The friend was grabbing a lunch in a mall food court. He said he got something that reminded him of lunch, found a table, sat down and suddenly heard singing. It was Lara’s Song from Dr. Zhivago. Boy could that guy sing. The noisy food court went silent. Everyone hung on each phrase as this wonderful guy sang. When it was over everyone clapped and he started to sing Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing.
He went to the counter afterward and asked if the singing came from behind the counter. Yep, the women said, that’s Albert. He works the dishwasher. He’s in music at the collage and works weekends. He shouted into the kitchen area, “Albert thanks for the song.” Then Albert replied “Keep it going.” Then God breathed life and Life began to live. Amid the dust of noise in a food court, and the chaos of runny noses and running cash registers, came this defining moment where the noise was transformed into a song.
The term Ground Zero did not enter our vocabulary on 9/11. The term was first used during the Manhattan Project referring to the ground immediately under a nuclear bomb blast.
Recently Ground Zero refers to what happened in New York City when two airplanes were turned into guided missiles that left over two and a half thousand people dead. Most of us remember where we were when we heard or saw the news that morning. The dust from collapsing buildings remained in the air for weeks and in some places years afterward, city folks couldn’t avoid it.
The Cold War that kept two major players, the US and the Soviet Union, in a war of words plus escalating military budgets ended when we bankrupt the Soviet Union, which left the USA as the only superpower. Then factions of radical groups started to describe us with similar images we had used to talk of Russia, calling the USA an Evil empire. All the verbiage we used to describe the Soviet Union during the cold War came back at us.
With the 9/11 ground zero occurring when tower and temple were turned to dust, it reminded us of Genesis and how we were breathed into existence out of the dust.
Look carefully at those words. Dust - the dust of the earth, the dust of the desert, the dust of trampled dreams, the dust of destroyed buildings, the dust of fire ravaged bodies, the dust of dead skin. This is death - earthly, unavoidable, overwhelming mundane. Dust is death. But this is where God began. God made us out of this dust. This is ground zero. This is the epicenter of dust. This is where the good news begins. This is where God makes humanity. God started from dust.
When Christ walked the way of the cross, three times he fell to the ground. Three times the weight of the world’s folly and foolishness and cold blooded hatred made Christ implode and plummet to the ground. Three times Christ fell into the ash heap of history. Yet when Easter came, God remade Christ out of the dust of the earth. Just as on the day of creation, God turned dust and ashes into flesh and blood, God started from zero and built something beautiful.
God did not send 9/11. God does not condone the atrocity of 9/11. God does not make us for violence or suicide attacks or mass murder and destruction. But hear the words of God, speaking out of the rubble of that dreadful day.
You are dust and to dust you shall return. In other words, “go back to the beginning.” Many in New York had to start over with a New Beginning, and many did. The crash site is now a reflecting pool with all the names etched on the rock.
One summer I had a job in Winnipeg picking up industrial garbage from different sites. I told my boss I knew how to drive a dump truck and then learned on the job. On one Friday I had to go to the downtown hospital to pick up the ashes. I rambled down the stairs of this medical building. Once there I met a guy who showed me these large incinerators, which I thought at first probably heated the premises and that my luggage that day was ash from coal heated boilers etc. But instead we passed by them and entered another room with two big incinerators. I spent the rest of the day cleaning out those places, getting every bit of ash in two large containers and of course all over me.
When I was done I was then told that I had cleaned out the places were old cadavers had been cremated.
I still remember the drive to the rose garden where these ashes would enrich roses. I remember driving back to park the truck plus my walk home covered in people I would never know. I remember that evening standing in the hot shower for a long time, trying to wash off both memory and fact.
We are God’s speech creatures, as we were spoken into existence out from the dust or chaos of the world. What dusty chaotic times are you sometimes in, out of which you might breathe a word of hope? Or listen for a word of fresh beginnings?
Today I suggest that dreams can begin in dust. God can make beautiful things out of dust - God made us from dust, called Abraham out of dust of the desert, and remade Christ from the dust of the tomb. God, who abides in the dust of Afghanistan, the dust of Iraq, the God who transforms the dust of our trampled dreams, the God who restores those who are ready for a fresh start is ready to breathe on all of us.
It was late in March, damp and cold. We started driving down through the fields of green, as the winter wheat was coming up with Black Angus Cattle as far as you could see. This is mine, the boss said, all mine. This is mine in case we didn’t hear the first time. All mine. It got old, I wanted to get away from, and this is mine.
We drove up to this rural farmhouse a big old wooden structure built in the early 1900s. One guy said I don’t like to arrive at someone’s house at lunchtime. But the boss said it’s all right it’s my manger’s home. We’ll eat with them.
A man named Clyde came out. As we went inside I noticed a women place a large log on the fire. Clyde said just go in and warm yourselves. I went in and backed up to the fire, and they talked cattle. They talked cattle for quite awhile. After a while I heard the kitchen door creak open and a little voice said lunch is ready.
We went into a really large kitchen with a huge table and just as we did I saw the back of this women move out into another room. We all finished lunch, mountains of good country food with a fresh apple pie for dessert. We were so full we just sat and talked more cattle.
As we went back into the living room I saw the back of this woman put another log on the fire and then disappear. I don’t know who she was, and then I thought I’d go back into the kitchen to see who she was.
There she sat with her back to me, her little clump of graying hair, sitting alone eating her lunch by herself. I wanted to go in and say can I have another cup of coffee. But I knew that she would have gotten up with her plate and said, sure I was through anyway. I knew that she would do that. I didn’t know what to do.
They got through talking cattle, and said time to go. I said, Okay but I’d like to thank the lady for lunch. I’ll tell her, Clyde said.
I said, well I’d like to tell her. We started to walk out of the house and I said once more I wanted to thank her for the fine meal, to which all said, Clyde will tell her.
I said well she was really a great cook. The other guys all said, yea she’s really a great cook. I said, who she is? They said, Clyde wife. I said, what’s her name? Clyde wife is all I heard.
I went back in. She was by the fire. I said. what is your name. She looked started and said softly, Ruth. Out of the dust of no name came a name. I said, I wanted to thank you for lunch. She looked with tears in her eyes, as though it was the first time she had heard those words. I could see something in the dust of being forgotten, taken for granted, that new life was stirring. Even in the tears in her eyes, it was life.
Out of the dust a new creation came. I went back outside and shouted to the others her name is Ruth. Well, they said, Clyde’s been managing this place for seventeen years and we always just called her Clyde’s wife. Ruth, well I’ll be, said one guy. Out of dust and chaos came lives differentiated and beautiful with simple words like what’s your name, words like thank you. Words that all sound like love.
God can lift you up like a firefighter and carry you home like a shepherd- if only, if only amid all our anger and self-justification and sadness, if only we can find the humility and the humanity, slowly and painfully, to start from zero and let God make something beautiful out of this dust. And you can make something beautiful out of dust, with a simple word of love.