"The toe bone's connected to the foot bone, the foot bone's connected to the ankle bone, the ankle bone's connected to the shin bone...now hear the word of the Lord." That delightful little spiritual brings to mind one of the most dynamic, hopeful images in all the Old Testament. It is Ezekiel's vision of the valley of dry bones.

"By the Spirit of the Lord," Ezekiel testifies, "I was set down in the midst of a valley; it was full of bones." Perhaps these were the bones of an army that had been trapped in this valley by hostile forces and had been summarily slaughtered. The flesh had long ago fallen away. Now there was nothing left but a pile of bones baked by the sun. In Ezekiel's words, they "were very dry."

Amidst this scene of death, decay and destruction, the Lord asks Ezekiel a powe…