Theology/3

Whenever I read Cynthia Rylant’s God poems, I am reminded of this poetic vignette from Eduardo Galeano’s Book of Embraces, which I’m just quoting here and not rereading right now.

"Errata: where the Old Testament says what it says, perhaps it should say what its main protagonist has confessed to me:

A pity that Adam was so stupid. A pity that Eve was so deaf. A pity that I didn’t know how to make myself understood.

Adam and Eve were the first human beings made by my hand and I realize that they had certain defects in structure, assembly, and finish. They were not ready to listen, or to think. And I. . .well, maybe I was not ready to speak. Before Adam and Eve, I had never talked to anybody. I had pronounced grand phrases, like “Let there be light,” but always alone. So the day I met Adam and Eve in the cool of the evening, I wasn’t very eloquent. I lacked practice.

My first feeling was that of astonishment. They had just stolen the fruit from the forbidden tree in the center of Paradise. Adam had assumed the expression of a general about to surrender his sword, and Eve was staring at the ground as if counting ants. But they were both incredibly young and beautiful and radiant. They surprised me. I had made them, but I didn’t know that mud could look so luminous.

Later, I admit, I felt envy. Just as no one can give me orders, I know nothing of the dignity of disobedience. Nor can I know the boldness of love, which requires two. In keeping with the principle of authority, I resisted the desire to congratulate them for having suddenly grown wise in human passion.

Then came the misunderstandings. They understood “fall” where I spoke of “flight.” They thought that a sin deserved punishment if it was original. I said that those who fail to love are sinners; they understood that those who love are sinners. Where I spoke of a meadow of joy they understood a vale of tears. I said that pain was the salt that gave flavor to the human adventure; they understood that I was condemning them by granting them the glory of being mortal and a little nuts. They got everything backwards. And they believed it.

Lately, I’ve been suffering from insomnia. For several millennia now, I’ve been having trouble falling asleep. And I like sleeping, I really do, because when I sleep, I dream. Then I become a lover, I burn myself in the brief flame of fleeting love, I am a strolling player, a deep-sea fisherman, or a Gypsy fortune teller; I devour even the leaves of the forbidden tree and drink and dance until I’m rolling on the ground.

When I wake up, I’m alone. I have no one to play with because the angels take me so seriously, nor have I anyone to desire. I am condemned to desire myself. I wander from star to star, growing bored in the empty universe. I feel very tired, I feel very alone. I am alone—alone for all eternity."