Daily Devotion

by Scott Puthoff

I have a bumper sticker on my office door that says, “God Recycles. He made you out of dust.”, from Genesis 2:7. If you know me, you know that I am an advocate for recycling. We recycle and compost at home. I look for “gently used” clothes before buying new. When traveling, I will collect and hold on to recyclable materials until I can place them in a recycling receptacle (even if that means bringing a bin full of items home from a West Virginia vacation). I even banned the use of straws in the GSLC Youth Room so that we can save the sea turtles. 

Yes, I want to hug all the trees and the save the earth for my great-great-great grandchildren, so the act of recycling is not just about fulfilling a passion of mine, it is a spiritual act. It is one way that I connect with the God who created me. The same God who also created you.

On Ash Wednesday, we are reminded of who created us and to whom we belong when we receive the imposition of ashes on our foreheads. The ashes are a visible mark of the verbal blessing we simultaneously hear spoken to us “from dust you were created and to dust you shall return”. When I recycle something, when I intentionally don’t put something in a landfill, I am caring for the dust – the dirt – that I was made from. Recycling is a spiritual practice for me. 

One new way that I have been able to strengthen this spiritual practice is through volunteering at Tikkun Farm, a 3.5 acre farm in Mt. Healthy whose mission is to bring healing, restoration and repair to the world. One of the newest volunteer opportunities at the Farm that I have served at with my own children, as well as our GSLC Youth Group is called Creation Care. Through various farm projects that weave together composting, soil health, watersheds, community gardening, permaculture design, environmental education, waste reduction, etc, we have observed how much the earth can provide for us when we care for it. We have chopped pounds of onions to include in crockpot meal kits for those experiencing food scarcity. We have torn apart the boxes that the onions were delivered in and laid them on the ground, then added mulch on top to create new garden spaces. We have collected alpaca manure to nourish the mulch and then we planted new seeds to be harvested in the future to help feed those in need. I strive to emulate theses examples that I see modeled at Tikkun Farm in my personal life: to not create excess waste, to recycle or repurpose as many items as possible, and to practice gratitude for what has been entrusted to me. 

As we enter into the season of Lent, I invite you to commit to a new way of caring for the dust – the dirt – that we are each made of. Perhaps check out Tikkun Farm for yourself, buy glass instead of plastic bottles, remember to grab reusable shopping bags on your way to the store. And remember whose dirt we are caring for along the way.