Interfaith Insight - 2025
Permanent link for "Created From Dust" by Douglas Kindschi, Sylvia and Richard Kaufman Founding Director, Kaufman Interfaith Institute, GVSU on February 17, 2025
In the creation stories of the Jewish and Christian scripture, humans are created from the dust of the earth. At funerals, the committal rite often includes the phrase from the English Book of Common Prayer, “earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Franciscan priest and author, Richard Rohr, wrote: “Being human means acknowledging that we’re made from the earth and will return to the earth. We are earth that has come to consciousness.”
The word human comes from the Latin word humus , meaning earth or ground. The current issue of Christian Century has an article by Peter Choi titled, “Dust and Glory.” He points out that the dust is often used to refer to humility, whichalso has the same root “humus.” Choi writes, “Ancient cultures revered the earth as a mysterious source of life. They knew what science later taught us: the ground contains immense life-giving properties. Soil is a mixture of air, water, minerals, and dead and living microorganisms. These ingredients interact in extraordinary ways, making soil one of our planet’s most dynamic and vital natural resources.… Our origin from the dust of the ground doesn’t just teach humility. It also reminds us that our calling is always toward the flourishing of life in the world. Made from the dust of the ground, we are designed to return to the earth, for the replenishing and renewal of the world.”
Humus is also a gardening term that refers to the components of soil that are rich in organic matter. It is the result of mixing yard material like leaves with leftover plant food products and leaving them to decompose into what is called compost. It is the recycling of plant material. Think of it as “earth to earth” for the plant world.
Philosopher Brian Austin, in his book, The End of Certainty and the Beginning of Faith, tells of hiking with his family along the trails which parallel stream beds in the Great Smoky Mountains. They often return with mud-caked hiking boots. While he finds himself impressed with the majesty of the mountains, it is also (in his words), “the mud, still glistening with the mist that makes dust come to life [that] harbors mysteries as magnificent as the mountains …”
Austin continues, “From that mud, from its carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, and assorted metals, a child can be woven. The atoms in that mud, the same kinds of atoms that comprise my children and you and me, have existed for billions of years. ... This mud is spectacular, and we believe that God made it so. This mud is rich, pregnant with possibility. … To see ourselves as made of the same stuff that rests under our boots as we journey a mountain path is no insult to human dignity, no affront to the image of God in us; it is rather a reminder of the majesty of inspired mud, a reflected majesty that gives us but one more fleeting glimpse of the blinding brilliance of the maker of the mud.”
These authors remind us that in the cycle of life we are closely related to the earth. We have much in common with compost and mud which contain the chemicals that also make up our bodies. They affirm that we are God-breathed dust, made from the humus. We are mud balls who have been created in the image of God.
Fully understanding who we are requires the realization that we are indeed part of the earth, the soil, the humus, to which we will return. It is only by God’s grace that we have life. The confidence and faith that we have is important to affirm, but we must also be humble in recognizing that there is so much more that we do not understand or possess.
As we engage others in our community, be they refugees or immigrants, people who are different in race or class or political persuasion, or persons of a different faith or of no faith, let us remember we have all come from this same soil. We are called to recognize this with humility.