God's promise of new life

He asked me: Son of man, can these bones come to life? I answered, “Lord GOD, you alone know that.” (Ezekiel 37:3)

I read in the paper this morning that there are over 500 fires blazing all over California today, most of them caused by lightning strikes over the past few days and fed by warm winds and dry vegetation.  The smoke and ash from the fires closest to my home is so thick, we can almost taste it.  As a result, I haven’t been able to get out of the house for four days and take a walk as I pray, which has been the only activity I’ve availed myself of to keep my sanity since the COVID pandemic hit and the shelter in place rules set in.

It reminds me that for all of the advancements of Artificial Intelligence, God is still the author of all creation and makes the rain fall upon the good and the bad (Matthew 5:45).  We may be bad stewards who distribute our water unjustly and who use our water wastefully, but we can’t make the water fall from the sky in the areas where we need rain.  Only God can.

Those who live in drought, live with dryness.  Dryness will eventually drain out of us the much-needed moisture for a healthy life.  We can survive for many days without food, but we can’t survive long without water.  For that reason, dryness becomes a great metaphor for our human and spiritual life.

People who are dry of human kindness and compassion and affection are people who come across as unfriendly and unwelcoming.  They seem to lack the grace that the waters of Baptism give us They seem to be people who are devoid of life, meaningful relationships, and humanity.  They seem to be like the walking dead.  Again, there seems to be a lot of that going around in 2020.

So many saints, from St. Paul of the Cross to Blessed Teresa of Calcutta, have confessed many years of spiritual dryness.  Not just one or two times a year, but 30 or 40 years at a time.

Where is the hope? The hope is found, as usual, in Scripture and Tradition. The prophet Ezekiel found himself in a desert, filled with dry bones.  He was asked if they could be brought back to life.  His answer came from years of personal prayer and listening to God; he couldn’t but God can make it happen! (Ezekiel 37:1-14)

In my opinion spiritual dryness isn’t a sign of God’s absence, but a sign of God’s purification.  God invites us into a special secluded place, a desert, which at first glance, is filled with dry bones.  But, in reality, it’s filled with God’s promise of new life.

It was in the desert that God established a covenant of love with the people of Israel.  In the New Testament, Jesus sums up the whole law with two commandments: “You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” and, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:34-40).  Love and Life go hand in hand, as do Faith and Hope.