This is Part 2 in a series about Innocence, and it's relation to my life as a brand new eighteen-year-old. Click here for Part 1.
I ended my last post with the J.R.R. Tolkien quote, “We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile.”
Think about the word exile for a moment, and all the weight that it carries.
Adam and Eve had perfect innocence, and they blew it. By the time they realized their mistake, it was too late; they were exiled from Eden, and the gates have been barred ever since. The flaming swords of cherubim are blocking the way (Genesis 3:24). Now, as adults in this modern society, when we catch "glimpses of Eden," or have sudden nostalgia or remembrance for perfection (an aching in the marrow of one's soul that insists, "This isn't how it's supposed to be!"), instead of stretching back into the far collective memories of humanity, we cast the net to a more recent time: childhood.
I ended my last post with the J.R.R. Tolkien quote, “We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile.”
Think about the word exile for a moment, and all the weight that it carries.
Adam and Eve had perfect innocence, and they blew it. By the time they realized their mistake, it was too late; they were exiled from Eden, and the gates have been barred ever since. The flaming swords of cherubim are blocking the way (Genesis 3:24). Now, as adults in this modern society, when we catch "glimpses of Eden," or have sudden nostalgia or remembrance for perfection (an aching in the marrow of one's soul that insists, "This isn't how it's supposed to be!"), instead of stretching back into the far collective memories of humanity, we cast the net to a more recent time: childhood.
