• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to footer

Mothering Spirit

everyday parenting as spiritual practice

  • About
    • About Laura
    • New Here?
    • Popular Posts
    • Contact Me
    • Privacy Policy
    • Insta-Links
    • My Newsletter
  • My Books
    • Grieving Together: A Couple’s Journey through Miscarriage
    • Prayers for Pregnancy & Birth
    • Everyday Sacrament: The Messy Grace of Parenting
    • To Bless Our Callings: Prayers, Poems, and Hymns to Celebrate Vocation
    • Living Your Discipleship: 7 Ways to Express Your Deepest Calling
    • Little Rock Scripture Studies
  • After Loss
    • what to do when a friend loses a baby
    • what to do for kids when their sibling dies
  • prayers for pregnancy
    • The Complete E-Books
    • Trying to Conceive
    • Month One
    • Month Two
    • Month Three
    • Month Four
    • Month Five
    • Month Six
    • Month Seven
    • Month Eight
    • Month Nine
    • Infertility
    • Miscarriage
    • Morning Sickness
  • Prayers for Parenting
  • For You
    • favorite resources for parents
    • faith resources for ministers
  • Show Search
Hide Search

can these bones live?

2 Comments

He said to me, “Mortal, can these bones live?”
I answered, “O Lord God, you know.”
(Ezekiel 37:3)

I miss your writing, she texts me. So I went back and read a bunch of the old stuff.

I miss it, too, I write back.

The next day another friend listens. (My latest litany of lament.)

“So are you writing?” she asks.

“No,” I respond.

The words hang in the air, thick and heavy as autumn clouds.

“I only write all this death stuff. I’m sick of it. But I don’t know what else to write.”

. . .

I want to tell you other things.

I want to tell you all the poets who are saving my life lately. Because you can’t be a writer unless you delight in words and the creators who craft them.

I want to tell you how golden light in late afternoon halos the ringlets of my toddler’s hair into holy sun. Because you can’t be a writer unless you look into people’s faces and notice the play of light.

I want to tell you how every week some conversation with some stranger startles me into the persistent presence of God. Because you can’t be a writer unless you learn how to spin a good story.

I want to tell you how singing grace with my kids last week made me realize that – despite copious evidence to the contrary – God has given my life the only things that I need. Because you can’t be a writer unless you start to mine deeper truth beneath simple surface.

I want to tell you all these things and more. I want to stop singing lament and start singing hope. I want to find new words where the old ones ring hollow.

But how do I sing when the valley is still thick with bones? 

It is the weariness in the prophet’s voice that catches my throat, every time.

His soul-weariness, looking out across the stark valley of scorched bones. Can these bones live, the heaps of death? He cannot shrug or scratch his head. He cannot cry in an acrid land; moisture dried up long ago.

But he still answers God’s question. In his words alone he turns back.

O Lord God. You know.

Dry bones make a mocking valley where there should be mountains. The land itself is hollowed out. Bones, not bodies. Ash, not dreams. Dust, not earth. Nothing good can grow here.

How long can you look before it wearies your words and dry your bones, too?

The only response is exhausted: you know. O Lord. God. 

But even in bone-worn despair, there rises a wisp of faith. Trust turned into words – even if it is scraped from corners to make a small-enough pile to say something – is no small feat.

It becomes the ground of possibility. The place from which God says, “Then…” Then is a word of invitation. Then is an arm outstretched to point forward. Then is a stirring to show the way.

Then prophesy to the bones. Then prophesy to the breath. Then prophesy to the people.

Tell hard truth. Tell what you see. Tell what you do not yet see. Speak suffering. Speak hope.

Let the harsh winds of this dry valley sweep your life clean – of illusion, egoism, ease, desire to control.

Then – then! – then you can become a voice in the valley. A sound in the silence. Then you can become an instrument: a hollowed-out beauty, a source of song from your emptiness.

Then you can turn bones into flesh.

