by C. A. Gray
Thirty-three years later, I would hang on the cross and breathe My last. So I set the moon in such a place now that at that very hour, the earth’s shadow would completely eclipse the light of the moon. The only light able to bend around the earth to strike the moon would be shifted to the red part of the visible spectrum: so the night of My death, a Blood Moon would rise.
I would reveal all of these signs to some of My faithful ones, prophets who could see, but not interpret what they saw. I wound the universe up like a great clock and then set it free, counting down from the beginning to the end of time. Like the fuel in the stars, like the seeds in the vegetation, the heavens, too, would perpetuate themselves. I watched them do so, beginning their cycle in the night sky that evening.
The morning of the fourth day, the sun dawned on its own. Lucifer conducted the angelic hosts’ song to swell in anticipation. I opened my mouth and declared, “Let the waters abound with an abundance of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the face of the firmament of the heavens.” My words fell to earth like seeds, sprinkling the waters and the air with power that burst forth in living creatures: fish and sharks, squid and crabs, whales and dolphins, leviathans and shrimp, clams and seahorses all sprang into being in the deep. Tiniest of all, the water at once teemed with phytoplankton, sustained by the sun itself, just as the plants were. In the air above, My declaration sprang forth into finches and seagulls, parrots and sparrows, hummingbirds and doves. Like the scaly tropical fish, the feathers of the birds reflected every color of the visible spectrum of light. The angels sang a triumphant song as I gazed upon My new and precious creatures. They had no concept of Me, nor had they the capacity to marvel at their own sudden existence. But they could feel, they could see, they hungered and thirsted and felt warmth and cold. They had needs that I delighted to supply for them, though they could never acknowledge Me for it. I did not need them to; it was satisfaction enough for Me to see them satisfied. I pronounced a blessing over all of these little ones over the melody and harmony of the angels: “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let the birds multiply on the earth.” Like the plants, like the celestial bodies, each of these creatures too had their seed in themselves. As day sank into evening on the fourth day, I watched with delight as My birds discovered the trees and its twigs for nests, while the creatures of the deep who needed accommodations for sleep found sand and sea caves.
It was this evening when I began to feel the stirrings of discord among the angelic hosts, though their song did not betray it. Lucifer, and some of the angels too, resented My fascination with My simple creatures.
I had not even made Man yet, and already, it had begun. But I would not feel sorrow for what had not yet occurred. Creation was a time for joy.
At dawn on the fifth day, an envious Lucifer led the angels in another skillful crescendo of anticipation. As My birds and fish went about their business, I focused now on the land, and declared, “Let the earth bring forth the living creature according to its kind: cattle and creeping thing and beast of the earth, each according to its kind.” Again, My words fell like seeds to the earth, and sprang forth into a myriad of creatures: lions and tigers, bison and dinosaurs, sheep and mammoths, bears and butterflies. I laughed and sang and danced along with the angelic host as I watched My beautiful creatures gamboling about on the hills and valleys, freshly created just for them. The birds, adjusting to the creatures down below, flew higher to give the new ones their space—but none of them knew any such thing as the fear or the bloodshed that would one day divide them. The hedgehogs climbed upon the backs of the saber-toothed tigers as they bounded across the plains to explore. Bears and rabbits played with one another. They frolicked with such vigor that by evening they had worn themselves out, all searching for dens in which to hunker down for the night.
“This is it,” I said to Myself as day sank into night, the beginning of the sixth day. Everything was ready now. I had anticipated every need of My crowning creation before I made him. This was the climax. The Spirit and the Word sang along with the angels, and I too sang out the words, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” I reached down and scooped up the earth where the power of My words had landed, wet with the dew that had watered it from below. With My own hands, I meticulously sculpted a body like My own, forming each bone and muscle, smoothing the skin over top. The angelic host all watched breathlessly. The dirt transformed into tissue in My hands, until I had completed his form: gloriously beautiful, strong and lithe. I set him down again in a garden I had cultivated just for him.
Then, for the first time, I descended to earth Myself. I knelt beside the body, pausing to savor this moment. All around me, the music crescendoed: the singing of the angelic host, the Spirit and the Word, the chirping of the birds, the hum of the insects, the cheerful gurgling of the water in the rivers, the wind rustling the leaves. When the anticipation of the sound grew unbearable, at last I bent down over My man, and breathed into his nostrils. He inhaled My breath, his chest expanding with it, and his eyes fluttered open.
He blinked up at me. The angelic chord revolved in a hush, as if all the heavenly host strained to hear what was about to transpire.
“Hello,” I said, smiling down at him. The perfect anticlimax.
He smiled back. “Hello,” he returned, curious, but not afraid.
“I am your Creator,” I told him. “You may call me God. I shall call you Adam. You are a man.”
