THE BOY

The boy is walking on a beach. He looks ahead as he walks on the sand and does not see the foot prints made by his feet because his focus is on the view ahead and what might be around the corner, his destination. At one point he turns around but as he sees no footprints, because the sea has wiped them away, he is sad. He had a faint but dim impression that he had come from somewhere but now he can see that he only exists while ever he is moving forward and looking ahead and so he vows never to look behind again. To look behind is to face the nothingness of his being.

When he reaches his destination for the night, therefore, he can't remember how he got there, but he doesn't care. What is important is what will happen around the next corner during his walk the next day. This preoccupies him and fills him also with a certain fear.

Later, however, a voice in his heart tells him.

"If you are making footprints when you walk, surely you must have left footprints behind you? This means you are always in a different place from where you have been.' 

He tells this voice he has no evidence and as he won't look backwards he vows to find evidence for what is behind him by observing what is ahead.

On his next walk he begins to gather shells and sand and other things, trying to explore their properties for any clue. He studies the sea that comes and goes and the sky that hangs over him in its vast and endless blueness. The sand, sky and surf are always there, ahead and in front, surely this will help him to understand where he has come from? He calls this gathering up of evidence of what he can see, Science. But this helps him to know only about what he isn't, and nothing about what he truly is and where he has come from. 

So he decides he must understand how his legs move the way they do, the muscles, sinews, veins and arteries. He investigates his heart and lungs and finally his head because his eyes are what help him to see where he is going, and though they never see what is around a corner which inspires fear, he thinks they must surely be capable of explaining where he has been. And yet he doesn't use his eyes to look behind him again, because he will be too sad when he finds nothing. 

One day he realises that there is a bird always following him, and this gives him comfort though this bird flies too high for him to see it clearly. Even so, that voice in his heart tells him to walk tall and to keep watching the bird because it might lead him to where he should be going.

In the evening as he sits by his fire, however, he is still no closer to understanding how he got here again he assuages his concerns by trying to think of what his journey might be like tomorrow. Yet again when he thinks about what could be around the corner it frightens him, because he is frightened of what he can't see. He is only comforted by the thought that if he keeps doing the same things he has been doing always, and if he follows the right path, that is, always looking ahead, he will eventually find not only a better place but also someone who can tell him about where he has been - he calls faith in what he can't yet see, religion.

One day he hears a voice in his heart say, 'get up and look for the bird'. 

Because the sea is rough he decides not to walk so close to the shore and when he sees the great bird flying overhead he is so taken with joy in following its flight that without realising he turns around and notices something quite extraordinary! He notices his footprints and they lead around the corner! They are soon washed away by the pounding surf but he follows them and finds where he has slept the night before! At first he wonders if it isn't an illusion, and realises that by mistake he has left something of himself there. This is what helps him to recognise his sleeping place. So he begins to walk backwards to every place he has slept, and he sees signs of where he has been and with each walk he grows more and more certain that he will find his origins.

One day he comes to a hut.

In this hut he finds his mother and father. They have been waiting for him to find his way home.

The boy says to them - why did you not come and find me? I have been lost! Why did you leave me alone to walk so far from you? Science and Religion didn't help me to find you. It was the bird! I turned around, saw the bird and retraced my steps!

The mother says, 'Yes! You had to leave us, so you could find us again in this new way, a way that is not science or religion but something born out of the two! You were never alone, I was the voice in your heart and your father was the bird that followed you on your walk. Now you can go forward with joy for what is behind you and with confidence for what is in front of you, because you can see and hear that we are always with you.