Wendell Berry once wrote that “the world cannot be discovered by a journey of miles...but only by a spiritual journey, a journey of one inch, very arduous and humbling and joyful, by which we arrive at the ground at our own feet, and learn to be at home.” This is a journey on which we must all embark in this kairos time when our climate is in crisis and our churches are at a crossroads. What if the path we must follow is the ancient path of humility, modeled by Christ himself, practiced and taught by the great Christian teachers of the ages? What if this path is not only a figurative attending to the ground of our humanity, but a literal attending to the humus beneath our feet?

This project is aimed at exploring both of humus and humility in conversation, turning a compost pile while meditating on kenosis, reflecting on St. Bernard while examining fungal hyphae beneath a microscope. The result of these explorations will be a book of reflections patterned as a pilgrimage with diversions through which I learn to explore and cultivate the soil of my own home. Those reflections will also become a course on humus and humility that I will teach in my parish and deliver as a workshop at various churches around the country.