Children of Dust

Dust.
We are a people, a race of dust.
Formed from the ground.
Sprung from the dirt.
Crafted of clay.
Who are we that You O God are mindful of us?
We are tiny particles of earth.
Ground bits of rock and dirt.
Grains of sand and no more.
Without Your spirit, Your Life breathed into us, we are gravel on the ground.
Unable to move. Unable to grow.
We cannot see, feel, hear, smell, taste or touch
Unable to do anything but lie there.
Wisdom laughs thinking of us, each believing how amazing we are as humans.
And yet, we are a bunch of rock heads.
Our heads are full of rocks.
Our knowledge full of sand and dirt.
Without You we are clay formations, lifeless clay masks, hollow inside, no life in us.
We may be painted bright and beautiful or strange and odd....
but it is paint on the clay and no more.
Without Your breath of life within, we are carcasses simply waiting to be turned back into dirt.
We are but a vapor.
A borrowed breath from Heaven.
A flower or blade of grass which lives but today and tomorrow is gone.
Bits of dust blowing in the wind.
Sand upon a shore to be washed here and there by the tide.
Who are we that You are mindful of us?
Without You as our rock upon which we are built and fastened, we are doomed to be no more.
But You have called the Rock on which You would build Your church.
And if we are part of that church, we must also be living stones.
I am reminded of stones as means to build Your altars.
You were also called the Rock that the builders rejected which would be the cornerstone of a whole new world.
And there's no forgetting the use of stones in the punishment of those sentenced to die.
Stoning.
To stand and throw rocks at another until they died of trauma and blood loss.
Barbaric.
I think of the woman dragged out of her sin and into the middle of the other waiting men there in front of You...
They all wanted to see You stone her.
They wanted it enough they all picked up stones in their hands to kill that woman.
We want BLOOD!
She is WRONG!
And oddly enough, the stones remind me of the words we use to throw at one another...
sticks and stones may break our bones...
Words aimed like large and small rocks and stones, hurled through the air to strike and cause the most damning punishment.
Let us KILL the other because they are WRONG!
And yet... to the side You knelt, squatting on the ground, as though You didn't hear them, and You took Your finger and wrote in the dust.
Much like when we were formed... children of dust, demanding justice when we all deserved only death.
They questioned and questioned until at last You stood up and spoke,

"Let those who are without sin cast the first stone."
You, offering to give them Your right, for You alone had no sin.
But none of them could match You.
Each one thought of his own sin, dropped his rock, turned and left.
Profound.
The ultimate rock thrown back.
The precise word aimed at each heart.
You knew.
Took aim.
Threw the stone exactly where it needed to land.
Convicted.
Then You turned back to the dust on the ground and used Your Holy fingers which created us to write in the dust again.
And as they left, You got up again and asked the woman where were the other men to accuse her.
She looked around and there were none but You.
You aimed true at her heart and said, Neither do I condemn you. Go and stop sinning.

Aim your Words at me, Lord. 
I know they will strike true.
Cut away all that is dead and lifeless and not Yours.
Leave only what grows from You.
Let nothing remain of my old rock-headed stubbornness

Break me apart as I fall upon You.
Your words are power.
You gave us language.
You made words for a use and a purpose.
We are unable to speak without Your breath.
Without Your life breathed into us, we are lifeless.
Unseeing.
Unknowing.
Unspeaking.
Unable to move.
Unbreathing.
Unable to be more than dust outside of You.
Lord God, who are we and Great are You.