I detest dust! Nothing is much uglier than a dark and beautiful piece of wood lightly coated with the fine particulate matter we call dust. Getting it off is called dusting furniture. I don’t like that either.

I’ve been known to stare at dust for a week before tackling it. The stuff is stubborn and ubiquitous as all get out. From whence does it come? Do we ever get rid of it or just move it about? It seems we spend a disproportionate amount of energy on its removal.

On occasion I sigh deeply and try to talk myself into simply accepting dust as a part of life. The planet is made of the stuff. As a matter of fact, so are we.

(God told Adam, “in the sweat of thy face shall you eat bread, till you return unto the ground; for out of it were you taken: for dust you are, and unto dust shall you return” ~Genesis 3:19.)

What is dust anyway? Searching the Internet turned up all sorts of answers, much of it speculative. Primarily, dust is dirt and that’s why we don’t like it in our houses.

My dusting has been put off because my knees have been achy the past two weeks. I’ve blamed it on a new exercise at the gym, pushing a weight with my legs but now doing it with my toes turned in. This new angle (recommended by a trainer) stresses the outer knee support tendons and I am sore.

Recognizing how mortal my puny body, I think of how one day my spirit will leave and the pain will stop. All my humanness will immediately begin to turn back into dust and eventually wind up on someone’s fine furniture.

Not knowing what great person might be lying on my TV cabinet and china hutch, maybe I should give dust more respect as I gently remove it to the waste basket, carry it outdoors and return it to the earth by way of the big solid waste disposal truck.