Dust...

Sometimes I feel like a broken record. I feel like I always am talking, writing, and even singing, about dust. Even the sermon last night had dry bones and dust.

We've been cleaning out a school building lately and one of my friends commented that things weren't just "dusty" but that it was more like something out of Indiana Jones. That imagery is perfect.

Even last night, it rained. Here they call this kind of rain "xol baran" or "dirt rain". Everything is covered in a layer of dirt and dust. And here we live... washing constantly, fighting off the inevitable return of the tan and glorying in the days where the sky is clear so that you can see the mountains.

Today's Lesson

Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; so neither can ye, except ye abide in me. I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same beareth much fruit: for apart from me ye can do nothing.
(John 15:4-5)

The part that really resonated with me and my housemates today was that whole thing about "apart from me you can do nothing." We were trying to do stuff all day long and almost went batty with it. We couldn't even make meatballs. None of our plans came out with any sort of smoothness. It was funny and frustrating and silly altogether. For us to think that we could plan our own day... plan our own lives. Today was just a small picture of life, I guess. Like those panorama boxes that fourth graders make of the jungle or a historical event.

Have you ever....

Laughed until you cried and couldn't breath?

Sat in a room full of people from all over the world?

Had a taxi driver tell you how to say the street you live on?