Another Choice

The scene

Here is this scene:

It is twilight.

In the penumbra we stand, as if before the infinite.

Two silhouettes are limned not far from us.

One is tall and dark and menacing and there rises from it an unpredictable, uncontrollable, formidable destructive energy: it holds a spear that dimly glints.

It is conscious death.

The other silhouette is divined rather than distinguished: there is only a vague incandescence in its middle, as if the suggestion of an orange tint and a pulsation from which emanates an incommensurable puissance of grace.

Death vibrates like a Serpent raised to strike, ardent with its own untamable force which nothing can reason or convince.

The Other is absolutely calm, as if a bottomless, limitless gaze.

If our attention yields to Death, terror fills us.

A despair, for there is no issue.

If we remember to turn to the Other, we experience the promise of a depth and a density of gold forever.

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