Blood and soil

Reflections on a class discussion earlier today about place, our connection to the ground, and gnosticism.

1) Blood and soil are “powers” that can and have dominated human life, and caused lots of human misery.

2) Jesus overcomes those powers. We are identified by water and feast, not by blood or color or place.

3) YET (here’s where my thought is undeveloped): Jesus doesn’t just overcome and send the powers packing. He pacifies and reconciles powers; He turns them to the purposes of His kingdom (Col 1-2).

The dilemma: How to express the reconciliation of blood and soil without falling back into the old creation, and without going fascist? How to express Jesus’ pacification of “blood” without letting it usurp the place of the water, and how to express Jesus’ pacification of “soil” without letting it usurp the place of the feast?