00:00Angel's bread sustained his body, nothing sustained his soul, yet he walked on because
00:07stopping was worse.
00:10Forty days, forty nights, until one morning, from the crest of a ridge, the mist parted
00:17and he saw before him a wall of red granite rising to the clouds, Horeb, the mountain
00:25of God, where Moses had heard the voice amidst the fire, Elijah climbed up, he found a cave,
00:34he entered, and he hid, not from Jezebel, from himself.
00:43And the voice came, not from afar, from nearby.
00:48What are you doing here, Elijah?
00:50I have been very zealous for the Lord, the God of Hodes.
00:53The people of Israel have forsaken your covenant, they have torn down your altars and killed
00:58your prophets with the sword.
00:59I alone am left, and they are seeking my life to take it.
01:04Go out, and stand on the mountain before the Lord.
01:09First came the wind, a wind that tore at the mountain, that ripped stones from the ridge
01:15and hurled them into the chasms, that raised walls of dust, that roared through the ravines
01:23like a living thing.
01:25But the Lord was not in the wind.
01:29Then the earth shook.
01:30The desert floor split open in a long fissure stretching to the horizon.
01:37Granite slabs tilted and fell into the darkness.
01:41The whole mountain groaning as if creation itself were breaking apart.
01:47But the Lord was not in the earthquake.
01:51Then came the fire.
01:53A wall of fire swept down the ridge ahead like a burning waterfall, white and orange, flinging
02:01embers into the sky, illuminating the entire desert.
02:06Like at Carmel, like a living altar the size of a mountain.
02:13But the Lord was not in the fire.
02:16And after it all, silence.
02:19No wind.
02:21No tremor.
02:22No flame.
02:24The desert motionless beneath the gray light.
02:28Nothing.
02:28Nothing.
02:29And in the nothingness, a gentle voice, a whisper, so soft it could barely be heard, yet impossible
02:39not to hear.
02:41Elijah stopped breathing.
02:43It was not a frightening sound.
02:45It was an enveloping presence.
02:48It did not crush.
02:50It restored.
