The Ride of My Life
When I was five I cut my finger pretty badly. My mother cleaned and bound the wound, but I removed the bandage and played in the dirt under my bedroom window. Afraid of getting in trouble, I put the bandage back on and went to bed. By the time my mother figured out what I had done, the wound had sealed with dirt inside it.
Thus was born my favorite scar, a jagged slash on my left index finger the color of faded pencil lead. It’s like a fleshy, zipper pouch in which I carry a few particles of soil from the old house in El Paso.
I’ve been packing this dirt around in my finger for quite some time now.
When I was in first grade and saw the burned boy in the cafeteria, the dirt was there when my fingers loosened, and my deviled ham sandwich fell to the ground.
This same dirt clutched the little present I bought for my 7th grade love, and carried it home again with me when she didn’t show up.
On the day I ran into J. in the supermarket near the seminary and later slipped inside her apartment, the dirt was there when our hands made love on the floor. My scar traced the lines of her palm, and then gently parted her fingers to caress the little web of skin while her eyes softly closed.
I think of the dirt in my finger as a hitchhiker along for the ride of my life. Every so often I notice the scar and think, “That dirt is still in there.” These are Lenten moments of remembrance. This dirt is the stuff out of which I am made.
From the dirt’s ancient but somewhat limited perspective, this seventy or eighty year ride inside my finger is only a hiccup or a sneeze. I am but a small part of its greater journey, and not even the most exciting leg.
Someday this dirt I've carried will be set free again. It will mingle with the dirt of my body and the dirt in which I am laid. I like to think I will be planted in good, Texas soil and that the three sisters will be there to say goodbye.
And on that day when dirt meets dirt, one might ask just who has carried whom all these years.
rlp
9:12:43 AM 
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