There is a fable, told...
Illustration
There is a fable, told by the family therapist Idries Shah, of a stream, that ran from its source high up in the mountains to the edge of a dry and dusty desert. Just as it had run laughing over every other barrier, the stream tried to cross this one, too -- but found that, as fast as it tried to run across the sand, its waters disappeared. The stream was convinced that its destiny was to cross the desert, and yet there was no way to do that. Then a hidden voice, seemingly arising out of the desert itself, whispered these words: "The wind crosses the desert, and so can the stream."
The stream objected that it was doing its very best -- that it had dashed itself against the sand time and again, only to be absorbed. The wind, on the other hand, was able to fly -- and this was why it could cross the desert.
But the voice of the sand answered back: "By hurtling on in your long-accustomed way you can never get across. You will either disappear, or you will become a marsh. You must allow the wind to carry you over."
"Yet how can this happen?" the stream answered back.
"You must allow yourself to be absorbed by the wind."
This idea was not acceptable to the stream. It had never been absorbed before. It did not want to lose its individuality (how was it to know it could ever be regained?).
"The wind," answered the sand, "performs this function. It takes up water, carries it over the desert, and then lets it fall once again. Falling from the sky as rain, the water becomes a river."
"How can I know this is true?" the stream asked.
"It is simply so and unless you decide to believe it, you will never become more than a quagmire."
"But can I not remain the same stream I am today?"
"You cannot remain so," the whisper said. "Your essential nature is carried away, but then it becomes a stream again."
So the stream raised its vapor into the welcoming arms of the wind, which gently and easily bore it upward and along, allowing it to fall softly as soon as they reached a mountaintop many miles away. And because it had had his doubts, the stream was able to remember and record more strongly in its mind the details of the experience. The stream was learning.
The Israelite people, too, were learning. They were learning to trust a power higher than themselves. If we are to survive our own wilderness journeys, we must learn the ways of the desert: how to feed on manna and quail, how to slake our thirst with water from a rock.
The stream objected that it was doing its very best -- that it had dashed itself against the sand time and again, only to be absorbed. The wind, on the other hand, was able to fly -- and this was why it could cross the desert.
But the voice of the sand answered back: "By hurtling on in your long-accustomed way you can never get across. You will either disappear, or you will become a marsh. You must allow the wind to carry you over."
"Yet how can this happen?" the stream answered back.
"You must allow yourself to be absorbed by the wind."
This idea was not acceptable to the stream. It had never been absorbed before. It did not want to lose its individuality (how was it to know it could ever be regained?).
"The wind," answered the sand, "performs this function. It takes up water, carries it over the desert, and then lets it fall once again. Falling from the sky as rain, the water becomes a river."
"How can I know this is true?" the stream asked.
"It is simply so and unless you decide to believe it, you will never become more than a quagmire."
"But can I not remain the same stream I am today?"
"You cannot remain so," the whisper said. "Your essential nature is carried away, but then it becomes a stream again."
So the stream raised its vapor into the welcoming arms of the wind, which gently and easily bore it upward and along, allowing it to fall softly as soon as they reached a mountaintop many miles away. And because it had had his doubts, the stream was able to remember and record more strongly in its mind the details of the experience. The stream was learning.
The Israelite people, too, were learning. They were learning to trust a power higher than themselves. If we are to survive our own wilderness journeys, we must learn the ways of the desert: how to feed on manna and quail, how to slake our thirst with water from a rock.
