Chapter Six - The Dust

CHAPTER SIX

The Dust

HE WALKED EVERYWHERE.

Not in chariots.
Not on horses.
He walked.

And the roads were not paved.
The paths were not clean.
The sandals were not closed.
And so, by the end of the day —
he was covered in dust.

Dust from the poor.
Dust from the sick.
Dust from the alleyways, the gutters, the deserts.
From the places where no rabbi would be caught dead.

He did not avoid filth.
He stepped into it.
He made the filth holy.

Where the clean saw danger,
he saw destiny.

Where the religious saw pollution,
he saw potential.

He put his hands on skin they wouldn’t touch.
He touched eyes caked shut from disease.
He embraced the bleeding, the possessed, the despised.

And when he left the town,
the dust followed.

It stuck to him.
But so did they.

The forgotten.
The fragile.
The filthy.

They followed him
because he never asked them to become clean first.
He walked toward them, not away.

So when they said,

“He’s always with sinners,”
he smiled through cracked lips
and dust-stained teeth
and said,
“Yes. That’s where I belong.”