The following blog post was originally posted on my blog, “Letters to the Jaded Evangelical”. The blog is geared towards those who have become discouraged by the church’s intermingling with conservative politics and American ideology and who seek a purer faith. There is another way forward – and we’ll find it by focusing on Jesus. You can read more at: Blog | The Jaded Evangelical (webador.com) or on Substack: The Jaded Evangelical | SM Reed | Substack.

Anyone else have picky eaters in their house? My oldest has been a continual challenge. When he was around five, there were only about five things he would eat. Anything else would make him gag or we would have to fight over, and it just wasn’t worth it to me. I figured we could be patient in introducing new things little by little. 

That has worked… some. He eats more than five things now, but he’s still very picky about his food. For example, his food cannot touch in any shape or form. There can’t be any kind of sauce or juice or gravy. He doesn’t like food mixed together, so no pasta dishes or casseroles or even tacos – everything has to be separated and in its own place.  

Vegetables have been particularly difficult. Fruit he loves, but veggies? Nope. Until we discovered a little trick.

The key to our trick? 

Salt. 

Carrots? No, disgusting! Carrots with salt? Oh, yeah! Cooked broccoli? No, gross! Cooked broccoli with salt? Cool! Avocado? Ewww! Avocado with salt? Yummy!

It amuses me to no end. We have even gotten him to eat boiled eggs this way. Such a small thing makes a big difference.

What is it about salt that makes things taste better? What is it about salt that makes something otherwise undesirable now appealing? Who among us would eat potato chips if they weren’t covered in salt? Or French fries? Or popcorn? These beloved treats just aren’t the same without a whole bunch of salt. 

Salt is a mineral and a naturally formed compound. There is tons more salt in the world than we need for human consumption. That’s why it’s so cheap to buy in the grocery store. 

Salt is essential for human health. In any given time, we have about 250 grams of sodium running through the fluids of our bodies.

It is one of the oldest food seasonings in the world. When added to the food we eat, it can bring out the flavor. It also helps as a preservative, to keep food from spoiling so quickly. 

They had salt back in Jesus’ day, too. It was used much as we use it now, though it was more expensive back then. Sometimes Roman soldiers would be paid in salt. Which makes sense, if you know these famous words of Jesus: “You are the salt of the earth” (Matthew 5:13a). 

Interesting. We are the salt of the earth? Not God? Not the gospel? No. We are. 

What does it mean to be the salt of the Earth? 

The gospel to unbelievers can sometimes seem rather… unpalatable. The idea that we are sinners and held accountable to God. The idea that we are in need of a savior when so many of us pride ourselves on being self-sufficient. The idea that one day we will have to give account for everything we’ve done before our Creator. The idea that those who reject God and live for themselves, have chosen hell. These may be hard pills to swallow. 

Perhaps we are the salt of the Earth because it is our job to make the gospel more tasty. Not by watering it down or covering over the bad parts or changing the message. But by showering it in love, mercy, and compassion. By showing and living the positive difference it can make in one’s life and in the world. 

I fear many times our message, instead of making the gospel more desirable, has made it less so. Instead of flavoring the gospel with our love, we poison it with politics and nationalism and white supremacy, with hate and commercialism and privilege. We add a whole lot that doesn’t belong in there, making the gospel truth seem more like a lie.

It’s no wonder others are not convinced by or interested in our message. I wouldn’t want to stomach something sprinkled in cyanide, either. 

How many of us know the second part of verse 13, where Jesus says, “But if the salt loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.”

What causes salt to lose its saltiness? Impurities. When other things get mixed in with the salt, it no longer has its flavor. It no longer serves as a preservative. It’s worthless.

When our message is polluted by the things of this world, it loses its saltiness. It loses its truth. It’s worthless. It’s unpalatable. Worthy only to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.

The salt of the gospel should be about giving life: a better life here now, as well as life everlasting. The gospel should be about love. Love is not mere lip service and a few dollars thrown in an offering plate. Love is caring about someone’s well-being and promoting good in their life. Love is caring about those who are suffering in unjust systems. As Cornell West has said, “Justice is what love looks like in public.” The gospel should look and sound like Jesus.

We have so much to do to reclaim our message. I believe the Evangelical Church in America – those who truly believe in following Jesus Christ, needs to come together and make a very coherent and very public statement against Christian nationalism, fascism, white supremacy, and all the other things that have been associated with us because of our intermixing with conservative politics. We need to be clear to all the world – this is not who we are. This is not who Jesus is. We need to repent and turn back to the way of Jesus. 

But also, I think each and every person who claims to follow Jesus, needs to actually do just that and follow Jesus. Follow the way He loved and the way He cared for people. Follow His words to bring His kingdom come on Earth through meeting needs and establishing a more just society. 

If each of us were to do that, we would be the salt within our own circles. And, eventually, that salt would spread. The ripples of influence would grow. 

Until we truly were the salt of the Earth.

You don’t need me to tell you that Mother’s Day is complicated for many. A two-second pause to contemplate the people in your life for whom the holiday might be painful would yield evidence enough that the day (and the church-backed events that it often brings) can be tricky. Instead, maybe we can ask why is that so?

My hunch is that the labyrinth of emotions accompanying this holiday has to do with the elevation and highlighting of a very specific relationship. And relationships are layered, sometimes strained, always unique. They are formed between people, and no two people are alike. A day to “celebrate mothers” feels not altogether different from declaring a day to “celebrate health.” Can you imagine? The pain that would come from those whose bodies have received diagnoses? From those who have learned from their faith communities to not trust their physical selves? From those trapped inside of addiction, or those raging against the institutions that compromise our wellness, or those who have been traumatized by diet culture? Health is complicated because it has to do with a relationship between a person and their body. “Celebrating health” would be an oversimplification of such a complex human experience.

So too with mothers.

Here’s a Mother’s Day litany that is also simplified for such vastly different connections and experiences that surround us. But, I hope it makes a little more room for a few more people.

 *****************************************************************

Needed: A candle and lighter, something to represent bread and wine for communion (a cracker and juice, toast and milk, etc), and a little cup of dirt (plus a seed, if available). If reading with people, one voice will read all unbolded sections while the group joins in for the bolded sections.

