Dear God,
It’s me, Eve. Again.
It sounded like such a good idea,
especially when the snake put it the way he did. Knowledge is a good thing,
right? What could be the harm? And the snake….he was so good-looking and his
words made me feel powerful. Tilling and keeping….it’s all so boring, and the
snake was offering me something more—to really make something of my life.
But it hasn’t turned out so well,
has it?—thinking I had the wisdom to rule the world has only brought us
starvation, enslavement, pollution and war exploding all over the planet.
Look at what is happening in your
part of the world today—we have made a mess of your good creation. Marchers in
the square, guns and tanks on every corner.
In Bil’in, in the Judean hills, the
bulldozers are still building the wall, cutting the village off from its
farmlands. Tomorrow, after Friday prayers, the people will march from the
mosque, out onto the road, past the memorial to Bassem Abu Rahma, killed by Israeli soldiers firing a tear gas canister in 2009. Photo shows Bassem flying a kite in protest against the separation barrier around Bil'in, in July 2008.
The protesters will be
joined by Israeli supporters, working to free their country from the tyranny of
militarization and occupation, and by peacemakers from all over the world, with
a dream to free Palestine from M-16s, the boots of Israeli soldiers hitting the
ground and tear gas canisters.
They will
march to the wall, singing freedom songs, waving hopeful Palestinian
flags—middle-aged men, old women, young mothers carrying babies, young men
wearing the traditional Palestinian kuffiyeh and the young boys, who will pick
up handfuls of stones from the road and throw them, in a protest of
resistance, at the 27-foo-high concrete barrier blocking access to their land.
That sweet-tasting and
beautiful-looking fruit Adam and I ate has rotted and turned poisonous. All our
knowledge has not made us happy; it’s just given us a false sense of our own
power; and now we are ashamed. We build walls to protect ourselves and they end
up imprisoning us; we make bigger weapons and they kill our children.
We try to figure out which side to
support, but all our knowledge will not end the suffering.
Looking back, I’m sorry I didn’t
just stick with the job you gave us—to till and keep the garden, to serve you
and protect what you created. It turns out all you wanted was our happiness—if
we had only listened.
Maybe that’s why you gave us Lent.
Love,
Eve
Gracious God, you have given your
creatures abundance beyond anything we could dream of. But we have not paid
attention to your generous desires for our happiness and have followed our own
desires for power instead. Accept our heartfelt remorse and turn our hearts to
the tilling and keeping of your beautiful creation. Help us to see you walking with those who continue to seek their freedom; keep them safe today. Amen.
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