FBCD_FaithEssentials_June_FlipBook

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Paradise Postponed

“Therefore the Lord God sent him out from the Garden of Eden” (Genesis 3:23).

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ack in the turbulent late 60s/early 70s, legendary singer/songwriter Joni Mitchell escaped smog-blanketed Los Angeles for a first time visit to Hawaii. Standing on her high-rise hotel room balcony, Joni gazed at the post card beauty of swaying palm trees and the blue Pacific. Suddenly, her mood changed when she looked down and spotted an ugly, concrete parking garage on the hotel grounds. She thought, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot.” Seizing the moment, the resourceful artist parlayed these words into the mega-hit “Big Yellow Taxi.” Nearly four decades later, the song not only survives, but thrives. Several millennia prior, Adam and Eve must have pondered similar thoughts while the bitter aftertaste of forbidden fruit lingered on their tongues. In response to their disobedience, God banished them from the Garden and forced them to maintain sustenance by the sweat of their brows. They exchanged the paradise of Eden for a life of B

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