Flat as a ...

In Rio de Janiero and New Orleans, they have giant street fiestas for Fat Tuesday. In Episcopal churches hereabouts, they eat pancakes for supper.

No, I'm not kidding.

I switched to a one-man ice cream party years ago, after I found out the hard way about the pecking order of pancakes on Maple Syrup Tuesday. I kept wondering why I'd show up on time but get one dried-out burned-up left-over pancake with a near-empty bottle of syrup -- "sorry, we're all out!" -- till finally one night I left and snuck back in through a side door and peeked through another door left slightly ajar. As the piles of fresh flapjacks and bottles of syrup passed by, I thought, "OK ... " and left quietly the way I came.

When I returned to my solitary apartment later that night, I decided to transmute my frustration to creative dissatisfaction. So I walked in the bedroom door, took off my coat, booted my PC and the following monolog emerged -- by what means I leave up to you.

I think it's supposed to be in the dialect of a Piedmont or Midlands Carolina (which one depends on whether said Carolinian is North or South) street character who has somehow ended up in the pulpit for Ash Wednesday.

(Judge for yourself ...)

“It's all about dust, y' know? It's what we get stuck in our noses and makes us sneeze. It's what we try to get rid of, if we're good at keepin' house. It's what lays around and makes everythin' look like a mess, if we're not. It's what we pull off dryer filters and what gets kicked up in a fight. It's what we come from and what we're to become one day, probably before we're ready.

“But back there in the rear pews, where we normally sit -- y'all r'member, don'tcha? 'We' is me, myself and I -- we have us a theory. It goes somethin' like this: dust is good. The universe is made of it -- it's full of it, in fact. Suns, planets, moons and pretty much everythin' else started out as dust. What didn't get made into balls of fire or mud is still out there. We call it 'interstellar dust'. It attracts and repels magnetic forces, begins to create heat and give off radiation, starts t' gravitate, and then gets hotter and hotter and hotter until - WHAM!

“This is not why we figure that dust is good, though. 'Cause it's still just dust. What we think is this: dust is good, because dust is God. Now that sounds pretty heretical, if not downright tactless. 'Cause God is supposed to be light, love and all that, not somethin' you want to wipe off, suck up or sweep out. Well, we don't disagree with that feelin', really. But the idea kinda clings, if you think about it some more.

“You see, dust is real. There's no denyin' that dust is dust. There's no escapin' it, either. There's no ignorin' it, without consequences, and there's no makin' light of it. It's dust, and it's common -- but that's because it's everywhere! Dust is the stuff of the universe, because that's what God became to make the universe be.

"Without dust, there would be no light. Without dust, there would be no darkness. Without dust, there would be no form. Without dust, there would be no formlessness. In fact, without dust, there would be no bein' at all. God needed to become dust, because dust has no qualities other than dustiness. It's tiny, but it can form galaxies. It seems to come from nowhere in no time (just try to keep some furniture dusted, if you don't believe me), but it's there in time and space just the same.

“Dust is God revealed in space and time. Dust is Truth revealin' itself. Dust is Love becomin' reality by makin' reality real. Dust is the Other emanated into the continuum, yet dust is us. Dust links the Creator and the created, and by comin' from it and returnin' to it, we rejoin the Creator.

“There's no life without dust. There's no love without dust. There is nothing at all, without dust. Though without dust, there would still be God. That statement is impossible to imagine, based on what we've just told you, which is why, in this case, it's true.

“Jus' somethin' for ya'll to think about while you're standin' in line, waitin' to get some dust rubbed on your foreheads.”

LJ orig.: Feb. 25, 2009