I have been thinking about the Fall and the Garden of Eden, specifically what was lost in our relationship with God and with each other. I consider being in this garden face to face with God, with Love. A direct encounter with the presence of God without fear or shame and in communion with God and the beloved other. Then a decision is made. Decide comes from the same root as homicide and suicide. It means to slay. One choice must die. Will I choose love or choose death? 

I ponder how the choice is so simple, just one bite. It’s not a leap off a cliff or some act of daring. It is an indulgence for personal gratification in something innocuous, a delicious looking fruit. I am amazed how that seduction for self-gratification, to step outside the bounds of Love and to see what life is like without God, and how quickly it all unravels into tempting others, blame, shame, and exile. It eventually gives birth to jealousy, enmity, strife, or murder.  

Now that Dad is in the presence of Love, surrounded in joy and unity of souls adoring the Holy One, I think about this incarnation, God in us and with us. My body is a vessel for communion with the Almighty. I consider my heart the new Garden of Eden where Love meets me and heals me, comforts, and restores me. This spiritual garden inside my heart to commune not only with the blessed Trinity but with all the saints and loved ones. 

In this sacred space, I meet with my dad knowing what I loved in my dad is present there. It was Love itself, the God who created the multitudinous, countless galaxies, awaiting to walk and commune with me in my soul’s secret garden with joy. 

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. – 1 John 4:16 

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