Cain and Abel

When I read the text I felt the story of Cain and Abel reach out to me on a personal level. It is a powerful tale that contains truths many truths. Perhaps, as has been suggested it was written to typify the long stand rivalry between herdsman and farmers, between nomads and city folk. But, it also represents the timeless and commonplace difficulties of sibling rivalry within the family structure.

When my sister and I were growing up we were blessed in having both maternal and paternal grandparents living near us and activly involved in our lives. And, as sometimes happens, despite their love for both of us they sometimes exhibited preferential treatment. Our paternal grandparents favored me and our maternal grandparents favored Kim. As God was the parent of Adam and Eve, God was the grandparent of Cain and Abel. After coming to this realization the memories of my familial situation flooded over me. When we were growing up this favoritism was not really apparent to me. I may have been blind to it because I, like Abel, was not the one who felt the jealously and resentment. My paternal grandparents were quite were quite well off and their favoritism for me manifested itself in material ways which in my youth I did not recognize as unfair.

My sister and I did not speak of this until they had all passed and I did not know how she felt until years later. We spoke, we prayed, he hugged and we cried and then we put it behind us. I have to say that Cain’s slaying of Abel is completely foreign to my experience. Maybe it was because his grandparent was God and it brought about jealously beyond my experience. Or, perhaps he was quite young and unaware of the ramifications of his actions. The slaying of Cain may even have been unintentional. Perhaps it never happened and serves only to warn us of what could happen.