Daughter, Meet Dust

Sitting at the table, both munching on cereal, I read to my daughter from Genesis.

And to Adam he said,
“Because you have listened to the voice of your wife
and have eaten of the tree
of which I commanded you,
‘You shall not eat of it,’
cursed is the ground because of you;
in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;
thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you;
and you shall eat the plants of the field.
By the sweat of your face
you shall eat bread,
till you return to the ground,
for out of it you were taken;
for you are dust,
and to dust you shall return.”
(Genesis 3:17-19 ESV)

Chomp, chomp, chomp. She looked at me over her spoon. She gave me her what’s that supposed to mean face and kept chewing.

It’s hard to contemplate mortality with someone who is not even two years old. It’s hard for me to contemplate it as someone in his twenties.

The dust of Lent is our sin, our primordial curse. Yet, truth be told, I love dust. Not on my furniture or in my car, but I love it in the ground. I love what it does.

I planted garlic bulbs in November on a whim to garden year round. It would be perfect timing if all worked out. The garlic would be ready to harvest a few weeks before dropping tomato plants right into their holes. And with this mild winter the garlic scapes are already peeking out and reaching for the sun.

All this because of dust and sun.

Is this really a curse?

It seems like a blessing.

The tension here is what Lent points to: the death and resurrection of Christ. In those three days the tension of death and life, seed and fruit, burial and rising, curse and blessing all mix together.

Dust is a curse. We will return to it one day.

But dust is also a blessing. It is wonderful to see fruit rise out of the earth. It is wonderful to see the fruit of Christ’s resurrection in my life and the lives of others.

I want my daughter to meet the dust with wide-eyed wonderment, to feel it on her flesh, it’s grossness and it’s beauty. The curse and the blessing.