Cain's Company

From a "family systems" perspective, the First Family was really something! Cain is the first born. We always say these words, "first born," portentiously, when it comes to family systems. I, for instance, am a "first born." Are my present troubles related to my being "first born"? Were Cain's? I don't know... Troubles seem to afflict us all, don't you think?

In any case, of course, Cain becomes the one afflicting troubles on Abel, and in consequence God brings about another ending, telling Cain he will be "a fugitive and a wanderer upon the earth." Being unemployed, I have sense of how Cain feels-- there is this quality of exile that hangs about me, a mantle of melancholy.

Cain is concerned that someone will meet out to him the fate he imparted to his brother-- if anyone knows how hostile the world can be, it is Cain. And we would be right to wonder whether the "mark" God puts on him is one of mercy (a divine statement against capital punishment) or a kind of "birth mark," for Cain being sent out less from a place than from "the Presence of the Lord." Cain is being exiled from God... Talk about estrangement!

Even so, and this is the fascinating part of the story for me, Cain finds company, a wife, and a son, "in the land of Nod, east of Eden." More, somehow Cain manages to raise a family with its own rather succssful lineage--at least until that strain of murder and vengenge rises up again!

For me, in my exile, I take comfort from knowing that even Cain found company, that even he started again. Whatever else I have done to deserve my present condition, I have not murdered anyone, nor have I been exiled from the Presence of God. And I have been comforted by finding company! These friends and well-wishers are truly God's grace and mercy to me, for if I feel at times singled-out, at least I do not feel alone.

I guess I'm saying: If Cain can make it, so can I...

Thank you for being there...