21 August
“No tree, it is said, can grow to heaven unless its roots
reach down to hell.” – C. G. Jung
From “The Human Condition: A User’s Manual,” by Arnold Kunst
We 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.
This is NOT going to end 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
disobeyed the Lord by eating it we’d surrender the innocence thing, but maybe
we’d be like gods. Hey, maybe that’s why the Lord said we couldn’t - 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. If He didn’t want us to eat of it, why put it so
close? Etc.
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!
No comments:
Post a Comment