Genesis 3:19
...for dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.
Dust | (c) M.M.Hewitt 2014 Downloading this image for any use without written permission is strictly prohibited.
I have been wanting to take a photograph in the fog for the longest time. It's my favorite form of precipitation. I find it so beautiful when the heavens and the earth actually meet and mortals such as us can actually interact with the clouds.
Remember how I said I love clouds? I got a very special gift on Christmas. I got clouds. Or rather, fog. I woke up with my young children and giddily-child-like husband Christmas morning, opened up the window blinds and saw that the entire valley was masked in glorious fog. My heart lept. I told my husband if there was enough time after our Christmas festivities I would have to go out and take advantage of this marvelous gift. When would the opportunity come again when my husband would be home during a foggy morning so he could stay with the kids and I go and take my photograph? It was, to be cliche, a Christmas miracle.
And so I hastily packed up my gear after we tore through colorful papers and ribbons and awed at the wonderful kindness of family and chased my fog down the road. My original location proved to be inadequate for the photograph I wanted to take as the fog had already started to burn up. So I drove quickly to the next best thing. Which meant the photograph would have to change. And what developed was more than I could have hoped for.
As I began shooting I started to think about how I was wrapped up in the beautiful phenomenon of nature. How I was able to be a part of what I loved most that the weather produced. And I remembered how I am a part of the world. I am made up of the same stuffs as my beloved fog. I am made up of the same stuffs as the grassy fields of Spokane that I have come to love so much. And so I began to think of the scripture in which God rebukes Adam for his transgression and reminds him of his now mortality. We are made from minuscule things, in the grand scheme of the world we are minuscule ourselves, but we are not minuscule in purpose or design. Dust particles come together and form clouds and sometimes those clouds when the pressure is right come down and kiss the earth and they create fog. This fog has the capability of causing great calamities when drivers don't take caution to drive more safely. This fog also has the capability of creating glorious landscapes when viewed from the ground or when perched from above on a hilltop or mountaintop and looking out over a valley. Our particles of "dust" have come together and from our particles of dust comes the capability to create calamities or works of great beauty. We may have come from dust and will return to dust, but in the mean time we have the opportunity to be more. We have the opportunity to be fog.