ALIVE: Chapter Nine - Week Two in the Ark

Above a thick layer of light grey clouds the sun appeared to mark the seventh day of the first week of steady rainfall. Neither the villagers, nor the sequestered family had seen the bright round sun for many days, and yet day and night still managed to filter through miles of foggy white sky. It wasn't just the rain that tormented the people outside the ark, it was also the strange white sky that hid both sun and moon. The eerie cloudiness made children and old men cry. Teardrops and raindrops together fell upon the soaked ground and burrowed themselves deep beneath roots and rocks.

Having just awoken from a dream Noah hurriedly dressed and shouted to stir his family. In his dream God told Noah to prepare his family for their own death and rebirth, that the long hard days of physical preparation for the flood were behind them. This forty day journey was to be a period of inner transformation. God told Noah that He would instruct his family through him. Noah was anxious to get started. He too was weary of their fear and complaints.

A short while later the clan gathered in what came to be known as the meeting room. It was one of the few rooms in the ark with a window. This morning the rains were falling so hard and fast that Noah had to speak very loudly to be heard, but he chose this room to contrast for them their sheltered safety with the havoc on the other side of the wooden walls.

Noah pounded his rocky mallet on the makeshift table to get the chatty group's attention. When all that could be heard was the rain and roosters he began to speak with a deep powerful tone of voice that even his own wife did not recognize. "Sha-me, my sons and daughters, let us not waste our energy in fear, for we have been set apart from this doomed world. We are safe. The hateful world we once knew will soon be gone, and only we will exist."

Shem looked over at Ham and his mother both of whose eyes were fixed on Noah's face. Japheth and his wife were cuddled together, her head laying in the cleft of his shoulder, her eyes closed. Shem wondered if Coochie was listening intently or snoozing. His mind wandered from Coochie to her brother and the other young men he grew up with, how they helped him to work his fields and hunt. He wondered what they were doing at that moment. Shem knew that he had to stop thinking about the past. It was no use. God did not ask his permission to wipe out all of humanity and he was powerless to stop it, so Shem turned his attention back to what his father was saying.

"And don't we want that?" bellowed Noah, "Did we not deplore the violence we had been threatened with every day of our existence? I begged God to deliver me from those murderous thugs, those depraved people. He answered me. Our God, Who created this world and is now destroying it out of disgust, wants us to prepare ourselves to make a better world. We are His tools. We must not look back at our old lives, or think about our former acquaintances, even our relatives..." At that Noah paused because everyone in that room had friends and family whose suffering and eventual death they grieved. "We must NOT look back, we must train ourselves instead to look inward, at our own hearts and minds, to align ourselves with the will of God, and accept what we do not understand."

Japheth and his wife unfurled themselves and sat up straight eyes wide open.

"While man and beast are being suffocated by water unto death, you shall be cleansed for a new life; your old man will pass away, let him or her go. As you sit in this inner sanctum of our ark focus your mind on the sacred inner sanctum of your body where lie your thoughts, your emotions, and your appetites."

Noah's strong voice and powerful words drowned out the loud din of the animals and the din of the driving rain when he said, "You, my holy family, are seeds of the re-creation of humankind. Prepare yourself for rebirth!" Noah paused after making that shocking proclamation. He wanted to give his family time to let the concept of their own transformation sink in.

The extended silence proved that it worked. Each of the seven men and women, even Sha-me, was thinking beyond his or her familiar fear and grief. None of them had chosen this forty day baptism, but it was chosen for them by their Creator God. Yet, it was up to each one of them, him and her alone to nourish a new self.

Eventually Ham was the first to speak. "Father," he said humbly, "Tell us, what is the first step of this transformation to be?"

Noah had a ready response. "Ham, my son, God has revealed to me that we were born and have lived in exile. The world we are leaving, the world that is now being destroyed had departed so far from the will of God that He had to annihilate it. The evil that you had grown so accustomed to, would surely have destroyed you too. Each of us alone must seek and find the way back from this exile to our God. By annihilating the world we knew, He is removing all obstacles for us, so we may return to a place we have never been before, to God's pure and perfect new world. These days are precious."

"Do you understand why you must not look back?" added Noah in response to the confused expression on many faces. "To look back at the old world is to revive what God wants destroyed. Use these days to look inward for the image of God in you, to find that place from which humanity strayed. It will be familiar to you even though you have never been there. I will teach you how to speak to God and to listen that you may each become His child. He knows the place in His heart where He wants to take you. Yield yourself to Him, trust Him and He will guide you there." He said piercing Sha-me with his royal blue eyes.

Suddenly a gust of wind caused the rains to rush through the window splashing every man and woman in the ark with the water of baptism. Noah didn't flinch, with water dripping down his face and beard he continued by turning to Shem and Shem's wife and shouted, "Surrender to God's will, die to your old self, and be reborn!" Lazaria began to weep in fear and clutched Shem's arm tightly.

Then turning to the others he said, "Ham and Japheth my sons, each of you has yielded your will to mine when you helped me build this shelter, now yield yourselves to God to build a relationship with Him, to be able to hear the invisible God speak to you."

Coochie got the chills when she heard Noah say that. Japheth could sense it and clenched her thigh. She turned and said to Japheth, "It was easy to think of how horrid many of those people were. How they stole and lied, how they hurt each other and hurt me with their arrogance and pride, but now that they are to die, and only we will live, it feels like such an awesome responsibility. No longer do I feel better than they. I feel small and unworthy to live." Japheth hugged her and simply replied, "I know what you mean Coochie, me to."

The sound of rain hammering the roof above their heads became more apparent, so Noah's voice bellowed louder as he announced, "We will gather here every morning to begin our day in prayer and worship. Let us ask the Lord to create in us new hearts worthy to live in a purified world."

Then Noah turned to his wife, "Sha-Me, my beloved. Cease thinking about what you will eat and what the animals will eat. Let us look on this 40 days as a period of abstinence and fasting. By changing our diet, we will develop self control. Self control to help us to combat evil temptations that remove us from God's will. If our grandparents Adam and Eve had the self control to refrain from eating the forbidden fruit, we would not have had to endure such evil and death. We will show God, by NOT eating, that we want to obey Him and Him alone."

Sha-me's eyes grew wide. She had no idea of what fasting meant. Her whole life, and that of everyone she had ever known focused on food, on growing it, or finding it and cooking and eating. All day long she worked to feed herself and her family. What could Noah be saying? She looked over at her daughters, the wives, to see how they reacted to this bizarre statement. Coochie and Lazaria sat up straighter and looked at each other with curiosity as if Noah spoke a different language, but not in shock as with Sha-me. The young men, who never cooked, but only waited for the meals to come to them, had no comprehension at all of what Noah meant by fasting.

Noah said to Sha-me, "You said yourself that the food is limited. We know we must be in this ark for forty days of rain, but how much longer will we have to be here before the water subsides and we can be on land again? We must use this time to develop our hearts and minds, not to keep focusing on our bodies. By limiting our intake of food, we will at the same time be conserving our food and building up our true inner selves."

Sha-me knew Noah to be the wisest man in the village; that is why she fell in love with him hundreds of years ago, but she had never heard him speak like this before. It sounded to her as if God Himself was speaking to them through Noah.

Noah continued, "The Lord told me that twice a week, on the fourth day, and on the sixth day, we shall eat no food at all, only we can drink water to remind us that on the fourth day He called forth two great lights in the sky to separate the day from the night to be for signs and for seasons and for days and for years. On the fourth day of creation God made time. We shall not eat on the fourth day of every week. Let our empty stomachs remind us that God made the sun and moon, the seasons and time and be in awe of our Creator. He is worthy of our surrender to Him."

By this time, the wind died down to a refreshing breeze. The room and everyone in it were thoroughly wet, but the rains were falling straight down again onto what had begun to look like a thin pool of water above the ground. All that could be seen above the pool were trees and shrubs.

"On the sixth day of Creation," continued Noah oblivious to the disappearing earth outside, "God called the earth to bring forth living creatures of every kind: cattle and creeping things and wild animals."

As Noah spoke, suddenly the lions roared, and the hyenas made their sounds to confirm that animals were created in the sixth day. "And on the sixth day," said Noah, "God also made our grandparents. He made humankind in His image, according to His likeness and He gave us dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, and over the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth. And He gave humankind every plant yielding seed that was upon the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit for food.

So on the fourth day God made the sun and moon to regulate time, and on the sixth day God made everything we have here in our ark, humankind and the animals. Let our hunger on the fourth and sixth days become for us teachers and friends to remind us that God made us for His purposes, not for our own. As the flood reminds us that what He made, He also has the power to destroy.

Let us refrain from thinking about the body and what it will eat, my dear Sha-me, even the animals will fast on the fourth day and on the sixth days.

This knowledge will humble us, it will remind us to respect our Creator. The days of our fear are over. Don't recall them. No longer are we threatened by the wicked and the violent who were aberrations of God's design. They thought themselves more powerful than God, and look what is becoming of them.

On the days we do not fast, we will continue to eat our plants, and our fruit and nuts, but let us eat them in moderation for the journey will be long and our rations are limited."

Then Noah turned his head and shouted, "Ham!" Ham sat up straight as if called out of a daydream and replied, "Yes father."

Noah said, "Never look back! I implore you to prepare yourself, and you Shem, and you Japheth; you are the remnant of humankind. While this baptism of the world means death, for you it means a second birth."

Ham looked at his wife, and then over to his brothers and their wives with new eyes. It had never occurred to him before how transforming this experience would be. Ham remembered the long hard weeks of building the ark. It was so exhausting and difficult that he didn't have time to think about what it was going to be like to live in it. He too despised the wickedness of the world. To kill everyone, to purge the world of wickedness, was for Ham very satisfying revenge. Meanwhile his father was still talking.

