Once upon a time, there was a man who wanted to find God.

He had his reasons, as many do. There were several questions that he wanted to put to God, and various matters that he felt should be brought to the Diety's attention. The world, he thought, while on the whole a remarkable and noteworthy achievement, was nevertheless in need of a little adjustment here and there.

Many others, of course, had tried to find God; but this was a man of singular persistence and resourcefulness, and he determined that he would succeed. He studied under noted priests and theologians, he attended services of churches high and low, he discipled himself to saints and even one messiah, and he renounced his worldly goods and begged in the streets with the lepers. When all of this failed to bring him face to face with the Creator, he decided it was time to change tactics. Not without some difficulty, he recovered his worldly goods, and tried blasphemy instead of holiness. He was initiated into secret cults and societies, he took part in unholy rites, he learned dark and forbidden secrets, and communed with things older than man in odd places of the earth. Although educational, it brought him no closer to finding God; only an interesting scar in an unusual place. So, not without a certain relief — for, if truth be told, he had found the whole thing rather distasteful — he abandoned blasphemy and decided to try asceticism.

He fasted in the desert, and, while he had some illuminating visitations, God declined to appear. He spent months hunting narwhals with a spear and a canoe, and talking to the Inuit shamans; he meditated with masters of Zen and masters of the Tao; he climbed mountains and talked to wise men. It was a woman in Nepal, finally, who said, while serving him buttered tea, that she had once heard of one small, unimpressive shrine — if it were not just a legend — where, it was said, one could be certain to meet God. When pressed, she was unable to tell him where it was, however, and he was forced to set out with what few clues she had been able to give him. He was a long, weary, dusty time finding it; but he was a man of singular persistence and resourcefulness, and in time, he did find it.

When he emerged from the temple, he wore an expression of great thoughtfulness, which stayed with him for some time as he began the long journey home; for he had much to think about. Inside the temple — small and unpretentious indeed — there had been only a door; and when, with some trepidation, he had opened the door, he had seen nothing but a mirror of beaten metal, and himself staring startled back. So he had left, finally, with his several questions still unanswered and his various matters not brought to attention. But it began to seem to him, walking back, that those questions were not so insoluble as all that; and that maybe, he might be able to arrange those matters satisfactorily himself. With such thoughts as these, he walked away from his encounter with God, not looking back.

God, meanwhile, was perhaps thinking thoughts of his own; or, again, perhaps he was not. In any case, he kept his reflections to himself.