Beloved Dust

"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal; but store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust consumes and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."

–Matthew 6:21

I’ve become something of the family genealogist over the years, keeping track of our family tree and occasionally researching something for my parents. Recently, I’ve been working through some old photographs from my grandmother, scanning and digitizing the images for posterity. It’s been fun to discover some pictures I’ve never seen before, and I always enjoy the glimpse back in time they offer. At the same time, there can be a sense of melancholy in going through them, seeing faces that are no longer here and people that I never had the opportunity to meet. It’s a stark reminder of mortality, and how fleeting life can be.

It seems appropriate then that Ash Wednesday has fallen during the time when I’m working on this project. Today is a day that we receive that visceral reminder on our foreheads in the smudge of ashes shaped into a cross and the words that call us to remember: you are mortal. You are dust. Your life is as fragile as those faded photographs.

But as stark as that reminder might be, I think there’s hope in it as well. I’m dust—but I’m not only dust. We are not only mortal creatures that will simply waste away and perish eventually. Because the dust is part of us. The dust is part of everything. And everything returns to it. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” We are made of the dust. And God called the creation ‘good.’ The scientists tell us that we are literally made of stardust—the same particles that make up the stars and planets make up us. In the beginning, the story tells us that God stooped down into the dust in the garden, and molded and shaped the human from the dust and the clay, and breathed into him the breath of life. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. We belong to and are interconnected with the very fabric of this universe—the shining, blazing, color of stars and planets and galaxies.

Rev. Dr. Karoline Lewis of Luther Seminary puts it this way:

“Not only are we dust in the sense of our mortality, but we are dust right now. Our bodies shed skin cells and hair follicles that contribute to the dust of this world, even at this very moment. And so do all of the living bodies (human, animal, plant, etc.) around us every day. Sounds gross, I know.

And this dust we create is in motion, affected by the movement of people and crowds and activities, by the bustle of traffic and cars and planes, by the changes in the winds and tides and weather, and even by our breath and words and speech.

We breathe each other in on a daily basis. We have been inhaling each other all of our lives. Little by little we take each other in, family and friends, classmates and coworkers, old companions and new acquaintances, possibly even those who live on the other side of the world.

This act of inhaling that connects us is completely involuntary. We cannot stop it. We cannot filter some people out. There is an interconnectedness that we cannot resist. So instead, may we embrace it. May we be mindful that you are in my breath just as I am in yours, that you are in my words just as I am in yours, and that you are all around me just as I surround you.”

Some faces may exist now only in faded photographs; some voices we may no longer hear. But they are never really gone. The dust that made up those lives is still interconnected to everything that is, and one day, in the fullness of time, God’s love will raise the beloved dust that includes you and me into the new creation, where as John the Revelator writes,

“See, the home of God is among mortals. He will dwell with them;

they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and be their God;

he will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more;

mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

for the first things have passed away.”

And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.”