A Sabbath for the Soil, the Soul, and the Things We Inherit

I keep coming back to the soil.

Not just the dirt beneath our feet, but the soil as a metaphor for everything that holds us, feeds us, remembers us, and gives us something to grow from.

I have written and spoken about soil many times now, but the more I sit with it, the more I realize that soil is connected to almost everything I have been trying to understand: healing, history, faith, family, systems, politics, stewardship, death, regeneration, and even love.

The more I dig, the more I find.

And perhaps that is the point.

I recently started looking more deeply into carbon and soil regeneration.

One of the things I learned was that regenerative agriculture can involve practices such as no-till farming, cover crops, living roots, compost, biochar, and managed grazing. Each practice affects the soil differently, but the underlying idea is that healthy soil is living. It needs nutrients. It needs organisms. It needs protection. It needs time.

And then I started thinking about tilling.

Tilling loosens the soil. It disturbs what was settled.

That made me think about life.

Sometimes things have to be loosened before something new can grow.

Sometimes things have to be shaken.

Sometimes what feels like chaos is actually exposing what was buried.

And sometimes, quite literally, shit has to happen.

I have written about this before publicly, including in an interview with an online magazine, when I talked about compost and how sometimes shit is necessary for things to grow. This isn’t a new thought for me.

Compost takes what has already lived, broken down, and become waste and turns it into something that can nourish new life.

So when I look at the chaos happening in our society, including the political chaos surrounding Donald Trump, I sometimes wonder if we are looking at something that has been thrown into the compost pile.

I have said before, half joking and half seriously: Maybe this is why Trump is here.

Maybe sometimes the shit has to happen.

Maybe he is the shit.

That doesn’t mean I believe every harmful thing is good simply because something can eventually grow from it. I don’t, it depends on the intention behind the harm. Harm is still harm.

But I do believe that sometimes the decomposition of something old creates the conditions for something new to emerge.

The question becomes: What are we going to grow from it?

Because compost doesn’t become soil by pretending it wasn’t shit.

It breaks down.

It transforms.

And eventually, something can grow.

My grandmother Jeanette gave me a Bible verse a few years ago that stayed with me.

It was from Leviticus 25.

When I returned to it, I found something that stopped me in my tracks:

For six years, the Israelites were instructed to sow their fields, prune their vineyards, and gather their crops. But the seventh year was to be a Sabbath year for the land. The land itself was to rest.

The land was to have a year of Sabbath rest.

Not just the farmer.

The land.

That distinction matters to me.

Because I started thinking about rest beyond the literal soil.

Maybe our bodies need rest.

Maybe our minds need rest.

Maybe our communities need rest.

Maybe our relationships need rest.

Maybe our businesses need rest.

Maybe our systems need rest.

And maybe rest isn’t the same thing as doing nothing.

The Sabbath year still produced food. The land wasn’t worthless because it wasn’t being actively cultivated. It was still alive. It was still giving.

That made me think about something I have personally struggled with: knowing when I don’t have anything left to give.

I have spent so much of my life showing up for people. Sometimes financially. Sometimes emotionally. Sometimes physically. Sometimes mentally.

Sometimes to my own detriment.

I already have to live with the stereotype of being raised an only child, so that must mean I am selfish or spoiled.

There have been times when I gave because I was afraid of being perceived as that selfish, uncaring, or a bad friend.

But what if there are seasons when the most responsible thing we can do is let the land rest?

What if saying no is stewardship?

What if preserving what remains is part of regeneration?

That question has been sitting with me.

I started my business in 2022, but my healing journey, the real work, began in 2020. And when I look at these six years, I feel like I have been worked, stretched, cultivated, broken open, and replanted.

Maybe I am approaching a Sabbath in 2027

Maybe this is a season where I am being asked not to produce more, but to allow what has already been planted to grow.

“Lord, let this be.” I prayed as I read the verse.

Leviticus 25 goes even further.

After seven Sabbath years, seven times seven years, the Israelites were to enter the fiftieth year: the Jubilee.

Seven times seven is forty-nine.

Then came the fiftieth year.

The Jubilee was to be proclaimed as a time of liberty. People were to return to their family property and to their clans. The land was again to rest. And the Israelites were specifically instructed not to take advantage of one another.

That matters because the Sabbath wasn’t simply about taking a break.

It was about restoring relationship.

Rest. Land. Property. Family. Freedom. Debt. Justice. Inheritance.

All of these things were connected.

And that makes me think about our society.

What would it look like if we understood that some things need a Sabbath?

