Putting "Us" In Our Place
Many believe the creation accounts in Genesis 1 & 2 are myths, in part because they are presented as two distinct stories. I'm not intending to argue that particular point today. Instead, I'll offer my personal belief that these two renditions are offered to make two separate points. I subscribe to the theory that Genesis 1 teaches life’s rhythm of time, while Genesis 2 teaches us that life is to be lived in a “place.” Genesis 1 talks of days. Genesis 2 talks location. For Adam and Eve that location was Eden. For my wife and I it happens to be Ocean Springs.
It should stand to reason that God expects us to live our lives right where we are, but we don’t often look at life that way. Waiting in line at Wal-Mart doesn’t seem so spiritually significant now, does it? Nor does sitting in traffic. Nor work on, say, a Thursday afternoon. Nor doing laundry (of all things). But truth be told, this is life as we know it. This is our Eden, where Satan woos and God goes for walks and we make decisions that have far deeper consequences than we realize.
Eugene Peterson tells a story of a former student who, for several mornings in a row, told his wife on the way out the door that he was going to immerse himself in God’s creation that day. After a few days, his wife suggested he might want to go to class instead. “Oh, I’ve been going to class every day,” he responded. “Then what is all this business about immersing yourself in creation?” she asked. “Well, I spend forty minutes on the bus each morning and afternoon. Can you think of a setting more thick with creation than that – all these people created, created in the image of God, created male and female?” His wife responded, “I never thought of that.” “You mean you’ve never read Genesis?” he said.
Okay, if I said that to my wife, someone (me) would be slapped for being a smart aleck. But I think the point is worth noticing. We are surrounded by God’s wondrous Creation every single day, wherever we happen to be. Our spiritual lives aren’t on hold for discovery on a mountain monastery retreat someday. They are to be lived right here (Genesis 2) and right now (Genesis 1).
It should stand to reason that God expects us to live our lives right where we are, but we don’t often look at life that way. Waiting in line at Wal-Mart doesn’t seem so spiritually significant now, does it? Nor does sitting in traffic. Nor work on, say, a Thursday afternoon. Nor doing laundry (of all things). But truth be told, this is life as we know it. This is our Eden, where Satan woos and God goes for walks and we make decisions that have far deeper consequences than we realize.
Eugene Peterson tells a story of a former student who, for several mornings in a row, told his wife on the way out the door that he was going to immerse himself in God’s creation that day. After a few days, his wife suggested he might want to go to class instead. “Oh, I’ve been going to class every day,” he responded. “Then what is all this business about immersing yourself in creation?” she asked. “Well, I spend forty minutes on the bus each morning and afternoon. Can you think of a setting more thick with creation than that – all these people created, created in the image of God, created male and female?” His wife responded, “I never thought of that.” “You mean you’ve never read Genesis?” he said.
Okay, if I said that to my wife, someone (me) would be slapped for being a smart aleck. But I think the point is worth noticing. We are surrounded by God’s wondrous Creation every single day, wherever we happen to be. Our spiritual lives aren’t on hold for discovery on a mountain monastery retreat someday. They are to be lived right here (Genesis 2) and right now (Genesis 1).
posted by Al Sturgeon | 6:19 AM
2 Comments:
I'm still not sure I buy Peterson's argument about Genesis 1 and time and whatnot. He seems to be laying an awfully heavy argument on something as wispy as the meter of the sentences.
Aside from that, I have no objection to the notion that Genesis 1 & 2, whatever else they may do, fundamentally ground humanity in [sacralized this-worldly] time and [sacralized this-worldly] place. But I also don't see that interpretation as being mutually exclusive with reading Gen. 1 & 2 as myth (in the sense I described in comments to another post, recently).
In fact, I'd argue that a reading that doesn't go beyond the sacralized time and place notions is a mythic reading.
A comment! Wow, my lucky day!
Thanks, Juvenal. I think you're right. The time/place reading wouldn't be mutually exclusive in relation to a mythic interpretation. That's my fault.
And as to the wispy argument, that would probably be me more than Peterson. His time argument borrows more from God's Sabbath commands than the meter of Genesis 1, though I read him to argue that Genesis 1 reinforces (and is the antecedent to) this time rhythm.
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