“If ever there is a tomorrow when we’re not together, there is something you must always remember. You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think. But the most important thing is, even if we are apart, I will always be with you.” –Winnie the Pooh

ONE: Right now, we push aside all the feelings we “should” have and people we “should” be, and we open wide our doors to what is

ALL: Welcome, old grief; 

Welcome, new reality; 

Welcome, fear; 

Welcome, worry; 

Welcome, exactly who we are right now

ONE: As we light this candle, we declare this space for remembering and honoring the children and parents we miss during Mother’s (and/or Father’s) day(s)

ALL: Be with us, saints; 

Be with us, Spirit

Song: Let It Be

ONE: For children who had to say goodbye to parents when they should have had so much more time

ALL: We hold you now: (name any names aloud)

ONE: For children who have watched the minds and bodies of parents deteriorate, no longer able to recognize or remember

ALL: We hold you now:

ONE: For children whose parents were unable to offer their presence or resources, children who ached to know a different kind of paternal or maternal love

ALL: We hold you now:

ONE: For children who have lost parents to suicide, disease, estrangement

ALL: We hold you now:

ONE: For children who wrestle with the complexities of their birth parents, adoptive parents, and foster parents

ALL: We hold you now:

ONE: For children who are navigating the milestones of life without their mothers or fathers there to call for recipes and family histories and old stories that have faded with years

ALL: We hold you now:

ONE: For LGBTQIA+ children who do not have homes to which they can return

ALL: We hold you now:

ONE: For children who were abused in a multitude of ways:

ALL: We hold you now:

ONE: For children who dread the holidays because of their voids

ALL: We hold you now:

Scripture: Matthew 5:1-12

ONE: For parents who birthed babies straight into the arms of God

ALL: We hold you now:

ONE: For parents who have lost young children to disasters that make this life seem too unfair for the human heart

ALL: We hold you now:

ONE: For parents who have raised their grandchildren or other relatives because of a lost life or reality

ALL: We hold you now:

ONE: For parents who have lost children to suicide, disease, estrangement

ALL: We hold you now: 

ONE: For parents whose children were unable to offer their presence or connection, parents who ached to know a different kind of familial love

ALL: We hold you now:

ONE: For parents who have received a gutting diagnosis

ALL: We hold you now:

ONE: For parents who are raising children, and working jobs, and running households by themselves

ALL: We hold you now:

ONE: For birth parents who wrestle with the complexities of hard decisions and limited resources

ALL: We hold you now:

ONE: For adoptive and foster parents who wrestle with the complexities of hard questions, identity narratives, and ethics

ALL: We hold you now:

ONE: For migrant and refugee parents who are risking everything (even separation) for a better life for their children

ALL: We hold you now:

“If I had lost a leg—I would tell them—instead of a boy, no one would ever ask me if I was ‘over’ it. They would ask me how I was doing learning to walk without my leg. I was learning to walk and to breathe and to live without Wade. And what I was learning is that it was never going to be the life I had before.” –Elizabeth Edwards

ONE: To those who are not biological parents, but who step in to mother and father so many around them

ALL: We honor you now:

ONE: To those who chose not to be parents in a culture that so often pressures otherwise

ALL: We honor you now:

ONE: To those who would choose to be parents, or parents again, but who grieve the loss of a dream

ALL: We honor you now:

ONE: To those who have redefined family to go past lines of biology, nationality, and economics

ALL: We honor you now:

ONE: To those who did the best they could with what they had when they had it

ALL: We honor you now:

ONE: To those versions of ourselves that we never turned into, and the versions of ourselves that we did

ALL: We honor you now:

ONE: To the voices we wish we could hear say “Happy Mother’s and Father’s Day”

ALL: We honor you now:

ONE: To the ears to which we wish we could say “Happy Mother’s and Father’s Day”

ALL: We honor you now:

Scripture: John 1:5

“Sorry, but you don’t really get a choice—you keep waking up and you keep breathing and your heart keeps on beating. And because your blood hasn’t stopped moving through your body, your stomach gets hungry, and then your mouth eats. This is how it goes. Your sad little heart becomes a force of nature. Despite the depth of its wounds, it just keeps going and then the rest of your body has to follow. You eat. You sleep. You sit, and stand, and walk. You smile. Eventually, you laugh. It’s like your heart knows that if it keeps going, so will you. And your heart hasn’t forgotten how good it is to be in the world, so it pushes on, propelling you along to the fridge, the shower, a family dinner, coffee with a friend. In doing these things, your spirit catches up with what your heart already knows; it’s pretty good to be alive. I guess what I’m getting at is that if you too are mired in the early days of unimaginable loss, the only thing to do is follow your heart. Then listen to your body. And keep…going.” –Jamie Wright 

Song: Great is Thy Faithfulness

ONE: Hear our words to those we miss

ALL: Meet us in our celebration and in our grief 

Communion

ONE: The body of Mary’s son, broken for us

The blood of God’s son, poured out for the world

ALL: Thank you Jesus for the bigger picture of resurrection

ONE: God’s family table is open to all who wish to partake, in your homes, on these screens, though separated we are one.

(Participants hold cup of soil—and a seed if possible—in their hands.)

Remind us, God, that our faith makes room for death, that our faith can hold endings, though they are excruciating and devastating.

(Participants push seeds into dirt.)

Remind us that in a backwards kingdom, end is beginning, last is first, and burial is birth…eventually.

ALL: Thank you for love that was, is, and is to come. Amen.

Go now in the peace that passes our understanding.

I am not a Catholic. In fact, I was raised in the charismatic, protestant church in Scotland. A faith tradition which taught us that, “praying to saints” (especially Mary) was idolatry. 

This morning however, just after my husband read me the news about the escalating situation of war in Israel, Gaza, and Iran, I found myself praying with, and even to, Mary the mother of Jesus. 

For some years now, beginning in a time of deep grief, God has been “turning up” for me … with me … in me … beside me … as my Mother. The tender, loving, yet incredibly fierce and creative Life Force, which birthed our universe and our existence. An Eternal Womb in which I’m always held. This has been a wonderful “widening out” in my understanding of God and has brought great healing to my deepest wounds; in a way which only incredible intimacy can. 

But, unlike many others – who are also currently discovering the Divine Feminine Presence of God – I’ve honestly never given much thought to Mary of Nazareth, the earthly mother of Jesus. 

That was, until recently, when I spent some extended time in Mexico and found myself entranced – and frankly enchanted – by the incredibly abundant images, literally everywhere (murals, graffitied walls, bumper stickers, tattoos) of Our Lady of Guadalupe. 

For those of us without much knowledge of Catholic faith traditions, Our Lady of Guadalupe is a “Marian” apparition. That is, an appearance of Mary, the mother of Jesus, who came to an indigenous man, San Juan Diego (Cuauhtlatoatzin – Talking Eagle – was his indigenous name) in Mexico, 1531. 

The story tells us that after several divine meetings between the two: San Juan and Guadalupe. Meetings which took place over a period of several days. Meetings in which she beckoned, encouraged and instructed him; Guadalupe’s image was miraculously imprinted on this ordinary man’s cloak. This miraculous “painting” is still with us today and is available to view at the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, in modern day Mexico City.

Here’s the thing … I, as a good protestant girl, wasn’t raised to be intoxicated by the smells and bells of Catholic “superstition”.  I was taught, not to use saints as intermediaries, but to address the Divine directly and on my own behalf. In the faith tradition of my childhood, we weren’t permitted to pray to an image, nor worship idols … but, suddenly here I was, surrounded by endless, almost omnipresent, images of this Mexican-indigenous “Mary” and I found myself enamored by her. 

I snapped photos of her on every walk and at every stop sign, until my phone and Instagram account were full. I found myself sketching her over and over in my journals; researching the meanings hidden in the symbols of her dress, her pose and her face. What could this alluring … comforting … almost protecting image possibly mean!? Why did it strike me so much? How had it inspired such incredible devotion in the people of Mexico? 

As I began to allow myself to surrender to the call, I found that in drawing her … piece by piece … again and again … I was sketching out a map of God.