"Our mission is to return from exile. Should our minds wander backward to the dead and dying, let it only be to remind us of God's power over us, and His judgment." Noah was silent again for a few moments to listen for what God had to say to him next. He was actually trying to grab a fleeting thought. It had something to do with judgment. 'Got it!' Noah said to himself, and then out loud, "Ham, Shem, Sham-Me, Japheth, wives, "If you have anything against any one of us here, before nightfall, discuss it or simply let it go. Forgive that person for trespassing against you. Our ark is small and there is no room for conflict."

Noah sensed that his family did not understand, but continued for a little while longer anyway because he felt compelled to send this message.

"We are all subject to anger and fear, even evil, but we must resist these passions."

At this point the family started squirming. Most of them were gazing out the window at the driving rain, for indeed the speed of its descent had increased. The sky had gone from a dim flat white to having large patches of dark grey clouds.

Noah sensed that he had said enough for the first meeting. After-all they had to check on the animals. "Today" he said loud enough to be heard but less vehemently, "you witness water falling from the sky; you see our family alone among human life in this ark as safe and sound as you were in our mother's womb. As certain as my warning of rain came true, so certainly will you see us survive this catastrophe and live in a purified world.

How shall we create a brighter future in a new world? Let each of us develop a passion, not to leave this ark, or even that the rains will cease, but a deep desire to become a child of the living God, and to make a new, safe, and peaceful world.

With that everyone stood up to bring the meeting to a close.

Noah said firmly, "Wait! Let's thank God with all our might for this day of life, for saving us from the fate of everyone outside this sacred room." Sha-me grabbed Coochie's hand and nodded for her to hold Japheth's hand and to the others to form a circle.

And then something remarkable happened. Shem's wife Lazaria began to chant, "Alleluia..." over and over, one word alleluia. One by one each person joined in until they were all chanting together, harmonizing, low tones and high with perfect pitch.

Noah was amazed at the beauty of the sound and Lazaria's beauty. To listen to his family harmonizing swelled Noah's heart and brought tears to his eyes.

One by one a person dropped out, beginning with Lazaria until only Japheth was left chanting the last alleluia.

After that, no one was ready to walk away. They all sat still and quiet listening to the rain fall.

Coochie broke the silence by saying to Noah, "Father, I want to change, I truly want to become a child of God. Please show me how." Then Japheth added, "So do I father."

Noah looked at Coochie and Japheth and walked over to them. Coochie stood to receive Noah's fatherly hug, and Japheth hugged the two of them. One by one, Ham, Shem and their wives joined the group-hug repeating, "So do I father." Until the seven formed a human bouquet, tall and short ones, hairy and smooth, lighter and darker. Only Sha-me looked on from a distance to admire her children and her husband with tears welling up from her heart and spilling out of her big green eyes.

ALIVE: Chapter Eight- Inside

Gently the rising water bore up the crowded ark high above the earth. It floated on the sea and was tossed hither and yon by the tug of the moon and pushes from prevailing winds.

Higher and higher did the ark rise on the surface of the water, over mighty oak trees and sheep covered hills, and over the shepherds of the sheep and the sheepdogs, and over desolate mountaintops. Teaming flesh and swarming creatures all succumbed to a vast army of raindrops. Even the birds of the air without places to perch, fell exhausted into the watery abyss.

The earth was surrounded by a soupy ocean brimming with every form of life it had ever known. Nothing escaped this stew of death but a wooden houseboat filled with the makings of a brand new world, and terribly confused fish and sea monsters which navigated around a million corpses.

For forty days and forty nights streams rose up from the earth as they had from the beginning of time, while the planet was being pelted with rain from above. Thus the waters above the sky rejoined the waters below in a colossal reversal of Creation. Day after day the continual shower washed the air, air that the wicked men who provoked this catastrophe could not breathe to save their lives. Nor could the power of their anger, or the memory of their murders, or their evil inclinations gain them or their neighbors or their children a moment of relief from this losing battle with death.

Inside the lifeboat the wives wept in fear and grief over the loss of their mothers and brothers, sisters and fathers, while their righteous husbands thanked God Who delivered them from evil. Awe and humility, awe and humility.

Slow down author! Don't gloss over the most powerful weeks in the history of humanity. What transpired inside that ark? Ask God to tell us; ask Noah to tell us. How did their thinking and their emotions evolve during this watershed period of human life? Though thousands of years have buried these powerful weeks deep deep deep down in our history; call them forth to this surface of time. Tell us what we want to know. Tell us what we need to know about the very first forty day Lenten period when God's chosen people left a dead and dying world to enter the womb of God. How did this primal Lent change our ancestors and inform our Great Lent?

Week 1.

"Noah, I'm terribly frightened; water is actually falling from the skies! How can we survive this?"

"Sha-me, I told you this would happen! Did you not believe me?" replied Noah a little too impatiently.
Now that the dry week of confinement was over, and the rains began to fall Sha-me, Noah's wife, wasn't sure what was worse, the anticipation of calamity, appearing insane to her neighbors and friends, sitting inside a building filled with loud, smelly animals, on beautiful sunny days, or the beginning of the end of the world. Unlike her neighbors Sha-me knew that the end was near, but that knowledge had sat like a rock in her heart; she wanted to dis-believe.

"Please my dear, we have no choice but to trust God. Look, He told me this would happen, and it did. We will be safe, I assure you." replied Noah a little more compassionately.

"But these animals! They are so loud! I can't hear myself think. My heart is clogged with worry. And how can we feed them all? We gathered food, but they are ravenous! And they smell so bad, I want to throw-up." cried Sha-me.

Noah felt as Sha-me did but refused to entertain those kinds of thoughts. He knew that his job was to keep the peace and sanity. Outside, the rains were coming down sporadically, and nothing terrible had happened yet. The people and animals outside the ark were simply afraid of something so unusual as water falling from the sky. Some of them, the men who taunted Noah the most, and who watched him and his sons while they were building; these men tried desperately to recall how he did it and tried to build shelters as Noah had. Others rushed into already crowded caves. The most remarkable effect of the rain was that the people stopped fighting amongst themselves. Some were too busy responding to this natural phenomenon while others were paralyzed with fear.

The animals outside of the ark were just as startled by the water falling from the sky as the humans were, only they couldn't build, or were smart enough to seek shelter. Dogs ran in circles, chickens and roosters squawked and squawked. Lions roared. A choir of horses neighed in syncopated rhythm louder than ever. The birds of the air had no sense of danger. They nested and perched safe and securely on branches of mighty trees far away from the clamor below.

People who lived on other continents, who never knew Noah or saw his ark being built, who had no inkling of something unusual about to occur, reacted differently. For these men, women, and children sheer chaos reigned. Men and women screamed, children cried, but like their neighbors, they sought shelter anywhere they could find it, in caves, under trees, in the clefts of rocks. Children and teens gazed into the skies to see where the water was coming from.

Not everyone in the ark was as upset as Sha-me. Shem and Ham realized how lucky they were and how proud they were to be sons of the one man in all the world to be saved from annihilation. From the time they learned what God had told their father to do, and they started to build the ark they felt privileged to be singled out for this mission. They were ready. Ham and Shem were ready to stand victorious over their wicked neighbors. They weren't even afraid of the unusual water fall. At thirty, they were mere children open to adventure. Besides, their father Noah had told them what to expect and the falling water proved that he was right. There was a peace in their hearts that they didn't comprehend, it made no sense that they should feel so calm and even slightly joyful in the midst of this natural phenomenon, but they did. The young men were not yet aware that their mother, Sha-me, was so upset.

When they were not commiserating, the young wives took the medicine of busyness by nesting; they made beds and decorated the walls of the ark with pictures and designs they drew with pieces of charcoal.

After a few days of light soothing showers, the rains accelerated with a vengeance. The steady beat on the roof of the ark was so loud that the sound of it even quieted the dumbfounded animals inside. By the third day of steady rainfall man and beast alike subconsciously tuned their own vibrations, their heartbeats, their breaths, to the rhythm of the drops, so that in a strange way the rain became as much a part of each one's physical being as their own flow of blood.

During the first week the ark still stood firmly on the solid foundation of earth. These were busy days as the family settled-in to routines of feeding and housekeeping, sleeping and socializing. Without the river to bathe in personal hygiene was a challenge. Noah cleverly constructed several large tubs smeared with pitch to collect water on the top level. One tub was for washing and another for drinking. A room on the ground floor was reserved for relieving one's self. It was Shem's idea to build a box with an opening on top. The plan was for the person to sit on the box and expel whatever they needed to. Shem put a wooden cover over the hole to keep the odor inside. It wasn't as good as going behind the bush and walking far away, everyone with their own favorite spot, but there was no choice. The family had many changes to grow accustomed to.

The outside world during this first week was still very much on Sha-me's minds. She did not know how her neighbors were reacting; she could only imagine it and she was right. After the first few days of hiding from the rain, most of the villagers got used to it and returned to their daily routines. Women watched their little children, men hunted and fished. No one was prepared for death.

