[Ezekiel, Breath, and Hope]

Go read Ezekiel 37:1-14 right now.

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This morning I picked up Joyce Rupp's book, May I have this Dance? I have been meaning to read it since the beginning of January, but somehow haven't found the time to delve into it. It's wonderful because it goes through the year, month by month, with beautiful, reflective words about the time of year/physical season/liturgical season and provides opportunity for meditation and prayer. She asks you to do a lot of self-reflection in various forms: prayer, writing, drawing, meditating, etc. I will hopefully go back to the chapter for January soon, but this morning I started with February. I felt the need to start my day with a guided meditation and the one for February felt more necessary than that of January.

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For February, Rupp chose to write about Ezekiel and the bones. The guided meditation asked me first to read the verses, which I did. (And I have to admit, I laughed when I got to v.3 when God says, "Mortal, can these bones live?" and Ezekiel says, "Oh God, you know." As though that was going to get him out of it.) The meditation emphasized breath, which I am realizing more and more that I seem to forget about breathing intentionally and deeply. Short and shallow breaths tend to rule my day, so it was (no pun intended) a breath of fresh air to read Rupp's words and pay attention to my breathing... pay attention to deep breathing... pay attention to silencing the mind. And here in the scripture God calls Ezekiel to "prophesy to the breath" telling the breath to shake the bones and cause them to rise up and to live. And to continue quoting scripture, God goes on to tell Ezekiel what to say to the bones: "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."

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I love this for two reasons. First, it speaks to my blog post from yesterday. God is working on it. I just need patience. This came in the Sojourners Verse and Voice email... Enuma Okoro wrote, "And the work of God is rarely dull, but it's not always necessarily what we think. Transformation is hard stuff. Seeking to bring about the kingdom of God-- caring for the poor, feeding the hungry, visiting prisoners, caring for the sick, renouncing demons in God's name-- you don't do that in a 15-minute lunch break." She's right. Transformation requires patience, perseverance and hard work. Here's to working slowly on transformation...

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The other reason this passage is significant to me today is because last night our house had it's first real "agenda meeting" since before Christmas. JVC asks us to do agenda meetings once a week to figure out house issues, cooking schedules, and personal schedules for the week. We all commented at our Re-Orientation this past weekend that we haven't really challenged ourselves. This year has been easier than anticipated. With that said we sat down and honestly talked about what we wanted to change. We made a slew of suggestions and changes to our lives... It sounds overwhelming when you look at it all but we are committed to it and excited about it.

Here are the changes/challenges:

• We commit to No Tech Tuesdays (using next-to-no electricity all day... so no cell phones, lights, computers, stove, hair dryers, straighteners, etc.)
• With that, we will commit to doing a simple/cold meal Tuesday nights.
• We will re-implement spirituality and community nights, alternating them each week, and that night will be Tuesday nights.
• We will re-implement agenda meetings each Sunday night (or whatever night before we go back to work).
• We will plan out our meals and who does dishes in an attempt to create more one-on-one time. This means assigning two people to cook and two people to do dishes. This will take more time to plan but it is more intentional... and after all, we are an intentional community.
• We will also plan out who goes shopping each weekend... two people who will find time Saturday/Sunday to go to the grocery store.

I believe that's everything. It sounds like a lot but we are really excited about it and are definitely looking forward to spending more intentional time with each other.

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To get back to Ezekiel, this meeting and these commitments have breathed new life into our community. God has poured out her Spirit into our community and we have finally grabbed hold of it in an attempt to be a more faithful community of volunteers. We have, with the help of God, pulled ourselves out of the graves of individualism, ease, comfort, and anxiety.

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Praise God for honest conversation about needs and challenges.

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I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived, and stood on their feet, a vast multitude. (v. 10)