Dirt
Something to think about: Psalm 139:13-18
It happened this week. Just a smattering of sunshine, enough to get our hopes up, and the dirt started to show through the mounds and mounds of snow. Melting snowbanks made gutters into streams and the sunlight glinted off the tiny rivers as if it was laughing with them.
And one afternoon this week, you could smell the dirt.
Not dust, but the smell of sun-warmed earth that’s waking up. It’s got rotting leaves and sticks and probably some bird seed that’s been scattered in it. There’s dried grass at the edges where we’ve thrown salt on the sidewalks to battle the ice. The salt is washing away. The dirt is there. It smells like life coming out of hiding and pushes our minds to growing things.
In Genesis, it says we’re formed out of dirt. The Adamah, the “Adam maker”. Whatever we believe as the process of creation (and there are a lot of interpretations, the bottom line is that God cause something that was not to be something). In the Psalm that you can read above, it talks about God knitting us, forming us together out of the stuff that’s made in the depths of the earth. Dirt.
Formed.
Shaped.
Made unique.
Held.
Loved.
Given breath.
Called good.
Sometimes, though, the dirt this time of year is mud that sticks to everything. It coats dog paws, fills up shoe treads, gets tracked in everywhere. It’s all around until we “calm it down” with grass, mulch, wash it away with water.
Sometimes we do the same with people too. We take what God has formed it all of our uniqueness, living, breathing, and we calm people’s identities down until they are something we can handle. Or we try to wash them out until the dirt is in a form we can control.
But….but God called the formed dirt, the adamah, good before it was ‘calmed down’ or washed away. It was perfectly good in the identity that God had given it.
In this time of Lent, we take a hard look at ourselves. Sometimes, we might not like what we see. Sometimes, we might not like what we see in someone else. Sometimes, we may try to change or hide the identity that God gave us because it doesn’t fit what others think we should be.
Here’s the truth: God made me me, and God made you you. In all the infinite creation, you are formed and created uniquely, and loved beyond anything you can ever know. So is the person walking next to you. When those in power say that one identity is not valued, that one way that God created people is not valid, then we as Christians absolutely affirm that that is not a Biblical position, nor is it the way we understand identity in Christ.
That’s where we get to Easter. When Jesus came, he took on the adamah. And in giving up His life for us and by rising again, He loved all of us back to life. Formed, shaped, unique, held, loved. If God in Jesus Christ thought it was worth it to take on the adamah, the dirt, then you and I can only affirm that formation by God in each other.
May you see God’s love and creativity in every person’s identity that you meet this week.
Peace in Christ,
Rev. Susan
Photo and content © Susan Kerr 2025. May not be reproduced or circulated without permission of the author.
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