The Great Temptation

Eve's (and my) fruit-eating problem

The thought of not
Sensing something else
A power outside to consume
Me, mine, mine, my
Creation of suffering and craving.

That one drop of yeast
Leavening in my mind
Knowledge of good and evil
Festering curiosity 
About objects and their mysteries.

The fruit stares back at me
With intoxicating beauty.
My mouth waters
The smooth skin touches my lips
I inhale the sweet essence.

God's voice fades
My teeth crunch into juicy flesh
I swallow. Oh.
My mind spins a thousand gears. Now I know.
But which one am I? 

Commentary

This last poem before leaving Eden is my interpretation of the forbidden fruit temptation. I feel this “original sin” embodied in my human existential struggle for control and the duality of facing good and evil. In my experience, this temptation to separate from the Divine never ends. I am in it daily, fighting against my mind’s perpetual analyses and schemes to fashion something physical to deal with my perception of good and evil. I am guessing I am not alone in this!

When I was wrangling with the concept of “original sin” a few years ago, I dove into books. I read a book called Sin: A History and studied what the original word meant and how we have interpreted and misinterpreted the concept. I actually found both the book and the most critical reviews of the book helpful.

The trail led me to study the interactions of our concept of God, our concept of ourselves, and our concept of the world. Atheists or agnostics do this too, so we can assume these projections are under the surface of all our interactions. My studying was interesting, but it motivated me to avoid dealing with humans altogether (well, more than I already was!).

Finally, it clicked that the complexity I was reveling in was a distraction from the simplicity of the problem (repeating pattern alert!). So today, the wording and arguments about who has been right or wrong over thousands of years do not interest me. I watch my own mind and my own control-freakiness and make every attempt I can to do one thing: connect to God. Simple, yes, but not easy. If it were easy, we all would be doing it all day every day.

But, I know people who have achieved traction and my goal is to be one of them. To get beyond the great temptation, I need a deep abidance and union with the Divine in each moment. There are a lot of words for it - I hope you have one.

So, in signing off this week, I am grateful that a bunch of different angles piled up on me to lasso my wild and wandering mind and bring me clarity. That lasso-turned-lifeline is to develop my own personal pattern of prayer. Some people call this a practice, others call it a discipline, and still others call it habit-building. I want to call it a pattern because that is how my unruly mind functions; when I find a pattern it is like “cracking the code” so let’s see if this works. I will report back on what I find and let me know if you have helpful advice!

“I like to think of prayer like a singing bowl, a type of small metal bowl that many have used in meditation and prayer for centuries. Slowly one circles the edge of the empty bowl with a mallet until the bowl sings. It takes practice. It takes patience. But held and circled with care, the bowl can sing.”

KJ Ramsey, The Book of Common Courage