Interfaith Insight - 2021
Permanent link for "Coming from the earth: humus, humanity, and humility" by Doug Kindschi on June 8, 2021
It is gardening season again and as we till the earth we are also
reminded that the whole Earth is our home. We have a responsibility to
live in our homes in relationship and reciprocity. We wouldn’t trash
our personal home and must live in our common home with the same kind
of respect. I would like to pursue this further into the actual dirt,
or earth, that is the base for gardens, as well as the source for what
it means to be human.
We know this image well. We are created from the dust of the
earth according to Genesis. And the first man is named Adam from the
Hebrew word adamah, meaning earth or ground. At funerals, the
committal rite often includes the phrase from the English Book of
Common Prayer, “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
The word human comes from the Latin word humus, meaning earth or
ground. In a meditation the Franciscan priest and author Richard Rohr
wrote: “Being human means acknowledging that we’re made from the earth
and will return to the earth. We are earth that has come to
consciousness. … And then we return to where we started — in the heart
of God. Everything in between is a school of love.”
Humus is also a gardening term that refers to the components of
soil that are rich in organic matter. It is the final result of
mixing yard material like leaves with leftover plant food products and
leaving them to decompose into what is called compost. It is the
recycling of plant material. Think of it as “earth to earth” for the
plant world.
Author and educator Parker Palmer also uses these images in an
essay titled “Autumn: A Season of Paradox”: “I find nature a
trustworthy guide … As I’ve come to understand that life ‘composts’
and ‘seeds’ us as autumn does the earth, I’ve seen how possibility
gets planted in us even in the most difficult of times.”
Philosopher Brian Austin, in his book “The End of Certainty and
the Beginning of Faith,” tells of hiking with his family along the
trails which parallel stream beds in the Great Smoky Mountains. They
often return with mud-caked hiking boots. While he finds himself
impressed with the majesty of the mountains, it is also (in his words)
“the mud, still glistening with the mist that makes dust come to life
[that] harbors mysteries as magnificent as the mountains …”
“From that mud, from its carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, and
assorted metals, a child can be woven. The atoms in that mud, the same
kinds of atoms that comprise my children and you and me, have existed
for billions of years. ... This mud is spectacular, and we believe
that God made it so. This mud is rich, pregnant with possibility. …
To see ourselves as made of the same stuff that rests under our boots
as we journey a mountain path is no insult to human dignity, no
affront to the image of God in us; it is rather a reminder of the
majesty of inspired mud, a reflected majesty that gives us but one
more fleeting glimpse of the blinding brilliance of the maker of the mud.”
These authors remind us that in the cycle of life we are closely
related to the earth. We have much in common with compost and mud,
which contain the chemicals that also make up our bodies. They affirm
that we are God-breathed dust, made from the humus. We are mud balls
who have been created in the image of God.
Another word that comes from the Latin root humus is humility. We
see it expressed by Abraham when he bargains with God to spare the
righteous people in Sodom. In Genesis 18 he expresses it thus: “Now
that I have been so bold as to speak to the Lord, though I am nothing
but dust and ashes.” Likewise, Job in his lamentation refers to God
as the one who “throws me into the mud and I am reduced to dust and
ashes.” (Job 30:19)
Eugene Peterson put it this way: “The Latin word humus,
soil/earth, and homo, human being, have a common derivation, from
which we also get our word 'humble.' This is the Genesis origin of who
we are: dust -- dust that the Lord God used to make us a human being.
If we cultivate a lively sense of our origin and nurture a sense of
continuity with it, who knows, we may also acquire humility.”
Fully understanding who we are requires the realization that we
are indeed part of the earth, the soil, the humus, to which we will
return. It is only by God’s grace that we have life. The confidence
and faith that we have is important to affirm, but we must also be
humble in recognizing that there is so much more that we do not
understand or possess.
As we plant and tend to our gardens this spring and early summer,
let it be a reminder that the whole Earth is a garden and our bodies
are made of the same dirt and humus that sustains the plants. Let us
also be reminded that every person in our community, be they refugees
or immigrants, people who are different in race or class or political
persuasion, or persons of a different faith or of no faith, have all
come from this same soil. The humus that comprises our bodies also
calls us to humility as we interact with all people comprised of the
same earth components. We are called to recognize our common humanity
with humility.