From dust you came

There's always such an argument over the Book of Genesis, especially chapters 1-3.  Which is odd because it is such a modern view that there must be literal truth there.  Fundamentalism, when all's said and done, is a child of the 20th century - a fact that militant atheists (with their blinkered, stunted view of history) overlook.  As do those on the fundamentalist side of the argument, for whom nothing happened of any consequence between 100AD and last week.
"From dust you came".  True of course.  Utterly true.  From dust we all came.  We come from the animals (or, if applicable, plants) - and the animals came from the plants they ate.  And the plants come from the dust of the earth - and the dust goes back to the dust of more and more animals, dead animals, and more plants, dead plants, and the waste of living plants and animals.  And they all came from the dust.  From dust we come.
But what dust.  The dust of stars.  The elements of which we are formed - the carbon, oxygen, calcium, phosphorous - were forged in the atomic furnaces in the depths of stars, more than 5 billion years ago.  We are made of dead plants - of dead animals - of dead stars.  From dust we came.
And to dust we return.  No doubt about it.  When they opened up the barrows around Stonehenge that's all they found of the people themselves - scraps of bones and piles of ash and bits of dust.  Every human dream, every first love, every new child, every journey ever commenced in hope - they all end up in the dust. Helen, whose face launched a thousand ships - dust.  Alexander the Great, who conquered a world - dust.  Stalin - dust.  Queen Elizabeth I, who preserved a country and destroyed Philip's army and inspired a thousand lovers - dust.  The Egyptian Pharaohs, who tried to cheat death through Chemistry - even they crumble into dust.

A precious world, a world of greens and blues - where life is quick and love is short and hopes all crumble into the dust.  Make the most of it.  And give what you can.  For from dust you came, and to dust you shall return.  And the treasure that doesn't crumble to dust?  Stash it away.  You'll need it later.