A Dusty God

Since it is Ash Wednesday and all, I have been thinking today about the sacredness of dust and ash. Most Ash Wednesday services have us reflect on our own mortality and transience and receiving ashes on our forehead is meant to be a reminder of this. "Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return," is a common mantra for this ceremony. Still perhaps feeling the invincibility of young adulthood and, thankfully, not having the aching body to further remind me of my dust-like nature I don't know if the full effect of these words has really hit me. The glorious Spring day that we have been enjoying in the Bay Area today has made it especially difficult to feel solemn and reflective about life. Walking home from church smelling the trees in bloom, feeling the breeze blow through the valleys of Marin, and looking out across the hills it is hard to feel anything but pure joy about the life that I am already experiencing.

It was while making that walk from our home to church this morning that I began to notice the sacredness of my dusty existence. In fact, if given the choice between the dusty outdoors or the well-swept confines of a sanctuary on a day like today I would probably stick with the dust. Perhaps this is over-romanticizing the beautiful parts of the world over the mundane, but I would like to think that the ever-present potential for something wonderful that truly inspires me.

A while ago on Facebook a video was being passed around that shows an artist creating a series of drawings where the artist covers what appears to be an overhead projector with sand and by scraping away the sand in some places, adding some in others creates some really awesome stuff. Here it is if anyone hasn't seen it:



This, of course, demonstrates many things, but today it reminds me of the infinite possibilities that something as mundane as dirt can have. I have often found myself questioning lately the idea of a transcendent God that is somehow above or beyond creation, an idea that would seem to place eternal life and a return to dust in a sharp opposition. Perhaps dust itself is sacred, perhaps returning to it isn't such a bad thing, and perhaps we worship a God who is, in fact, quite dusty. Today I see God being something like that sand painting and the whirlwind of possibilities that it can become. I then find something sacred in imagining myself as related to all of these possibilities as I am related to the dust from which they are formed. In any case, perhaps Lent is a good time to give cleanliness a bit of a break and look for God in the messy.