Acrylic  40” x 60” - Ezekiel 37

When God came to Ezekiel with this prophetic word, the weight of what God wanted to say carried forward from the earlier chapter. He would not let His name be profaned by being associated with a generation of people who were corrupted by the ways of the world. He would, instead, revive them for the sake of His name among them. The valley of dry bones that Ezekiel then saw represented the dry faithless remains of a nation. God commands him to prophesy to the bones that they would come together. The prophesy of Ezekiel becomes the very word and breath of God to the lifeless.

In the painting is the Annapolis Valley. In many ways it is a valley of dry bones. Once, 200 hundred years ago, God moved through this valley causing a great awakening after which many churches sprung up. Today we are longing for God again. Its as though God is asking us if these bones can live and he is telling us to prophesy to these bones. Against the background of the Annapolis Valley the bones of a vast defeated people are rising up. Flesh is covering the bones. There is movement as bodies are reshaped. In Ezekiel’s vision the bodies now clothed with flesh had no life in them, so, God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the breath calling it from the four winds to give the bodies life. God is spirit, He is like the wind, He is the breath that gives life. God raises up the army as Ezekiel watches.

I have painted the next generation as the new army of God raised up by His spirit and impassioned to take the land. The wind of the spirit blows through their ranks and unfurls their banners. The shields in the foreground form the head of an eagle, the spirit of God in their midst. His wing tips stretch out to the left and up to the right in the clouds. His talons and tale feathers are outlined below. They become one body, one with each other through the spirit of God breathing life into their emptiness.