The mighty help meet

Reading in Abraham 5 today, it's Adam hanging out in the garden. It describes the garden, and mentions how things get watered with four streams and by a mist.

As an aside, it mentions how the plants were designed before they were planted in the garden. I think it's cool that each plant was designed by some team of who knows who, but that every little detail was planned. What a monumental effort. This also strikes a chord another way: Stephen Covey mentions in 7 habits that all things must be designed in the mind before they are created in reality. He might have been silently referring to this scripture in verse 5.

This post though is about something that's a bit amusing to me. It talks about Adam and his only listed job: naming everything. It also talks about Eve and the only listed job that she has while in the garden: being a help meet.

You know, if you're the first man on earth, and food is covered, and it never rains, and you can sleep on a bed of roses (wouldn't that hurt?) that magically appears every night, and you don't have diapers to change, and there's no job, no boss, no commute and no utility bills to pay, life's pretty darn good, right?

But imagine the scenario: Adam wakes up and here's a parade of new animals that need to be named: the eastern striped seagull, the lemur, the ringtailed razor back cobra, buffalos, wasps, hornets, praying mantis - the list goes on an on. Name an animal, and off it goes. Now what? You have a new animal to name, and you have to remember the name of the last one you named - and the 1 billion last animals you named. Boring life! Give me the commute instead!

Me personally, I'd pretty much flop at it. I couldn't even remember what I named the last two, five minutes later. It would be an endless ring, and the animals wouldn't have time to eat.

Enter the hero of the story - the help meet. Here's a mini play that I envision:

Adam: "Hey Eve, would you mind naming the next 100 animals? I've got to get something to eat - oh and by the way, what was the name of that big long leg thing over there?"
Eve: "It's an ostrich dear".
Adam: "Thanks hon - why'd we name it that again?"
Eve: "Because giraffe was already taken".
Adam: "Thanks hon - you're the best!"
Eve: (sighs and mumbles) "Of course I'm the best - I'm the only one here besides you. This would be easier if I just did it myself"

This may be a precursor to the relationship that we all have today. The help meet that's really the one who's got things figured out.

Verse 21: And Adam gave names to all cattle, to the fowl of the air, to every beast of the field; and for Adam, there was found an help meet for him.

I hear a bit of gratitude on Adam's behalf that he had a help meet. Perhaps a long verbal search could be done on what a help meet is, and what a help meet helps you meet, but that's another day. :)