ALIVE: Chapter One - The Story Begins

Chapter One- The Story Begins

"Come on Adam! Get up and play with me!" she called. "It's such a beautiful day! I'll race you to the fig tree.”

Adam didn't budge. He was trying to nap and so he pretended not to hear.

Giving up Eve muttered, "Okay, I'm going for a walk. Sweet dreams sleepyhead."

Eve walked through the field of bright yellow buttercups, and other wildflowers whose names she couldn't remember, purple ones that made bouquets all by themselves, and little iridescent white platters of petals. The earth was so beautiful on this spring morning that she was thrilled and grateful to be a part of it. Blue winged, and red crested birds were flying to and fro overhead. Other bird’s chirping was so loud that she wondered what they could be saying. They sounded so busy and so serious.

While she was walking and gazing up at the birds, Eve stumbled over a rock and landed on her knees. At that moment a long garden snake approached.

"Oh no not you again!" she exclaimed. "Haven't you done enough damage? Go away. I am never speaking to you again."

The snake slithered closer to her and replied, "What are you talking about? I did you a favor. And look, you're not dead, are you?"

"I know you tricked me, and besides, I didn't even know what being dead meant, and I still don't. All I know is that everything seems so different now. You told me that I would become wise. Well, I don't feel wise. I don't even know what being wise means either."

The snake chuckled slyly to himself and said, "See! God still loves you."

"And I still love Him," she barked back as if threatening the slimy snake.

"God!" Eve shouted out to the air, "Please come here and make this snake leave me alone!"

No sooner had Eve said that than she felt the familiar warm breeze caress her face and wrap her in an airy blanket infused with the sweet-smelling fragrance of lilies of the valley.

Immersed in the feeling of fatherly love Eve watched the snake shrug and bury himself into the earth.

"Thank you, Lord." she whispered. "But while You’re here, may I ask you a question?"

God replied, "Of course my daughter; speak."

"What is death? Is being wise death?" Eve paused to wait for His reply and then added, "I don't feel wise, or dead. I don't even know what they mean. All I know is that since that snake tricked me and I disobeyed You. I feel sad sometimes, I miss Eden, and I still feel like I need to wear these clothes. Are You angry with me Lord?"

"Not angry, Eve; just disappointed that you didn't trust Me, and sad for you."

"But you made that snake, God!" she exclaimed. "Didn't you know what it would do? How did it get to be so sinister?" Before God could answer Eve added, "Why are you sad for me Lord? I'm happy. I love this beautiful world you made for us. It’s not Eden, but it’s still beautiful!" And then, to change the subject, she added, "Look what I can do!" Eve flung herself to the ground sideways in a cartwheel, and then another, and another before she stood up straight with her feet planted firmly on the ground and her long arms opened as wide as could be.

She heard God chuckle and that made her happy again, so she decided to say goodbye to Him and continue trolling through the fields. Soon she grew hungry and walked over to Cain’s garden to get something to eat.

When she arrived, she called out to him, "Cain, Cain, where are you?"

In a muffled and distant voice, as if he was crying out from the bottom of a well, she heard Cain say, "Here I am mother."

Cheerfully, Eve walked toward the sound, but her countenance plummeted when she arrived to behold her beloved son covered in blood. She looked beyond him and there was Abel, her sweet shepherd boy lying still.  His skin was green and lifeless, and his wide-opened eyes showed a stone-cold face filled with fear.

Eve was dumbfounded. "Abel, wake up!" she shouted, shaking him. "What is wrong with you! Abel, my son, what is wrong?!" She had seen animals and flowers die, but never had she witnessed a human death. When Eve realized that Abel was “dead”, she screamed so loudly in fear and horror that the birds of the air, and every living breathing creature fled from her presence. Adam also heard her and ran across the fields to where he found her with Cain. He gazed on the bloody lifeless body of his youngest son, and then up at the scene of Cain and his mother both stunned and silent.

