Alright, I am over my Friday night insanity with all the elders from chapter 5 . . . It is difficult to get past the teachings that were absorbed into my very young brain in Catholic school, not meaning Catholic school was wrong but rather that I still have a difficult time letting go of the real truth of the beginning of the bible. We all do this, we so want to believe that it is true and scientific. To quote Father Robert Barron, “My hope is that those who are tripped up by the beginning of the book of Genesis can make a small but essential interpretive adjustment and see these writings as they were meant to be seen: not as primitive science, but as exquisite theology.”
True! 
The story of Noah is one about covenant. The covenant between God and man. Let’s face it, the world is full of sin. The story of Noah is really profound, as are many of the stories in Genesis. If you really look deeply into it you see that this narrative shows the true love of God.  Right here at the beginning of the bible we see that God is showing that He is hurt by humans. God is not looking to hurt us, He is simply trying to teach us to live according to His plan. 
I am learning to look at these stories individually, to find the true meaning. What is more beautiful than a covenant with God, God telling us that he will never abandon us? Even though this message is so simple, it is not always easy to remember, at least not for me. Sometimes in the trials of life, when God should feel most present, it doesn’t feel as if God is there. But that is exactly the time that God is there . . . quietly listening to our hearts, waiting for the silent prayer that only He can hear.

Genesis seems like it should be very straight forward, right?  Let's go over it:

Adam and Eve have sex, I say it that way because, well dammit, that's how chapter 4 begins . . . they have sons (of course) and their sons have sons and their sons have more sons . . . of course! The women are there somewhere, just not mentioned too much. They do say from time to time that so-and-so gave birth to sons and daughters, but we never hear their names . . . just the sons. But I digress . . . and we move on . . . all these sons are walking the earth, for many, many years . . . and I mean many years! And not just that . . . they were fathering more sons and daughters well into their hundreds!!! 

So far chapter 5 has given me the most laughs and the most frustration. We leave behind the drama with Cain and Abel (I promise I will talk about them very soon, just not in this post). This is the laughter part: We get the run down of the Adam and Eve family tree . . . and let me tell you that is one OLD tree. The theme here is that Adam's descendants "lived" to be hundreds of years old. Here's what made me laugh; in each paragraph it stated who was who on the Adam tree and at the end of each paragraph the line would say, for example: Adam lived for nine hundred and thirty years; then he died. Seth lived for nine hundred and eleven years; then he died. Enosh (the first man to invoke the name Yahweh—guess he didn't get the memo about the new translation) lived for nine hundred and five years; then he died . . . Chapter 5 ends with Noah, also living a long life . . .

The frustration with this chapter is that it is so inconceivable that anyone would live hundreds of years. So I have to try to swallow this with a spoonful of sugar and understand that the bible isn't always literal. I understand that it is interpretive and perhaps metaphorical. But this creates a problem for the side of me that wants it to be cut and dried . . . I don't always have the strength to ride on my faith. I get that, when the bible says we are all descendants of Adam it is more in the spiritual sense, not the literal.
But . . . still hard to swallow.

Next post: Noah! I need a rest before that flood!

And so I begin with the beginning. I love that the Bible actually starts with those words…“In The Beginning”. Well, who knew? It was indeed just the beginning, and in some ways, when you think about the vastness of this world and time, we are really still in the beginning.

I have read Genesis many different times in my life, most of which were forced upon me through school or for writing purposes. So I have begun this process reading in a new way. I could go on and on about the many arguments about evolution vs. creation. Was it seven days or seven thousand years? Is it still going on, even now? Was it the Big Bang or did it exist before that? And if the Big Bang is real, then why is it not possible that God created that BANG?! So many philosophers have asked these questions and have formed answers. If one really thinks about it, all the answers can seem both right and wrong. But isn't that what the bible is to so many: pages and pages of faith filled words, pages and pages of questions that don't always have clear and concise answers, pages that sometimes have deep meaning to us and at other times mean absolutely nothing because we are too panicked in our own brains from all the things that stress us every day? The point here is that the world was created in some way by the hand of God. Thus far, I have read the first three chapters, and my brain is feeling cluttered as it usually does when I try to pull apart the bible. In order to digest the bible I feel as if I must have an openness and a faith that is strong…HA! Let's face it…who of us has a faith so strong that it never fails? No one that I know. But there it is every day, a new beginning…another chance to start over. So the bible starts with that…a beginning…a newness.

The chapter that spoke to me today was mostly chapter 3.  Lets face it, the first two described creation and this is a story I know only too well…or so I thought. It is almost so simple that it is not. When I was growing up and going to school this story was the best way nuns had to scare the hell out of kids. "Look what happened to Adam and Eve" the nuns would proclaim, and I remember thinking…okay, they didn't actually die right away…They had children…they lived their life pretty much the way we all do.  So I would ask myself, "What's the big deal?" I still ask that…"Whats the big deal?" 

And then of course, there are those times when it all seems like a really big deal. It feels as if there is so much going on that there really isn't time to stop in that garden and remember what that beginning signifies. It shouts of our humanity…we are all so imperfect. We all sin. We all stray…and that includes the very best of us. We walk every day with all the things that trouble us…we carry our own burdens and the burdens of others. Some days the light of God seems so strong that I can reach out and touch it. Other times I walk away quite purposefully... I walk away waiting to be called home. Much like Adam and Eve, we all make mistakes, we all have times when we are doing something that we know is wrong but we do it anyway. Do we do it because we know God will forgive? Do we do it because we really don't care? Or do we simply do it because we are human, humans that even in the best of times walk in the desert?

Even though we are more than a week into Lent, I have made the true decision to read the Bible…I don't just mean read it, I mean to understand it as the person I am now. We all go through journeys in life, we all change, we all become wounded, we all have scars…but I truly believe it is what we do with our wounds and what we have learned from them that makes us the person we are each day.

I went to Catholic School all of my life…I've studied the bible…I've used the bible for work…I thought I knew the bible through and through, but it turns out that I really don't. I know the words... I know there are those who bash those words… I know that the Word is powerful!

I am not looking to transform anyone but myself. Perhaps in my transformation there will be others that will journey too... I am not here to preach or to teach. I am simply here to read with new eyes…to understand with a different heart…to wander inside my soul…to walk in this new desert.