Is it possible—as
they nakedly shared their intimacy—that
within their embrace they discovered the
creative powers that the
male Father god claimed for himself?
To keep them from returning to this moment of Garden
intimacy, the Father curses the
woman’s body. “To the woman he said, 'I will
greatly increase your pains in childbearing; with pain you will give
birth to children. Your desire will be for your husband, and he
will rule over you.'”
To Adam he said, “Because
you listened to your wife…
Cursed is the ground because
of you; through
painful toil you will eat of it all the days of
your life. It will produce
thorns and thistles for you and you will
eat the plants of the field. By the
sweat of your brow you will eat
your food until you
return to the ground, since from it you were taken;
for
dust you are and to dust you will return.”
What have we here?
-
A rageful, even abusive
Father: traumatized children.
-
Who are thrown out of their Garden
home: homeless.
-
Who are created from nothing:
Motherless.
-
Who are exiled
to live on the cursed earthen dust: uncomfortable,
discomforted living.
-
Who are shamed
in their nakedness: intimacy is cursed.
-
Then, as they struggle to live
together as family,
violence and bloodshed rules: Cain murders
Abel.
In this origin account, there is nothing wholing, healing or precious
about family. Dominion soon translates into killing,
conquering, going forth as a self-anointed Chosen People to violently
subdue those identified as not-Chosen—as intimate
enemies.
