A Holy Week reflection on Ezekiel 37
Words: Craig Mitchell
Music: Leigh Newton © 2020
A faster version below recorded early on.
Read Craig’s comments on the writing of the song:
“Here’s a new song written with Leigh Newton.
“I wrote this just prior to Holy Week when Ezekiel 37, the vision of the valley of dry bones, was in the lectionary. I thought of the coming events of Easter, and Jesus’ suffering and death. I thought of people not dead, but facing death – not dry bones but what preceded them. People dissembling into bones. I guess it sounds morbid. Yet I wondered about the slowness of decay, the seeping away of life. I wondered about people and the church losing heart, losing faith, losing spirit. I wondered about all those for whom hope is nowhere to be found, for whom there are no easy answers.
“It was the time that COVID-19 lockdown hit and suddenly our churches were not able to meet. The body of Christ felt separated, dissembled. Easter was going to be a time of being dis-membered. What happened to Christ’s body and what was happening to the church has some kind of parallel to the vision of a valley of bones that needed the breath of new life. But before that there would be a slow and painful journey – to and through the Cross – before resurrection.
“So for me, this lyric was about trying to reflect the lament of a people feel separated – a body being broken, slowly losing its life – and also the many fractions that are evidence of our lack of unity with God and one another. But there’s also something here for me about the journey of discipleship as portrayed in Lent – of being a company of people on the slow journey to wholeness, accompanied by the risen, crucified One.
“It is a lament for a people who feel that they are losing life, and who may indeed experience some deep kind of loss. It is a song of hope for people trying to make the long journey home.” Craig Mitchell
We walk on
A Holy Week reflection on Ezekiel 37
Link: Piano music
Words: Craig Mitchell
Music: Leigh Newton © 2020
- We are a body
We’re bothered and broken
We are a family
so fractured and frail
Here is a household
We’re doubtful, divided
We are all pilgrims
together alone
Chorus
And so we walk
And so we walk
We walk on
Lord, we walk on
2. We are a people
We’re holding a promise
Once were full-bodied
yet now we are bones
Here was a heartbeat
still heaving and hoping
Life-blood now seeping
as cold as a stone
Chorus
3. We are all travellers
with little direction
We are all followers
with future unknown
God of the twilight
God of the morning
God who stands by us
promise to hold
Chorus
4. We are all worriers
We’re anxious, despairing
We are all dreamers
still longing for home
Spirits are broken
Our hearts are wide open
just for ourselves and
just for our world
Chorus x 2
5. This is our journey
a wilderness people
This is our yearning
of healing for all
Behind and before us
Within and beside us
Christ in the pathway
Christ in the call
Chorus x 2