The Beast Within

A reflection on mastering desire.

My husband has miniature wooden clothespins clipped to his fingertips, and he is running around the living room pretending to be Prowler. (If you, like me, aren’t fluent in the world of superheroes and villains—he’s one of Spider-Man’s foes.) The boys are Spider-Man and Spin (another Spider-Man), and they are chasing their father, trying to hit him with various balls they pick up from an old woven basket I once bought at a farmer’s market in Seattle. The game is basically glorified dodgeball, but there’s a twist. If Prowler scratches one of the spiders, they have to fall on the floor and count to two before they can rejoin the game.

I’m standing at the kitchen counter watching the three of them. At first I think the concept is ridiculous—wearing clothespin claws? But it’s cute, and it’s a game created by my five-year-old and his occupational therapist. All of my boys are engaged, laughing, in the thrill of imagination, and I realize then that it’s more than just a silly game of pretend. My son is developing his social skills, learning how to build upon the ideas of a peer, by creating and following rules in the safe context of home. He is also growing his frustration tolerance by being forced to take breaks when he gets slashed by Prowler’s wooden claws.

As I watch them, I think about Adam and Eve and the story of the fall, which we covered in the latest BEMA episode (see last week’s post). When Christians talk about the fall of man, the temptation of Adam and Eve in the garden by the Snake, it is often framed in the context of disobedience. God gave Adam and Eve a single rule to follow, they broke the rule, sin entered the world, and they were separated from God. The problem with this framing is that this isn’t what happens in the text; the story is much richer.

Last week I wrote about the creation narrative. The second chapter of Genesis also begins with creation, but it doesn’t align with the first, which has led many people outside the church to dismiss it. But because the text is carefully crafted, we have to assume the differences are intentional—two versions of creation sharing different truths. The first describes the nature of God, while the second is about the nature of man.

You probably know the story: God makes humans in His image, he gives them a garden to rule, and all is well for a time. But then the Serpent comes, and he manipulates the humans into eating forbidden fruit. Now, even in ancient cultures, a talking snake is strange. I’ve heard this story so many times, the strangeness becomes normal. Because this story is in the Bible, our sacred text, we read it differently than if it were, say, a trickster tale like the African folk tales about Anansi the Spider. But maybe that’s how we’re meant to read this story. The Serpent, the manipulator, tricks the humans into believing God isn’t trustworthy. Marty Solomon, of the BEMA podcast, believes the Serpent represents some sort of anti-human. He is rational, walking, talking, but he isn’t human. He is beast, and he is trying to convince Eve she is nothing more than beast as well. “Take,” he seems to say. “Satisfy your desire. What harm can it do?”

Of course, we know Eve is not a beast, unable to control her desires. She is made in God’s image, and she knows right from wrong already, before eating from the tree of knowledge. I wonder if she has seen other animals do the same thing she is about to do—take and eat. Has she seen them walk away unscathed? Is she curious already, before the Serpent even comes whispering, if God has told her the truth? We aren’t privy to her thoughts, but we know of her actions. Eve sees and she takes; shame and death enter the new world.

Like Genesis 1, this narrative also has a chiastic structure, and the word at its core is nakedness. Strange, right? God asks Adam where he is, and in Hebrew this word where implies that God already knows Adam’s location but is asking why Adam isn’t where he belongs, where he should be. He isn’t where he belongs because he is hiding in the bushes. The bodies of Adam and Eve—naked bodies, created bodies, bodies God himself declared good—are hidden. Why? Because at the heart of the story is shame.

Notice that God doesn’t separate himself from the humans because of their sin or their nakedness. The humans separate themselves because of their shame. Eve and her husband are removed from the garden, lest they stay in this state of shame forever. This interpretation of the Biblical story is new to me. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard that my sin separates me from God. Sitting in the wooden pews where I grew up, in the metal folding chairs of the school where I attended church in college, in the blue auditorium seats where I sat on Sundays in Seattle. Same message, every time. Sin is real—I’m not arguing that point. But what we see in this story is a God who remains present despite sin. Who clothes Adam and Eve and stays with them. There are consequences for their actions, but God’s opinion of them does not change. What’s changed is how the humans view their own humanity. And they continue to relive this story, like a template, in each generation. With each new character, we wonder: will he choose the tree of death or the tree of life?

These days, we no longer live in the garden. As a society, we probably think of ourselves more in terms of machine than animal. Still, the lesson from the narrative is equally relevant to us. It’s the very same thing my son is learning when he is playing the clothespin game with his dad. Will we control the beast inside, or will we give in to it? We see the relevance of this question on a global scale: as oppression continues to force people down; as humans kill other humans for sport; as individuals, corporations, and nations exploit the earth for their own purposes; as apathy lulls us into a numb existence. We may live in a modern world, but we certainly continue to engage in this ancient struggle, learning to control our desires.

Today is Ash Wednesday, a day when the Church reflects on our mortality. From dust we were formed and to dust we shall return. But in between dust and dust, God wants us to choose life. “Throughout the story,” writes Meredith Miller, “when humans trust God the result is life for themselves and for the world—the dream inches closer; when they put their trust elsewhere the dream slips away in all sorts of ways.” God consistently makes a way for us—in the garden, in the wilderness, even in the here and now.

It seems fitting on this day, where we honor both death and love, to remind you that God loves you, and he wants to give you life, free from death and free from shame.

Jenica

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Ordinary Joy

Some adorable Valentine art from my five year old.

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Words of Jubilee

I’m sharing a lovely poem this week from Jan Richardson.

Blessing the Dust
For Ash Wednesday

All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners

or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—

did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?

This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.

This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.

This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
this sacred earth.

So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are

but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear.

-Jan Richardson

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A Few Good Things

1. I’m grateful for Meredith Miller’s new series, the Great Big Bible Story Walkthrough, which is going to be such a great resource for parents of young kids.

2. We are all about Spider-Man these days, and I’m loving this song from the movie Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse. It’s old, but it’s great. Also, my boys LOVE this epic stop motion movie.

3. Here is a link to The Bible Project’s series on Ancient Cosmology, which has been a helpful resource for understanding Genesis.

4. Here is the podcast from Marty Solomon that I referenced, which inspired much of this post.

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