Walled Garden

In the original Persian, paradise means “walled garden”. The garden of Eden was a paradise, a walled garden. All of the trees produced enough fruit to eat without having to work for it and there was no pain or discomfort. But once Adam and Eve obtained the knowledge of good and evil, they could no longer stay in that walled garden. As they grew in knowledge, they saw that they were naked, vulnerable, unprepared, ignorant. Ignorance is bliss, it is paradise, but a man cannot be saved in ignorance. We have to leave the garden and obtain our bread by the sweat of our brow. We have to learn to fight back the thorns and thistles, to turn a barren wilderness into a fruitful garden. And as we get better and gain more knowledge, our skills at gardening grow and grow, and we begin to enclose our gardens with a wall of security, so as to keep out the thorns and the thistles. We make a hard and unforgiving place more comfortable, more peaceful, more paradisiacal. We don’t return to Eden but we fashion a new garden similar to the one where we used to live. But then, in our leisure and ease, we become tempted again with that knowledge of good and evil. And as we partake again, we discover our nakedness, the holes in our walls, the vulnerabilities in our defenses. We realize that this garden we have constructed, as nice as it is, is not the final destination. Life is a series of periods in which we are tested and tried and thrust into new and uncomfortable situations. We face things that we are not prepared for, and that which used to come easy to us is now difficult. But we trust in the Lord and we grow little by little, day by day, and we turn a wilderness into a garden, and we wall out all of the bad things, the hard things, the things that make us sweat and uncomfortable. But one day we have to leave the garden and go out into the unknown because our former place of refuge and strength no longer becomes enough for us. Like Hermit crabs, we grow too big for our shell and have to leave. And it’s scary and hard, but then we finally find a bigger shell. But eventually we grow too big for that one and have to leave again. Paradises are moments of peace and rest from the big, hard, sweaty test of life, and as much as we want to stay in them, whether we like it or not, we will eventually come to realize that the walls around our gardens are not meant to last, that we are far more naked and vulnerable than we could have believed just moments before. And as much as we would like to go back to the state of ignorance and bliss, for good and for evil we have knowledge now.