Christians often use the term born again,
but we should say born again,
again,
and again,
and again.
Because if you look back over your life,
every so often,
every so often,
every so many days
or situations or circumstances,
you find yourself in a world that's too small and too tight
and too limited,
and you have to go through a birthing
process from one dimension to get
into the next dimension,
and you're being born again,
and again.
You get comfortable,
and as soon as you settle all in and say,
now I've got my life on nice
and neat,
and I finally got it just the way I want it,
and oh,
I've arrived,
and I've
reached my destination,
and then you look around,
and the water breaks in the situation,
and the world begins to lurch,
and all of a sudden,
you have to recreate yourself and
find yourself starting all over again.
You assure yourself over here, but now you're
a student again over there.
You knew how to do this,
but now you're learning again how
to do that, and you are born again.
And if you look at this text literally,
you lose
the power of the text altogether,
because Ezekiel isn't really talking to us about birth
at all.
He's talking to us about the trauma of transition.