God too arrived at this dastardly scene and was the first to break the terror-laden silence. He said to Cain, "I heard your brother's blood cry out to Me from the ground. Why have you done this?"

In the same distant tone that he used with his mother, Cain shifted the blame, "I was angry because You had regard for Abel's offering, but not for mine."

God said, "I told you that if you did well, you too would be accepted, but if you did not do well, I warned you that sin was lurking at the door; its desire is for you, and that you should master sin and not fall into its grip. It’s not just from the serpent to your mother, but the evil suggestion you accepted came from within you. Now see what you've done!"

Cain replied, "Bring him back, Lord. You made us, make Him live again for mother's sake."

"I will not do that." replied God, "You must learn about the consequences of your actions, as your mother and father are learning. Sin destroys both you and our relationship, and death on the earth is permanent. Besides, I created a place called Hades where Abel's soul went. He is there alone, but soon all of mankind after death, will follow Abel. Even you. I cannot go because I am Life, the creator of life and the essence of life. There is  possibility of death within me and I cannot leave myself. That is final. One day Cain, you will go there too and must face your brother again. Get ready for that day."

Eve and her husband Adam were crouched, weeping by their son's side. They heard nothing of what God said to Cain. She was stroking his hair and patting the lifeless body of her little shepherd who had died because of his brother’s jealousy. Adam said, "Now that we know death, we feel dead too." Talking to himself he added, "When we disobeyed God, we didn't even know what death meant. I didn’t think we died as God had threatened, but today I see and feel death."

"My son, my son where art thou?" Eve could not be consoled; the shock of a human death overwhelmed her more than if the sun had failed to rise above the mountaintop, as if the earth opened to swallow her. Nothing that she had experienced since her creation prepared either Eve or Adam for this moment.

God spoke. "Cain, now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you, its own strength; you will be a fugitive and a wonderer on the earth." And to Himself God said as He cringed to see the lifeless body of Abel whose gift had pleased Him so, and led to this violent end, “Someday I will make a shepherd boy like Abel, the king of my people, and he will kill thousands of his enemies and be a man after my own heart.”

Cain wept loudly and replied, "My punishment is greater than I can bear! Today you have driven me away from the soil, and I shall be hidden from Your Face; I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me."

With compassion the Lord answered, "Not so! Whoever kills you Cain will suffer a seven-fold vengeance."

Then Adam and Eve watched as the Lord put a mark on their beloved son Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him.

Eve moaned at the thought of losing Cain too. She winced at the memory of her own disobedience; how easily that serpent convinced her to not trust God. Could it be wisdom to know the suffering that disobedience causes, and to feel regret? Could the death of Abel, which caused her own heart to wither, and die be an aspect of her own delayed death too? Eve still could not imagine death for herself. She only just learned that it was possibly for a human body, made in the image of God to become lifeless, and that sight alone horrified her.

Cain wept in his mother's embrace. Adam pulled her away to release their son from Cain's clutches. "Before you go," said Adam, "Help me dig a hole to plant our Abel deep into the earth. I cannot gaze upon this body any longer."

After burying his brother in the earth, Cain left the presence of the Lord, and his parents to go to the land of Nod, east of Eden.

After Cain left and Adam and Eve were alone together, Adam’s sorrow turned to anger. He said, “This is your fault, not just Cain’s. THIS is death! We see it now when it hurts more than if we had died, because we gave him life, and it was taken away from us because YOU disobeyed God’s one and only command!”

In self-defense Eve retorted, “God didn’t tell ME not to eat it, He told you! YOU! Why did you immediately blame me? Instead, you could have asked God to forgive us: you and me!

No Adam, we’re equally to blame. The serpent didn’t trick you. God spoke to you and the serpent spoke to me, and we both obeyed the serpent, instead of God, and now God will barely speak to us.  Let’s not argue. Now we know what death is and it’s horrible.”

Eve walked away. She wanted to be alone in this new world without her sons. It was a new world of loss and conflict. She was confused and miserable.