Monday, October 5, 2015

The Adam Effect



"The Lord God said, "It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a suitable partner for him."  So, the Lord God formed out of the ground various wild animals and various birds of the air, and He brought them to the man to see what he would call them; whatever the man called each of them would be its name. . . . but none proved to be a suitable partner for the man. So, the Lord cast a deep sleep on the man, and while he was asleep, He took out one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. The Lord God then built up into a woman the rib that He had taken from the man. When He brought her to the man, the man said: "This one, at last, is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called 'woman, for out of 'her man',  this one has been taken." That is why a man leaves his father and mother and clings to his wife, and the two of them become one flesh." -[Genesis 2: 18-24].

As  beloved as Pope Francis seems to be, there are plenty of sharp critics who dismiss his comments on global warming as, "political".

I would wish that everyone who has read Genesis 2, would also read Genesis 1!

In Genesis 1, God creates light to banish the darkness.  In The Gospel of John, this light is said to "shine in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." This Light is Jesus, who pre-dated Creation; and "He was in the [very] beginning with God." -[Genesis 1: 2-5].

In the next week, God goes on to create Day and Night, the dome called Sky, the stars in the sky, the dry land called Earth, the waters called Seas, plants yielding fruit, and the fruit with seeds in it, birds to fly across the dome, sea creatures, wild animals, and finally, humankind.

When I was in Biblical School, a question given for homework was, "Given the Creation narrative in Genesis 1 and 2,  what is your concept of Paradise?"

What I wrote was something that has never left my heart :

You see,  Adam in Hebrew means "man". And, "woman" in Hebrew is simply the feminine version of "man". Linguistically, man and woman are simply male and female versions of each other!

God made woman from the side of man. Men and women really ARE one flesh.

Given all this, Paradise means that there can not possibly be any violence or assault between man and woman. There would be no domestic abuse -- because, any violence would only mean hurting one's own self. St. Paul says in Ephesians 5, "Husbands, love your wife as Christ also loved the Church and gave Himself for it. So ought men to love their wives as their own bodies."

There would be no child abuse -- because God made Adam and Eve to be fruitful and multiply. Therefore, all children come from Adam and Eve, and therefore, from God.

There would be no abortion. Consider, in the face of our Creation, our routine killing of infants who are "inconvenient". . . . We are eliminating God-given Life.

There would be no animal cruelty. God created these animals for Adam and Eve. He gave Adam dominion over the animals. God did not give Adam the license to maim or torture them.

There would be no racism. We are ALL God's children. As St. Paul said, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, tree is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." --[Galatians 3:28].

There would be no raking, slashing or burning of the landscape for minerals or metals, then walking away from a great big gash in the Earth. This Earth is given to us by God. We have dominion over it. But we have no license to destroy it. Even Leviticus 25 instructs God's people on crop rotation: "Six years you shall sow your field, and six years you shall prune your vineyard and gather in their yield; but in the seventh year, there shall be a sabbath of complete rest for your land."

We Americans spend an average of one hour per WEEK outside. We are more glued to the virtual reality on our electronic screens, than we are aware of God's awe-inspiring Creation around us.

Do we truly understand and appreciate the breath-taking beauty of Creation?

When St. Ignatius Loyola, the founder of the Jesuit order, was undergoing his spiritual conversion and self-examination, he went up to the rooftop one summer night. When he saw the billions of stars, he wept at God's majesty. When is the last time you wept at the sight of the night sky? Or, do we humans simply think that we own the sky and the Heavens ?

When Job struggled and battled against all the traumas and misfortunes in his life, God finally told him, "Where were you, when I laid the foundation of the Earth? . . . when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for Joy?" -[Job 38: 4-7]. Job replied, " See, I am of small account; what shall I answer you?"

As Mother Teresa would say, "We forget that we all belong to each other." I would add, that we also forget that we belong to God and to the Universe that He made.  In abusing the Earth and each other, we make ourselves into gods, and in the process, we forget our place in the Universe.

No, friends, that reverence of each other and for the Earth is NOT socialism or communism. THAT is Love--for one another, for God and for our world!

[Related Posting: "Husbands and Wives", August 23, 2015].

(c) Spiritual Devotional 2015. All Rights Reserved.
















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