What would it look like if we stopped constantly harvesting from people, communities, and the earth without allowing anything to regenerate?

What would it look like if we understood that restoration sometimes requires returning something?

Not just saying sorry.

Returning.

Repairing.

Restoring.

This thought has taken me somewhere I am still processing.

If six years represents sowing and harvesting, and the seventh represents rest, what would a societal Sabbath look like?

I’m not necessarily saying we should literally have a year without a president.

I don’t know what the practical answer is.

But the thought makes me question our obsession with constant political production.

We elect people.

They make decisions.

Another election comes.

Another person comes in.

Another set of policies.

Another reaction.

Another fight.

Another harvest.

And we keep going.

What if there were a period where we intentionally stopped and examined the soil?

What did we build?

What did we destroy?

Who benefited?

Who was harmed?

What actually grew?

What didn’t?

What needs to be removed?

What needs to be nourished?

What needs to be returned?

Maybe a political Sabbath doesn’t mean an empty office.

Maybe it means a society willing to pause long enough to evaluate what its leadership has cultivated before planting another season.

Because you can’t keep planting in depleted soil and expect healthy crops.

Then I came across 1 Corinthians 3.

Paul says that one person plants, another waters, but God makes things grow.

Then he says:

“We are co-workers in God’s service; you are God’s field, God’s building.”

That verse stopped me.

God’s field.

Not my field.

Not your field.

God’s field.

That changes how I think about stewardship.

If the field belongs to God, then what am I supposed to do with it?

I am supposed to tend it.

I am supposed to plant.

I am supposed to water.

But I am not God.

I don’t make the seed grow.

That distinction matters because sometimes I think we confuse stewardship with ownership.

We think because something is in our hands, it belongs to us.

But perhaps being entrusted with something is different from owning it.

That also means I don’t have to be everything.

I don’t have to plant and water and make everything grow.

I have a role.

You have a role.

Someone else has a role.

And God is still God.

Maybe that’s another form of stewardship:

Knowing what belongs to you and knowing what doesn’t.

Knowing when to plant.

Knowing when to water.

Knowing when to harvest.

To rest.

To let go.

To know when to say no.

Knowing when to let someone else carry something.

This brought me to something I came across from Sadhguru of the Isha Foundation:

“Soil is not your property. It is a legacy that you receive from previous generations that is your fundamental responsibility to pass on as a living entity to the next generation.”

That sentence hit me differently when I thought about America.

Because if soil is a legacy, then what happens when a people are prevented from receiving that legacy?

What happens when land, labor, wealth, education, health, family stability, and opportunity are taken from generations of people and then passed down to someone else?

What happens when the people who built the foundation are denied the opportunity to inherit what they helped create?

This is where I keep coming back to slavery.

I believe that when I trace many of the systems and disparities that exist today, I repeatedly find myself circling back to slavery and its aftermath.

So many American problems have roots that reach back into it.

The land.

Labor.

Wealth.

Housing.

Education.

Healthcare.

Criminal justice.

Family separation.

Environmental harm.

Economic inequality.

Even the ability to know our own lineage.

The roots keep reaching backward.

And if the roots are still there, why are we surprised when some of the fruit looks familiar?

I recently came across a video where a man was explaining this through an analogy.

He said:

Imagine your mother’s car was stolen.

The person who stole it eventually passed that car down to their child.

Then that child passed it to their child.

Then another generation passed it down again.

At some point, does the number of generations that have possessed the car make it belong to them?

No.

It is still your mother’s stolen car.

Time doesn’t transform theft into ownership.

That analogy made me think about land.

If something was taken, and the person who took it passed it to their children, and their children passed it to theirs, the passage of time does not erase the history of how it was acquired.

And this is where the conversation about 40 acres and a mule comes into my thinking.

After the Civil War, there were efforts to redistribute land to formerly enslaved people, most notably through Sherman’s Special Field Orders No. 15. That policy was later reversed, and much of that land was returned to former Confederate owners as “Reparations”.

So the promise of land became another example of how the foundation for generational wealth could be interrupted.

The question isn’t simply, “Where is my check?”

The deeper question is:

What was supposed to be passed down to us, and what would it take to repair the interruption?

This is why the word stewardship keeps following me.

Stewardship isn’t just taking care of what you have.

It is taking care of what has been entrusted to you so that something can continue beyond you.

That means I have to ask:

What did my ancestors leave me?

What was taken from them?

What was I able to recover?

What am I supposed to pass to my son?

And what happens when systems interfere with that responsibility?

I think about my son.

