Genesis 1 - 4 >> an assignment for participants in Spiritual Explorations Live with Ron Martoia >> read all 4 chapters daily over the coming week with a goal of discovering fresh insight there.

Simple list of where I am at the outset:

• The Genesis account(s) provide a basic topography of God at work in the cosmos with a special emphasis on God's attention to and plan for human development >> God is the creative force responsible for all that comprises our environment and experience, regardless of how or how long that actually takes >> God is the designer and animator of humankind, both male and female >> the imago dei resplendent in humanity is incomplete in either gender; it takes both genders, and indeed the totality of the redeemed human population, to draw a reliable portrait of the Divine, although redemption is not the topic of the earliest accounts >> God is personal, intimately involved with individuals, both men and women >> the typical human experience of the divine begins with the personal encounter, encompasses the primary relationships and bears influence on the various social and corporate interactions that humans experience
  
• Cause & Effect >> Creator takes responsibility for creation and involves humankind holistically in caring for creation; actions have consequences; work apparently came first, even before human relationship and definitely before the fall; work is NOT a consequence of sin
  
• The evil that confronts humankind is limited in scope and is mastered by Creator
  
• The term "serpent" serves as a plot device to describe the action of evil against the best {divine} interests of humanity >> hyperbole about talking animals and mythic constructs is no more helpful to fostering healthy discussion and spiritual understanding than dogmatic insistence on 6x24hr earth days of creation
  
• As far as I am aware, there is nothing in any traceable record that specifically and categorically precludes the possibility of a dual storyline in human development; that is to say that it is entirely possible that Omnipotence chose to specially create a specific couple with which to advance the species' development, even as primitive proto-human types evolved by natural processes
  
• The way the story is constructed leads me to conclude that it was/is important that the human genome remain fully human.  The story never hints that Adam was allowed or commanded to experiment with non-human partners before the human female was presented.  In fact, Adam was grieved until his human partner was revealed.  This storyline is important to countermand the base tendency of high-drive cultures where cross-species experimentation is practiced, whether for sexual gratification or gene-enhancement
  
• I don't take the Genesis accounts as strictly mandating heterosexual human relations.  It is clear that both masculine and feminine are inherent in the nature of God, our image-bearing, and so, to complete that original design in the ideal conditions of that time and place, the male was presented with a female.  In our fallen world, however, where humankind has been so ravaged by the effects of sin, our capacity for trust and love is warped and often mortally so.  The basis for relationship should be defined by the purity of the love and the quality of the commitment, not the gender or race or religion of the parties involved.