Harrowing

"He descended into Hell."

Apostles' Creed

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Dear Kate,

Holy Saturday, the "Harrowing of Hell," today.

I grew up reciting the Apostles' Creed, the part about Jesus going to Hell I've never questioned.  Given that there are only so many items in the Creed (twelve lines in total, like the number of apostles Jesus designated), it must be pretty darn important.

No one ever talked about it, in any church I've ever been to.  What's left unspoken often speaks more powerfully about our speaking: acquiescence, compromises, indifferences.  Things keep coming out of our mouths so that we can shut ourselves up.  All assumptions are working assumptions until they've been tried.  Have we been tested...by the fire of Hell?

I am bad with directions, recklessly, one time got lost in a Chinese restaurant after visiting the washroom.  I don't want to call it a willful neglect, for I would usually try my best to read the map before hitting the road.  Still.  Still I made the wrong turn yesterday and moved further from my goal the harder I tried.  It is a startling defect for a topographer of the human heart (or so he aims).

The mistake took me to a wilderness where once military exercise was conducted, killing machines hung on reluctant bodies, to boldly go where the angels fear to tread.  A big sign there proclaims, If you find anything funny on the trail, it's probably too funny for you to touch.  Try not to get funny about it.  I paraphrased.  Still.  Still I wondered what I could find in Hell.

Two logs perpendicular I found, histories gathering around the three divided spaces in one ecosystem, rigid demarcations speaking a fluid Word.

And a stone, as grotesque as any I've seen, pierced deep.  The obscenity you can't actually see in this picture, you feel it in your hand when you turn it around and ask, What could possibly have been done to you?  There is no logic to the brokenness.  The violence has been arbitrary and thoughtless.

Where are you going today?

Yours, Alex