The Garden

I love the Hebrew story of the creation of humans. It summarizes human history, and the human condition, like nothing else. If you seek the truth of the state of the world, the causes of suffering, and the solution, this is where you should start.

Humans were simple, loving, carefree. Happy, though they didn't know good from evil. Their state of being is aptly symbolized as nakedness. Anyone who's ever watched a baby run around in the buff knows what I mean: their full exposure is not shameful or sinful, because they do not expose themselves for any shameful purpose. Adam and Eve were fully nude because they had no reason not to be. The feeling of the sun, the wind, the rain, or even the desire they felt for one another, were all natural and healthy states. More importantly, they were psychologically nude. They had no guile, no deceit, no desire to do that which was unhealthy. It was a primitive state, but it was the state that God created them in, and if he pronounced it good, who are we to argue?

They had no wants. God had given Adam and Eve the Garden, to work and play in. Humans cultivated the healthy things of the world, just as many good people do today. Adam and Eve must have learned in the Garden. Which trees tasted best, what things were useful for what healthy purposes. We know they found sustenance, we can imagine they found medicine, and I am sure they found beauty and wonder to examine. We grow food, we learn to treat illnesses, we study the artwork of creation. Eve must have looked at the stars and asked, how did they get there? Adam must have watched a tree grow and asked God, what magic is this? The forbidden tree was not "the tree of knowledge," but "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil." It was a tree symbolizing the power God had reserved to Himself, the power of domination, of ultimate rule. God let humans name the plants and animals, a symbolic act of power over Creation, but only God gave a name to Adam, reserving the power over mankind for Himself. Only God could fulfill Adam's life, by providing him a partner, Adam could not do so for himself. God set people in right relationship to Himself, to Creation, and to one another; naked, completely open, with nothing to hide, and no shame to be felt.

The nature of the physical world is a clever snake, however. Whether it is an apple, the desire to steal, the shortcut of telling a lie, or worse crimes yet, the world tempts us into levels of unhealthy complexity which strip away our healthy nudity, and replaces it with robes of shame. It turns our healthy level of control and learning into the persuit of power. Did they start to learn which tree made the best weapons? Which plant could be used to poison? Did Adam seek to corner the market on grain so he could charge Eve a little extra for what she needed to survive? Did Eve contrive elaborate schemes to increase her wealth by making Adam trade for the healing herbs she picked? Did they, in affect, try to usurp the power of God? Did they seek to dominate creation, rather than tend it?

They broke their relationship with one another. We all too often read Adam and Eve's shame at their nakedness as a realization that sexual desire is bad. This is, of course, a terrible short-changing of the story. Adam and Eve do not realize the guilt of sexuality, but instead the guilt of dishonesty, betrayal, and letting one another down in the worst way. Rather than being partners in virtue, they have conspired to betray their God, their best friend. Like other conspirators throughout the ages, they felt shame for who they were, and probably some disgust for one another. They ceased to be one another's mirror of God's love, and became mirrors of their own failure. Continued nakedness of body or mind would be a constant reminder of their flawed state. Adam knew the treachery in his own mind, and could now imagine the treachery in Eve's; she realized her own unhealthy lust for power, and imagined Adam must have the same urge. When she saw into his mind, and he into hers, they saw real and imagined betrayals, and learned to fear one another.

Instead of following the course of simple honesty, admitting their fault, changing their behavior, begging God for fogiveness and help, Adam and Eve layered on more mistakes by trying to save their relationship with God through clever deceit, rather than through confession, forgiveness and redemption. What if Eve had begged God's forgiveness straight away? What if Adam had begged hers for not being there to help her do the right thing? If they had been able to realize their own faults and seek to make amends for them, relationships might have been saved. Instead, they began the complexity of laws, rules, requirements, in which we seek to cover our nakedness, and end up being punished for our failures. They saw the need to address their exposure, but not the need to address the real cause of their shame. How different would human life be if we sought to mend relationships before sewing clothes to cover our sins?

The Hebrew story of the first relationship between person and God, and person with another person, is as true now as it was when it was written, or, if you like, when it happened. Whether you feel that it represents facts or a glorious metaphor, or both, it is the truth of the human condition, more perfectly expressed than I have read or heard elsewhere. People were free to be in good, healthy relationship with God, one another, and Creation. They were free to enjoy God's company, to hear His voice, to walk in the Garden with Him. They were free to avail themselves of all the good things of the world. They were free to be exposed, fully seen and known by one another, without shame or fear. Humans were completely naked, and so God and Creation were fully open to them. It was only when mankind abandoned relationship for power that the beauty of the Garden was gone; replaced by fear, greed, treachery, alienation from God and from each other. People realized a fear of God's judgement and one another's potential for treachery.

Modern day people of God can read the story as fact or fiction, as they like, but they must read it as truth. We find ourselves offered the Garden, and we trade it for one apple. No level of wealth, power or control over one another or the world will ever be a big enough fig leaf. It's not the exposure of our failures that is the crime; to believe so is to make Adam and Eve's failure our own. It is only through setting relationships right that we can hope to regain the Garden.