What hell is not

Today, hell wears the face of the wind, a wind that severs breath and casts night upon the eyes: wars devouring the dust of time, hatreds rooted deep into the earth, silences clutching the world’s heart like a black fire. And it seems there is no other voice but the cry of evil upon evil, no other path but a good carved on barren stones, in the hands of those who dare to impose heaven. Yet hell can be crossed, like a burning passage, like a groaning desert. One must seek the spark, the small fire that does not yield, the word silence cannot devour. To find what hell is not: a living branch among the ashes, a vein of light pulsing within the wounded body of the world, and hold it, clasp it, like a pledge of eternity, like a flower born of the cross. To live and to die for this, for Christ, where fire becomes lightning and darkness opens into song, where hell dissolves and only dawn remains, the first eternal dawn.