Chalk is cheap … I put those words together just knowing that there would someday be a message emerge from my clever creation of alliteration. Finally, months after creating the title in my “drafts” folder, I have figured out how to use it.
Back in the caveman days of my youth, we did not have dust free white boards, or clever ‘Smart Boards’, we had chalk boards. They 
were usually green or black, and the teacher wrote on them with chalk (or, if the class got out of hand, the teacher would scratch his or her fingernails on it, sending shivers down our back that would last until bedtime). Chalk … dry, dusty, chalk.
As a young student, I LOVED chalk boards! I loved how the chalk moved across the board, and I loved how easy it was to get rid of mistakes, because the eraser eliminated any trace of what I had written … except for the mound of chalk that would fall as things were erased, like a pretty pile of snow in winter.
That mound of chalk dust would lie on the shelf, at the bottom of the chalkboard, until a teacher cleaned it off into the garbage, or a classmate with a mischievous look in their eye, would sweep it into his (lets face it, it was almost always a male) hand, then he would blow it into the faces of whoever he wanted to make sneeze, and coat their faces with the white stuff.
I imagine that many of us still have that fine chalk dust coursing through our lungs, creating who knows what sort of health hazards.
To me, that chalk dust is like the impact of how we live our days, on the lives of others.
Like chalk on a chalk board, we write our messages, we teach our lessons, and we make our mistakes.
Like chalk on a chalk board, we write and write, we work and work, and the dust is all that remains in the end.
Like chalk on a chalk board, the dust of our day falls haphazardly through the air, through our community, through our circles, and we have little control over where it might land.
Like chalk on a chalk board, the impact of the dust of our days living lands, and it can be swept away to the trash, or it can get into the fabric of what it touches.
The dust of our days living, lands and sticks to the fabric of another person’s life. Our lives are not untouched by the lives of others. We are interwoven into the fabric of each others lives. We are a part of a bigger picture in the world, and the dust of our days impacts those around us.
For some, the dust of our days is like the beautiful vision of pure, white snow, feeling soft and gentle. For others it is like a dust cloud being forcefully blown into our faces, making us cough and gag.
Although we “are dust, and to dust we will return” (Genesis 3:19), the impact of our days lands or blows into the lives of others. We need to live knowing that we can either be an irritation or a blessing.
May your dreams come true too … I’ve always known you could do it!
vehicle around and drive from the direction of my home.
lifetime on the most luxurious vessel of it’s time. For most on that ship, it was the final experience of their lifetime.
So, when our kids were preschoolers, I would ask them BEFORE we went to purchase a Slurpie what flavor they hoped to get, and why. Doing this alleviated the frustratingly long time it would take them to make a decision, while there were dozens of people waiting in line behind us. Sure they sometimes changed their mind, but, overall, thinking ahead helped their anticipation of what they 
chose to grow. As they got older we would talk about drug and alcohol use in teens, and they would talk about the possibility of using those substances, and how that might hinder their future goals (another discussion that happens W A Y before grade 12 … more like since they could talk). So, as their peers started experimenting they have known, before peer pressure was involved, what they would choose, and why (this is not a guarantee, but if they have a goal they have chosen, and a reason for choosing it, they then have the intrinsic motivation to make choices, not in the moment, but that help them achieve their goals).
Memories are funny things. There are some details of the past that we remember, and other details are forgotten forever.
itsawonderfilledlife 