Corinth #5

I am feeling dusty today. I'm not speaking about the need to wash off dust but more along the lines of origins; the dust to dust phrase that sums up our mortality. Yesterday I completed 38 radiation treatments for prostate cancer. I won't know the outcome for some time but something about moving close to the age of 60 and facing this battle has drawn me to consider my "dustiness". This is about two things - my tendency towards the "dust" of my humanity and a wander towards what is yet to come.

As dust I tend too often to fall back to dusty ways. I'm in the midst of four weeks off work to recover from the side effects of the radiation treatment. I've never been good with excess time on my hands. I fall easily into laziness. While I know rest is needed and is at the top of my agenda for these days, I've hoped to use this also as a sabbath with the leisure of time to savor the richness of Abba, finding a gentle rhythm to my days. This has been a bit difficult and my weariness has turned into a silent struggle against the whisper accusing me of slothfulness. Right now this has reduced down to the notion of dust - I am dust.

I don't mean this in a dismissive, deprecating way. I am simply a mortal man who will return to dust one day.

Entering into these thoughts are Paul's words to the Corinthians in Corinthians I chapter two. I hear Paul contending with his own dustiness. It seems he struggles with the right words in a way that won't stand in the way of his readers to understand the wisdom of God, hoping his words don't keep them from a better understanding of Jesus. I read the chapter and see this struggle, a struggle I also feel at times. He finally ends the chapter with a glorious phrase, "but we have the mind of Christ".

This phrase leaves me nearly breathless, at least in a spiritual sense. Me, in my dustiness of mortality and my tendency to fall back to selfish dusty ways have been given the mind of Christ. Do I dare believe this? Do I dare live out the rest of my dusty days with this truth? It would seem, as I read and ponder what Paul wrote, the very mind of Christ makes me more than dust. Oh to live that now, that is the call on our lives.