Genesis 3
Snake:
I was just having a laugh with these dumb buffoon bipeds. I just wanted to flex my cleverness, and expose theirs.
“So he’s not letting you become a god?” I asked.
“So you can’t eat anything here?” I asked her. There was a spoonful of truth in my slithery little question, and she took the bate.
Eve:
I was just defending God…
but I slipped up,
I accidentally expanded the prohibition
—I said I couldn’t even touch the tree…
But then I did, and touching didn’t do anything….
So touching led to taste, and taste then led to coveting
—I wanted the fruit so badly everything else became secondary.
The Snake, Adam, God
—all of it was expendable for the sake of my desire for that fruit.
(God help me, somehow between the snake’s words about becoming a god and the yearning for the fruit, I’d broken the commandments, not yet written, broken them from first to last—as humans tend to do…)
Adam:
There were two goods there
—the good command of my good God,
and the good offer of good fruit from the one who is bone of my bone, flesh of my flesh.
I was not mature enough to discern
—who would be, in my situation?
She said “look. It is good.”
And I ate.
I felt so clever—so wise—and then…
Then I felt so exposed.
We were.
We are.
Naked.
Naked, even after we made the fig leaves…
naked and exposed in such a way that every relationship,
every interaction,
every inch of God’s good earth,
was now a threat.
Even when I heard God calling, it felt dangerous.
God said:
“Where are you?”
“Who told you that you were naked?”
“Did you eat from the tree?”
Those question marks were like flaming spears hefted at me, and for a shield, I pointed at her…
I pointed at the bone of my bone, the flesh of my flesh
—the one whom I loved as my self!
I pointed at her to point away from myself.
And she in turn pointed to the Serpent.
And the Serpent,
no nimble fingers like Eve and I,
could not point away.
God:
I was just going for a walk,
the breeze is nice at night, in Eden.
I was seeking my friends…
Instead, I found a mess of enemies,
a circular firing squad…
The cover-up was so much worse than the crime.
He pointed to her
—this one who was a part of himself,
and look he was alienated from the Earth
—that is, his very self…
Adam from the Adamah
—Earthman from the Earth,
human from the humus.
He spiraled away from his own soul and all the world that reflected it.
She then pointed to the Snake,
and even as her arm stretched out,
a barrier swung down between each subsequent generation
—mother separated from daughter,
son from father
—now smuggled into every birth, there was some kind of abandonment…
Then there was that snake, left with no legs to stand on,
the snake was the start, the separation from them,
enmity and revilement between the humans and my other creatures.
This cover-up,
pulled down a thick shade between us all
—ultimately alienation among us
—these poor humans aliens from their interior selves and their progeny,
aliens on earth itself,
and alienated too from me….
But still, I seek them out
—walking in the evening breeze,
asking after them…
Creating sturdy cloaks for them so they won’t perish in the cold or expire in the heat.
Starting over with them again and again and again…
-Starting over with Cain, marking him so his crime doesn’t come back upon him.
-Starting over with Sarah and Abraham, Hagar and Ishmael
-Starting over with Moses, when my people cried to me while enslaved
-Starting over with Samuel and Saul and David and his lot.
-Starting over after the exile, empowering prophet after prophet
-Starting over, present to them all in my Son, and in the Spirit as well.
-Starting over with you at every turn.
-Always walking in the evening breeze, asking after you.
A+A
