7...IN THE GARDEN OF GOOD AND EVIL..PART 1
[An imaginative reading based on GEN 3. For more, read there.]

By now we know human beings like stories. And keep telling them. Just as God does. That's no wonder, is it, seeing we're made in YHWH's image? (Reminder: YHWH is short for Yahweh, & means 'I AM WHO I AM', or, 'I AM BEING ITSELF'. [EX 3:14] It's God's 'name', just as Adam means 'from the earth', & Eve means 'living'.  Names & their meaning are important. Right from the beginning. We may sacrifice meaning for fashion today, but in the days we’re story-telling about, names mean something. But let's go on a bit further. People go on to tell more of what happens after YHWH tells Creation into being. Their earliest stories, still being told down the years in sheltering caves, round desert campfires, & then in more permanent houses, go on to tell what happens to these first representative & symbolic ancestors of ours. Up to now Adam & Eve haven't given much thought to wearing clothes. Of course we're imaginatively harking back to a time so soon after the first recognizably human beings have emerged on earth that they don't actually have any clothes! In the beginning they probably begin wear them for protection from weather, not for reasons of modesty - yet. So our ancient storytellers tell of God planting a Garden between the great rivers of the Middle East in the area of today’s Iran & Iraq & calling it 'Eden', which means 'a really nice place to enjoy'. God gives Eden to Adam & Eve to live in.

Imagine if we can God walking in these beautiful gardens with them in the cool of the evenings after a very hot day till one day something really bad happens to stop all that. You see, YHWH has set just one condition on Adam & Eve enjoying that garden with Him. He has planted a particular tree in it called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil. This tree represents things too much for Adam & Eve to understand yet. To bear yet. It represents, too, the difference between God & humans, or, if you like, the line drawn between God’s divinity & our humanity. This tree stands for things that could endanger Adam & Eve’s life with God & each other. Our lives, too! Still! YHWH says to them, "You can eat any other fruit in the garden except this one". God is so serious about this He says to them, "If you eat from this tree, it will lead to your death!" Death, they wonder. What’s this ‘death’? They soon find out! God knows blurring the line between humanity & divinity is very dangerous, & this tree represents that peril! But Adam & Eve still have some learning to do – the hard way!

One day, Adam & Eve are bored. So, as the story tells, when they don't think God is looking, & despite God warning them against it, they pick & eat fruit from this Tree of the Knowledge of Good & Evil. In the blink of an eye everything changes! They look at each other differently. They see each other for what they really are: people who break trust with God & one another. People who disobey God. They look at each other & don't like what they see any more. In fact, they can't bear the sight of each other anymore, so they pick some leaves, maybe from this very same tree, & stitch them together to make lap laps for themselves. To cover up their nakedness, &, symbolically, what they have done. But is that enough? Will it work? To be continued…