I think about the systems we have had to navigate lately, particularly healthcare and education. I think about the advocacy required by me just to make sure that his needs are understood, and make sure that an unnecessary trauma from surgery was not done. Also, that he is given the opportunity to learn, grow, and thrive.

I think about being his mother.

I think about stewardship.

And I think about the names that Aaron carried.

In Exodus 28, Aaron is instructed to wear an ephod (Sacred apron) with two onyx stones on his shoulders.

The names of the sons of Israel were engraved on those stones.

He carried their names on his shoulders as a memorial before God.

Then, on the breastpiece, those names were carried over his heart.

I don’t only read that literally.

I think about what it means to carry the people who came before us.

On the shoulders:

The weight.

The responsibility.

The history.

And over the heart:

The love.

The remembrance.

The connection.

The refusal to forget.

That makes me think about mothers.

It makes me think about my son.

It makes me think about descendants.

The Bible passage speaks specifically about Aaron and his male descendants serving as priests, and I recognize that the biblical text has gendered structures that I don’t always know how to reconcile with my own understanding of women and stewardship.

Because women have always carried.

Women have carried children.

Women have carried families.

stories.

grief.

culture.

communities.

And often, women have carried things that history never properly recorded.

So when I think about my responsibility as a mother, I think about what I am carrying for my son and what I am preparing him to carry after me.

Someone recently posted on social media that even “good witchcraft” is still demonic.

And I found myself thinking about that.

About good witches and bad witches.

About The Wizard of Oz.

The Wicked Witch of the East.

The Wicked Witch of the West.

Glinda, the Good Witch.

Different labels.

Different perceptions.

Different stories.

And I started wondering how quickly we judge what something is before we understand it. I think about how crystals are seen and viewed by others who do not understand or have had lived experience with them.

The Bible keeps bringing me back to stones.

There are stones and gems throughout these passages.

In Exodus 25, offerings for the tabernacle include gold, silver, bronze, precious materials, and onyx stones and other gems.

Again, in Exodus 28, Aaron wore twelve precious stones placed on his breastpiece.

That challenged some of the assumptions I have heard about stones and crystals.

I have had crystals before.

Sometimes I just thought they were beautiful.

Sometimes I liked what people said they represented.

Did I believe that a rock itself was God?

No.

Did I believe that the stone was some all-powerful supernatural being?

No.

For me, it could simply be a tool, a symbol, a reminder, something beautiful that gave me an emotional lift.

I don’t use them that way as much anymore, but I understand why someone might.

And again, I think intention matters.

Exodus 23 tells the Israelites not to worship the gods of other nations and warns them about being led into practices that would become a snare.

So I don’t think the lesson is simply, “Is the stone good or bad.” 

Or whether its a “good or bad witch”

The deeper question I ask is:

What are you doing with it?

What is your intention?

What are you placing your trust in?

Are you worshipping the object, or are you using an object as a reminder of something?

Those are different questions.

And this brings me back to free will.

We are all going to make different choices.

We are all going to understand God differently.

We are all going to practice differently.

And God will work with YOU, how he needs to work with YOU individually.

I don’t believe God can be placed inside a box labeled “religion.”

How do you put the almighty into a box?

Religion has been used for harm and control for way too long. 

It’s been a repeated pattern throughout history. 

I am a follower of Christ, but I don’t feel the need to put a title on God. I don’t feel I need to claim a religion to be a Believer. 

For me, my belief comes back to Love, because that’s what God is.

That is how I feel we truly become one nation under God (love).

This also makes me think about an altar I recently saw at a gathering.

The host had an altar on her table, from items found and purchased in her travels near and abroad.

It wasn’t my altar, nor did I touch it.

It wasn’t something I would necessarily create in the same way.

But I respected it.

And then I thought about my own wall of photographs and sentimental objects.

Photographs of people I love.

Photographs that hold memories.

Objects that remind me of people, places, and moments.

Could someone else look at that collection and call it an altar?

Maybe.

And that made me think about how quickly we judge what we don’t understand.

The Bible tells us not to judge others, including the warning in Matthew 7:1-5 about looking at the speck in someone else’s eye while ignoring the plank in our own.

That doesn’t mean we abandon discernment.

It means we should be careful about assuming we understand someone else’s heart, culture, practice, or intention.

I may not practice what you practice.

But I can respect your right to practice it.

I can learn from you.

You can learn from me.

And perhaps that is what cooperation looks like.

Because judgment can create separation.

And separation is powerful, that’s why the intention matters.

