Erik Varden’s The Shattering of Loneliness begins with a Lenten reflection.  The book consists of six pieces, with each piece focusing on a different truth that Christians are called to remember.  The first ties into Ash Wednesday: remember you are dust.

The call to remember that we are dust is one of the best places to start any journey towards Easter.  It is a callback to the beginning of Genesis and therefore to the beginning of all things, ourselves included.

⁷ Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being. [NIV]

It also acts as a thread that carries over into the “second act” of the Biblical Story, where Adam and Eve eat the fruit and realize they are naked and then are told by God that

¹⁹ By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.” [NIV]

Ash Wednesday, which begins the Lenten season for many Christians, is a call to remember that we are dust but should also remind us that we are oh so much more, which is by the design of our Creator.

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Varden has a lot to say about our “dusty disposition” that’s worth a read.  All of it is good encouragement to remember something significant about the human condition.  He writes:

This sentence is sometimes called “the curse of Adam.”  It is a misnomer.The Lord’s words do not condemn. They simply state a fact.By acting as he did, disregarding the precept, Adam preferred his criteria to those of his Maker.  He, who, at first, had stood face to face with the flaming countenance of God, whose being reflected God’s glory, yielded to presumption. He thought he subsisted at God’s level by some quality intrinsic to himself . . .  He forgot that his spiritual nature was given him by grace, the biblical word for a gift that is gratuitous and free, which no effort or deserving can obtain. (15-16)

He has much to say about the linguistic connection with being from the earth and the virtue of humility.  He reminds the reader that “For a Christian, spiritual growth presupposes rootedness in matter” (19-20).  Our tall towers and planet-leaving imaginations must and should always be brought back “down to earth” in a way.  And yet our “dusty disposition” calls us to something greater in another way:

Dust though we are, we can never find rest in being nothing but dust, having known the gentle touch of God’s fingers. (21)

Such a great image, both humbling and uplifting!  One other thought for now about being dust and knowing the “gentle touch of God’s fingers”:

A human being is dust called to glory.  To remain in that tension is a challenge.  It takes time and strength of purpose to be reconciled to it.  To accept that my nature is defined by a sense of incompletion so vast that it cannot be repaired within the order of creation— not by any possession, any accomplishment, any relationship— is to embrace radical poverty.  I know the the fulfillment of my being can only come from outside myself, as a gift. I cannot heave myself up to the heights I long to reach.  But I can be carried there. (21-22)

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One of my goals for the next few weeks is to post a weekly reflection on each chapter of The Shattering of Loneliness, which should lead up nicely to Easter.  I should’ve written and posted this entry earlier, but the end of last week was busier than I had anticipated.  I’ll likely revisit some of what Varden said about “our dusty disposition” in the second post.  He has much more to say about God’s goodness and human nature: he does an impressive job weaving in thoughts and reflections from literature, the visual and performing arts, and the lives of various saints, monks, and nuns.  Remembering that we are dust touched by glory, though, is a great place to start.