Because once your life is only bones, once you realize that breath comes from God alone, once you turn back and say you know, once you remember that this is all and enough – only then can life start to rebuild. Skin, sinews, flesh, blood, let dry bones dance –

But all this begins with bones. Driest your eyes have seen.

And the words you want to speak, that you might live.

Share this:

  • Share
  • Click to share on Facebook (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Twitter (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on Pinterest (Opens in new window)
  • Click to share on LinkedIn (Opens in new window)
  • Click to print (Opens in new window)
  • Click to email this to a friend (Opens in new window)

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Louise says

    7 October 2016 at 6:41 pm

    This post is beautiful. Thank you for reminding me there is always hope, even amongst the bones and dust. God bless you and give you comfort.

    Reply
  2. Elise says

    7 October 2016 at 7:09 pm

    I am always so grateful for your gift with words. Thank you, Laura. God bless your heart. Sending much love.

    Reply

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

About Laura

I’m Laura Kelly Fanucci. Mother, writer, wonderer. This space is where I explore mothering through writing. It’s where I celebrate how God shows up in the chaos of raising children. It’s where I love to build community with readers like you. Read More…

Follow Laura

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Pinterest
Laura Kelly Fanucci
Books by Laura Kelly Fanucci
e-books by Laura Kelly Fanucci

Mothering Spirit Newsletter

Henri Nouwen quote

From the Archives

Footer

Follow Me on Facebook

Follow Me on Facebook

Follow me on Twitter

Tweets by laurakfanucci

Follow Me on Instagram

thismessygrace

Mother, writer, wonderer.
Seeker of God in chaos & life with kids.
Author of Everyday Sacrament & Grieving Together.
Glimpses of grace & gratitude.

thismessygrace
Every baby has something magical about them; I'm c Every baby has something magical about them; I'm convinced. This last one is no exception.

Each night after nursing, he closes his eyes, snuggles into my elbow, and falls asleep in exactly one millisecond. I have never seen anything like it. Without work, without fail.

Gentle reader, make no mistake. He does not stay asleep. I have not enjoyed a full night's rest in endless months, as seen in every haggard line on my face. He stirs and unsettles, cries and fusses, rouses and snoozes like every other baby.

But he starts each night like a dream, and every time it blooms like a miracle.

I don't know how to make this marvel happen. I've had babies that I had to rock and sing to sleep for ages eternal. Babies I had to lay down and sneak away like a shadow. Babies I could set in the crib wide awake and wave goodbye. Each one a mystery; I take no credit.

But I will say this.

In the moment each night when he insta-sleeps, no less than six thoughts rush at me. 1: what a wonder. 2: this is a soul at peace. 3: making peace means doing hard work and then letting go. 4: letting go is when grace floods in. 5: but what difference does it make to notice ordinary grace? 6: but what good is a life without it?

The world feels too full of Dire Needs and Pressing Politics and Certain Doom to wax eloquent about the quiet grace of a sleeping child. But if such moments are where ordinary peace begins, then perhaps the revolution of love starts right here.

Today I spent hours writing about Important Things while he slept. Women and men who gave their lives to God, risked their safety for justice, and went out boldly into the dark to seek the light.

But every story starts here: with a child at the beginning. To behold the unfolding is not soft or flighty: it is witnessing God who always starts small when working tremendous change.

What he will become, I cannot know. But one day I will tell him the miracle I watched hundreds of times in the hardest year of his birth: that each night he found enough peace to close his eyes and rest in my arms.

Whatever strength we hold will have started right here.
Thought about this on Dec. 26 & Jan. 2. Day after Thought about this on Dec. 26 & Jan. 2. Day after MLK & now today.
The baby is learning how to move in a new way. Wai The baby is learning how to move in a new way. Wait—don’t scroll past. He has truth to teach at the end of his small hands.

Watch him rock back and forth, cusp of crawling, practicing and testing, a seeker and a skeptic—wondering is this safe? Am I strong enough?

