I’m sitting in the doublewide chair at the lake house, staring out the picture window, observing the constant movement of swallows, ducks, and geese as they interact with the watery environment. It’s late summer, a familiar pungent aroma melds with the dank environment, as if a massive compost has sprung up in the backyard, when something shiny, slippery, evasive catches my eye. A bass leaping out of his watery lair performing an eloquent pirouette beneath the sun. I admit I’m charmed.

Larry is sitting in a chair not ten feet away, reminding me of a metronome as he moves his head back and forth between two screens, his features contorted by the implicative weight of the data. I’m fascinated by his total absorption and the slight sheen of sweat forming on his brow.

“By the way, if you get mad at your Mac laptop and wonder who designed this demonic device, notice the manufacturer’s icon on top: an apple with a bite out of it.” Peter Kreeft

I don’t know why but it made me think of Eve, sauntering through the proverbial garden, possibly observing the beautiful landscape, picking a bouquet of flowers, Adam off in the distance naming sheep, when the apple caught her eye.  

I think it must have been on impulse she took a bite. How desperate must she had felt putzing around a perfectly manicured garden, her life uneventful, bare, tailored if you will, bound by guardians and gates, as if custom made for what was to occur?

I can’t imagine what it must have been like to be totally bare, thoughts unadorned, a body detached from desire, her presence unencumbered by ambition or gain, she moved in perfect union with all that is, and ever will be.

This is when the serpent slithers in, and believe me there’s always a serpent, but did he recognize her innocence, or was he doing her a favor? 

I’m of the school she was destined to engender our future, maybe this was her most profound purpose, clearly it’s a women’s nature is to conceive and give birth to that which is dependent, umbilically connected, suckling at her breast, for nothing comes into being except through a feminine womb.

One bite, one irreversible decision, and suddenly she went in search of cover, tasting at once the bitterness of shame, fearing her nakedness. Oh how we rush to cover that which we deem vulnerable, open, pure. I felt much the same when my hips and breasts swelled, when the man sitting not ten feet away caught my eye, and new temptations came into view. 

I praise her and give thanks, because her one courageous act brought not only wisdom, but intimacy, and purpose into being.

And Eve being women, shared her good fortune, bringing all things necessary into her future, including her dude. I’m sure she recognized their handiness, taking on the sweaty jobs, shouldering the heavy burdens.

“ADAM AND EVE, sitting in Paradise, chatting:

“If we could only open the gate and leave,” says Eve.

“To go where, my dearest?”

 

“If we could only open the gate and leave!”

 

“Outside is sickness, pain, death!”

 

 

“If we could only open the gate and leave!”

 

 

Nikos Kazantzakis

 

The retaliation was swift, an ending so solid it must have seemed as if the proverbial gate had closed for all eternity, but whose control was being challenged? If God moves with us, for us, and lives in accord with our in freewill, then the only challenge was possibly internal in nature? It may have been curiosity, but I’d stake my life on the fact that boredom is what won her over, and secured our sweaty future. Isn’t that always the way?

Forced to relocate and start the confused, rejoicing, stricken process of living under cover, she went in search of a new identity. We know she’s a survivor because we’re here, but the experience of living without a safety net must have only served to strengthen, empower, enable, commission, qualify, and egalitate her life. 

But ultimately it is the bareness that we lost says Peggy Freydberg. No longer comfortable with our nakedness we hide behind technology, trading amity for screen time, we cower from real intimacy. We stay locked up in our houses, anchored to our things, binge watching Netflix, hiding behind jobs, fancy cars, designer clothing.