The following is the full text of the April edition of my monthly column, Tea & Empathy, in the Redmond UMC Newsletter. Click here to go to the RUMC website to download the newsletter.
This year on Ash Wednesday we were blessed to worship with our District Superintendent, Rev. Pat Simpson, who shared a sermon with us. In her sermon she confessed her “love/hate” relationship with Ash Wednesday services, and specifically with the phrasing “remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return” when the mark of ashes is placed on the foreheads of each person. I, too, have struggled with this phrasing and reflected on it after hearing her thoughtful insights about the matter. I mean, it’s really pretty morbid. And aren’t we more than just dust?
Of course it is true that one day we will die and our physical bodies will eventually decompose (or be cremated) and return to the earth. But just because it’s true doesn’t mean it’s not a depressing and morbid thought. In a society in which we psychologically beat ourselves up for being imperfect, not to mention often experiencing tremendous fear and anxiety about our eventual death, what psychological or spiritual value is there in remembering that “we are dust, and to dust we shall return”?
In asking this question, I couldn’t help thinking of something I heard in a seminary class on Spirituality, and that is that all of us are made of stardust. I know that sounds far-fetched at first, but the truth is that all the atoms, molecules, and minerals in our bodies came at some point from the explosion of a star. In fact, all of the matter in the universe is made from the same material. The matter in your body is literally stardust. From stardust your body came, and to stardust your body will return.
So the “dust” of our bodies is less like the particles floating in the air that exacerbate allergies and create a hassle to clean up, and more like all of the vibrant, beautiful, and precious creation in the whole universe. The dust of our bodies is the same “dust” that makes up the flowers in the fields, the rocky peaks of the mountains, and even the stars of galaxies our scientists have not yet discovered. To say that our bodies are made of dust is to affirm that they are made of the same stuff that makes up all of God’s sacred creation.
Each one of our bodies is completely unique, beloved, and precious. Our bodies will die, yes. And the water and compounds and minerals that make them up will return to the cycle of life. But there will never be another body—another embodied person—just like you. So during this Lenten season, as we are mindful of our mortality and our imperfections, let us not be misled into thinking that acknowledging that “we are dust” denigrates us.
Because we may be dust, but we are precious dust.