The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. 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.Īnd 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!”Īnd the one carried in the current said, “I am no more messiah than you. The other creatures laughed and said, “Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed against the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!”īut 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. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. 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 was what each had learned from birth.īut one creature said at last, “I am tired of clinging. The current of the river swept silently over them all - young and old, rich and poor, good and evil - the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self. O nce there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river.

Book illusions by richard bach