Forsaken

Love not given is love wasted.

Forsaken

God paced through the Garden. He looked at all his creation and loved it. But, he still felt empty. Adam and Eve were gone, and the Garden just wasn’t the same without them.

The animals just didn’t understand. They were unable to comprehend that he, the Lord, had created them. But Adam and Eve, they knew that he loved them. And in return, they loved him back.

That’s what he missed. Being loved. Without Adam and Eve, there was nobody to love and adore him.

The Lord wrestled with the idea of forgiveness in his mind. Of giving Adam and Eve a second chance. But he just couldn’t. Not yet. Their betrayal still haunted his mind.

It had been several years since they took from the Tree, and God had not checked in on Adam and Eve since then. He had been busy fine tuning his creations. Making the laws of the Universe as close to unbreakable as possible.

Things like the speed of light and gravity had taken up most of his time the last few years. Alone in solitude. Perfecting the most complex things that no being might ever come to fully understand. But it was his passion to create. Whether the final products were ever seen and fully comprehended or not.

Now God was ready to reach out again. Ready for contact with Adam and Eve. Ready to love and be loved.

He looked on Adam and Eve. The despair and frustration he expected to see was not apparent. Instead, Adam and Eve were smiling. They were happy. God was confused, and he wondered what could be the cause of their joy.

Together, he saw Adam and Eve move over towards two small mounds made of leaves, sticks, and hay. They each bent down and picked something up from the mound. Adam and Eve looked at each other, smiled and kissed as they held their two sons, Cain and Abel.

The faces of Adam and Eve appeared happier than they had ever looked in the Garden, and God couldn’t understand this. Hadn’t he given them everything?

He watched as Adam and Eve gushed over Cain and Abel and felt betrayed again. He had created Adam and Eve. And in his image too. He had loved them more than anything else he had created. And now, that love was no longer being reciprocated. Adam and Eve loved something more than him.

He felt abandoned. Forsaken. Forgotten. Replaced. Replaced by two unfathomably tiny beings. The love of Adam and Eve once reserved for him was now being given to others.

Who were these two creatures compared to him? What had they done to earn Adam and Eve’s love and adoration?

Perplexed and with no answer, God realized a second chance now for Adam and Eve would be in vain. They’d return to the Garden, but not as the same people that had left. Their love would be divided between many, no longer his alone.

He stopped watching the two creations he used to love more than anything and thundered through the Garden. Feeling betrayed and abandoned once again by the two creations he most loved.

God continued to tinker with the governing laws of everything in the Universe. He continued to create, and Adam and Eve continued to occasionally pray and perform sacrifices to honor and thank God.

However, God’s creativity began to dwindle. He found himself unable to create anything of substance. Unable to create anything that mattered. Anything that he could love.

It wasn’t until Cain and Abel become old enough to sacrifice to him as well, that God came up with his plan to once again be the recipient of all of Adam and Eve’s devotion.

It was Cain and Abel that had taken the love that should have been reserved from him. But If they were no longer the two that Adam and Eve most loved, Adam and Eve would surely remember how much they loved God again. Their Creator. The one who gave them life. The on who gave them everything. Couldn’t they see that he loved them more than anything?

Cain and Abel would both become sacrifices. One, the sacrificial lamb. The other, the scapegoat.

God had received several sacrifices from Cain and Abel before and had always accepted both.

Now, they were both ready to sacrifice again to the Lord. To give thanks for all they had. Abel sacrificed some of his livestock to God. As had happened with the previous sacrifices, the smoke rose to the heavens from the sacrificial fire. It was a sign God had accepted the sacrifice.

Then came Cain’s turn to sacrifice some of his harvest. But while the fire continued to burn the result of Cain’s toils over the past year, the smoke quickly dissipated and didn’t rise in the sky.

“Is my sacrifice not acceptable?” cried Cain.

“Perhaps it is not worthy of God,” Abel said.

Cain looked up to the sky as tears welled in his eyes. He begged for an answer. But when the smoke remained low, Cain left. He was embarrassed. He was the older brother, and God had chosen Abel’s sacrifice over his.

“Why do you choose Abel over me?” Cain cried out, expecting an answer from God. Instead nothing. “My God, why have you forsaken me? Do you love him more than me?”

God didn’t answer, and Cain became angry. There was no rhyme or reason for why God had accepted Abel’s sacrifice and not his. Was Abel more important than he?

