Creation stories tote such simplicity. There was nothing then words were spoken and then there was. All was as it should be until humankind was banished for knowing? I wonder what happened the next day when she woke up. For me that day was after the end of my last relationship. I was 31 and working in a “respectable” office job. Life was finally getting in order of sorts. We walked his dog, talked about marriage and children, cooked dinner after work, and had quiet nights reading. In some of those simple moments I felt such joy. All the while “she” was lurking in the background. This lurking woman does not want a dog as a pet or desire children of her own. She does not even want to be working in an office. I felt like she would tap on the window requesting entry into my life.
Most days I would shoo her away. Then there was the day that she climbed into my window and demanded to be heard. I woke up and realized that the life I had been living was not my own. I woke up and I knew. This knowing, it changes things. I think that is why so many of us would rather not know and do what we think we should. It is much more comfortable than knowing. In the knowing sometimes places, seasons, and people are lost to you.
On the eighth day she woke up unsure of where she was.
What happens when this knowing seeps into the areas of faith? Life was rolling a long. I read my devotionals, I attended church, I volunteered and I loved God. Then this gnawing hit me at my core, the tapping on the window. Doubt is a knowing that there is more to the story that you are not getting. Oh what a lovely existence to live in the creation story. That beautiful garden where there is God, humanity and a plan. I feel like I have seen the religion of my childhood transform in my mind from a lush garden to an efficient bustling strip mall. Where are those first hints of a conversation between all that is eternal and this earthy and fading flesh? Knowing changes things, I do not know how to call myself. I do know that the tapping woman and I are one. I do know that whispers of that eternal conversation are heard during my dinners with friends and heard on hikes in the woods.
I do know that on the eighth day I woke up and it was good.
