Dreamland

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” [Genesis 3:4-5].

The Old Testament reading (Revised Common Lectionary) for the First Sunday in Lent is the familiar passage from Genesis (2:15-17; 3:1-7) that describes the irrevocable encounter in the garden of Eden between Eve and the serpent, and its aftermath. Occasionally — why does this seem to occur only during Lent? — as I have supinely lay in bed, waiting for sleep to overcome me, my thoughts have turned generally toward the Genesis passage, yet more specifically to Eve. Did she not also have her own “Lenten” moments, particularly when she rested her head on one of the pillows that she and Adam had fashioned after “their Fall”? Had not sleep always easily come before their fateful bite?

As she lay there in the quiet of the late evening, did she think to herself that things had mostly worked out for the couple after that earth-shattering day? Through hard work they had, after all, made the best of a bad situation. They’d settled into their routines, raised the children, and grown older together? All in all, they had a lot of good upon which to look back.

There were, of course, the tragedies; everyone has them. She could remember the horror and coldness she’d felt when Adam had to break the news to her that one of their beloved sons had killed the other. A murderous son — how terrible that blow had been. Had he inherited his temper from his father?

Where was Cain now? She remembered him as a little boy, how he had come home one evening with ashes on his forehead, apparently after playing near an old fire pit. Now, of course, he bore an indelible mark that identified him to others as a killer. As she lay in her bed, listening to the heavy breathing of her husband, she knew in her heart that Abel’s murder had its origins in the presumptuous decision that she and Adam had made to do the one thing that Yahweh had told them they could not. They’d searched for knowledge and awareness and had found it. Oh, to undo that day ….

As she lay there in her thoughts, did she assess their life together, now after all the children had grown and left home? Did she lament how it seemed in recent years that Adam had developed a hair-trigger? As she deepened her contemplation, did she admit to herself that sometimes — not always — but sometimes, she’d been that trigger. A few days earlier, when they had argued so bitterly, was it really necessary to remind him that If he’d been a better provider, they wouldn’t have had to struggle as they had for so many years?

As she reposed in those last few moments before she drifted off, when her internal “to-do” list, like the candle beside her bed, was extinguished, when her guard was finally truly down, did she remember any of their “old” world? Could she recall a day and a time when each day and each moment had been spent in love and communion, both with each other and, even more importantly, with “their” Yahweh? Did she then sift over into her special dreamland, where all her faint recollections mingled, and yearned, and cried out for a home she could no longer name?