BOOK III — RESURRECTION

Chapter XI — Of the Empty Place

(The Veil Version — VV)

1. And there came a generation eager to remove what had failed them,
and much of what they condemned deserved to fall.
2. Yet in their anger against what stood before them,
few asked what would stand there afterward.
3. For nothing removed leaves only emptiness.

Where one stone is taken away,
another must bear its weight.

4. And where one voice is silenced,
others will rise to fill the quiet.

Where one law is broken,
another order will take its place.

Where one belief is abandoned,
something else will teach the heart what to believe.

5. Thus destruction is the easier wisdom.

Any hand may tear down a gate.

Few possess the patience
to build one that opens more freely
and still protects those within.

6. Beware therefore of those who speak endlessly
of what must be destroyed,
yet cannot describe what they intend to build.
7. For a people may remove one burden
and discover that two were waiting beneath it.

They may break one chain
only to forge another from its pieces.

8. And sometimes what replaces the old evil
does not arrive wearing the face of evil.

It arrives promising relief.

It calls itself necessary.

And because the people remember what they escaped,
they fail to examine what they have welcomed.

9. Therefore judge change not only
by what it removes,

but by what it creates.

Ask not merely,
What are we being freed from?

Ask also,
What are we becoming?

10. For progress is not movement alone.

A traveler walking toward the cliff
is still moving forward.

11. Blessed therefore are those with courage enough
to change what is wrong,

and wisdom enough
not to destroy what was right beside it.

For the future belongs neither to those
who preserve everything,

nor to those who tear down everything,

but to those who can tell the difference.

12. So it was written:
before removing the stone, know what shall carry its weight.
Before extinguishing the light, know what shall guide the darkness.
And before destroying what generations have built, look beyond the victory of its falling—
for every empty place shall be filled,
and the two things invited tomorrow
may prove heavier than the one thing cast out today.