Instead of being angry at God, the one who seemed to no longer love him, Cain became angry at Abel, the one who had stolen God’s love from him.

Cain concocted a plan though. If there was no more Abel, no more object of God’s love, than Cain would again become the recipient of God’s love.

So Cain went out to find his brother Abel. While Cain was gone, Abel had been praying to God, asking why God had forsaken his brother Cain’s sacrifice.

When Cain reached Abel and saw him praying, Cain became furious, believing Abel had been praying and asking God to reject Cain’s sacrifice, so that Abel would become the sole object of God’s love.

Filled with jealousy and wrath, Cain came upon Abel and began to bludgeon him with a blunt object. Cain looked into Abel’s eyes as he screamed and cried in pain, pleading and begging for Cain to stop. But, Cain’s hate was overwhelming and he continued to beat Abel.

“My God,” Abel cried out, “why have you forsaken me?” Abel’s bloody mouth prayed for an answer. But all Abel heard was the sound of his skull cracking under the blunt force of Cain’s strikes as he faded away.

Once Cain was finished, he left Abel’s body lying there. There could be no way God would reject his sacrifices now.

Cain returned to his Father and Mother, covered in blood. When Adam saw only Cain and no Abel, he became concerned.

“Where is your brother?” Adam asked.

Cain was now coming to the realization of what he had done. His eyes began to fill with hot tears. He looked at his Father and Mother, and could not tell them the atrocity he had done.

“Am I my brother’s keeper?” he managed to choke out.

And God, who had watched all of it, had seen Cain kill his brother Abel, had been responsibility for everything, went back to the Garden and wept.

After Adam and Eve finally found what had become of Abel, they cast out Cain for what he had done. Adam and Eve simply could no longer love Cain. That was to be his punishment. Their beloved son Cain had taken from them their beloved son Abel. He had betrayed their trust, and his sin was unforgivable.

So Adam and Eve, once with two beloved sons, whom they loved above all else, were now left with no sons to love.

Adam and Eve cried out to God for justice. Asking how this could have happened. And asking for God to punish Cain.

God obliged and cursed Cain and all of his future offspring, placing a mark on Cain so that all would know his sin.

God had not wished for this though when he envisioned his plan. Yes, he had wanted Cain and Abel to do wrong so Adam and Eve would lose their love for them. The love, adoration, and worship God wanted and would no doubt feel again if Adam and Eve no longer loved Cain and Abel. But God had not hoped for this tragedy, for Cain to take the life of his brother Abel.

God continued to feel guilty for what happened. He wept and considered his purpose for a long time, wondering if he was worthy of being loved.

After deliberating, he realized the wrongs could not be undone. But leaving Adam and Eve without anyone else to receive love from and give love to was one thing he could make right. In a way, he had succeeded in taking Adam and Eve’s love back from Cain and Abel.

But when God checked back in on Adam and Eve, he found once again, their faces rapt with the sight of a small baby. They had created another child and had named him Seth. Through creation, Adam and Eve had again found another place to put all of their love and care.

God watched Eve smile at Seth, and Seth smile back. He watched Adam coo and stroke Seth’s tiny face. He watched Adam and Eve pour their love over Seth.

And then it hit him. An epiphany. He understood why Adam and Eve had loved Cain and Abel more. Why they now loved Seth more. He had made Adam and Eve in his image. It was inevitable that they would eventually begin to create themselves. And one will always love what one creates more than anything else. Even their own creator.

Adam and Eve had taught him something. They had moved on. Once, they had loved God more than anything. Then, it was Cain and Abel. Now it was Seth. Love not given was love wasted.

So too, would God move on. He would create again. He would create more in his own image. He would love his creation. And again he would be loved.

He watched Adam and Eve look into each other’s eyes and smile, so proud of what they had created.

God took one last look at his first two greatest creations. And then he went back to the Garden to create again.

© 2012 Matt Pellegrini

Author's Note

Watched a bit of a TV show about the mystery of the Cain and Abel story. The foundation of the story itself is amazing. With just a small tweak to God's role in this story, the Cain and Abel story becomes something bordering a Shakespearean tragedy.

The story itself is very bare though. Mostly summary. Skeletal. I know this. But any ideas, comments, critiques are more than welcome.

Thought about the other night, and it hit me. Turning this into a play. So that's what I think the future holds for this concept.