Conversations

     Sitting here in “A Friendly Shade”  I couldn’t help but laugh as I remembered parts of a conversation between 2 sisters; one who loved the outdoors and the other preferring the indoors.  Not one to remember the exact way it was told to me, let me just say, it might have gone like this:    

      Coming inside from working flower beds, the sister asked her avid stay-inside sister,  “Do you have any root conditioner?” 

     The sister, busy mopping her floor, replied, without looking up,  “Sure,  there is probably some L’Oreal or Gardenia on the shelf in the bathroom.”
     “Are you mocking me?”
     “No!  I thought you were going to wash your hair.”
     “I am planting roses and need stimulator for their root system”
     “Oh.  Well, why didn’t you say so?”
     “I did!  If you went outside more often, instead of having such clean floors, the kind you could eat off of, you might know what I was asking about.”
     “You are right.  Some days you can eat off my floors and actually get full.  You might even have your choice of green peas or bread crumbs.” 
     “Well, do you have any?”
     “Any what?”
     “Root conditioner or stimulator?”
     Smiling sweetly, “No, I don’t keep any of that kind of stuff.”

      That was a loving conversation between two sisters who accepted each other for who they were.  Thinking further, I remembered another conversation, but one in which the instigator tried and was successful in changing someone to suit their own agenda because the listener did not adhere to her principles and accept her current life; she wanted more!  The conversation went something like this:

     “I have been out wandering about seeing the world and here you sat doing nothing but tending this garden.  Don’t you want to be wiser and see more?”

    “But, I have all I need.  Look around, I can have any of the wonderful fruits from all these trees except  the fruit from that one tree in the center of the garden.  I was told I would die if I eat from it.”
     “No!” the intruder firmly replied.  “You will not die.  You can have it all.  See how lush and robust it is.  Imagine how juicy and tasty it must be.”
     The woman fell to the temptation.  She looked at the fruit and found it pleasant to the eye.  It was then she began to desire that which she knew in her heart was forbidden.  She reached up and took the fruit in her hand. She desired it's lush sweetness, and she tasted.  That one bite led to a deeper desire for more.  She even took the forbidden fruit to her husband and tempted him.  She wanted him changed, as well.   

     Most all of us, at some time in our lives, blame Adam and Eve for the labor imposed upon us today.  We think, “If they had not taken that first bite we wouldn’t have to go to work every day.”   But isn’t that what we do today.  We are just like Adam and Eve.  We continue to dabble in the first taste of sin that leads to more.  It is then our conversation goes like Adam and Eve’s to God in Genesis 3:10,13   Adam -  “And he said, I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself. ..And the Lord God said unto the woman, ‘What is this that thou has done?’  And the woman said, ‘The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.’ ”