Dem Bones, Dem Bones Gonna Walk Aroun'!

A few teeth, a jaw, a hank of hair -- I recently establish a figure of odd looking castanets in the berry shrubs at the border of my property. Gathering as many as I could find, I took the dark and disgustful castanets to a friend who used to be our local wildlife life scientist for the Forest Service for identification.

"Raccoon," she instantly decided, looking at the heap of bones, pointing out a piece of a jaw here and some dentition there. Know what would have got been the strangest surprise in the world? If, as we stared at the heap of disconnected, disjointed bones, they'd suddenly begun to move about like some bad horror flick -- shifting and trembling to finally happen again their appropriate, joint topographic points -- all strangely coming back together.

How weird, if before our eyes, the skeletal system of a raccoon came together by some unseeable means.

Yeah, exactly like that old spiritual, "Dem Dry Bones!", with your "leg os connected to your knee joint joint bone, your knee os connected to your thigh bone, your thigh os connected to your hip bone..." And eventually everything connected to "your caput bone" and then "Dem bones, dem castanets gonna walking aroun'!"

This old Negro Negro spiritual come ups right out of the Bible. The Old Testament prophet, Ezekiel, have a vision of a whole "valley" full of "dry bones". Then Supreme Being said to the prophet, "Prophesy to these bones, speak to them and tell them to live!"

In Ezekiel's vision, as the Wind of God's Spirit began to blow, the oracle watched the castanets stir into action and get to link themselves; he watched as flesh and musculus tissue enveloped the bare, dry castanets and soon an full regular army stood in presence of him.

All in a Negro spiritual vision, of course.

About 3,000 old age ago.

Why did Supreme Being show Ezekiel this curious vision? What's His point? Bashes it use to us today?

The castanets stand for God's people. The fact the castanets are disjointed, dry and scattered throughout a desert vale is a image of God's people disjointed, dry and scattered.

Just before Jesus Of Nazareth gave Himself to be crucified, He prayed to His Father in Heaven. He prayed about us. About everyone who have ever claimed to be a follower of Jesus Of Nazareth Christ.

He prayed to His Father that we'd all be one. That we'd be one just like Jesus Of Nazareth Of Nazareth and His Father were one.

Just how "one" were Jesus and His Father? Well, the Book is completely clear that Jesus Of Nazareth Of Nazareth is God (the "fullness of the godhead" dwelt in Jesus) and the Father is God.

That's pretty close -- they're both God! But then Jesus Of Nazareth Of Nazareth prays that all His following will be 1 just as much "one" as He and His Father.

Alright -- so we "followers of Jesus Christ" are supposed to be really, really close. Since the Father loves the Son, then I say the following of Jesus Of Nazareth are supposed to love one another the same manner the Father and the Son love each other. How "one" are the following of Jesus Of Nazareth Christ? How well are we demonstrating the intimacy of our love? How caring are the Christians in our community with one another?

Let's acquire to the underside line: the living, breathing Christians of our community could be a batch more "affectionate". Our "oneness" could be manifested a batch more dramatically than it is.

The dry bones? That's us. People who claim to be Jesus' "followers". We necessitate to be "connected" better than we ever have got before!

If we desire to see this oneness go on today, in our lives, what make we necessitate to do? How are we ever going to "get jointed together"?

Just as in Ezekiel's vision, what was it that re-connected the dry castanets into a Godhead "army"? It was the Wind of the Holy Place Spirit. As the Wind blew over the bones, the castanets connected and came to life.

Now, this isn't a "trick question", but what is it that's going to "reconnect" work force and women, wherever you live, into an caring integrity just like Jesus Of Nazareth have with His Father?

Simply put -- as we set down our spiritual "differences" and follow the Presence of the Godhead in the Wind of His Spirit, He'll take us into unity.

Tell me now -- make you experience the Wind?

© 2008 by Emil Swift

Ollie Ollie Oxen Free!

Ollie, Ollie Cattle Free!

To see the theatrical humanistic discipline practiced in our small town, you have got to travel to the "Redbud Theater" (and Mexican restaurant!) They once set on an admirable public presentation that dealt with old folks. Growing old, more than in the head even than the heart. I don't retrieve the name of the play, but the narrative is unforgettable. It's put in an old folks' home. A new, "old" boarder gets to take up residency, and turns the retirement place top down with his vernal ideas.

His mode and voice is immature and filled with life. He desires to still bask life despite his Grey hair. But the other occupants of the place go angered, put in their aged roles, and irritated by the indecent energy of the new resident. Some even see the new boarder disrespectful of their advanced years.

