Sun On The Water (A Parable Of Sorts)

Once upon a lovely summer day, a child saw the sun sparkling in the waves of a river, and so lovely was it, he supposed that the river had thrown up jewels from the riverbed. He was amazed at the sight of it, thought that he had witnessed something no mortal had before seen, and further believed that the river had revealed something from its depths for him alone. Thereafter, he long cherished that memory of the day when he saw so many precious gems shining together at once. Some days he rued that that day no longer was, while other times he thought maybe he might once again find that same spot and the jewels would all still be gathered together there, and that the river would remember him and again reveal her hidden treasures.

As he sat in the dark basement of the house in which he lived, the memory would shine in his mind’s eye. A truly wonderful day it was. A miracle. He felt himself blessed to have been there to see such a thing. Then he realized how drab the rest of his life had been in comparison, and felt cursed and abandoned.

He did not know. He did not know that the river never ceased to sparkle. That the precious glimmerings that the river showed, it showed always, and to everyone. The old sparkles had come and gone ages ago, but new ones were constantly twinkling in their place. For the world has a surfeit of jewels, an excess of riches to give to everyone. The jewels are precious for their own sake, not for their rarity. The boy did not know — nor did the old man who he had become — that the kind of jewels the world supplies it supplies with wild abandon. They’re just not the kind that he could hold in his hand, nor store in the basement.