Of dust and the best sort of magic

Sun is shining. It's a bit of a tease these days, considering the deep collective yearning for spring. If only I could flip the calendar an extra page and coax the sun to follow suit...

No dust particle floating freely can escape these winter rays, strong and true. What kind of magic turns dirt to glitter mid-air, anyway?

The best sort of magic.

* * * * *

Lift the heavy history book down from its place up high, out of sight, out of reach, out of remembrance. Down to earth, to heart, back to mind. Down down down it has been awhile, you think. Exhale and dust flies off the familiar pages. The scar-words. The penned lies written like facts meant only for rote memorization. No, no, you mutter, that is not me. Exhale all the foul thoughts and watch them scatter under breath and light. Exhale you are foul. Inhale you are loved.

* * * * * 

The boy says that Lent starts today anyway so it's a good time to give up all dairy and see if he feels better. Lent is for giving something up, he tells me. Everybody gives up something for forty days. Like chocolate or coffee or video games.

I tell him the old story about ashes, repentance, humility, this tradition of soul-searching by sacrificing bits of self. I feel it again, familiar, ash cross on forehead for all to see. 

I am dust. I am human.

Daily residue builds up. It has built up, I realize again. Today's failures, unspoken dreams, all the agony of watching Hurt fester in others, all the helpless nights and fearful mornings. All of it, dead cells, waiting to be sloughed off.

I am dust and it's getting caught in my lungs.

...because we were created from dust, I tell him, and some day our bodies will be dust again. We remember who we are, that we are The Created. And by remembering our dustiness, maybe we also are reminded of our shine. Reflectors of Light and of a magic turning.

If Lent is about recalling my own brokenness, my dusty self, my handwritten lies and biting past...if Lent is about sensing the need to depend on God to stitch up my open wounds and make me whole again, then I am already there.  I am sitting in it, and there is grace here. This terrible and marvelous year of dependence. This is all Lent, I say.

And God isn't asking me to go on a diet and call it sacrifice. "This is the kind of fasting I want," He says.

He just wants me.

He wants to breathe Life into my dusty corners and let me watch the past turn to diamonds in the winter's sun. Even ashes reflect Life, I hear whispered.

Exhale I am foul. Inhale I am loved.

What kind of magic is this that brings the dead to life?