Lent Exercises: Dust - A Reflection for Ash Wednesday
“Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.” On Ash Wednesday, I’ve said these words hundreds of times, placing a blackened finger to a forehead, and tracing the sign of a cross.
Sometimes it’s deeply moving. I remember looking into the eyes of a critically ill woman. My voice broke. “Remember that you are dust…” The moment stretched between us. Time slowed down. And the two of us stared into each other’s eyes as though death itself stood between us. I remember tracing ashes on a baby full of life’s promise. “Remember that you are dust.”
How did we get here?
In the Christian origin story human beings are formed out of dust. Genesis 2:7-8 says, “then the Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and the man became a living being.” In contrast to the creation story captured in the poem of Genesis 1, where God speaks creation into existence through big, powerful, words. Here, we encounter the divine presence sitting in the mud. After fashioning a ground creature, from the ground, the Lord God, kisses the breath of life into this creature, forming humanity.
Origin stories, including this one, are designed to tell us who we are and how we’re meant to relate to the world around us. Here, we are God kissed mud, fashioned by God, for God.
“Remember that you are dust.”
Such a reminder is not morbid or self-deprecating. It is an invitation to remember that within the protein chains, chemical processes, and energy of your existence is an ancient and divine kiss. We are not the random recombination of meaningless matter, rushing toward the carbon death of the universe. We are living souls, made for connection.
Restoring connection is what the theme of Ash Wednesday is all about. The scripture readings come from Joel 2.
Yet even now, says the Lord,
return to me with all your heart,
with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning;
rend your hearts and not your clothing.
Return to the Lord, your God,
for he is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love,
and relents from punishing.
Return to the Lord. This is not the call of a capricious and disappointed authority figure who can’t wait to punish. It is the invitation of the divine figure with hands in the mud. We are made for connection, with God, with one another, with our environment. But we turn in on ourselves. We turn our back on God. We oppress, hurt, exploit, and kill others. We turn our world into a gold mine in one direction and a waste dump in the other.
Ash Wednesday we’re invited to remember. We’re dust, simple creatures of mud, made for connection. We’re returning to dust. The empires we build will fall. Return to the God who fashioned you. Return to relationship. Return to the source of life.
Remember that you are dust. To dust you shall return.