In The Beginning

By Richard Webber

The world is young, and a single man struggles across a desert wasteland. He’s been walking almost fifty days, and his food and water are gone. But he sees mountains in the distant east, and if he can hold on long enough to get there, he just might make it out of this alive. He has no options; he’s been exiled from his land and now he’s a wanderer, so there’s no going home. He’s never seen anyone outside of his family, but his father once told him that other people lived in a fair, green land across the desert. His father had said they were dangerous, but only to each other; not to a member of his family. He would have to hope that his father was right, and his cunning and the mark he carried upon his head were enough to keep him alive.
Somehow he is able to make it through the desert, and he stumbles upon the Others almost immediately. His father was right; he has nothing to fear from them. His parents had always called their family the firstborn, the children of God, and he immediately realizes that this is another race, a race that cannot compare to his in strength or intelligence. They are small and weak, clothed in filthy skins and speaking a barely intelligible language. While he feels nothing but disdain for them, he immediately realizes his dreams of ruling are no longer just dreams.
As time passes he is able to bring all the tribes under his rule as he teaches them his language and ways, and imparts the knowledge and inventions that had allowed his family to thrive. Over the course of time his contempt fades as he comes to realize that though they are not his match in size, strength, or longevity of life, they still possess a spirit, intelligence and soul equal to his. Through the guidance of a wise woman, one he is proud to join with as his wife, after years of condescension his heart is opened and he can see that the others are his equal in the eyes of God. In spite of the fact that he was prideful and arrogant, the kingdom he has built with a heart focused only on his own selfish needs is still a good one. There are many challenges, both internally and externally, to his new-found wisdom, but if he can stay true to his ideals, he, his wife and their children just might be able to make a real difference in this young world.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Richard Webber
• Release date: Nov 27, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310794933

Book preview

Chapter One

It was just another desolate, rocky valley.

I had forced myself to believe that when I reached the top of this slope there would be something different to see. Disappointed once again, in front of me was more of the same barren landscape I had been walking through for weeks. I couldn’t see evidence of one drop of water in the entire valley. Only sand, rock, and scattered patches of long-dead scrub brush stretched almost as far as the eye could see.

Almost, because for the last three days I had seen mountains in the distant east.

But those mountains were still far away, and I had not found water since I left home. My second water skin was down to its last few mouthfuls. I had five, maybe six days at the most before it was completely empty. After that, it was only a matter of time.

But how much time was the question. The desert haze made it impossible to judge distances, and I could not tell if I was five or twenty-five days from the slopes. Once the water was gone I could only hope that I would be able to hold on long enough to reach them.

I looked over the sterile landscape, devoid of any sign of life, and once again thought gratefully about the abilities I had discovered in my long days of walking through this wilderness. Right now I was most grateful for my recently discovered ability to go for extraordinarily long periods of time without the need to drink deeply. As I had been forced to conserve my water, I learned I could live on only a few sips each day.

I had not known this before starting across the desert, since I had never needed to go without water before I began my journey. Even though I now walked almost nonstop day and night, I was able to get by with only two or three sips each day. I spaced out these drinks as I walked through the burning hot days and only slightly cooler nights.

Though I had no idea how many days I would need to go until I reached the mountains, I hoped I could travel at least five days after my last drops were gone. Perhaps that would be long enough, and I still had a chance to stay alive.

I had begun my journey forty days earlier. I left home with only a rough leather pack and the cloths on my back. The pack had held two full water skins, a bag of food, a heavy wool cloak, a firestone, and the drawing my mother had made for me when I was a child.

Though it was now almost empty, in the beginning my food bag had contained four large loaves of bread, a round of hard cheese, a package of various dried fruits and nuts, and several fresh oranges and apples.

Besides what was in my pack, my possessions consisted of the clothes I wore and my knife. I was wearing a tunic of wool which my mother had woven just a few weeks before I left. It was made of a lighter weight cloth and dyed a dark reddish brown color; it was good material and very well made.

