The Journey Begins: A Retelling of Genesis 3
Now Adam, true to his name
(meaning ‘earth’ and the stuff thereof) was content
there in the primeval garden.
He ate.
He slept.
He loved his woman, bone of his bone flesh of his flesh
created after all by God for him, just for him!
He sat Adam-happy with a papaya in one hand and
a TV remote in the other
and it was good.
But Eve (whose name means ‘living’)
was given to wandering,
wondering -
What
was outside that garden wall, just there?
She could see something, just over the wall top: sky,
Clouds moving, a purple of far mountaintops
there-just-barely on the far horizon.
And Eve was perplexed, and a little vexed
with this Living-god who had made her
(for the man? Just for the man?), made her and
made the man and
had given them the world…but not all of it.
And so the serpent found her, standing tiptoe peering over the garden wall,
mountains-on-horizon, cloud-in-sky,
And the serpent knew just the thing she wanted, and
happily
obliged.
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Many seasons have passed since that day and Eve,
older much older now, body long decayed but still Living,
still stands by the garden wall, still straining to see
(but outside-in this time). The door will never open and She
does not expect nor even want it to
for there is no back, there is never,
never a going back;
But there is something, something she left inside,
a whisper, a half-eaten truth,
A way to that Other tree. For her children.
For her poor perplexed man-god.
For her Self.
Mad God Woman
