Dust in the Wind

Much of the discord in the congregation I serve and the national church is provoked or given an occasion by the disharmony stirred up in the Presbyterian Church (USA) in our move to ordain unrepentent homosexual persons. I view many of the recent changes in my denomination as deeply troubling to me personally. These changes have put me in a moral crisis. It is one I share with many members in the congregation I serve. In fact, it is troubling by nearly the entire congregation. For some, however, it is not troubling at all except that others find it so. What I have written in this blog, they charge is the sole cause for that discontent.

Moment by moment, for the entirety of my life, I have become increasingly aware of my own finitude. Today I revisited the song, “Dust in the Wind,” which was recorded first by Kansas and written by Kerry Livgren, one of the band members. Livgren later becomes a Christian, although the words of the song reflect his sojourn into Eastern Philosophy.  Its message reminds me of the realism found in the book of Ecclesiastes. The song speaks of Livgren’s dreams (his hopes). It is his hopes that pass before his eyes and seem like dust in the wind. My own thoughts resonate with his when he writes “all we do crumbles to the ground.”  That is what I mean when I affirm my finitude.

What stops me from sinking into hopeless despair is the belief in Divine redemption and providence. If my deeds, my words, and my dreams have any substance, it is because God is active in them. If this is not so, they are all like “dust in the wind.”

I only have today; I only have this very moment. We can do all that God calls us to do at any given moment in time. The sum of those moments is a finite number. The worth of that sum can only be assessed by an infinite Being. It is only to Him that I must give a stewardship report of the work He has given me to do. It is foolish to judge a life, even one’s own, before it is time to judge a life. After all, we cannot know what deeds accomplished until all is said and done. Yet, it is a fool that I am, for I allow the judgment of others to weigh me down.