Dear Hatred,

you will not have the last word.

We stand, fragile yet unyielding,
at this threshold of becoming—
companions,
our paths lit not by certainty,
but by the trembling flame of wonder,
by the mystery that forever withdraws,
yet keeps drawing us on.

This is our blessing:
that a hidden well of compassion
still flows in us,
and when we dare to draw from it,
each meeting becomes a sanctuary,
a place where the unspeakable pain
can lean,
and for a moment
find rest.

This is our charge:
to walk with humility,
with the strange courage
that comes from admitting
how much we do not know.
To hold one another
as vessels of grace—
unguarded, unfinished,
yet somehow sufficient.

As we prepare,
may we also be prepared—
broken open by wisdom,
guided not by mastery
but by the divine mystery we seek,
which ripens us slowly,
in hidden places,
as fruit ripens unseen.

May this be a gift,
a quiet summons:
that in blessing one another,
we ourselves are blessed;
and in guiding,
we are drawn ever deeper
into what it means
to be human.

And you, Hatred—
you are only the shadow
that presses our love
into greater brightness,
the harsh hand
that unwittingly shapes us
into beings who learn, at last,
to endure with tenderness,
and to become
what you cannot imagine:
a people remade by love.