In a small village near the Great River,
there lived a young man with his father and mother and sister.
All the villagers suspected that this youth was a madman.
One day, he decided to become a hermit
and went to dwell upon the summit of the Great Mountain.
And the villagers came and rebuked his mother for her son's upbringing.
For in this village, it was God's divine plan
that all members of the community should partake in each other's daily life.
His mother lived the rest of her life in shame amidst the people.
But in her dreams she blessed her son and each night uttered this prayer:
Oh my beloved son, even though you are far, yet are you near.
For in secluding yourself from us, you have spared us of your madness.
And in ages to come, your madness shall be made into divine wine,
to be sought after by generations to come.
Though you dwell not among us and worship not in our temples,
you worship in the Greater Temple and guide our footsteps to the Greater Altar.
Thus spoke his mother in her heart each night.
She knew well however not to share her prayer with any man, not even with her own husband.
For her son possessed her strength and she was too weak to be confined to his solitude,
though she dwelt in the heart of the village.
A hundred years after, her son was hailed as a prophet.
And today, when a boy reaches manhood, it is customary in the village for every mother
to send her son to the summit of the mountain beyond the river,
that he may walk in the footsteps of their beloved prophet.
But the mountain to which they are sent is not the Great Mountain.
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