"The" Human Issue

There is one issue that we a s people have a vested interest in not hearing, and if we do hear have a vested interest in not doing anything about. It is expressed in one of the oldest written stories we have.

Truth, and perceptions of truth can be carried in a variety of ways, stories being one of them. Very often it doesn't really matter is the story is true or not for it to work in carrying an insight or truth. This is the case in this story:

The Biblical narrative starts with a fascinating story of the creation of man and how man was confronted with both a luscious garden to live in and a choice of two "attitude trees" which would define his attitude towards life in the garden. He could take one attitude or the other, but not both. One attitude was to draw upon God for guidance as to what was the best way to approach life (dubbed as "eating of the tree of life"). The other attitude was "please mommy, I'd rather do it my self" (dubbed as "eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil"). According to the story, we quickly chose to grab the "do-it-ourselves" apples and run, saying "please, I'd rather figure it out for myself".

Upon choosing to develop life in our independent way, we made one central decision: we walled off a sub-sector of the "garden" and declared the one non-negotiable rule for life "inside that fence". The central rule was "you can define anything as being at the center of life, or the central unifying factor of life, except God. If you want to define life as having God at the center of it, you are not welcome within the fence, and had best leave.

The Biblical narrative goes on to tell of God's extensive efforts to get us back into relationship with Him, with very little co-operation on our part. This is an effort still in process.