Denny’s Question
By John Houk, jpc
Good morning, Boots. Boots is my old Tom cat friend. We have grown old together, and he likes to sit on my lap in the morning when I like to read and write. Today I am thinking about another old friend, Denny.
Denny died last year receiving a Mass of Christian Burial after a long, and by my measure, successful life. I miss our lunch dates when we talked about anything and everything. Denny had a keen mind and wide-ranging interests, but it was his positive attitude that drew me to spend time with him. A little about his back story. At the age of 18, while on his way to college he was involved in a car accident that left him paralyzed from the neck-down. Physical therapy eventually enabled him to regain partial use of his arms and hands so that he was able to operate an electric wheelchair. Denny went on to finish college, then law school, then had a career as an attorney on the Federal side, where he saw the dark side far more often than most of us can imagine. One may expect his limitations and dark side exposure would produce an entirely different kind of person, but it didn’t.
Denny was unfailingly present to me as a happy person focused on how to make the world a better place, especially for the mobility-challenged. Denny was an active participant in the work to improve access like kneeling or lift buses, curb cuts, ramps into public buildings, etc. Denny was focused on making a difference. Oh, and they should not put a Walmart in an environmentally sensitive location – and they didn’t.
I greatly valued my times with Denny. Then one day he asked me this question: “Christians know that the ancient Greek stories are not historical, they are myths, but Christians believe their own myths as if they were historical stories. Why do they do that, John?”
Denny knew how Christians think because he was raised Catholic. He directed his question to me personally because he knew I identified as Catholic and that he wouldn’t get any BS from me. His question was personally to me.
I tried to answer Denny’s question at the time he asked it, but my answer never seemed convincing to him or even myself. Now in my old age with time to sit and think with Boots, I will try again to answer. I willingly submit my attempt to your judgement. Now a little about the tools I bring to this project.
Schooled as an engineer, to just read what is on paper as it is written. Knowing what the words actually say is critical for transferring engineering information. I also have a sense for the elements necessary to make a good story. You may say that construction contracts and storytelling are not the same thing, and of course, they are not, but inferring, reading meaning into what is on the page can have the same serious, even catastrophic misunderstanding. The bridge fails. The story says something it was never intended to say.
If you haven’t already figured it out, the “myth” that Denny was interested in was from the Book of Genesis, chapter three, the Garden of Eden story. I invite you to come with me and Boots as we enter this story, and see if the story itself will lead to an answer to Denny’s question.
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The author of the Garden of Eden story has been lost to history so I will give them a name and call the ancient author, Meira. There is a beautiful garden then something happened. What happened is the plot line. Stories need characters so Meira added God and people and animals and trees in symbolic ways. Special trees that we know do not exist and an animal that talks Aesop Fables style. The use of symbols suggest that the literary form of the story is myth. Denny was right about that, but not a “we used to believe that but now we don’t” kind of myth, rather, Meira’s story is a “we use symbols to write about reality that we cannot come to grips with any other way” kind of myth, very much like in the ancient Greek style.
Modern scriptural scholarship also helps me here. Meira told this story about the year 950 BC about 900 years after, yes after, the time of Abraham and Sarah and God’s covenant with them. It also helps to know that the Genesis, chapter one, seven-day creation story was written many centuries after, yes after, Meira’s garden story.
I also know from within the story itself that Meira was aware of farming (planting, tilling fields, herbs), domestic animals, (cattle), that earth and water (rain) were necessary for things to grow. Meira knew about the world as it existed in the year 950 BC. So, we have a setting, a garden; a plot line, something happened; characters and symbols. Meira is a sophisticated storyteller in the mythologic tradition.
Boots be careful stretching; your claws go right through my pajama pant leg.
The story begins at Genesis 2:4b. An aside: chapter and verse were not in the original story, nor anywhere else in the Bible, but were added in the Middle Ages to facilitate referencing passages between readers. I will use this useful convention to draw us into the story and keep us connected because you may wish to follow along on your own copy. I will quote only from the NRSV (New Revised Standard Version) translation because, well I like it, and it was an ecumenical translation now used by many English-speaking churches in their official lectionaries. But not mine, you say. OK, the NRSV is not in the U.S. Catholic Lectionary but that’s another story, but it is in the Canadian Catholic Lectionary and many others. On with the search for an answer to Denny’s question. We enter the story at Genesis, chapter 2, verse 4b, NRSV. Sorry, Boots, I have to reach for the Bible.
In the day that the Lord God made the earth and the heavens,
5 when no plant of the field was yet in the earth and no herb of the field had yet sprung up—for the Lord God had not caused it to rain upon the earth, and there was no one to till the ground;
6 but a stream would rise from the earth, and water the whole face of the ground—
7 then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.
