Perfect means done

It’s interesting… Some people refer to the Garden of Eden as some kind of immaculately perfect Shangri-La. 

But if you study the words… ‘Perfect’ was not used to describe the garden. The word used (multiple times) was… ‘Good.’

The garden and all of creation
including humanity
were created…
Good. 

There’s a difference between ‘perfect’ and ‘good’. 

Perfect means done.
Yep.
Right there.
Don’t add anything.
Don’t take anything away.
Don’t change a thing because if you do,
it’s not perfect anymore. 
Just… Stop. 

Perfect is static. Fixed. And unchanging. 

But again, ‘perfect’ is not the word that was used. ‘Good’ was the word. 

And ‘good’ means changing and growing and morphing and evolving and advancing and producing new things. 

As the story goes, we have been charged with being stewards of this life and our sibling of the created world. We have been given the gift of being able to DO SOMETHING with it. 

Aaaaand what did we do in the story? Just what we try to do today. We try to escape this world for an ideal ‘perfect’ one. 

But we do not live in a perfect world. There is no such thing. Never has been. 

By trying to make it perfect - by trying to play god, we have tainted it. 

But, still, as far as God is concerned… It is good. 
God never changed the story.
We did. 

In this state of goodness, we leave room for the notion that God is doing something with it. God is always crafting and shaping and moving this world and our individual human experience somewhere.

In other words, God is not done. 
We have only left the garden in our minds. 
The whole of creation groans. 
But look around, 
all of it is good.