From dust you were made, and to dust you will return. That’s from Genesis 3:19. Every year, dust from the Sahara Desert and ashes from African wildfires are carried across oceans by the wind to the other side of the world. I expect there have been years where you’ve cleaned Saharan dust from your car, or seen the orange streaks in the sky. This summer saw a record-breaking, huge dust cloud, the biggest for about sixty years. Not great for humans to breathe in – and, perhaps a troubling reminder of the size of the African desert and what desertification means for our future?
But dust is not rubbish. Dust plays an important ecological role – and, in fact, is a bringer of life. Some of you may already know all about it! The biggest rainforest in the world is, of course, the Amazon, a place disproportionately teeming with life. Unlike in the Sahara, the rain falls in abundance – and washes nutrients out of the soil into the Amazon River and away. In particular, the rain rinses the forest of phosphorus. If you’re a gardener, you probably know that phosphorus is one of the most important elements for sustaining plant life. Every year, clouds of dust and ashes from Africa fall on the Amazon rainforest and provide replacement phosphorus, along with iron and other nutrients. The rainforest wouldn’t survive without them.
This year’s huge dust cloud headed northward towards the East Pacific, where it dumped nutrients into the iron-limited waters there, fertilizing the ocean biosphere. This may cause problematic algae blooms, but it will also feed the coral reefs. The dust storms also have hurricane-suppressing effects, soaking up moisture and sinking air currents, so that building hurricanes can be dismantled before they get going. The dust leaves its own kind of mess in its wake!
I learned about all this just this week, thanks to my 11 year old son, Michael, who loves the natural world and likes to teach me about it! It really made me stop and think about what a complex meta-organism the Earth (Gaia) is, and how capable of generating and regenerating life. We don’t know everything there is to know about her, by any stretch, or what she might be capable of yet.
In our reading this morning, we heard from Tony these words of Joseph: “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives.” When one is undergoing great distress, it is not only trite but often actively hurtful to have someone suggest that God is using your suffering to accomplish good. When Joseph was thrown into a pit by his brothers, he didn’t know what was going to happen. When he was harassed by Potiphar’s wife and then thrown into jail, he didn’t know what would happen then, either. When he stood before Pharaoh, there was every chance he would be sent to his death. But he trusted God, and he placed it all in his hands. This perspective – that God used intended harm for good – is one gained through the passing of time and the restoration of comfort.
Nevertheless, we can see these patterns, given sufficient distance from them to afford us a vantage point to do so. The Sahara Desert always seemed to me an icon of destitution, the very opposite of the Amazon Rainforest, lungs of the earth and beacon of life. And yet it turns out that they are siblings, and that it is the Sahara that gives life to the Amazon, out of the death of whatever ancient forest lived there, and the burning of vegetation in sub-Saharan wildfires. Out of death comes life. Creation is telling the glory of God, indeed.
Our conversation here at our weekly circle has been about the changing and challenging times we are living in, about the creation of peace through our own actions, about our connection to the natural world and to each other, and about how we behave towards others, especially those to whom we are in opposition.
This week, I got into an argument on Facebook. Not news – it happens a lot! My friend posted a picture of angry far-right protesters, carrying boards painted with messages of hatred, their faces twisted into snarling, screaming grimaces. He asked what we would do with them once the leadership changed. I was a little shocked and dismayed to see a number of responses that suggested they should be thrown away or killed; that they weren’t human, but monsters. I suggested that it was imperative to find a way to bring such people back to the table with others; that if we took this attitude ourselves, we were no better than that which we decried; that we must see the humanity in others, however far they are from our own ethical norms.
Because what are we if we offer hatred to hatred; if, in our disgust at the tribalist, we permanently banish them? What hope is there for change if we pronounce people a lost cause? What hope is there to stop the excesses of violence we fear, if we ourselves give ground to the point of view that says some of us are not human and are fit to be destroyed? If we allow evil to seed itself into our own hearts, who then will stand for good? We cannot control others, but we can set a moral standard for ourselves, and we can keep a place at the table for those who have strayed far from us.
What did Jesus teach us? Love your enemy. Love your neighbour. (And who is my neighbour? Might it not be my enemy sometimes?) Treat others as you would hope to be treated yourself. If someone treats you badly, be so good to him that it’s like you’re heaping burning coals on his head – until he can’t stand his own badness any more. Forgive your brother, seventy times seven times – as many times as you need to. They are not the Other – they are you. Our lives are bound up together in inter-being. If we ignore these things, how can peace be accomplished, in ourselves or the world?
And yet there is evil, and there are people so steeped and mired in it that they are beyond our capacity to help. All we can do is try to protect ourselves and others from their behaviour – and pray for them, as we have been discussing. They need God; that much is clear. We are not here as arbiters of judgement but as agents of mercy. In the story of Joseph, from our reading, Joseph trusted God to take care of him. He didn’t – couldn’t – trust the people around him, even the ones who loved him. It was through God’s power that he became an architect of peace. He was God’s man. And he saved and forgave the brothers who had thrown away his life, seeing God’s hand even in their actions.
We cannot always see the big picture. Sometimes our part in the story might seem more to illustrate the calamity than the redemption. But we can see our fellow humans. We can know each one of them to be a child of God like we are, and an agent of God’s work in ways we don’t understand. No one is beyond God’s reach or outside of his love. And, in the kingdom of God, the lion and the lamb are able to live together. In the person of Jesus, the lion and the lamb are united. So we put our trust in God and continue to love each other in humility and hope. Let’s remember that the dust of death is also the cradle of life, and God’s surprising story is not over
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