All This Dust

For some reason, when we were hanging out at the hospital Monday for pre-op, I couldn't help but ponder why this whole world exists. All these people here with kids who are hurting. All the kids with cancer. All the kids on dialysis. All the kids here for surgeries because of birth defects. Or because of illness. Or because of violence. And ALL the people who take care of them -- their parents and nurses and doctors and cleaning folks and secretaries.

And you lie in bed at night and hear the sirens on the ambulances, bringing in more damaged bodies. We hardly ever hear sirens at home -- one of the sheltered benefits of living in the boonies. And you talk to some of the other parents whose kids were medi-flighted here.

"And God created man out of the dust of the ground, and man became a living being." All this dust. All this dust arranged into arms and legs and mouths and livers and kidneys. And I just kept thinking -- why? It's all so transitory. Why would God set it up like this? When you start thinking of it objectively, like as if you could be an outside observer from another planet or even another reality, you start to think that this whole world is kinda weird. People just living, eating, talking to each other, growing up, having more babies to do the same thing all over again; houses being built, technology being developed, entertainment consuming our attention, other people just struggling to survive starvation. And for some dumb bizarre philosophical reason, these thoughts would resurface now and then in the busyness of answering questions for doctors and fluffing pillows, or in the waiting-times as I noticed all the parents just sitting in the surgery waiting-room, waiting for the latest report from the surgeons' assistants.

And then last night, as Pastor read Sunday's OT (end of Isaiah 65) at Mass, I think I got part of the answer. I knew before that Pastor's answer is that "God created for love's sake." But with last night's OT, it made me think about God's creating us to have joy. That it's connected with "love's sake" (as Pastor always says), and that we are made in the image of the triune God. Not that God made us to have joy just because of frivolity and happy-happiness. No, the joy of being in Him. The joy of giving and receiving love, not only receiving God's love forever, but also giving and receiving love amongst ourselves eternally. If God was complete before He created, if God needed nothing, then even before He made the world, everything was full of joy and love and the communion within the Trinity. And that love moved out to make us, so that we could be brought into it too. God will rejoice over His people. And they will rejoice in Him. And that's why all this dust is walking around the hospital, why the generations continue, why the dust is walking around a gazillion grocery stores and schools and factories today -- because that dust is favored of God, given the breath of life by Him, so that we may receive all that He has to give.

And this is all obvious stuff. And I'm being weird (having been woken and kicked out of the room for early-morning x-rays again). But sometimes a person gets a chance to wonder at the marvels of it all --
"For behold, I create a new heavens and a new earth;
and the former things shall not be remembered
nor come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever in what I create;
for behold, I create Jerusalem as a rejoicing,
and her people a joy."

And now, I suppose I will go back to a girl who's been woken, and we'll watch some more Hogan's Heroes or something.