Noah and his family had been preparing for survival for so long that the shift to the reality of it gave each one of them a mild subconscious jolt of melancholy when it actually started. Japheth and his was wife Coochie had doubted their father Noah when he told them that water would fall from the sky and everyone on earth would die. The couple couldn't imagine how water could kill; it was so useful and essential. Japheth and Coochie wondered how something so important and good could also be so harmful? "Besides," Coochie said, "if this God of Noah created the world and was so good, why would he want to destroy?" Coochie had many friends who were happy people, women with many children they loved. She couldn't believe that their creator would destroy them...and with water. Coochie and Japheth didn't dare express their cynicism to Noah, or even the brothers. Yet, their doubts was their favorite topic of conversation when they would go for walks together during the building days. Now that they were cramped up in this ark with thousands of animals and water outside falling from the sky, Coochie and Japheth didn't have the opportunity to talk about this reversal of their expectations, nor did they want to. Each in his or her own way was still trying to accept it. The falling water frightened Coochie and even Japheth too. Where was it coming from? It may as well have been raining frogs for how strange it seemed that there were rivers in the sky spitting at the world below.

During these early days all of Noah's family, the faithful and the two cynics alike were focused on their physical survival and comfort-seeking. Between their yearning for fresh air, and adjusting to the sounds of the animals and the cramp quarters, thoughts about God and the wisdom behind what was happening could find no opening in their minds to seep in until one night while trying to fall asleep Noah spoke to God.

"My Lord," said Noah, "are you still with me? I haven't heard from you in so long."

"Fear not, My son. I am with you."

"My family is afraid; what should I tell them?"

"Tell them that this ark is not a prison. It is for the shelter and protection of their lives. They should not fear, but be grateful to be within these loud walls. Tell them to think less about the outside world and to think more about what is reigning in their hearts and about this small gathering, My synagogue that is your family.

"But, Sham-me, and Japheth, they want to know why their friends and relatives must die."

"Tell them that I have seen that the wickedness of humankind is great on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of their hearts is only evil continually. I am sorry that I have made humankind on the earth, and it grieves me to My heart. I must start over. Your family is the remnant that I will use for a new beginning."

Noah loved the Lord and feared Him. He wondered in his heart what he had done to find favor with God. He knew about the violence and hatred that ruled the lives of so many of the people, back biting and back stabbing each other continually. He knew about the murders and the rapes. He too was disgusted with the world, so Noah didn't want to challenge God's decision, but he also knew that the children and a few others were not quite so horrible. Noah wondered deep in his heart where he hoped that God could not see, if there could have been another way to make a better world without annihilating this one first.

"Noah, wake up." said God to the daydreaming man. "We can talk later; go take care of your family, and tell them to be grateful and not afraid. They are given an awesome responsibility to create a peaceful, loving world free from all enmity. Let them think instead about what this means and practice loving each other. Now go, I hear the zebras calling for you."

ALIVE: Chapter Seven - Days of Preparation

God and Noah were too busy building the ark to continue their conversation about evil, but Noah was not always too busy to keep thinking about it. He wondered why the powerful God would allow His creation to become so corrupted. He thought about it deeply, from many angles he thought about it.

Did God allow demons, Neanderthals, and sons of men to be whoever they chose to be, even when they corrupted and destroyed His Creation and defied His will ...in order to automate the world, so He wouldn't have to be involved in each and every action? Why, oh why did God want free will when freedom would ruin His design? God silently ignored these thoughtful questions; Noah shrugged his shoulders, relinquished his freedom to his Master and started building.

Step One. Fell the trees. Hundreds of trees were chopped down without saws or power tools. The work was hard and dirty, but Noah did not dare complain. They selected the largest and straightest cypress trees. Their tools were few: sharp rocks, and rope they made from hemp, and the wheel they constructed with anything they could get, a rock, a slice of tree. Rather than complain, Noah and his sons simply grew more and more muscular. The young men were proud of their old father for keeping up with them. The four men working in twos, Ham with Shem, and Japheth with Noah, managed to cut down twenty trees a day. The neighbors were furious, but were afraid to challenge such strong and determined men.

Noah hated the wickedness he saw around him, but he was used to it. It offended him, but he was alone in his opinion of his neighbors. Noah could not understand what motivated men to hurt each other without conscience; why did each person try so hard to dominate the other? All his life Noah tried to walk a straight line in a curly world.

Step 2. Haul the trees to the work-site. This is where the river came in handy. All they had to do was to drag the logs to the river. Once there, they assembled the logs into large rafts and floated the rafts down to the site of the building project. The cool water refreshed the men during their work. This relief gave Noah more time to think.

Noah knew God well enough to know about His tolerance, His forgiveness, and His love. He wondered though if God needed to be so generous-of-heart to contrast His goodness with evil, or to be superior to His enemy by continually creating and recreating, rather than always destroying as His enemy did? 'Come to think of it,' Noah said to himself, 'this flood will be the first time I can recall God ever destroying something.' He must deplore violence and wickedness more than He loves His creation. How much more frightening is God's disgust than the evil itself?'

Then Noah wondered if it was possible for good to exist apart from evil. He knew that evil could not exist apart from good, but he wondered what pure good would be like.

Noah asked himself. 'Could an antiseptic world be possible, and how would that world function?'

It seemed foolish to Noah that anyone would risk alienating him or herself from God. Then it occurred to him that for their part, no one else seemed to know that God existed. He wondered why God didn't make Himself obvious to everyone. Why was He so selective? No answer.

Step 3. Now it was assembly time. God spoke. "The length of the ark" said God, "shall be three hundred cubits, its width fifty cubits, and its height thirty cubits. The door of the ark goes in its side; make it with lower, second, and third decks, and divide the interior with rooms. Then, lay the roof on top of the ark, and finish it to a cubit above." God's plan was structurally sound. The hardest part was joining the interior rooms and constructing ladders to take them from one floor to the other. The building took months of hard and tedious labor to finish. Eventually the family's building skills could rest.

During the building phase Noah and his sons, Ham, Shem, and Japheth were too busy to think.

From time to time the Neanderthals came to watch and asked what they were doing and why. Noah responded that he was preparing for the end of the world, which always received a hearty laugh, a shrug of the shoulders, and departure. No one wanted to help. Eventually Noah's family was shunned by everyone in the village. Noah was glad to be shunned. There was too much to do to stop and talk with dead men.

Step 4. Cover the inside and outside with pitch to seal it. They had to amass enough pitch to seal the entire structure. From time to time it became obvious to Noah that an invisible brigade was helping them. Sometimes a tree came down a little too easily, or the pitch-making occurred too quickly. Making pitch from wood had always been such a slow painstaking process, but it seemed that they were producing more than they put in. Noah and his sons worked from dawn to dark. The mission seemed impossible, except for the invisible help they received.

In his 600 years on earth Noah had seen plenty of men die, but the thought that all of his neighbors would perish, and only he and his family would live made him feel awkward; it also made him fear God all the more. He wondered if, without all of these enemies, he and his children and grandchildren could make a better world, free from wickedness and violence.

'It has been horrible to see how violent and wicked the people have become;' thought Noah, 'perhaps God was right, humans simply live too long. I wonder how the world will change when a lifespan is reduced to a mere 120 years.' It seemed to Noah that children will be giving birth to babies. That seemed strange to Noah. 'If a person's life is consumed by a short cycle of being a child to caring for children, to caring for elders, then dying, it seems that a life-span would consist mostly of the foolishness of immaturity. But, I suppose God knows what He's doing.' In his own life Noah regretted not having his triplet boys until he was 570 years old. Most men became fathers between 60 and 200 years old, but Noah wasn't ready for family responsibilities yet. How these boys changed his life and how grateful he was for their companionship. His boys were only thirty years old, but like any viral hundred year old, they were strong and good.' Noah was proud of his sons for working as hard as they did without complaining or doubting him. They hadn't heard God speak to them as their father had, nevertheless they believed and obeyed their father without a hint of skepticism.

Step 5. Gather the animals and their food.

This step was easier than Noah and his sons were afraid it would be. The animals seemed to be drawn to the ark by a magical magnet. Not just one or two, but flocks of birds, in reds, yellows, and blues, black and grey birds, majestic large birds with white collars, little tweety birds, regal birds and humble birds all came careening into the building, then came the horses, the dogs, large dogs, small dogs, yappy dogs and growling dogs, and giraffe, antelopes, anteaters, wolves, zebras, and chimpanzees. Last of all came the flies, mosquitoes, (thousands of them, to be used for food as well) gnats, fleas, spiders, ticks and rodents. God charged his celestial servants with gathering the wildlife. Angels were more capable and thorough than anyone else could be.

Noah's wife and daughters-in-law had been tasked with food gathering. For months and months they stored up seeds, and worms, leafy plants, and vegetables of every kind they could find in the land. Rooms and rooms were dedicated to food storage. Openings in the walls provided adequate ventilation to prevent rot.

The womenfolk spent every waking moment preparing food for the day and for the coming months, for their family, and for their non-human co-refugees.

On the seventeenth day of the second month, before they were quite done, Noah felt a drop of rain fall from the sky. It was only one droplet and it only fell on Noah's head. The drop felt like a bell heralding a very important message. It said, "I have arrived, the first of an enormous army come to extinguish the enemies of God. Fear not, welcome me. I have fallen on you beloved Noah, as Holy Water from our Lord. What blesses you will annihilate your enemy. Rejoice, that you have been chosen to live through the devastation to come. Never before has faith been required of you. Be prepared."

This visit was followed by a ray of sunshine, and then a summer breeze. After the breeze came two more drops of rain, and then three. Japheth rushed over, "Father!" He exclaimed, "I feel water dropping from the heavens!"

"Japheth, go get your brothers and their wives." replied Noah fervently, "I will find your mother. Go quickly as we know not how this baptism will transpire. Hurry back!"

