Ever speak to, or listen to, those who were first adopters of a country? By that I mean, those who are often called natives, aboriginal, or first nations.
I tend to think they are tied to the land. To the dirt. To the place that harboured them for centuries and even millenia.
This was, and is, their home!
We are a homeless generation. Many of us, even the first adopters, are not people of the dirt. “From dust to dust” – but we don’t want to be dust in the in-between time when our lives are lived on planet earth. We would rather ignore the physical. We are becoming people of the virtual.
And yet . . . it seems our greatest sin relates to the environment. We feel like we can’t do enough to preserve, restore or cradle the land. In fact, as some point, we begin doubt the need for our existence, since we are taking up space, breathing air and even stepping where we should not tread.
Purity of life would be a desire to have dominion over the dirt that leads to the best for all that inhabits this earth.
A purity that respects the sustenance that our earth provides us. A purity that accepts with gratitude the gift of breath, the community of creatures, the interconnectedness of the food chain, the beauty of physical manifestations of life.