Outcome of it all is that most of the old folks fall in in with the new lodger, allowing themselves to believe and experience as they did sometimes long ago -- and wind up magically transported back into their childhoods. The narrative stops with 1 irritated, old old codger who -- refusing to turn "young" again -- sits, listening through the unfastened window as eventide falls, hearing the sounds of children racing to "kick-the-can" -- their high, pre-adolescent shouts joyfully echoing in the streets, "Ollie, ollie cattle free!"

While slowly, he gets to acknowledge first one child, then another, as the children of his own young person -- recently lodging with him in the old folks' home. But, no more.

Ollie, ollie cattle free?

Most people don't understand how wonderfully appropriate that child's phone call is to the old folks in the remainder home. How could they, since very few people even recognize what the words mean. Children have got been shouting, "Ollie, ollie cattle free" for centuries. Coevals after coevals of children have got learned it from other children, not protective in the least what it means.

Centuries back, a German version of the outcry entered into English, an English Language so old that people still used the plural form "ye". The German outcry went like this: "Alle Alle auch sind frei." It means, "All! All! (You) are also free!" and served as the phone call to all the children still in concealment that that peculiar unit of ammunition of the game had ended and they could all come up out of hiding.

In England, the phrase morphed into this: "All ye, all ye, outs in free". In kick-the-can, everyone but whoever is It hides. The child who's It seeks to guard the Can, while children in concealment attempt to run to it when it's unguarded and boot it without first beingness tagged.

Get this picture: A twelve children playing, all but one in hiding. That 1 is "It" and stands near the Can, protecting it. One child runs out of concealment but is tagged before he can kick the Can -- then Suzi runs as quietly as she can, prowlers up behind the child who's "It", kicks the Can and shouts out, "All ye, all ye, outs in free!"

The 1s who were still concealment -- behind refuse cans, under shrubs -- knew that the game was over when the phone call went out, "Ollie Ollie cattle free!" All the children who are "outs" -- still in concealment -- are free to come up out of their hiding places. Sometimes, children would shout out this "freedom call" because it was dinnertime and they needed to travel place and eat.

OK. Sol "Ollie, ollie cattle free!" actually intends "All ye, all ye, outs [come] in free!"

So what?

Remember the old folks' home? The new boarder had come up up to "free" them from the prison house of their ain minds! It's wish the saying, "You're only as old as you believe you are." He'd come to state that Grey hairs lie and life can still be lived to the fullest, right to the very end. He'd come up to "kick-the-can" of old-agedness, and "free" the occupants to bask life again.

Nice story. That's why it's so appropriate for the children's outcry to be used to stop that peculiar story.

Recently, I heard this children's outcry again. On a music cadmium -- filled with contemporary, Christian worship. One of the vocalists started shouting out, "All ye, all ye, come up in free!"

It seemed riotous to the flowing of music. Irritating. What makes a child's game have got to make with Negro spiritual worship?

So I listened again to that path -- listening carefully to the words of that song. It's a song about freedom. Spiritual freedom. It's a song written about all the people who dwell "in hiding". All the people who have got been wounded by others and are in hiding. They've been rejected by others and unrecorded in the darker shadows of life -- vulnerable to no 1 and exposing nil to anyone for fearfulness of being ache yet again.

There's a job with raising up thick, strong walls of protection. After walling out the people who might ache you, you detect you've walled yourself in to a alone place. Back in the sixties, St Simon and Garfunkle wrote about this loneliness, saying, "I am a rock, I am an island... and a stone experiences no pain..."

In the first discourse Jesus Of Nazareth preached in His place town of Nazareth, He explained that His Heavenly Father had sent Him to Earth as a human beingness to make a job. He had been chosen "to give good news to the poor; He have sent Me to mend the broken-hearted; to allow the captives travel free, mend the blind, and set the oppressed free from their chains -- and to proclaim that this is the Year of the release of God's Favor into human lives!" [Luke 4.18-19]

The miss on the worship cadmium knew that God's bosom interruptions to see people who are still broken and smashed by life. Jesus Of Nazareth Of Nazareth came so that we could have got Life with a working capital "L" -- an abundant life and not mere "survival".

When Jesus chose to decease on the Cross, He offered to take every person's sinfulness and guiltiness on Himself. He's "washed us" from the guiltiness of all our sins. Better yet, He's broken the powerfulness of Dark from our lives.

We don't necessitate to "hide" in life anymore. We can "come out". Jesus Of Nazareth have "kicked-the-can" of our guiltiness and shame; He have ended the darkly diabolic game that Shaytan loves to play; He have delivered us from our enemies and it's finally "safe" to come up up out of "hiding".

So let's shout it out into the dark topographic points around us... "Ollie, ollie cattle free!"

©2008 by Emil B. Swift