This is a time which raises hard questions – about how we live, about our values, about God. We asked people what was most on their minds, and then we asked a wide range of writers, thinkers and theologians to reflect on these ‘hard questions’.

God liked the evening, even then. God walked among the garden in the cool.
In the writer’s telling of Genesis, God must have had a body, or a body like a body.

In Jonathan Goldstein’s delicious retelling of the story of Garden of Eden (from his book Ladies and Gentlemen, the Bible! Riverhead Books, 2009), Eve goes to God, frustrated with her helpmeet.

“He’s an oaf,” she complains, “All he wants to do is fart and scratch himself.” Eve likes political science and philosophy and physics. She wants to talk about the stars and Everything That Is. Adam likes to point and laugh. God shrugs his shoulders, wondering if Eve will grow to like Adam. Eve calls Adam a fool. Everything falls apart.

The Garden of Eden has captured the imaginations of artists for centuries. We will explore little corners of it over the next five days.

The writers of Genesis tell us these were the days when Giants walked the earth and the Stars Sang Together for Glory. Such a strange thing, this garden, tucked away in a place called Between Two Rivers. The word Eden can be translated as Paradise, or Delight.

People keep talking about the “new norm” that will emerge once we have got to grips with the Corona virus. It is not however clear what such a new norm might look like. We really don’t know the long-term psychological and social consequences of social distancing. What will happen if we continue to implicitly or explicitly assume that everyone, including our family and friends, are potential threats to our well-being? Social distancing is clearly necessary. But how easy will it be for us to stop doing it? The new norm will not be the same as the old norm. But that is not necessarily a bad thing.