Dust Has Turned its Back

Even now, says the LORD,
return to me with your whole heart,
with fasting, and weeping, and mourning;
Rend your hearts, not your garments,
and return to the LORD, your God.
Joel 2:12-18

See, dust has turned its back on dust,
has broken limbs and broken trust—
but will return, as all things must,
for dust comes ever back to dust.

But even now, let dust return;
let arrogance to ashes burn,
the joyous with the grieving mourn,
for all alike to dust return.

The trumpet sound! Proclaim a fast,
the first as hungry as the last.
The hoarded seed now sow broadcast,
for harvest day is coming fast.

Reap it before that sun has set
to feed your foes and pay the debt
for all the pain your sin begets,
and join the feast your Savior set.

For there shall all the last be first 
to fill their hunger, sate their thirst.
The best shall sit beside the worst.
For all alike shall Christ be first.

Then come to him: Become the last.
Lay down your pride; begin the fast
before another day has passed,
before the feast begins at last.

Ash Wednesday by Carl Spitzweg: the end of Carnival By Carl Spitzweg – The Yorck Project (2002) 10.000 Meisterwerke der Malerei (DVD-ROM), distributed by DIRECTMEDIA Publishing GmbH. ISBN: 3936122202., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=159077

Praise God, From the Dust

Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
says dust on currents of his love;
praise from the silt that sinks below,
though it may long to float above.

We who could never bear his weight—
holiness is a heavy thing—
we cannot climb to heaven's gates;
we can do naught but sink and sing.

Praise God, all creatures of the depths,
whose current bears us further down
where there is no more light or breath;
praise God in whom we dive and drown.

For there, beneath the universe,
when we have settled in the dark,
the love no holiness deserves
holds us upon its naked heart.

Praise God, who all things can and does,
made us and took the measure of 
and asks no heavy things of dust
but just to settle in his love.

And love, of all things else, endures,
like dust persisting after death.
This we were made for; this is ours,
there at the root of all to rest.

Dust dancing in the sunlight in an old riding hall By E.mil.mil – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36177299

Silt

Like water flowing into dust,
a river running o'er,
one drop of you's a flood to us,
and still the rain, it pours.

And what could mere dust do but float
or sink beneath your waves
and cling to other drowning motes
to love them to their graves?

Oh, how can dust love other dust
or rest within its arms?
The river's current stirring us
will scatter us afar.

We rise and dye the water brown,
then settle where it slows
and cling again to those we've found,
and still the river flows.

O God, in you we live and move,
we break, we still, we die.
How little are our life and love;
how great the seas that rise.

But still you love each mote of dust,
though nothing it may be,
and still your current stirs in us
to bring us to the sea.

Being Dust

The whispered words were, “Let there be,”
that filled the earth with us.
“Return,” the whisper next shall be,
and we shall all be dust.

A thousand years within your sight
are breezes come and gone, 
a restless stirring in the night
that vanishes at dawn.

So we shall fade, so we shall pass,
a sigh upon the wind
caressing new-mown stems of grass,
that shall not come again.

Yet there is this: Your Spirit breathes
and stirs the fallen dust.
An ordinary wonder weaves
through every grain of us:

That anyone could love the mote
caught in the sunny beam
or settled in the grime to coat
the world that you let be.

Then let us love each other's dust
as you have loved it first.
Your Spirit blown in each of us
shows us what dust is worth.