Simple gifts...dirt

My sister and I had some grand and glorious tea parties in the front yard of the old farmhouse in Clyattville. Mama would give us a pan and off we’d go. We carried out our tea set, an old tablespoon for mixing and a vase. Carefully mixing South Georgia sand and water, we would get our mud just right for shaping tea cakes. Laying them out in the sun to bake, decorated with poke berries, we then gathered flowers for our centerpiece. Every tea party is a special occasion and special occasions demand a floral centerpiece. We sat with our pinky fingers extended just so and pretended to be ladies of high fashion as we conversed elegantly with dirt under our fingernails.
Now my hands get dirty, really dirty, everyday. Hay is dirty. Cows and horses are covered in muck and mud. At night I scrub my hands and nails with a small brush to remove the accumulated dirt. I have found myself looking at other people’s hands for evidence of dirt. Not many folks seem to get their hands dirty anymore. Most of us no longer have jobs that dirty our hands daily. We live in a world that is cleaner, more sterile, than it has ever been before. And I find myself wondering what we have lost in our clean hands society.
Dirt reminds me I am of and from the earth. No amount of scrubbing with hand sanitizer can remove me from the essential ground of my being. Ashes to ashes…dust to dust… Adam brought into being from the fertile ground returns to the ground when he dies as do we all. While we live on and in the earth, we gather dirt under our soul’s fingernails. Life is not neat and tidy for most of us. There are unforeseen mud wallows that bog us down, keep us mired in the clay. The dirt that bogs us down also grows poke berries and turnip greens, altheas and roses, tomatoes and trillium. If we can see and listen, there are gifts in those muddy days, Gifts of the Spirit.
Our family is wading through a mud wallow right now and I am looking for those gifts. Yesterday I found one in the sermon, words that caught my ear, words that I wrote down and brought home. The preacher was reading the story of Moses and the Children of Israel in the wilderness. The Egyptians were hot on their heels and the people were complaining to Moses bitterly about the dangers of freedom. Moses’ response was, “Do not be afraid. The Lord will fight for you. You have only to wait and be still.” So today I am being still and waiting in the mud wallow, waiting for the Lord to fight for us, waiting for the presence of the Holy One to come for me and my children. And as I wait, I pray. What else is there to do, after all?