Much like my ancestors – the ancient Celts – with their “three leafed” Celtic knot describing the mystery of the Trinity, I discovered that the people of Mexico had also been given a symbol to aid them in their understanding of the Infinite. This map came to them through an image of Mary … a poor, brown, pregnant, unwed, teenage, praying girl.   

Of course, my firmly western, pragmatic, protestant brain could hardly handle this kind of mystery! Mary was a human girl … like me. Not God. Not the Divine one. Not even the Holy Spirit, who I had come to know, so tenderly, as Mother. I wrestled with the “either – or” of the whole situation and rubbed my eyes again and again in frustration at this new vision of oneness that God was so kindly showing me about Herself and her saints; her dearly loved ones. 

During the last couple years this oneness has sunk into my heart, where my brain couldn’t receive it. I have begun to let go and trust. Christ is the Vine and I am one of the branches. I cannot find the line where God ends and I begin, so why should I feel such a desperate need to draw that line anywhere else? 

This morning, as we listened to the news coming out of the Middle East: that war may escalate and more  mothers will be torn from their children, more husbands may lose their wives, more babies may be blown up, orphaned  and abandoned, I found the words of the Hail Mary prayer … a prayer which I learned accidentally, growing up  surrounded by Catholic neighbors in a nation which was fiercely divided by religion … I found the words of Hail Mary, tumbling through my mind and out my mouth. 

Mary, that most Middle Eastern of mamas. She who knows the terror of occupation, the constant threat of murder. She, who watched her dearest child be ripped from her life by political mob violence. 

Mary, this Mary, who still dared to call herself “blessed” in spite of it all. Mary, who trusted in the resurrection long enough to see the crucifixion through. 

I found myself praying to Mary, with Mary, through Mary and with the Holy Spirit which binds us both together as children of God … praying for the mothers who are caught in this awful war. 

“Hail Mary”   

Mary … my heart salutes you, my heart salutes your heart … and through your heart I acknowledge and  listen … to God, who is our Deepest Mother. 

“full of grace” 

Through you I see the grace that is ours 

You who said, “let it be” 

You who opened yourself wide, in deep trust 

who gave your “yes” to God

Your yes to pain, your yes to joy, your yes to life and your yes to death … even the death of your own son 

“Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus” 

This part of the prayer makes me choke with tears, 

because you are a human woman, a mother, a fruitful womb 

just like me, just like our sisters 

a woman who lived under the fierce violence of Occupation 

an Occupation which killed children and tore babies from their mothers 

You, like so many, had to flee to save your child’s life, 

to save him from a deadly force, breathing out violence against you, 

threatening to take his life – his tiny, precious life – away. 

We look at the horror unfolding in your homeland, and we wonder, “How could anyone slaughter children?” Oh Mary 

Oh dear Mother-God 

You know the fear and terror the mothers of Gaza and Israel face 

And yet still, 

still you called yourself, “Blessed”! 

You, whose very name, Miriam, means “sea of bitter tears”. 

You, whose son was murdered by mob-violence 

by an absurd system, calling itself just! 

You who knew agony as deep as the sea 

You named yourself, “Blessed”. 

You even foretold that we would call you “Blessed”. 

By doing this, you teach us 

To call ourselves 

To call all mothers … 

To call all children, fruit of our wombs 

“Blessed” 

“Holy Mary, Mother of God” 

You, who carried God in your womb 

who, like all of us, carried the Divine within you 

who, like all mothers, grew and bore, loved and raised, a child of the Creator. 

“Pray for us, now and at the hour of our death” 

Pray for us …now and in all our deaths 

our daily deaths and losses 

our minute-to-minute worsening griefs 

too deep for words 

pray for us. 

Holy Spirit pray for us … within us … around us … over us. 

Your hand is always on our eyes – to light the way 

Your hand is always on our hearts – to still the storm of panic   

Your hand is always at our backs – to catch us as we fall 

You, Spirit, Mother of all mothers, hold us, carry our wounds. 

shed our tears and grieve our deepest grief   

Pray for us Mother, 

As we pray with and for the mothers, the sisters, the daughters, in Israel and Gaza, who are all your children. They are all us

We are all them 

within your holy love 

Amen. 

Let it be. 

In closing, please allow me to share with you why I feel it is such an incredible gift for me, as someone raised protestant, to feel invited by the Spirit to meditate on the words of the “Hail Mary” prayer.  

The place in which I was raised, the west of Scotland, was incredibly divided for generations – politically,  socially and religiously – between Catholic and Protestant. As you likely know, Northern Ireland, just thirty miles across  the sea from us, experienced decades of life-wrecking violence. After generations of hatred and loss – peace,  reconciliation, understanding – these things just seemed impossible. Yet in recent decades they have miraculously arrived.  

This Easter Sunday, just a few weeks ago, my parents sent me pictures of their Easter gathering in Scotland.  Starting at the local Catholic church, members from various denominations walked together from church to church,  singing, sharing and celebrating the resurrection together.  

It’s not just that it’s easier, or more pleasant, or a better life for all, when we have peace – but to feel actively  encouraged by the Spirit to engage in and understand one another’s prayers, surely this can bring us one step closer to  seeing an answer to Jesus’ own prayer for the human race: that we might one day, be one, and find ourselves empowered  to truly love one another.  

This must be our prayer too, not just for Israel and Palestine, but for the whole world. 

Living in the evangelical world. you learn quickly there’s a focus on “traditional family” roles. It’s also called “living out God’s ideal,” “God’s plan,” or – my favorite – having a “Biblical marriage.” In other words, evangelicals believe there is a preordained designed ideal of marriage and family. I was taught the dangers of single parenting, stay at home dads, divorce, and of course, same-sex marriage.

If you’ve never read the Bible, and if you listen to many Christians, you’d think that Christianity centers on sexual and gender identities and behaviors linked to those identities. You would think that Jesus’s main concern is for you to have traditional relationships in the model of Adam and Eve.

But if you ask any of these Christians what it means to be a follower of Jesus, they would respond with a completely different answer.

They would reply that a Christian is someone who believes or trusts in Jesus Christ, or that Jesus died and rose from the dead for them.

Or they might talk about the greatest commandment to love God and to love others.

Or they may mention possessing the fruit of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. 

Or perhaps they’d point out the big three: faith, hope, and love — the greatest being love. 

In fact, the mention of marital status, sexuality, and gender are astonishingly infrequent in the Gospels and letters of the New Testament. 

But What Does Jesus Say?

When attempting to poke holes in the idea of life after death, a religious leader of a sect, which didn’t believe in the resurrection, asked Jesus about marriage after death. Jesus corrected him, “At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage; they will be like the angels in heaven.” With these words, Jesus was revealing that marriage was temporary, cultural, and of this world (Matthew 22:23-32).

One reason Christians focus so pointedly on traditional marriage is because of a statement Jesus makes in Matthew 19. He was asked about easy divorces (for men) which was instituted under Moses. This form of divorce, which benefited men and was oppressive to women in marriages that didn’t produce children, allowed the man to cast off the “barren” wife and get another with a simple written notice (Deut. 24:1). Jesus, always looking out for the weak and voiceless, condemned this practice. He explains they should follow the example of Adam and Eve — which precedes Moses — “Moses permitted you to divorce your wives because your hearts were hard. But it was not this way from the beginning. I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another woman commits adultery.” (Matthew 19:8-9).

