Adam and Eve

In pondering the Adam & Eve story yesterday, I came up with a new understanding of it. (I am so so grateful to Christian Science - so these stories we hear over & over yield up more gems just about every time we read them.) So, this gal, Eve, was in this garden with her husband. And along came "The whisperer" (a.k.a. "the talking serpent").

So "the whisperer" talks to Eve for a few moments, and for some reason, she starts accepting the thinking as her own. So she goes and does the stupid thing God specifically told her not to do. And God punishes her for the rest of her life. (O.k., so that's a very in-brief synopsis of the story - but that's what I need to share to tell what my insight was.)

--- the new insight ---

The last time or two ago that I heard the story, I found out the another meaning of the original word for "the serpent" was "the whisperer." Which had a profound affect on my understanding of the story. Just knowing that.


Well, yesterday as I was pondering the same story, remembering about "the whisperer," I was thinking "what are some of the whispers that we hear all the time...."
--pain
--slow
--hurry up!
--traffic
--too much to do
--angry
--skin problems
--sick
--breast-cancer research
--starvation / world hunger
--lack --(etc.) And these are ALL whispers.

And if we listen to them, we will be punished by the belief of making these our own. If, however, we recognize them for what they are, they are just whispers. They are not real thoughts from God. We should just walk away and turn towards a better understanding of God to help us learn more about God and thus, more about ourselves. Now, I know this is what I've taught Sunday School students a lot, so this may seem sort of basic, I don't know if I'm translating all this with the best words to exemplify my thoughts. I guess, as I type it, what I'm realizing is that I just grasped a higher view of all of this. --- In other words --- The whisperer is constantly whispering at us in many forms.

If we take a hold of it and think of it as "my thoughts" (insert your own name -- "Jodi's thoughts" or "[my] thoughts") then we will be punished for it. "The belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts" says Mary Baker Eddy. --- This morning --- Yesterday, I thought about posting all of this. This morning I was sort of refreshing my thoughts so I could post it today. And I had another thought about the story: Punishing Eve for taking a bite of a piece of fruit - punishing her for the REST OF HER LIFE is pretty extreme.

I don't think that our God (the God that Christian Sciences teaches us more and more about every day) would do such a thing. So this allegory had a new "sense of false-ness" (like that word?) to me today. The story HAS to be false, because God would never do such a thing. So the moment we turn towards the whisperer and do or think what it says, we will be punished. So the moment we turn away from the whisperer and turn towards God, that is the moment we have no punishment. I, for one, want no punishment. Hopefully, you all will agree with me there!! Every day I strive to learn more about God, and many days I succeed. Hopefully there will come a point in my life when every day I learn something new about God - after all, God is infinite! Why shouldn't I be able to learn something new and radical and awesome and cool about God?? With sincerest love (and I hope I was able to translate the higher view I have of this as of yesterday)

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