Last week I read Perelandra, C.S. Lewis' science-fictional telling of a world that is freshly created and where a character is faced with the same temptation towards "fall" as Adam and Eve had in our world.
In this story, the temptation is overcome. And Lewis un-leashes his profound creative genius on the glory and beauty and hope and wonder of what the future holds for an un-fallen world. I read it many years ago, and felt that it "baptized my imagination." I had a similarly joyful response to it again last week.
So this morning when I was listening to a brief devotional from Pray As You Go and they unexpectedly read Genesis 3, our story of temptation and fall, I found myself doing something unexpected. I found myself crying.
I spent time allowing my own imagination to wander and run. What would life had been like if they had withstood the test? What if Adam and Eve together in community (he was there "with her" don't forget) had spoken truth in the face of lies to one another and held onto what was good?
How many thousands of years of lives have been ruined as a result of that ill-fated decision? Wars, famines, sex-trafficking, child abuse, broken hearts, exploitation, ego, grasping, self-absorption, fear, anxiety, evil unleashed in exponential ways, being passed down from generation to generation, destroying and ruining what was built to last, built to be glorioius and beautiful and joyful.
Instead, the laughter is too brief, often shallow, often at the expense of another. Joy is fleeting. Peace is illusive. We are grasping, anxious, fearful, angry, jealous, wounded people. Our headlines remind us of this daily. Our own hearts tell us when we stop long enough to listen.
I have often referred to our world as "the land of the ruins" in posts and talks. At points recently I have wondered if this is too strong. Is there not much that is wonderful and beautiful and hopeful about this place?
But this morning I see again that "land of the ruins" is not too strong a word to describe the state that we're in but too weak. True, there are remnants of beauty and goodness. But none of it is as beautiful and good as it was intended to be. All is damaged. We live among the ruins of what was supposed to be glorious forever.
This is, indeed, the land of the ruins. We have only shadows and echoes of the world that was intended.
And so I cried today, over our world, sitting over my journal at Starbucks.
2 comments:
1) I think both sides of this coin are so true that we need to state them both emphatically and allow there to simply be a tension, a contradiction, to be wrestled with. Beauty and brokenness are mingled everywhere we look--we live in a world of deep joy and deep sorrow.
2) Happy birthday! It makes me feel old for you to be 35, Alex... haha. Hope it's a great day and a great year for you and the fam.
Ash,
your point is well-taken. and here i was (and perhaps still am) correcting myself as I was drifting away from the brokenness end of the spectrum towards the overly-idealized end of the spectrum.
but clearly what you say is true. and unfortunately there has been plenty of damage done by christians who over-emphasize the fallen-ness ends of things to the extent that they deny any beauty or goodness here on earth. this has been largely done in & by a poor understanding of the reformation doctrine of "total depravity."
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