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Stardust Memories

If you secretly (or not so secretly) enjoy Ash Wednesday as much as I do, you’re probably very familiar with its central chorus: Remember you are dust, and unto dust you shall return. But have you ever given the logic of this line any thought? If so, you may have realized that it makes no sense at all—which is exactly what makes it so compelling.
For starters, check out the verb tenses: You are dust, and to dust you shall return. This admixture of present and future tense confounds our understanding of both time and identity. If we are something—dust, Girl Scouts, conspiracy theorists, vegetarians—how can we “return” to being that thing? We already are it. We don’t need to circle back to it in the future.

Well, you might say, a person could stop being a vegetarian and then someday return to that way of life. And yes, this is true of the “hats” we wear (or, in the language of the Philosopher, our “accidents”). Those can change. But the line about dust refers to our essence, the unalterable stuff we are made of. We can’t stop being it.
So this utterly familiar and strangely soothing line actually asserts two contrary truths. It says X = Y and X ≠ Y (or X will someday become Y) all at once.
What do we do with this mind-bending logic? Typically, we ignore it, skim over it, or fudge it. We decide the line has a figural meaning. We take “you are dust” to mean “you are mortal”: i.e., you were once inert, and will be, in death, again. We may also feel chastened by the words. “You’re only dust,” we might hear them say. “Don’t get too big for your britches. There’s only one God, and you’re not it. Remember that.”
But there’s another approach—one that is both radically literal and radically paradoxical. What if we take the line at face value, impossible logic and all? What if we accept that it means exactly what it says, and that its choice of tenses is accurate? What if we hear the line as a reminder of our cosmic identity—not as dead or destined to be so, but as utterly and essentially alive, made, as it were, from the dust of stars, now and forever participants in the unfolding of the universe?
Such a reading is backed up by science. “Pretty much all the material in our universe was dust at one point,” say physicists. “Dust particles are kind of like snowflakes—no two are exactly alike. But they all share a base of common materials: minerals like calcite … and organic materials from stuff that is, or used to be, living.”1
Such a reading is also backed up by the oldest and most generous of Christian theologies—those that see Christ as a cosmic fabric and us, participants in it. “In him all things in heaven and on earth were created,” wrote the first-century author of Colossians, “… and in him all things hold together” (1:16–17). Later, much ink was spilled explaining how something—specifically, God—could be and become itself, or go out from and return to itself, all at once. We call such movement the Trinity today, and we claim to participate in it. Which means that we both are and are on our way toward our source, all at once.
Of course, the invitation to remember that we are stardust on our way comes with another invitation, too: that we not only feel connected, but also act connected. It invites us to wake up to the deep kinship—the absolute identity—among all elements of creation, from the subatomic to the galactic. It invites us to love others as ourselves because they are ourselves—even (or especially) those who exasperate us no end. It invites us to speak out in defense of the voiceless, human and not, including the rocks, hills, plains, and icecaps, all made of stardust, just like us.
When we’re cleaning the floorboards, we might think of dust as a nuisance, as utterly valueless. But this year when I am invited to remember that I am dust, I’ll think of it differently. I’ll think of my infinite and priceless participation in the vast. And I’ll pray that the very least of my actions will be in alignment with the furthest and most unfathomable reaches of the cosmos, adding in some small way to the lovely holding together of all things in Christ.
 
claire-columbo_0Dr. Claire Colombo is the director of the Center for Writing and Creative Expression at the seminary and has served on the seminary’s adjunct faculty since 2012. As a freelance writer, she develops religion and language arts curricula for Loyola Press of Chicago. She is a regular contributor to their “Finding God” magazine and newsletters.
1.  “Scientists Catalog Individual Dust Particles,” NPR Morning Edition, March 13, 2013.

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