I, like many, watched the incredible return to earth of the two ‘stranded’ astronauts Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams with anticipation, trepidation, and awe; a moment made all the more beautiful with a welcome reception by a family of dolphins surrounding the capsule as it bobbed gently in the ocean after re-entry. Towards the conclusion of the epic mission, Suni said: "I'm looking forward to seeing my family, my dogs and jumping in the ocean. That will be really nice -  to be back on Earth and feel Earth." 

 

At the beginning of Lent we were grounded firmly in our humanity by being reminded that we are dust and to dust we will return. It is a sobering thought, but a beautiful one too, when we consider that the dust of earth from which we come is the earth which these astronauts so longed to feel underfoot once again. In Genesis we hear of the first human given the name ‘Adam’ אדם in Hebrew, Adam was created from the ground ‘Adamah’ אדמה, so as children of Adam, we are also of the lineage of the very first man of earth. This earth we inhabit is God’s creation, the land on which Jesus walked, the dust of stars from which we were formed, and the crucible which will receive our own earthly bodies as we wait to receive our resurrection bodies. It can be tempting to try to eschew our ‘earthiness’ in favour of supposedly higher thoughts but, as human beings, it is essential (and a Christian imperative) to learn to embrace our embodied experience, as Christ chose to embrace the embodied human experience in his Incarnation. Maybe if we commit to taking off our shoes a little more in our pilgrimage through the coming weeks, we too can share in Suni’s joy as she feels the earth again…we might even discover we are standing on holy ground.