In this passage, Jesus is not creating a prohibition against same sex marriage, as many Christians mistakenly believe. He’s promoting fidelity and commitment — foundational elements of love — to combat the selfishness of a husband’s desire for an easy divorce. Jesus was asked about a loophole in the law, and Jesus closed it, pointing to the responsibility of love.

Paul

Paul addresses some debauched behaviors in his letters, admonishing the people of God to abstain from things like lying, gossip, greed, gluttony, and sexual immorality. From these passages, many have tried to prove that same sex acts and attractions are sin. They are called the clobber passages by some. Again, it is the selfishness, distractedness, and baseness to which Paul is referring. It is not the fact that it’s same-sex sexual behavior. Paul here is concerned that many are following the cravings of their bodies over following Jesus’s way of self-denial. For Paul, it was not so much about specifics — although he pointed some out to various congregations. It was about following the way of love.

Today, there are many believers and people in general that live quiet lives of love and imperfection. Some are in your church, fix your car, work alongside you, teach your children. And some are part of your family, simply pursuing the way of love and fidelity that Jesus, Paul, and other New Testament writers taught.

Some follow Jesus. Some don’t. Either way, the Christian way is to focus on the law of love, which transcends gender, sexuality, and marriage, no matter what you might hear from Christians today.

“Daughter Babylon, doomed to destruction,
    happy is the one who repays you
    according to what you have done to us.
Happy is the one who seizes your infants
    and dashes them against the rocks.”

After the initial feelings of intense discomfort and repulsion at such a notion, we seek to find some rationality for this passage being included. Seemingly in such a matter-of-fact manner. And so unlike the “Happy are the peacemakers” Beatitudes that we’ve grown accustomed to. Searching commentary upon commentary to convince ourselves that surely God is not endorsing such an option for our rage and revenge against another group – and especially infants for goodness and God’s sake!

Matthew Poole’s commentary mentions the idea of this representing “just retaliation.” In Barnes’ Notes, Albert Barnes and James Murphy write,

“In regard to this passage, we are not necessarily to suppose that the author of the psalm approved of this, or desired it, or prayed for it. He looked forward to the fulfillment of a prediction; he saw that a just and terrible judgment would certainly come upon Babylon.

Marc Zvi Brettler, Professor of Judaic Studies at Duke University, shares that similar language can be found in Isaiah 13:16, 2 Kings 8:2, Hosea 14:1, and Nahum 3:10. However, he goes on to assert, “Heaven help us all if we ignore the savageness of this text, and instead discuss it only as historical-critical philologists, in a dispassionate manner.”

I would agree with the word “savageness.” I understand its meaning is ascribed to both people and behavior. It is used to remove humanity from those assigned the name savage or merely as three – fifths human. Savageness is also condoned by those who declare inhuman status on anyone. Sometimes collaterally to everyone. This includes infants and babies.

It’s 2024. The hope is that no one is taking their cues from the savageness of this text!

Because we remember the beautiful Indigenous children of God and the devastating legacy of calculated genocide that dashed their infants against the rocks.

We remember the beautiful African children of God and the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade that dashed their infants against the rocks.

We remember the beautiful Japanese children of God and the terror of the atomic bomb that dashed their infants against the rocks.

We remember the beautiful Jewish children of God and the hellishness of the Holocaust that dashed their infants against the rocks.

We remember the beautiful African American children of God and the sheer terror of KKK lynching and bombings that dashed their infants against the rocks.

We remember the beautiful Cambodian children of God and the horrific Killing Fields that dashed their infants against the rocks.

We remember the beautiful South African children of God and the apartheid system that dashed their infants against the rocks.

We remember the beautiful Congolese children of God under King Leopold’s brutal reign and the horrors now that dashed their infants against the rocks.

We remember the beautiful Bosnian children of God and the systematic ethnic cleansing that dashed their infants against the rocks.

What all these atrocities have in common is that at some point misinformation and propaganda about the humanity of a certain community of children of God, nurtured rage and hatred. People became comfortable with collateral damage. They felt justified to see collateral damage as a viable and justifiable option.

Today we hear the cries of the beautiful Ukrainian children of God fighting for their existence with war all around that is dashing their infants against the rocks.

This past Christmas, we heard the sermon, When We Justify the Bombing of Children by Palestinian Christian Pastor Munther Isaac. Asking the world to hear the cries of the beautiful Palestinian children of God. Fighting for their existence with war all around. Literally, dashing their infants against the rock as he declared that Christ could be found this year not in a manger, but in the rubble.

Despite the inclusion of such a horrific passage of unyielding brutality, other Psalms like 127, declare “Don’t you see that children are God’s best gift?” Psalm 139 reminds us that all humanity is fearfully and wonderfully made. Being made in the image of God, found in Genesis, looks more revolutionary and remarkable when mirrored by the way Jesus taught on a mountainside surrounded by rocks. Instead of “happiness” being linked to the savageness of dashing infants against them, in the Beatitudes, He spoke of happiness being correlated to those who are merciful, pure in heart and peacemakers. Peacemaking is what children of God do. War is not the answer, is what we were supposed to remember. Remember?

There are accusations of being “anti” this group or that one. We hear aggressive demands to demonstrate where you stand in every conflict. Many, who are now canceled for refusing to stand passively among the rubble, find themselves in between a rock and a hard place. Because they dared to desire peace and justice instead of more war. They are compelled to actively live out their peacemaking child of God status. Unhappy to continue witnessing devastating horror and terror that dashes any human being created in the image of God, against the rocks.

In some ways, the ubiquity of mom-and-wine kitsch reflects the pervasive nature of alcohol in many people’s day-to-day lives. Most craft stores sell a version of It’s Wine O’Clock Somewhere wall hangings, and Etsy abounds with Mommy’s Juice tumblers, wink-and-nod opaque sippy cups for adults. A recent article from the Columbia University Public School of Health confirmed that rates of binge drinking and Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD) is increasing most rapidly in reproductive-aged women, aided by a culture that normalizes alcohol use and downplays its abuse by suggesting that a glass of wine (or three) is needed to survive the daily stressors of motherhood.

A new wave of books published in the last few years provides one powerful antidote to the changing (and troubling) drinking habits of some women. Dubbed “Quit Lit” by The Washington Post in early 2023, these often-confessional books provide a warning to readers by showing how swiftly alcohol dependence can consume a person’s life, complicating relationships, altering physical and emotional health, and increasing stress and anxiety. Penned primarily by women, Quit Lit reflects the disturbing trends about women who drink, and an increasing awareness that the bottle is not the hoped-for antidote it often promises to be.

Erin Jean Warde’s Sober Spirituality: The Joy of a Mindful Relationship with Alcohol provides an important addition to the Quit Lit genre, though her target audience is not only women, and not only those who drink to excess. Part memoir, part meditation, Warde situates alcohol use within the context of Christian faith, as she reflects on her own transformative decision to become sober following years of alcohol dependency. For Warde, sobriety “allows me to love deeply, to receive a joy that will never leave or forsake me. Sobriety allows me to gather myself up and place my soul on the altar.” Sober Spirituality is an invitation to readers to find the love and joy Warde discovered by changing her relationship to alcohol and, in a way, becoming born again.

