5 Minute Meditation - The Blessing & Curse of Humanity

Into the Brambles: March 30, 2026

Scripture of the Day

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’?”

The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 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.’ ”

But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not die, for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

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.

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.

Gen 3:1–7 (NRSVue)

Reflection for the Coming Day

Yesterday, on the way to church, our fourteen year old youngest daughter, normally sullen and borderline accosting, was full of deep, spiritual questions for some unexpected reason.

In the course of the conversation, we somehow ended back in the story of the Garden of Eden (not an uncommon thing for my spiritual conversations) where I was talking to her about part of my interpretation of the Judeo-Christian creation myth — namely that the primary issue that humanity has always experienced is that we are the only created thing who has the desire to be something beyond what we were created to be.

It was not enough to be made to be in communion with God and to co-operate within the divine conversation to cultivate the created into perfection. No, we wanted to step beyond our created self into a modality that we were not created for and therefore destined to fail and be ruined by.

As we enter Holy Week, I’m using this conversation with our youngest and my wife as a launching point for where I believe God wants me to focus my attention, and since you are reading this, I suppose you are coming along for the ride.

Yesterday was Palm Sunday. And as I sat in church with waving palm branches I thought how tragic it was that even though Jesus gave them all the symbols and teachings that should have shown them that he was finally a human who was living within the means of his created self in his time and place, the crowds still could not let him be that person. They could not accept that liberation came from a humble man on a donkey.