My Invitation to You

I lost my keys. Have you ever lost yours? There is not much one can do when the keys are lost. You cannot get into your home; you cannot drive your car; you can not get into your office. The key is everything, and…it is nothing. We only think of our keys when we cannot find them. Otherwise, there is really nothing special about keys (no offense all you locksmiths). Don’t worry, I didn’t really lose my keys; I was just saying that for dramatic effect.

The hinge or heart of my theory, as I’ve stated many other places, is that the tree of life is the heart and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is sexual relations; the garden of Eden is the garden of delight, and it refers to the man and the woman first and foremost. God made us, His garden of delight, with the ability to bear fruit in two ways: begetting and bearing children (the tree of the knowledge of good and evil) and by a heart that loves, trusts, and obeys God. He told them to be fruitful and multiply and then told them not to have marital relations. That was their test of faith. Mary had the same test, and she passed.

A main part of the hinge of my theory has to do with sex. Sex, as I’ve said many times before, is the greatest of this world’s goods. It is a symbol of the ultimate supernatural good: the union of Christ and His Church. It seems that a common pitfall for people when considering this theory is that I say God commanded Adam and Eve not to have marital relations. It seems that for a lot of people, when they hear this theory, their gut reaction is to dismiss it or attack it as being against marital relations and the teachings of the Church. I understand that reaction. I don’t think those who have that response understand what I am saying, but I do see that the theory is rather easily misunderstood by some.

My point tonight is that most of what I say has very little to do with sex, per se. I certainly talk about it a fair amount, but there is so much more that I have to say. Mostly, I talk about it insofar as it is discussed in the Bible as I make sense of the Biblical story. The point about sex being the tree of the knowledge of good and evil is part of the key to understanding everything else. That theory is a key: necessary to drive the car, but not all that impressive by itself. Driving the car is the thing. I invite you to give yourself some time pondering this theory I propose, and see if it makes sense, sheds light, and puts the pieces of the puzzle together of the Bible, the doctrine of the Catholic Church, and your life. It did for me and has continued, these past fifteen years, to clarify and make sense of thousands of points about life, love and the gospel.

In other words, my focus is not on sex but on the fact that God created us from the beginning to be His spouse. Even today, He is calling each of us to the most intimate of communion with Himself. He wants all of us and is dying to give us all of Himself; having died for us, He is dying for us to enter into Himself and His death and resurrection and so have life abundantly. He is our spouse, and united to Him we bear much fruit and give glory to God.


Thanks for reading and your prayers.
Copyright 2007.
All rights reserved.

Genesis 2

I am skipping many important items, but in the interest of getting to the main point, I will pass over them for the time being.

Man is the Garden of Eden
Immediately after the man is created, God's breath is breathed into him, and he becomes a living being, it is then that the Garden of Eden is introduced. The word "Eden" simply means "delight." The word "east" also means "in front of." From many places in scripture, we know that God delights in man; also considering Genesis1:26, we know that God made man to be His spouse.
What all this means is that the man is the garden of eden, for he is God's garden of delight. God planted a garden in the front of His delight; hence, man is oriented in a frontal manner. Many trees (abilities) were planted in the front of man, together with two extremely important trees: the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. These two trees are the two primary ways we bear fruit as humans.

The Tree of Life
Immediately after introducing these two trees we have this obscure and seemingly nonsensical explanation of a river which splits into four rivers. The problem with this scenario is that rivers do the exact opposite; many rivers flow into one, not vice versa. This is no river, commonly understood. It symbolizes something else. It symbolizes the heart. The four chambers of the heart are physically represented by the four rivers. The tree of life is the heart.
What does it mean to eat of the tree of life? The very next verse tells us that God has done all this so that man could "till and keep" the garden. The word for till is also the word for work and for the work of worship; the word for keep may also be understood in the sense of keeping the commandments or obedience. Thus, the tree of life is for worshipping (in the full sense of the word which includes sacrifice) and obeying God. That is precisely what our hearts are for; we love God and we have the obedience of faith in Him by means of our trusting and loving hearts.
The tree of the knowledge of good and evil will have to wait, at least until tomorrow.
Thanks for reading.
Copyright 2007.