“Happy are they who wash their robes so as to have free access to the tree of life.” – The Revelation to St. John
Eve ate with tiny teeth, the seeds like gravel in her mouth, and sweet.
You are naked said the syrup when sliding down her throat.
Take my leaves, said the tree, and learn to sew.
This was the first tree, that grew the fig of knowledge,
the tree with wide leaves, cursed for lacking winter foliage.
Adam, wandering, with fig leaves chafing his nether regions,
wished that they could begin again.
When he watched one son kill another he thought,
surely this deserves to be called the first sin.
He knew, then, how hard it is to be a father,
and wished that when Eve had acquired all reason,
she had told him not to bother.
All this long life, learning how to atone,
generations on this earth with an uneasy sense of home.
Cloth from flax, cloth from cotton, cloth from wool,
cloth from oil found outside the garden
where we wander over ancient bones.
There is a fig tree in the city
that the garden’s tree loves dearly.
He sheds his dust of pollen onto a wasp’s vibrating wings,
clothing it with purpose beyond its painful stings.
A wasp was buried in the fruit that Eve first gave to Adam,
it laid its eggs among the seeds and sweet flesh made a home for them.
When Adam ate he ate this mother’s grave.
As this was the first taste, can anything be saved?
The trees stand fat and fruiting in the garden and the city.
They see me standing in the distance, wondering what I know.
We see you loitering there, they say. Approach, but first,
you must wash your clothes.
Illumination
It is honest to meet God in a state of bewilderment. And if the divine is reflected in creation, bewilderment is also an honest response to the world. Imagine this. Someone, once, realized that the fibers within flax plants could be spun together and then used for weaving. Later, someone discovered that you could soften the husk of the flax plant in order to access those fibers sooner. Someone once looked at a sheep and said, “It looks dry and warm despite the rain. How can it be enticed to share its warmth and dryness?” In the very recent past, someone learned to make cloth from oil. Human imagination encountered creation and spun fabric from bewilderment. A coat is a concrete, realized thing. But the innovation that shifted and sorted and manipulated materials across countless generations is the result of accident, surprise, desire, conversation, coincidence. A string carries a story that we’ll never know. Put on the coat. Put on bewilderment.
Bewilderment is very close to wonder. But it carries within it a knowledge of being lost, led into the wilderness, an environment that is unknown and unreadable, where it is very easy to lose your way. I once got lost in the woods. I encountered a large turtle lumbering along. I followed it, marveling at the pattern of its shell. When I looked up, nothing was familiar. The path had disappeared. If you follow wonder for long enough, you will find bewilderment.
When Adam and Eve ate of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they were sent into the wild. Knowledge became bewilderment that quickly. What kind of tree was it? Rabbi Yosei provided a midrash. It must be a fig tree, he said, because all the other trees in the garden rejected Adam and Eve for having deceived their creator. Only the fig tree clothed them, to atone for being responsible for their plight. It is more complicated to bite into a fig than it is to bite into an apple. Many different textures arrive in the mouth, and you have to account for the seeds. Imagine that bite. So sweet and syrupy and full of things, including the wasp. Bewildering.
Its leaves were the first cloth. As Adam and Eve wore fig leaves and the leaves chafed them, did they resent the fig tree? Nudity is so uncomplicated, once you get past the social hindrances. Somewhere along the line, Adam and Eve discovered fashion. Now they not only needed to be warm, they needed to look good. The shame they first encountered when they discovered all reason became part of their daily reality. Glances on the street, worrying about which set of clothes would go with which dinner reservation. Knowing that this person has status because of their hat, and this person doesn’t, because of their socks. Bewildering.
Why does John of Patmos insist on a laundry day prior to encountering the Tree of Life? He urges those who read his visionary account to wash themselves in the blood of the lamb. Christ’s blood. Take on misery, he says, take on sorrow. Take on the sins of others. Know their loves, their hatreds, their tastes. Hear unkind words echoing in your ears, interspersed by shouts of joy. Let the weight of the world settle on your shoulders like the weight of a sodden coat. Life is better than knowledge, but there’s so much of it. Yet the Tree of Life beckons us home. An end to wandering in the woods. Only we have to bring the bewilderment home with us.
KPB Stevens 