enter discord

"now the serpent was more subtil than any beast of the field which the lord god had made. and he said unto the woman, yea, hath god said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden? and the woman said unto the serpent, we may eat of the fruit of the trees of the garden: but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, god hath said, ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die. and the serpent said unto the woman, ye shall not surely die: for god doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. and when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. and the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons.


"and they heard the voice of the lord god walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the lord god amongst the trees of the garden. and the lord god called unto adam, and said unto him, where art thou? and he said, i heard thy voice in the garden, and i was afraid, because i was naked; and i hid myself. and he said, who told thee that thou wast naked? hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof i commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat? and the man said, the woman whom thou gavest to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and i did eat. and the lord god said unto the woman, what is this that thou hast done? and the woman said, the serpent beguiled me, and i did eat. and the lord god said unto the serpent, because thou hast done this, thou art cursed above all cattle, and above every beast of the field; upon thy belly shalt thou go, and dust shalt thou eat all the days of thy life: and I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel. unto the woman he said, i will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. and unto adam he said, because thou hast hearkened unto the voice of thy wife, and hast eaten of the tree, of which i commanded thee, saying, thou shalt not eat of it: cursed is the ground for thy sake; in sorrow shalt thou eat of it all the days of thy life; thorns also and thistles shall it bring forth to thee; and thou shalt eat the herb of the field; in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread, till thou return unto the ground; for out of it wast thou taken: for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

"and adam called his wifes name eve; because she was the mother of all living. unto adam also and to his wife did the lord god make coats of skins, and clothed them. and the lord god said, behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever: therefore the lord god sent him forth from the garden of eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken. so he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of eden cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life." (genesis 3)

of course, i cannot begin to exhaust the many meanings, the many melodies that flow through this part of the story. i remember another time, a saturday, in which i found myself in four very different groups of people through the day, and each group found a reason to talk about this story. the groups ranged in "belief" from fairly orthodox christian to adamantly anti-religious folk who described themselves as "scientific" or "spiritual." all of them however found material for discussion and discovery in this story. no one simply dismissed the story as unworthy of consideration.

there are some things i would point out. one is that when the serpent and eve are talking about the holy one, they call him "god," the theoretical, transcendant god of the intellect. when the holy one returns in the cool of the evening to walk with his creatures, it is YHWH, the holy one who is a person with a name.

this holy one, i suppose, knows what has happened. but he is not sending his lightning bolts ahead of him to fry the miscreants. it is only when they first try to hide from him, adam blaming eve, eve blaming the serpent, that what we often call "original sin" is manifested. once again, this, you see, is the "the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity, whose name is holy, who dwells in the high and holy place, who also dwells with the one who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the contrite." (isaiah 57:15)

from this point onward, at least unto the resurrection accounts in the gospels, in which i would include the pentecost story of the acts of the apostles, the songs are about the high and lofty one's actions to restore that original and deep communion which our pride breaks.

back to the garden

the next story of creation in genesis is one of the most engaging works in all of literature. i suppose we should start by reading it:

"these are the generations of the heavens and of the earth when they were created, in the day that the lord god made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth, and every herb of the field before it grew: for the lord god had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was not a man to till the ground. but there went up a mist from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.
and the lord god formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.
and the lord god planted a garden eastward in eden; and there he put the man whom he had formed. and out of the ground made the lord god to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. and a river went out of eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and became into four heads. the name of the first is pison: that is it which compasseth the whole land of havilah, where there is gold; and the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and the onyx stone. and the name of the second river is Gihon: the same is it that compasseth the whole land of ethiopia. and the name of the third river is hiddekel: that is it which goeth toward the east of assyria. and the fourth river is euphrates.
and the lord god took the man, and put him into the garden of eden to dress it and to keep it. and the lord god commanded the man, saying, of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
and the lord god said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him an help meet for him. and out of the ground the lord god formed every beast of the field, and every fowl of the air; and brought them unto adam to see what he would call them: and whatsoever adam called every living creature, that was the name thereof. and adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for adam there was not found an help meet for him. and the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof; and the rib, which the lord god had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man. and adam said, this is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called woman, because she was taken out of man. therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh. and they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed." (genesis 2:4-25)

i remember once going to a talk by a christian environmentalist at a baptist church, no less. i don't remember his name, except jim, but i remember the poster he distributed. it was of print of a painting by diana bryer showing adam and eve sitting under a tree, surrounded by animals of all kinds, with a caption saying "god's original intention was to hang out in a garden with a couple of naked vegetarians.

when i took the poster home to the community in which i was living, we stayed up for about three hours talking about the poster. it generated all sorts of responses, this depiction of only some of the images in this story. and several times the poster was "borrowed" by other friends who loved it so much they wanted to enjoy it in their own homes for a while.

i suspect the reaction so many of us had to the poster is a result of the intrinsic understanding we have that originally we were made for a very deep and intimate communion with god, an understanding that has been part of many human activities, and reflected in many poems and songs, such as crosby, stills, and nash's back to the garden.

unfortunately, human activity does not always bring about the results we want, as we find in this next chapter of genesis.

