thesoulpurposedotorg

“We celebrate the death of death, the destruction of hades, the beginning of another life eternal, and leaping for joy, we hymn the Cause, the only blessed and most glorious God of our fathers. For truly sacred and all festive is this saving night, and this shining light-bearing day, the harbinger of the Resurrection, whereon the Timeless Light bodily from the tomb upon all hath shined.”

from the Russian Orthodox Prayer Book

How might life be different if we truly believed that hades has been destroyed? How different the living faith of the church universal would be if we truly, truly believed that death has lost it’s sting and hell is no more. Would we not have less need to judge, to change others into our image, to anxiously see only that which conforms to our preconceived notions of what outh to be?
I’ve been living for some time now with the conviction that there is no hell except that which we create for ourselves. Perhaps all of us, certainly I, have lived through hells of our own delulsional thought built slowly by wrong-headed descions, thoughtless actions and mindless cruelties. Tempted to see hell as something to avoid only in death by clinging to beliefs handed down to us by someone who clung to them unthinking, we become unable to see the hand of God in each simple breath of life.

On this Easter day, I joyfully proclaim “He Is Risen!” and delight in the response “He is Risen Indeed!” And I know that this life is an immense gift to embrace and with each waking hour long to see just a little more of God’s glory in preparation for the day for which all creation longs when we will be embraced by the Light. May each of you who read this embrace this Light which came into the world, always has been in the world and always will be right there in your heart.