8 And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east; and there he put the man whom he had formed.
Meira knew the God of the Israelite tradition. As the story begins, “The Lord God formed man,” the God of Israel is a creative God; “from the dust of the ground,” man is made of the same earth as every other living thing. Even cats. Breath is life, “breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.” And “the Lord God planted a garden in Eden,” gardens need to be planted, and “there he put the man.” God the creator generously gives man a garden to live in. Nice story except the “living being” in Meira’s Hebrew was not a man but Adamah, meaning literally, “creature of the earth”. The use of man as an English convention, meaning all people may be useful, but here it hides the true meaning. Here is a small piece of the answer to Denny’s question. Christians, including myself, have forever been dependent on language translations that may, or may not, convey the original meaning. Man here does not mean male or even human person, not even all people. Meira said, Adamah – “creature of the earth”. If your translation says, Adam, a shortened Adamah, the same problem arises if you think “Adam” is a male name and the first living being was a male human. Not so, at least from this story.
Back to the story. Genesis, chapter 2, verse 9, NRSV:
9 Out of the ground the Lord God made to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food, the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
Meira’s God has an aesthetic sense “pleasant to the eye” and knows good food. Enter the special symbol trees. Denny, the story doesn’t come right out and say that trees grow branches, leaves and fruit, not “life” and “knowledge”. People should know that, you say. Well, maybe. What we now have are symbolic “trees” that are going to influence the story, but we don’t know how yet. So, another partial answer to Denny’s question is that people are just allowed to think what cannot be supported by anything in the story. But what the story does say is that every tree comes “out of the ground” just like Adamah came from the “dust of the ground”.
Boots has gone off to get a snack from his bowl.
Back to the story. Genesis, chapter 2, verse 15, NRSV:
15 The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it.
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, “You may freely eat of every tree of the garden;
17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.”
God here is like a parent telling a child not to play in the street because something bad will happen, “you shall die.” All we know at this point is that something bad will happen. Later we will find out in the story that when people “eat of it” they don’t drop dead, but right now there is only foreboding, “you shall die.”
The story develops. Genesis, chapter 2, verse 18, NRSV:
18 Then the Lord God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone; I will make him a helper as his partner.”
19 So out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to the man to see what he would call them; and whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name.
20 The man gave names to all cattle, and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the man there was not found a helper as his partner.
Boots has had his morning snack and is back just in time to hear a good part of the story, “out of the ground the Lord God formed every animal.” That means you too. Boots, we are made from the same stuff.
Right now, I am remembering my own search for a partner in life, but once again translations can be misleading.
Meira tells about a solicitous God, “It’s not good for man to be alone.” Cattle and birds are formed “out of the ground” exactly like our living being, Adamah. Living things are all made of the same stuff. Right, Boots? God cares. Here is the tricky translation part. “Helper as his partner” is variously translated using words that connote little helper or side kick, as if a little fetch and carry kind of creature was envisioned by God. The Hebrew words were ezer kenogda. NRSV translates this Hebrew into “helper as partner”, better than some, but the words more directly mean “strong opposite”. Again, Denny’s Christians are at the mercy of translators. Neither God nor Adamah were interested in a fetch and carry.
Now to Genesis, chapter 2, verse 21, NRSV. The plot thickens.
21 So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man (Adamah), and he (sic) slept; then he took one of his (sic) ribs and closed up its place with flesh.
22 And the rib that the Lord God had taken from the man (Adamah) he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
23 Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; this one shall be called
Woman, for out of Man this one was taken.”
God gently puts Adamah to sleep and divides the living being creature of the earth into two, where before there was only one. Now, for the first time in Meira’s story there is a man, a male, and a woman, female, made of the same stuff, and “bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”. If we could just leave this part of the untold story, but we can’t. Too often, way too often, much has been made that “man” came before there was a woman. What’s going on here, Denny, is that men were looking for ways to make themselves superior and inserted that opinion into the story. It’s not there. What is there is that one living being became two, male and female, a defining reproductive characteristic of humanity. One became two at this point in the story, nothing else. And there is a celebration viva la difference “at last”. Meira’s story identifies the first of the stories identifying characteristics of humanity. It takes two.
24 Therefore a man leaves his father and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh.
25 And the man and his wife were both naked, and were not ashamed.
“Therefore, a man (now a man) leaves his father and mother…” There are families in this story – “leaves his father and mother” and the one became two can become one again “and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh”. The story includes a mother and father and a man and his wife and “Both were naked and not ashamed”. There was no tension between the man and the woman at this point in the story. They liked one another the way they looked to one another. OK, Boots, I know you are not ashamed of being naked, but –
Enter the villain in the story. Genesis, chapter 3, verse 1, NRSV:
1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden’?”
