Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday Meditation

Today I want to talk about Dust There is nothing pretty about dust. Dust covers furniture, glass vases, counter tops; it can make you sneeze, It takes something shiny, and makes it dull, We all know way too much about the Dust of West Texas. 

Dust is not like sand. When a child plays in the sand pile, we can brush the sand off. But when one works in a field all day, he returns in the evening covered with dust.

When I was younger I hauled hay for a summer, the dust from the hay would get in every part of my body,,

Dust is evitable part of life.  But Dust reminds us also of what we are made of.

Genesis 2

Formed from the Dust of the Ground.

James Weldon Johnson,  wrote, From God’s Trombones And God stepped out on space,
And he looked around and said:
I'm lonely --
I'll make me a world,

And far as the eye of God could see
Darkness covered everything,
Blacker than a hundred midnights
Down in a cypress swamp

Then God smiled,
And the light broke,
And the darkness rolled up on one side,
And the light stood shining on the other,
And God said: That good!

[And Johnson relates the creation of the lights of the heavens, the plants, the animals, and all the living things. But God is still lonely.]* * * *

Then God sat down --
On the side of a hill where he could think;
By a deep, wide river he sat down;
With his head in his hands,
God thought and thought,
Till he thought: I'll make me a man!

Up from the bed of the river
God scooped the clay;
And by the bank of the river
He kneeled him down;
And there the great God Almighty
Who lit the sun and fixed it in the sky,
Who flung the stars to the most far corner of the night,
Who rounded the earth in the middle of his hand;
This Great God,
Like a mammy bending over her baby,
Kneeled down in the dust
Toiling over a lump of clay
Till he shaped it in his own image;

Then into it he blew the breath of life,
And man became a living soul.
Amen. Amen.

I am reminded of the words from the burial office, … Just said it last week "We commit this body to its final resting place, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust."


"And to dust you shall return." Ash Wednesday reminds us that we are mortal, and in so doing confronts us with a simple question: We have only one life. How do we want to spend it?

Remember, you are nothing but dust: Precious dust, molded and formed in the womb by a loving God, precious, precious and beloved are you.

Remember, you are nothing but dust, and to dust shall you return: Unique and precious, you are created for eternity.