Image from Heartlight Inc.
Karen Hollis | March 26, 2023
Grief
Ezekiel 37:1-14
The hand of the LORD came upon me, and he brought me out by the spirit of the LORD and set me down in the middle of a valley; it was full of bones. He led me all around them; there were very many lying in the valley, and they were very dry. He said to me, "Mortal, can these bones live?" I answered, "O Lord GOD, you know." Then he said to me, "Prophesy to these bones, and say to them: O dry bones, hear the word of the LORD. Thus says the Lord GOD to these bones: I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live. I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the LORD." So I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them. Then he said to me, "Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, mortal, and say to the breath: Thus says the Lord GOD: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live." I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. Then he said to me, "Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, 'Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.' Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord GOD: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the LORD, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the LORD, have spoken and will act," says the LORD.
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be reflections of your word to us today, in Christ’s name we pray. Amen
"There is a pain so utter
it swallows substance up
Then covers the abyss with trance
so memory can step
Across, around, upon it,
as one within a swoon goes safe
Where an open eye
would drop him
bone by bone."
My family shares a love of poetry and Emily Dickinson is no exception. I have one of my father’s copies of Dickinson’s collected works . . . placed within the pages is a slip of paper with this poem printed on it. The first time I read it I was stunned that a small collection of words could evoke so much in me. After my mother died, I read the poem again .
. . yes, there is a pain so utter that it swallows substance up . . . the pain covers the remaining abyss with a trance . . . so that memory can step across, around, upon that abyss, while one within a swoon goes safe and manages not to be swallowed up . . . it is true that from this place of safety, one’s conscious mind can grieve bit by bit, bone by bone.
She’s been gone a year now, and for each of the months that passed, grief had a unique expression, like: tearful, jarring, communal, a mere memory, impossible, confusing. In the grief groups I attended, the leaders would put up a diagram with the linear stages of grief on one side with a bunch of words like denial, anger, bargaining, acceptance, and on the
other side, the same diagram, but with a scribbled line drawn over top, as if someone just took a crayon and went to town . . . this is what grief actually looks like. It’s not neat, it’s not tidy, it’s not linear . . . it’s whatever it is for you. It’s raw, tender, protected, buried deep or, like an old friend, it’s lighthearted, or a concentrated practice. We grieve not just
people, but places, stages of life, ability, dreams, health . . . our climate and our pre-covid world. I don’t know about you, but I feel like I blinked and a year went by. I think the shift that happened between 2020 and 2022 is one we will continue to unpack, bit by bit.
Ezekiel also lived at a time when his whole world was turned upside down. He was taken into exile when Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians in 597 BCE. He lost his home, community, the grounding of his cultural identity, homeland, and people he loved . . . layers upon layers of trauma and loss. Ezekiel epitomizes what we call prophetic imagination. His writing indicates his grief process engaged his imagination and manifested elaborate visions . . . encounters with God. He wonders why he and his people are experiencing such agony. What could have caused this turn of events . . . that cause us to feel empty, lifeless, like a scattering of bones in the desert?
Upon hearing Ezekiel’s vision again, my mind drifts back to today, to the masses of displaced people in the world . . . refugees of war and violence. Places like Syria that has seen 12 years of war, where houses have been destroyed, loved ones killed or imprisoned, women raising children inside tents of refugee camps with muddy floors, and without enough clothing or food. Then earlier this year two earthquakes cause further destruction, compounding the overall devastation.1 How does one grieve when the trauma keeps unfolding? I don’t have words in response to what is happening there . . . but the words we hear this morning resonate with my imagination: the middle of the valley was full of bones . . . there were many and they were very dry. They are scattered as if to the 4 corners of the earth.
Can these bones live? Indeed God, this is the question . . .
In the beginning, a wind from God moved over the waters and God began creating everything we know . . . God’s work continues because in order for life to sustain, it must be renewed . . . in the world God made, natural processes are cyclical. When endings come . . . even when all seems lost and unredeemable, God calls the ruach (Hebrew for breath, wind, spirit), the winds to come from each direction and breathe new life upon the earth. God says: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live.
I’ve never been one to turn to scripture first for comfort, but these words never fail me. When I read them, some part of me feels life restored. We all need it. You never know what people are carrying – we’re all carrying something – and God’s story is yet unfinished . . . it continues to unfold around us and within us, for we are essential God’s story as cocreators of history. We don’t need to know how God will lift us up . . . or raise up from their graves the corners of the earth stripped of life and hope . . . we don’t know how God will breathe life into the world again, we only need to ask, can these dry bones live . . . and hold enough room inside of us . . . between the parts of us that have given up hope or aren’t ready to hear it . . . hold room enough inside for possibility. Before we can co-create the world that’s unfolding
before us, God invites us to imagine . . .
My own work is to open myself to a life that celebrates my mother’s memory, without requiring her physical presence. A year ago I couldn’t imagine it . . . but the bones of her memory keep dropping and assembling . . . and a new possibility is becoming more and more clear in my mind. The good news of the Living God meets us today . . . what do you imagine is possible?
1 PBS Newshour broadcast March 15, 2023