2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden;
3 but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die.’ “
4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die;
5 for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”
6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate.
Note here: There is no apple in Meira’s story, but what we do have here is a masterful story of temptation. I can hear you, Denny, saying, “Don’t people know that snakes are not very smart and, for God’s sake, snakes can’t talk. Shouldn’t that have been enough to convince people that this story was a myth, a literary genre trying to get a grip on things as they are?
I feel your frustration, Denny, but what can I say? People are people, but back to the story. The snake asks a question that he (yes, it’s a he in the story) already knows the answer to, “Did God say?” The snake already knew what God said. The woman is tricked into giving an informational response. She thinks the snake is asking a real question and gives a real answer except she adds to what God had said “nor shall you touch it”. There is no place in the story where God said this.
Then the snake plays his hole card – God lied to you, eating that fruit will open your eyes and you will see things you have never seen before. The snake is a con artist making promises to an unaware / naïve woman. You know it better than I do, Denny. It happens every minute of every day. Our world is full of snakes and unaware people, and not just women.
Meira’s story is a very human story. We can see ourselves in this story, which is the literary genius of mythology. I get a cold chill when I remember particular temptations that could have led to my “death”. But I get ahead of the story. Interesting, I think, that Meira tells us that the first thing the man considers important is to “cling to his wife,” and the first action of the woman in the story is to try to become wise. You don’t suppose Meira was a woman? Just saying.
More details: The woman said to the snake, “We may eat of the fruit of the garden, but God said.” The woman uses the plural “we” so both were equally aware of what God had told them not to do. The woman did not con the man. That is just not in the story. In Meira’s story the woman sees, becomes aware, is awake to the possibilities offered by this tree so she eats, but she doesn’t let the man go hungry nor does she wish to be wise all by herself.
What we eat becomes part of “bone of our bones and flesh of our flesh”. When the man and the woman ate of the tree of knowledge of good and evil that knowledge became part of them, not layered on, but part of who they were. Meira boldly puts a finger on another defining human characteristic. Our knowledge of good and evil defines us as humans. Cats don’t know good and evil. Sorry Boots, but only we have eaten of that tree. Now what?
Meira tells us at Genesis, chapter 3, verse 7, NRSV:
7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.
Naked has taken on a new symbolic meaning, meaning exposed vulnerable, but why is this a problem? It is a big problem if our man and woman now don’t like themselves. Something is wrong with us they are saying, and they hid themselves from each other. Before they were not ashamed, but now they are. Don’t look at me, the story says because I am not beautiful anymore. The celebration of one flesh becoming two then one again is now hidden by “fig leaves”.
Hiding ourselves from one another is as common as the earth from which we are all made. We hide our secrets from each other beginning with “loin cloths” and then our inner selves, saying to ourselves – if you really knew me you wouldn’t like me. People not only hide their secret parts but their secret thoughts. Denny and I knew each other for years before he asked me the question I am now trying to answer. I know that “naked” here means not just clothing our very selves because this is mythology, not a story in a clothing catalogue. Meira shows again a deep knowledge of what humans are like, but what does God think? And this is where the story really gets interesting. Boots? Are you napping? I think you would want to know what God thinks, but maybe that isn’t a big concern of yours.
Meira tells us. Genesis, chapter 3, verse 8, NRSV:
8 They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
9 But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?”
10 He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.”
11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked?”
If I were pope, I would decree that Bibles be published with a subtitle, “Who told you told you that you were naked?” Meira steps into the critical question of how we relate to God with the answer, “I was afraid because I was naked,” naked before God produces fear because we now know good from bad, and have judged ourselves bad. Meira writes that humanity is not only ashamed of who we are, but what we are. We then imagined that God would see us the same way, and we became afraid of God. Take a breath here with me because I am feeling a lump in my stomach. Deep breath. Boots is still napping. Maybe it isn’t so bad being a cat.
But as a human person I long to know. Knowledge of good and evil creates a worldview of good and evil, and we become judges in this dualistic world – that we created. Meira knew that this is what humans do. Cats don’t do that. Then we leap to conclude that God judges us the same way we judge ourselves – bad – not as we should be. We have done this to ourselves. Deep breath.
Meira’s story nails it. God does not see being naked, being human, as being bad or not as we should be. We have imagined that God does not like us the way we are, “Who told you that you were naked?”
Now what happens. Genesis, chapter 3, verse 11b, NRSV:
Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”
12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.”
13 Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.”
