Thoughts on Eden

'And the Lord God planted a garden in the East in Eden....' Presumably he could have just spoken it into existence like the rest of creation but he chooses to plant it instead. 6 days work is done, this garden is a leisure activity. A different kind of creation, a work of art complete with water features and trees. A place apart where he likes to walk in the cool of the day and talk with his friends. It's a wildlife friendly garden too, plenty of food plants for animals!

But you can't keep a garden static, plants grow rampant and flowers need nourishing. Working under God, man supplies the balance by tilling and keeping it. Tilling implies keeping weeds down and breaking up the soil - so is the threat of 'thistles and briars' always there? Though a weed is just a wildflower in the wrong place, perhaps it's just so vigourous it needs keeping under control - a bit like my wisteria.

Of course it all goes wrong. Mankind has to leave the garden - maybe us gardeners are just trying to get back. I don't think the leaving was part of the punishment I think it's protection. They have to leave 'lest they eat the fruit of the tree of life and live for ever' , with sin and sickness and evil loose in the world immortality could be a terrible fate, like the Greek myth of Tithonus who got immortality but forgot to ask for eternal youth as well. Death provides a last escape from suffering.

What's happened to Eden? Well by the end of the bible it looks like a city has grown up around it. The Tree of life was in the midst of the garden and here it is in the midst of the city growing on either side of the river now, and freely available. With sin and evil finally conquered eternal life is a blessing not a curse.