I Am Adamah
Poem commentary and discussion
Light, dust, water
Breath, soil
Adamah
God lives here.
Through the tiny living rivers
Flowing upward
Through vines and branches
Fruit in the garden
My temple, our temple
I am adamah.
We are adamah.
Commentary
I am a soil scientist. No one was surprised when they heard I was going to be a soil scientist, so I was kind of born this way. I love the soil - the smell, the colors, the endless complexity that calls me home (poem coming up on this).
My spiritual journeys led me to the first book of the Bible where I was digging deep into the battle of the sexes all the way back to Adam and Eve (poems coming on this, too!). I read everything like a soil scientist, so I dig, going deeper and deeper until there is no where deeper to dig. It was this deep that I discovered what God made humans from. We know the story; God made Adam from the dust of the earth.
That might pass for some people. But not me. Made in God’s image? Yes. The breath of life into our Spirit? Yes. The dust of the earth? Umm, no. That’s not dust, it’s soil. Bad translation.
Soil scientists have frustration with the geologists too. The geologists call soil “surficial material.” What makes life on this planet possible in all its glorious complexity and mystery is not something that is blown away, washed off, dirty, or in-the-way-of-seeing-the-rocks. It’s soil. And it is beautiful. It’s alive. It is woven with microrivers of water that it holds for us, cleans for us, feeds to the plants. It’s life.
So, as I was of course digging deeper into Genesis 2:7 where God formed humans from soil, I discovered that the original ancient Hebrew word for soil is adamah. The word for red and soil go together. Yes, makes sense. Earth. Iron. Rust. Our blood. Our blood is made of soil. Our blood is made of this earth. Scientifically and spiritually.
The word human (humus, from the soil) and adam (adamah) ties our identity directly to this beautiful earthy pungent alive substance in the Garden of Eden. We are earthlings, the soil is the ground of our being that we become, the “I Am”ness of being physically here as a temple, connected to God.
We are soil. We are adamah.
Amen.
Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.
Genesis 2:7 NIV
Spectacular observations. It amazes me how through the cycle of sowing and reaping, our bodies are continually being made and sustained through proteins, minerals, and even microbes—with the soil as the created matrix from which most of it sprouts. It's dazzlingly deep.
Without being a soil scientist, I've always loved the symbolism embedded in the word 'dust', because it's so small and infinitessimal. It also serves as a powerful image of how God takes something inconsequential and immaterial and transubstantiates it into an imago dei man. But, that said, as someone obsessed with planting trees, in love with sifting my hands through the soil, the imagery of God kneeling down to pick up a clump of soil in his hands to fashion man is beautiful in a different way. Curious: when David says that God knows our frame--that we are made of dust, is the word he uses 'Adamah' as well?