When I was a child, I noticed some major discrepancies in the Genesis story about Eden. I was old enough to know things died - but if Eden was the perfect world, did that mean there was no death?
That's where things got sticky in my child's mind. Either nothing new was birthed or major over- population problems would occur very quickly. Imagine a world overrun with squirrels - or rabbits!
So I concluded adults didn't know what they were talking about with this Eden-business.
By the time I became an adult I learned that stories were not always to be taken literally. Stories are not intended to be video clips of reality, but serve other purposes. They are a means to convey truths that need to be passed on from generation to generation.
Later, I learned that even the gold standard of memoir, in which people's account of some facet in their life, does not reflect some sort of "accurate" accounting. Think about your own life when you were twenty or thirty and how your story has changed over time as you changed while maturing.
As for perfection, we use the term as loosely as we use the term love - like saying I love your outfit or I love springtime. I even question whether anything can be perfect. Instead, I am a fan of uniqueness and the artistry of individual differences - not perfection.
Those apples in Genesis? Were there no apple-worms in Eden? Hold that fruit in your hand and wax eloquent about its perfection. But if you look more closely, no apple is identical to the next apple. So what does that say about perfection? Apple growers and horticulturists are continually tinkering with apples to generate more varieties with different characteristics. So what does that say about the existence of a perfect apple?
When it comes to us humans, imagine being married to a perfect person. Someone who never makes mistakes and knows all the answers. I remember sitting in an East Indian restaurant in Santa Fe, where a man at the next table was "explaining" Indian cuisine to his wife. It was pretty humorous, because it was obvious he had never eaten Indian food.
He concluded with a question: why would anyone travel all the way from India to open a restaurant in New Mexico? Of course, he had the answer to his own question. And his wife took it all in as if he was the authority to end all authority. Never occurred to either of them to ask the restaurant's various staff what motivated them to move to Santa Fe!
Speaking of New Mexico, I once read an article in a very boring, but highly regarded psychology journal. I have long since forgotten what the article was about. But if I close my eyes, I can see the author's use of an example three paragraphs down from the beginning of the article.
Here is his example. It has been my guide for a non-perfect life ever since I read it:
A man entered a shop. He was looking for one of those belts common in this part of the
country - silver-tooled ovals linked to each other, with turquoise embedded in each oval.
The shopkeeper watched the man examine the merchandise. The man was obviously
puzzled. He asked the shopkeeper why the belts on the right side of the store cost so much
more than the belts hanging on the left side of the store. The man said "why are each
oval of the belts on the left side of the store perfect, while those on the right side flawed.
But the imperfect ones on the right cost a great deal more?"
The shopkeeper smiled at him. "The ones on the right were individually crafted by artists.
While the ones on the right are factory-produced."
I am a work of art, not something produced in a factory!
