Jack Pelham

Like so many other foolish kids,
He wanted to be the teacher before
He knew what he was talking about.
He had the cart before the horse, to be sure.

He knows how to have an idea.

Indeed, that part’s quite easy
Because the way the brain works,
Ideas normally just pop into the mind.

It is certainly a reasonable question—how the fool could perceive his own foolishness. Yet so often it comes down not to whether he is able, but whether he is willing to survey the damage
wrought by his beliefs and decisions—and to cut it out. To correct himself. To set things straight. To make amends. He does not see what is wrong with him because he does not want to see it; not because he is unable.

Modern views of Christianity vary wildly, of course, yet there is a very popular movement toward the idea that God requires nothing of the Christian but faith/belief. And further, this faith/belief is frequently defined in the most minimalistic way possible so as to include nothing more than giving mental assent to a very small number of propositions, such as that “Jesus is Lord”, perhaps, or that “he died for our sins”.

NOTE: This article is the starting place for a larger investigation I hope to complete in time. It simply frames the question—which, in light of all the confusion on this topic, seemed worthy of posting, even before the various hypotheses are fleshed out and examined. You will see that I have laid the groundwork for those hypotheses simply by listing the various ways in which Genesis 2:17 might be questioned, challenged, or reconsidered.

Somewhere
Eventually lead
To think this could
But I’m really starting
Stacking it all first to last
Surely some see no sense in

Perhaps today is the day
When some soul on this Earth
Decides he wants to know—
And not just about a thing,
But about it all.

It took me a while to figure out how it goes,
But I can see now that he simply
Doesn’t want the facts except when they
Support the feelings he’s already cultivating.

Don’t you
Know better
Than not to know
Better than that by now?

Too few have the elusive spark that drives them
Beyond the necessary to the meaningful—
From the sanctuary of self to the garden of others.

How sweet it is, then, that such gardeners might perchance
Find one another along the way and take heart
In a camaraderie unknown to others.