The other night, my church watched a video called "Breathe", put out by a company called Nooma.  They make short videos of biblical teaching, and they're done very artistically.  So far, the only teacher they've had has been Rob Bell, but in the future, there will be other teachers.

Anyway.

At one point in the video, he talks about God creating man, that God took the dust of the earth, which in hebrew is the word adama, and made man, which in hebrew is the word adam.  To paraphrase, he says that we are fragile, we come from the dust, but we have had our life breathed into us by the Creator of everything.

That connection of adama and adam got me thinking.  We are, in our very creation, in our nature, connected to the earth.  The bible says that all of us come from the dust, and all of us will return to it.  Not only that, but Eve, Adam's wife, was made from him.  We are, in the very way we were created, connected to each other and the earth.  We were created out of each other.  Essential to our being is the idea of connection.

We were made to be connected.  And yet we strive for disconnection.  And then we are lonely.

The Bible speaks several times of God's creation speaking; relaying messages about God, about His nature.  Psalm 19 expresses this blatantly (The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands.  Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.  There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.), as well as parallels God's creation with his Law.  These are ways God communicates.

So then we go and cover this creation, this living communication, with cement and asphalt and buildings and towers, and we cut up parts of it and divide it out.  We cover it up and ignore it.  We turn away from it, and to our own devices.

This doesn't mean that we need to all go live under trees (although, really, is that such a bad idea?).  It means that God has made this wonderful thing that is constantly, always saying something about Him, and then we go and cover it up with stuff that says something about us, and then we complain that we can't hear from Him.

Not only that, but there are groups of people who would discourage people from trying to hear from God in nature.

And then there's the connection to each other.  Not only are we created out of each other, but we are part of Creation as well, which means we are a channel of communication.  And then people try to disconnect themselves from each other.  We focus on attaining things for ourselves, things to prove our worth.  We allign to parties, and draw lines on maps, and we don't accept each other's churches, and worst of all, we hold so much in (when we are called to be broken and poured out).  One thing the people of my church are trying to do is attain community.  Our pastor has expressed several times his frustration with the ole sunday morning greeting of "Oh, how are you?'' "I'm fine".  Everybody's always fine.  But they're not.  If you are, then that's wonderful, and I want to rejoice with you in that.  But if you are not, then I want to feel and lament that with you.

The Gospel, the good message, is all about communion; about coming to a place of common union, of community, of repairing and restoring things that are broken and separated.  The great curse of the fall was of separation, and we continue to choose and encourage that separation, instead of work against it.

One more thing.  Not only are we, by nature, connected to all of creation-the earth and other people-but, by our nature, we are connected to God.  Our life, our very breath is from Him, we are even created in His image, and we should not try to fight that connection by silencing His voice or by severing our ties.

"Woe to you who add house to house and join field to field till no space is left and you live alone in the land."