Then Noah went looking for his wife. She was bathing in the river. She looked beautiful that morning, her long wavy flaxen hair sticking to her back and shoulders. He stopped to let her enjoy the moment. She hadn't felt the raindrops. Soon Noah's wife emerged from the river clean and refreshed. He approached her gently and wrapped her in his arms. They stayed in each other's embrace for a while listening to their hearts beat in a syncopated rhythm, then Noah whispered in her ear. "My dear, the time has come to enter the ark. We mustn't look back. We will not speak to anyone in our path, let's just slowly walk into our new home together."

A tear fell on her cheeks when she begged, "Why now Noah? It isn't raining yet. May I please see my mother and father, my sisters...please?"

"No," replied Noah. "You must not. Come and trust the Lord" she reluctantly but obediently walked hand in hand with Noah. When they arrived, Ham was there waiting for them and Shem and his wife arrived within moments. Fortunately, there were no Neanderthals loitering around the entrance of their ark. The women went straight in. The men looked around for Japheth.

When Japheth and his wife finally arrived, Noah rushed them into the ark, and shut the door tightly behind them to make sure it was secure and locked from within. The family entered the ark without fanfare or ceremony; the most important event in the history of mankind passed as quietly and swiftly as a chick being hatched from its shell, as subtly as a loon disappearing into the depths of its pond to fish for food.

Safely behind locked doors, the family prayed in awe and humility, and with profound thankfulness to God, their creator and Savior. God answered each man and woman with a warm glow in his or her heart.

After the prayer, while they were still assembled, Noah's attention turned to Japheth.

The explanation for his tardiness was that Japheth's wife had gone to see her family one last time, but she obediently did not let them know what was about to happen. She explained her somber condition as illness before giving each person a hug good bye.

Then, all four women left the assembly to gather in another room to cry. All four men looked out of windows and peered into the distance and up to the sky which by then had cleared. A white dove, flew up to them and perched on the ledge of the window. one more bird can't hurt thought Noah when he let the dove in.

The next day being as dry and clear as the evening before caused the women to beg to get out, but God had told Noah and his family not to leave the building. For seven long days the family squirmed inside the ark as prisoners of God. Noah wonder if this was what the little drop of water meant when it told him that his faith would be tested as never before. Outside the sun shined brightly. The air was still and calm. From time to time one of the eight people inside peeked out the opening to see passersby making fun of them. Ham's wife didn't know whether to feel ashamed or sad for them. Noah told the young folk to be patient because God wanted to make sure that the family was safely installed in the ark before the skies opened up.

To pass the time, the menfolk developed feeding schedules, and discussed other logistics. They also invented games to play among themselves. No one came to the door as the neighbors had long since given up the family as a bunch of lunatics. Even the women's mothers and sisters stayed away for fear of being associated with the lunatics. Noah prayed, talking to God asking when something would happen. He felt so foolish and ready. God responded with silence.

On the eighth day, early in the morning, a few drops of rain fell upon the earth. It rained until the sun was high overhead and then it stopped. The rain stopped for the rest of the afternoon. The people were relieved when the rain stopped. They had never seen rain before and talked to each other about the unusual thing that happened. Water falling from the skies. Men, women, and children, even the ladies' family in the village began to wonder if the falling water had anything to do with the equally strange ark that Noah had built for his family and animals.

The rain resumed at sunset and did not cease until the end of time for that generation, except for Noah and his family. After three days of torrential downpour, the people started to panic. Large crowds fled to the ark and tried to break the doors down so they could enter, but it was impossible. The protected family inside felt the walls shake at the banging of people all around them, but no one could enter.

As the weeks went by Noah's family could hear an increasingly loud clamor of voices in shock over the rains. Day after day women's cries, and men's shouts ebbed and flowed. Until one morning when they awoke, all was silent. There were no more cries for help, no more angry banging on the walls, no roaring lions or weeping children. All was silent except the sound of rain on the seas that had formed. The family rushed to the opening and all they could see around them was an ocean of water, not even a mountaintop, just water. It looked to Noah's wife as if an hundred rivers had joined to cover the earth.

So it was that 2,006 years after Creation of heaven and earth with its plethora of animal and human life, in the tenth generation of humanity, God had regrets and determined to start over with eight humans, Noah, Ham, Shem, Japheth and their wives. From this family, a new shorter-lived human race would flourish on His beautiful planet. And so the first era ended abruptly. Soon, being Alive would take on new meaning, new purpose, and new challenges.

ALIVE: Chapter Six - The First Baptism

Do you not know that as many as have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death. Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of The Father, even so we also might walk in the newness of life. Romans 6:3-4

Make no mistake about it, baptism kills. It all started with the baptism of the Earth when water was used to extinguish corrupted life.

John the Baptist submerged men in water to kill the old soul, so that a renewed person would emerge in his place. As a seed is buried deep in black soil, where neither light nor oxygen can reach it, the baptized is buried in a watery grave that is equally hostile to the breath of life.

The death of baptism initiates souls into Christianity. To be a Christian is to be physically linked to Christ's sacrificial death through one's own watery death.

The emerging baptized Jew and Christian are reborn after experiencing death by water. Baptism wasn't always a symbol. It was the only way God could rebirth the Earth, to be rid of worldwide wickedness, the evil and violence of humankind. He didn't wash it way, He suffocated it.

"Lord, what are you are telling me?"

"Do you love Me?"

"You know that I love you Lord, I have walked with You before I could crawl. When I sat on my grandfather's knees, Methusalah opened the eyes of my mind to behold your majesty and your glory."

"Then trust me Noah, I must do this. I can no longer abide the violence of man and beast. This world grieves Me to the core. Before I made this earth I could not imagine that such hatred and vulgarity would emanate from it. The life I created has become rotten and malignant. I did not create evil, but I have the power to annihilate it, and I will!"

"Excuse me Lord, but before you do anything rash, let's talk this through. I was told by my father that You put the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil in the center of a garden. You knew evil existed all along, but you didn't want my grandparents to eat from that tree; you didn't want them to have the knowledge of good and evil. Did evil exist before you created the tree, and before You created the Earth?" Without hesitating for a response, Noah continued, "Surely, the serpent was evil to convince Eve to distrust you, to want to be like you. He hadn't eaten of the forbidden fruit. Where did evil come from? Tell me Lord, did eating that fruit actually open the floodgate of evil that troubles you so? How?" Noah asked with as much meekness in his voice as he could muster, lest He offend God with his questions.

"Noah, you have learned well at your father's knees. But don't be fooled. Evil does not exist on its own, as if something created. It is a parasite thriving on its relationship with good. There is no such thing as pure evil; it is a good and evil dynamic. You are right to say that evil pre-existed Creation because I pre-existed creation. Evil has always taunted Me. The heavenly host has always included rebels, jealous demons which want to destroy everything I build. I hoped that Adam would not be aware of it. By his trust and obedience, he was linked to Me and in Me, who Am pure Good. I could have shielded him from destructive self consciousness that separated him from Me. I thought I could create a world where the absence of the knowledge of good and evil would allow man and beast to coexist in a peaceful, blissful state of ignorance. I wanted that. When Adam and Eve were led into temptation and accepted the irrational lie that by separating from Me, they would be like Me in wisdom knowing both Good and Evil, they destroyed my ideal for humankind. The only way I could suppress evil was for humanity to be ignorant of it by trusting Me."

"So, Lord are telling me that you expected ignorance to maintain peace and harmony? Really?"

God replied, "I prefer to think of it as innocence, not ignorance. Adam and Eve were my children; I wanted to protect them from the knowledge of good and evil. I hoped they would trust me enough to obey me."

"Lord, said Noah, "knowing Your enemy, surely You knew the day would come when ignorance, uh, I mean innocence would be shattered by Your parasitic opposition. The snake embodied your enemies, the rebel angels. Apparently, You could not keep evil spirits from infiltrating your world, expressly because it is so full of beauty and goodness. If they existed, they had to be discovered eventually. Ignorance, I mean innocence is unsustainable, even I know that." But that explains your lack of anger when they disobeyed You, and even when Cain killed his brother."

God was silent for a while, meditating on His conversation with Noah. God was actually enjoying this conversation, just as He enjoyed His conversations with Enoch, Noah's great grandfather in heaven. God was glad to have friends. This was the reason, He thought, that He created humankind, for companionship, for conversation. Even if humans were still so young and ignorant, like little children they could form rich relationships with Him. Noah kept the silence too. Noah too enjoyed his conversation with God. He wasn't afraid of Him, afraid he would be struck down by challenging Him. God had become Noah's best friend, just as Methuselah and Lamech said He would be. This silence was a densely rich kind of silence, a fragrant silence, a luminous silence and both Noah and God were basking in it.

Suddenly God blurted out, "Please don't try to talk me out of this Noah. I can no longer wait. I must start over; I must! I cannot allow evil to be so rampant. This parasite has gone too far. It is corroding My Creation! I will wipe out everything from the face of the earth rather than let evil prevail! I will re-birth the Earth and humankind!"

"Lord, please don't! You will be destroying our food too. What will become of me and my family? Have You thought of that? Surely there is something redeemable in this world. Look at flowers, at babies, how can you destroy so much that is good?" pleaded Noah who was shocked at the sudden passionate tone in their conversation.

Noah was afraid of what God was telling him. Although God's sudden anger was alarming, Noah knew that He was right. Just the day before he saw a man raping another man before his very eyes. He had seen dogs murdered for entertainment. He had seen lying cheating power-mongers exploit the most vulnerable. No one could be trusted. If Noah didn't have God for a refuge, he would have gone out of his mind.

"Noah, please don't try to talk me out of this," said God, "I have determined to make an end of all flesh, for the earth is full of violence because of them. I am going to destroy mankind and animals alike, all the creeping things of the earth, especially the serpents. By doing this I will destroy parasitic evil with its food, rather than save the good for evil to continue to consume."

