Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.
Book of Common Prayer
Compost….
Humbling, isn’t it?….
"All flesh is as the grass… it withers and dies." Maybe if we understood better that our spirit-life is every bit as real and as much a part of us as our physical life, and that our existence is so much larger and longer (indeed, eternal) than our physical existence, we could accept the compost part better. Plant a seed in compost. Add water. (He did. Read Gen.2:5 …) A plant grows, bends towards the light. The better the compost, the more light, the stronger the plant. The plant blooms, produces fruit fulfilling its purpose, and gradually fades, " withers and dies". So with us – to a point. Our spiritual nature lives on. So we nurture our spiritual nature, bending towards the Light, while we are in our physical bodies.
"…withers and dies…" Death is never easy. We are very attached to one another (and very attached to ourselves for that matter) and death makes a gaping hole in the garden of our world. But if we think of our whole selves, physical and spiritual, then death "is just a change of clothes" (Ghandi) and "death is as nothing at all. I have slipped away into the next room…All is well." (H.S.Holland…) We grow, we bend toward the light, we bloom and fade, wither and die. Compost. Our spirit, that we nurture while we are alive, that bends towards the Light and grows strong, blooms and lives on with Christ in eternity.
Patti Sachs
