In Search of the Rising Sun
One day a young man set out walking in search of the Rising Sun.
For many years he had journeyed by day and by night when he began to notice that as the sun and the moon journeyed across the earth's sky, the varying lights they cast would play subtle tricks upon his shadow.
Sometimes his shadow would walk before him, and sometimes it would walk behind him.
Sometimes it would grow great and tall until it cowered over him, and sometimes it would draw itself inward until it hid beneath his feet.
And as he watched his shadow he soon became infatuated with it, and was always on the lookout out for it. Whenever he would catch even the tiniest glimpse of it he would immediately try to run it down.
And so the man was spending his days chasing after his own shadow.
This displeased the Lord who sat on High upon his throne watching over the traveller. So one day He willed it that the man should be allowed to catch up with his shadow. The moment it happened the man suddenly and clearly saw that all the while he had been chasing after a ravaging and roaring lion waiting to devour him, and he quickly turned away and fled in terror.
The man warily continued upon his journey, always watching out for his shadow lest it should creep upon him unawares. Whenever he would catch the slightest glimpse of it he would turn tail and flee so that never again might he have to espy that cruel and hideous beast.
And thus the man was spending his days running away from his own shadow.
Finally one day the Lord in his infinite mercy decided that the weary traveller had had enough and was finally ready, and He willed that his Wisdom should swoop down upon the man like a dove in flight.
By this time the traveller had grown very old, and when the Lord's Spirit descended upon him he was suddenly filled with great strength and courage and he immediately turned to face his shadow and saw that he had been running only from a tiny and harmless little mouse.
Upon witnessing this he rent his garments, fell prostrate to the ground and began to weep bitterly.
It was because for the first time in his life he realized that it’s not the sun which journeys daily across the earth’s sky, but the earth which revolves around the sun, turning always as it travels, and creating in its mystic and intimate dance with the sun and the moon the day and the night. And the shadow which he had spent so many years pursuing, and then fleeing, was but an illusion cast by none other than himself against the Eternal Light: an illusion which he had foolishly allowed to distract him from his journey so that he had spent all those years when he could have been moving ahead, only running around in circles.
Realizing he had squandered his time the traveller picked himself up and set out once again in search of the Rising Sun, harboring no hopes that he might ever reach it, but travelling nonetheless quite earnestly with the resolution of the righteous man who in his journeying is distracted not by shadows, and lets neither seduction nor fear divert his gaze from the star that guides him, and the path which lies below his feet.
© 1998 Randy Bone