"But Lord, then, aren't you being violent too?" Noah whispered.

God didn't answer, but neither did He mind the question.

Feeling guilty for second guessing God, Noah quickly changed his approach, "So what's the plan? How can I help?"

"Water." replied God. "When I separated the waters above the firmament from the waters below, the whole earth was filled with water until I gathered the waters to make the earth. I will go back to that day before land appeared and start anew. The whole earth will be only water again. With water I will suffocate everything that needs oxygen to live. Water is the foundation of life. I will destroy life with the foundation of life. It's My way." Smiled God with His tone of voice.

"How can You fill the earth with water again, now that you have gathered the seas to form land?"

"Simple, rain, I will release the water above the sky to fall upon the earth until it is full."

Noah was shocked and confused. He had never seen rain. The thought of water falling from the sky frightened him, but he didn't want to say anything. Noah had learned to trust God, so he figured that he would wait to see what would happen. Instead he asked self-consciously, "What about me and my family? Will you let us perish in this watery grave too?"

"No, of course not. Noah, I want you to build yourself a house-boat. We will call it an ark. It must be tight so the water will not enter and it will float on top of the sea. Into this boat you will gather pairs of animals of each and every kind, and birds of the air, for when waters come, they will have nowhere to perch. Your sons will help you. Now get started."

ALIVE: Chapter Five - God's Regret

Seth was unhappy that some of his daughters and even a son went to live in Enoch. He didn't know his brother Cain, but from what he heard Seth was glad that they never met. Seth didn't want to worry that he too would be killed by a jealous and violent brother.

Nevertheless it was no coincidence that Cain named his son Enoch and his brother, Seth, named his son Enosh. When their mother, Eve, told her children bedtime stories, his favorite story was about twin boys named Enoch and Enosh. It always made her children laugh to hear her say those names together. Enosh and Enoch of legend had adventures; they battled animals, and got lost on expeditions through olive-tree strewn fields, and played hide-and-seek in the crevices of rocky mountains. In Seth's favorite story Enosh and Enoch made friends with a dragon who let them both climb on him. Enosh and and Enoch flew through the plains faster than the hyenas and faster than the tigers. When they reached the seaside, undeterred, the dragon simply swam to the other shore. The only thing the dragon could not do was fly, although he tried. When Seth grew up and married one of his sisters because no other women existed, they had a child whom they both joyfully named Enosh.

Seth was proud of his first-born son, Enosh, for his strength and diligence. From the time he was a young child Enosh worked by Seth's side helping him to till the fields, shepherd the sheep, and milk the goats. Enosh was a reliable son.

Adam and Eve had many children who married each other, until there was a generation who could marry their cousins, until there was a generation who could marry from a pool of very distant relations, and until the earth started to fill with humans made in God's image. Humankind happily and lustfully obeyed God's directive that they be fruitful and multiply.

For the first ten generations since humankind was created, a man's lifespan was nearly a millennium! First-children were born to men as young as 65 years old, and as old as 570. Methuselah lived to be 960. After around 900 years bodies gave out and they were planted in the ground.

Here is the fascinating rundown:

Adam - at 130 yrs old had Seth. Adam lived to 930. Seth was 800 when his father, Adam, died.
Seth - at 105 years had Enosh. Seth lived to 912.
Enosh - at 90 yrs old had Kenan. Enosh lived to 905.
Kenan - at 70 years had Mahalel. Kenan lived to 910.
Mahalel - at 65 years had Jared. Mahalel lived to 895.
Jared - at 162 years had Enoch. Jared lived to 962.
Enoch - at 65 years had Methusalah, then walked with God at 365 years and was no more.
Methusalah - at 187 years had Lamech. Methusalah lived to 969.but
Lamech - at 182 years had Noah. Lamech lived to 777.
Noah - 1056 - (1656 year of the flood, his father and grandfather were both deceased) - 2006

THE FIRST TWO MILLENNIA OF TIME
Adam 0-930
Seth 130 - 1042 Adam died when Seth was 800.
Enosh - 235 -1140 Seth died when Enosh was 807.
Kenan - 325 - 1230 Enosh died when Kenan was 815.
Mahalel - 395 - 1290 Kenan died when Mahelel was 835
Jared - 460 - 1422 Mahelel died when Kenan was 830
Enoch - 622 - 987 Jared was still alive when Enoch disappeared.
Methusalah - 687 - 1656 Methusalah was 300 when his father Enoch disappeared, he was 735 when his grandfather Jared died. Methusalah outlived his son by 5 years.
Lamech - 874 - 1651
Noah - 1056 - (1662 year of the flood, his father and grandfather were both deceased) - 2012

In the seventh of the first ten generations the second Enoch was born to Jared. He was named after Cain's son Enoch, the first grandchild to exist on the face of the earth. On the seventh day of creation God rested from all his works. In this seventh generation the second Enoch gave God relief from troublesome humankind.

Since the beginning of time children have been worrying their parents, and that's a fact. Nothing can be done about it because willful humans are made in the image of a bold creative intelligent Father. Creativity and intelligence expressed by unique individual wills have a million zillion expressions like a cacophony of sound, an orchestra tuning up. When the symphony starts, one is almost amazed that all those different sounds could ever blend. That's why we needed a conductor like Jesus, but I don't want to get ahead of myself.

Back to the seventh generation Enoch. For the first time ever, a man existed who was in tune with God. In fact, God liked the spirit of Enoch so much that He brought Enoch up to heaven to be with Him, to be His friend. Enoch's body suddenly disappeared one day when he was only 365 years old. He didn't die and he didn't go to Hades. No one could find Enoch anywhere and they looked for a long time. They didn't believe it when Enoch's son Methusalah told them that with his very eyes Methusalah saw his dad disappear while he was praying. In the whole entire history of mankind, such an ascension only happened one other time, with the prophet Elijah. (Jesus had died first, and so did His Mother Mary, although their bodies did not stay on the Earth but ascended to heaven as well.) This shows that it is possible to be spared a physical death, but highly unlikely.

As humankind multiplied on the face of the earth conflict set the tone. Evil and violence disturbed the tranquility of nature. Sure, there were animals who killed each other, but they weren't angry, they were just hungry. Human hunger was for power and dominance. The Earth became corrupt and filled with violence. God blamed the sons and daughters of men (the more animal-like Neanderthals) who married the sons of God for corrupting His precious humankind who were made in His image and likeness. Humankind then became more like animals than God ever intended.

So, in disgust God said, "My spirit shall not abide in mortals forever - people shall only live to 120 years old." Nine hundred years was much too long to watch in sorrow how people treated each other. God hoped that by shortening the life span, a more frequent series of starts and finishes might create a pool of good inventors, altruists, architects, and engineers, scientists, and philosophers; something He thought His planet was very much in need of, to supplement the farmers, shepherds, and home makers. But instead of arbitrarily shortening a lifespan by 85 percent, God needed to do something dramatic.

One fine day in November, when the sun was shining brightly in the sky and the birds were chirping with glee, Enoch's grandson, Lamech, and his wife gave birth to a very special child. Perhaps this baby inherited his spirit from his great-granddaddy, Enoch whom God had scooped up to keep as a friend. Lamech took one look at this infant and said to his wife, "Out of the ground that the Lord has cursed, this one shall bring us relief from our work and from the toil of our hands." That work and toil was the curse on Adam for obeying Eve who disobeyed God by eating the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. It was Lamech's way of prophesying that his special child would rise above the curse on humankind. Lamech and his lady Laureli named this child Noah. God liked Noah, maybe for the same reason He liked Enoch. Good chemistry.

Back in Cain's country of Enoch, not far from Nod, another line of people existed to trouble Father God with evil and violence. What is peculiar is that Cain's great grandson was named Methushael who was the father of a boy named Lamech, just as in Seth's line Methusalah was the father of a boy also named Lamech. Methushael and Methusalah, like Enosh and Enoch, didn't know each other. Except for in their names, Methushael and Methusalah were as different from each other as potatoes and starlight, and so were their sons the two Lamechs.

Cain's Lamech, like his great grandfather before him killed a young man who struck him, but decided on his own, without a peep from God, that God would protect him even more than He had protected Cain with the special mark that prevented him from being killed-back. There was no hereditary reason for Lamech's claim. It was simply fear-induced egotistical optimism. Lamech said out loud for his two wives, Adah and Zillah and all the angels and demons to hear, "I have killed a man for wounding me, a young man for striking me. If Cain is avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy-seven fold." What a puffed up rooster of a man!

Cain's Lamech killed a man and Seth's Lamech gave birth to God's charmed Noah. From the tree of Adam both good and evil grew. The all-intelligent Creator regretted making humankind. He wanted to undo, He wanted to backspace-delete. God learned that He could not make a being in His image, and expect it to stay like Him.

Human beings are not animals. We are different. Every kind of dog has a general disposition that is common to that kind, but willful intelligent humans are a wildcard.

Before reducing man's lifespan God decided to start with a clean slate. He decided to erase with water all but seven pairs of each animal, and one family (four pairs) of humans. Only the fish of the sea and the birds of the air would survive this holy terrible baptism of the Earth.

It was no coincidence that Enoch had been transported to heaven alive when God was deliberating His Clean-Slate plan. Enoch lobbied for his great grandson Noah to be the chosen one. He begged God saying, "Lord, please let one family live so you don't have to re-create humankind again. You did well, this time start with a better man than Adam. Let my grandson Noah build a house that will float on the water so he can survive the annihilation of mankind. Noah loves You, and he will trust you. He will make a good new world full of humans. No longer will you have to fret over murderous Cain's family tree." So together God and Enoch planned the great flood that was meant to purge the earth of evil, and shorten the human lifespan.