Adam looked down at his own body, extending his hands out in front of him and wiggling his fingers. Then he tried his feet, laughing in delight when he realized they would support him.
“I am a man,” he repeated to himself in wonder, and then looked back at Me, grinning. “Shall we go and explore?”
I grinned back, delighted with his enthusiasm. I had not told him what to say, and while I could still foresee his every word and move if I chose, I found it more enjoyable to experience the world as he did: one moment at a time.
“Absolutely,” I told him, striding slowly beside him as he got used to his feet. Within minutes, he walked with confidence, forgetting his feet and focusing instead on his surroundings. “I’ve named this place Eden. This is where you are to live and work,” I informed him, as he gazed all around him in wonder. He had spied the river that flowed through the garden, tracing it with his finger to see where it went. At the edge of the garden it split into four heads. I followed him, and pointed, explaining, “This one is called the Pishon. It will skirt the land I’ve called Havilah, where there is gold, as well as bdellium and onyx.” Adam looked at me quizzically, and I explained, “Bdellium and onyx are precious stones. Gold is a shiny and beautiful metal that will someday be very important to your kind.”
“Because it is beautiful?” Adam asked, still puzzled.
My smile was a little sad. “Among other reasons. The gold is inherently good, though. As are you, My son.” Adam beamed at Me, completely missing My subtext, as I knew he would. He was still innocent. I pointed at the next river. “This one is called Gihon, which travels around the land called Cush.” I pointed at the third river and said, “This is Hiddekel, which flows toward a land called Assyria. The fourth river I call the Euphrates.”
Adam gazed out at the lands beyond the garden, watching where the rivers flowed with fleeting curiosity. Then he shrugged and turned back to explore the garden itself more, as the lands beyond it were wild and overgrown.
“You said I’m to work here?” Adam asked, gazing up at the enormous fronds of the various trees in the canopy overhead, the flowers, the fruits, and the creatures. “What am I to do though? It already looks perfect!”
“It is perfect now. But there is a law in My universe that mankind will one day call entropy,” I told him. “It m
eans that what begins in order tends toward disorder, unless someone or something exerts energy to restore its order again. Left alone, Eden would become wild like the lands beyond. Your job is to tend My garden, to keep it as it is now. But since at the moment there is nothing much to do, I do have another job for you in the meantime.” Adam was already gazing at a scaly creature with feet and a long tail, which had blended in to the bark of the tree as he watched. He grinned in wonder and delight. I pointed at the creature and said, “This is as good a place to start as any. I want you to name My animals for Me. What will you call this creature?”
Adam crept closer and closer to the creature, but it merely blinked back at him, as curious about him as he was about it. Neither of them yet knew fear.
“A chameleon,” Adam proclaimed.
I raised My eyebrows. “That’s a lot of syllables!”
He grinned back at me and clapped his hands together, startling the chameleon. It scurried higher up the branch. “Which one next?”
I spent the rest of the morning bringing the creatures of the land and of the air to Adam, delighted with his admiration of the creatures, and theirs of him. All of the names he chose were descriptive of either their appearance or their function.
After naming the elephants, the bear, and the cattle, Adam seemed troubled. At last he asked Me, “Why can none of them speak, like I can?”
“Because none of them are of your kind,” I told him quietly. “I made you in My image and likeness, including My creative abilities, My speech, and My Spirit. None of the rest of these creatures have any of those things.”
Adam heaved a sigh at this, but said nothing. I knew this would be the result of My naming exercise; I knew Adam would find no other creature like himself. But I wanted Adam to know it, to feel the lack and the loneliness, so that he could fully appreciate what I planned to do next.
When the sun was high in the sky, Adam’s stomach rumbled for the first time and he looked down at it in consternation.
“What was that?”
“You are hungry,” I explained to him. “You have been working for hours now. It is time for your first meal. Now listen, Adam, this is important.” He turned to Me expectantly. “You may freely eat from every tree of the garden, except of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. It is in the midst of the garden, and it bears reddish brown fruit. Come with me, I will show it to you again. I want to make sure you know which one it is.” Adam followed Me on the path into the midst of the garden, under all the tropical trees, through the bushes and vines bursting with luscious color. More than once Adam got distracted, taking Me at my word and reaching out to pluck persimmons, cherries, and grapes along the way. I waited for him to eat his fill, knowing that a full belly would make the forbidden fruit that much less appealing when he saw it. Adam gushed over each new flavor that burst across his tongue, sharing nuts with the newly named squirrels along the way.
At last we arrived at the center of the garden, where the forbidden tree grew. “That is the one I mean,” I told him, and warned, “You must not eat the fruit of this tree, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. In the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
Adam should have asked what ‘die’ meant, but he did not. It was not a concept with which he was familiar. He merely nodded that he had understood Me, and shifted his attention to the tree beside it, the one with glowing golden fruit. His eyes grew wide.
