicious cat around the place that could sort out the squirrels? Or can't Seth and Rubin hang around with pointy sticks?

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  5. Dear Reverend Mother Archdruid,
    I am a little perturbed (actually I don't know exactly what that means, but the word popped into my head) by the final sentence of your little melancholic reflection.

    "Now there's a human on the throne in heaven. And a lot more on the way." Ok... a lot more what? Humans for the throne? More thrones? More heavens? It is all so confusing. I never did quite understand christology, so I won't blame you, but still... do please enlighten us.

    Respectfully,

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  6. Brother Holger

    I can't comment on your Christology as I'm not sure I ever heard of it. Although I do seems to remember you making some scathing remarks on the subject of cairns once.
    Be assured that, if Heaven is really Heaven, there will be as many thrones provided as there will be bottoms requiring seating. Unless it's one very long throne.
    Likewise all will be provided with crowns, as otherwise how will we be able to cast them down?
    Which gives me some more inspiration. Even at 6,000 miles distance you seem capable of giving us fresh expressions of unlikely theology.

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  7. Most Honoured Archdruid, we Starkadders have no pointy sticks no more, they all be burned up in the grate, they do.

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