“God’s Cosmic Dust” - Rod. L. Reinecke, MDiv - Ash Wednesday, Year C, February 17, 2010

“You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

I believe it was when my predecessor, the Rev. Thomas Eugene Bollinger was Rector of this Parish that our church cemetery was closed (with the exception of a few plots owned by parishioners).  After that, most parishioners were buried in the Burlington Pine Hill Cemetery or the cemetery in Graham.

Later, when I was Rector of this Parish, we learned it would be possible to inter the ashes of those whose remains had been cremated in the Grove between St. Athanasius Chapel and Holy Comforter, so we provided that option.  We decided to have a marker with plaques for the names of those thus interred, but not to have the use of cremation urns.  Instead, ashes would be interred directly into the ground in a special area behind St. Athanasius – a practice which continues to this day. 

“You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

That is what Ruth and I look forward to and we find it comforting to think of our remains mingled with in the same area with those of beloved parishioners and others we shall not even have known.

“You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

My father, Paul Sorg Reinecke, was an advocate of cremation.  I heard him say he had no interest in having people come to his grave and say, “There lies Paul Reinecke.”  He said he did not expect to be there.   So after his death in 1948, his ashes were taken to the U. S. Military Academy at West Point and scattered from the entrance to the Chapel down the wooded hill as the Cadet Choir sang the West Point Alma Mater, which he had written when he was a cadet in the fall of 1908.  There is now a monument there, bearing his name and the words of the Alma Mater at the entrance to the Chapel.

One of the last verses of the Alma Mater goes “And when our work is done, Our course on earth is run, May it be said, ‘Well done.  Be thou at peace.’”

“You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

Cremation has become more and more popular over the years and an increasing number of churches provide columbariums (or is it columbaria?) or other designated areas for the ashes of loved ones.  Many regard this as simply a more rapid progression through the natural process of decay.

“You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

We have been thinking of our earthly dust.  I would like for us to consider God’s cosmic dust.  Apparently there is a good deal of that throughout the universe.  Cosmic dust provides building material for galaxies, solar systems and planets and is important in recycling the material of the universe.  Particles of cosmic dust vary widely in size.  They form tiny crystals we call grains of cosmic dust.  Some of them will eventually form the rocks of the earth. 

These dust grains are blown out of dying stars and mix with the original gas of the galaxy

To form dust clouds, ready to be incorporated into new stars and planets.  If this recycling did not happen, planets and life could never have begun.

Since cosmic dust is the basic medium from which everything in the universe is made, one could argue that technically all things  and even you yourself are also made from cosmic dust.

“You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

I think of this as God’s creative use of “leftovers”!  Apparently, this cosmic dust can be recycled and used creatively again.  What a Creation!  And what a Creator!  And we humans have been given the capacity to wonder, marvel and praise The Great Spirit that has found joy in such self-expression as we continue our own journeys, ever reminded that

“You are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

And what about “creative leftovers” in the universe?  Is there more to come?  What does this creative God yet have in store for the cosmos and for us?

This Lent, I encourage you to join in “wonder, love and praise” as we consider the greatness of God and the vastness of the universe and of the Love of our Creator and Redeemer.

Amen.