 See
yourself standing in a courtyard stained with suffering.
Stationed before you are Hannah and her seven sons.
They stare down Antiochus and a torturous task —
denying their identity or facing their death.
They are a family
forced to the edge of existence, given ultimatums they refuse to fulfill.
You are an observer in the outer courtyard, what says your inner will?
The fifth night finds
my strength tested. This night is dedicated to standing strong against
external forces, refusing to fold to the host voices that beckon me away
from my core. This is the night of Hannah and her seven sons, caught in
an outer courtyard, called upon to convert, to conform to an alien world.
This is a night dedicated
to persistence, a night not afraid to sacrifice. It is a night of knowing
one's identity, of being grounded in an inner courtyard of calm and courage,
regardless of the chaos of the world outside.
In the cold of the
outer courtyard, crowded with calls to comply,
I call upon the powers of my own inner will, to courageously defy.
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