Commentary
I begin every farm tour the same way: by reminding guests that 73 percent of the DNA in a healthy human gut overlaps with the microbial DNA found in healthy soil. Whether you take that as hard science or holy metaphor, the message is clear—we were never meant to be separate from the soil. We are made to live in it, breathe with it, and eat of it.
People’s eyes light up when they hear this. There’s a spark of recognition, like their spirit is remembering something their body forgot. But five minutes later, someone is frustrated that there’s mud on their shoes.
This is the tension we live in: spiritually moved by nature, but practically divorced from it.
We have become so disconnected from God’s design that many people—grown adults—don’t even know what food is anymore. If it doesn’t come in a sealed package, they assume it’s unsafe. In our farm store and farmers markets, we’ve noticed something unsettling: even when the price is the same, customers will more often buy avocados in a plastic net bag than those in a simple basket. Tomatoes in a clam shell sell better than loose ones on the table.
We’ve been trained to trust what’s wrapped in plastic more than what’s wrapped in God’s creation.
But life isn’t tidy. It’s not shrink-wrapped and shelf-stable. It’s alive, unpredictable, and often messy—but it’s also perfectly designed. That design is written into the soil, and it’s written into us.
“Then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life …” (Genesis 2:7)
We are quite literally formed from the earth. Yet now we sterilize it, pave it over, or ignore it entirely. I once had a woman spend 20 minutes telling me—horrified—that her son-in-law kills animals for food, seemingly unaware that she was standing in the middle of a farm surrounded by animals who will one day be harvested for meat. These animals are not abused or factory-raised. They live well. They live free. They are part of a sacred cycle of nourishment, care, and death that our ancestors understood but we have forgotten.
On my best days, I feel hopeful. There is a back-to-the-land movement happening. People are buying acreage, growing gardens, and seeking reconnection. But on my harder days, I’m baffled by how far we’ve fallen from basic survival skills. So many modern people don’t know how to grow food, preserve it, build shelter, or protect themselves from the elements. Even animals—goats, cows—know how to browse the land and select the herbs and weeds that will heal their own bodies. We’ve lost that instinct.
We’ve even lost connection to what food is.
Is it just protein, carbs, and fat? A list of macronutrients and calories? Or is it more than that?
Could food grown in local soil contain information that helps your body thrive in that specific environment? Could it be that the microbial overlap between gut and soil was meant to keep you feeling at home in your own body and your place on the earth?
And if our microbiomes become more industrial—fed by the same sterile, processed inputs across the country—do we lose our biological sense of belonging? If we’re no longer part of the soil we came from … do we stop feeling like we belong anywhere at all?
And as we lose our biological connection to the soil, perhaps we also lose our sense of belonging. When our bodies no longer recognize the food, water, or air around us—when our microbiome no longer mirrors the place we live—we become strangers in our own home.
Is that, underneath it all, what fuels the numbness and apathy we see in society today? The passivity in the face of being poisoned—by processed food, polluted air, toxic chemicals, broken systems. Could it be that on a cellular level, we’ve forgotten that we belong here? That this earth was made for us, and we were made for it?
We act like renters in God’s creation, not stewards. But the first thing God ever asked us to do wasn’t to build a tower, write a law, or preach a sermon—it was to tend a garden.
“The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” (Genesis 2:15)
That was the first assignment. Before the fall. Before the flood. Before the commandments. Just us and the land. Work it. Take care of it. Be in relationship with it. It’s as if God said: “Start here. You’ll remember who you are.”
At our farm, we homeschool our children. Their curriculum isn’t limited to reading and math. It includes the entire food cycle: planting, harvesting, food preparation, and yes—animal butchering. Death is not hidden from them. It’s honored. We believe that knowing where your food comes from is not traumatic—it’s sacred. It brings gratitude, humility, and respect for life.
This is not nostalgia. It’s obedience.
We were not made to live on concrete and screens. We were made from the dust, for the garden. God’s design has not changed—but our willingness to participate in it has.
Maybe it’s time we repent of our separation from the land. Maybe it’s time to take off our shoes, feel the mud beneath our feet, and remember that the soil is not something to avoid—it’s something to become.
