Integral Creation

A friend was once so consumed with working in her yard that if she were not able to get her hands "dirty" every few days, things just didn't seem right with her. Expressed on more than one occasion, she spoke of the fact she, "loved the feeling of dirt." She'd also comment on the "aroma" of newly tilled soil and how much she loved smelling it. Not quite on a par with obsession, I would still suggest her to be somewhat consumed by it all.

Flowers were her thing. If I recall, Sweet Pea was one of her favorites. The way she spoke of them was almost as if they were beloved friends. Beautiful in color and texture, she had quite an affinity for them. Knowing what I now know of her life then, it seems as though time in the garden and among those flowers was something of a refuge for her. A heartsick soul at that time in her life, the floral beauty of Sweet Pea may have been the grandest beauty around her.

Christianity's earliest theologians spoke often and well of creation. They saw creation as a physical representation of God's presence among them. Creation was more than a sign, it was a sacrament -- a divine language -- by which God reaches out and communicates with the humanity living in creation. As Christians, we should be the first among many who find resonance with creation. But sadly, such often is not the case. Ironically, it even appears we may be among the last!

Christians today are more suspicious of people who worship through nature than those who (actually) worship titles, positions and objects of human creation. Mankind's own greed and selfishness allows the "steamrolling and bulldozing" of creation in order to build our "temples" of capitalist "worship." Where is the disconnect? Maybe it is in the dirt?

Not yet to the level of my dirt-loving friend, one day I was cleaning a flower bed around my house and I smelled it -- that aroma with which my friend was quite familiar. It seemed as though very familiar with dirt (I loved playing in dirt as a kid -- the more grass stains the better, too), I had smelled it (again) for the first time. The smell came in through my nostrils but reached deeply and touched my heart. It was as if I had made a connection with something profound...

"...the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground
and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life,
and the man became a living being."
(Gen. 2:7)

So much of human life today is spent "doing" rather than "being." So much is this the case, some people express difficulty in even knowing how to merely "be." If attempted, time spent "being" is typically held under the suspicious scrutiny of "time management" and questioned for its validity and purposefulness. "Being" falls victim to the tyranny of "doing" and we miss the integral link to creation itself. Can an hour on a bench in a park really be productive or is it merely a ruse for the lazy?

How can we appreciate the breath of life breathed into each one of us, if we never appreciate the "dirt" from which we've come, into which that breath is wonderfully blown? We must stop and contemplate the "dirt" if we're ever to appreciate the "breath."

Winter is coming. Fall is a great time to plant a tree. Perhaps more than providing future shade for a moment of springtime contemplation, perhaps the mere planting will bring a sense of meaning to your soul? We are, after all, but of breath, dirt and life.

Your thoughts?