So God made us out of dust and breathed life into us, which I suppose makes us dirt balloons (and he clearly puffed more into some of us than others). Poetic souls try to inflate our worth by calling us “star dust,” but that Disney image is just lip gloss smeared on mud bubbles. If we are made from star pieces, we didn’t get any of their sparkle and shine–they kept that for themselves–so at most we are the burned up stuff, star effluvia. Yes, we are star poop if that makes you feel any better. We’re just mud pies, which makes us a few grades lower than gingerbread men.
Clearly God wanted to keep us humble, to show us where we came from so we wouldn’t be putting on airs and instead realize the air that animates us is from God’s breath, not our atoms. I mean, the angels must elbow each other watching us mud clods strutting our stuff until we all get swept out the back door together. “For you are dust and to dust you will return.”
It is our inflated sense of self that God wants to prick by reminding us of our origins. He values us immensely, but it has nothing to do with our inherent value, which is about $4.50 in chemical elements according to Mayo clinic. As demeaning as all that sounds, it is actually amazingly freeing and safe. We are not loved because we are wonderful, but because God is wonderful. We don’t have to do anything to be valued by God. He is not waiting for us dirt balls to become disco balls before he values us, but he loves us fully as we are, Pigpen as much as Linus, and that should make even Charlie Brown dance.
Janathan Grace Reflections 
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