From the Earth

It happened again this morning.  It happened much like it has happened more times than I can count.  I reached down and picked up a rotten limb which had fallen overnight from a pecan tree and immediately thought the Words of the Ash Wednesday ritual which is also a Word from the Holy Word.  It is heard first in Genesis 3:19 as the Lord God says to the Garden of Eden couple, "...you are dust, and to dust you shall return."   It has come to be more than a word which speaks of mortality, but also a word which speaks of being connected to the creation.        

Even as we come from dust, is it not also true to say that we come from the earth?  Perhaps, it is not literally true as we come from the bed of our conception which at first glance seems far removed from the earth, but a second look reminds us that as the life which has the capacity to conceive is nurtured in a life giving way by the creation itself.  The limb on the ground was nurtured by the earth as it grew from twig to branch and so is our life nurtured by the same creative power of the earth.   Not a one of us comes into this world aside from a man and woman being nurtured by the creation.  

In such a way we come not just from the dust, but from the earth.  And in the end, even as we return to dust, so is it true we return to earth.  What is physical about us is always connected to the Creation put in place by the Creator.  We are never separate from its power which speaks to us about the way we are never separate from the life giving power of the Creator who brought us into being and Who brings us Home to Himself.