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“By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread… for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Genesis 3:19 (NRSV)
I have often heard this verse framed as a sentence of punishment, a reminder of human limitation and mortality. But working with soil has taught me to hear it differently — not as a curse, but as a truth spoken with grace. To be dust is not to be disposable. Dust is where life begins again.
At the Farminary, I learned that soil never forgets, it remembers. It holds the labor of hands, the decay of last season’s growth, the quiet work of microbes breaking death into nourishment. Regenerative agriculture asks us to slow down enough to notice this holy economy — one where nothing is wasted, where even exhaustion and loss can become fertility. Lent invites a similar attentiveness. It calls us to face what is depleted in us, what has been overworked or neglected, and to trust that God is still at work beneath the surface.
Scripture says, “when” you return to the ground, not “if.” This returning is negotiable but inevitable, yet it is not failure; it is participation. The sweat of our faces, the ache in our backs, the patience required to tend land that does not yield immediately — all of it binds us more deeply to creation and to one another. In this way, Lent becomes less about self-denial for its own sake and more about connecting with the right relationships: with our bodies, with the earth, and with God.
Regenerative work resists the lie that productivity is the measure of worth — so does Lent. Both remind me that rest is not laziness, that limits are gifts, and that transformation often happens out of sight. Seeds germinate in darkness. Compost works quietly. Repentance, too, is rarely loud. As we journey through Lent, may we allow ourselves to return — to the soil, to our breath, to God. May we trust that the dust we are is not the end of the story, but the beginning of something made new.
This piece is part of the Farminary Lenten Reflection Series. Each week throughout the 2026 Lenten season, alumni of The Farminary Project will share a personal reflection rooted in soil, scripture, and hope. Students in the Master of Arts in Theology and Ecology program and those pursuing the Concentration in Theology, Ecology, and Faith Formation participate in the Farminary to explore ecological sustainability rooted in theological practice.