Now the man and woman, who are afraid of God, look for a way out. The man blames God, “The woman you gave to be with me” – then blames the woman directly, “She gave me the fruit” – then the woman blames the snake, “The serpent tricked me” – but finally, “I ate.” Shame became fear. Fear became blame, then the acceptance of responsibility, “I ate.”
We point fingers, she made me do it, he made me do it, but Meira writes that at some point we must say, “I ate.” However, humans do not escape the consequences of being human.
Meira tells us what came next. Genesis, chapter 3, verse 14, NRSV:
14 The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life.
15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”
God is not the tempter, but God knows that the temptation, the snake, and the woman will remain in locked combat forever, “I will put enmity between you and the woman and between your offspring and hers.” Temptation will always be part of the human experience. Great art has been produced to teach us this powerful lesson – woman with her foot on a snake, symbols of our continuing struggle with the temptation to hide ourselves from each other and from God. Meira’s story says God did not do this to us.
Then God speaks to the woman. Genesis, chapter 3, verse 16, NRSV:
16 To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”
We must be careful here. Meira’s myth is not predictive but instructive. This is the world as Meira knew it. Pain in childbirth was the price women paid to bring the next generation of humans into this world. The woman will desire her husband, “yet your desire shall be for your husband.” And Meira’s world was a patriarchal world, “and he shall rule over you.”
God continues and speaks to the man. Genesis, chapter 3, verse 17, NRSV:
17 And to the man he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, “You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Here we have the hard lines in Meira’s story. The ground is cursed “because of you.” There will be continuing trials and difficulties, “thorns and thistles it shall bring forth.” You will work for everything you get, “By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread.” The man no longer lives in a garden planted by God for them to till and keep, and the man did it to himself. But, you may want to say, all this is “because you have listened to the voice of your wife.” Meira is telling us not what will happen, but what does happen because we become afraid. Listening to your wife is hardly a bad thing, but what happens is we no longer trust one another when we become afraid and ashamed of what we are.
Then Meira tells us again that we are from the earth, like every other living being, and we will return to it, like every other living being, “you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” We hear these words used by the priest as they put a cross of ashes on our forehead on Ash Wednesday. Don’t worry, Boots, I’m not going to take you to Church on Ash Wednesday.
But Meira doesn’t leave us in our dust. Genesis, chapter 3, verse 20, NRSV:
20 The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living.
21 And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and for his wife, and clothed them.
The man is not angry with his wife. Eve will be “the mother of all the living.” Meira’s myth has a universal quality. God is not angry with the man and his wife. “And the Lord God made garments of skins for the man and his wife.” The man and woman are married. There is no lingering anger or vindictiveness here in this story. No angry man. No angry God. Parents don’t hate their children even when they play in the street after being told not to. Oh, and humans wear clothes. Cats don’t wear clothes. Boots stretches. Got nothing to hide. Don’t need any clothes, he seems to be saying.
Now what happens? Meira makes it clear that the man and woman cannot stay in the garden that God planted for them. Genesis, chapter 3, verse 22, NRSV:
22 Then the Lord God said, “See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever”—
23 therefore the Lord God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from which he was taken.
24 He drove out the man; and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.
Meira puts a firm calloused hand on the final defining characteristic of a living being, creature of the earth, who is now two human beings. We are mortal. All living things die, even cats die, but we humans know we are each going to die. Ouch. But there is no turning back, “a cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life.” The knowledge that we will each someday die explains, “for on the day you eat of it you shall die.” The knowledge that we are mortal is firmly fixed in us and there is forever no unknowing it.
Boots has gone off to stretch out on his favorite sunny window sill, and I am left with knowing that someday I will die. The price of being human.
So, Denny, this is my take on the story in the garden. I believe this story was never intended to be historical, there was never a garden in Eden, nor was it intended to predict how humans would feel about each other or how God saw us. Meira’s story is a story of us, a myth to try to come to grips with the way things are. Denny, I can hear you say, “But, John, that’s not what I was taught in Catholic school.” Me too, but I have continued to read and think, to try to overcome prejudice against literary accomplishments like the power of storytelling and the power of myth. To overcome a prejudice against science accomplishment like all living things are made of the same stuff, the stuff of the earth.
Ok, Denny, I hear it coming. “John, you really didn’t answer my question. Put differently, “Why don’t people know a myth when they see it?” I’ll try once more, but I am not a psychologist, nor a theologian, but an old retired engineer, who was occasionally given the answer and asked to find support for a decision already made. So, my SWAG, that’s sophisticated wild ass guess, is that people look for support for what they believe to be true wherever they can find it. In religion it’s called proof testing. In science it’s called hypothetical testing. It’s what we do. If believing a myth literally, historically, predictively supports your hypothesis, then why not do that? It is so easy and available.
