Tree of Life or The Knowledge of Good and Evil

There is a story about the fall of mankind. It contains a universal truth that I observe being played out every day throughout all of life, in every culture around the world, throughout all of known history.  

In this story, God communes face to face with Adam and Eve.  They walk together in the cool of the day. And there is only one boundary line, we are told.  ¨You are free to eat of every tree in the garden, EXCEPT the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.¨  Oh, and there was a Tree of Life that was included in the ¨every tree¨ bit.  Eat from the Tree of Life and you will live for eternity in beautiful and intimate relationship with Creator God and each other. Eat from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil and you will surely die, experiencing separation from Creator God and each other.  

LIFE juxtaposed with THE KNOWLEDGE of Good and Evil.  

It doesn't take an historian or a philosopher to look at history and recount the millions of times that dividing life into ¨Good or Evil, Right or Wrong¨ has caused some significant problems for humanity.  When we choose to categorize life by ¨Good and Evil or Right and Wrong,¨ it will ALWAYS cause division. It can do nothing BUT cause division among us. Someone will always be on the side of right and someone else will always be on the side of wrong . . . no matter what.  Put yourself in the ¨wrong¨ person's shoes and now right is wrong and wrong is right.  It just depends on who taught you their lens of right and wrong.  And in division and judgment of one another, of ourselves, we experience death on the largest scale.  
I'm done categorizing life and people and behaviors and belief systems. I want LIFE. I am choosing to abandon the lenses of ¨Good and Bad, Right and Wrong¨ and replace them with LIFE or DEATH.  It may seem at first glance, just a matter of semantics.  But I assure you, after 11 years of chewing on this concept, it is NOT. It is an entirely different way of viewing the world, people, choices, belief systems, humanity as a whole.

I choose LIFE.  

And if this very brief explanation of a gigantic concept I've been pondering for over a decade makes you want to argue with me, please refrain.  I welcome face to face conversations on this topic where we can actually hear one another and go into detail about what we are trying to say.  This post is only to spur on some thinking, not to change your mind or to give a full explanation of how this concept affects almost every area of my life and relationships.  That would take volumes.