dust and back again [a song and its exegesis]

It’s been an interesting week. I feel like a martini: shaken, stirred and sure to confuse and disorient you if you spend enough time in my company. When you have bizarre weeks, you either become predictable or erratic. Or, if you are like me and refuse to be outdone, you embody both regularity and chaos.

For example: this week I have logged hours in prayer, word games, and the consumption of caffeinated beverages. [This is not unusual, as I think you can surmise.]On the other hand, I wrote a song tonight, which I haven’t done in years. [This is unusual indeed.] Of course, what you read here, like everything else I write, could be totally different in a moment or two. But I digress.

This little ditty, “Dust and Back Again”, is a series of impressions surrounding a particularly interesting belief: the idea that people are both made of dirt and made to be like G*d, all at the same time. This is one of the more beautiful and humbling realizations of my Faith.

And I seem to be reminded at every turn that I am just as human as I ever was. . . however, I am doing my best to hold tight to that Spark, that little bit of Transcendent beauty I believe each of us has been given to use and enjoy as our gift.

I hope some of my words help you. Don’t forget: you are wonderful, simplistic, and full of fire and gleam. Hold on tight.

"For He knows how we are formed. He remembers that we are dust." - Psalm 103:14

Dust and Back Again

Sweep me up to shake me off

First your eyes burn then you cough

I am the ground and Holy Things

Friend of worms and kin to kings

 

Ash to dust

And back again

So good to see your face my friend

 

Beaten from a Persian rug

Filling in the grave you dug

Choked by rain and charred by sun

Chains rust in wait to be undone

 

Ash to dust

And back again

So good to see your face my friend

 

Fearfully and wonderfully made we are

Fearfully and wonderfully made

 

Flesh and soil lose themselves

In myrrh and tabernacle bells

Crumbs of bread and drops of wine

Up from earth to the Divine

 

Ash to dust

And back again

So good to see your face my friend

 

Fearfully and wonderfully made we are

Fearfully and wonderfully made

 

-© Beth Hopkins