If we are constantly fighting over whose way of believing is correct, we can lose sight of the things we have in common.

Love.

Humanity.

Dignity.

The desire to be safe.

The desire to be understood.

The desire to belong.

When I read Exodus 25, something else happened.

I started noticing the craftsmanship.

The gold.

The wood.

The stones.

The linen.

The lampstand.

The ark.

The details.

It almost felt like interior design.

And I loved it.

The tabernacle wasn’t described casually. There were instructions for how it was to be built, what materials were to be used, what was to be placed inside it, and how it was all supposed to come together.

And then there was the ark.

Before my husband and I were married, when I first moved into our home, I had what felt like a revelation:

I’m at my ark.

I didn’t fully understand it.

I just felt it.

And since then, we have been rebuilding our home.

Remodeling an older home.

Repairing things.

Changing things.

Making it ours.

I have also intentionally brought gold accents throughout the house because I love gold.

Then I read about the gold used throughout the tabernacle.

And I thought:

Okay, God.

I’m paying attention.

Then I read about the lampstand.

And right now, my husband and I are actually working on a lamp together, taking an old lamp and revamping it.

We’re not finished with it yet.

Maybe it means something.

Maybe it doesn’t.

But I notice it.

And sometimes noticing is enough.

Because I don’t want to force meaning onto every coincidence.

I just want to remain open enough to recognize when something speaks to me.

I thought about this again during my son’s recent IEP meeting.

There was discussion about standardized testing and the standards students are expected to meet.

And I asked out loud:

“What is a standard?”

And I found myself again advocating not only for my son, but for other children again against the very system that’s supposed to be caring for our children and their futures.

Because nobody learns exactly the same way.

Nobody processes information exactly the same way.

Nobody grows at exactly the same rate.

So what happens when someone doesn’t fit the standard?

Do we change the person?

Do we punish them?

Do we label them?

Or do we change the environment so they have an opportunity to grow?

That brought me right back to soil.

You don’t plant every seed in exactly the same conditions and then blame the seed because it didn’t grow according to your schedule.

You learn the soil.

You learn the plant.

You learn what it needs.

Then you cultivate.

Why do we struggle so much to do that with people?

If we really believe that soil is a legacy, then we have to talk about what happens when that legacy has been damaged.

And this is where I return to slavery.

I don’t believe we can talk honestly about American soil without talking about the people who worked it.

The people whose bodies were treated as labor.

The people whose knowledge cultivated it.

Whose families were separated from it.

Who were promised land and then watched that promise disappear.

Who were denied the opportunity to build generational wealth from their labor.

And the people whose descendants are still dealing with the consequences.

This is why I believe reparations have to be bigger than money.

Accountabiity matters

So does truth.

So does access to history.

And so does the ability to know who you came from.

Repair has to address all the places where the damage happened.

You don’t repair depleted soil by simply telling the plant to grow harder.

You restore the soil.

You replenish it.

You give it what was removed.

You protect it from continued harm.

And you give it time.

Regeneration isn’t pretending nothing happened.

Regeneration is taking what remains and creating the conditions for life to return.

Sometimes that means loosening the soil.

Sometimes it means adding compost.

Planting something new.

Allowing the field to rest.

Removing what is choking the roots.

Remembering what was there before.

Sometimes it means returning what was taken.

And sometimes it means finally telling the truth about what happened.

Because the soil remembers.

The body remembers.

Families remember.

Communities remember.

History remembers.

And I believe God remembers.

At a recent writing group gathering, we were given a writing prompt:

The thread I follow is…

I wrote about love.

I wrote that the thread I follow is love because that is where I believe God is.

Love is an action.

It is how I want to move.

But I also wrote about how it can be tough.

And sometimes the thread gets tangled.

And it takes patience and grace to unravel it.

That is where I think the real work happens.

In the tangle.

In the chaos.

In the places where everything doesn’t make sense yet.

Because maybe that is where growth is happening.

Maybe the tangled thread is not evidence that the story is ruined.

Maybe it is part of the weaving.

I want my life to become a story filled with love, patience, grace, and truth.

I want to be able to pass something healthy to the people who come after me.

I want my son to inherit more than my struggles.

I want him to inherit wisdom.

Knowledge.

Love.

To know his history.

To know his worth.

And I want to leave enough fertile soil behind him that he has somewhere to plant.

Maybe that is what I have been doing all along.

Digging.

Turning over the soil.

Finding roots.

Finding stones.

Finding things that were buried.

Learning what needs to be composted.

Learning what needs to be preserved.

Learning what needs to be released.

