{"id":1433,"date":"2021-02-17T12:30:51","date_gmt":"2021-02-17T17:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/redchairblogs.wpengine.com\/holymoly\/?p=1433"},"modified":"2021-02-17T12:30:51","modified_gmt":"2021-02-17T17:30:51","slug":"dust","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/2021\/02\/17\/dust\/","title":{"rendered":"Dust"},"content":{"rendered":"

Many years ago we had a Student Development retreat at Dean John Eccles\u2019 house where we all brought our favorite quotes. I remember it being a very energizing exercise, and I wish I could find my notebook from the day to share some of the collective wisdom.<\/span><\/p>\n

I took an Ana\u00efs Nin quote from a painting I have in my bedroom hallway:<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

I sometimes need the reminder that there is a cost to remaining static…a cost to resisting change.<\/span><\/p>\n

This week in preparing for Ash Wednesday I encountered the rest of the quote. Paired with the familiar verse for Ash Wednesday, \u201cYou are dust and to dust you shall return.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAnd the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.<\/span><\/p>\n

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.<\/span><\/p>\n

Living never wore one out so much as the effort not to live.<\/span><\/p>\n

Life is truly known only to those who suffer, lose, endure adversity and stumble from defeat to defeat.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perfection is static, and I am in full progress.<\/span><\/p>\n

Abnormal pleasures kill the taste for normal ones.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The pandemic has drawn us closer to our own mortality. The virus is a threat to all of us. The sheer number of deaths is astounding, not only deaths directly linked to COVID, but the deaths of so many who died more quickly because of isolation, fear of seeking health care, and poverty. My heart continues to break for the families in our campus community who have lost so many, many friends and relatives. Isn\u2019t it amazing that the mighty human being at the top of the pyramid can be shaken by a microscopic virus.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ash Wednesday is about humility – realizing that the daily effort and drama, our gifts and our weaknesses, our piety and our wealth – are so little in the breadth of history. We will begin and end as dust, the raw material for creation. We start and end our journey as part of the planet. Perhaps that very ending is where we start our next journey.<\/span><\/p>\n

No matter who you are, where you are, or what you do, birth and death are the great equalizers. The journey in between is up to each of us. We all start out with different resources. We will all have different experiences, different genetics, different loves and different losses, but we end up as dust. It is the journey that defines our living.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

This Lent I will focus on being less static and open to change. I will try to live with less fear and more joy. I will try to live more simply and with more humility. I will try to help others in their journeys and be more open to help with my own. I will be in full progress.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

May your journey be well, Stephanie.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Many years ago we had a Student Development retreat at Dean John Eccles\u2019 house where we all brought our favorite quotes. I remember it being a very energizing exercise, and I wish I could find my notebook from the day …<\/p>\n

Dust<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1433","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-stephanie"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s1QIf6-dust","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1433"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1433\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1433"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1433"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.lynchburg.edu\/holymoly\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1433"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}