Summer 2020 Last Word: Genesis 3:19
At Wilderness Canoe Base, the tradition of First and Last word begins and ends every day, led by a different staff member each time. It has remained a tradition since the opening of WCB in 1956. Before breakfast, everyone at camp walks to the chapel in silence and finds a spot on the wooden pews. Then the staff member who is leading reads the chosen First Word verse three times. Between each repetition an extended amount of silence is given, allowing listeners to reflect on the Word. Following the third repetition, everyone is able to leave and return to Pinecliff (WCB center/ dining hall) and eat breakfast. Last word is a short reflection that states why the verse was chosen, what it means to the reader, maybe a story, and often includes a challenge or message for the rest of camp to take away. This reflection is given after everyone is finished eating dinner, while all are still sitting at their meal spots and attention is turned to the front of the room. The WCB tradition of First and Last Word centers the day and allows for staff members to share their reflections
First Word
“By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”
– Genesis 3:19
Last Word Reflection
Ever since the news started blowing up with COVID-19 related stories, there has been an underlying fear that I or someone I love will die. Death has been on our minds more than ever. We are hearing so many reports on symptoms, tests, ICU units, and “second waves” coming in the fall. These are all horrifying and anxiety-inducing topics. These anxious underpinnings with which we all walk aren’t going away; we have already had COVID-19 related stress for nearly 7 months now. It has been an exhausting year. I think it is important that behind all this fear and caution, we acknowledge our collective mourning in the stories of death that are ever-present in our lives.
The Genesis Ash Wednesday imagery of dust is powerful. The message at the heart of it is incredibly humbling: we will all one day return to dust. Returning to dust alone unites us with everything on Earth. Everything comes from dust; everything returns to dust. While I know becoming dust can be a disturbing thought, it can also be a healing one. Author and poet Leslie Marmon Silko, a Laguna Pueblo woman who grew up in the Southwest, has insightful views on dust. In her essay “Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination,” she offers a renewing perspective on the cycles of life and death.
“The dead become dust, and in this becoming they are once more joined with the Mother. The ancient Pueblo people called the earth the Mother Creator of all things in this world. Her sister, the Corn Mother, occasionally merges with her because all succulent green life rises out of the depths of the earth.
Rocks and clay are part of the Mother. They emerge in various forms, but at some time before, they were smaller particles or great boulders. At a later time they may again become what they once were. Dust.
A rock shares this fate with us and with animals and plants as well. A rock may differ from the spirit we know in animals or plants or in ourselves. In the end we all originate from the depths of the earth. Perhaps this is how all beings share in the spirit of the Creator. We do not know.”
– Leslie Marmon Silko (p. 31)
Silko’s words are radical and an extremely non-anthropocentric way of viewing everything around you down to the pebble under your foot. Like Silko illustrates, we (me, you, the aspen quaking outside my window, the white-throated sparrow singing in the distance) are literally all made of the same substance, dust, and will all return to the same place. Life is cyclical; death renews life. It is freeing to know we are all going back to the Mother. No matter what mistakes I make, in the end, I am dust, renewing the world. It seems weird to be rejuvenated by the thought of one day being compost, but this realization connects me closer with all the creatures and beings with whom I share the Earth.
Despite this holistic perspective on the cycles of dust, the anxieties of my family and friends possibly dying due to injustices or disease or COVID-19 are still very real and present. There is so much death in the news – it seems inescapable. Death may be one narrative of today, but I am also seeing something else. All around me, people are desperately fighting for life. The Black Lives Matter protests cannot go unmentioned. This has been a powerful display of life, community, and the fight for justice. Additionally, all of the drastic social changes and sacrifices people have made due to COVID-19 are a direct sign that we are fighting for life. It is frustrating to wear masks and stay away from our friends, but we are doing this so that others can simply live. Our sacrifices are the “sweat of your face” that the Genesis passage is talking about. We will have to work for it, and it won’t be easy, and even after that, we are all still going to die.
So why do it? Why fight throughout your entire existence on Earth, with the sweat of your face, even with a certain death somewhere on the forecast?
Despite all these fearful questions, I am still filled with hope. Hope is a powerful thing. Hope for those small, blissful moments that pass so fast you can barely process the joy while it is happening. We cannot let the narratives of death overcome the narratives of life. Minnesota-raised poet and friend of mine, Kai Carlson-Wee, touches on these feelings aptly in an excerpt of his poem “Cry of the Loon.” I would like to close reflecting on Carlson-Wee’s words.
-Alex
“We are not put on earth to remember the dead.
We are not given access to the ways we will suffer,
what light might become us, or how it will end.
We are given a few dreams, a few nights of wonder-
a whisper, a shiver, a miracle chance to be held
in another one’s arms. The day goes on fading.
The night goes on beating its drums to the hideaway stars.
We are given a few years to laugh at the danger.
To break ourselves down in the service of joy. And then,
we are floating. The water is black. And our quiet Alumacraft
fishing boat carries us farther and farther from shore”– Kai Carlson-Wee (p. 89)
Works Cited
Carlson-Wee, Kai. Rail. Rochester, NY: BOA Editions, Ltd., 2018.
Silko, Leslie Marmon. “Landscape, History, and the Pueblo Imagination.” In At Home on the Earth, edited by David Landis Barnhill, 30-42. Berkeley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, Ltd., 1999.