"Then God said,"I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt; I have heard their cry on account of their taskmasters. Indeed, I know their sufferings, and I have come down to deliver them from the Egyptians, and to bring them up out of that land to a good and broad land, a land flowing with milk and honey." Exodus 3:7-8a
A land flowing with milk and honey…..what a wonderful image…that earthly place that is filled with what will sustain, bring joy, feed the spirit.I believe each person has within them that place, that land, perhaps the place they were born or the place of their ancestors. This land is the place where their soul rests and finds recognition in the soil that fed their bloodline. It is the place that is in their DNA whether they are aware of it or not. We are, after all, earthbound beings and this is our home.
Last week we sat and listened to a woman named Dorothy who told us about her people, the Gullah people. These people are the direct descendants of the slaves brought to our country who reside in the island areas of South Carolina. They have worked hard over the years to maintain their identity, culture,language,music,food and to keep their ties to the land that was forced upon them. She told us how the people had built their cemeteries on the shore, near the water, because they believed that when they died and were buried, their spirits would be able to cross the water and go home again, to Africa. I was mesmerized by this idea, by her story, by this deep longing for the land. Now with development and some complicated land ownership laws, these cemeteries are being removed to make way for beach houses and other buildings to support the local economy. How will their spirits find home again?
The scriptures are filled with stories of people who are displaced, in exile, enslaved, who are trying to make their way home It is one of our common human stories even when we are unaware of it. We each carry the cell memory of our ancestors deep within us that calls us to prefer mountains over water, prairie over desert, the sand over stone. Some people have spent their lives searching for ‘something’ that is just outside their reach only to arrive in a place they have never been and feel completed.
Where is your land of milk and honey? Where does your spirit find its home? Th poet John Soos writes: "To be of the Earth is to know…the restlessness of being a seed, the darkness of being planted, the struggle toward the light, the pain of growth into the light, the joy of bursting and bearing fruit, the love of being food for someone, the scattering of your seeds, the decay of the seasons, the mystery of death, and the miracle of birth."
No matter the soil of our home, this is the miracle of who we are.
Have a blessed weekend………………………….