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?