They say that there was a time... when there was no world, just cold empty space, a vacuum filled with nothing but a barren emptiness. Nothing of this life so familiar to you and I existed then............ No life of any kind.
I find this simple fact so difficult to comprehend. Our world and all that we take for granted had not yet been contrived. Some days I find it impossible to believe that our kind have not always been here. No matter how your brain works, that is a difficult concept to grasp.
Other days, usually Mondays, I wake up to realise just how insignificant we truly are.
One day, God (or the grand architect if you prefer) in his or her unfathomable wisdom decided to create a world. The story claims that this was achieved in only six days and six nights, leaving the seventh day as a day of rest. I sometimes wonder what God did with the following week and the week after that! For after you have created a world, what can you possibly do next? Nobody has ever satisfactorily answered this scattered fragment of thought.
I even found that just for once I questioned the truth of the written word, which I would normally never think of doing. I can sense my teacher, Miss Finbone, tutting in my ear for just thinking such nonsense. Still, I like to think that God is ever so busy creating other worlds for other people, and I am certain that this is the case. Perhaps that explains why our God is sometimes not here to help us when we need that help the most? By now he or she must have created hundred of thousands of worlds, filled with countless billions of people, all of whom sometimes need their creator's help.
It is logical, I think, to assume that it must have taken longer than six days and six nights to create our planet. I believe this to be so, because such an achievement would clearly be impossible, even for God. We also cannot deny the wealth of scientific evidence which is now freely available to us. Here, the written word must be totally trusted.
But God did create a world, of that much I have no doubt. I am uncertain as to why I believe this so strongly, I just do. God gave this New World that he had created a sun and a moon and he breathed life into it. God created fish and birds and all other kinds of animals, large and small. God created flowers and trees and fast flowing streams that fed into rivers, which in turn ran majestically down through vast mountain ranges, until at last melting away into one of the many great seas. Then God made a very beautiful garden especially for us, and God called this garden ‘Eden’.
At last, when all else was done, and God had taken perhaps a little time out to stand back and admire the finished planet, our creator breathed life into his own children. Children who were born to live upon this brand new world that God had toiled so hard over. These children were even given the freedom to think for themselves. To do as they pleased, and yet in the beginning the world was good.
The only thing that God asked of his man-child, Adam, and his woman-child, Eve, was that they should not eat one particular apple from one certain tree. Adam and Eve never even thought to question such a simple instruction. After all there were so many trees laden down with sweet tasting apples. There could be no hardship in respecting his wishes. So Adam and Eve lived naked and happy in this very special place.
There was already, however, evil lurking in the garden. For where there is good, the opposite is usually hiding somewhere not far behind. A slippery serpent, with large yellow, hypnotic eyes approached Adam and his pretty woman. It was the creature's wicked intention to tempt this innocent and naive man and his beloved Eve into tasting of the forbidden fruit. The serpent knew too well the result of releasing even the tiniest fragment of evil into the innocent world that God had created.
You do not want to listen to God," hissed the creature. "Why, the apple he has forbidden to you is the most wonderful, most juicy, tastiest apple in the whole of Eden. You cannot resist it, my friends, and you shouldn't… mustn't. Do not let him cheat you so. You deserve better. After all is said and done, this is your garden and that is your apple. Eat it, I say. It is your absolute right to do so."
She looked upon the naked man and woman, her powerful eyes doing everything possible to draw them into her darkness. But neither Adam nor Eve could understand the creature's expression, nor could they read her mood, or understand the subtleties of her argument.
"What do you think we should do, my love?" asked Eve. "The apple is the most splendid apple in the orchard. It is bigger and it is redder and it could indeed be juicier. I have often noticed it, as it is so much larger than the rest. I had thought that perhaps we should ask God why we couldn't eat this fruit. I could write to him, perhaps?" Eve often wrote little letters to God. She called them prayers.
"Adam looked at his beautiful companion and, for a while, he was silent. Eve knew to be quiet because, although Adam was wise, he always needed time to organise his thoughts before any decision could be reached by logical deduction. At last he spoke.
"Well, my love," he said, very carefully so as to be absolutely certain that the words came in the right order. "God has gone to a great deal of trouble in creating our world. He gave us the sun to give us light and the moon to give us seasons. God has made us this wonderful garden and we are happy in this garden, are we not?"
It was Eve's turn to think through the logic of what he had said. But yes, she was happy, very happy.
So if he asked us not to eat one single apple in the entire garden," said Adam, "Then surely we should respect that wish, no matter how sweet an apple that may be. In any case if we ate the fruit, we would both need to lie to God and neither of us knows how to lie.
The serpent tried again to persuade Adam and Eve to eat the apple, but they would not. At last, the evil creature gave up its cause and crawled back into the darkness, where they say it has stayed ever since, waiting for the time when a man or woman can at last be tempted. Only then will the good in this garden be lost. It would surely be only a matter of time, and as she was immortal and the apple completely indestructible, she had an eternity to play with. A serpent can disguise herself in many different ways so as to fool her victim. ‘One day somebody would take a bite from the forbidden fruit’, she assured herself.
But there was no denying that, in Eden, the serpent failed.
In the beginning it was good. Adam and Eve treasured that above all else. They refused the temptation of the apple and chased the evil creature away, for they truly were God's children.
