Cain Continued
The Cain and Abel story is strange. Certainly the two young men were brothers by blood. As suggested by the poet, perhaps the kinship involved little more. Realistically, a store house of rage is likely to have fueled a act of murder, — an act which in all civilized society signals an end to hearth and home. Maybe the poet is right. His words suggest that a quest for a father’s love was the root of the rage directed towards the brother. The imagination easily suggests a link between the natural father and a “heavenly father-god” in the shattering rejection of Cain’s sacrifice. Another question arises: What kind of father demands blood?
Such a question could only be asked by a 21st Century reader of the story. In antiquity blood and life are existentially/metaphysically/spiritually equivalent. Parents have always sacrificed themselves for their children. A life is voluntarily given for a life, in many small ways. The equation of giving life for life is not in question. The continuation of life is costly and requires this exchange. The nagging problem is a requirement of blood sacrifice, the killing of a hapless animal. This seems wrong, flawed on a number of accounts. Our ancestors got some things right and some things wrong.
On a positive note, to be human is to know the full emotional spectrum from hate to love and everything in between. Every movement of the heart has it’s proper place and time. That’s the “take-away” for me with from the story of Cain and Abel. It is productive, humanizing to be a “yes-sayer” to affirm all that the heart feels/needs, to give those selves a place without denial or prohibition in one’s life. Yeah I know that is a lifetime’s worth of learning.
