Mediation on Psalm 90

Dust particles

Meditation on today's Morning Office, Psalm 90:

You turn men into dust,

  you say to them “go back, children of men.”

Where, exactly, is God sending the "children of men" back to? The dirt and dust from which we were made? To the beginning, since we are being sent "back". If we go backwards, we return to what, then?

What state of being do we return to, when we are turned into dust? Inert dust? Molecules of matter that no longer need to be "en-souled" for survival/life? The term "dust" does not imply any kind of in-formed matter, does it? A dust particle is insignificant, it is carried to and fro by a breeze, by something else that animates it, that moves it. Its random movement (qua fate) is in someone/something else's hands.

The phrase "children of men" implies they (we?), the dead, are not "children of God". We are one or the other: children of men, or children of God. Jesus was both, but can we be both? We begin our life on earth as children of men, but remembering that our earthly existence only begins once God has joined our soul to a body (matter/dust).

Do we simply "go back" if we fail to acknowledge our divine origins? In other words, return to your state of dust if you cannot or have not lived your life in a holy way. If you want to live as children of men, you will die as children of men, and not children of God?

The answer lies further down in the psalm:

 

Let the glory of the Lord God be upon us:

  make firm the work of your hands.

  Make firm the work of your hands.

We implore God to "make firm the work of His hands". We are the work of His hands. Let's remember that. God is the only one who gives meaning to our lives, since He is responsible for creating us in the first place. Why did God make you? The Baltimore Catechism answers this for children (of God):


A. God made me to know Him, to love Him, and to serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.

Read your Catechism, people.