Safe Distances :: Personal Narrative Religion Papers

Safe Distances Evolution at its most basic is the process by which a species puts barriers between itself and extinction. Anytime a species finds a way to increase its individual organisms' ability to reproduce, it has put a little extra distance between the species and total annihilation. For example: the peacock's elaborate tail, which ensures his success in propagating his genes, also makes him an easy catch for predators. One might imagine that the peacock could simply have invested in a foreign sports car to attract the opposite sex. I was 15 the first time I made my own blood run. I was sitting in the crowded closet, feeling that iron-in-my-stomach sensation that had been with me more and more since my grandmother had died, since my father had started screaming so much, since my feelings for school had gone from run of the mill adolescent angst to extreme boredom, frustration, outrage over the absurdity of it all. I would sit some nights like a toddler in the darkness of my closet, morosely rehashing my grievances against life, lost in a forest of sweaters and skirts. I would brood, and think and will myself not to cry until the effort became too great and I'd give in and wring my hands and rain tears on my sneakers and sandals and sensible dress shoes in silence until the iron had dissolved enough that I could stand straight again. The Hebrew's relationship with God starts out as extremely simple and extremely personal. God chooses his favorites with frightening randomness, picking otherwise unremarkable second sons to succeed their morally ambiguous, but also chosen, fathers. God's actions in Genesis are often inexplicably random, even petty. God forbids his first human creation to eat a certain apple, and then puts a whole tree full of the forbidden fruit right in front of them. When they finally give in and taste test what they shouldn't have, Adam and Eve are banished from paradise and consigned to death. God's actions here seem cruel and unfair, or at the very least, unfathomable to human minds. We can't help but feel a little outrage and confusion over the events of Genesis. Why wasn't Lot's wife allowed to look back (19:26)? Why did God just up and slay Er (38:7)? How could Cain be allowed to live after killing his brother (4:15), when God was willing to kill all the children on earth with one gigantic flood in order to cleanse the earth of sin (6:13)?