The Fall

Creation being God’s greatest work of art, his spirit is in all of it. A tree may not be God, but it is an expression of some part of him. In the same way that a painting of a tree tells you something about the artist that painted it Creation tells us of God. The painting is not the painter, and yet there is something of the painter in the painting. The length of brush stroke, the colors used, the way the tree is shaped, the movement of the piece all tell you something about the person behind the paint brush. So is creation a small telling of the spirit and grandeur of God.

                Likewise, that we are created in God’s image means that we are hopelessly complex. For the God we worship is big enough to hold all things and still be who and what he has always been. We too can be that big, but only if we choose it. In the Fall, something was lost, but I don’t believe it was Creation’s ability to be like God. I think what we lost was the innocence to trust God in all things, and the openness to fully experience people, God included, as whole people. According to the writer of the narrative, we were given something too. The knowledge of good and evil gave us the ability to judge, but it also took from us the ability to accept someone holistically. Now we can put people in boxes and organize our beliefs and toe the line, but we can no longer look at mankind and see the good before the bad, and accept that different people with different beliefs are just as right in their own minds as we are. We gained passion for our views, but lost the openness to hear someone else’s.

                I don’t think Creation is fallen, I think that’s an easy answer to a terribly complex and scary to answer question. One that we would rather blame on Adam and Eve than our own volition. Creation isn’t broken, people are. Creation didn’t stop when God rested. It continues, even to today, with every new tree, new life, and new exploration and discovery of the imagination God gave the world when he spoke it into being. If we listen for that voice, we can create too. If we’re so wrapped up in what we learned from a tree that we can’t hear the voice of God, we can’t.