such was the summer…
{in our intense fix on Eden’s transgression I fear we all too often miss the sheer innocence of those first days…we, per scripture, call them man and woman…but it is equally the story of a Father and his little boy and the girl of his dream}
And the LORD God commanded the man saying ‘for in the day that you eat from it you shall surely die.’ As soon as that last word dropped from the Father’s lips, the man’s face fell: ‘What does that mean, surely die?’ The LORD God suddenly regretted His command, not the content but the timing of it all for the man was still so new, still so fresh from the dust, and to talk of death felt premature in the blush of life. He knew the man could only truly learn of death after he’d tasted love. And so the Father held his answer. The LORD God fiercely loved the man and said ‘there will be time for such talk later. You go to sleep now and all will be well once you awake.’ As the man slept the Father spit in the dust and rubbed mud across the man’s eyes shading the brightness of midday. And so the man dreamed the very first dream in which he saw himself like a tree walking, but he wasn’t a tree and he wasn’t himself. He dreamed of something else, something he could not name. When the man stirred the Father was standing near with elation and said ‘I have a surprise for you!’ The man looked but the mud was as scales on his eyes. The LORD God then wiped the darkness from the man’s eyes so he could behold the flesh and bone before him. She was the one in his dream, now face to face. The man and woman walked unashamed with the LORD their God in the cool dusk of that day until He said ‘why don’t you go show her the koi in the river that waters our garden? They’re exquisite.’ The man smiled and whispered back ‘thank you.’ The LORD God said ‘My pleasure.’ So the Father watched as the boy and the girl of his dream ran off by themselves. The air was heavy with bittersweet. Now, now the man would understand, now that he had someone to love, someone to surely die for. Such was the summer before the first fall.
beautiful. again