The flood had not been an impulsive decision. In fact, God has sent for Enoch 975 years before specifically to help him carefully plan it. It was Enoch who suggested that both Methusalah and Lamech should die before the flood so Noah would not be forced to leave his father or grandfather behind. That would have been cruel. When the time was right, the rains of baptism came pouring down on earth.

Rain was new. Until that day water had never fallen from the skies. Morning dew irrigated the trees and plants, and the seas had more than enough water for all other purposes. So the first big shocker for the evil Lamech and all the other haters and fighters was rain. It brought a deluge of surprises for all the egotistical power seekers, most of whom who didn't even know that a God existed.

So it was that in the tenth generation since the birth of Adam, one thousand six hundred and sixty two years after God created humankind, he obliterated them all except for the family of Noah, his wife, three sons and their wives, eight human beings...and their zoo.

ALIVE: Chapter Four - Little Gods v. Nature

Reproduction is key to life. One plus one becomes three. Grieving childless Adam bestowed upon receptive Eve another of his seeds and out popped Seth, who knew no brothers for a long time. When other sons and daughters were born to Adam and Eve, they told their new crop of children about the murder of Abel and that killing one's brother was the worst thing a child of God could do to his or her own soul. The wiser family never visited Cain in Nod. Adam tilled Able's blood into the earth more and more every spring until it eventually produced a fragrant patch of thyme.

Year after year Eve hoped that her invisible beloved son Able would visit her like invisible God had so often, but the empty silence lingered like an unwelcome guest. Only her memories of the carefree child who played with his frolicking lambs in the sunshine kept the memory of Able alive in her heart. Baby Seth kept Eve busy with his childish antics, and soon she heard herself laugh again. It had been a very long time since laughter had welled up in her.

Eve taught her children that God made her to be like Him, and that she could invoke His name and He would listen to her, and sometimes speak. Adam told their children that God was his father and their grandfather. God spoke less and less. Seth and his brothers and sisters sensed that they were being protected by an invisible, but all powerful God whom they didn't comprehend. No one else was murdered. Neither did anyone give gifts to God. Instead, they worked to grow food and ate it, and slept when the sun went down, and woke up at sunrise in a steady rhythm we call Life.

The family of Adam and Eve were a peaceful family, they were creative and generous and very intelligent. Adam and his sons made tools to help them with their farming and to help them make shelters that kept the animals away, and that gave them shade in places where trees did not grow. Eve and her daughters composed songs and made clothing out of hair and and string they pulled from vines and branches of trees. They were happy and showed it by singing and dancing together.

After thousands of suns and moons appeared and disappeared the children grew tall and strong in mature bodies that resembled their parents. More children were born from them and no one ever died, until one day Adam, when he was 930 years old, laid down to sleep and never woke up.

Eve spotted Adam's body while on a walk to gather flowers. She took a good long look at him and shook him to wake up. Adam didn't move. He appeared to be dead like Abel, only without the blood all over him. Eve was astonished and screamed. Then she cried. She wondered if Adam had gone to find Abel. She called out to God to tell her where Adam had gone. But God was silent.

In her grief, Eve remembered the day when Adam had told her not to eat from the tree with the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. He warned her then that she would die. But she didn't know what death meant, and she still didn't understand death. That was 930 years ago. Eve had never since the murder of Abel seen a dead human being. Adam was the first natural death that she had witnessed and she didn't expect it. Eve didn't know how this happened and where Adam went. She moaned; she wept; she cried. She cried out to God to come and talk to her and tell her what happened to Adam. Adam's skin turned blue and stiff.

Seth heard his mother screaming and crying and rushed over to her. He saw his father in stillness and looked away. Instead he tried to console his mother, but he was afraid too. His brothers and sisters ran up to Seth and Eve to ask what had happened. Then they looked down at Adam's lifeless body and gasped. Each of them gasped, one after the other they gasped in a symphony of horror.

Eve remembered that Adam and Cain planted Abel in the earth and so she told her sons to go over to Abel's grave and plant another beside it so Adam could lay deep in the earth by his son. After they buried Adam, Eve walked alone up to her favorite hill where she often went to think about her life, or her children, and about the days when they lived in Eden. When she arrived, she found her favorite rock and sat upon it and weeped alone some more. She called out again, begging God to come to visit her. It had been so long since she felt His presence.

Soon, the familiar cool breeze swept across Eve's tear stained face. "My daughter," said God, Yahweh "Don't despair. You will soon be with Adam, my son. I never wanted you to know death, how I wanted to shield you from the destructive power of sin."

"I wanted to be wise like You my Lord." she replied defensively. "Please take me to Adam now. I want to be with him." She was comforted by talking with the Lord again and hoped He would never leave her.

"First you must return to your children and make sure that they know Me and know that they can invoke My Name and I will come to them. For just as you and Adam were made in My image so were your children and grandchildren. Let them know that humankind flows from Me. Will you do this? Then you may rejoin Adam and Abel beneath the earth."

"Lord, I don't know what it means to be made in your image? I can't see You, I can only feel Your presence. Who are You?"

The Lord God had compassion on Eve in her ignorance, and answered, "Eve, look around you at all that I have created and by my Creation tell Me who I am."

Eve looked up at the horizon to her left and right as far as she could see, then she looked at the field below and saw cattle grazing. She saw chimpanzees swinging from limb to limb in the nearby woods. She saw orchards of fig and olive trees. Then she looked down at lavender and pink and white wild flowers of different shapes and sizes blanketing the earth and little chameleons scurrying busily between them. With her eyes drinking in the grand variety and beauty, the balance of living matter and non living matter, of rocks and dust, and water, she finally looked toward God's voice and said, "You are amazing! Did you really create all of this before You created me?"

She felt God smile. Then she added, "I see that You must be brilliant and sensitive, creative and artistic."

"As are you and your children, My dear one. Tell them to use the gifts that I have given to humankind wisely. It is a big responsibility to be endowed with so much. More than what you see, my child, I have placed My Kingdom in your hearts. Live there in peace and honor Me, and we will be together forever."

"What is there left to create, my Lord? You have given us everything!"

Eve heard a little chuckle from God.

"I have only given you the foundation, the building blocks; tell your children to go and build a world within this world, made by your equally intelligent and creative minds, then I will come to visit and be proud of you."

Just as suddenly as He arrived at her calling, Eve felt the spirit of the Lord vanish. She wondered where He went.

Strengthened and composed Eve descended the hill to carry out her mission. She called her children together and told them that she too would soon die as their father had, and she told them everything that God wanted them to know. She hoped that they would remember and be as kind and compassionate to each other as God and Adam had been to her.

Eve felt ambivalent about dying. She wanted desperately to be with Adam and Abel no matter where they were, but she didn't want to leave her children, and her garden. She was frightened to live under the earth where the sun did not shine and there was no air to breathe.

Over in Nod Cain and his hairy wife gave birth to Enoch and several other children. The children of Cain and Farley were as handsome and bright as Cain. They were not hairy and dull-witted like their mother. Farley grew proud of the looks of her husband and her children. She no longer thought hairless Cain was odd. Their children were more industrious and creative than any other children in the land of Nod.

After many years of living in Nod and being ridiculed for his smooth skin, Cain took his family and left to built a city of his own. He named it Enoch after his first born son. Cain encouraged his children to go to the land of his birth, and choose wives and husbands from the children of his parents, so his grandchildren would be smooth skinned and industrious too.

Cain and Farley took their stores of food and cattle to Enoch. There Cain taught his children to invoke the name of the Lord God. As time went by the sons of Cain returned to Enoch with the daughters of Seth and the other sons of Adam and Eve who wanted to find wives in Enoch. They were very curious about their Uncle Cain, the killer, but they found him to be sensitive and intelligent. He must have changed in the last five hundred years, they thought.

Cain was told that neither Adam nor Eve existed anymore but that they had been planted in the earth next to his brother Abel. Cain was angry and asked who killed them? Cain did not know of anyone dying for any other reason, but his sons assured him that after 930 years, they naturally grew tired and slept and then were no more. They explained to Cain that Eve had told her sons to plant Adam in the earth, and then to plant herself beside him. Cain cried. It was like a second death to have left his mother and father, and then to have them leave him and the earth. The sons of Cain and daughters of Eve told Cain and Farley what the Lord God said about being made in the image of the Creator of the earth and all that is on it, and all that swims in the seas of it, and all that flies over it. Cain recalled a very faint memory of his father telling him the same thing when he was a child.

Then Cain remembered how kind God was to him to give him the mark of protection. Indeed, many times since he left home Cain felt the power of that mark keeping him from being killed.

The next morning Cain and his sons and daughters helped Enoch build a wall around his city.

ALIVE: Chapter Three - Children of Men

We last left our less than great grandfather, or possibly uncle Cain, taking a break to scarf down strawberries while attempting to run from his blood stained hands to Nod.

Cain was a torn man, at the same time a murderer and the first-born son of the first two children of God who had been born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man but of God. Cain knew his Grandfather, the Creator of heaven and earth. Cain lied to Him. After he had killed his brother, the Lord God asked Cain where Abel was. Cain replied, "I do not know, am I my brother's keeper?" Cain was not only a self-centered murderer, he was also a sassy fool." Am I being too judgmental?

