Hear It on Sunday, Use It on Monday: Dry Bones

My grandmother had osteoporosis.

I didn't know the name of the disorder back then, but I observed her stooped, bent frame. She sat hunched at the kitchen table, cigarette curling smoke from the gold ashtray, Good Housekeeping spread open on the floral oilcloth. A hump bulged between her shoulder blades – not huge, but discernible through her thin cotton housecoat.

My mom swallows calcium three times a day – white horse pills. Her shoulders round forward; she doesn't seem as tall and stately as she once was. Where we used to stand eye to eye, I am a bit taller now. But her doctor assures her they have caught it in time.

Built similarly, my doctor has warned me about osteoporosis. I'm genetically predisposed to it. She advises calcium, 1,000 milligrams, divided into two doses daily with meals. But I take the vitamin only sporadically, when I remember. I don't like to swallow the pills with my morning coffee; they make me gag. By the end of the day, I've often forgotten to take them at all.

As I age, steamrolling toward menopause, my doctor warns that my bones will become more brittle, prone to fracture. "Take the calcium; drink milk, eat yogurt," she urges. "You'll regret it later if you don't."

Brittle bones are on my mind as I ponder Ezekiel, and as I read the description of bones, a valley of them, dry and lifeless, I realize that femurs, fibula and trapezia aren't my only concern.

Sometimes I have osteoporosis of the soul.

Sometimes I am spiritually parched. Dry. Prayer feels contrived, forced. I procrastinate reading the Bible, and when I do, I'm distracted, not really reading or absorbing at all. I sit in the pew on Sunday and feel empty. My soul is flat, desiccated. Detached.

Yet I go through the motions of faith, empty though those rituals seem. I pray, regardless of the silence. I read the Bible, ignoring my wandering mind, pressing on, re-reading verses. I show up in church on Sunday, slide into the pew, cast my eyes on the altar, put bread in my mouth and wine to my lips.

In repeating these motions, these rituals, these seemingly senseless acts of faith, I feel the beginnings of new life breathed into dry soul. Sometimes it takes days, sometimes weeks, but in patiently acting in faith, I begin to feel the real breath of life.

Breath comes in a word – from a friend, from a stranger, from my son. Yellow Post-It note left on my pillow with a foil-wrapped Dove chocolate plucked from the candy jar: “I love you Mommy. You are my sunshine.”

Breath comes in an act – cheesy lasagna in an aluminum pan delivered to our doorstep during a grieving time. Butterfly lamp arriving via UPS, glow in darkness to remind us of her light. And His.

Breath comes in a vision – a single river birch branch lit in gold. One lavender aster blossom held in a boy's outstretched palm.

The soul warms. The spirit grows limber. And in these breaths, each deeper than the last, I feel bones and soul, body and heart, live and breathe again.

“Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to these bones and say to them, ‘Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! This is what the Sovereign Lord says to these bones: I will make breath enter you, and you will come to life. I will attach tendons to you and make flesh come upon you and cover you with skin; I will put breath in you, and you will come to life. Then you will know that I am Lord.’” Ezekiel 37: 4-6

A repost from the archives as we settle back in from our trip to Massachusetts.

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