A Man of the Soil

It is hard to grow plants here. In the summer, it is a constant battle against the heat. At this time of year, it is lack of light. What little light makes it through the smog of the megacity is further diluted by the many-storied buildings on every side. Some weeks you under-water, others, you over-water. I’m certainly not a professional, but it definitely feels harder than it ought to be to keep these plants alive.

Then there’s the dust. Nowadays, every plant from tree to potted cactus, are coated in a layer of grey dust. The usually vibrant greens are muted and suppressed, as the world takes on a duller tone, their glory suppressed under this grey veil. The extra layer of grime forces the leaves to droop slightly, bowing in submission to this ever-present oppressive power.

Living here often feels like Babylon has conquered Eden. The white and grey skyrises push out the green. The oppressive conditions invite a fight just to keep plants alive, never mind making them flourish.

It’s not just the plants that feel it. I think of the women of this country, oppressed under Islam. Bowed down, weary, with their beauty suppressed by legalistic requirements. They wear a veil that is seen, and another that is not. They are shut in homes with only rare contact with the outside world. From whence shall the light enter in?

I think of the cities in our country that once had many believers meeting, and now those believers are scattered, and the meetings are scarce. I hear people talk about method preferences, how much role foreigners should play, etc. We over-water, we under-water, and it seems that at times it’s all missionaries can do to keep something alive, never mind helping it to thrive.

Babylon really does seem to have conquered Eden.

But then, a beautiful thing shall happen in a couple of months. Our eyes will have become accustomed to the dull-coloured trees. It will seem the norm. The verdant dashes of green across the city are forgotten.

Then the rains shall come.

The rain will come, and those plants shall be baptised with a cleansing flood. If they have been kept alive long enough, they shall suddenly stand a bit taller, boasting a vivacious green that shall stand against the grey walls that surround them. Eden may yet be a long way off. But in the face of Babylon, those plants shall stand erect and defiant, in all their glory.

We long for that day.

Just before Christmas I took my family to the south of the country, away from the city’s encroaching despair. We spent a week in nature, with wide open green spaces, kayaking on rivers, walking in tall, beautiful forests, swinging on vines, and admiring beautiful flowers.

It was a reminder that Babylon’s reign is limited, and it only made us long for the metropolis to be conquered by the garden, for Babylon to be overcome by the New Jerusalem, the garden-city.

As my heart longed for the physical and spiritual aspects of this to be true, I was caught by a verse in a well-known story, which I had never noticed before.

“Noah began to be a man of the soil, and he planted a vineyard.”

– Genesis 9:20

As the first Adam was named after coming from the soil (Adamah), here a new Adam-like figure becomes a man of the soil (Adamah). Released from his ark into a “new earth”, he does exactly what man was created to do. He starts to tend to the ground, bringing forth life from it.

This is what was needed for the earth to flourish; a man of the soil to cultivate it. One who knows the feeling of the clay under his fingernails, of cramping hands and a sore back from digging earth. One who knows the smell of a newly turned over sod, and the taste of the product at the end. One who from start to finish has a measure of union with that which he has poured his life into, and which pours life back into him. The earth needs a man of the soil.

I may struggle to keep my plants alive on my 5th floor balcony. But I am glad that there is a greater gardener than I. One who when he was released from death, came into a garden and started tending it, such that Mary confused him with a gardener. He is the true Second Adam, the true man of the soil. The One who will both create an incredibly beautiful new earth, cultivated in the most sublime ways, where Babylon shall be no more, but who will also pour his life into the lives of many people and churches, pouring down on them like the rains that shall wash them clean, and cause them to flourish in a hostile environment.

My prayer for this year, is that, as a sub-gardener in his service, I may become a man of the soil. One who invests deeply, who knows the feeling of dirt under my nails, who shares a union with that in which he invests, and who shares the mutual pouring out of life to one another. I pray that I may cultivate lives, tending, caring for them. Sometimes preserving what is there, until the rains fall. Sometimes digging in and starting to plant seeds from scratch. But either way, when many of us would like to be remembered as a man/woman of God, it might not be such a bad moniker to have in our marriages, families, churches, teams, and friendships, that we were also known as a man of the soil.

And when all is said and done, it might be nice if my balcony plants survived the winter too.