The Un-Graveyard
By Debbonnaire Kovacs, submitted May 20, 2015
It’s a dream. It has to be a dream. And you shouldn’t have had the pizza!
There you are, in the middle of a valley, with no idea how you got there. At first, you just accept it; it’s one of those odd dream-things. Then you look around, puzzled. There are all kinds of…sticks, or something. They’re all over the place—you can’t walk without stepping on them—and they roll, and kind of crunch, under your feet. You lean down to take a closer look…
And jump back with a gasp and a surge of adrenalin. The dream begins to take on a nightmarish quality.
“A s-s-skull!” you babble to yourself. “Th-that’s a skull!”
And as you stare around you, your eyes too wide for comfort and your breathing tense, you realize…you are surrounded by human bones. Hundreds of them—thousands of them! Legs, arms, ribcages sticking up like something from an old western movie. But the skulls are the worst, grinning at you, staring sightlessly up at the sky.
It’s a dream. It has to be a dream…
You jump again as a Voice speaks. “Mortal, can these bones live?”
You don’t know how you know it, but in the way of dreams, you do know it. It’s God. The Most High God, speaking to you! You manage to find enough breath to babble something like, “How should I know? That’s your department!”
The Voice comes again, so powerful the wind stops blowing and the crickets stop chirping. “Prophesy to these bones,” the Voice intones, “and say to them:
O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
Thus says the Lord YHWH 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.”
Still not breathing all that well, you manage to obediently parrot the words you have been given. But as you speak…
“…I will lay sinews on you…”
With a mighty rattling that makes you freeze and clench your eyes shut in terror, the bones begin to come together, held by ligaments and tendons. (You can’t help peeking…)
“…and will cause flesh to come upon you…”
Like a movie with shocking special effects, muscles zip around the skeletons, covering ribs, wrapping legs and arms, coiling around the grinning skulls.
“…and cover you with skin…”
You are thankful when the skin slips over the muscles and the skeletons look like people again. You take another breath.
“…and put breath in you…”
It sounds like a mighty rushing wind. All the bodies in the valley take a deep breath, as if they’ve all been startled and are gasping. Like you.
“…and you shall live…”
They sit up. They stand up. They look at each other, and at you. Ten minutes ago it was a nightmare, a valley of death. Now…they’re just people. Just ordinary, startled people.
The Voice speaks with you as you tremblingly state the last line you were given.
“…and you shall know that I am the Lord.”
And it’s true. You do know. You wake in your own bed, in your own room, and you know—you know, gut-deep, soul-deep, that this God can bring life from death. Can resurrect you. Can pour the Holy Spirit on you and get you on your feet.
You.
Now.
Today.
Based on Ezek. 37:1-14.