Learning when to work.

Learning when to rest.

Learning that stewardship doesn’t mean giving everything away until there is nothing left of you.

Rest can be holy.

Repair can be holy.

That accountability can be holy.

Learning that love can be both gentle and disruptive.

Jesus wept.

Jesus also flipped tables.

He was compassionate.

He was angry.

He was human.

And perhaps being Christ-like doesn’t mean pretending we never experience anger, grief, frustration, or exhaustion.

Maybe it means deciding what we do with those things.

What do we plant with them?

What do we water?

What do we allow to grow?

I keep thinking about the generations before me.

My ancestors.

My grandmother.

My mother.

My son.

And myself, standing somewhere in the middle.

Receiving.

Carrying.

Stewarding.

Passing on.

Maybe this is the real question behind Why the Soil Matters:

What are we doing with what has been entrusted to us?

And what happens when what should have been passed down was stolen?

What does restoration look like?

What does freedom look like?

What does rest look like?

What does love look like?

What does justice look like?

What does regeneration look like?

I don’t have all the answers.

But I am learning that I don’t have to.

I can plant.

I can water.

I can tend the soil.

And I can trust God with the growing.

Because if we are God’s field, then perhaps our responsibility is not to own everything.

Perhaps our responsibility is to leave the soil better than we found it.

For the people who came before us.

For the people standing beside us.

And for the people who have not arrived yet.

And maybe, just maybe, the next season isn’t about producing more.

Maybe it is about resting.

Maybe it is about repairing.

Maybe it is about remembering.

Maybe it is about reclaiming.

Maybe it is about preparing the soil.

Because something is coming.

And I want the soil to be ready.

To be continued…

LAND / REST / JUBILEE

• Leviticus 25:1–7 — The Sabbath year for the land. Six years of sowing, pruning, and gathering, followed by a seventh year of rest for the land.
• Leviticus 25:8–24 — The seven Sabbath years, forty-nine-year count, Jubilee, proclamation of liberty, return of family property, and instructions concerning the land.
• Exodus 23:10–11 — Six years of sowing followed by allowing the land to lie fallow.

SOIL / GROWTH / STEWARDSHIP

• 1 Corinthians 3:6–9 — Planting, watering, God making things grow, and the declaration that “you are God’s field, God’s building.”

JUSTICE / MERCY / COMMUNITY

• Exodus 23:1–9 — False reports and witnesses, justice, helping even an enemy, refusing bribes, and treatment of foreigners.

STONES / GEMS / MEMORY

• Exodus 25:7 — Onyx stones and other gems for the sanctuary.
• Exodus 28:6–14 — The ephod and the two onyx stones bearing the names of Israel.
• Exodus 28:15–30 — The breastpiece, twelve precious stones, and the names of the tribes carried over Aaron’s heart.
• Exodus 39:8–14 — The completed breastpiece and twelve stones.

TABERNACLE / GOLD / LINEN / LAMPSTAND

• Exodus 25:1–9 — Offerings for the sanctuary, including gold, precious materials, onyx, gems, and fine linen.
• Exodus 25:31–40 — The gold lampstand.
• Exodus 28:1–43 — Priestly garments, including fine linen, stones, the ephod, and breastpiece.
• Exodus 39:1–31 — The making of the priestly garments, including fine linen.

JUDGMENT / DISCERNMENT

• Matthew 7:1–5 — Jesus’ teaching about judgment, the speck in another person’s eye, and the plank in our own.

REPAIR / RESTORATION / FREEDOM

• Leviticus 25:8–17 — Jubilee and the proclamation of liberty.
• Leviticus 25:23–24 — The land ultimately belongs to God and is not to be treated as permanently owned.
• Leviticus 25:25–28 — Restoration and redemption of family property.

AMERICAN LAND / REPARATIONS HISTORY

• General William T. Sherman, Special Field Orders No. 15 January 16, 1865 — The historical order associated with the “40 acres” portion of the later “40 acres and a mule” phrase. It reserved specified lands in parts of the South for settlement by formerly enslaved people and provided for mules to be loaned to settlers. The policy was later reversed.

SOIL / LEGACY

• Sadhguru / Isha Foundation — Quote concerning soil as a legacy received from previous generations and the responsibility to pass it on to the next generation.

LINEN / THE NEXT THREAD

• Exodus 25:4 — Fine linen among the materials offered for the sanctuary.
• Exodus 28:5–8 — Fine linen incorporated into the priestly garments.
• Exodus 39:1–8 — Fine linen used in the making of the sacred garments.