Shameless Post 4

Dear community,

This will my final post on this book. As mentioned previously, Pastor Nadia has used the framing of Creation to advance her ideas in this book. In this section she used the idea of emotional triangles (part of the Systems Academy) to modernize the story of Eve, the serpent, Adam, and God.

Here’s how I would summarize the creation story:

The first triangle - Eve, the serpent, God. Here to serpent lies in an oh so subtle way. “God didn’t really mean that you shouldn’t eat from the tree…”

The second triangle - Eve, the serpent, Adam. The silent one, Adam, joins Eve in believing the serpent’s lies.

The third triangle - Eve, Adam, God. Once they ate, they realized they were naked and hid. God sought them out, asked what was happening. Here, instead of “we ate,” the response was, “the woman you gave me…”

Back to the first triangle-Eve said, “the serpent tricked me, and I ate.”

It was in the tricking...the lying... that the serpent was able to create the situation where they felt shame and hid. Pastor Nadia writes about the serpent still lying to us and, in this lying, leading us to feel shame. Sometimes this shame is unwarranted because it is shame centered upon who we are…and we cannot change that! I think it’s a good idea to ponder when we encounter a situation where we feel as if we must hide in shame.

I will add that we seem to be living in a time that causes some to feel shame for who they are, while those who should feel shame for their blatant disregard of others loudly spew their toxic ideas.

This thought leads to the next book that I will be exploring, “Age of Grievance” by Frank Bruni. I’d love to have a discussion group for reading this book, so let me know if you are interested.

Peace in Christ,

Pastor Nancy