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Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a
great crystal river. Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of
life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth.
But one creature said at last, "I trust that the current knows where it is
going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom."
The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that
current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!"
But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go,
and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.
Yet, in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current
lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried,
"See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!"
And the one carried in the current
said, "I am no more Messiah than you. The river delight to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this
adventure.
But they cried the more, "Saviour!" all the while clinging to
the rocks, making legends of a Saviour.
Excerpted
from Illusions:
The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah
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