You Are Stardust

from ashes to divine creation

God said to Abraham: ‘Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.’

This is the call of every immigrant, whose faces are in the news every day, as well as the Lenten call issued to all of us. It’s been 40 years since any serious immigration reform in this country. These 40 years are no biblical metaphor but a real desert of fear, discrimination and uncertainty for so many who, like Abraham and Sarah, were called to a new land. And what of the rest of us? To what new places are we summoned? And who and what are the (metaphorical perhaps) kinfolk and landscape we are we are invited to leave?

This year, I received a bold smudge of ashes. Something I needed. A call to shape up and stop toying with holiness but to go forth into that land of authenticity, of growing into the holy one God intends. How is it that palms - the symbol of last year’s triumph of Palm Sunday and Jesus’ jubilant entry into Jerusalem - end as a smudge of ash on foreheads? New beginnings emerge from something that has died and been transformed. This is the Paschal Mystery in a nutshell. Last year’s palms become the ashes of hope for me today, the reminder that I must release into transformation.

Years ago, a flirting astronomer once told me I was made of stardust. The astronomer is long-gone but the image remains for both its literal and aspirational truth. All the elements in the human body - such as carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen - can be traced to ancient stars from which the earth, planets, and all forms of life emerged. The dust of Genesis is this stardust that is interconnected with all of creation brought forth by the Divine Hand.¹ All are one. It’s the “integral ecology” that Pope Francis describes.² This perspective calls me into that ‘right relationship’ to which we are called.

We’ve crossed the midpoint of Lent and the spring equinox is also upon us. Mid-points are liminal spaces. We’ve left behind something that is gone but have not yet arrived at what is to come. Our moorings are unstable. Doubt and weariness creep in. Yoga teachers instruct that it is out of the wavering and struggling to hold a posture that strength, balance, and stamina emerge. Hmmm…

Photo by kike vega on Unsplash

Today was one of those days when one could nearly taste spring. The snows have melted so I walked the garden to have a look at things. Some shrubs, still wintering and bare-boned, caught my attention as needing pruning. Esther DeWaal in her book The White Stone talks about the need for pruning in our lives — “cutting back so that fruitfulness may grow.” ³ I thought that a good definition of Lent and have found myself engaged in some serious pruning and releasing: of habits that do not serve Life, of harsh thoughts and hasty judgements, of lingering anger, of fears - so that greater fruitfulness and trust, perhaps, may emerge.

For see, the winter is past…the time of pruning has come…

Arise, my friend, my beautiful one, and come!

~ Song of Songs 2:11-13

This inner work is not easy for me; it’s truth-telling on steroids. Yet this brutal honesty with self is the only road to Easter. Transformation takes no detours or short cuts. It’s that stardust image that keeps calling me into that image and likeness of God.

I am grateful for the seasonal shifts that give rhythm to life and remind me of its continual growth and renewal. I am also grateful for the renewing liturgical seasons with their symbols and rituals that nourish and enlighten me on this ever-evolving journey both as individual and as part of the many communities that give shape to my life. These alignments of season and ritual never fail to teach me and invite me deeper into the inner-work that needs to be done.

This is my blessing for you:

Whatever wilderness the Spirit has brought you to:

walk in boldness, as a beloved child of God

walk in peace, under the shelter of the Most High

walk in faith, knowing Christ walks with you.

~ Joanna Harader, Spacious Faith

The dust of Genesis, the smudge of ashes on my forehead, and the stardust of the cosmos all invite me to surrender and rest in the loving, merciful hands of the Divine One.

Blessings on the journey,

Joanne

1. For more about the intersection of faith and science, I invite you to consider the writings of Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, SJ, the 20th century Jesuit scientist and theologian or the more contemporary Ilia Delio, OSF who continues to explore the frontiers of religious cosmology.

2. Laudato Si, Pope Francis, 2015

3. Esther DeWaal, The White Stone: the art of letting go, Canterbury Press, 2021