Dust

I am tired today. Honestly, I would rather be taking a nap I don’t really need than writing right now. Naps are sometimes my escape from dealing with unknown – the same way movies and tv sometimes are. If I am asleep, I don’t have to think, or find answers, or be okay with no answers.

I am choosing to write instead – because I am tired of wasting time.

Yesterday, I swept the floor at work. It is a simple task that I’ve done oh so many times. But yesterday, the sun was setting as I swept and the broom and I wove our way in and out of pure gold. It was gold you could feel, even when you weren’t standing it. The kind of light that makes the room feel still and rich. The kind of light you could drink.

“Glory, I have known you my whole life
In the morning, you come in gentle as a golden vine
Through my window, you fill up the valleys in my sheets. Glory”
— Byran John Appleby, glory

Glory. I was a being consumed in glory as dust on the floor swirled and glistened in the gold. Dust, unwanted, dirty, burdensome to the floor, was brought up into and through the gold, and was made beautiful.

Ashes to ashes dust to dust,
This flesh is not forever,
Spirit to Spirit,
Life to Life –
All that you are,
Is all I will be;
Soon, Lord, in You forever.

— hymn from the Morning Office this week

In being swept into the glory of that gold, the dust became more than it ever dreamed of being before. I delighted in the dust, it was breath-taking.

Spirit to Spirit. Life to Life. All that you are, is all I will be.

I am dust.

When I am sitting in the glory of the Creator, that glory – his glory – defines me. And I am breath-taking.