4 Travel by Fast

Now that I’ve gotten the nerve to go, I am very excited. You and I are going to escort Eve back to the Garden of Eden for our Lenten Journey; imagine that.

“Eve, when you saw that Jesus was in the Garden while He was here, did you ask Him how to go back?” I asked.

“Yes, He said that we have to wake up and He will give us light to guide us. Our journey will not be by land as the Exodus was, and it will not be fantasy like your vacation to heaven was last summer. He told me that it will be like the real journey we take every morning from asleep to awake. He said it will be a journey of the body, mind, and heart. I think I know what He meant.”

Feeling a twinge of disappointment, I said, “Everyone wakes up individually, how then can we go together?”

“We can go together because it’s Lent! That’s why we can only do this now and not at any other time of the year. During Lent we are united in our hearts as at no other time. We love God together, each in his or her own way. Our united, holy, catholic (universal) heart has the power to return to Eden as it seeks the Father because that is where He placed us, through me, at the very beginning by His Will and His heart. It is the love magnet. Do you see that?”

“Give me time.” I replied.

Eve went on, “No one knows that he or she is asleep when they are, not even you.” she said looking me straight in the eyes with a little smile. “But when we wake up we’ll know it. That’s why, before Jesus came it was impossible to get back to Eden; we were all asleep. When I saw Him I woke up because the man and I were made in Jesus’ image and likeness. I instantly recognized God in Him, in His spirit. Oh, I can’t explain it; I’m not the writer, you are!”

I had never seen Eve so frustrated, but I could imagine what she meant. I had heard about twins separated at birth who later recognized themselves in each other. I suspected that Eve could remember being with God, which is why we need her. Only Eve will know when we have arrived in Eden. But she needs us too; when she saw Jesus she was reminded of when God was near her, but the good and evil of the world stressed her back to sleep. She needs our collective spiritual energy in the Lenten season to catapult her to Eden, and so do we.

Eve continued, “Just as on any morning, your body wakes up first, then your mind, and then your heart. That’s why when you wake up, sometimes you’re still aware of your dream because your body is awake, but not your mind.

The way to wake up the body is by feeding it differently. That will get its attention!  That’s another reason we can only go during Lent. When else can we get everyone to wake up their bodies at the same time? 

To be in Eden, or to go there, our bodies must be nourished in the way God intended at the beginning. We must stop eating meat. In Eden God very explicitly instructed us to eat the plants and fruit that grow on trees. We were fine with that diet.      

The will power it takes to abstain from meat helps the spirit-me master the flesh-me as it should be instead of the other way around; as it usually is! Since God is Spirit, by strengthening our spirits we can be alert to hear His voice when He calls us back into Eden!”  

Not eating meat will be very hard for me, I thought. I was so used to juicy chops and chicken. I wondered if I was able to stop eating meat. I wondered if I would be able to hear God’s voice when I said, “Eve , even though you saw Jesus living as though He was in the garden, how do you know that we will still find your Eden? After all, Jesus was divine too. He wasn’t like me, and frankly not like you these days either.”

I was a little surprised that she didn’t stop to ponder my question when she said, “Because I know that Eden is still here. God never changed the world after we ate from the tree, He didn’t suddenly dump evil on it like rain.”

This was news to me. I had heard that all of creation had fallen just because she ate the poisonous fruit, so I said, “Well then, how do you account for crime, disease, war, natural disasters, all the horrors of this world!”

“Good and evil were always on earth, even before we ate the fruit, and they always will be. Do the people who say that the whole earth fell see how exquisite this earth is, and how beautiful of heart so many people are? No, I will never support anyone who says that mankind and the earth itself fell just because I disobeyed God once!” Eve’s ire was up. “After we ate the forbidden fruit, the only change was our perception. The world didn’t change, we did! Read it for yourself! It was only when Adam and I felt naked that God could tell that we had eaten the fruit. Eden is still here, and we will wake up to it because Jesus shows us how to!” Then Eve grew slightly penitent when she said, “When we turned away from our Father-God to believe the lie that we could be wise if we knew good and evil, then our focus shifted to ourselves. The birth of the ego! That was the moment of death! I admit that I made a big mistake, but I did NOT cause evil! God never said I did. What really happened is that we died by not being one with God.”

“I’ll bet that Jesus ate meat!”  I said trying to calm her down by changing the subject.

“Are you still thinking about meat?! Geesh! It’s not just about eating meat, even though killing animals is horrible; it’s about being obedient to God, trusting him implicitly! Being able to control what you eat, for love of God, is the very first step to being able to control what you think for love of God, and finally being able to control how you behave for the love of God. It’s all about true love and how one demonstrates it.

Some people say they love but there is no proof of that whatsoever. They say that they don’t have to prove that they love God. But I don’t know why they wouldn’t want to. When I loved my babies, I wanted to feed them and care for them and give my whole self to them because that’s what love made me do. If I neglected my babies and said I loved them then people would be able to see right away that I was lying to myself.  

If you can’t say no to eating meat, then how will you abstain from eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil?”

“Wait; is there really such a tree?” I asked?”

“Of course there is! What do you think got us into this mess? You blame me for something that you all do, ten times a day!”

I think I succeeded in getting Eve very angry with me. “Well,” she shouted, “I’m warning you, when we get back to the Garden, and that Tree is sitting right smack in front of you promising to make you wise as God, you had better be prepared physically and mentally not to eat from it.  So, if you don’t practice not eating something you really like to eat now, how can you possibly resist the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil instead? Remember, we are going to find the Tree of Life!”

That did it. Finally Eve convinced me of why it was so important to fast during Lent. 1. To get used to the vegetarian life of the garden 2. To wake up my body, and 3. To practice not letting myself have whatever I want so I can practice being obedient, doing what the authority wants when it runs against what I want, such as eating meat! Obedience helps us with the ego problem.

“Are you almost ready to wake up?” she begged anxious to get started.