Dry Bones

You noticed I’ve been AWOL?  Yeah, I missed you too.  I’ve been in the muck wrestling with myself.  I dislike the term blocked.  Okay, maybe you’re not a writer, so it’s possible this has no relevance to you.  Except.

Ever call yourself a failure?  Ever quit because you were stuck?  Maybe you figured other people were better able.  And who did you think you were anyway?  In a flash you were axle-deep in a swamp of self-defeating beliefs.  It might take more than four-wheel-drive and hip-boots to navigate the sinkhole of self-doubt in your path.

Yeah, I know.  If you had your druthers, you’d be anyplace else.  Me too.  But I still want to get where I was going.  I’m not giving up.

So I looked for a source outside my own fevered brain to get out of the swamp.  And I found help. I’ll give credit to Bret Lott.  And to the author of the book of Ezekiel, in the Old Testament, for much of this entry.

Yesterday in the public library I found Before We Get Started, A Practical Memoir of the Writer’s Life by Bret Lott (Ballantine Books, 2005.)  He pointed out that writers are restricted to the same tired old letters and words and possibilities that have been recycled for thousands of years.  We just rearrange them.  There’s nothing new under the sun.  Our raw materials are like dry bones.  He went on:

“Faced with that endless valley of bones we have available to us, we must do what Ezekiel did: we must bring those bones to life.  Ezekiel’s vision can teach us a lot about writing:

“Ezekiel 37 New King James Version (NKJV)

37 The hand of the Lord came upon me and brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley; and it was full of bones. ² Then He caused me to pass by them all around, and behold, there were very many in the open valley; and indeed they were very dry. ³ And He said to me, “Son of man, can these bones live?”

So I answered, “O Lord God, You know.”

⁴ Again He said to me, “Prophesy to these bones, and say to them, ‘O dry bones, hear the word of the Lord! ⁵ Thus says the Lord God to these bones: “Surely I will cause breath to enter into you, and you shall live. ⁶ I will put sinews on you and bring flesh upon you, cover you with skin and put breath in you; and you shall live. Then you shall know that I am the Lord.”’”

⁷ So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I prophesied, there was a noise, and suddenly a rattling; and the bones came together, bone to bone. ⁸ Indeed, as I looked, the sinews and the flesh came upon them, and the skin covered them over; but there was no breath in them.

⁹ Also He said to me, “Prophesy to the breath, prophesy, son of man, and say to the breath, ‘Thus says the Lord God: “Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe on these slain, that they may live.”’” ¹⁰ So I prophesied as He commanded me, and breath came into them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an exceedingly great army.”

Here’s Bret Lott again:

“…. I don’t think it would be too far from the truth to imagine that Ezekiel, knees trembling before the despair of so many bones and God breathing down his neck for an answer thought fleetingly, dangerously, There’s no way.  Bones to life?  Nope.

“O Lord God, You know.”  He doesn’t say, You bet.  He doesn’t say, Don’t think so.  He leaves it to God, and then proceeds—and here is the most important moment—to speak the prophecy he has been called to speak, whether he believes it or not, and not knowing as well what that prophecy means.  He speaks, because he has been called to, and not because he knows what will be the outcome.

And then these dry bones come to life.”

Me again.  This is another version of the resurrection story, the paradox woven throughout the natural world and Biblical wisdom.  That what is dead can come alive again.  As recurrent as winter’s dead grass emerging green again through melting snow in the spring.  The vibrancy of new forest growth fertilized by the mulch of wildfire’s devastation.

What is dark can be foundation for brilliant dawn.  It’s built in to the design of the universe.

Ezekiel and Bret Lott are both talking about inspiration.  How something beyond rational is required for creation, which is the transformation of sweaty gruntwork into a beating heart quickening sinew and flesh.

It takes faith to follow, and keep following, what has called us.  Our balking is where we’re stuck on our own inadequacies.  Our resistance flies in the face of the calling itself.  My second-guessing is telling God he doesn’t know what he’s doing.  My fear of doing it wrong keeps me blocked.  Over-analyzing, self-critical.  Paralyzed.

The act of creativity enfleshes and enlivens dry bones, beyond my known abilities.  I’m called to trust the process.  So here’s my part:  I need to let go of whether the stuff I’m writing is any good, at least for this phase.  I need to keep at a practice of producing material.  Do the next right thing I can find.  Sit my butt in the chair and type what I can, words that show up on the screen.  I need to set aside advance edits of the story trying to emerge, tantalizingly close to the surface.  Quit overthinking, and transcribe what is hovering there.  Pluck the images out of thin air, and take down the message dictated.  Inspiration is not my job.  That’s a separate thing.

Creation is still happening, every day.  For writers, for entrepreneurs, for problem-solvers, for teachers, for those making steps to solutions.  When the ashes of a dead career, or relationship, or project fall away, leaving open space for a new pathway.  We create when we don’t know how it will play out, but we’re willing to puzzle over possibilities.  We create when we get our judgments out of the way, and take the next small step to what we CAN see to do.

Prophesy!  Without knowing the ending.  Even when I don’t know if it’ll be any good.  The job, the call for me, is to quit the distractions and just do it.  Focus on the practice.

The breath to bring life to those words?  That’s from a source beyond me.

What are you inspired to do?