The author writes with an authority of knowing sobriety and spirituality well. An Episcopal priest and spiritual director, Warde spent a number of years in thrall of alcohol. She also did not quit cold turkey—Warde writes that few people do—but instead through stops and starts, sobriety finally “stuck.” She likens her new-found sobriety to a kind of awakening that her hungover self, with its halting morning-after self-loathing, could not have imagined. Warde sees sobriety as resurrection into “a joyful life,” requiring a kind of death first: of old habits, comfortable patterns, even relationships that have been founded and fueled through drinking. 

Sober Spirituality wisely explores the biblical basis for sober living, challenging the oft-times facile argument that the Bible condones alcohol use, given the preponderance of references to wine throughout scripture. It’s important to affirm that Jesus drank wine, Warde writes, but also that the wine in the ancient Near East was different than what is available now, and that Jesus’ relationship to the alcohol was not toxic or debilitating. Warde reminds readers that other biblical passages (like Proverbs 23) show the dangers of drunkenness, alcohol’s promises of a good time giving way to bad decisions, darkness, and shame.

Despite the glib nature of mom-and-wine culture, and indeed of drinking culture more broadly, shame remains a pervasive part of alcohol use and abuse. Substance dependence can often be a silent struggle, Warde says, as it is for many who are seeking sobriety. Throwaway comments on social media that either glorify drinking or vilify those who drink too much present a “double whammy” for those striving for sobriety, who are reminded that alcohol makes any event more fun, and also that those who over-indulge are drunkards and addicts who cause harm to others.

A resounding strength in Sober Spirituality is Warde’s unwillingness to contribute to the shame that is often part of conversations around alcohol misuse. Given her own experience, she recognizes that the journey toward sobriety is not linear: it might not have a specific start date; it might not have a particular pathway; more than anything else, it requires a mindful relationship with alcohol and with others. Warde uses the idea of “long obedience in the same direction,” noting that “Sobriety is, for many of us, a progression, an unfolding, an intuitive process of embodiment, and the inkling that a more joyful life is possible.” 

In writing about her sobriety, Warde uses the language of liberation, of “returning us to what we were made for—joy, yes, but also a more compassionate heart.” Understanding this liberation means that Warde had to recognize her own white privilege, and the ways alcohol numbed her from wholly witnessing the racial injustice around her, or from seeing the full humanity of others in their grief and their joy. Sobriety also helped Warde acknowledge how white privilege shows up in drinking culture: the substance abuse of white women can be seen as a lark, worthy of wine sippy cups; Black people who struggle with substance addictions are more readily portrayed in the media as “lazy, devious, and violent sociopath(s),” and their abuse of substances more likely to be criminalized. 

It is Warde’s thoughtful consideration of addiction’s high costs that makes Sober Spirituality an important read even for those not personally challenged by alcohol’s allure. She carefully plots the ways a $250 billion/year alcohol industry repeatedly deceives us into believing its products provide health benefits, despite all contravening evidence. More pervasively, the alcohol industry lies to us, telling us that drinking is a necessary addition to the good life, a message children also receive in terms of marketing, movies and TV shows, and the model of the adults in their lives. Liberation from alcohol includes being freed from the industry’s deceptions, though Warde manifests considerable compassion for those who work in the industry. “Systems deserve criticism, and people deserve compassion,” she writes, a point that deserves broad application for justice-minded Christians.  

This kind of empathy appears everywhere in Warde’s book: empathy for those who work as bartenders and alcohol sales, empathy for those struggling with substance abuse, and empathy for those who have vowed to quit, but for whom a sustained sobriety is still a struggle. Warde’s own challenges with AUD shape the ways she guides others, and it’s also clear that Warde’s liberation from alcohol addiction has allowed her to more fully see the Imago Dei in others and in herself. Sober Spirituality is an invitation for others to join Warde in her journey, a new kind of Quit Lit that recognizes how long obedience in the same direction offers so much more than the empty promises of wine o’clock and mommy juice.

My drinking history speaks to how trauma can change a relationship with alcohol. I was a social drinker, sometimes overdoing it in communal settings, and then I tried to cut back when I started my first job. However, later I experienced trauma and couldn’t escape the overwhelming feeling that I wasn’t safe, even in my own home. The lack of safety, coupled with other stressors, led to me, like clockwork, cracking open a bottle of wine at the end of a long day. I would cross the threshold into my home and struggle with the effect of trauma on my mind, body, and soul. Homes are thought of as “safe havens,” but if violated, homes can become triggers. As I began to heal from trauma (a lifelong process, but I was getting better), my drinking didn’t change, because it had become a pattern. Our bodies don’t differentiate between patterns we end up in situationally and habits we intend to take on for life, so even if we can change the stimuli, the ingrained pattern can then become the trigger. I wasn’t coming home to a physical space being the trigger, but now the cue was simply coming home. A person can get out of a triggering situation and discover that their cues and triggers have adapted because of patterns developed over time, even when they have been working hard to try to heal.

My recovery coaching practice is founded on the truth that coping is normal. Coping is not something to be ashamed of; coping is an inevitability of being alive. Everyone faces realities that require coping, and how we cope depends on many factors. We have to acknowledge the factors that are not in our control: class, race, genetics, family of origin, trauma history, the state of our mental health, the state of our physical health, disability, access to health care, responsibilities entrusted to us, and much more.

When I look back at my heaviest drinking days, the days of the deep trauma and the intensive therapy I went through to try to heal, I know that drinking was how I was surviving, and on my best days I don’t fault myself for staying alive. If you are struggling with alcohol, you are likely trying to survive. Changing how we drink is the work of recognizing how we are coping, asking ourselves whether drinking is helping us heal, and honoring the factors that challenge our coping. It’s not about demonizing your current coping but about adding new coping mechanisms into the mix so that we can cope in a way that truly leads toward healing.

This is part of why we have to change dominant narratives around drinking. It’s considered normal for friends to take you out drinking after a breakup, normal to go on the “Olivia Pope diet” of wine and popcorn, normal to own a wine glass that fits an entire bottle so you can say “I only had one glass,” as the memes proclaim. But when trauma is added to the mix, this way of coping (whether it is coping with a breakup, with the stressors of an intense job, or with loneliness) will place more stress on our nervous system. The mixture of a person facing trauma, or even just the daily challenges of being alive, with the messages that drinking away problems and stressors is “just the way things are” causes harm while a person is already struggling. Asking for help is always an exercise in vulnerability to some degree, but we have heaped so much judgment and stigma onto this specific part of our lives that our vulnerability is heightened. In an ideal world, changing our relationship with alcohol would be as commonplace and acceptable as any other dietary choice we make.

Content taken from Sober Spirituality by Erin Jean Warde, ©2023. Used by permission of Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

O You Who Plant Trees from Mustard Seeds,

When my daughter becomes despairing over the state of the world
—which she will—

when she realizes that her biggest efforts are only a ripple in the pond
—which is true—

when she wants to give up because caring just hurts too much
—which it does—

bring her back to the face right in front of her. Remind her that
smallness is not the same as nothingness. Get her to take a nap.
Pour her some water.

