Canter Bridge

The Bible is unflinching about the human predicament.

But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not surely die. For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths. And they heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. (Genesis 3:4–8 ESV)

How do we become un-lost?

How do we overcome our agnostic doubts, find our way through the morass of what we self-justifyingly call ‘the evidence’ to a defensible conclusion?

How do we assess this abiding sense of guilt against someone we can’t quite see?

How do we decide whether whether we are, finally, alone? Or not?

But the Lord God called to the man and said to him, ‘Where are you?’ (Genesis 3:9 ESV)

The Bible’s story of human origins has the creator seeking out the first humans in their worst possible moment.

It has ever been so, and we are fortunate for it.

Absent a creator who—so we are told—pursues us and loves us in spite of everything, we are lost. We are on the fence. We cannot know if the aloneness we feel is real, or only the product of minds poorly equipped for the harshness of life.

To be lost out here is more than a feeling, and the jungle is vast.

But, wait! I hear someone …