One.
		{The following is taken from Richard Bach's novel, 'One', the story of husband-and-wife aviators who find the world below them has vanished one day during a routine flight. The Earth is completely cloaked in turquoise water, with an infinite combination of yellow-lit runways shining just below the surface. With each landing, Leslie and Richard face past and present alternate destinies for themselves and others in various settings and circumstances. This chapter is one of those landings.} Where we stopped, grass spread around us like an emerald pond cupped in the mountains. Sunset flamed from crimson clouds. Switzerland, I thought at once, we've landed on a Swiss postcard. Away down in the valley was a sweep of trees, sudden houses, high peaked roofs, a church steeple. There was a cart on the village road, pulled not by tractor or horse but by some kind of cow. I saw no one nearby, not a path, not a goat trail. Just this lake of grass, sprinkled with wildflowers, half-circled by snow-capped rocky steeps. "Now why do you suppose..." I said. "Where are we?" "France," said Leslie. She said it without thinking, and before I could ask her how she knew, she caught her breath. "Look." She pointed to a cleft in the rock, where an old man in a brown robe knelt on the ground near a small campfire. He was welding; brilliant-white flickered and danced on the rocks behind him. "What's a welder doing up here?" I asked. She watched him for a moment. "He's not welding," she said, though she were remembering the scene instead of observing it. "He's praying." She set off toward him and I followed, deciding to stay quiet. As I had seen myself in Attila the Hun, was my wife seeing herself in this hermit? Closer and we saw sure enough, that was no welding torch. No sound, no smoke, it was a flaring sun-color pillar pulsing above the ground less than a yard from the elder. "...and to the world shall you give, as you have received," came a gentle voice from the light. "Give to all who yearn to know the truth from whence we come, the reason for our being, and the course that lies ahead on the way to our forever home." We stopped a few yards behind him, transfixed by the sight. I had seen that brilliance once before in my life, years ago, had been stunned by one accidental glimpse of what to this day I still call Love. The light we saw this moment was the same, so radiant it rendered the world a footnote, a dim asterisk. Then, next instant, the light was gone. Beneath the place where it had been lay a sheaf of golden paper, a scripture in grand calligraphy. The man knelt silent, eyes closed, unaware of our presence. Leslie walked forward, reached for the glowing manuscript, picked it up. In this mystical place, her hand did not pass through the parchment. Expecting runes or hieroglyphics, we found words in English. Of course, I thought. The old man would read them as French, a Persian as Farsi. So it must be with revelation -it's not the language that matters, but the communication of ideas. 'You are creatures of light,' we read. 'From light have you come, to light will you go, and surrounding you through every step is the light of your infinite being.' She turned a page. 'By your choice dwell you now in the world which you have created. What you hold in your heart shall be true, and what you most admire, that you shall become.' 'Fear not, nor be dismayed at the appearance that is darkness, at the disguise that is evil, at the empty cloak that is death, for you have picked these for your challengers. They are stones on which you choose to whet the keen edge of your spirit. Know that ever about you stands the reality of love, and each moment you have the power to transform your world by what you have learned.' The pages went on, hundreds of them. We leafed through, struck in awe. 'You are life, inventing form. No more can you die on sword or years than you can die on doorways through which you walk, one room into another. Every room gives its word for you to speak, every passage its song for you to sing.' Leslie looked at me, her eyes luminous. If this writing could touch us so, I thought, we from the twentieth century, what effect would it have on people from the whatever-this-was...the twelfth! We turned back to the manuscript. No words of ritual, no directions for worship, no calling down fire and destruction on enemies, no disasters for unbelievers, no cruel Attila-gods. It didn't mention temples or priests or rabbis or congregations or choirs or costumes or holy days. It was scripture written for the loving inner being, and for that being only. {continued on link below}
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