"Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return."
Dust In the Wind
by Kansas
I close my eyes, only for a moment,
and the moment's gone
All my dreams, pass before my eyes,
a curiosity
Dust in the wind,
all they are is dust in the wind
Same old song, just a drop of water
in an endless sea
All we do, crumbles to the ground,
though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind,
All we are is dust in the wind
Don't hang on, nothing lasts forever
but the earth and sky
It slips away, all your money
won't another minute buy
Dust in the wind,
All we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind
Everything is dust in the wind
Everything is dust in the wind
This song always gets to me. It reminds me of the facts of my life, the base simplicity of it. We are, after all, dust. Fashioned from the elements of the mother earth, one with Her and our Creator. A creature among other creatures is our lot. We all, can and do, get caught up in distractions. Be it work, relationships, intellectual pursuits, political activity, or any other thing that removes our mind from just this moment, who I am. Pray for me, brothers and sisters.
And our pride may swell; we forget that dust made us, and the earth that sustains us. The world gets a little hazy, technology makes it fuzzier. We imagine things to come, things to be, and things that just may not be true at all. We are afraid; we're angry. Our love is thwarted. We want to hurt, to injure, and then it happens: the call comes to tell us someone is suffering; they're dying, someone is dead. Our world re-focuses; it re-balances, like the earth spinning on its axis. In a second our perspective is turned, forced to turn to the most basic, the most immediate, just this moment. That is the moment we have, the moment we have been given.
Lent, is a season guided by the sun and the moon, its date changing annually as a result, and we are ritually turned to these basic facts of life. Forty days of meditations, penance, revelations, a return to the most basic, to the center; it culminates in the Easter of the Lord. The resurrection and revelation by the Spirit. We celebrate its joyful arrival in a ritual of prayer and song.
The Lent as we know it has ancient roots stretching back to the Hebrews. The Torah tells us of a need and time for repentance. "Man begins from dust and ends in dust" Genesis 3:19; "the breath in our nostrils is as smoke... our body shall be turned to ashes, and our spirit shall vanish as the soft air... our life shall pass away as the trace of a cloud... and shall be dispersed as a mist... for our time is a very shadow that passes away." Wisdom 2:2-5, [Sirach]
What do we want our time on earth to be for? Will we come to the end of it and discover that we spent our time mostly breathing and eating? Surely the Lord of Hosts has made us for better, for the good? While we may hide from the facts of our life for a time, in the end we will be called; to what do we wish, to be attached to our name; our dust is in the wind.
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