“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell.” – C. G. Jung

13 October

From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst

Humans are doomed to screw up. I’m reminded of the old Groucho Marx line: “I would never join a club that would consider having someone like me as a member.” In the Genesis story of the Garden of Eden the Lord puts what the Bible calls the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden. Mind you, He doesn’t put it at the far end of the south 40, but right in the middle of the garden. Then He says you can eat the fruit of every tree in the garden - except this one.

Well, humans being wired as we are, that’s the very tree any of us would be interested in. And having it close like that gave Adam and Eve the chance to check it out carefully – they probably noticed how really attractive it looked. In fact, I’ll bet the more they studied it, the more it seemed to offer the promise of great things. If we eat it we’d be disobeying the Lord so we’d surrender the innocence thing, but maybe we’d be like gods. Hey, maybe that’s the reason the Lord said we couldn’t, because if we did we’d discover that we were real competition. And even if we did “know evil” afterwards, well, what's so bad about that? Isn’t knowing evil the same thing as checking out what’s on the other side of the next mountain? Isn’t life meant to be an adventure? Having that tree Right There and not trying out any of the fruit is for fuddy-duddies.

And with that kind of mindset, all it’d take is a little nudge here, a little suggestion there from the right serpent and the thing’s a done deal.

Get it? Doomed to screw up!