I’m going to start keeping track of how many times I say: This changed my life. #1. In early April, I attended the Food and Faith Convocation at Eden Seminary. It changed my life. Not only did I get to meet notable writers on this subject, Ellen Davis and Norman Wirzba, but I learned the vital connection that God is to the farm.

Growing up on a farm and going to church, I knew that we were to be thankful to God for many things, including the gift of the work he allowed for us, but I never saw the “soil as sacred”. I saw dirt as something that was ubiquitous on my playground, for important things like making mud pies.

Dirt also created work for me as it grew weeds that I had to pull. To learn that this dirt was actually referred to by God as fertile soil a few years later was a refreshing surprise. God, man and the soil – a three way covenant. This was clear during Ellen Davis’ speech Land as Kin: Renewing our Imagination when she quoted Leviticus 26:42: “I shall remember my covenant Jacob, and yes, my covenant with Isaac, and my covenant with Abraham I shall remember—and the land I shall remember.” The land is not an “it”, Ellen stated. The land is a covenant member. The land came first. It is the first ancestor. The triangle is: God > Land > People.

Armed with this new knowledge, I reflected on my childhood in a different way. Yes, dirt was everywhere…but this dirt matters to God. Not just because it provides a livelihood but because he created it..just like the water I love…dogs…me!

Ellen Davis started her talk with Genesis 2:7, “And the Lord God formed the human being (adam), dust from the fertile soil (adamah).” Soil comes first; it is kin to the earth.

Later, Norman Wirzba and Ellen held a round table and discussed why food should be at the heart of the church. “Agrarianism is not a way of thinking for farmers. It’s for people who eat!”

“Never before have humans felt like the land was their stage. This is new thinking. Everyone before was connected to the land.”

Another speaker, Christopher Grundy, presented his ideas of “Our Daily Bread: Recovering the Sacramentality of Radical Meal Practices”. He led with a great quote: “It’s never just about food, it’s about just food.”

Then, it was time for my show-stopper, Norman Wirzba’s talk, “Food and Farmer: Why is Matters for the Church”. He encouraged us to start by thinking about our cultural context. We are in an experiment – for the first time in history more than ½ the population lives in cities. We have no connection to the ecosystem processes. Therefore, we have ecological amnesia.

Norman pointed out something that Jaime from Fair Shares had explained to me. Consumers want food to be: cheap, convenient and in big supply. This attitude is destroying food.

So, where do I go from here? Echo Farms in Fort Meyers, Florida! Next entry!