Colour from the ground

ruling and subduing in God's creation

photo taken by me in St. Andrews, Scotland. 24 February, 2022

What’s your favorite store? And no, I don’t mean Target. I mean what’s your favorite kind of store?

For decades I’ve been a fan of hardware stores. Yes, I like Lowes and Home Depot, but really I like the independent kind that have been around for awhile. You know what I mean: typically they’re stashed on the first floor of a two-story, Main Street building, and they have fishing tackle, a tricycle, two sizes of box fans, and a refinished wooden filing cabinet on display in the front window.

Inside, their narrow aisles hold tightly packed offerings, organized or not. Making one’s way down said aisles requires a certain amount of dexterity and a keen eye: broom and mop handles potentially abound, as do wayward hoses, a weed-whacker partly dislodged from its shelf, and that box of balsa wood airplanes that a child pulled down and then abandoned when his father called to him.

Yes, I love hardware stores. I can stare at a panel of paint chips in deep contentment for as yet unmeasured lengths of time. Neither do I mind (terribly) standing in line waiting to pay, because here I’m surrounded by a favorite thing about hardware stores: the people who patronize them.

Why do I love these patrons, you ask? Because people in hardware stores are doing something. They arrive and leave with an eye gleam appertaining to endeavor: building, planting, attaching, expanding, mulching, adjusting, making. Any and all of the above. A person in a hardware store has a task in hand and improvement in mind. She’s there on God’s errand, whether or not she knows it: ruling and subduing¹ the Creator’s beloved creation.

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These days my students and I are talking about the “ruling and subduing” bit, and also the rest of God’s mandate for humankind: “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.”

Quite a list of verbs there: be fruitful, increase, fill and subdue the earth, rule over its living creatures. All because, on the Genesis account, humankind is made in God’s image— the image of the God who rules over all.

My students and I spent time today talking about this “subdue” bit, sometimes translated as having dominion. For many, neither of these words is favorable.

Clearly, to subdue can mean to overcome, defeat, conquer, master— none of which sounds very nice. Taken this way, God’s words become permission to overpower, perhaps also to exploit or abuse.

And so larger context is essential to avoid such misinterpretation. My students and I look again at that Genesis 1 account, of which the verses quoted here are very nearly the tail end.

What we discover is creation wrought where once was only darkness and chaos, order and thriving beauty brought into being by the Word of Beingness Himself. And this Eternal Beingness declares time and again, over every aspect of his creation, that it is good.

In this context, ruling would be about seeing to the ongoing thrivingness of all that God has made. And subduing it would mean bringing continued meaning and order where the mandate “Live!” seems to mean consistent and sometimes explosive growth, spreading, and mad reproduction. Doubt me? Consider the weed flower Lysimachia clethroides, whose tall green presence plumes during the summer in a lovely, tapering wand of small, star-shaped flowers.

If you’ll consider said plant, if you’ll take a moment to look it up, you’ll immediately see words like “invasive” accompanied by tips on the plant’s removal. And you’ll also learn its English name, which is gooseneck loosestrife. “Gooseneck” for the shape of that tapering wand of blossom. And “loosestrife” for what this plant does: spreading with wild and tenacious abandon, it wreaks strife for the gardener, who is at great pains to subdue it.

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My students and I consider these: “rule” and “subdue.” So much of our work and living are precisely these actions, borne out in multifarious ways. A potato farmer rules and subdues differently than does a librarian, a math teacher rules and subdues differently than do his students. Laundry also is a kind of ruling and subduing, as is balancing a checkbook. All these tasks are best performed with attention and care for that which we oversee.

What I find fascinating— and something my students and I discuss— is that human beings do indeed obey God’s word in Genesis 1: 28 regardless of whether they know, believe in, or have any regard for the God who spoke it.

This (of course) goes for all of us waiting in line at the hardware store.

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Once upon a time, my sister and I spent several hot hours in the summer sun trying to remove gooseneck loosestrife from our (other) sister’s garden. I enjoyed the name of that invasive garden plant more than I did its removal, to be honest. I’m sure you’re not surprised.

My word game invitation to you: create (or identify) two pairs of compound words (in the way of gooseneck loosestrife) that mean one thing. And also, tell us what they mean. Remember, you can come up with something that actually exists or make up your own. Either way, put it in the comments below. And also (always) feel free to comment in any other way you’d like.

Also, don’t forget our upcoming book discussion! O. Alan Noble’s You Are Not Your Own, a book about identity. We’ll meet online to talk about it on Thursday, April 24. And here’s some good news: the book is newly available in paperback!

Finally, your poem:

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Two Sewing

The wind is sewing with needles of rain.
With shining needles of rain
it stitches into the thin
cloth of earth. In,
In, in, in.
Oh, the wind has often sewed with me.
One, two, three.

Spring must have fine things
To wear like other springs.
Of silken green the grass must be
Embroidered. One and two and three.
Then every crocus must be made
So subtly as to seem afraid
Of lifting colour from the ground;
And after crocuses the round
Heads of tulips, and all the fair
Intricate garb that Spring will wear.
The wind must sew with needles of rain,
With shining needles of rain,
Stitching into the thin
Cloth of earth, in,
In, in, in,
For all the springs of futurity.
One, two, three.

                        -Hazel Hall

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That’s all for this time, friends. Thanks so much for reading.

With joy,

Rebecca

1. Genesis 1: 28