This whole scene began when Cain and Abel gifted God with the fruits of their labor. God preferred Abel's flock over Cain's fruit of the earth. That infuriated Cain. After all, Cain thought to himself, 'Didn't I work harder than Abel to till the ground (with sticks and sharp rocks,) plant the seeds and pull weeds in the scorching sun? Abel just strolled his little animals to the stream while I was hauling the heavy water to my plants.' The sooner one learns to accepts the fact that God doesn't have the same sense of fairness as we do, the better. Understanding is an option, obedience is not. God's unusual sense of fairness must be tied to His emphasis on forgiveness, which when you come down to it, is the epitome of unfairness, but is very Godly.

In an attempt to defuse his anger, God had told Cain that he would be accepted too if he did well. But if he didn't do well, God warned him, "Sin is lurching at your door. It wants to destroy you." Cain would have to master sin. Cain didn't know what God meant by doing well or what mastering sin meant. Instead he followed his impulse to lead his brother to the field where he stabbed him with an arrowhead. Did Cain think that by eliminating his competitor, he would win God's favor by default? Did the serpent make him do this too as it made his mother, Eve, eat the forbidden fruit? Did Adam and Eve eating that piece of fruit make Cain mean?

Cain's stupidity is not surprising. What is surprising is that after punishing Cain with eviction, God blessed him with a mark to protect him from any murderers that he may encounter out in the world. Cain was sent away from his precious soil, and from the presence of God into a world populated by children of men.

Steeped in thought Cain eventually arrived at Nod. A man approached him who looked like himself upright with long muscular dangling arms, except the main was very hairy and looked stern; Cain was scared. God was silent.

Cain and the man communicated with facial expressions and sounds. Translated here is what they said to each other.

"Who are you? And where did you come from?"

"I am a wanderer, but I want to stay here. My family is from Eden. I met a man from Nod many moons ago. He told me about this village. I have come to look for him. I used to farm the land, I could grow much food. I had to leave my farm because the soil became sour. I want fresh rich soil. May I live among you?"

Cain said nothing about his crime, or about God. The man said nothing about God because he didn't know where he came from, or that God existed. The man from Nod was hairy, Cain was not. Cain was a tall muscular man with shiny white teeth straight as piano keys, smooth olive colored skin, with green eyes and glistening light brown hair. Cain was glad the man didn't say anything about God. His fear gradually melted away as his confidence grew with the thought that he could be accepted for his farming skills and his seeds.

Three new hairy men walked onto the scene. When they saw the stranger they wondered if they should kill him.

"What is that animal?" Said one of the three to the others.

"I know him! I met him near Eden. He told me that he is called a human."

Recognizing that one, Cain shouted out. "Hello there, remember me? I have come to live among you. Give me land and I will give you food. I bring seeds." No reply.

The tallest of the men of Nod was not as tall as Cain. The man Cain had been speaking with walked over to his friends leaving Cain alone to wonder if he should run or stay. He was too tired to run.

The four men argued loudly. Cain did not understand what they were saying to each other. He wondered if he should slip away and find another place to settle, but besides being tired the soil looked rich and fertile, so he waited. He wondered whether the ground's curse on him for receiving his brother's blood stretched this far.

The four natives quieted down and walked over to Cain.

In their language the one most familiar to Cain spoke. He said, "You take my sister as wife and you may have land."

Cain replied. "Take me to your sister that I may see her."

The troop walked in procession to the center of the village where the women were cooking the day's meal together. The women were as hairy as the men. They all had dark brown eyes and wavy long black hair.

The brother shouted, "Farley, come."

With her head bowed demurely she obediently walked over to her brother and the weird hairless man.

"You will take this man as your husband. Come, I will show you the land you may settle in."

For centuries readers of Moses' creation story have wondered where the other people came from who lived in Nod when Adam and Eve were the only humans mentioned. Anthropologists have contemplated the evolution of humankind from Neanderthal. The fact is that not all homo sapiens were formed in the image and likeness of God as were Adam and Eve.

But when Cain, a child of God married a daughter of man, his children and grandchildren, became human, and thus gradually the brilliance of the human mind made in the image of God, and the sensitivity of the human heart dominated growing stronger with each generation. For the most part, the hairy body disappeared. Being alive gradually started to mean being sensitive and aware of the divine and most complex design of life.

ALIVE: Chapter Two - The Next Day

Cain went to live in the land of Nod to try to escape the emotional grip of the blood-stained earth that reminded him of his jealousy and his crime. Childless again, Eve had plenty of time to think about life and death. She still couldn't imagine how she could die someday since Abel was murdered, and no human had ever before died a natural death.

The chirping birds reminded her of the days before she knew death at all. She wondered to herself if she had been more alive when she was ignorant of death. Then she thought about Abel and that God said that Abel had been sent to a place called Hades. That concept was too much for her, so she went looking for Adam.

"Adam, Adam where are you!" she called. Eve went over to his favorite cave and called his name again; no answer. Then she went to Cain's garden where she found him tying up tomato plants on the clever conical frames he had constructed with branches and vines.

"Here I am, what is it Eve?"

"Adam, can we talk?"

"Okay," he said somewhat glad for the break. She went closer to him and together they walked hand in hand up the hill to their favorite grassy spot. When they arrived, Adam was first to break the silence, "What's on your mind my dear?"

"Adam, before I was created, did God tell you anything about being alive without a body? How is that possible? Being alive to me means being able to see and hear and feel, it means to be able to run through the fields and hug and make cartwheels. Remember when God said that Abel went to Hades? How is that possible? We buried his blue lifeless body in the earth, did it go deeper?"

"No, Eve. God didn't tell me anything about that. Remember, before you came we never had anything to do with death. But think about it, God is alive, and we speak to Him and He to us, but He has no body, and He said we were made in His image. So being alive may have nothing to do with being in a body."

Eve's grief turned to confusion and then despair. She began to weep.

"Come on Eve, snap out of it. There is nothing we can do but live and breath, grow food and eat it, and tend Abel's flock. We should be much too busy to think. Let's go back and work on those tomato plants some more. Don't you like that name I gave them? TOE-MAE-TOE! I thought it sounded rhythmical." Adam said trying to console her with a little levity, but he only succeeded in making Eve think even more.

Meanwhile, Cain was well into his journey alone hiking up and around mountainsides and traversing stream beds where he washed off his brother's blood and watched it turn the clear water mauve. While hiking, Cain had plenty of time to think. He thought about his brother and he missed him. Abel should have been on this journey with him. They had had so many boyish adventures together, climbing trees and trying to ride on the animals. But soon his sense of guilt returned and with it the fear. He had to remind himself that God marked him so no one could kill him. He imagined himself inside an eggshell of stone. Then he wondered how God could have been so kind to him after what he had done to destroy his own flesh-and-blood brother. It was as if the depths of his jealousy was elevated by the extreme height of God's forgiveness like a magnet that sucked up his sin. Sin, what did God say? Cain struggled to remember. It was something about sin crouching at your door. Ummmm. If I don't do well, sin will be crouching at the door to take me. Then what? What did God say about sin? I need to master it, and not fall into its grip.

The fear Cain felt forced him to try harder to understand God's advice. It was the only defense he had against collapse. Master sin. Master sin? I have no idea what that means? He thought to himself.

Then his thoughts turned to Abel again and how he would work with his sheep, how he corralled them and drove them hither and yon, from the grassy fields to the streams. Abel was the master of his sheep. "What do I know about being the master of anything?" He thought. "My plants don't have a mind of their own. They never go off to hide. I have never had to master anything or any one. Well, maybe I tried to master Abel, so I killed him. Oh Abel!!! Please come back and help me learn how to master sin."

"Fall into its grips... Is that what happened when I killed my brother? I don't know what that means." Cain's mind spun him to and fro. He felt like he was grabbing at strings in the air. Every time he caught one, another would slip away. He fell to the ground in mental exhaustion. Fortunately for Cain, he was in a grassy field. He closed his eyes and breathed in the fresh smell of the grass. On the ground he decided to sleep away his confusion. Sleep wouldn't come so fast. So he tried to free himself from his thoughts by simply feeling the warmth of the late afternoon sun on his bare skin. He listened to all the different sounds of birds and little animals around him. He tried to identify them, then he tried to count them. Sleep finally took hold of him.

"Cain, I'll race you to the that olive tree, okay? Ready, set, ...

"Wait a minute! I am not ready."

Abel started running anyhow and three little sheep ran by his side.

Seeing his brother running with the sheep, Cain took off to catch up. The faster he ran the farther away he got from Abel. Slowing down to breathe convulsively he looked up to see in the distance Abel engulfed in a sea of sheep and strange winged beings that looked human hovering in the air.

"BOO! Did I scare you?" said Abel right in his face. "Come here sheep, now stand in a straight line. Show this brother of mine what it means to obey."

An handful of sheep of different sizes all lined up head to tail in a long serpentine formation, like an army of wool.

"Heads left!"

All sheep heads faced Cain. Ten or twelve sets of eyes stared at him to pierce his guilt ridden soul.

Cain turned his head away. He couldn't bare to see those eyes upon him.

He started to run. But he found himself running toward Abel.

"Stop!" Shouted Abel. "I command you to stop running." Cain wondered how he could hear Abel so clearly. It was as if his brother was speaking to him within his own head.

Just then, Cain awoke in a particularly dewy mist. Drenched and groggy he stood up to shake off the water. He was glad and sorry that he only saw Abel in a dream. While he was still partially in his dream and in his reality, Cain tried as hard as could to return to the dream where he could be with his brother again, and ask him if he knew how to master sin. Cain hadn't forgotten how much he wanted to know what that meant.

Then he remembered how his mother and father would call out to God and God would come to them. Perhaps he could try that too.

