[Soil & Land - II]
There are several *dangers* with wanting to go back to a time that was supposedly simpler, more secure, and safe. The 50’s and 60’s; the 19th century; first century Palestine; the Garden of Eden. Take your pick.
Nostalgia clouds the truth. The warmth of familiarity and the sentiment of former norms have a way of covering over or diluting the severity of the bad.
Memory highlights the good. With enough time, most memories become positive because we all have an inclination to bring the positive to the foreground. In perspective, the good takes up vastly more of the frame in our mind.
Desire fabricates the ideal. Wanting something to be true has a strong influence on our belief that thing is in fact true. We will work overtime, it seems, to make it true just to satisfy our desire for it to be so.
I wonder if “back then,” as we imagine it, even existed. I’m not sure it matters.
The epitome of “back then” is the Garden of Eden. I’ll spend the next four or five reflections thinking through the original “back then.” Why it matters. And how we can think of it in healthy terms.
(BTW, it won’t be a Bible study.)
