Darkening, Dirtying, and Pervasive

Desert Dust Storms, and Elon's vs. St. Andrew's "X"

Dust storms are most common in El Paso in March and April, but we got an early one last week. When the wind stirs up the desert, even at midday it’s too dark to see Ciudad Juarez on the other side of I-10. You can’t hang your clothes outside on the line without dust coating them. Despite having the windows latched, dust infiltrates the cracks and collects on the sill. It’s everywhere.

A few days after the dust storm I got a call from my shift coordinator at the migrant shelter, “We’re gonna’ close down starting today.” I felt shocked but not surprised; since January 20th the number of guests at the shelter had gradually dwindled down to one.

Today my mind goes from the shut shelter, to the closed border, to the abandoned allies in Europe and Ukraine, to the online posts from fired park rangers and USAID workers, and then to the words of the man behind their firing, Elon Musk. This week on his platform “X” he wrote that the mission of his artificial intelligence company xAI is to, “Answer the biggest questions: Where are the aliens? What’s the meaning of life? How does the universe end?”

How does the universe end? It feels like it ends with a force akin to a dust storm - darkening, dirtying, and pervasive - blowing across social media, government, and law enforcement, and choking out all that is true, loving, and beautiful.

A few days ago a reader sent me a card with St. Andrew on it. Andrew and his brother Peter, humble fishermen, dropped their nets at the Sea of Galilee to follow Jesus. After that, Andrew figures less prominently in the gospels than does his brother Peter; however, church tradition says that after Jesus’ death and resurrection Andrew continued preaching and teaching for decades before the Roman authorities in Greece sentenced him to death for refusing to worship their gods. Andrew requested to be crucified on an X-shaped cross because he didn’t feel worthy of a vertical cross like Christ’s.”¹

In the midst of our political storm, I take heart that the Church has survived many such storms over the centuries. St. Andrew knew all about authorities demanding undue loyalty. He responded by preaching and teaching and choosing “X”. With his death and the killing of his fellow disciples, Rome extinguished the world of people who had known Jesus in the flesh. But the church only grew faster. What feels like the universe ending may just be our world ending. When a world ends, God’s universe persists and may even grow.

Elon, with great suffering you can maybe raze our world with your “X” and even build a new one. God help us all. But the “biggest questions” were answered long ago on Andrew’s “X”. It was wood and a few feet tall, but it reached to heaven and back. You can never darken its light nor dirty its legacy. Thanks be to God. Quit trying.

1. https://www.christianiconography.info/andrew.html