Desert Journeys 14
March 20th 2017
The dust of the road and the dust of the desert permeates so many Bible stories. Seemingly sterile yet imbued with so much possibility. Adam made of clay, stones turned to bread, Jesus healing with spit and dust, Jesus drawing in the dust, hearts of stone being converted, even the Ash Wednesday sentence said to everyone who receives the mark of ash, ‘Remember Man that thou art dust and unto dust thou shalt return’. One cannot spend any time in the countryside around Jerusalem without being struck by the vastness of the desert and the prevalence of dust and stones. Dust is as much a part of daily life now as it was then. It seems no leap of imagination to feel it possible to disappear into the dust of the landscape.
It is the human dichotomy of being as low a form of Creation as the dust yet also being the zenith of this Creation, made ‘little lower than the angels’ that is a meditation that never seems to wear out. How can we be both things at once? How can we get it so wrong, act as selfishly and thoughtlessly as humankind has done for millennia, and yet be loved as much as we are? And yet… And yet … And yet …
We must live with ourselves as we are made, flawed yet beautiful, as common as dust yet called to inspiration.
Adey Grummet
Education and History Officer, All Hallows by the Tower
ON TOWER HILL 