As
a kid I made mud pies. And then I grew up, went to college, moved to a big
city, and forgot about the dirt. I studied theological anthropology in a
metropolis; I studied about how humans are dirt people. Though I knew it was
true, it was easy to forget. After all, civilization is marked by Starbucks,
Barnes and Noble, and MacDonald’s. Humans may be from the dirt and headed back
to it, but in a city, we tend to forget such things. It can be easy to forget
that from compost we came and to compost we shall return.
About
a month ago, Esther and I moved to South Carolina, and over the course of the
past few weeks we have found ourselves pruning trees, trimming shrubbery, and
reorganizing flowerbeds. It’s been really great. After living in Los Angeles
for a while, it feels humanizing to work on the land and in the dirt. It’s
material. It’s meditative. It takes time; it takes patience: one limb at a
time, one flower bud at a time.
Countless
times I have heard the pros and cons of social media. More often I have heard
it disparaged by people who use it and by people who refuse to use it. It may
very well be the case that it alienates us from one another, though of course
it can be a really productive way to stay in contact when other forms of communication
would otherwise prove too difficult for some reason or another. Social media is
convenient, and I rather like it.
However,
the meditative practice of pruning, trimming, and gardening has caused me to
think yet again about the role of technology in my life. How does technology
reshape the theological narrative of my life in connection to others? It may
well be the case that it only encourages the addiction to immediacy; however,
MacDonald’s has been doing that for a while; we have been primed for impatience
and immediacy for quite some time, and this has influenced the way in which we
engage others; it also can shape our expectations in relationships, especially
if a person doesn’t respond to our post within an hour. Facebook and Twitter
didn’t do that to us over night.
I’m
wondering if gardening, rather than just refraining from social media, would be
a productive way to cultivate healthier relationships in general. It may be
that because we have grown so distant from the dirt we have subsequently grown
rather distant from each other.
I’m
not climbing onto a soapbox. I like living in a city, and I rather like social
media. But it has felt right to work on the land and in the dirt. It has felt
good to work with my hands and not to just do somersaults on Facebook or in my
brain. It has felt human; it has felt theological. And it has reminded me yet
again that mud pies aren’t just for kids.