"God!" Cain shouted as loudly as he could. Then he waited for a while. Nothing.

"God!!!! I need to talk to you!!! Please come here!" he yelled a full octave louder, surprising himself.

After a while of silence Cain continued on his lonesome journey to Nod.

A half a mile later Cain felt a foreign presence within him. To test it he asked, "How will I eat if I cannot tend my precious fruits and vegetables?"

A reply came, "As a wonderer you must forage for your food. God will provide. He already has when He planted the food for you ages before you were even conceived in your mother's womb."

Then Cain asked, "Why did God prefer Abel's lamb to my offering? We both gave Him of the fruit of our labor?"

The inner voice replied, "Because blood the lamb will have great significance for our Lord. You couldn't have known that. Where you went wrong, was to care so much. Your concern was only for yourself, not for the Lord's joy, or for your brother's."

"Was that sin?"

"Yes. Sin is anything that separates you from the image of God. You allowed yourself to be different than a loving God whose rejoices in His children equally. You pulled yourself out of God's circle of love. Imagine a powerful centrifuge going around and around and now imagine that you jettisoned yourself with self centeredness and disturbed all of creation. Like electrons taking off, like a planet shooting out of orbit, like chaos."

"I have no idea of what you are saying. What is an electron; what is chaos?"

"Of course you don't." replied the spirit. "Sorry, don't bother to try.

The point is that sin is at the same time a foreign substance that you can and must control, and it is infused in your being, crouching at the doors of your mind and heart. If you don't master sin it will master you. It will drive you to do things, like kill your brother, that will continue to fling you from God-likeness. You must first learn how to see sin as an unwelcome guest within you, much in the way that I am a visitor within you right now. You must create an inner shield deep within your mind and heart to separate yourself from sin, then master it."

The spirit went on, "Did you notice how kind God was to you, even to the point of giving you the mark of protection, just as He gave your parents clothing when they sinned, when they separated themselves from His love?

You Cain, like your parents before you separated from God, but in the same manner, with your will, you can bring yourself back into alignment.

Try to be like Him as you go into the world and encounter children of men who will act in opposition to you. Treat them as God treated you and your parents in your own rebellion. I have said enough. Think on these things that you may live."

The spirit left Cain as suddenly as it had arrived. He tried to continue the conversation in his mind, but nothing came. It was more obvious than ever, that he wasn't talking to himself, but to a sort of spirit who was counseling him.

By then Cain's stomach growled loudly. No sooner had the thought come into his mind than He looked at his feet to find himself in the midst of a field of strawberries. He crouched down and popped strawberry after strawberry into his mouth with such rapidity that the little chipmunks ambling around stared at him in amazement.

ALIVE: Chapter One - The Story Begins

"Come on Adam! Get up and play with me!" She called. "It's such a beautiful day! I'll race you to the fig tree. "

Adam didn't budge. He was trying to nap and so he pretended to not hear her.

Giving up Eve muttered, "Okay, I'm going for a walk. Sweet dreams sleepyhead."

Eve walked through the field of bright yellow buttercups, and other wild flowers whose names she couldn't remember, purple ones that made bouquets all by themselves, and little iridescent white platters of petals. The earth was so beautiful on this spring morning that she was thrilled and grateful to be a part of it. Gaggles of blue winged, and red crested birds flew over head. Their chirping was so loud that she wondered what they could be saying. They sounded so busy and so serious.

While she was gazing up at the birds Eve stumbled over a large rock and fell to her knees. At that moment a long garden snake approached.

"Oh no not you again!" She exclaimed. "Haven't you done enough damage? Go away. I am never speaking to you again."

The snake slithered closer to her and replied, "What are you talking about? I did you a favor. And look, you're not dead are you?"

"I know you tricked me, and besides, I didn't even know what being dead meant, and I still don't.
All I know is that everything seems so different now. You told me that I would become wise. Well I don't feel wise. I don't even know what being wise means either."

The snake chuckled slyly to himself and said, "See! God still loves you."

"And I still love Him," she barked back as if threatening the slimy snake.

"God!" Eve shouted out to the air, "Please come here and make this snake leave me alone!"

No sooner had Eve said that than she felt the familiar warm breeze caress her face and wrap her in an airy blanket infused with the sweet smelling fragrance of lilies of the valley.

Through the feeling of fatherly love Eve watched the snake shrug his shoulder and bury himself into the earth.

"Thank you Lord." She said silently. "But while you are here, may I ask you a question?"

God replied, "Of course my daughter; speak."

"What is death? Is being wise death?" Eve paused to wait for His reply and then added, "I don't feel wise, or dead. I don't even know what they mean. All I know is that since that snake tricked me and I disobeyed You. I feel sad sometimes, and i have to wear these clothes. Are You angry with me Lord?"

"Not angry, Eve; just disappointed that you didn't trust Me, and sad for you."

"But you made that snake, God!" She exclaimed. "Didn't you know what he would do? How did he get to be so sinister?" Before God could answer Eve added, "Why are you sad for me Lord? I'm happy. I love this beautiful world you made for us." And then, to change the subject, she said, "Look what I can do!" Eve flung herself to the ground sideways in a straight flat cart wheel, and then another, and another before she stood up straight with her feet planted firmly on the ground and her long arms opened wide as could be.

She heard God laugh and it made her happy again, so she decided to say goodbye to Him and continue on her hike through the fields. Soon she grew hungry and decided to walk over to her son's garden to get something to eat.

When she arrived she called out to him, "Cain, Cain, where are you?"

In muffled and distant voice, as if he was crying out from the bottom of a well she heard Cain say, ""Here I am mother."

Cheerfully, Eve walked toward the sound, but her cheery countenance plummeted when she arrived to behold her beloved son covered in blood. She looked beyond him and there was Abel, the sweet shepherd she loved lying still, and without breath, his skin had turned color and his wide opened eyes showed a stone face face filled with fear.

Eve was dumbfounded. "Abel, wake up!" She shouted shaking him. "What is wrong with you! Abel, my son, what is wrong?!" She had seen animals and flowers die, but never before had she witnessed a human death. When Eve realized that Abel was dead, she screamed so loudly in fear and horror that the birds of the air, and every living breathing creature fled from her presence. Adam also heard her and ran across the fields to where he found her with Cain. He gazed on the bloody lifeless body of his youngest son, and then up at the scene of Cain and his mother both stunned and silent.

God too arrived at this dastardly scene and was the first to break the sin-laden silence. He said to Cain, "I heard your brother's blood cry out to Me from the ground. Why have you done this?"

In the same hollow tone that drew his mother to him, Cain shifted the blame, "I was angry because you had regard for Abel's offering, but not for mine."

God said, "I told you that if you did well, you too would be accepted, but if you did not do well, I warned you that sin was lurking at the door; its desire is for you, and that you should Master sin and not fall into its grips. Now see what you've done!"

Cain replied, "Bring him back, Lord. You made us, make Him live again for mother's sake."

"I will not do that." replied Father God, "You must learn about the consequences of your action, as your mother and father are learning. Sin kills, and death is permanent. Besides, I created a place called Hades where Abel's soul went. He is there alone, but soon all of mankind will follow, and to that place of the dead, even I cannot go because I am Life, the creator of life and the essence of life. I have no place for death within me and I cannot leave myself. That is final. One day Cain, you will go there too and have to face your brother again. Get ready for that day."

Eve and her husband Adam lay weeping by their son's side. They heard nothing of what God said to Cain. She was stroking his hair and patting the lifeless body of her little shepherd who had died because of the sin of his brother. Adam said, "Now we know death. Now, we are dead too." Talking to himself he added, "When we disobeyed God, we didn't even know what death meant, and in that day we didn't die as God had threatened, but today I see and feel death."

"My son, my son where art thou?" Eve could not be consoled; the shock of a human death overwhelmed her more than if the sun failed to rise above the mountaintop, as if the earth opened up to swallow her. Nothing that she had experienced since her creation prepared either Eve or Adam for this moment.

God spoke. "Cain, now you are cursed from the ground, which has opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood from your hand. When you till the ground, it will no longer yield to you its strength; you will be a fugitive and a wonderer on the earth." And to Himself God said as He cringed to see the lifeless body of Abel whose gift had pleased Him so, and caused this violent end, 'Someday I will make a shepherd boy king of my people, and he will kill ten thousands of his enemies.'

Cain wept loudly and replied, "My punishment is greater than I can bear! Today you have driven me away from the soil, and I shall be hidden from Your Face; I shall be a fugitive and a wanderer on earth, and anyone who meets me may kill me."

With compassion the Lord answered, "Not so! Whoever kills Cain will suffer a seven-fold vengeance."

Then Adam and Eve watched as the Lord put a mark on their beloved son Cain, so that no one who came upon him would kill him.

Eve moaned at the thought of losing Cain too. Then she winced at the memory of her own disobedience; how easily that serpent convinced her to not trust God. Could this be wisdom; to know the suffering sin causes, and to feel regret? Could the death of Abel, which caused her own heart to wither and die be her delayed death? Eve still could not imagine that someday her own physical death would occur. She only just learned that it was possibly for a human body, made in the image of God to become lifeless, and that sight alone horrified her.

Cain wept in his mother's embrace. Adam pulled her away to release their son from Cain's clutches. "Before you go," said Adam, "Help me dig a hole to plant our Abel deep into the earth. I cannot gaze upon this body any longer."

After burying his brother in the earth, Cain left the presence of the Lord, and his parents to go to the land of Nod, east of Eden.

That was the day that Eve and Adam experienced their first death. On that fearsome day they learned what death was. They thought then that being alive meant to cherish the body and time.