Once again, this is Christian midrash, based on the sources in the footnotes. I made this up in the hopes to inspire your imagination of what Adam might have been like. Blessings!

I’m Adam. (pause)

I’m not sure what to say. (pause)

If Eve were here, she’d know what to say. She usually has the words. (pause)

It’s hard to be the first. Mistakes were made. Maybe that’s what you want to hear. I messed up. Yeah. Sorry. I messed up in a few ways, so let me apologize for a few today.

I misnamed a few animals. You’ve never been in Eden, you can’t know what it was like. In Eden, there is no past or future, just the present. It’s like you’re wide awake all the time. You don’t need any memory because you’re just in awe of everything. Maybe you had a glimpse of this. Those times when you’re entirely present. Maybe when you’re talking with friends and the conversation just flows and suddenly it’s hours later and it passed by in an instant.[1]

I was always connected to the source of life. To God. Constantly, like a river. Everything just flowed. Everything was just so wonderful. You could hear the music of the sunrise. You could taste music. You had animals for warmth. I named them all, and that’s where the mistakes started.

The hippopotamus. I thought it was a water horse. I was wrong. It’s more like an angry river pig. Someone suggested that the raccoon could be called a trash panda. I like that. We didn’t have trash in Eden. I did name the sloth right. I did name the dog right, it’s just God backward. I still feel pretty proud of those. Snakes I really misnamed. They should have been Danger Noodles. That was a missed opportunity. Maybe we’d still be in Eden if I had a better name for the snake.

People think they could have named the animals better than I did. Sure! Change the name! I’m fine with that. Look, I didn’t have parents or any type of education. Nor was I aware of any future, all I had was eternal present back in the Garden. And I miss it.

I miss how everything was illuminated from within. Everything made sense, and you were connected to every living thing. How the grass cushioned your feet. How the rocks made great pillows, they were a little softer then. How there was just food everywhere, and you didn’t have to kill anything. There was no fear, and there was an understanding between all things. A unity.

Folks make fun of my story saying that there was a talking snake and how can it be real. Yeah, it sounds crazy when you put it like that. Snakes do talk! Some have a rattle, and you know they are telling you to stay away. That’s how they talked then, too; with their bodies. We just understood them better. All the animals talked like that, in their own way, but we knew what they were saying clearly. Most were happy about their names.

Save for the geese. The trouble started there. A moose came up and asked, “Hey Adam, thanks for naming me Moose. Great name! Would the plural be Meese?” And I said, “No, that would be silly!” Then I looked over and made eye contact with a goose. He didn’t look so happy.[2] He got together with the other geese and they made their displeasure known. They’ve been cranky ever since. Especially the Canada ones.

Sometime during my stay in the Garden, I went to sleep and woke up and there was Eve. You might think that I had a lot of questions for God. I didn’t.  She was just so beautiful! I guess I sort of lost myself. I lost my voice. After I gave my praise and thanksgiving to God, I didn’t speak again in the scripture and when I did, that was a mistake. I was just lost in puppy love for Eve. I’d never been in a relationship before.

Eve seemed just so sure of herself. She was bold. Decisive. Completely at home in herself. I felt a little intimidated by her. We worked so well as a team. She would tell me what to do, and I’d do it and we were happy. So I thought.

There was that whole business with the snake and the fruit. My mistake was not taking responsibility. I tried to hide from God, which is impossible. Trying to hide from God is like trying to hide from your own ribcage.

The next words I uttered recorded in scripture is me blaming Eve. And blaming God. “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”[3]

That was another mistake. The biggest of my life. I didn’t take responsibility. Now that I’ve had a lot of time to reflect, I realize that I wasn’t aware I was lonely until Eve showed up. I wasn’t aware I was resentful of Eve, until I blamed her. I wasn’t aware I was jealous of God, until I blamed God for giving me Eve.

The woman… I didn’t use her name. You put here with me… passive-aggressively blaming God… gave me some fruit… Like I didn’t know what fruit it was. Of course, I knew the fruit. I had wanted to be like God and in control of everything and knowing everything’s true nature.

