I Am Not Dust

Even though I am a pastor, I am not much for religious rites. I am more interested in the spiritual meaning. Ash Wednesday was always out of my religious comfort zone. That changed during my last year in fulltime ministry when I participated in an ecumenical Ash Wednesday Service.

I told the host pastor I would not be receiving the ashes, but when she offered the option of having ashes placed on our hands rather than on our foreheads I changed my mind. That felt safe enough for this old Baptist preacher. Now I love Ash Wednesday and the words, “Remember you are dust and unto dust you shall return.”

Dust is everywhere, especially in these final weeks of winter when our homes are longing for a spring cleaning. I get ashes on me daily as I tend to my woodstove. I scatter sand on our driveway. I track dirt into our entryway. Dust cohabitates our home with us, in spite of our attempts at “dusting.” Dusting just moves the dust around.

Likewise ashes are everywhere. They are piled in the ash bucket next to the woodstove in our living room. They coat my eyeglasses. Daily I find soot on my hands, arms and clothing. Sometimes I feel like Job “covered in dust and ashes.” The omnipresence of dust and ashes make them excellent symbols for the omnipresent God.

Dust is also an apt metaphor for our human nature. Our bodies are made of dust. Carl Sagan called it stardust. God told Adam in Genesis that one day our bodies will return to dust. “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust,” as the burial ritual says. That truth was made real while I was writing this post and got news that a friend and colleague in active ministry here in New Hampshire died suddenly while returning from vacation.

Contemplating our mortality points us to the immortal. Contemplating our material nature points us to our spiritual nature. Having my face smudged with ash points me to my True Face, which is not made in the image of my simian ancestors but made in the image of God.

A Zen koan says, "Show me your original face before you were born.” My ashy face points me to my unborn face. Ashes remind me of the inevitable dissolution of my physical form, which leaves only the unformed, which is my true nature. There is a poem I have often read at graveside services. It reads in part:

I am the thousand winds that blow

I am the diamond glints in snow

I am the sunlight on ripened grain,

I am the gentle, autumn rain.

As you awake with morning’s hush,

I am the swift, up-flinging rush

Of quiet birds in circling flight,

I am the day transcending night.

The refrain “I am” reminds me what I am. Jesus called himself the “I am” that precedes all predicates.  Jesus was pointing his hearers to the Divine Nature that was revealed to Moses in the burning bush. The bush on Sinai burned but did not turn to ashes. “I AM” is indestructible. “I AM” is in the body and beyond the grave. “I AM” is in human forms and beyond form.

Tonight I will be attending a contemplative Ash Wednesday service. When the pastor places ashes on my forehead and intones “Remember you are dust and unto dust you shall return,” I will remember that though this body is dust, I am not this dusty frame. I do not have to return anywhere. I am here now. I remember who I am. I am what I was before I was born and after I die. So are you. Remember.