DUST

Snippet

I walked through the neatly laid stones, each row like another line in a massive book. My eyes strained to take in all of the information—name, age, rank, country—and perhaps also death itself, the fragility of life, the harsh reality of war. In that field of graves, a war memorial for men lost as prisoners of war, slaves laboring to construct the Burma-Siam railway, I felt as the psalmist: "laid low in the dust." Or like Job sitting among the dust and ashes of a great tragedy. Then one stone stopped my wandering and said what I could not. On an epitaph in the middle of the cemetery was written: "There shall be in that great earth, a richer dust concealed."(1)

It is helpful, I think, to be reminded that we are dust. It is crucial to take this reminder with us as we move through life—through successes, disappointments, surprises, distractions, tragedy. For Christians, it is also a truth to help us approach the vast and terrible events of Holy Week. The season of Lent, the forty days in which the church prepares to encounter the events of Easter, thankfully begins with the ashes of Ash Wednesday. On this day, foreheads are marked with a bold and ashen cross of dust, recalling both our history and our future, invoking repentance, inciting stares. Marked with the Cross, we are Christ's own: pilgrims on a journey that proclaims death and resurrection all at once. The journey through Lent into the light and darkness of Holy Week is for those made in dust who will return to dust, those willing to trace the breath that began all of life to the place where Christ breathed his last. It is a journey that expends everything within us.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia. Journey of Dust Wednesday, March 09, 2011 (1) This is a line from a poem of Rupert Brookes entitled "1914."


Scripture

for dominion belongs to the LORD
and he rules over the nations.
All the rich of the earth will feast and worship;
all who go down to the dust will kneel before him—
those who cannot keep themselves alive.
Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord.
Psalms 22:28-30 NIV


Song

Dust In The Wind
KANSAS

I close my eyes
Only for a moment and the moment's gone
All my dreams
Pass before my eyes a curiosity

Dust in the wind
All they are is dust in the wind

Same old song
Just a drop of water in an endless sea
All we do
Crumbles to the ground though we refuse to see

Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind

Now don't hang on
Nothing lasts forever but the Earth and Sky
It slips away
And all your money won't another minute buy

Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind
Everything is dust in the wind
Everything is dust in the wind

Sentence Prayer

Father;
Your are the only eternal one, it will be your purpose that prevails.
May I take myself about as seriously as a speck of dust dancing in the sunlight.
Help me be serious about being a child of God that playfully seeks my role in your purposes.
Amen Roger Miller