INTIMACY

The thing to remember about Eden is that it was an intimate place. There was no division between God, the Creator and, man, the creature he created. There was no division between the man and the woman; they lived intimately. And the first man and first woman were at one with their environment. It was the perfect place for them to worship God and enjoy his blessings. But paradise was lost, and when that happened, mankind lost the intimacy which God created us for and which we have yearned to recover ever since.

As a child, my own little corner of paradise was a lake in New Hampshire that I lived on every July for three years. When I think of that place, the memory in my heart takes me instantly back and there I am on my cot in a small cabin on the lake’s shore. Outside, moths and other insects, drawn by the light of my reading lamp, buzz against the screened windows. I can smell the scent of pine that permeates the soft summer evening air. And behind the nocturnal sounds of crickets and frogs, I hear the rhythmic lapping of the waves as they softly touch the rocks near where I am resting my head.

And I remember how early in the morning, my father would invite us to join him on a walk up Bean road to a small local farm. As we walked along the road, we could feel a mountain chill in the air and we could see the mist suspended like a blanket above the green fields. The farm itself rested between the road and the lower reaches of Red Hill, and so we gather up some strawberries or raspberries and thick heavy cream to take back for the family breakfast.

Of course, in this idealized place, I suffered the normal worldly intrusions of fights, skinned knees, hurt feelings and the rest, but this is not what I prefer to remember because my life at the lake touched a part of my heart that longed for something important that was lost long ago.

One of E.B White’s greatest short pieces is called Once More to the Lake. In it, he recalls a lake in Maine that became part of his own spiritual biography: “It is strange how much you remember about places like that once you allow your mind to return into the grooves that lead back. You remember one thing, and that suddenly reminds you of another thing. I guess I remembered clearest of all the early mornings, when the lake was cool and motionless; remembered how the bedroom smelled of the lumber it was made of and of the wet woods whose scent entered through the screen. The partitions in the camp were thin and did not extend clear to the top of the rooms, and as I was always the first up I would dress softly so as not to wake the others, and sneak out into the sweet outdoors and start out in the canoe, keeping close along the shore in the long shadows of the pines. I remember begin very careful never to rub my paddle against the gunwale for fear of disturbing the stillness of the cathedral.”