Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.

• Genesis 2:7

While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”
After saying this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes.

• John 9:5-6

Yet you, Lord, are our Father.
    We are the clay, you are the potter;
    we are all the work of your hand.

• Isaiah 64:8

He said, “Can I not do with you, Israel, as this potter does?” declares the Lord. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, Israel.

• Jeremiah 18:6

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, an eternal house in heaven, not built by human hands. Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, because when we are clothed, we will not be found naked. For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed instead with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Now the one who has fashioned us for this very purpose is God, who has given us the Spirit as a deposit, guaranteeing what is to come.

• 2 Corinthians 5:1-5

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.”

• Revelation 21:5

“Jesus used the dust of the ground to restore a man’s sight. … (John 9:5-6). And after the man washed in the pool of Siloam, he went home seeing.
“And, when mixed with water, dust becomes clay. Clay, when placed in the potter’s hands, can be formed into anything the potter dreams up!
…
“Dust doesn’t have to signify the end. Dust is often what must be present for the new to begin.”

• Lysa TerKeurst, It’s Not Supposed to be this Way

Lysa TerKeurst sent me on a mission.  The day before writing this, I was cleaning up the utility room.  The landlady was installing a new dryer, since I had spent over a year taking my clothing to the laundromat to dry them.  I did not tell her about the dryer because I was always too busy being my wife’s caretaker.  My schedule was not open to “shut down everything next Thursday and we might be there sometime, if not, sometime Friday.”  Those kinds of windows do not work with someone on kidney dialysis.

Do not think that exaggeration.  I once was told by the appliance repairman that the work on the dryer would only take an hour or so, but others were ahead of me.  He will get to it in a couple of days, maybe a week if the fish were biting.  Two days later, he dropped our repaired dryer off at the house.  I guess the fish weren’t that hungry.

But while the landlady was here and we had roofers using a dumpster in the back and the landlady calling her scrap removal guy, I got rid of three big appliances.  None worked perfectly, but they were so old, I could not get spare parts.  That freed up space to finally have a place to work to sort my wife’s crafting supplies and other things that have been thrown into the utility room.

So, I was cleaning the utility room and I kicked up so much dust that my allergies went into a tailspin.  That put a halt to the cleaning and put a dent in my writing.  Then as I read the chapter that I was going to comment on for this part of the mini-series, I remembered that I was not finished with my cleaning.  So, again, I kicked up dust.  Just thinking about it caused me to sneeze.  Not to worry, only a few times.

I once worked on a construction project at a gymnasium in Germany.  Not a German Gymnasium, meaning a school, but an American gymnasium, a basketball court with bleachers and a weight room and showers for men and women under the bleachers.  To do all the renovations, we were breaking out concrete walls.  There was a thin layer of dust on everything.

Enter the new S-3, Operations Officer.  He had not assumed his position yet, but he wanted to make his presence known.  He ripped me up one wall and down another.  He wanted to place a letter in my file, but as he had not officially taken over, he would be back on my project within a couple of days and he wanted to be able to eat off the floor.

I talked to my sergeant in charge of the project, and he laughed.  He said that I should not have to worry at all.  I had not worked directly with this sergeant before, but my platoon sergeant was on a different project.  I was already trying to pull off this project with half the usual crew.

The next day, I drove to the job site.  As I drove past the guardhouse of the kaserne where the gymnasium was, I saw one of my troops, with a radio strapped to his back.  He smiled and saluted.  He then gave me a thumbs up.  I had not seen any of my platoon that morning at morning formation.  I was told they had gone to the construction site in the middle of the night.

When I got to the gymnasium, I walked in and under one of the gym’s basketball basket, there were all our construction materials, resting on a canvas to ensure the floor would not be damaged.  Then, unlike previous days, the canvas covered every inch of the basketball court.  I looked at the sergeant with a puzzled look.  (He was one of at least three in my platoon that made command sergeant major before retiring.)  He said, “Sir, we swept the floor.  We mopped the floor.  We made sure the floor was dry.  Then we practiced.”  I looked even more puzzled.  “If the Spec. 4 radios that the Major is driving through the gate, we have just enough time to stop work and roll up the canvas.  All he will see is a basketball court so clean he could eat off it.”  Two days later, they were put to the test, and we passed it.”  I noted that the guy at the gate was an electrician, and we had very little electrical work on this job.

While Lysa TerKeurst talked about how from dust we came and to dust we shall return prior to the quote above, I can relate, in many ways, with dust leading to something new.  Jesus healing the blind man and clay being turned into pottery are great biblical examples, but any construction site that I have ever worked on had dust.  Many of them hired a water truck to wet down the roads.  Others used a rotary sweeper on a tractor.  The photo above is how the people at an Indian Steel Mill did it.  It was cheaper to employ a dozen day workers, arm them with hand-made whisk brooms.  They aligned in echelon formation.  If they swept from right to left, the lead guy was on the far right of the road.  The next guy took what the first guy swept and swept it further to the left, where the next guy swept it further.  They were fairly close together and the drivers of our vehicles just waited them out and we might be late to work that day.  But we arrived on a freshly swept road, not kicking up as much dust as we would have otherwise.

If you think your job is tough, these guys spent a twelve-hour day, bent over, sweeping as hard as they could, so they could be paid the equivalent of one-dollar US. Notice that his mask (a bandana of some sort) does not cover his nose, thus breathing dust all day. But the dollar fed him and his family until the next day.

Lord, guide me. My wife passed away just over six months ago.  I know about the dust we return to.  I carried her over the threshold when we were first wed, and I carried her remains over the threshold when we left the church, on the way to the National Cemetery nearby.  But I know about the dust from construction projects.  I know about the dust in my basement, awaiting the arrival of a new clothing dryer.  And I wait patiently for that time when I am with You in Paradise and I look around and ask, “Where’s the dust?”  With You, all things are perfect.  Help us to remember that the dust is only a reminder that one chapter is closing, and another is opening.  And we praise You each time.  In Your name I pray.  Amen.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.