
Dust to Dust on Corpus Christi
Grace Ghering
8.2.2024
Before 7am on Thursday, they began to prepare 13th street. They chalked designs, carted bags of wood chips, and spread colors for 12 hours till the bells chimed for Mass and they rushed to wash their stained blue fingers, tie their hair into braids, and wash their perspired faces. An hour later, a crowd poured into the street, treading atop the hard day’s work and singing hymns as they followed the King and His canopy. Then it was finished, and the boys started shoveling it away. By midnight, only dull remnants of chalk were left, the choir’s echoes were gone like dissipated fog, and the street was ready for tomorrow’s business as usual.
How pointless. How unfair. All that work, gone so quickly. So breathtaking, so quickly swept away. “Vanity of vanities! What profit have we from all the toil which we toil at under the sun?” (Ecclesiastes 1:2)
I desire to capture, to keep, to store – but the very beauty of Corpus Christi is the paradox that I, ephemeral dust, meet my God, Eternal Sacrifice. I forget that my life is fleeting until faced with birth and death encapsulated in this one-day art installation. The wood chips become a sacramental, reminding me that the most beautiful thing I can give to God will very soon return to obscurity. My very life, meant for service and witness to God’s grandeur, is (in light of all the ages of man) just as abruptly short as this feast day.
But instead of losing hope as artists and men are wont to do, I am reminded in the midst of my mortality that Eternity Himself sees me. God delights in the work I create for Him, even though the most intricate and beautiful piece will one day soon come to nought. The rain might wash away the colors, but He will not forget one chip of wood that has been placed with care.
“Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge…So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.” (Matthew 10:29, 31)