Alone in Eden

Admittedly, I do not take the ancient Hebrew story of the Garden of Eden literally (Genesis 2-3). In fact, I am largely persuaded that it was never meant to be received as an historical account of humanity's beginnings. Returning to the story now and again, the narrative reads more like a parable or a cautionary tale than a chronicle of events. Sometimes when reading the story, I imagine that it was an ancient Hebrew mother or grandmother who gathered her family around a fire or hearth millennia ago and told this story for the first time--perhaps in an effort to communicate deep, sacred, and universal truths about humankind that would help her family make sense of the world and of their very lives. The simplicity of the story allows a wide variety of people to identify with it: from communion to alienation, to command and temptation, as well as friendlessness and companionship, the parable of Eden is a mirror in which the details of our own lives often look similar to life in (and outside of) that mythical garden.

Lately, I have been both facinated and haunted by a particular aspect of the parable of Eden. After bringing "Adam" to life, the storyteller says that: "...the Lord God said, 'it is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner'" (Genesis 2:18). God proceeds to bring (or create) every kind of animal to Adam to be named and known. None of these, however, is found as a suitable partner for Adam. Like the animals, Adam is a sensory body with instincts and appetites, but unlike the animals, it would seem that Adam has a distinct capacity for reason. Adam's rational capacity not only distinguishes him as an intellectual creature, but it also gives him accute awareness of himself as a self--a self who is capable of assigning meaning and value to the life that he is living. Adam's gift is also the source of a kind of pain: his aloneness. There is no companionship for Adam. The animals can give Adam a certain kind of companionship, but not something to his equal. They can perhaps show signs of basic bonding to him, but Adam's capacity for mutual companionship is much greater than that of the animals. Every act of the human can be intentional and communicative of meaning and value. And while Adam can (and perhaps does) act this intentionally to the animals, they in turn cannot give Adam back what Adam is capable of receiving: intelligent, intentional mutual regard and care.

A lot of people know how at least this part of the story plays out. God brings Adam a fellow human as his partner and they live happily ever after...until chapter three that is, and the arrival of that crafty snake from stage right. But it is Adam's "alone-ness" that has grounded my reading of this text lately. I suppose that there are a number of us who often feel like we are alone in Eden. Yes, we have various fellow creatures that we have met along the way, all good, and each unique, but none having what we need to fully explore and experience the depths of our capacity to relate to another sentient and intelligent being.

Of course, we are meeting potential partners all of the time, and we are fortunate to have the power to be constantly making new frienships of different kinds, some for a season and some for life. The various kinds of intimate relationships that we have in life should be celebrated and not taken lightly, because in them we find a certain kind of satisfaction of that need for mutuality and companionship. And yet, in many of us (even if not all of us) there is a deep desire to announce as Adam did that we have at last found "bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh!" I understand that declaration to mean that in his partner Adam looked and saw another self. Adam saw not only the beautiful creature that stood in front of him, but he saw what was within: Another "I", another "self" that had the full range of capacities that he himself did. Here was a creature like himself that not only could complement his physicality, but also his intellect. Here was a creature like himself who also had the rational power to know meaning and value to life. The potential of life together opened up new levels of meaning and value perhaps unattainable without such a partner to explore and engage life together.

In a world having a great number of friends, lovers, and chance encounters with wonderful strangers, the parable of Eden has often come to mind. In a crowded room full of friends or family, I sometimes feel a distinct "alone-ness." I have seen new lovers holding hands and looking deeply into one another's eyes. I have seen an elderly couple take to a dance floor and whirl and twirl like newlyweds. I have seen partners look into each other's eyes and cry as they take their vows. I have seen parents hold their newborn babies. As I have celebrated these moments in the lives of friends and family, each of these experiences have been like mirrors to my own life, in which I see myself, Adam, standing alone in Eden. In these moments when it seems inappropriate to vocalize such alone-ness in the face of other people's happiness, I hear a whisper in some deep sacred place of my being, and it says: "It is not good that the man should be alone." The repetition of that phrase is difficult. Is the wisdom of the parable of Eden that your partner will in fact come and that you must only have faith? Or is the repetition of that phrase the voice of wisdom commanding me to leave alone-ness and create that which I do not currently have?

Perhaps the answer is a little of both. The question then becomes: do I know what to look for? Eden is full of many wonderful and delightful creatures. But the truth is, the creature with whom I can experience actual happiness is one who has the power to be another "I" and another "self," and who wants to be an already complete human being in relation to me. It requires me to appreciate, and yet, see beyond the sensory body in order to look for one who appreciates himself as a body/mind composite, not merely as one who lives by appetites and instincts alone. That of course, is a tried and true lesson. Upon careful inspection, the lesson of Eden also requires me to not only seek out one who is a total self, but to respect and value myself as one as well. It requires me to remember that all of the other Adams in this world are in need of another total self too. And perhaps when we begin looking for that, we will finally be able to see each other...and in that seeing we will find each other and at last say: "bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh!"