Grace Notes: Christmas and the Caveman

Christmas and the Caveman

by SISTER ANNE MARIE WALSH, SOLT
Grace Notes columnist
 
When Adam and Eve were expelled from the garden, the contrast between what they had lost and what they were left with must have been overwhelming.  
 
Whether one looks at the beginning of history biblically or strictly from a scientific point of view, without the spiritual perspective, it’s reasonable to surmise that humankind’s first home outside paradise would have been a cave.  Archaeologists have verified the authenticity of cave paintings dating back to prehistoric times, suggesting that caves were the first natural shelters for our ancestors.
 
One can easily imagine that this “first” home would’ve been something providentially prepared by the elements. It offered protection, a place for rest, safety, solidarity with others, and, in general, space for regular human activities.  

Though there were drawbacks, comfort was not the predominant issue for our early ancestors. Survival was the constant pressing demand. The concept of leisure was probably not entirely compatible with their existential reality. 

However, they were already engaged in primordial activities that, in our day and age, are often associated only with hobbies or leisure but for them, were activities (painting pictures of their life on the walls) that expressed deeper, more significant realities, a way of thinking out loud, of visualizing themselves from outside themselves, taking on the larger perspective needed for growth and development as they became increasingly able to symbolically represent the world around them in order to take back command of creation again. 
 
There were many fundamental problems to solve in the beginnings, such as finding food sources, securing safe habitats and determining how to manage the darkness that now invaded their days with regular timing. (From a biblical perspective, Adam and Eve before the fall would not have had to contend with the unknown threats that lurked in the night, as Revelation suggests paradise restored (and likely original paradise as well) does not require lamps or the sun, because there the Lord God is its light.
 
Because the encounter with our first enemy did not go well, we landed in a pit we could not escape ourselves. The loss in that attack catapulted us from harmony and abundance into a primitive, often brutal fight for survival with eternal consequences. We went from a place of elevated status with God as his friends, to estrangement and the very real possibility of never being able to have intimate communion again with our father and Lord!  
 
This is one way to ponder the mystery of Christmas, which approaches. God has such a depth of love for us that He comes in the Person of Jesus, even entering the depths of the primitiveness into which sin has cast us.  And it is undoubtedly primitive, but at the same time, the link to God in His image and likeness, which makes us different and superior to all other creatures, remains intact. 

G.K. Chesterton, in “The Everlasting Man,” expresses it thus:  
“The human story began in a cave...the second half of human history which was like a new creation of the world, also began in a cave...it was here that a homeless couple had crept underground with the cattle when the doors of the crowded caravanserai had been shut in their faces and it was here beneath the very floor of the world that Jesus Christ was born.  
God also was a cave-man, and had also traced strange shapes upon the wall of the world, but the pictures that he made had come to life.”  
 
Jesus, the first born of all creation now seeks to enter the cave of our own hearts. He will seek shelter there this Christmas. In the cold, dark night, he will be looking for the opening.  

He will be looking for warmth and welcome!  He will be looking for simplicity and love. He will be looking for the wonder and guilelessness of the shepherds, the expectancy and reverence of the Magi, and the joy and witness to heavenly glory of the angels.  

Most of all, He will look for the humble, protective love of Mary and Joseph, a love that will never let go, that will hold him close within, even through the darkest hours, while he changes the “place” we live back into an “earth” we, he and all of us, can dwell in together forever.  

May your own heart be the chosen and favored spot of the babe who brings beauty, light, love and joy back to a world in exile; who makes it a fit dwelling once more for the redemptive, transcendent, trinitarian love the babe wants to gift to all of humanity. We wait with anticipation to see what he will write on the walls of our own heart this Christmas.

Cover photo from Freepik: "="" data-pasted="true">https://www.freepik.com/free-ai-image/archaeological-cave-paintings_297155642.htm#fromView=keyword&page=1&position=15&uuid=70d5677a-045f-4def-9fcf-3b6ae1092cb2&query=Caveman">;Image by freepik

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