"For He knows how we were made, He remembers that we are dust." Ps. 103:14

The idea of being nothing more than dust does not appeal to the modern mind. Are we not the crown of all creation, the most successful and advanced species the planet has ever known? Have we not become the very masters of nature, capable of not only explaining complex phenomena in the universe, but also having the capacity to leave our home world? Yes, and yes, and yes again, but...

The memory of the dust from which we have come - call it star dust if you wish - is essential to the balance we need to strike between our success as humans, such as it is, and our mortal frame. The entrances and exits from life are there for all to see, and while we have a preference for birth over the other, neither are options. From the first cry to the last breath is really a short interlude.

We are dust indeed and that's the wonder of it. What better retort to the growing hubris and narcissism of the times, what better grounding in the face of so much pointless clamour, than to know our true pedigree? And if God knows that too, remembers it, then that is a comfort beyond measure.

'Let you not say of me when I am old,
In pretty worship of my withered hands
Forgetting who I am, and how the sands
Of such a life as mine run red and gold
Even to the ultimate sifting dust,'

from Sonnet IX, St. Vincent Millay