Blessing the Dust
Opening Myself to What God Can Do
To start Lent this year, I had ashes imposed on my head twice. One in the afternoon ecumenical service and one in the evening at the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Geneva. There’s something profound that happens when I hear the words reminding us that we are dust, and to dust we shall return repeated.
The question below shimmered to me:
Did you not know what the Holy One can do with dust?
I will open myself this season to let God do what needs to be done in me. That’s my simple prayer.
BLESSING THE DUST
All those days
you felt like dust,
like dirt,
as if all you had to do
was turn your face
toward the wind
and be scattered
to the four corners
or swept away
by the smallest breath
as insubstantial—
did you not know
what the Holy One
can do with dust?
This is the day
we freely say
we are scorched.
This is the hour
we are marked
by what has made it
through the burning.
This is the moment
we ask for the blessing
that lives within
the ancient ashes,
that makes its home
inside the soil of
his sacred earth.
So let us be marked
not for sorrow.
And let us be marked
not for shame.
Let us be marked
not for false humility
or for thinking
we are less
than we are
but for claiming
what God can do
within the dust,
within the dirt,
within the stuff
of which the world
is made
and the stars that blaze
in our bones
and the galaxies that spiral
inside the smudge
we bear
—Jan Richardson
from Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons
janrichardson.com/books