This contorted camperdown elm is one of my favorite neighborhood trees. It is particularly amazing all bare.

And I am also fond of my own trio of birches.

Today I walked through Bush Park to Willamette to a lunch-time program about Genesis, about which more later.  Met my friend Jim there and then we met up again at the Hallie Ford.  (Seems like I am drawn there on a fairly regular basis these days!)  Jim had not seen the Izquierdos and I wanted to seek out a Miro on loan that I had missed.  Found it.

Also found some art on the sidewalk on the way left by some moldering leaves.

Then walked on downtown to the Mary Lou Zeek Gallery where I wanted to look at some books there that have been published using blog.com.  (Connie and I are considering different possibilities for our book once it is completed.)

Also wanted to buy an “art block” from the old vending machine.  It’s a fund-raiser to support local “starving ” 🙂 artists.  It’s random which block falls out for you.  I love mine and found just the place for it

BACK TO GENESIS

So, today we went to a presentation and discussion facilitated by the chaplain/rabbi at Willamette. We were asked to remember the first time we heard the creation stories. I remembered as a tiny child that Mother bought a bible story book with lots of pictures for me and began at the beginning reading me the stories.

I think fairy tales got equal time, and I do not remember being traumatized by either the snake in the garden or the troll under the bridge.

It seemed to me that a number of people at the gathering today had been wounded by or had problems with the patriarchal-ness of the creation/fall story. I do not. They are patriarchal! Get over it! Don’t try to explain this away or try to explain that the six creation days were actually eons. I am not distressed that there didn’t seem to be dinosaurs in the garden, or at least they didn’t make it on The Ark a few chapters later. These are good stories that have served some purpose over the centuries and still seem to have some purpose today, perhaps metaphorically and literarily.

But later in life, I did suffer somewhat because of these stories, if obliquely. I attended another Genesis presentation a few years back. Afterward, I asked the person I went with what he thought the main lesson was that we could take away from the Genesis Creation stories. For me, the most relevant one was that we were originally placed in a garden and told to take care of the plants and animals there — that is — to be good stewards. The big bug-a-boo for me was the business of why, God, Our Heavenly Father, theoretically, the perfect parent, would put a beautiful, delicious, poison tree in the middle of paradise. Wouldn’t that be like a parent today preparing a playroom for a child, full of beautiful toys , and placing the most wonderful one in the center of the room and saying “don’t touch that one”?  Adam and Eve were totally without life experiences. For all practical purposes, they were children in a playroom. No good daddy would do that.

I don’t even have much of a problem with God’s telling Eve that henceforth, Adam, previously her darling companion, would be lording it over her. Remember, that was part of the punishment — the curse, if you will — not part of the original happy plan — and we’re not stuck with that.  Farmers use tractors to ease their labors and mothers use epidurals to ease theirs.  I think the theological term for our present state is “redeemed,” metaphorically speaking.

I guess, everyone comes away from discussing the creation stories with something different. The man I was with that other time said he believed the important teaching was that men should not listen to their wives. I don’t see him any more.