“What is that tree?”
I smiled, pleased that he was more interested in it than in the forbidden tree—at least for now.
“That is the tree of life,” I told him. “Remember I told you about the gold that is in the land of Havilah?” Adam nodded, and I told him, “This is what it looks like. It is this color, though it is a stone, not a fruit.”
He blinked, and beamed. “Then I see why you called it good! Can I eat one of those?”
“As I said, you may eat of every tree except of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.”
Adam skipped over to the tree at once. “I’m not hungry anymore, but it looks so good, I just have to try it…” He plucked one of the golden fruits from the bough, sank his teeth into it and let out a moan of pleasure. “This is the best one so far!” he declared. “I could eat nothing but this one forever and ever…”
“It is meant to be the best,” I agreed, smiling. “Remember what I told you about entropy?” Adam nodded and I said, “The same thing is true of your own body. It too would break down over time. But each bite of this fruit sets back the clock to the moment of your creation, restoring you to perfect health and youth. Now.” When he finished the fruit, I touched his forehead gently, and he blinked several times, trying to understand why his eyelids were suddenly so heavy. He sank to his knees, yawning. “What… is happening to me?”
“You’re just going to take a nap for a bit,” I told him. “When you wake, I will have a wonderful surprise for you…”
Adam closed his eyes, sinking into a very deep sleep. Then I opened up his body, removing one of the ribs that formed his torso. I could have shaped the companion I had in mind from the dust, as I had done with him, but I wanted Adam to feel a special kinship to this creature. I wanted him to think of her as a part of himself. I caused his flesh to knit back together over the wound, and then multiplied the material of the rib so that it formed a full skeleton, covering over the bone with the same clay that I had used to form Adam’s muscles and sinews and flesh. I sculpted a body similar to Adam’s, and yet different in ways that I knew would entice him. She would be soft and supple, her features more refined. When I was satisfied with her beauty, I leaned down to her just as I had done with him, and breathed into her the same breath of life I had given to the man who was to be her husband. Her chest rose with the breath, and her dark eyes fluttered open, curious and bright.
“Hello, my dear,” I murmured gently. She reached for My face, and I cupped her hand in Mine, smiling down at her as she drank Me in. “There’s someone I can hardly wait for you to meet,” I told her, lifting her gently to her unsteady feet. I let her glimpse Adam for the first time while he still slept. Then I lifted the sleep from him, and his eyelids fluttered open, looking first at me, and then at her. He started, and his mouth fell open as he ogled her, forgetting to breathe. I laughed; it was such a wonderful reaction on his part.
“I told you I had a surprise for you!” I reminded him. “Adam, meet your bride. She was fashioned from your own body, and she is like you: your companion.”
His gaze softened, and he stepped toward her, reaching out his hands and taking hers.
“Hello,” Adam murmured, remembering what I had said to him when he first woke.
“Hello,” his bride murmured back, at once shy and curious.
“This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh,” Adam murmured, to all three of Us, continuing our exercise from earlier that day. “She shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.”
Now at last I could bless Adam in the same way that I had blessed the rest of the creatures I had made. “Be fruitful and multiply,” I told them softly. “Fill the earth and subdue it. Have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” This was My covenant with mankind. I gave them one another, and I gave them the earth: them and their kind after them.
Adam spared a glance My way, his eyes brimful of thankful tears. He parted his mouth as if to say something, but words failed him. I smiled that I understood. Then I slipped away, allowing them to get to know one another in privacy.
It is My nature to enjoy the moment, even when I know the moment will not last. I do not let the future spoil the present. I had only days of uninterrupted intimacy with My innocent man and woman, but I made the most of them. I surveyed My world, both from above and from within, lush and green and verdant. I left Adam and his wife, whom he called Eve, to explore and tend the garden in th
e mornings and midday. I came to them in the cool of the day, and we strolled side by side until evening fell. I sat beside them, savoring the fellowship for the precious days I had it.
But all too soon, the day came when I went searching for them, and could not find them. When on earth in physical form, I chose to limit My omnipotence, to experience the earth as My creatures did—so while I knew the time was short, I did not know for certain where they were or what had happened.
“Adam!” I called out, “Eve! Where are you?”
There was a rustle in the bushes not far from me, and I turned to look at it. Adam rose, but only to his waist. Beside him, only the top of his wife’s head poked out.
“I heard Your voice in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself,” he said.
A wave of sorrow hit Me at his words. It was over already. How very brief was our joy! “Who told you that you were naked?” I asked him, though I knew the answer, more or less. “Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?”
“The woman whom you gave to be with me!” Adam accused, pointing down at Eve. “She gave me of the tree, and I ate.”
Eve’s expression flickered from brief outrage to fear. I turned to her next.