My skeleton crew: the prophets may have been major pains for those they pestered, but their inspired word can still breathe life into dried up spirits.

A LOT OF PEOPLE DON'T MOURN THE PASSING OF THE ERA of the prophets, but I do. Sure, these were coarse people, hard to love, rarely befriended, who preferred the harsh desert to the soft life of the city.

Prophets insisted they knew God's will better than you do and were here to tell you about it. They regularly challenged easy choices and comfortable lifestyles, and they didn't care who was insulted by their broad accusations. If you invited them to your dinner party, you'd best be prepared for an upsetting evening.

The prophets take up so much oxygen and energy in the story of salvation that we may think of them as having been around forever, continuous citizens of biblical history. As a matter of record, the prophets were just a blip on the screen, occupying the space between the eighth and fourth centuries before Christ. That was the era of the three "major prophets"--Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel--as well as the 12 "minor prophets," so called because their combined writings were small enough to fit on one scroll.

Hebrew prophets existed before that time, of course. Abraham was called a prophet in Genesis; and the three famous siblings of Exodus--Aaron, Miriam, and Moses--were likewise considered prophets in their day. Samuel, for whom two books are named, was known as a priest, judge, and prophet--clearly a man who wore many hats in his community. Cultic prophets operated in many religions, and court prophets worked their beats in most ancient kingdoms.

TWO OF THE MOST AMAZING EXAMPLES OF HEBREW PROPHETS lived outside of the classical era: Elijah and his protege, Elisha, haunted the wayward kings of Israel in the ninth century B.C. They were miracle workers, healing the sick, calling down fire and drought, multiplying food for the hungry, even raising the dead.

Few of the later prophets attempted such feats, sticking strictly to the task of classical prophecy, which was serving as the mouthpiece of God. Their message, invariably critical, was aimed directly at the authorities in both palace and temple. Kings, queens, and priests alike detested their disagreeable interference. These writing prophets, so named because they left their words behind for us to read, were rarely welcomed when they arrived and never missed after they were gone.

When I ask the average group of Catholics to name the prophets, Isaiah's name comes up first. Liturgically he has the most clout, being the premier prophet of Advent and getting plenty of play in Lent and Easter thanks to Handel's Messiah. Jonah, Jeremiah, and Hosea make the list next, and then the naming usually fakers.

Ezekiel, though "major," is simply a distant shadow in the line-up. A lot of his writing seems too weird for the lectionary and not comforting enough for personal prayer. Admittedly he got some good press around the time that the paperback/ movie phenomenon Chariots of the Gods (Berkeley Trade)--about the theory that Earth was visited by aliens in ancient times--was released; but apart from alien aficionados, Ezekiel is not a go-to prophet.

THIS YEAR, HOWEVER, EZEKIEL SHOWS UP AS THE PROPHET of Pentecost with his memorable vision of the vast plain of dry bones awaiting a word of life to draw them back to wholeness. We might call it an inspired choice. Inspiration, after all, means breathing in, and that's just what the dry bones of the prophecy get to do--they breathe in God's spirit and return to the land of the living. If some spiritual seekers of the 1970s looked to Ezekiel for verification of ancient UFO sightings, an earlier generation was more enthralled by the image of the dry bones as a metaphor for its own losses. The composers of African American spirituals heard in the story of "the head bone connected to the neck bone"--the neat reorganizing of a life torn apart, scattered, parched, and lifeless--God's own victory waiting in the wings.

"Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!" This is the call of Pentecost, as any of us ever afflicted with the spiritual condition of dry bones might attest. Like Ezekiel, we may feel a little ridiculous shouting the living Word of God into the land of the dead. It's the same foolish feeling we have repeating advice to someone we are concerned about when he or she has not heeded it in the past, or communicating our love to those who will not let themselves be loved, or giving monetary assistance to people who regularly make poor choices, or working within a political system that has failed us so often before. The land of the dead, we feel sure, is not the place to squander our precious resources. Prophesying to an audience in the cemetery is just this side of crazy.

And yet, isn't it true that sometimes, in the most surprising hour, the dry bones before us suddenly come to life at the sound of a life-giving word? Most of us don't even have to think beyond the memory of our own past to recall a time when this was so.

I remember kind words spoken when I least deserved and most needed them; homilies half-attended that roused my heart to hope; sentences I read that exploded from the page so that I had to clip them out and hold onto them until I exhausted their power; snatches of songs that still sustain me in dark times; bitter accusations hurled during arguments that turned out, upon later cautious inspection, to be simply true; words-to-live-by delivered by casual strangers that transformed my worldview on the spot. We don't need to move far into the territory of sadness, anger, fear, or need to know that the right word spoken out loud might help. Sometimes, the right word may be the only thing that does.

Words are not magic. But they can be holy, if we understand scripture correctly. We might follow a short history of the word and see where it goes. In the beginning God uttered a word, and every good thing came into being. God continued to speak to creation, but creation sometimes preferred another conversation, with a serpent here or an idol of gold there.

The word of life became more rarely heard, until God handed it to Moses on tablets of stone. Within a few generations, the tablets were lost, but what had been written in stone survived. Words continued to rain down from heaven through prophets who listened even when they didn't like what they heard. Finally God would speak the divine Word into flesh and take up residence among us. "Dry bones, hear the word of the Lord!"

On the morning of Pentecost, Peter and the others poured into the streets of Jerusalem shouting miraculous words that the whole world could understand. Across language and culture, these words could pierce bone and marrow, could put sinew and flesh on those whose lives had become a skeletal chasing after basic needs like food, clothing, shelter, belonging, and respect. Three thousand were baptized into renewed life that day, thanks to the miracle contained in those words. But for many others whose graves were opened that day, such words were an unwelcome disruption. They reached up and snatched back the covering of their tombs so their spiritual sleep would remain undisturbed.

I CAN'T FAULT ANYONE WHO GRUMBLES WHEN THEIR DRY bones are rattled by arresting and prophetic words. The time of the prophets is 25 centuries past, and their ancient words may sound dusty on the page. Yet because their words have been preserved, Ezekiel still stands on the parched plain, surveying a nation of dry bones lying lifeless at his feet.

"Lord God," he says once more. "You alone know if these bones can come to life." The choice to raise up the bones is not his. All he knows is, it's time to say the words.

ALICE CAMILLE, author of Invitation to the Old Testament (ACTA) and co-author with Joel Schorn of A Faith Interrupted: An Honest Conversation with Alienated Catholics (Loyola).