Some would argue the greatest love stories of history are that of Romeo and Juliet, the great Shakespeare spinning his convoluted webs; others argue for Mark Antony and Cleopatra. But, a great man once taught me of the love that beats all of these fabled tales, a love that sits beneath our noses, since the beginning of time, and yet we overlook it day in and day out; Adam and Eve.
Imagine yourself in a pure world. The trees stay green and vibrant; flowers sway gently in the wind, the sun doesn’t melt your brain but shines warmly on your cheeks. You walk in harmony with the lions, tigers, and bears. Death is not a word in which you have to subject your brain to knowing or understanding. Love. Love is all you know. Adam did not have to imagine this world; he lived it. However, Adam only knew two kinds of love. He knew of agape--the infinite self-sacrificing love of God, and Philia, the love that coalesces with friendship, stemming from his fellowship with his Creator. God walked, talk, loved and communed with Adam. But, the Infinite, omnipresent, omnipotent Lord knew Adam missed something, something fundamental to the human existence He had breathed to life; eros--romantic love between man and woman. As history goes, God put Adam into a deep sleep, assumedly a deep sleep we can only assume attainable for us thanks to modern medicine known as anesthesia. God took a rib from Adam’s side, and from this bone, He created Eve. Eve, life, the mother of Earth, beauty unmatched by any other, and not merely because she was the only female. From Eve came every other human being; from her came every form of beauty. Adam loved Eve instantly. The first time you fall in love is always a breathtaking experience, like falling into an abyss with no fear of crashing, soaring like a bird over river beds. God gave Adam a trust that had never been broken, with no fear of such a thing happening. To walk and talk without the things that cause humans to fear and hold back, no thought of judgment, no hurt, an unstained heart. These are what Adam and Eve had together. An unimaginable bond. A bond of legends and fairytales we only hope to gain and struggle to put into words in today’s world. Love as we know it is a finicky thing, feeble, weak, worldly. Most people don’t find it worth their time; they are self-sufficient, in need of noone--at least in their minds. Romeo and Juliet may have had a forbidden love, making it enticing and whimsical, but Adam and Eve had nothing holding them back. God Himself created this love; God encouraged this love, God wanted them both to experience this love. Adam and Eve found something magical; agape, philia, and eros all in one package. This kind of love does not even have a word of its own. Why? You may ask. Because it is something that will never again exist. Lucifer, the most beautiful angel of all eternity, the evilest being in all the world, bringer of death, prince of darkness, the god of this world, saw this relationship and ruined it. Eve walked in her garden, her home, her heart at complete peace. The suspicion of evil was not a concept she knew in order to be on guard. After all, in a perfect world where no bad, evil, or sin exists, would you mind your step and protect your heart? Protect it from what? Guard it against what? Nothing. Nothing evil exists. This would have been a silly concept. Satan preyed upon Eve’s purity. For us, this is not a new concept. We live in a world where our eyes experience temptation, our hearts are vulnerable, our minds easily swayed, and our paths easily stumbled upon. For Eve, she knew no harm, no hardship, simply love. The great serpent opened her eyes to the forbidden fruit that never crossed her mind before that fateful day. God said not to eat the fruit, and Eve held no such intentions. Until at last, temptation arose. Satan offered the beautiful mother of all the opportunity for wisdom, to know something only God knew; good and evil. Wisdom, the great temptress of us all. To err is human. To seek knowledge is human. Knowledge is power. Presenting a human with the opportunity to learn, correct behavior, grow or develop, they take it; greedy and hungry for all they can experience. Eve plucked and ate the fruit, seeking knowledge promised to her by someone appearing to possess more power than her. The world may have stopped spinning for her at this moment. For us, it did. God exists outside of time; at this moment, He watched as each of us, throughout human history, throughout human existence, altered our courses. We shifted in our lives, whether we know it or not. The fruit slid down Eve’s throat, staining her white heart, and the serpent laughed, celebrated. Eve knew what she had done, but there was no changing it now. That pure love she knew, the one of a kind, never again able to be replicated love, slipped from her heart, her mind, and her very sense of self. Panic ripped through her chest. The monster--we know this to be humanity--within her took over, desperately clinging to get back that feeling. We all know that desperation. If you’re alive, you know that desperate, pleading, ripping sensation in your gut. You could tear yourself apart from the inside out, trying to fix it and hold onto it. That is what Eve did. The method for reattaining that feeling? Eve offered the fruit to Adam; she did not die when she ate it, just as Satan had said. She knew of good and evil, wisdom to which she never knew before. The understanding that previously only God held. The fruit sat on the palm of Eve’s beautiful, corrupted, and wicked hand, waiting for Adam to accept. Humans spend their time ripping apart these parents of all. We blame Adam for ruining it; we blame Eve for falling for it. Adam snatched the fruit that his breathtakingly beautiful wife held and bit down, swallowing the poison, much in the fashion of our fabled Romeo, choosing death over separation from Eve. But, Adam wasn’t merely choosing death as the weak story of Romeo and Juliet so spins. Adam chose separation from purity, from paradise, from heaven, from the Creator. Adam chose the end of the world, to be with Eve. He decided to spend the rest of his days chasing this three-in-one love that could never exist again. That is a true tragedy, Shakespeare could never attempt to create. Adam chose Eve over everything. Their previously peaceful world that knew no war, famine, fight, or death, turned against them. Animals that once slept by their side now hungered for their blood. The smell of rotting flesh entered their nostrils, blood stained their hands, sin tainted their marriage, and hunger hollowed their bellies. The only choice was to turn savage; killing for survival, skinning for warmth, learning how the hunted become the hunter. Still, Adam chose Eve over everything. Flowers that once held beauty and sweet scents that filled their chest with comfort and a sense of peace now wilted, died, and turned to dust, crumbling in their hands. The sun that warmed their cheeks now burned their flesh. Adam struggled to keep them together every day, battling for life. He felt guilt every time he was unable to provide for his wife. He felt heartbreak when her once ageless face wrinkled and spotted with age. Adam chose Eve over everything. Eve, however, suffered the most. Eve lived with the tragedy of her two precious firstborn sons, gifts from God Himself--who continued to love and bless them; agape--turned on one another. Murder. Eve survived her children murdering each other. Eve lived with loss that God had intended for no woman to experience. Adam watched his sons act upon the pure evil heart he had helped to bring to existence. Adam chose Eve over everything. Adam and Eve spent their entire lives chasing the perfect trifecta love; a love that will never exist again. Adam chose Eve over everything; that is the ultimate love story. Adam chose Eve over God; Adam chose Eve over Everything.
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