Soul-scape - soil

There is an understanding that the soil beneath the soles of our feet shapes our very souls.  The oxygen atoms you breathed as a child wove their way into your DNA.  That where you have been impacts who you are today.  Our story has been influenced by our geography.  The places you have called, "home" are more than an address you filled out so your Amazon package would arrive at the correct place.  Like a turtle, we carry our home with us, but perhaps not in such a visible way.

I have lived in the Midwest where the wonderful contradiction of Minnesota nice and Iowa stubbornness shaped who I am today.  I lived in the Northeast weathering nor-easters that dropped a foot of a snow faster than you could shove and I quickly ran out of places to put it.  I have dug up rocks the size of loaves of bread when trying to plant a garden.  I have lived in Wisconsin, a state that celebrates all things dairy.  Now, the sandy soil of Florida is continuing to shape my life whether it is weathering hurricanes knocking on your door, humidity that hangs in the air thicker than the cool whip my grandma put on jell-o, or tasting the salt on the tip of my tongue.

How have you been formed and fashioned by the places you have lived?

In what ways have your previous addresses still part of the truth of where your heart/mind/soul reside?

I know that part of who I am is because of where I have been.  But it is about more than a love of all things deep fried on a stick at a fair that is part of my childhood.  It is about more than being in a place where some of the earliest settlers of our country first put down roots.  It is about more than a state that named its baseball team, "The Brewers" or a state that produces some of the wacky-est news stories!  It can be difficult to determine how the various soils in my soul have all culminated.  Like trying to separate dirt, I don't see all the distinctive ways the places I've lived have molded me.

I do know that growing up in Iowa taught me hard work, stick-with-it-ness.  I know that going to seminary in Minnesota where I met my wife shaped both my relationships and profession.  I know that my first church in New Hampshire helped me begin to sort out how to live into my calling, my second church encouraged my growth, and now my third church continues to bless me as I live out being a pastor in such a time as this.

The places we have been linger in our lives.  How have you been shaped by where you have called, "home"?  In what ways do you still carry where you have been to where you are today?

As you ponder those questions, may you sense more than a trace of God's grace.

Blessings ~~