If he does not stretch to move and learn and change, he will stay safer. I have watched 5 babies now, and I know what comes next: bumps, bruises, wails, the first piercing cut into smooth skin.

But nature drives him forward. He must both trust his instinct (the desire to move, reach, explore) and overcome it (the fear of unknown, the unpredictable fall). Watch him lean and learn, stretching further each day.

We are cusping on change, too. You can feel the tense stretch, the uncertain lean, the frantic push back to what was safer (for a few, far from all). We are testing and probing, flailing and falling, pushing back up and trying to figure out: how did we get here? Where do we go next?

At least once a day, don’t you want to sit back and holler at the top of your lungs, frustrated and fearful, yet driven to keep going?

And we have to go, have to grow and move and change. It is the only way forward, with lunging arms and knobby knees and bruised foreheads from where we’ll meet sharp edges. This is the sweaty work of change: uncertain, costly, but demanded. Deep-down right, but hard and humbling all the way.

Watch him as he goes. It will take a long time—a lifetime of trying and falling. But he is determined. He is pushing me, too.
True confession: I never noticed Epiphany. We thr True confession: I never noticed Epiphany.

We three kings, endless rounds at church. Gold, frankincense, and myrrh; got it. Magi made it to the manger; let’s clean up now.

I mistook it for a child’s story, a charming end to Christmas. I missed all the angles of light it waited to shine.

Scripture offers a thousand doors by which to enter any story. If you think you’ve got it All Figured Out, turn around and try another. The Word holds infinite mysteries we have not yet uncovered.

You might discover truth you never expected—an epiphany waiting for you.

(And if you want to dig deeper, I’d love for you to join us on retreat this week!)
Spent the second day of the year staring at these Spent the second day of the year staring at these two hard, glorious truths. Winter makes the most beauty from the coldest nights, and what looks like death is often the beginning.

I stared up into frozen trees for five full minutes, looking like a fool, and I stared into tiny roots of the dying seed for even longer.

Here was God whispering the same truth, with wind blown ice crystals and wheat stalk seeds. You can only glimpse a sliver of the creation you are becoming. Just wait till the wild full bloom is born.

#newyearprayer #catechesisofthegoodshepherd
A viral poem. A premature baby. Birth and death, m A viral poem. A premature baby. Birth and death, masks and murder, a jarring jumble—like nearly every day in 2020.

But still the joy of new life at the center, even with the hard world edging all around.

I expected none of it, all the news that turned the year upside down.

But neither did I expect the truth and hope I found from so many here.

I tagged a few of the friends and voices I have been grateful to listen and learn from this year, changing from what they are teaching me.

Let their words & work & witness encourage you.

Drop your favorite accounts in the comments below, so we can follow them, too?

Here’s to hope, brimming on the horizon. The new year won’t change everything, but it will change us—and we can change each other.
Load More... Follow Laura on Instagram

Copyright © 2021 Laura Kelly Fanucci · site customizations by Jamie Jorczak

This website uses cookies to improve your experience. Please click "accept" to keep reading. You can opt-out if you wish.Accept Reject Read More
Privacy & Cookies Policy

Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies to improve your experience while you navigate through the website. Out of these, the cookies that are categorized as necessary are stored on your browser as they are essential for the working of basic functionalities of the website. We also use third-party cookies that help us analyze and understand how you use this website. These cookies will be stored in your browser only with your consent. You also have the option to opt-out of these cookies. But opting out of some of these cookies may affect your browsing experience.
Necessary
Always Enabled

Necessary cookies are absolutely essential for the website to function properly. This category only includes cookies that ensures basic functionalities and security features of the website. These cookies do not store any personal information.

Non-necessary

Any cookies that may not be particularly necessary for the website to function and is used specifically to collect user personal data via analytics, ads, other embedded contents are termed as non-necessary cookies. It is mandatory to procure user consent prior to running these cookies on your website.

loading Cancel
Post was not sent - check your email addresses!
Email check failed, please try again
Sorry, your blog cannot share posts by email.