This week's BSF concluded the downward spiral of THE FALL. Genesis Chapter FOUR.
Eve chose to gain knowledge under the advice of a crafty nimkampoop who didn't deserve the time of day. Temptation in itself is not a sin but giving space for it to manifest at newer levels is....
Was she terribly hungry and there wasn't anything else available? Hardly. Yet she rationalized that it looked good for food. Was she in the desert and the tree was the only thing to look at.. the only beautiful thing to bring joy to her eyes? No, yet she went against her best judgment saying it was pleasing to the eyes.. Did she feel cheated in the school of life and that she was being treated as a second rater in paradise? ....she desired the wisdom and she was willing to accept it from the dubious, beguiling crafty creature.
She could've told it to "buzz off" and keep its gibberish to itself.. But no. She took the bait and also took her nearest and dearest Adam down with her for the count.
And thus was born the need for psychotherapy!
Conscious of guilt, a new habit was born; escape mechanisms. They could've admitted their guilt but they hid. They lost all sense of their self and the relationships they enjoyed up until then... they were filled with fear and insecurity and filled with angry blame. Instead of owning responsiblity, they played hot potato.
So the serpent founded a new game with the powerful and passionate emotions the hated humans had... as much as humans had the capacity for intellectual pursuit, creative passion and profound relationship; their emotions were malleable. Humans can be bent out of shape. They can be fed the illusion that they are alone, isolated and not loved enough.
This week we discussed Cain... the serpent's next pawn.
His brother, Abel, made an offering of the firstborn of his livestock. Cain made an offering of vegetables and fruits. Abel's sacrifice was acceptable and Cain's was not and Cain took it as a personal rejection and went to sulk over it alone.
I doubt God told Cain that he sucked because after Cain left obviously upset, God went to check on him later on. Seeing Cain yet miserable over something that has come to pass, God asked.. "Why are you so downcast?"
Cain had no answer, maybe he shrugged and played the "I don't know" game.
So God comes to listen Cain out and Cain is stuck in his head so God warns that Cain is making himself vulnerable by brooding so much and that Cain ought to master his emotions lest sin masters them for him.
Cain decides on a brilliant idea to kill his brother to feel better... playing the "kill the competition" card. God comes over as asks where Abel is and Cain says smugly that he is not his brother's keeper. Whew! What a handful of attitude from the firstborn of Adam and Eve.
God punishes Cain by separating him from his family and putting him east of Eden to wander to be the rootless independent person that he wanted so much to be. He could've had some remorse for murdering his brother but he didn't have it. He could've developed some remorse later on in his life... but the story of Cain doesn't go that way...
Cain lived to glorify himself and had the "look out for number ONE" attitude and he parented that attitude in the generations that came from him. The civilization that rose from his lineage created "fathers" of invention and the arts. Achievement was the modus operandi and boasting of one's self... and murder continued to justify getting rid of people who crossed one's path the wrong way and was bragged about.. One's of Cain's descendents was so proud of his murdering someone that he wrote a poem to glorify it.
Wow.. and I thought Eve was misled. Cain, the first fruit, of Eve's new fallen life couldn't seem to find his track. Maybe he was the "crack baby" after the forbidden fruit infusion. Maybe he was a sin addict and at first tried to keep himself under control but after a while, the monkey was just riding his back like King Kong.
As painful as Cain's thoughts were to him, he had God by his side for a while to work things out with but he opted out of that option. Cain's baggage was an illusion that kept him from feeling connected and judging from the way his life continued when he was creating his life the way he wanted without God, the appetite for kudos was endless and destructive.
You can't create security from a place of insecurity... and insecurity is an illusion.
JNET
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