And then there was a third guy who knew the territory. He lived there. He came by on a camel and saw this poor man--delirious from the heat and lack of thirst--writhing around in the sand and trying to drink it as if it were water.
"Hey," the camel rider said to the delusional person, "That's sand you're trying to drink." The man ignored him and started walking away, trying to whistle a tune in delirium with his dry, sand caked lips and mouth. Seeing that he wasn't being noticed, the man got off his camel and knocked the guy unconscious, put him on the back of his camel, and brought him home, where the poor soul was nursed back to health by people who live in the real world and know the dangers of running around alone in a desert under the spell of foolish notions.
The poor man, while healing was asked by the curious son of his helper, "Why did you go out into the open desert in the first place?"
"I had dreams of going out into the desert to find God. I thought God was trying to tell me to do so. It was my foolish arrogance in thinking that I could possibly know his reasons for anything that almost got me killed. Perhaps God was trying to bring me to you?"
"Poor soul, thats the second time I've witnessed you make the same mistake," said the child's father, who had been listening in silence to the conversation. "First you were arrogant enough to think you knew God's will and did not trust what your common sense told you. What did you think you were going to find except suffering and death, going out into a foreign, open desert unprepared and unexperienced? Now you're doing it a second time, thinking God meant for you to come to us. Let's hope we don't see a third. Here in the desert, we cannot afford to carry along fools. Out here, a fool is a danger to everyone."
The third time is the charm.
[This message has been edited by babayada (edited October 30, 2004).]
