Apes out of Eden

We loped into Eden as animals, knowing our place and our world, knowing God in our very sense of being. We ambled into Eden with our opposable thumbs and our bellies growling, with a sense of entitlement only existing in terms of survival. We migrated into Eden as one, as a united front that lived to pass on what we'd learned, our evolution crawling over a hundred thousand years.

And when we got comfortable in this garden that gave us so much aplenty, when there was time for thought and ideas and fire (for God's sake fire!) that's when we finally diversified our selves, our race. We wandered into Eden with our heads in the dirt and we fell in Eden when we turned our heads to the sky. There is no turning back from knowledge. Eden was bountiful but unforgiving.

"It's not us, it's them," we shout to the stars, barely able to hear our voices over the blasts. We rain fire on Eden to weed out the terrorists. We cut down the Tree to make room for development. We orphan the children in the Cradle of Life then pride ourselves in giving them charity. And when we're done, we take pictures and film documentaries and bury our mistakes in the sand.

We ride out of Eden in tanks and planes, knowing our place in the world, knowing God in the way we've named him. We march out of Eden standing upright with our bellies full, with a sense of entitlement that comes from being as God intended. We migrate out of Eden as many, as countries that exist to push our agendas, our regression so fast that we could annihilate ourselves in the next hundred years.

In like a lion

Like a lion he calls his children to the East and like a lamb I will follow, head down, stepping slowly, afraid of what's to come. Is this as close to certainty as we can get, happiness in an overwhelming decision?

She steps out of the darkness and shrugs off the winter of her fears. It's been so long since she's faced anything but uncertainty and now fulfillment is no different. Reality continues to be uncompassionately thin.