Some Christmas Thoughts (with the help of Blessed Charles de Foucauld)

1. Adam and Eve ate from the prohibited tree. A command was given, "You may eat from any and all trees EXCEPT from the tree of the knowledge of good AND evil". There is nothing wrong with knowing what is good. There is nothing wrong with knowing what is evil. The problem lies in the word "and"; hence "good AND evil". 
2. With the help of a Biblical concordance, when this phrase with the word AND emerges in a Biblical text it indicates a problem, a risk. Good AND evil implies the risk of transforming evil into good and transforming good into evil. For example I like to kill my fellow. It is evil but I want to make it a good thing to do. Nobody will tell me it is bad because I consider it good. A confusion is thus described in the phrase "good AND evil"; it is the confusion of mixing up good with evil and losing proper discernment. 
3. Hence the command of the Lord God in the garden is a description of the human condition as created by the Lord God. The human condition involves freedom. You may do anything you want; BUT know the limit. Feel free to do anything you want, BUT recognize the limit. If the human rejects the limit "you will die". It is deadly to live with mixing up evil with good and not knowing which is really good and which is really evil. It is no longer a happy and vibrant life to live according to the intolerable; that is, to live with evil as if evil is good.
4. When the Lord God gave the command, the Lord God immediately supplemented it by saying, "it is not good for the human to be alone". Hence you may do anything you want to do, but know the limits by living with the other. It is in living with the other, or as the book of Genesis would say, with a "helper" that you will know how to manage limits. The "helper" will guide you with the limits. Both Adam and Eve, then, were to be helpers to each other. Life becomes an adventure in which the partners in the garden will explore the whole garden, discover what is in there and do anything they want within the given limit of not eating from the prohibited tree. The adventure dies if they eat from that tree. If they eat from that tree they will start saying that they have no more limits--hence there is nothing more to discover, to learn, to see, to enjoy; there is no need to adventure.
5. Hence the Garden of Eden story, as written by human authors, is a description of human life meanto to be adventurous; and we might add as "socially adventurous". We know the story, Adam and Eve, each ate a fruit from the prohibited tree. They accepted the story line of the serpent and lost the fun and joy of adventuring in life.    
6. I would like to appreciate the story in the perspective of philosophy. The human has limits starting with the limits of human incarnation. I have a body and at the same time I am my body. Hence this body is not just a thing, not just a material object for scientific scrutiny. This body is also me. 
7. Beginning with the human incarnation the world is then delineated into space, time and society. Clearly the delineations indicate human limits. For example in terms of space the human can reach certain places and the human cannot reach certain places. I can reach the pen next to me but not the top of, say, Mount Apo. I can see the computer screen but not the wall behind me. I terms of time I can pace in my own way but I must recognize the pacing of the world around me. I might want to rush planting papaya seeds in my garden but I also must recognize that the best time to do this is during the next rainy season. I may want to drink my cup of coffee but I must wait for the coffee to somehow cool a bit so I will not burn my tongue. In terms of society I may have my own thoughts and feelings and express them to others, but other people also have their own thoughts and feelings. I must recognize that fact and not violate their own access to their own thoughts and feelings. I might want a child to master at once algebra in school but I must also recognize the pacing and capacities of the child for learning algebra. With others I need to keep in mind that they have their thoughts, feelings, joys, pains, plans and goals. Others are my sabbath too.
8. What can I do? This is the human condition with all its limits. I can adventure and adventure with others, in the family, in the neighborhood, in society. Forgetting the limits can create a hellish life. 
9. Just think of the violation we have been doing to the carrying capacity of nature. We demand so much from nature and if nature cannot give in to our demands we intensify our demands and production to the point that we do not care about the plastics we throw into the sea and the carbon we spit into the air. 
10. Just think of conditions of many workers. From many workers are demanded profitable work but with salaries that cannot sustain a decent family life.   
11. Returning to Biblical reflections I am reminded, this time, of the first creation story--the seven-day story. The Lord God is such a marvelous and powerful creator but on the seventh day the Lord God takes a distance from being the marvelous and powerful one. The Lord God takes a distance--a "sabbath distance"--from God's own mastery over the world and allow the created order to take its own stand. Some biblists would poetically say that as soon as the Lord God takes this sabbath distance the created world sings joyfully and thank the Lorde God.
12. Among the creatures is the human being created in the image AND LIKENESS of the Lord God. This word "likeness" specifies that the human being is TO BE LIKE GOD by ALSO taking a Sabbath distance. The human is master of the world, ok, fine, great. But the human is commanded to take a distance from that mastery. The human is created male/female BUT must also be man/woman. You may be male/female BUT BE MAN/WOMAN. You may be master BUT know how to take a distance from that mastery. Note the same structure found in the garden of Eden story: "you may, but". In the case of Adam and Eve, the other person is a "sabbath". The human can be master but the other person must be recognized in his/her sabbath status. Know when to distance from your mastery in order to allow the other person to be himself/herself. (This is one reason why, in the first creation story, the human is told to be vegetarian--eating without competition with the animals. It is only in the Noah's ark story where the Lord God agrees that the human can also eat the meat of animals--BUT not the blood. The same structure is insisted on: "you may, but...")
13. So comes a Christmas meditation. The Word became flesh. If in the creation story the Lord God takes a sabbath distance--a distance from being Lord and Master and Powerful, the same logic is found in the New Testament. In the New Testament the Word became flesh or, as St. Paul would say, "Although he was God, he did not count equality with being God, HE EMPTIED HIMSELF AND BECAME HUMAN". The logic of the sabbath distance is now reiterated in the Incarnation of the Son. The command that the human take a distance from power and mastery, the command to be free with all desires but with recognition of limits is now, in the New Testament, made so evident. The solidarity of the Word of God with us is in our very own incarnation--starting with conception and with the birth in Bethlehem. This solidarity of God with the human is expressed in the confirmation of our creation. We were created "like God" and we were created to have a full, adventurous life. In and through the Incarnation of the Word God has confirmed and affirmed that our very own incarnation is of so much value and dignity.
14. Let me end with some thoughts taken from Blessed Charles de Foucauld. He was so enamored by the Eucharist. In the Eucharist he saw both Christmas and Holy Week. Let me just mention the Christmas side. Each time there is a mass the bread becomes Body of Jesus Christ. It is a Christmas. Jesus was born in the First Century Palestine, and during each mass he is again born in Pacita San Pedro Laguna, in Cotabato City, in New Delhi, in Lima Peru, in Yaounde Cameroon, in Fribourg, Switzerland etc. For Blessed Charles de Foucauld there is always this Christmas going on each day, somewhere, in which the Incarnation occurs. The solidarity of the Incarnation, this time in the Eucharist, assures us that really God is with us.