Genie in the bottle

Sometimes I wish I could put the genie back into the bottle. I'm sure the biblical Adam and Eve probably felt the same way after they bit the proverbial apple. With their newfound awareness I'm sure the wrestled with a mix of excitement, fear, guilt, and wonder. Everything they had previously believed and understood must have seemed different all of a sudden. Perhaps they had to try to understand if they had been lied too. When your world is suddenly changed, who do you trust? Where do you turn to for direction and help? Even if they didn't feel lied to, could they still relate to their environment the same way? To God or to each other? Surely they had wished they could put the genie back into the bottle.

It is frustrating to have to re-visit questions that I had thought to have answered - who am I? what is my purpose? what is the truth behind life? But perhaps things are not any less than they need to be. I have a hunch that in the genesis story, God was deliberate in putting the forbidden fruit within reach of Adam and Eve. If he really didn't want them to eat it, he could have put it thousands of miles away from them, far from their reach. Or, he could have explained things a little better so that they could have made an informed decision. What's the point of telling them they would die, if they had no way of understanding what that meant? I think god intended to let the genie out of the bottle.

I think the purpose of the tree was to educate them through experience. Did Adam and Eve create sin and death? No. Did they created 'disobedience'? No. They learned about these things through experience. Indeed, I doubt that there would be anything really special about the fruit itself. It was the act, the choice, to take and eat the fruit that brought about knowledge of good and evil. It did not create good and evil, it brought about the knowledge, experientially gained, of good and evil. Rubbing the bottle did not create the genie, it only let it free. Once the genie is out, choices must be made.

I feel a bit like Adam and Eve. My understanding of God and therefore life have changed. I'm left looking around for answers, wrestling with questions once thought answered. But I am moving past regret into acceptance. The genie is out, that I cannot change. I can't pretend to see things the way I once did. Like Adam I must come to terms with my newfound understanding, however imperfect it still is. Only, I have no one to blame but myself. Perhaps God wanted them to eat of the forbidden fruit, or at least make choices in light of its existence. Maybe it was just a case of timing? Maybe they ate too soon? I couldn't say. But as the story goes, they ate, the saw, and the genie was set free.