dust

A Reflection on the Psalm for August 4th, 2019:
Eighteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time

​Psalm 90

R. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

You turn man back to dust, and say, “Turn back, you children of Adam.” For a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night.

R. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

You sweep them away; they are like a dream, like grass that is renewed in the morning; in the morning it flourishes and is renewed; in the evening it fades and withers. 

R. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

So teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart. Turn, O Lord! How long? Have compassion on your servants! 

R. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

Satisfy us in the morning with your stead-fast love, so that we may rejoice and be glad all our days. Let the favour of the Lord our God be upon us, and prosper for us the work of our hands.

​R. Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

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Dust in a box. We had to put one of our cats down the other week. I held his head in one hand and patted him with the other as he past. And now he’s dust in a box. Silly woman that I am, I’m having a hard time putting the box in the ground. I have my mom-in-law’s dust in a box of sorts as well. I held her hand with one of mine and stroked her hair with the other and sang to her as she past.  She wanted to be spread on the Atlantic where it touches Lockeport. Somehow I never seem to get there. Seems I have time letting go of dust, even though I know dust alone is not what we are meant for.  I know it in my bones.  Interesting phrase that.  It contains both a reference to the me that becomes dust, and the me that touches more.  
 
Dust to dust. There are bits of me that have been around longer than I understand. Stardust made in the furnace of far off suns, carried to earth. Bits of me that will go back to being dust given enough time. Even stardust, given a really long time. And it’s all His. Matter matters. And the life He breathed into me is His too. The Life He breathes into me.  Pneumatos. Animus. Greek and latin words meaning both wind and breath and Spirit.


I think at some level we all know this, even if we don’t know we know it.  We long for being part of something that goes on.

We are dust, but we were meant for more. We are desired and designed to hold Life.

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We see something wondrous and beautiful presented to us on this planet, or in a painting or through a piece of music and it’s like we want to latch on to beauty, hook into it and carry on, be part of it forever.  At the forefront of our minds know we are temporary, but deep underneath it all we long for everlasting, we know that’s what we were made for and are separated from. We were meant to eat from the tree of life, but now we can’t reach it.  We are dust, but we were meant for more. We are desired and designed to hold Life. 



Satisfy me in the morning with Your steadfast love. v14 


Oh my Jesus, that is — You are — where my eternity lies. My moments past these ones inhabiting my current dust exist because of your Love, exist in Your Love. 


Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations. v1


You are the Home I’m longing for, the place all this dust I live in and love in always and only hints at. I see something beautiful here in the movement of water, or in the interplay of wind in the branches or fading light on the clouds, or in the joy on the face of a friend and You are shining through the dust in front of me.  But it’s You who draws me in and on. 
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Noreen Smith

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