Category: Language

Posted on in Language

The Fall

For centuries now, the Church has been taking a dim view of the Fall, the moment in human history when Adam and Eve, the first man and his helpmate, created from one of his ribs, were expelled from the Garden of Eden for eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It’s never quite clear what was so bad about eating of this fruit, only that God had forbidden it (although presumably he knew perfectly well what was going to happen, how the two partners would be tempted by the serpent – nothing bad will happen to you, it certainly looks tasty – and would eat anyway).

I say the moment in human history, although it could be said to be the moment that began human history, when the clock started ticking, because up until then the two partners enjoyed eternal life, whereas now, once expelled from Paradise, they would be subject to death and corruption. I always think we still enjoy eternal life, we are eternal still, it’s just that eternity is hidden behind time and we must pass through a gate to get there. But it doesn’t take away the fact our soul (and our body at the general resurrection) are already eternal. We die in order that I be.

Why does the Church take such a dim view of this moment? Yes, as human beings, we are subject to the passions. We get angry, we do unkind things, we are arrogant, lustful, greedy. We treat others as objects. We want things for ourselves, to acquire worldly wealth (I say worldly, because there is clearly no way we can take it with us when we die), property. We aspire to a comfortable life, everything just so, everything in its place, no demands on our attention, except to enjoy ourselves.

And yet it never quite works out like that. Things go wrong. There are provocations, lines that need to be crossed. The car or the dishwasher breaks down and has to be repaired. We get ill. Things are not perfect. They are not perfect in order to teach us a little humility.

But it could be said that the very quality that got us expelled from Paradise – our rebelliousness – is often what keeps us going, the refusal to give up, the insistence on our hopes and dreams, our resistance in the face of life’s disappointments. Rebelliousness isn’t entirely a bad quality.

I am a little tired of the Church’s interpretation of the Fall, to be honest. I would like to give another interpretation, which I go into in greater detail here. The Fall represents sexual knowledge, the serpent is the man’s penis and the apple is the woman’s breast. Adam and Eve acquired carnal knowledge (at the man’s instigation, note), and for this reason they had to be expelled from the Garden of Eden (whose letters rearranged spell danger of need). Because once you become sexually mature, the process of dying begins. In ‘The Consequences of Man’s Fall’, Metropolitan John Zizioulas puts it like this: ‘In beings with organs – especially mammals – the ageing cycle begins from the moment that the organism reaches the point of reproductive maturity.’

I don’t think God was being cruel. He wanted us to be co-creators, but we are not like him, we cannot create ex nihilo (out of nothing), we are translators, we use what already exists and make something out of it. We are not authors. Only God is this. So when we create another being, we cannot just mould a body out of clay and insert the breath of life into it. We are not the originators of life, as God is.

What we can do, however, is give of ourselves (as Adam did in the creation of Eve, when a rib was taken from him). And in this way we can have children. The difference is it is not a clone army, like in Star Wars, they are our very own children, with their own personalities and identities. And we can only have children with another person, we cannot produce children on our own.

The alternative would be a heaven containing only two people, Adam and Eve, or as many as God created from our ribs, without our conscious, active participation.

God gave us the opportunity to knowingly come together and fill the Church ourselves, one generation after another. That is exactly what we are doing. Filling the Church, giving life in the only way we can, through translation. The Fall – so long as it is followed by repentance, an acceptance of our need – may not turn out to be such a bad thing.

Jonathan Dunne, http://www.stonesofithaca.com

Posted on in Language

Mercy, And Not Sacrifice

The icons shine. When you give them even cursory attention, they shine. Icons are in the habit of gathering dust. They are bought in a moment of illumination and love, affixed to the wall, and there they stay for months and years on end, gathering dust. It is difficult to clean them all. Sometimes they are too many. Sometimes the edges are rough, you cannot run a cloth over them. Sometimes they are simply affixed to the wall too firmly or they are stuck.

And yet they respond to even a superficial dusting. Just a quick wipe, they seem to gleam, to appreciate the attention, to speak of another world where all is light. They beckon you onwards. ‘Keep going,’ they seem to say, ‘the race is not so long, it will be over soon.’ It is like when you have an illness, you feel terrible for a few days, but then when you get better, the life surges back into your veins, you are grateful simply to be alive, you almost cannot believe it. I wonder if this short cycle of illnesses like colds and flus isn’t a preparation for what death will be like, a feeling awful, followed by a rush of gladness and disbelief, of joy and gratitude when the weight is lifted. Having shed the stones of the illness that irked your feet, you will rise again, but this time your feet won’t touch the ground.

Simple things. The eye of the lamb on a mug. The resurrected cactus in its new ceramic pot. We ignore most of the things most of the time. Most of them become covered in dust for our sight. We see only what we want to see, or are capable of seeing, which isn’t much. How much do we notice the street we are walking along, when we are immersed in our thoughts? How much do we notice our neighbour’s need or put ourselves in their shoes, try to perceive the world as they do? I’m not sure we really see each other. We get glimpses, but most of the time it’s a cardboard cut-out, a presentation.

My father was just in a restaurant in Folkestone. He couldn’t position himself under the table properly, so that he could eat. An anonymous stranger sitting behind him got to his feet and slid my father’s chair closer to the table, carried out his purpose for him. My father was surprised, taken aback, mumbled thanks. Again, at the end of the meal, they exchanged a few words. He was so touched by this simple act of kindness that he felt the need to communicate it to me a few days later. An act of simple kindness.

I have been reading St Matthew’s Gospel in Greek. It is known that this Gospel was aimed primarily at the Jews (it is the only Gospel that was originally written in Hebrew and later translated into Greek) and it was concerned with presenting the life of Jesus as fulfilling the Old Testament prophecies, the words of prophets like Isaiah, Ezekiel, Jeremiah, who it seemed foretold the coming of the Messiah, the Spirit worked through them. There are many verses in St Matthew’s Gospel that are printed in bold, quotes from the Old Testament, but the only one that I am aware is repeated is when Christ says to those around him, ‘Go and learn what it means, “I want mercy and not sacrifice”’ (Mt 9:13, 12:7).

God wants mercy, not sacrifice. What does this mean? Is it possible that in this spiritual training ground that is the world God has his finger on the pulse of everything, he knows what we need and sends what is best for us, all he requires from us is not great sacrifice, but simple acts of kindness? We think we need to control events around us, we think only we will be able to find the resources that we need to enable ourselves and our families to survive, but is it possible that God has already arranged these things – the sacrifice – after all, he knows every blade of grass, every hair on your head, and what he needs from us is not the big picture, not the creation of the world (he brought the creatures to Adam to name, not to create), only that we open our eyes a little, that we notice our neighbour, that we blow away the dust?

Mercy, and not sacrifice. When you believe, the world catches fire.

Jonathan Dunne, http://www.stonesofithaca.com