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#1:
MEDITATIONS ON GENESIS: THE INCLUSIVE "I"
"It is not good for man to be alone...so I will make a helpmate for him". Even God could not make a man living all alone
in Paradise perfectly happy.
Medical science readily confirms the awesome reality of this time-honored wisdom. Those who live alone...the single, the widowed, and divorced have far higher premature death rates than those who are married. And other developmental experiences that increase the risk of social isolation later in life, such as educational failure, or even failing a grade in school, have life-long consequences that greatly increase the risk of premature death. Common to all of these experiences is the loss of dialogue, or the destruction of one's capacity to engage others in dialogue without inordinate stress.
In assigning Adam the task of "naming everything in creation", we are informed that Adam could use language without the
existence or presence of Eve. Yet a new word, a pronoun, came into existence in Paradise with the appearance of Eve......a word that would eventually lead to the Fall. For with the appearance of Eve,
Adam had to begin using the pronouns "I" and "You". Charged by his Creator with the task of naming all the other creatures in Paradise, Adam is suddenly confronted with the task of naming himself.
"Adama"..out of the earth....creates a new word "I" that seems to separate him further from the earth.
Without the other, the "you", there could be no "other", no "I". Thus in language, in dialogue with Eve, did
Adama begin the journey that would rupture him from the rest of Nature, from his Paradise, and from His Creator". The very discovery of an "I" implied that Adam could be separate and different from the
rest of Nature and separate from Eve.
To what extent then was the original "I" as used in Paradise, an "inclusive I", and to what extent was it an
"exclusive" I, a word that began to separate and differentiate?
An "I" that included all of the rest of God's creation in Paradise was inclusive, the ideal. An "I" that became exclusive and separate was Paradise Lost.
In our own lives, to what extent does our "self-concept", our "I" include those around us, including the
rest of the living world? And to what extent is our "I" an exclusive notion, one that is "selfish", one that excludes all others.
There are so many who are lonely, who cannot reach out...children at risk, those who are sick and invalid,
those whose self-esteem is so shattered that they can no longer include others, the shattered "I" that is in fact the emotionally exclusive "I", who desperately need those whose "I" is more
inclusive. Perhaps in reaching out to others, in caring for both one's fellow man and the rest of the living world, in including others, we begin the journey back to Paradise, and harmony and unity with
our Creator?
James J. Lynch
Life Care Health
© 2000
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#2
MEDITATIONS ON GENESIS: Dialogue is the elixir of life.
Medical data informs us that without dialogue, we wither and die. Mortality data readily
confirm that loneliness and social isolation rank among the leading causes of death in all post-industrialized modern societies. In the new millennium it is becoming ever more apparent that
"communicative disease" will emerge as equal a health threat as communicable disease.
Without the initial dialogue between parents and child, the soft voice, the soothing touch, the loving
comfort, the contact between eyes, the listening to an infant's cries and decoding their meaning, without the parental caring in dialogue, the infant would wither away and die. "Marasmus", or the
hopelessness that leads to the physical wasting away of the infant without parental dialogue, is a grim reminder of our need for dialogue. Do we, as adults, need dialogue ; less than an infant?
Consider the story of our origins as described in Genesis. (Whether allegory, metaphor, or real event is not an issue here. For the story does contain the accumulated wisdom of the ages, and has much to
teach.) Adam alone in Paradise before the existence of Eve! Adam given only one task by his Creator.....to name all living things in Paradise. Adam assigned the task by his own Creator to name all
the rest of the living world, to use words to codify and distinguish the rest of the living world. Adam as the first botanist, zoologist, biologist, geneticist, and etymologist. Yet who in the world
taught Adam to talk? With no one else on the scene, clearly the implication is that God taught Adam to talk, and that talking is therefore Divine in its origins. Yet why did God feel it was necessary to
give his final creation, "Adam", a name, before instructing him to name everything else in Paradise? And why assign Adam this task? What was so important in naming a tiger a tiger, and a lion a lion,
unless it was to be made clear that all of creation was fashioned in God's name.
Was it Adam's use of words, the capacity to speak, that led God to realize that it was not good for man to be
alone? That a man, created by God who could communicate would be unable to live in Paradise alone? And if our modern world is "Paradise lost", do we need dialogue any less than Adam did in his
original Eden? Or is dialogue, and our failure to engage others in real dialogue, a measure of how far we have wandered from our original Eden, and thus a measure of how far we have wandered away
from the original Creator of all language?
