in the beginning

In a book titled "The New Religious Humanist: A Reader"  edited by Gregory Wolfe, there is a chapter written by Wendell Berry titled "Christianity and the survival of creation".  In it, Mr. Berry points out that the passage in Genesis 2:7 says,

"the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life: and man became a living soul."

That is, living soul = dust + breath.  It does not say man = body + soul.  

If this is truly the case, then we cannot be living souls without the dust, and we cease to be living souls without the breath of life too.  Digression, with this equation, can there be such a thing as an immortal soul?

I agree with Mr. Berry concerning the nature of living souls.  As a result, I believe the dust, being a part of the creation, is just as sacred as the breath of life.  The dust part of us should be treated respectfully and honored just as much as the breath of life may be in order to honor the creator and in order to maximize the health of ourselves as living souls.

I believe an early clue to how to honor the dust lies in the story about Cain and Abel.  God favored Abel, the herder of sheep, over his older brother, the tiller of the land.   Abel was a nomadic pastoralist.  Nomadic pastoralists were and are most definitely not vegans.  In fact most of their calories were probably derived from the animals that they tended to.  They did a lot of walking as they moved the flock to greener pastures so as to avoid overgrazing any one patch of land.  The flock fertilized the ground with their droppings as it  went. 

Cain, in contrast, stayed in one spot and extirpated entire ecosystems in order to mine the nutrients out of the soil by tilling.  In place of a diverse ecosystem, he planted a few species of annual grains for a few growing seasons until the nutrients were used up.  Then, he would have to move on to a different patch to start the raping of the land anew. 

Daniel Quinn discusses this story in his book "Ishmael". 

My takeaway is, a society based on rotational grazing is better for creation than tilling the land.  God favors nomadic pastoralism and the ways of life that go along with it over tilling of the land.

I shall go tend to my dust/soul health now by doing a first thing in the morning fasted (I have not eaten since yesterday morning) high intensity interval workout.  Then I will reward myself with a high fat, low carbage ketogenic breaking of my fast.

More later,

Peace...