Currently The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn By CocoRosie see related

I've been thinking about earth, good, green, God-breathed, growing earth.  This summer when I was in Malawi, I sat on a porch watching some goats and some kids.  I thought to myself as I dug my fingers in, I love this earth.  Honestly I feel odd about it, but I truly love it.  God's goodness fills so many things on it.  In class today and over the past few days I was thinking about the goodness of earth.  In 4 Kingdoms (also known as 2 Chronicles) it ends with this passage about the land putting people in exile so it could enjoy sabbath.  In the Torah itself it says that the land is good.  The land is substantially good.  There is this famous peninsula of orthodox monasteries in Greece called Mt. Athos, also known as the Holy Mountain.  I was reading this monk and this is what he says, "The entire Mountain, Nature, the peak of Athos - the monasteries, forests and rocks - had all been filled with joyful light and imbued with heavenly beauty. The Mountain was invisibly revealing itself as being indeed 'Holy'. It was apparent that the holiness in its name was something inseparable from its very physical substance. And you felt that if it could be crumbled like a clump of earth, then from this very dirt would come forth a dazzling light, the very same fragrance which had filled the universe on the day of Resurrection. The souls of the saints fly and flutter about, luminous and full of light. The relics of the saints emit the same uncreated and scintillating light; an indescribable and uncreated fragrance pours out from their tombs. Everything around is filled by the beauty of contrition and the fragrance of heaven."  It is not a simply a place of holy people, but the mountain is itself holy.  The land is holy.  I think that this is something that I coming to really understand, understanding God showing himself forth in love in all things he touches, it is imbued as much as it can hold of the presence of God. 

Anyways, be well.

Ian