Skin

Painting by Gustave Dore: “Adam and Eve Driven out of Eden”

Christians believe that, originally, people lived in harmony with God, each other, and creation. Then came “The Fall.” Basically, the first people (Adam and Eve) ignored what God said and went their own way; they ate from the tree of knowing good and evil. This caused a cascade of catastrophic changes that impacted every person’s relationship with God, others, and creation. Genesis 3:7 says, “Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked.” This has led some theologians to say that the fall had to do with sexuality. But this is misguided. Wielding the knowledge of good and evil, a knowledge too weighty for any but God, shows an attempt to put ourselves in God’s place. Certainly, this affected sexuality, but sex was not the reason for the fall.

Below is a meditation on the fall from my most recent book, The Anonymity of Waiting. It is not a theological treatise, just me thinking about another way the fall affected human relationships.

Skin

When we knew we were naked,
it wasn’t sex
that made us cover up

It was the chill realization
that skin was the only thing
between us and a world
of thorns, briars, and fangs

the only thing between us
and bleeding out

the only thing between us