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Awareness | Earth Letter | Articles | We Are Dust
We Are Dust, but We Are Not Throwaways
by Nancy Roth
“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
Shortly before leaving for church one Ash Wednesday, my husband and I were startled by a thud against our kitchen door. Because of our large picture windows, we are accustomed to the sound of small birds occasionally brushing against the glass, but this was a far more violent noise. We arrived just in time to glimpse the end of the struggle that produced the sound: A hawk rose from the ground with a female cardinal in its talons and flew to the top of the nearest pine to consume its prey. Our hearts were heavy with the memory of that encounter as we set off for the Ash Wednesday liturgy. When I knelt at the altar rail and felt the rough cross traced on my forehead—“Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return"—all I could think of was the cardinal.
This heaven-sent reminder of the mortality of all creatures was a jarring introduction to the Lenten season, as well as a vivid reminder that death and life are intertwined in nature as well as in human life. To finally accept that reality, which most of us resist acknowledging, is surely a moment of grace. I remember the busy Ash Wednesdays during my years at Trinity Church, Wall Street (NYC), when clergy took turns standing all day just inside the doors of the church. Especially during the lunch hour and after work, people would line up to "get their ashes." I never got over my surprise at hearing "thank you" after I had reminded them that they were going to die someday.
But maybe "thank you" is an appropriate response. Our sense of invincibility often causes us to wait until "tomorrow" (which for some of us will never come) to heal an estrangement, to contact a cherished friend, to pursue an activity that gives us joy and fulfillment and to spend time with God.
Our denial of our dying also blinds us to the death that we ourselves cause in the world around us through our negligent and thoughtless choices. This kind of death—of endangered species, sickened forests, and polluted air—differs from the natural intertwining of life and death that are part of God's design in nature.
In nature, death itself is life-giving, because nothing ever really disappears. Decomposing autumn leaves become rich humus that nourishes the forest. The hawk's prey becomes his dinner, providing energy to soar until he too returns to dust. In nature, everything is recycled. In the planet's intricate ecological design, nothing is ever "thrown away."
Perhaps Lent, which reminds us of our mortality, is a good time to think about this aspect of the divine pattern manifested both in nature and in ourselves. The psychological equivalents of "garbage"—our failures, our disappointments, our griefs, and our grievances—do not disappear automatically. Instead, we need, with God's grace, to courageously recognize their existence and then let them die in order to become part of the richness of a life fully experienced and accepted.
The Jesuit writer George Maloney reminds us in his book The Breath of the Mystic that our inner inability to accept God's gift of life, with all its joys and sorrows may, have a close relationship to another kind of garbage: the trash that litters our highways, crowds our landfills and pollutes our water and air: "What we see around us in the pollution of the air, the streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans, our woods and forests, [cities] and countryside, is but an icon, a dramatic image, externalized, of what man is doing within himself in the unlimited expanses of his 'inner space.' There he was meant to run, fly, soar. Instead, he sits now lonely within himself, sick and afraid."
We are invited in the liturgy for Ash Wednesday to observe the coming season of Lent through "self-examination and repentance, by prayer, fasting and self-denial; and by reading and meditating on God's holy word." The days ahead are an opportunity to deal with our inner garbage, so that we can “run, fly, and soar" because of the forgiveness and love we encounter in God's word. However, we surely need to show forth in our lives what we have encountered in our hearts. Individuals and congregations need to examine not just our souls, but our garbage cans and recycling bins as well!
There are more and more opportunities all the time to join nature's design of "no garbage." I am pleased that when I need to buy a new laser printer cartridge, I am instructed to pack my old one in the box and send it back to the manufacturer for recycling. In the future, more and more companies will make available the opportunity to lease items rather than purchase them. It is now possible, for example, to order a carpet from a company (Interface Corporation) as a service rather than a product. When it wears out, it doesn't get sent to the landfill; instead the company will take it back and recycle the fibers into a new carpet.
The change in our attitude about garbage needs to be incarnated in the way we use the Earth's resources. We can become more aware of "precycling," resisting the temptation to buy throw-away items and items with excess packaging. When the checkout clerk at the supermarket asks “paper or plastic?" we can pull our sturdy cloth grocery bags out of the shopping cart and reply "I brought my own." We can lobby our public servants to expand our community's recycling program. We can save crafts items for nursery schools, senior centers, and art programs. We can construct a compost pile or start a worm bin to recycle food scraps. We can try to decrease the amount of unwanted mail that comes into our homes, by writing to the Mail Preference Service (c/o Direct Marketing Association, P.O.Box 9008, Farmingdale, NY 11735).
And we can help our congregations do the same. Banish the polystyrene cups at the coffee hour (they’re not only real throw-away garbage, but their production creates pollution), and help the secretary organize recycling bins for office paper and discarded Sunday bulletins.
Like any sacramental act, these gestures are a symbol of an inner reality: our desire to live in accordance with God's design for the world, in which the notion of garbage does not exist. As we incorporate these actions into our personal and communal lives, we will find our hearts and attitudes changed. Thus we will be better prepared for new, perhaps more demanding, actions in the future, as we address some of the Earth's most difficult environmental problems.
Each Ash Wednesday, as the symbol of death—and of life—is traced upon our foreheads and we hear that our bodies are dust and will someday return to dust, we are reminded that the life of each creature on Earth is never to be taken for granted. And for that reminder, we can indeed say "thank you."
The Rev. Nancy Roth is a writer with a special interest in environmental issues. She is a Contributing Editor of Earth Letter, and lives in Oberlin, Ohio.