Week Five: Can These Bones Live?
A Word for the Way: Guiding Scripture for the Week
“Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.” —Ezekiel 37:9
Lent brings us to the valley—to the place where we stop pretending we’re already whole.
This is not the week of arrival.
This is the week of the ache that remains.
The bones lie scattered.
The breath has not yet come.
But the question echoes: Can these bones live?
We are not asked to fix.
We are asked to stand among what has been lost.
After the wrestling, after the fire has dimmed, we arrive at what’s broken.
We are invited not to flee it, but to see it.
Not to conquer it, but to stay long enough to notice what is beginning to stir.
This is not a week of certainty.
It is a week of presence.
A week to listen for the rattle.
To honor what is forming.
To ask for breath—again.
God does not demand belief before breathing.
The Spirit comes into what is lifeless not with shame, but with wind.
And where the breath moves, life begins—slowly, gently, again.
This is the invitation of Week Five:
Lent does not rush to resurrection.
It leads us into the places that still feel dry.
It brings us to the valley,
where God meets what is scattered
and does not look away.
This is not the week of forcing answers.
This is the week of letting the question rise.
Of naming what has been lost.
Of listening for the first sound of hope.
Of believing that even dry bones are not forgotten.
This week, we remember:
You are not asked to rise all at once.
You are only asked to stay open to the breath that comes.
Core Practice: The Prayer of Re-forming
Each day this week, pause to let the question meet you.
Find stillness.
Sit or stand with one hand over your heart, the other over your lower belly.
Breathe slowly.
Inhale: “Come, breath of God.”
Exhale: “Fill what has been still.”
Let this be your breath-prayer through the week—
A gentle act of surrender.
A way to ask without forcing.
A way to receive what only the Spirit can bring.
Additional Offering: A Shared Practice — Valley at Dusk
On Saturday evening, as the light begins to fade, step outside or sit near a window.
Feel the earth beneath you. Let the air be what it is—cool, dry, still.
Whisper:
“These bones are not forgotten.”
Others are pausing too.
Others are breathing the same breath, asking the same questions.
Scattered across cities, fields, quiet rooms—
we are holding vigil together in the valley.
You might write a single word of what you are still hoping for.
Or draw a simple shape—something forming, something whole.
Let the dusk be your prayer.
Let the silence be a place of communion.
Let yourself be breathed into, even now.
A Final Word for Those Walking This Pathway
The valley is not a punishment.
It is a place of encounter.
This is the sacred labor of Lent—
to return to the places we thought were too far gone,
to stand among what we buried,
and to let the Spirit breathe where we had forgotten how to hope.
You do not walk this valley alone.
All around the world, others are rising from dust.
Others are being breathed into again.
This week, you are not asked to be whole.
You are simply invited to stay.
Let the bones remember.
Let the breath return.
Let what is forming be enough.