In the beginning…13c. Eden

At almost the same instant, they both realized that they were naked. They stared at each other in a stupor for several minutes.

“Uh, Eve?” Adam was first to speak.

“Y-Yes?” Eve stammered.

“You don’t have any clothes on,” Adam suggested.

“What are clothes?” Eve asked.

“They’re what we put on our bodies to avoid the shame of our nakedness,” Adam enlightened.

“Shame?” Is that what this new feeling is? I don’t much like it, Adam. It doesn’t feel good,” Eve summed it up for them both.

“That’s right, Eve. I’m not quite sure how I know about that feeling we both have and that it is ‘shame’; but I do,” Adam reasoned.

“We never needed any clothes until now, Adam. Why is that?” Eve inquired.

“I suppose it’s because we ate of that fruit. It was forbidden by God. I think that Lucifer fellow duped you,” Adam accused.

“Sorry, husband, but I was hungry and it looked so delicious,” Eve apologized.

“I know. I ate it, too. I guess we’ll see what the consequences are soon. God usually comes for his daily walk through our garden and talks with us for a few minutes about this time each day,” Adam reminded his wife.

“We better get busy then, Adam,” Eve warned.

“Busy? Doing what?” Adam inquired.

“Making ourselves some clothes. You don’t want to be naked in front of HIM do you?” Eve questioned.

“It never bothered him or us before. But I guess a lot of things will be different now that we’ve sinned,” Adam confessed.

“Sinned? What’s ‘sinned’?” Eve was baffled by all this new vocabulary.

“It just came to me. Sin is doing wrong. It’s what separates us from God,” he explained.

“Eating that fruit sure has made you smarter,” Eve complimented. Then she added, “You mean we are going to be separated from God from now on?”

“Guess so,” Adam stated.

“We better get busy on those clothes,” Eve reminded.

“We?” Adam queried.

“Yes, we,” Eve repeated. “I’m certainly not going to make your clothes as well as my own!” she stated indignantly.

“All right, Eve. That’s only fair,” Adam acquiesced. “So how do we make clothes?”

“I have an idea for sewing fig leaves together with some thin vines to ensure we cover certain parts of our bodies.”

They started gathering what they, surprisingly, knew they would need to make the garments they desired. Adam watched and imitated Eve through every step of the tailoring process. He gathered what she gathered, positioned as she positioned, stitched as she stitched, and fitted as she fitted. Finally the job was done. Once they were “clothed,” they looked at each other.

“What now?” stammered Eve.

“We wait,” Adam announced. “And…”

“Yes?” Eve anticipated.

“We hide!” suggested her husband.

They did just that, finding a clump of bushes as far distant from the center of the garden as possible.

Then they waited…


[to be continued]

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