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. -- Richard Bach
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