And when she is ready once more
—which she will be—

present before her actions she can take
in her town,
on her street,
in her home,
in the smallest spaces, the least sexy spaces, the spaces that don’t
seem to matter much.

Stroke her hair and whisper in her ear,
Now then, my beloved, this is how you change the world.

Amen.

Content taken from Feminist Prayers for My Daughter by Shannon K. Evans, ©2023. Used by permission of Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

for seeing color

O First Artist,

You have delighted in the creation of skin color.
You have created a kaleidoscope of humanity.

When my daughter first notices the skin of her neighbor,
may the revelation bring a celebration of diversity.

When she asks questions about other ethnicities,
may her curiosity lead to appreciation.

When she learns about racism’s potent history,
may it stir within her courage and empathy.

When I am the one she looks to for answers,
give me wisdom, clarity, and honesty.

When another suggests it is best to be colorblind,
bring to her mind the beauty of a tapestry.

May she reject the idolization of colorblindness.
May she see color.

And in seeing color, may she see each person for who they are. 

Amen.

Content taken from Feminist Prayers for My Daughter by Shannon K. Evans, ©2023. Used by permission of Brazos Press, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

Our goal is to develop a comprehensive, all-encompassing ethic of life that compels us to be champions of life, to cherish life, and to defend it passionately. To do that, we need a foundation on which we can build, and one we can keep coming back to. And where better to start than at the beginning, with creation itself?

Here’s how it all began, according to Genesis, the first book of the Bible. God took dirt and breathed life into it to make humanity. God created life and it was good.

It was good. That’s the refrain in Genesis 1 as God creates the world.

Over and over, like the chorus of a song, the Bible says, “It was good.”

God created the water. And it was good.

God created land and plants and trees and mountains and beaches. And it was good.

God created the moon and the sun and the stars in the sky. And it was good.

God created birds and fish and monkeys and butterflies and elephants and seahorses and the duck-billed platypus! And it was good.

Then God created humans in God’s own image. And God saw all that had been made and declared it very good. After that sixth day, when God made the first human beings and looked at the whole of creation in all its wonder, that’s when we get the addition of “very.” God’s creation wasn’t just good, it was real good. God was pumped. God was absolutely stoked.

And still is.

The Wonder Gap

Not many people are going to argue with the fact that life is good, but life is more than just good, it’s miraculous! And yet we tend to lose a sense of wonder at the miracle of it all. That’s why I love being around kids. They still have that sense of wonder.

Not long ago, I got a wonder wake-up call that started with a knock on my door. And it wasn’t just any knock, it was the frantic kind, the pounding kind, what some of the kids on my block call the “cop knock.” As I ran downstairs, I assumed there must have been an accident, a shooting, someone hit by a car, something bad. I took a deep breath to prepare myself for whatever might be next and opened the door. Standing there was eight-year-old Tysean, one of the neighborhood kids I’ve known since he was born. He grabbed my hand and began dragging me down the block. At this point, I could tell by his grin that it wasn’t something bad, not a shooting or a car wreck. But what was it?

“You’ve got to see this,” he said, pulling me like a dog on a leash. When we had gone about a hundred feet down the block, he pointed into the community garden. “What is that?” he asked. It was the first time he’d ever seen a firefly.

I thought for a moment and said the only thing I knew to say: “That was a really great day for God. God decided to make a bug whose butt glows in the dark.”

Author Paul Hawken notes that Ralph Waldo Emerson once considered what we would do if the stars came out only once every thousand years. Commenting on Emerson’s reflections, Hawken writes, “No one would sleep that night, of course. The world would become religious overnight. We would be ecstatic, delirious, made rapturous by the glory of God. Instead, the stars come out every night, and we watch television.”^[1] Or maybe today we miss it all because we are watching Netflix or scrolling through our socials.

One of my friends is an astronomer named Dr. David Bradstreet. Before he was a friend, he was my astronomy professor at Eastern University. He wrote a whole book about the heavens titled Star Struck: Seeing the Creator in the Wonders of Our Cosmos. He starts by sharing how excited he was as a child every time he saw the stars. As he got older, he decided to study astronomy and eventually became one of the leading astronomers in the country. He even has a comet named after him. When you have a comet named after you, that’s beyond legit. Dr. Bradstreet is retired now, but he has never lost that sense of childlike wonder.

Some folks might suggest that the more you study the science of life, the less miraculous and wonder-full it seems. I know Christians who are scared of astronomy, fearful it might distract from the biblical narrative of creation. Others even see faith and science as opposing forces. But for Dr. Bradstreet, studying the science of creation has only increased his sense of wonder, deepened his faith, and further convinced him that there is a magnificent creator behind it all. All through his book, he drops spectacular facts, like the fact that the tail of Halley’s comet is sixty million miles long.^[2] Or check this one out: every second, the sun converts four million tons of material into energy, the equivalent of ten billion nuclear bombs.^[3] Fortunately, the sun is the perfect distance away and all that heat loses at least a third of its radiant energy in the eight-minute journey it takes to reach the earth.^[4] If the earth were any closer to the sun, we’d burn up. If the earth were any farther away, we’d freeze.

Okay, one more. Every day, the divinely constructed and scientifically sound protective shield around the earth—the atmosphere—saves us from being hit by one hundred tons of small rocks and other pieces of space debris that would otherwise destroy the earth.^[5] Amazing! Sometimes we miss the fact that life itself is a miracle. It may very well take more faith to believe that all of this life “just happens” than it does to believe that there is a divine creator behind it all.

Dr. Bradstreet has helped me appreciate Scriptures like this one: “The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of [God’s] hands” (Ps. 19:1). And yet one of the questions Dr. Bradstreet raises is this: As the heavens cry out the glory of God, is anyone listening? He notes that some of his atheist peers in the scientific community have a deeper sense of wonder and awe about the universe than many of his Christian friends who are not scientists. He calls it the “wonder gap.”^[6]

Too many of us have a wonder gap when it comes to the miracle of life in the natural world. That’s a problem because the more out of touch we are with the earth and the creatures of the earth, the easier it is to devalue or even destroy life.^[7] When we are no longer awed by the miracle of creation, it gets harder to believe in the goodness and beauty of life—and the good and beautiful creator behind it all. That’s why gazing at fireflies and sunsets is a holy and spiritual practice. It not only fills us with wonder but also strengthens our foundation for life.

One of the ways we can bridge the wonder gap is by studying and contemplating how truly marvelous the world is. I’ve learned a lot about this from my wife, Katie Jo, who is one of the greatest nature lovers I’ve ever met. At one point, we had a spider who lived in the corner of the school-bus-turned-tiny-house we lived in for two years. When I went to remove it, she told me the spider’s name was Gladys and we needed to keep her because she ate the bad bugs, like stink bugs and mosquitos, so she was now a pet. Later, Gladys got pregnant and I finally talked Katie into putting her outside. Spiders can have up to a thousand babies, and that is too many pets for a tiny house.

