Love & Stardust:

What does it mean
to be made from both Love and Stardust?

What does it mean
to be crafted from both earth and spirit—
dirt and breath?

When Scripture poetically describes
the hands of that which we call God
crafting us from the ancient stardust
which forms the floating sphere we call home—

with all of its imperfections and temporalities,
its decomposition and erosion—

one cannot come to any other conclusion
than that we are going to bear
the same temporal dust
which forms our composition.

Welcome the dirt.

Welcome the temporal.

Welcome the tainted.

The earthbound.

Yet a few verses later,
the same Eternal Creator
breathed its breath into our lungs,
filling us with both divinity
and eternality.

Welcome the spirit.

Welcome the life.

Welcome the eternal.

The good.

What does it mean
to exist in the tension of both?

We often forget that we’re both.

We often forget
that we’re fading flesh
yet eternal spirit.

We often forget
that God rested,
calling all of Creation good—
and with that,
all of us.

How did God not understand
how clay-worn,
how tainted we would become,
we might ask.

How did God not understand
how defiled and polluted Creation
would become
when God declared it good?

My guess is God knew
exactly what was in store,
and what was set in motion—

with all of the peaks and valleys
that were to come.

The eternal would last forever,
and it would be eternally good—

yes,
even the eternally good parts of us.

How easy it is
to get caught up in the temporal around us—

that which fades,
that which decays,
that whose promises fail us
with every passing moment—

and how easy it is
to think it separates us from God.

Like the Prodigal Son,
we search for instant relief
from our conditions
when our soul convinces itself
it’s not already at rest
in the House of the Father—

in the Kingdom of God,
whom Scripture describes
only as Love.

And when we’re not at rest
in the Kingdom of Love—
the Kingdom of the Eternal—

I suppose the only other alternative
is to wander
through the dry and barren hellscapes
of the kingdom of the temporal and fading.

So we search for wholeness
somewhere else—

the wholeness we are surrounded by
with each passing breath.

We search for healing.

We search for redemption.

That’s all sin is, by the way—

misguided attempts at redemption,
at reconciliation
with that which we have access to
all along.

When all we focus on
is the stardust we see around us
and not the breath of God within,
we’re going to lash out
in the most unhealthy ways.

And why wouldn’t we?

When we focus on the dying stardust,
we’re going to be faulty.

Half of ourselves is withering,
and it’s often the only half we operate in—
the only half we give space to.

We’re going to be greedy,
grasping onto the dying stardust around us
as it slips through our fingers into waste.

I want it all!
our souls cry out,

knowing we can never actually possess
anything which is not eternal.

Hence the clinging.

We’re going to be violent,
childishly defending
that which we erroneously think we own.

Meanwhile,
all our toys get placed back
into the storage bins
of the forgotten abyss.

Mine! Mine!
we kick and scream,

clinging to that which we value today
yet is gone tomorrow.

We’re going to be insecure—

we feel like we’re losing
a part of us…

because we are.

We’re losing that in which we spend
most of our time
and emotional energy.

We’re losing the dirt
as the Spirit of God
is being poured out
upon all humankind.

As our collective consciousness
slowly and painfully—
yet resolutely—
bends toward the arc
of freedom,
justice,
love,
and acceptance;

as the Christ slowly returns
into the heart of all creation,

we’re going to fight and claw
for that which is being torn from us—

what has been a part
of our collective being
since the day we crawled out of the clay.

And we’re going to respond
in less-than-admirable ways.

The dirt is, after all,
half of the tapestry
from which the Creator crafted us—

and Scripture wasn’t shy
about reminding us.

The stardust
is continuing to erode.

But the Love?

The Eternal Breath?

That’s going to remain,
now isn’t it?

And we all know it
in the quiet of our hearts.

The One who crafted us
out of both love and stardust,
as the same Scripture reminds us,
remembers we’re made out of dirt.

May we all take a breath
into this truth.

The Holy One was not taken by surprise
when we searched for God
through our misguided attempts
at redemption.

My guess is
it was to be expected.

Hence the grace—

which seems to be
a packaged deal with Love.

So perhaps we can relax a little,
knowing that while we are made
of passing stardust,
we’re also made of Love—
the breath of God.

Perhaps we can give more room
to the Spirit—
the Breath—

which makes up our every morsel
just as much as the dirt.

The prodigal son
was welcomed all along,
with all of his flaws and insecurities.

He didn’t have to find welcome elsewhere.

And upon coming to his senses,
the Father didn’t even allow him
to work himself back into the family.

He was a child all along.

He just had to come to that conclusion
for the Father to celebrate him.

It’s not a returning
so much as it is an awakening
to that which we’ve had
the entire time—

perhaps we just needed to relax
into what we were a part of
the whole time—

the Kingdom of God,
the Kingdom of Love.

We were never separated from God,
but perhaps only in our minds.

As long as we still have
the breath of the Divine
in our lungs,

God is only as distant from us
as our next inhale.

We don’t need to find redemption elsewhere
when we carry the acceptance
of our Creator with us
in every passing moment.

We were never not
a child of the Father.

I read this line once
in a book called A Course in Miracles:

“You who have played that you are lost to hope, abandoned by your Father, left alone in a fearful world mad by sin and guilt; be happy now. That game is over. Now a quiet time has come, in which we put away the toys of guilt, and lock our quaint and childish thoughts of sin forever from the pure and holy minds of Heaven’s children and the Son of God.”

I wonder what would happen
if we were ever able to relax into this—

relax into the eternal parts of ourselves
which will be here
long after the stardust fails.

I wonder what would happen
to our pesky misguided attempts
at redemption

if we operated only
out of the welcomed portions of us—

the Love,
the spirit,
the soul.

I wonder how we would treat each other.

I wonder how we would treat ourselves.

I wonder how quickly the dirt part
would pass

as we lean more
into the Breath of God
which equally composes our being.

My guess is
a lot of that which we don’t enjoy
about ourselves
would work itself out.

My guess is
we would all become children once more—

secure and trusting
in the Love of the Great Parent
who watches us play
from the park bench.

My guess is
we’d all relax a bit more.

So take a moment.

Take a breath.

We were never as bad
as we suspected ourselves to be.

We were simply misguided.

We were asleep
to that which we were surrounded by
the entire time.

Love—
and a world crafted by the hands of Love—
can never be all that bad.

Scary at times, yes—
especially when all we see is the dirt.

But it’s also in great hands—
the same hands
who crafted us all
out of love and stardust.

It’s not that bad out there,
my friends.

It’s really not.

Not when you breathe.

That’s the breath of God
in your lungs, you know.

What does it mean
to be made out of love and stardust?

It means we can relax.

We can run and play.

Yes, we’re made out of dirt—
but also out of eternal Love
and acceptance.

And if that’s not a reason
to take a breath,
I don’t know what is.