James J. Lynch
Life Care Health
© 2000
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#3
MEDITATIONS ON GENESIS:
WALKING IN GARDENS
Thanks in part to the Hubble Telescope, astronomical science floods us dailywith remarkable pictures of our ever expanding
universe, with its billions upon billions of galaxies still expanding outward into the depths of thegreat void, still obeying the directives of the original "Big Bang". "Let there be light was a Biblical
way of summarizing our origins. Billions of galaxies beyond our own, and trillions of stars, and gigantic black holes, and super attractors guiding the universe ever outward, even while black holes pull
the opposite way into their own super condensed mass.
Yet with all of the potential places the Diety-the Creator of the big bang-might visit-we are informed in the Bible that
God chose "to walk in Paradise in the cool of the evening". But why. Why of all the places in the universe did God choose to walk in the garden created for Adam? Or is God omnipresent in every part of
the Universe. And why while walking in that Garden did God leave to Adam the task of naming everything?
Yet what was a delight for God is something often forgotten by us. How often do we choose to walk in gardens in the cool
of the evening? Does television and the internet hold an allure over human beings that would hardly interest our Creator? And what was so pleasurable about walking in a garden in the cool of the
evening? Surely our hearts know the answer, since looking out into Nature quickly lowers our blood pressure.
How often do we take the time to commune with God's creation? How often do we make the time to walk in gardens in the cool
of the evening? Or have we allowed our lives to become so busy that we do not take the time to walk in Nature that even our Creator found to be a delight.
James J. Lynch
Life Care Health
© 2000
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#4
MEDITATIONS ON GENESIS:
ADAM'S MATE: THE BIRTH OF THE "I" AND THE "YOU"
And God said: "It is not good for man to be alone." Paradise all alone, even one made perfect by its Creator
was imperfect for Adam all alone. It was insufficient. Somehow Adam, who could name all of the other living creatures, was left bereft, with dominion over everything except his own loneliness.
And
so we are informed that Eve was born out of Adam's rib. And in that creation a new word, never previously uttered on the earth was also born. For with the arrival of Eve there was at last "another"—a
"you" existing with Adam in paradise. For with the birth of Eve Adam was forced to name the other, just as he had named everything else in Paradise. And by naming Eve as a "you", Adam also was left to
name him self, naming and identifying the "I". And Paradise began to tremble.
An "I" separate and distinct not only from "you", but separate and distinct from everything else in Paradise.
The emergent "I", the "exclusive I" of separateness, already pointing towards the gates East of Eden.
Adam's original "I" in Paradise included a sense of union with all of God's creation. Adam's
"I" in Paradise Lost was one that emerged as separate and distinct from the rest of God's creation. And with that separateness, Adam's loneliness began.
To what extent in our own journey back to
our origins, back to our Creator, back towards a Paradise that was lost do we expand our sense of "I" to include other human beings in our definition of our selves? To what extent do we include the rest
of the living world in our definition of our selves? Or by contrast to what extent do we exclude other human beings, and the rest of the living world in our definition of "self" and thus insure that
Paradise will remain but an illusory pursuit.
Surely the exclusive "I" should journey towards the development of an "inclusive I", one that seeks union rather than exclusion from the rest of God's
creation.
James J. Lynch
Life Care Health
© 2000
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MEDITATION #5
MEDITATIONS ON GENESIS:
THE "EWE" AND THE YOU
Who or what is it that speaks, and who is it that listens? While we are informed that Adam was taught to speak by God,
forever after that lesson was taught to human beings by other human beings hopefully passing on language as a Creator taught it, a language that did not separate but joined us to the rest of God's
creation.
A child crying in the night speaks in its own prelinguistic terror, hoping in the darkness of the night and in its complete vulnerability that someone will hear and respond. Who is it
then that listens, hears and responds? Is it different than a new-born lamb bleating in distress on a wind swept hill, who is then covered, protected and fed by its mother? The "ewe" that will never be a
"you", its cry ultimately tamed to echo in harmony with the soft bleatings of a flock of kindred sheep making sounds no different than the soft moans of a coastal breeze sweeping up the hillside, perhaps
growing into a soft roar rushing through the gaps in the mountains.
But the cry of a child is tamed by language and parents who speak to a biology that is similar yet profoundly different than the
"yew" who will never be a "you". The child's cry muted by a language that insists that one's biological needs can be met not only by cries, but understood with words.
When is it real and when is
it an illusion? Words replacing the cry—words spoken in way where our biological needs will be heard and understood by others? The taming of the cry—to become more than a yew bleating without a "you" in
the company of a flock that cannot speak----is to become a "you" recognized and understood by others. It is a "you that recognizes the rest of the living world, a "real you" anchored in one's flesh and
blood, because it was heard by others who truly lived in their flesh and blood, who heard their neonatal cries with the hearts rather than their minds.
The "ewe and the you" both aspects of a
Divine plan, both seeking union with the larger universe.
James J. Lynch
Life Care Health
© 2000
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