Are We Dust or Something Else?
The saying goes, "Dust to dust..." BUT isn't there more?
What stirs inside of you when you hear the phrase…dust to dust?
If you truly think about it, versus only letting the words go in one ear and out the other…
Does it leave you feeling warm and fuzzy?!
Does it cause you to feel anxious, or think about the end…death…”What comes after death?”
Does it feel like it ticks all of life’s boxes, giving the final answer to all of life’s questions about living a fulfilling life, as it seems it is meant to do when shared with the masses…like a reminder from a knowing, ominous, somewhat negative parent…
don’t forget, you’re made of dust and you’ll be dust once again…
don’t screw up…
do what’s right…
you’re insignificant…
Does it feel heavy, off, or not quite complete…not exactly right in terms of the end?
And what about the beginning? Who was I…Who were you…
What were we…before we were dust?
Dust to dust feels so brief, concrete, and final, and since I’ve spent the last few years contemplating the phrase, and how often we hear it repeated in writing, out-loud in church services…I just can’t believe that’s all there is to it, to life. Especially when I’ve also spent a great deal of time reading from authors like Carl Jung, Jospeh Campbell, and metaphysical, mystical writers and thinkers who share their energy/quantum-physics-like theories and ideas, authors like Wayne Dyer, Neville Goddard, and Esther and Jerry Hicks.
If you think about energy for a minute, about our Holy Spirit…
While our physical bodies might indeed be of dust and return to dust one day…our ethereal and eternal Spirit’s don’t fall into the same category. Surely our Spirit is far more majestic than dust and ashes.
Yes, anything physical can be turned to dust. Just throw it in the pit and strike a match…poof…dust and ash.
But what about the Spirit…the thing that cannot be seen, only felt. Like an energy current that runs through the walls in our homes or through the engines in our cars.
Our Spirit is the energy current that runs through our bodies…
I see it as light, not dust.
Let’s look a little deeper at…
the original statements of “dust”
“…for dust you are, and to dust you shall return.”
Genesis 3:19
“…earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”
Book of Common Prayer, burial service
That’s fine…ashes to ashes, dust to dust…it gives us an answer to our physical body. But I think we need something more…
These Biblical statements, though they come from books dating back thousands / hundreds of years, they do not allow for the full experience of our human life, for our existence in this very human body, as a physical being and a spiritual being. Our beings that are both concrete and energetic in form.
For all the ways we are encouraged to contemplate the Holy Spirit, we must think of ourselves as Spirit, too. Which this common phrase, dust to dust, does not take into account.
Wouldn’t it help us a great deal to acknowledge that, separate from our physical body (the dust part), the Spirit part of us, cannot become “dust” once we move on from earth?
Yes?!
So, for us, I’ve fixed the common phrase to be more fitting to our physical and spiritual life experience…a phrase that can answer what was in the beginning and what is at the end of our significant, important, meaningful, special lives…
Dust to Dust
AND
Light to Light
It is because of that divine spark at our conception that was pure, boundless, and infinite energy, and the eternalness of our Spirits before and after our lives on earth…that we were, before the beginning, LIGHT…and we will be LIGHT again, after the end, after our bodies return to dust and ash.
Final thoughts…
As a mother, it serves me well to think of each of us as Light instead of dust. It is uplifting, positive, and offers hope as my daughter finds her own way in the world (and I find my way in a world that will, down the road, not revolve entirely around her 🥺😭).
We can choose to accept the doom the world likes to feed us, or we can choose to listen more deeply to the subtle message in the doom (it’s opposite), and instead, hear it as a call for hope, love, kindness, and Light.
Our physical world and bodies are not eternal, but our Spirits are. We, as energy, as Spirit, existed long before our physical bodies came to take form on Earth..and that thought gives me great peace and hope for what is to come…on Earth and in Heaven.
Because, honestly, I can’t imagine infinity without my family. And by having the faith that we are energy, we are Light…I know we will all always exist together.
xoxo Michelle
P.S. Remember “Deep Thoughts” by Jack Handey?! 😄
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