Dirt and Air
Genesis 2:7-9, 15-25
This week, the day I am writing this, in fact, marks the beginning of a really important yearly "season" for Christians called Lent. You might notice it as the time that followed raucous cries of "laissez les bon temps rouler" as dedicated and cultural catholics observe Mardi Gras, or "Fat Tuesday," traditionally the day preceding Ash Wednesday where people eat pancakes and party with abandon in preparation for the upcoming season of fasting and penitence.
These traditions can be very transformative, very meaningful, and very spiritual.
They can also be very nominal and shallow.
Every year Lent comes around is an opportunity to have a profound and deep spiritual experience with God, or it can just be an opportunity to casually notice that the paraments are purple as we patiently wait for a weekend of easter egg hunts and cadbury creme eggs.
What Lent will be is ultimately up to us. How will you approach Lent this year? How will you pray more deeply? How will you fast from indulgence? How will you more deeply engage with God? In what ways will you tend to your "garden" of spirituality?
I want to encourage you today. Your lenten fast or practice does not have to be complicated. You could fast from something you might take for granted this year, like sugar, or social media. You might even fast from booze! That is actually a fast my wife and I will be doing this year, too. But Lent isn't just about the fast or the practice--it is about where the fasting and spiritual practices can lead us! And my hope is that this practice will lead you deeper. Deeper in your relationship with God, deeper in your journey toward wholeness, deeper into prayer for peace, justice, and redemption, and deeper into your identity as a child of God.
This Sunday we start at the beginning, with God breathing life into soil and that soil becoming us. And I am reminded in this story that all of us share deep elemental origins with creation. We are made of the same stardust as our neighbor experiencing homelessness and sibling in prison. We are connected to the soil in the same way as the creatures we share the land with. What if this understanding of what we share could lead us to be better partners with all life who live on the same land as us.
And if we come from the dirt, and have had life breathed into us by God--how can that lead us to not abuse the air and the land that sustain us today?
