Blessing of the Dust

At which time I share one of my favorite Jan Richardson poems

Blessing the Dust by Jan Richardson

All those days you felt like dust, like dirt,

as if all you had to do was turn your face

toward the wind and be scattered

to the four corners or swept away

by the smallest breath as insubstantial –

did you not know what the Holy One

can do with dust?

This is the day we freely say

we are scorched. This is the hour

we are marked by what has made it

through the burning.

This is the moment we ask for the blessing

that lives within the ancient ashes,

that makes its home inside the soil of

this sacred earth.

So let us be marked not for sorrow.

And let us be marked not for shame.

Let us be marked not for false humility

or for thinking we are less

than we are but for claiming

what God can do

within the dust,

within the dirt,

within the stuff

of which the world is made

and the stars that blaze

in our bones and the galaxies that spiral

inside the smudge

we bear.