day one

God grabbed me. God's Spirit took me up and set me down in the middle of an open plain strewn with bones. he led me around and among them - a lot of bones! there were bones all over the plain - dry bones, bleached by the sun.

he said to me, "son of man, can these bones live?"

i said, "Master God, only you know that."

~ ezekiel 37:1-3, the message

i sometimes joke that my job has sucked the life out of me. i'm eternally exhausted from the long hours and the constant craziness, but more than that i have allowed my work completely take over my soul. i spend all day at work then i come home, sit on the couch and work some more. i moved to a village so i could spend less time commuting and more time actually working.

i could blame all of this on my employer, but the truth is that i allowed this to happen. everyone is overworked these days. everyone has been charged to "do more with less, better." each time i sold a bit more of my soul to my job, i stole more and more of it from it's Originator.

back in the day, lent wasn't about losing weight or cutting out coffee. lent was a period of dedicated study of the catechism in preparation for baptism and admission into the orthodox church at easter. over the next 40 days i'm committing to dedicated study and prayer in preparation for my own re-admission into the church. over the next 40 days i'm asking the Creator to create in me a heart worth loving and a life worth living.

tonight i pray that my dry bones would find form through the words of my Maker. tonight i pray that my soul would find life in the breath of my Sustainer.