warning: fugue ahead

the first story of genesis describes creation by elohim, a strange plural-singular form for god, which is not a name so much as a category. this is the wonderfully conceptual understanding of creation and god that will be consonant with greek philosophy and what we often call natural religion. this is the god of whom paul will tell the romans ". . . the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made." (romans 1:20)

against the orderly strains of this creation song plays another melody, one more difficult to describe with music theory or theology, in which the holy creator is revealed as a person with a name, although the name is too powerful to be pronounced.

the god of the first story we sing in the hymn,
"almighty, invisible, god only wise,
in light inaccessible, hid from our eyes."
this is the transcendant god, subject of systematic theology, who is described by rudolf otto in the holy as tremendum, of whom thomas acquinas wrote.

the god of the countermelody is sung in
"come down, o love divine,
and fill this heart of mine."
this is the holy one immanent, who is described by otto as fascinans, of whom thomas acquinas found, once he had experienced the one, that he could write nothing.

but there is only one god, creator of heaven and earth, transcendant and immanent. in the tension between these two revelations of the holy one are the contrasts between the conquered promised land and the lingering presence of israel's oppoenents. here are the kingdom of heaven which is at hand and the kingdom which comes at the end of the age.

this, you see, is the "the high and lofty one who inhabits eternity,
whose name is holy, who dwells in the high and holy place, who
also dwells with the one who has a contrite and humble spirit, to
revive the spirit of the humble and to revive the heart of the
contrite." (isaiah 57:15) this is the god who created by speaking the word in the beginning, but also the god who accepts the limitation of creation to walk with his creature in the garden in the cool of the evening.

this is the god for whom i have moved into a garden so that i might have a cool of the evening in which we might walk. it is to the story of the revelation of that god, described again and again in the liturgy as a "man-befriending god," to which we turn next.

back to the hillside: earth & breath

surrounded by the darkness in which the paschal light of christ shines, i read on:

"and god said, let the waters under the heaven be gathered together unto one place, and let the dry land appear: and it was so.
and god called the dry land earth; and the gathering together of the waters called he seas: and god saw that it was good.
and god said, let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so.
and the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself, after his kind: and god saw that it was good.
and the evening and the morning were the third day.
and god said, let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years:
and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth: and it was so.
and god made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: he made the stars also.
and god set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth,
and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness: and god saw that it was good.
and the evening and the morning were the fourth day.
and god said, let the waters bring forth abundantly the moving creature that hath life, and fowl that may fly above the earth in the open firmament of heaven.
and god created great whales, and every living creature that moveth, which the waters brought forth abundantly, after their kind, and every winged fowl after his kind: and god saw that it was good.
and god blessed them, saying, be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.
and the evening and the morning were the fifth day." (genesis 1:9-23)

waters, earth, light, moving creatures: we heard all these themes at the beginning of the beginning. it is as if the first two verses of genesis were one huge chord comprised of all the songs of creation, played for god only knows how long. as god said to job, he says to each of us: "where wast thou when i laid the foundations of the earth?" (job 38:4) yet even as he spoke to job by describing not himself but his creation, so he has spoken to us through the creation.

earth, seas, grass, herb, fruit tree, lights in heaven, moving creatures that hath life, birds that fly in the open firmament, great whales, and every living creature which the waters brought forth, they all have their own songs, which god blessed and told them to repeat. the late-homing squirrels and the early-hooting owls on my hillside are here because the first squirrels, the first owls, "brought forth abundantly."

the story continues:

"and god said, let the earth bring forth the living creature after his kind, cattle, and creeping thing, and beast of the earth after his kind: and it was so.
and god made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and god saw that it was good.
and god said, let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.
so god created man in his own image, in the image of god created he him; male and female created he them.
and god blessed them, and god said unto them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.
and God said, Behold, i have given you every herb bearing seed, which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree, in the which is the fruit of a tree yielding seed; to you it shall be for meat.
and to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, i have given every green herb for meat: and it was so.
and god saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day.
thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them.
and on the seventh day god ended his work which he had made; and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made.
and god blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." (genesis 1:24-2:3)

so here i sit, image of god, blessed, marking the completion of yet another holy, seventh, sabbath day, but starting the beginning of the eighth day, the first day of the new creation.

how am i the image of god? the navajo say in the whorls of finger- and toe-tips. hebrew, like so many ancient languages,has one word, ruach for both "spirit" and "wind." either translation in genesis 1:1 is correct, or rather both of them are correct. perhaps only one translation is incorrect. the wind, the spirit, moves in spirals and eddies, like our finger prints.

ruach also enables speech. again and again, "god said," and i, too, say the words, not reading silently but speaking the story. (in this discussion i rely heavily on david abrams' the spell of the sensuous(new york: pantheon, 1996), pp. 225-244.) speaking means using vowels. the consenants, which were the only letters in the original hebrew alphabet, "are those shapes made by the lips, teeth, tongue, palate or throat, that momentarily obscructs the flow of breath, and so give form to our words. . . . the vowels . . . are nothing more than sounded breath." (abrams, p. 241)

the breath of god, which introduces the first story of genesis, becomes more important in the second story. i use my breath, making in the darkness sworls of wind that my candle follows, saying those last words from the first story, "god blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made." (genesis 2:3)