Remember You Are Soil

A Child’s guide to re/membering to care for the Earth

I recently had to create a children’s book for a seminary class assignment so I thought it would be a perfect thing to share with subscribers! If you are a paid subscriber you can download a free PDF of the book below. It probably still needs some work before potentially going to print, but if it does become available in print format I will be sure to let y’all know!

A little bit about the book

While Remember you are Soil is in fact a “Child’s guide to re/membering to care for the Earth” I wrote it in hopes that it would be useful for people of all ages, though I admittedly wrote it with the young children among my own community and context in mind. My hope is that what I have created will be useful for teaching the children in our community about the importance of caring for the Earth and being “re/membered” to it in a way that is accessible while not compromising on the theological truths we affirm as a community.¹ In the case of Remember you are Soil this theological truth is one rooted in a reading of the opening chapters of the Hebrew Bible that invites us to take seriously our place in the world of creation so that we do not not fail to remember that we are made in both the image of God and the image of the Earth (Imago Dei and Adamah.)

This reading of the text is all predicated on the notion that the words of Genesis 3:19 are not to be read as a curse for humanity’s failures, but both reminder that we are inextricably linked to the earth and all the life that calls it home, and an invitation into living lives that reflect this deep interconnectedness. As someone attempting to cultivate an eco-theology “for a world on fire” capable of leading to real praxis (reflection and action) in the face of the climate crisis I believe that we must be able to communicate a theology capable of helping seed different futures to those who will inherit the future. This feels increasingly important considering the reality that many of us will have long been re/membered to the soil of the Earth by the time our future becomes our Children’s present.

More than anything Remember you are Soil is an invitation into a larger conversation of what it means to be fully human, commit to the care for the Earth, and read our inherited sacred texts in the midst of what seems like an ever growing wild fire of crises that threaten life on our planet.