The Valley of the Dry Bones

Healing the Wound of War

I took this picture at a content’s ossuary in Antigua Guatemala. No pictures are allowed at FAFG because they work with open cases awaiting trial.

Not too long ago, I went to visit an organization called the Forensic Anthropology Foundation of Guatemala, FAFG by its initials in Spanish. This organization works in finding the executed victims of our internal armed conflict. The forensic anthropologists work in carefully putting together the remains of people they have found in previously hidden mass graves. They weave the threads that connect the evidence to retell the story of how people died. At the end of the process, the remains return in wooden ossuaries to the families and communities who lost their loved ones during the war. This allows both the living and the dead to have closure and healing. Most of the victims that the foundation has identified belong the Mayan campesinos who lived in the highlands during the armed conflict.

I felt and heard the cries of our people while walking the narrow halls of the FAFG. It was the blood of Abel crying from the ground, because our armed conflict was a fight between siblings. As my friend Kris¹ has said before, it is impossible to not make a connection between this image and the prophecy of the valley of the dry bones in Ezekiel 37. When I read this text, I can’t help but feeling a deep desire for a hopeful interpretation of Scripture, and peace with justice.

I want hope, peace, and justice because the trauma of the armed conflict is still visible. We experience it on a daily basis, for the causes of the war are still present. Classism and inequalities define everyday relationships. Indigenous people experience discrimination. We use religion to justify our violence. And, the abuse of power happens at every level of society. Not dealing with our collective woundedness led us to fight our brothers and sisters. And in doing so, we wounded one another even more.

Ezekiel’s prophecy speaks to the Guatemalan context in a very tangible way. I don’t mean to say that the text has direct prophesies nor promises for the Guatemalan people. What I am trying to imply is that the wound of war and violence is older than we can imagine. Humanity has been a sacrificial war machine since its early stages. Guatemala is just one of the many gears in the machinery, because we were/are willing to dispose of the most vulnerable while demonizing them as the ones whose existence is the cause of all evils.

The valley of the dry bones prophecy has the imagery of war and heavy metal—If I allow myself for anachronisms here. Perhaps, the reading of the prophecy should be accompanied with Black Sabbath’s War Pigs as its hymn. Both speak of the horrors of war and violence. And if sung together, they may help us rid ourselves from senseless nationalism. Just take look at the beginning War Pigs:

Generals gathered in their masses

Just like witches at black masses

Evil minds that plot destruction

Sorcerer of death's construction

In the fields, the bodies burning

As the war machine keeps turning

Death and hatred to mankind

Poisoning their brainwashed minds

Oh lord, yeah!²

In later chapters, Ezekiel’s prophecies are about vengeance and retribution. However, I wonder: what would the resurrected from the vision tell us? Would they want vengeance and retribution? My sense is that the prophecy is tainted with Ezekiel’s pain and desires for vengeance. My guess is that the army who was given the breath of life in the vision would turn to us and ask us to not keep feeding the machinery of war and violence, neither by word or deed. Perhaps, they would implore us to not wound each other in the same way they were wounded. They would invite us to destroy the altars of our idols—senseless nationalism, greed, capitalism, religious politics, and more—to stop the sacrifice of more human lives.

Our world is still struggling with violence and war. Humanity will try to convince itself that there is a good and bad side in any violent conflict. And, if our theology invites us to lift up a flag to support one side, it will be the flag of death. That is how theology becomes an ideology of death and violence, not the worship and reflection of a God in whom there is no violence.

The truth is that nobody wins when war and violence happen. We all lose, for we take several steps back in our journey to becoming more human. There is one thing that I am sure of, God does take a side when there is violence and war. It is the side of the victims, the most vulnerable, the expendables of society.

We need to dig out the bones of our violence. The skeletons need to see the light of day and redemption. If we do so, we will bring healing and closure for the living and the dead. That is how our systems (religion, politics, capitalism, and so on) will be revealed for what they truly are, a violent sacrificial machine. We deserve to find justice, take responsibility, and walk together as we become more human in the search of peace with justice.

1. Rocke, Kris. “Modern Confesional Movements.” In The Palgrave Handbook Of Mimetic Theory And Religion, 509–15. Palgrave Macmillan, 2017.

2. Black Sabbath, “War Pigs,” 16-18 June, 1970, Track 1 on Paranoid, Vertigo Records, 1970.