But, John, aren’t you worried that there are people, who will not like your take on the garden story? I absolutely know those people, Denny, but if there is a blessing to be had in old age it is that I no longer worry about what others think. It’s a great freedom to be able to think and believe without worrying about what others think or believe. On that note, Denny, you must remember I never once suggested what you should or should not believe, nor did I ever worry about it. In giving my personal take on the garden myth I am not suggesting what others should believe. At the most I am suggesting that you be careful when you set your mind on supporting what you believe from Meira’s story when it may not be there. Believe what you will, but don’t look for support where it doesn’t exist.
Engineers check each other’s work. Design offices have a checker. Engineers in training must have their work reviewed by a licensed professional. As a check and balance on my personal take on the garden story, I offer quotes from the Jerome Biblical Commentary dated 2022 with its Nihil Obstat, Imprimatur, and with Forward by Pope Francis.
I quote from the commentary of Genesis Chapter 3:
Commenting on God’s warning not to eat of the tree of good and evil, “If the humans are child-like at this point, then the divine warning perhaps sounds like a parental caution given to a toddler.”
The commentary continues, “The woman eats then gives to ‘her husband’ without his objection, resistance or protest. Verse 6 shows that he ‘was with her’ indicating his passive presence as well as their shared culpability.”
Also, “Sin and evil, condemnation and morality, are all absent from this account, which tells how humans came to be the way they are with respect to pregnancy, patriarchy, and labor, just as Genesis, chapter 2, verse 24, provides an etiology for human marriage. The first primal humans became more fully human with both desire and knowledge, entering into a potentially dangerous and difficult world. Genesis, chapter 3, never mentions sin or disobedience, nor does it provide an exposition of the doctrine of ‘the Fall’ or original sin…for Christians this remains a biblically derived notion. Yet Genesis, chapter 3, lacks the assumptions of the scriptural passages that echo it.”
An old engineer adds, you can’t inherit anything from an imaginary character from an ancient myth. But you can learn about us. The garden story is the story of us. Boots and I are made from the same stuff. Women and men are partners in life. Do not be afraid. God is love.
Final note: I underlined “for Christians” in the above quote because it takes us back to Denny’s question, “Christians believe,” but the story of the garden is a Jewish story and Jews do not share the Christian interpretation, especially as it pertains to the Christian notion of original sin.
Peace and all blessings,
John Houk, jpc
Afterword on Story Telling
The art of storytelling is, in itself, a defining human characteristic. Cats don’t tell stories. Sorry, Boots, no slight intended. Every Bible begins with the Seven-Day Creation Story. The world was not created in seven days, but what we read in this story is how God sees the world. In God’s eyes the world is good, even very good, repeated in the story seven times, seven times, the number of completeness in the culture that produced the story. This is good news. Indeed, it is front page good news, which is why it belongs exactly where we find it – on page one of every Bible.
Jesus himself was a great storyteller. When asked a question, he would tell a story. Who is my neighbor? – even the person you don’t like is your neighbor. Why do you eat with sinners? – a man had two sons. Jesus also told “it’s like” stories because “it’s like” is the only way to describe many things. But Jesus was more than a great storyteller. Jesus’ life, death and resurrection makes the creative spirit God, that we cannot see, visible.
The gap, wide gap, that some feel exists between themselves, the world they live in, and, most sharply, between themselves and the God who made us, out of “the dust of the earth,” is not real. This gap exists only in our imagination when we judge ourselves as not as we should be. God disagrees with that self-judgement.
Storytellers have been saying that forever. Prophets have been calling us back to God and one another forever. Jesus isthe message. Jesus drew us all, really everything, to himself. What is your God like, I have been asked by a non-Christian. We have our stories, and our prophets, I responded, but after all that we Christians can just point to Jesus to answer that question. Jesus is the message.
Boots is looking at me. The people who write about cats say that cats don’t look people in the eye. All I can say is that they don’t know Boots, who often looks me square in the eyes like he is at this moment. Could he be asking the big question, what about me? Am I included? Much theological print has been produced on this question that I do not pretend to understand. So, I can only quote, “The Word was made flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14). The opening of John’s Gospel does not say “man” or “human,” but “flesh” (Greek, sarx), a broad reality encompassing the finite material world. God’s saving act, The Word became “flesh.” Cats are flesh. Looks like you made the cut, Boots. At least that’s how I read it. You still looking at me? What time is it? Oh, daily cat treat time. Sorry to keep you waiting. Didn’t mean to forget your treats. Cats have their priorities.
JH