God is not in control like we think God is. God brought me all the animals, not because I was supposed to name them. I had that impulse. That was me. God didn’t tell me to do it. It was my choice. God helped it happen. Naming the animals might give me some control over them. That’s the wrong approach. That’s how I thought God operated, but God doesn’t control, God invites.[4] I was invited to be in relationship with not only Eve but the whole world. To love God and my neighbor and all of creation. I didn’t take responsibility for my part. I lost my voice. I lost myself. I blamed others.

Someone said, “If you want to change the world, start with yourself.”[5] I changed the world by not being responsible for myself. I blamed. I’m sorry. That’s the original sin, in my mind.[6] Not Eve eating the fruit, but me blaming her. And she blamed the snake. And the snake started to blame someone but that’s when God cast us out of Eden.

I remember a flash and then the world became duller. Things didn’t taste the same. The world wasn’t as bright. The animals scattered and became afraid of us. Suddenly there was a past that happened. And then I wondered what would happen next and discovered the future. My past is full of regrets. My future full of anxiety. I was distracted. Life was a lot harder. I would complain to God, but I was less aware of the source. I couldn’t always hear the voice. Not like I did. Nor could I hear the animals and plants like I did. Things were harder to figure out.

I’m sorry the way things are the way they are. I’m sorry. Seeing how your world is, I take the responsibility that I should have taken in the first place. What I started as continued everyone blaming everyone else and no one taking responsibility.

This world is full of well-intentioned people so why is it such a mess? Well, each mind is a world unto itself. And we communicate from that world only to be misunderstood by the other and no one is willing to admit it.[7] Cain didn’t take responsibility for his subpar offering to God and blamed Abel. We know how that turned out. And then people come along and say, “If Cain was avenged, then I’ll be avenged sevenfold!” Violence has escalated and everyone is guilty and no one is responsible and we’re still East of Eden. It’s a mess.

Some of your scholars call Jesus the second Adam. The second Adam[8] who took responsibility and tried to shift us away from the blame game. Jesus tried to get people to talk and help folks understand what is going on in one another’s lives. Men understanding women. Parents understanding children. Jews understanding Gentiles and vice versa. I think that’s the way back to the garden again. Or the Kingdom of God. Or the New Jerusalem. It’s all the same thing really.

I had a long time of being bitter. I missed the Garden. I wish you could have experienced it. As I grew older, I started to hear God’s voice again. God was still speaking. God said, “Eden is still here.”

I would glimpse the garden in little moments. Looking at Eve, my wife. Holding babies in my arms. When the sunset was painting the sky beautiful colors. Being around dogs.

I especially loved being around my grandchildren. Children are fine, but you’re too new as a parent and feel too responsible in making them good humans. But grandchildren are great because you have the wisdom, and you can sugar them up and give them back to the parents to worry about. I loved being a grandpa.

We had this little ritual, the grandchildren and I. They would run up and ask to see my belly! They would shout, “Where is your belly button?!” And they would wonder why I didn’t have one… and I would wonder… Well, I would wonder what it’s like to be a child.[9]

Works Cited

[1] I’m referencing flow state here, but Adam wouldn’t use these words: https://www.sciencealert.com/the-science-of-why-flow-states-feel-so-good-according-to-a-cognitive-scientist

[2] Joke from https://twitter.com/GodAnimalBooks  tweet from August 30, 2021.

[3] Genesis 3:12

[4] https://reformjudaism.org/learning/torah-study/torah-commentary/deconstructing-adam This article talks about the two different Adams, and I was inspired to write about the tension between the first and second Adam.

[5] Gandhi said this

[6] So does Rene Girard in his book I See Satan Falling Like Lightning.

[7] This comes from George Saunder’s A Swim in a Pond in the Rain talking about the Russian author Gogol around page 299.

[8] Paul is that writer in Romans. 5:14

[9] This story of Adam is inspired by Jonathan Goldstein’s Ladies and Gentlemen: The Bible! And these closing lines are adapted from his story.