Dust Wednesday

Ash Wednesday came and went. It was on the calendar and the children pointed it out. They know that we are in the season of Lent, but sadly other details took up the whole day and we never did anything special for Ash Wednesday. The liturgical calendar is not celebrated by our partner church, so it takes extra thought and energy for us to remember to celebrate them. Even though we didn’t have any special rituals, the fact that we are dust and to dust we will return was still on our mind though, as it surrounds us all the time.

Just about perfect timing for that day we had another cool spell. The nights were getting into the 60's and the days 90's, but another noticeable difference was even more wind and dust. The wind and dust picked up again (dust never goes away, but this is intense) and we had allergies and surfaces to constantly dust again.



Here is a picture of my feet from walking around my house. May I mention that I CLEAN my house. But as soon as it is clean one can look down the hall and see another layer of dust covering the floor, thus the bottoms of my feet at the end of the day. We keep all food and drinks covered because of the large amounts of dust. Every container has layers of dust on the top of it. Before shaking the pepper into your food, you better dust it off :)

So we mostly have negative associations with dust. But at church dust is sometimes used in a positive way - people use it as an instrument under their shoes as they dance up to give an offering . Dust and playing in the sand is one of our children’s favorite parts of being here.

Still, at this point it is hard to think about what good can come from dust. But God promises differently many times in his Word. I ran across this poem which reminds us of this hope as we continue through Lent:

Blessing the Dust

All those days

you felt like dust,

like dirt,

as if all you had to do

was turn your face

toward the wind

and be scattered

to the four corners

or swept away

by the smallest breath

as insubstantial—

Did you not know

what the Holy One

can do with dust?

This is the day

we freely say

we are scorched.

This is the hour

we are marked

by what has made it

through the burning.

This is the moment

we ask for the blessing

that lives within

the ancient ashes,

that makes its home

inside the soil of

this sacred earth.

So let us be marked

not for sorrow.

And let us be marked

not for shame.

Let us be marked

not for false humility

or for thinking

we are less

than we are

but for claiming

what God can do

within the dust,

within the dirt,

within the stuff

of which the world

is made,

and the stars that blaze

in our bones,

and the galaxies that spiral

inside the smudge

we bear.

–Jan Richardson

- See more at: http://paintedprayerbook.com/2015/02/13/ash-wednesday-the-terrible-marvelous-dust/#sthash.wAIpq5t3.dpuf