When I would spend the summers in Ecuador, it was always interesting to see how things would change over the course of a couple months. Ecuador has only two seasons: rainy season and dry season. Rainy season lasts from roughly October to April. So when I arrived in May, sometimes it was still raining every day. But by June it had definitely stopped, and by August you would be places where you wished for rain. So when I would hike up the mountain at our retreat center in May, sometimes the path would be so covered in mud that my boots would slide around on the slick surface and I would just turn around. But by late July, the path would have totally dried, and where once there was mud, there was now just a layer of dust atop the ground. My footfalls sounded totally different. I would take a step, and where it visually seemed like my foot had touched the ground in front of me, my shoe would actually sink about a half inch down to the layer of harder ground below. Instead of a step, step, step, noise, you would just hear a sort of phUMTH! phUMTH! phUMPTH! and the dust would float up, coating pants legs, working its way annoyingly into eyes and lungs, and drifting in a cloud behind me, like I was a cartoon character in a hurry. That dust was in desperate need of water to pour down on it so it could stay put.
When I feel tired or restless, or hear someone speak of a metaphorical dry season, I think about those hikes up the mountain. And especially in a week like this where we’ll hear the phrase “remember that you are dust,” I don’t want to remain like the moistureless dust on the path, not as solid as I seem, dry and drifting; I want to recall Paul’s words that God will bring his work to completion. I’m reminded to be receptive to just what it is he is pouring into me, soak it up, and stay put in his love.
Notes: This is a reflection on a post I originally wrote in July of 2008. When Google searching for a photo to include in the version for my SUMC Family Ministries Update, I stumbled upon the photo above… which was taken by my friend Jim Olsen. Here’s what he wrote about the dust in Ecuador in 2015.
