A bucket of earth. A pot of mud. A dish of dirt. A soupçon of soil.

Ordinary. Touchable. A gardener’s best friend. Plentiful. Ordinary. Either too acidic to grow this or that, the wrong type to nurture this or that. Wipe your feet before you come indoors. Wash your hands before you eat. That kind of dirt.

Dirt brother dirt.

There is a connection afoot.

And an arm. A leg. An eye. An ear. A heart … the whole Body. All connected. That connection of community across these WP pages. And Susan Irene Fox connected a few words under yesterday’s post.

And The Lord grabbed two of them. Supersized them. Turned the spotlight on them. Glazed and amazed them. Then stuck them both in a dollop of earth.

Dirt Brother.

In a bucket of earth.

And He fizzed all day inside me. He swung this bucket like He has never swung before. Not in me. All day He has been sizzling and fizzling. Toning and honing. Refining and ironing. With a bucket of dirt.

That one bucket of earth is connected. To me. To you. To all of us. Is all of us. I am your dirt brother. You are my dirt brother. My dirt sister. We are one big dirt family.

That bucket?

Every living thing feeds from this bucket of dirt. Every living thing feeds. The bacteria. The fungi. The grass. The bushes. The trees. The wheat. The fruit. And the animals feed from the plants. And each other. All … “of the earth” Just as as we are … “of the earth.” Every morsel we eat. All we need to sustain life … comes from this bucket of dirt. A mother’s milk. A rusk. All start life “of this earth.” This bucket of dirt.

Even the fish. The swimming creatures of the great connected pool we call the oceans. The connected body. Of water. Feeding from wet dirt. Of creatures “of the wet earth.” All of them as well. This bucket of dirt feeds every living cell, every cell of life. Including us.

That bucket of dirt connects all.

And when these cells of life die? When they hither and whither. Crisp and curl. Rigour and stiffen in death? Every last one of them returns to the source of life. To the earth. To this bucket of dirt. Dust to dust. Ashes to ashes.

And more than that –

This iPad I am typing on? The bed I am sprawled on? The sheets, the duvet, the curtains, furniture, windows, lights, bricks, roof, foundations, roads … All of that comes from this bucket of earth in one way or another.

The cars we drive, the planes in which we fly, the shoes in which we walk. The skinnies in which we dip (maybe) … All of that as well.

Animate and inanimate. All connected by this bucket of dirt.

So that must mean …

When we hurt one we hurt each. When we save one we save all. When we feed one we feed ourselves. When we waste a bit we waste a lot. When we judge? We judge ourselves. This connection is not cultural. Not genetic. Not through IQ numbers. Not through dress or speech or career or expertise. Nor colour nor creed. Not even history nor empire. Not even covenant nor the chosen people.

It goes deeper. It is atomic. It is incredible. This earth – Mother Earth – is the source of life.

Or is it?

There are many buckets of dirt. Scattered across universes. Of universes. Trillions upon trillions. Too many to count. Of that one original bucket. Of the one.

Science can teach us that. So can God.

Science can guess. Just as we guess. About God.

Science can calculate the odds. How one of these uncountable buckets is bathed in just the right amount of heat. Of light. Of moisture. Of gravity. Of so many factors coming together to spawn life. And somewhere along the way guesses come in. Dreams come in. Inspiration comes in. Science is of that one bucket as well.

And God?

The science of God we call faith. We have the evidence to know. We have so many shared factors to believe. We have the written word. We have the archeology. We have the science. And somewhere along the way the guesses come in. Dreams come in. Inspiration comes in. God is of that bucket as well.

And yet?

Can one bucket of dirt contain all there is of God? Is He not of the trillions and trillions of buckets?

And as I dream I see Him beyond. Way beyond. And right inside. Right inside each tiny molecule. And way out there beyond infinity. I guess and dream. Science and God are as one. Science is of this bucket. My God cannot be contained. Not in one bucket.

The bucket that connects us all.

That connects us with God. That is God.

You are my dirt family. I am your dirt brother. We are of I Am.

WOW!!!

(Susan Irene Fox did that. A dirt sister.

God did that. Connected us all.

To each other. And Him.)

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For Andrew Blair – another dirt brother (“Dirt Brother” first posted 21st May 2014).