Katie doesn’t have a wonder gap. She’s always telling me nature facts. For example, that the male seahorse is the one that gives birth. And that a hummingbird’s heart beats more than 1,200 times a minute and its wings flap sixty to eighty times a second. Katie is an aspiring beekeeper, and she taught me that bees have five eyes and that one hive can house around fifty thousand bees. Oh, and get this: the bees visit five million flowers to make one pint of honey. That makes you appreciate your honey, eh?

She’s always marveling at how the octopus changes color or that there is a flamingo that makes its nest out of salt. She just told me starlings can learn multiple bird languages or song patterns and speak them. And here’s a pigeon fact, which is important to know since pigeons can be challenging to love for those of us who live in the urban world. Even though they aren’t mammals, pigeons apparently have a milk reservoir in their crop—a section of the lower esophagus. Their “crop milk” contains antioxidants to keep their little ones from dying. Those are just a few Katie Jo wonder facts for you.

One of the wonders of the natural world that always amazes me is the complex emotional lives of animals. Did you ever see that viral video of the mother whale circling and crying out over her dead calf? Whales mourn, loudly and visibly, when another whale dies. How wild is that?

I was also amazed at a video taken at an elephant refuge, where a lot of old circus elephants are taken when they are rescued from abuse. The video shows a new arrival running up to another elephant and the two ecstatically wrapping their trunks around each other in an elephant hug of sorts. Refuge staffers later discovered that the two elephants had been in a circus together years before. How about that?

We need to recapture the childlike sense of wonder that kids so often have, because our lives are bound up with the beauty and flourishing of the natural world. We also need to pay attention to it because creation itself has a lot to teach us about who God is. The apostle Paul wrote, “Ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God” (Rom. 1:20 NLT).

And when it comes to having a foundation for life, one of the most important things we can learn about God is revealed within the miraculous diversity of life.

The Miraculous Diversity of Life

Did you know that there are roughly ten million forms of life on the planet? Among other things, that includes more than 300,000 different plants, 1.25 million animals, 900,000 insects, 10,000 birds, and 8,000 reptiles.^[8] Those numbers are even more astounding when you consider that 95 percent of the species that have ever existed on earth are now extinct. More specifically, one in eight birds, one in four mammals, and one in three amphibious creatures are now extinct. And we lose about one hundred species a day, which is twenty-seven thousand per year. Fortunately, we also discover several thousand new species of living creatures every year.

I learned a lot about the incredible diversity of life on earth when I visited my friend Claudio Oliver in Brazil. Claudio is part theologian, part veterinarian, and 100 percent nuts. He reminds me of the character Doc from Back to the Future—eccentric, wild, and full of passion and curiosity. When I visited, he woke me up at 5:00 a.m. and took me on an all-day adventure to show me what life is like running an urban homestead. We fed the rabbits, one of which would be dinner. We traded eggs for the milk of a neighbor’s cow. We went to the shopping mall, as Claudio denounced the evils of capitalism, to pick up used coffee grounds from the food court for his worm compost. Then he took me to the holy of holies, the “gene bank” where he is helping preserve endangered species of chickens.

“Do you know how many kinds of chickens there are?” he asked. Naturally, I started rattling them off like Bubba rattled off kinds of shrimp in Forrest Gump. “Well, there is fried chicken. There’s teriyaki chicken. Barbeque chicken. Chicken kababs.”

“No, no!” Claudio belted out with a laugh. “How many types of chickens?”

I had no idea, so I kept going. “Chicken curry. Sweet and sour chicken. . . .”

And then he told me that there are more than four hundred kinds of chickens—species of chickens, that is. Heck, he added, there are also forty thousand different kinds of rice. And apparently twenty-nine thousand different fish. Then Claudio got on his biodiversity soapbox and brought it all home: “Monoculture is diabolical. Diversity is divine.” He smiled and kept saying it louder and louder. “Monoculture is diabolical, but diversity is divine!”

Diversity is divine.

And diversity isn’t limited to plants and animals. Did you know that human beings speak more than seven thousand living languages in the nearly two hundred countries of the world?^[9] Not to mention that each human being has a unique fingerprint. Each of us also has our own DNA that is distinct from the other eight billion people on the planet.^[10]

If my friend Claudio’s theory sounds a bit out there to you, let me take you on a little Bible adventure to unpack this idea of monoculture and diversity. Think back to the Old Testament story of the Tower of Babel, one of the first major projects of human beings (Genesis 11). As the story goes, the whole human race was the same. There was one language, one culture, and the people were pretty impressed with themselves. They began an ambitious building project to bridge the heavens and the earth—the Tower of Babel. But God was not impressed. God scattered the people and had them speak different languages. Diversity was the way forward.

Flash forward to Pentecost in the New Testament, which is described in Acts 2. It is interesting to see what happens when the Holy Spirit falls on believers in the young church as they are gathered together in one room. The writer goes to great lengths to emphasize how diverse the people were. They were Parthians, Medes, Elamites, Cretans, and Arabs; they were residents of Mesopotamia, Judea, Cappadocia, Pontus, Asia, Phrygia, Pamphylia, Egypt, Libya near Cyrene, and Rome (Acts 2:9–11).

When the Holy Spirit falls on them, the people begin to speak in “other tongues” (v. 4). We often think of this event as when they got filled with the Holy Ghost fire and things got rowdy. While that’s true, and they were in fact accused of having “too much wine” (v. 13), it’s also true that we sometimes overlook the real miracle in this event. As they heard the gospel proclaimed, each one “heard their own language being spoken” (v. 6). Despite their diversity, they were “one in heart and mind” and began to share possessions radically, holding all things in common (4:32).

As we look at the juxtaposition of the Babel story and Pentecost, something is strikingly clear. Unity is not uniformity. Oneness is not sameness. This is the key difference between what happened at Babel and what happened at Pentecost. Babel is about the power of a monoculture—people impressed with themselves and the possibilities of uniformity. Pentecost is about the power of God to bring people together across all that divides them. Unity exists most powerfully when there is diversity. And the more diverse we are, the stronger we are when we unite, and the more clearly we see God’s power at work to reconcile us.

Diversity is divine. Every human being is a reflection of God. And when we are surrounded by monoculture, by people who all look like us, we miss out not only on the full experience of God’s wonderful and miraculous creation but also on who God is. To have a consistent ethic of life is to be awed by life in all its diversity and complexity. That’s why I’m known to say from time to time, “If our community is all white, something’s not quite right.” And the same can be said of monoculture anywhere—it limits our vision, our perspective, our appreciation of the bigness of God’s love for all people. We are all a reflection of God, and we are all made from the same dirt.

Breathing Life into Dirt

Dirt is an interesting contrast to the color-full, wonder-full creatures God made. And perhaps that is part of the point. God makes beautiful things out of dirt. And God continues to bring new life out of the compost of Christendom. There’s a whole sermon there for sure, but we don’t have time for that one right now.

The word human comes from the Latin humus, which literally means “dirt.” It’s also where we get the word for the chickpea side dish called hummus, which, some people contend, does look and taste a little like dirt. The humus of humanity hearkens back to the fact that God took dirt and breathed life into it to make us. It is also why on Ash Wednesday we remember the dirt from which we were made and the dirt to which we shall return. God sculpted human life from the raw material of creation itself. God made beautiful things out of dirt and continues to do so today. Maybe you’ve heard that Gungor song “Beautiful Things,” which talks about how God makes beautiful things out of dust, and God makes beautiful things out of us. (I’m humming it now as I write.)

