“By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” -Genesis 3:19 

This verse gets a lot of attention, or at least the last phrase does, as we approach Ash Wednesday and the beginning of our Lenten Journey.  Through the imposition of ashes, we are reminded of our humanity, that our time in these mortal bodies is both fragile and temporary.  This year we are perhaps better prepared than ever to consider our mortality. There are many days when I have felt like ashes, burnt up and spent.  This year, since ashes and death have felt far too close already, I am called to a different kind of meditation; I am choosing to continue on to verse 20: “The man named his wife Eve, because she was the mother of all living.”  I will remember that dust doesn’t stay dust and becoming dusty isn’t a punishment- it’s necessary for rebirth. Like so much of our language of faith, this is a cyclical process and not a one and done experience. Returning to the ground isn’t the end, it’s a return journey that we can make time and time again to the place where the mother of all life waits for us to once again form sacred bonds and bodies.

In preparation for the new season on HBO, I returned to a beloved book series: The His Dark Materials trilogy by Philip Pullman. (If you aren’t interested in story spoilers, skip ahead to the next paragraph.) This series centers on humanity’s relationship with a force called “Dust” and a girl named Lyra who is prophesied to be the new Eve. In Lyra’s universe, the Authority (the church) believes Dust is something to be hated and feared. In their version of the Book of Genesis, the serpent is responsible for bringing Dust into the world by tempting Eve to taste the fruit of knowledge of good and evil. However, Lyra comes to a different understanding, voiced in this interview with Pullman: “Our relationship with what I call Dust is a mutually dependent one and this may not be the traditional Orthodoxy’s view of the relationship of the human and the divine, but I do see it as being mutually nurturing and mutually necessary. We depend on Dust. It is a physical analog of everything that is consciousness: Dust is everything that is best about humanity – love, kindness, and curiosity -our duty is to increase the presence of dust in the world. It’s a mutual thing. Without us, Dust will dwindle away and without Dust, we will dwindle away.”

I hear this in verse 20.  I also believe our relationship with the divine is one of mutuality. Eve is the mother of all living, a partner with God. This Ash Wednesday, I will think of dust not only as the place from whence I have come and shall return, but also about the goodness that may still be born of my dustiness.  This Lenten season, I challenge you to find an elemental connection between you and the divine. What mutual gift are you bringing forth with your sacred dust, and with your God, that we may also be partners with the mother of all living?