| Here I am, 30,000 feet in the air, turning over and under the dirt of my life. What I’ve planted. What has grown. What has died on the vine. I’ve become more and more convinced that many of our problems, individually and collectively, are rooted in a separation from nature… a deviation from respect for seasonal cycles, soil under our nails, breathing in real life. That’s why I wrote the new novel, and why I’m writing the sequel now. And at 30,000 feet, wedged in a sterile airplane cabin, I’m about as separated from nature as possible. The seatback TV just flashed to a college football coach who’s been under disciplinary suspension, missing half the games this season, while his team played their way to the #1 ranking in the country. The major network television host offered his congratulations to the coach, who ignored the kindness and responded with all credit to God. As if his own truth should be obvious to everyone, the coach enlightened heathens like me that God’s hand had been on this team all season, helping them to win. There was more Praise Be talk, but I’d heard enough. Enough to know that if God’s hand was on this guy’s team, helping them to win, those Almighty fingers must not have been on the teams they beat. God had made a choice. I guess that’s some people’s version of God… the popular kid on the elementary school playground, picking his team from the gaggle of anxious fifth graders hoping to be chosen. I could get behind a God synonymous with the ocean, the seasons, the vastness, the pinprick of green sprouting from the soil. The popular kid, not so much. I glanced at the guy’s screen next to me. He was watching the news, and after about 20 seconds, I got the impression that God has been so busy making sure that coach’s team won, that He’d had no time to resolve the bloodshed in the Middle East. Or in Ukraine, or on the streets of this country. I shifted my gaze back to the display in front of me, and he was still there, the college football coach, with God on his side. Lucky him. And here I am, 30,000 feet in the air, turning over and under the dirt of my life. What I’ve planted. What has grown. What has died on the vine. |
