In the beginning . . . .
A globe of light and all existence swirling together as one with the Creator.
Nothing was separate, neither man from woman nor man from animal, nor plant from soil nor water from air. What they ate was not separate from what they breathed, they were not separate from each other.
Intimacy was perfect because everything emanated from the Creator. The Creator was in all and through all and all things were made of Him. To eat was to savor Him. To joke was to laugh with Him. To romp with the animals was to play with Him. To sleep was to sink into the perfect peace and security of God.
To make love was to fuse with God; particles of energy passing from one body to another, as heat passes from one hand to another when we touch. All was truth and beauty and completeness.
But then the jealous tempter came, he who had forsaken oneness for the sake of the ambition of being greater than the Creator. He lied to the woman and told her that they were not really one with the Creator, that He was holding back what would make them equals.
“Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden?’
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’ 4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” (Genesis 3:1-4)
So she took and ate, and the man ate, too. Like little children pulling their hands from their Father’s and rushing into the street after something shiny, as if anything could be better than the perfect safety and warmth of Him.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The tree of division. The tree of sorting and labeling. This thing is good. This thing is bad. This act is good. This act is bad. This person is good. This person is bad.
In the dance of oneness there had been no good or bad. There were no weeds and prize-winning roses. There were no right or wrong deeds. The Creator had called everything good and it was so. All compulsions were beautiful and each flower and leaf was a pure work of art.
But they ate.
And suddenly, the sphere of Love was shattered, and the shards scattered, sparkling, far into empty space. In an instant the man and the woman were floating, anchor-less, in the vast, suffocating coldness, alone.
The man and the woman managed to clasp each other’s hands as they were blasted into the void, and though there was comfort in their touch, they were baffled that it did not alleviate the feeling of horrible, bottomless emptiness that filled them. How had one become two? And where was the Creator? Where was the garden? Their animal companions? Why were their bodies uncovered and unprotected? What would shield them from the emptiness?
Their world had been a cruel illusion.
There was nothing to do but to try to put the shattered pieces back together on their own. What had been one was now many, and nothing fit. Each separate piece to be managed and held together. No longer were food, air and water, companionship, beauty and love different expressions of the same Source. Food must be coaxed from the ground with hard labor. It must be prepared and cooked to be eaten. Sleep could only be found in a place of relative safety and shelter. Animals must be hunted and killed for warm clothing. What had been One Life was now many disjointed tasks, all needing immediate attention; burdensome tasks that must be prioritized, leaving the pleasant things undone.
And the man and the woman were disjointed, too. The woman wanted love more than food. The man wanted to provide shelter before love. Each shard of life was a struggle between them, a bargaining chip, something withheld, something reluctantly given. An action twisted into a hurt, a love withheld in revenge.
As time went on and cells painfully split and fused, the earth became populated by these lonely, purposeless creatures whose entire existence was consumed, though they had forgotten their history and origin, with the search to regain what was lost. They were baffled and confused as they pieced two shards together, only to find another had floated off. They became each intent on finding an anchor for their nothingness, a shard they could cling to, the shard that was their own.
“Adah gave birth to Jabel; he was the father of those who live in tents and raise livestock. His brother’s name was Jubal; he was the father of all who play stringed instruments and pipes. Zillah also had a son, Tubal-Cain, who forged all kinds of tools out of bronze and iron.” (Genesis 4:20-22).
“Cush was the father of Nimrod, who became a mighty warrior on the earth.” (Genesis 10:8l)
And Julia was an artist, and Rachel was a cashier. And Sara was a housewife, and Anna was a CEO. And Josh was a doctor and Omar was an electrical engineer and Ralph was a Republican and Martha was a Democrat. And this man is a Blood and this is a Crip, and this man is black and this white. And this country is a prison and this country is free, and this man is good and this man is evil, and this being is precious and this can be discarded. Nation against nation, brother against brother, father against son, world without end amen. Each born alone to die alone.
You see, the jealous tempter was right: the man and the woman did not die when they tasted of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Instead, they contracted an insanity that was a living death.
What they could not see, what even the tempter could not see, was that their aloneness and separateness were the illusions. Though the one globe of swirling unity and joy was shattered forever, the empty space they felt and saw was really contained within a larger sphere of love. Though blind and deaf to Him, they had never really left the arms of the Creator, the Filler of every vast expanse. They could not be separated from the one in Whom we live and move and have our being.
The spell had only to be broken, the madness cured, the disease eradicated. Who could accomplish this task? Not these beings who had forgotten who they were.
It had to be One who remembered the beginning . . . who was the Beginning . . . . As in every good tale the spell could only be broken by a Hero with a quest, an act of true love and a potion. The Blood of Perfection, the Living Water and the Bread of Life . . . .