Adam, the name given to the first human being, comes from the Hebrew word adamah, which means “earth” or “the ground.” Adam was made from the earth. And the name Eve simply means “life.”^[11] Isn’t that beautiful? Life was made from the dirt as God breathed into it. The fact that we are all made from the dirt means none of us should think too highly of ourselves. But the fact that we are also made in the image of God means that none of us should think too lowly of ourselves either.

There is a fascinating lesson from the rabbis of old that explores another aspect of God’s breath.^[12] The rabbis suggest that the mysterious word for God in the Hebrew scriptures, YAHWEH, can actually be translated as “breath.” The Hebrew word doesn’t have vowels; vowels were added later to help the word make sense because YHWH is an odd word. But the rabbis suggest that this is part of the point. In the Hebrew alphabet, the vowels represent breathing sounds.

God is more glorious than we can wrap our heads around and doesn’t need a name. That’s why when Moses asks for God’s name, God says, “I am” or “I am who I am” (Ex. 3:14). God’s response can also be translated “I am becoming who I am becoming.” In similar fashion, YHWH has that reverent, mystical, transcendent quality that addressing God warrants. But here’s the cool part: the rabbis suggest that YHWH is the sound of breath. Even as you listen to your breathing you can easily think of inhaling “YAH” and exhaling “WEH.” On several occasions, I’ve been present when my friend Richard Rohr has led a group in a lovely prayer doing exactly that—breathing in YAH and breathing out WEH.

What if, just as God breathed life into the dirt, everything that has breath is praising God simply by existing, by breathing in and breathing out?^[13] That is exactly what Scripture says: “Let everything that has breath praise the Lord” (Ps. 150:6). Jesus even said that if we don’t praise God, the breathless rocks will cry out (Luke 19:40).

My friend Jason Gray is a musician who wrote a beautiful song about the breath of God called “The Sound of Our Breathing.” When he introduces the song in a concert, he reflects on how wonderful it is to imagine that we are designed to say God’s name simply by breathing in and out, which means that none of us can go very long without calling upon the name of the Lord. When babies are born, are they taking their first breath or are they calling out the name of the Lord? Do we die when we breathe our last breath, or are we no longer alive because the name of God is no longer on our lips?

Here are a few of Jason’s lyrics.

Everybody draws their very first breath

With Your name upon their lips

Every one of us is born of dust

But come alive with heaven’s kiss. . . .

So breathe in

Breathe out

Breathe in

Breathe out. . . .

’Cause the name of God

Is the sound of our breathing

The deep conviction that life is good matters. Not only is life good, it is holy and wonder-full. It is a gift from God. Losing a sense of wonder and gratitude may be the first sign of a crack in a firm foundation for life. So protect your childlike wonder.

Creation is amazing. And the most sacred, beautiful thing God ever made is us. As incredible as all the creatures are, nothing is more sacred than human beings. Looking into the eyes of another person gives us one of our clearest glimpses of God. And the closest we can get to killing God is to kill or crush a child of God. Every single one of us bears the image of our creator. That’s what we’ll explore next.

Excerpt from Shane Claiborne’s Rethinking Life, Zondervan Books, Published February 7, 2023, Used by permission.

Footnotes

[1] Paul Hawken, “Healing or Stealing? The Best Commencement Address Ever,” in A Sense of Wonder: The World’s Best Writers on the Sacred, the Profane, and the Ordinary, ed. Brian Doyle (Maryknoll, NY: Orbis, 2016), 191.

[2] Dr. David Bradstreet and Steve Rabey, Star Struck: Seeing the Creator in the Wonders of Our Cosmos (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2016), 19.

[3] Bradstreet and Rabey, Star Struck, 83.

[4] To be exact, it takes 8.3 minutes to get here, traveling 186,000 miles a second over 93 trillion miles. Which also means, if the sun stopped shining, it would take us 8.3 minutes to know that. The next closest star, Alpha Centauri, is so far away that it takes 4.3 years for its light to reach us over that 25-trillion-mile distance. Whoa. Bradstreet and Rabey, Star Struck, 249.

[5] I could go on and on about the wonders I learned from Dr. Bradstreet in Star Struck. For example, did you know there are nineteen essential factors that not only make life on earth unique and miraculous but also provide the precise conditions for life to be possible at all? I won’t go through all nineteen, but they are pretty spectacular. For example, the alignment of the earth’s poles is off by exactly 23.5 degrees, creating the earth’s tilt on its axis. That minor detail is why we have seasons and climates. Without the tilt, we would either burn up or freeze to death. The fact that the earth is 75 percent water is also clutch. Life on earth is possible because we have roughly 352,670,000,000,000,000,000 gallons of it, and because some of it evaporates and flows back to the earth as rain. The sun is just one of 100,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 stars. There are 200 billion stars in the Milky Way alone. But get this: in addition to ours, there are 200 billion more galaxies in the universe. The conditions for life on this little planet are truly a miracle. It makes you feel small and extremely special all at the same time. Bradstreet and Rabey, Star Struck, 58, 207.

[6] Bradstreet and Rabey, Star Struck, 43.

[7] Sometimes it’s not even intentional destruction but a subtler apathy about things such as climate change. For example, did you know that the temperature of sand determines the sex of sea turtles? That means that because the sand has become warmer from climate change, male turtles have become almost extinct. More than 90 percent of the newborn turtles on the Great Barrier Reef are now female, which means the survival of the species is in grave danger. “Over 90% of Turtles Born Female Due to Climate Change,” World Wild Fund for Nature, January 8, 2018, wwf.panda.org/wwf_news/?320295/90%2Dpercent%2Dfemale%2Dturtles.

[8] I keep learning all the time. I just watched a documentary that said the three-toed sloth has eighty different species that live in its fur. Crazy!

[9] “How Many Languages Are There in the World?” Ethnologue, www.ethnologue.com/guides/how-many-languages.

[10] “Current World Population,” Worldometer, www.worldometers.info/world-population/.

[11] Don’t read too much into the fact that Adam, the man, is dirt, and Eve, the woman, is life. I think it’s enough to recognize that we are all equally fallen and equally holy. Maybe that’s part of the point. As reformer Martin Luther put it, we all have a sinner and a saint at war within us, and each day, each moment, we get to choose which we will be. Just as original sin is a part of the story, so is original innocence. Good stuff comes from dirt. New life comes even out of compost.

[12] To learn more about this, see Rabbi Arthur Waskow, “Why YAH/YHWH,” The Shalom Center, April 14, 2004, https://theshalomcenter.org/content/why-yahyhwh.

[13] This is all consistent with traditional rabbinical teaching, which is that life begins at our first breath, something I had a fascinating conversation about with Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg. I know it raises a potentially contentious issue about when life begins. We won’t get into that here, but we will explore it in chapter 12. Just giving you a heads-up. For now, the point is to simply ponder the connection between breath and life, and God’s breath giving us life.