God As Landscape, Man As Traveller.

I was on my way to school this morning, thinking about this and that (as I am often prone to doing) when, for the life of me I know not why I began to think about the Agnostic man.

It occured to me that God (nay, all gods) are not unlike a painting of the oceanside beach. While we can understand the water to be cool, the sands to be hot and the sky and sun to be open and inviting we remain distanced by the canvas. We cannot quench our thirst in the clear blue water, tan our skin underneath the open sky and bury our toes in the white sand. They remain concepts that we can understand fully, but never experience. All men of faith are like men in towers looking at this portrait of the ocean. Men who have known no other world other than their four walls and the landscape in their hands. They are comforted by it, and fill their sighs with "one day"s and "I wish"s. The Agnostic man gets up out of his seat and walks over to a nearby window. From his window he can see the actual beach and ocean. He resolves himself to actually leaving his tower and diving into the water.

As soon as he sets foot outside of his tower he is greeted by a lush field with rolling green hills and the sound of cattle at pasture. This is a world not in his painting, and is alien and wonderful to him. He walks through the hills that seem to stretch on forever, and willingly loses himself for years amongst the loam and earth. When much time has passed he remembers why he set out from his tower in the first place and begins his quest anew. He packs up his belongings, gets his barings and heads once more for the ocean. After months of travelling he comes to a vast, endless desert. Resolved to cross the desert and reach his goal he starts the long journey across the desolate landscape. For a few years he subsides on limited water, killing any small creature that crosses his path so that he may eat and see the next day. Often does he long for the green pastures he had left and even his four-walled tower before that. He grows weak, thin and scared as he feels he will never reach the ocean.

Just when he is about to give up he is treated with the faint wiff of salty air. Over the next dune he is rewarded with a glimpse of the ocean. Sure that it isn't a mirage the traveller picks up his pace and dashes towards the water. As he closes in on his life long goal he can't help but feel the sand is somewhat more coarse than he would have assumed. The sun is dry and the sky is filled with the cry of seagulls. As he collapses at the edge of the surf and lies down waiting for the froth to wash over his parch skin he lands on a small seashell which pricks him in the shoulder. When the tide finally reaches him the water is toe-curlingly cold, and the bit that gets in his mouth tastes of salt and sealife. He forces himself to his feet and looks around. The beach, though magnificent pales in comparison to the painting he had held in his hands many seasons ago.

Filled with a mixture of disappointment and relief, our traveller begins to build himself a hut at the side of the surf. For months he feasts on crab and mollusks, distilling the rain into drinkable water and attempting in vain to recreated the conditions of his painting. On one particular day he peers out into the vastness of the ocean and spots a small island, simply a grey blotch raising out of the horizon. "Perhaps the sand their is whiter, the sky bluer and the water fresher!" He lashes together a raft and sets sail immediatly. The traveller is now in the winter of his life, and is far too aged for such a voyage over the rolling waves, but he journeys forth regardless. As day turns to night, then into day and night three more times he feels his age catch up with him. Minutes, metres from the next beach his small raft is caught up by a large wave which tosses his raft against the nearby shore, smashing him and his boat into equal pieces.

As he lays on his back, body bent and broken on the beach of his island he can't help but feel the sand is soft beneath his skin. The tide is warm and sweet and the sky over head could not be bluer.