Once a year, the Willow School holds a living poetry reading at the church within the Hills of Hope, where it welcomes representatives from different faiths and beliefs to present. During Bodhi’s sophomore year, the theme is: “Why do we suffer and how to respond?” 

As dusk settles, lanterns are lit along the church grounds, their soft glow flickering against the tree’s long, drooping branches. A wooden stage has been set beneath its canopy, where four poets are seated. Carved above it, worn by years of touch, rests the image of a lamb. People gather from across the Hills – students, teachers, seekers, and skeptics. Near the roots of the tree, a small goat lingers.

Christ’s Church steps forward and welcomes the guests:

we gather here on open ground
where every voice may stand
to ask how we relieve suffering
through heart, mind, and hand

Christ’s turns to his first guest, Seven Mountains, who says:

we suffer when we wander
from what the lord has shown
when hearts reject his order
and claim a will their own

the world descends to darkness
when truth is cast aside
and sin is named as freedom
with no one left to guide

but grace is freely given
through christ who bore our fall
accept him as your savior
and he will heal us all

The next poet, Eternal Love, continues:

we suffer when we separate
what never stood apart
and fail to see the sacred
alive in every heart

in each life we touch
something of us remains
a love woven into hearts
outliving all our names

god does not impose suffering
there is no debt to repay
we heal in our shared becoming
each moment of each day

Reason Enough follows:

we suffer through our ignorance
through systems built too strong
through failures of compassion
that we have borne too long

no fate or god has willed it
no hidden hand decrees
the harm we do each other
through fear and histories

so let us answer suffering
with reason, care, and skill
and build a world more just
through human thought and will

The last poet is interrupted as a huge roar erupts from the Ridge of Revelation's Hall. Phones buzz that Zar won the debate against Absolute Morality. God Not Great smiles and concludes: 

we suffer from divine delusion
a god that sanctifies our fear
promising us a heaven
but bringing violence here

the ridge calls it divine purpose
to mask the blood it spills
trading human conscience  

for iron and borrowed wills

remove absolute doctrines
no gods, no sacred claim
free yourself from suffering
we justify in their flame

A hushed murmur moves through the gathered crowd, some nodding, some unsettled, some quietly resistant. Bodhi turns to his friend Hope and whispers to her:

the flame rattles my bones

reason makes so much sense

and beautiful words of eternal love

loosen the ridge’s ordered fence

Hope grins and responds:

you are always chasing bodhi
searching for each part
to see how things fit together
what lives and what falls apart

but what happens when one truth
is crowned above the rest
when power claims its certainty
and calls its judgment best

for fear can speak as righteousness
and dress itself as law
while bending what is human
to serve a single cause

so we must guard our questions
and name what we can see
for how we face our suffering
shapes who we choose to be

Bodhi nods pensively. He fixes his awareness on the small goat at the roots of the tree and then to the wind that delivers a detached banner from the Hall.