Kinship: Us and Adamah

I am writing this on a Saturday afternoon with arms scratched from cutting back Himalayan blackberries. They are near merciless in their growth. Craig often jokes, “Why is my hair leaving my head but popping up in my nose, ears and eyebrows?” Brambles are like that, continually sprouting in unwanted places! This year, along with the invasive plants, we have lots of ground nests of yellow jackets scattered around the property. Finn stirred up a nest, and now, with a swollen nose and paw, has been content to spend the afternoon cuddled beside me while I write. His warmth and company soothes me as I labour.

There was something satisfying about this labour, even full of sweat and thorns and stings. It is part of caring for the land. I get to dig around to find where those invasives sprout from the ground, then cut them out, plucking sweet berries along the way. Part of caring for the Biblical witness is digging the fingers of my mind into these texts, plucking out the sweetness while cutting away invasive interpretations that distort growth and rob us of light.

We’ve been poking around in our Judeo-Christian Genesis origin stories the last few weeks, and I’ve been enamoured with a supporting character in these stories, Adamah: earth, dirt, land, soil. In these origin stories, Adamah is often mentioned. Humans and Adamah are so interconnected—Adamah is the source of human form, abundance and provision for Adam. But Adamah is also cursed, unable to provide, negatively affected, by Adam and Cain’s rash actions.

This connection between Adamah and these humans reminds me of the words attributed to Chief Seattle: “Whatever befalls the Earth befalls the sons of the Earth.” **

Mark Wallace, professor of religion at Swarthmore University, writes and researches the intersection between religious thought, indigenous studies, and post-colonialism. This week, I read his book When God was a Bird – Christianity, Animism and the Re-Enchantment of the Word. He acknowledges that when Christianity focuses on the vertical alone (a God “up there” saving individuals to a life “up there”) and fails to recognize kinship here and now—the sacred presence of God in all life and between all life—we  unwittingly at best, knowingly at worst, have encouraged the exploitation of nature. However, in his book, he builds a renewed theological scaffolding, showing how the Biblical witness reveals the world as “the enfleshment of sacred power”, and “God enfleshed in all life forms”, even Adamah. “The earth is not dumb matter, an inanimate object with no capacity of feeling and sentiment, but a spirited and vulnerable living being who experiences the terrible and catastrophic loss,” he writes. 

What is it like to sit with this possibility, that the very ground under our feet, the soil, is infused with the divine, and senses and responds to our presence? That the senseless killing in the world—the wars, the genocides, the bombs—have caused the land itself to suffer? What is it like to sit with the possibility that the very ground under our feet can also sense the generosity of our love and care, and is responsive to our overtures of kinship?

Deep peace and blessing,
Anne

Rev. Anne Baxter Smith
Pastor, Church at Southpoint

** Here is the quote from Chief Seattle sentence in its wider context: link.