I had sturdy sandals on my feet made from the hide of a wild boar. They were thick and strong and would last a very long time. Knotted around my waste was a belt of supple leather, made from the skin of one of my brother’s sheep. To the belt was attached a sheath, which was also made of the wild boars’ hide.

My father had devised an ingenious way of attaching the sheath to the belt with leather cords, which held the sheath in place just as you wanted. He had discovered that by repeatedly wetting leather in water and then drying it under the sun, it would become very rigid and hard as a rock. The hardened boar’s skin was tough enough to resist cutting, even from the extremely sharp blade of my knife.

The knife I carried was absolutely beautiful. It was perfectly balanced and always stayed incredibly sharp. The blade was made from a special stone which was found in one of the farthest corners of our land, and it had an intricately carved wooden handle that was inset with a large, highly polished dark red stone. I considered the knife to be a work of art, and it was my most prized possession. It had been made for me by my father, and had been a gift from him many years before.

The memory of the happier times from my youth brought the darkness into my heart, and caused an angry frown to settle on my face as I thought about the home I had been forced to leave behind.

My family lived in a rich, fertile country, but it was a place that was almost impossible for us to leave, or for other people to reach. Our land was bordered on both the north and south by great rivers that were wide and deep, and impossible to cross. To the west between the rivers ran a range of mountains which were so steep and dangerous they were threatening even to view. The mountains were so tall that there was no growth on the tops and well down the sides, and my father had said several times over the years that there were no passages through to the far side.

He also said there were fierce predators in those mountains, though I had never seen any on the few occasions I approached their jagged slopes. My father had made it very clear that the mountains were dangerous and there was no reason to ever try to cross them, since on the other side there was a great sea that blocked your passage any further. Those mountains and what lay on the far side were one of the few things outside our homeland that he had ever spoken of.

I had come to believe that my father was not telling the truth; that my parents had once lived on the other side of the mountains and that was why my father was so adamant that I not try to venture into them. I believed that God had made sure there was no way for them or anyone else to go through those mountains to the far side.

To the east of my home lay the wasteland I now walked through. Years ago in a rare moment of volubility my father had told me this desert stretched eastward for many days, but eventually it ended at a fair green land. I hoped he was right.

My homeland was very large, much larger than my family could ever have hoped to fill. It took many days of steady walking to cross from the northern river to the southern river, and a similar length of time to walk from the mountains to the start of the wasteland on the eastern border. While we actually farmed only a small bit of the land and our flocks used a tiny portion of the lush meadows, the rich soil and numerous streams would have been able to support thousands of people. But of course, it only supported the four of us.

Though my parents never seemed completely satisfied with our home, it was as close to a paradise as I could imagine. I loved my home and never dreamed I would be forced to leave.

Except for the one brief statement by my father years earlier, the wasteland and what lay on the other side was never discussed by my parents. I felt confident my father knew exactly how large the wasteland was, and what I would see if I was able to cross it successfully. I was certain my father knew almost everything there was to know about the world outside our homeland, but he was never willing to share anything with me about the lands past our borders.

For that matter, he would not discuss anything that had happened to him and my mother prior to their arrival in our land. My parents were so unwilling to talk about their past that over the years I had become discouraged about ever learning anything, and finally given up asking questions. I cared for my parents and respected their knowledge, but they were an intense source of frustration to me because of their unwillingness to teach me what they knew about the world.

I could not understand why they would not tell me everything I wanted to know. There was so much I could learn from them. While I was still young I had realized that knowledge was very powerful, and their unwillingness to answer my questions disturbed me and would often make me very angry.

My parents knew so much about the world. They had been alive since the beginning and they had an abundance of wisdom and knowledge that they could share. Knowledge that could help me to achieve great things in my life. Yet they would tell me nothing! My parents refused to acknowledge that I knew more than them about what was best for me.

Their unwillingness to teach me everything they knew made me even angrier as I became older. When I was young I believed it was my youth that caused them to be so close-mouthed about their history. As I aged and they still refused to answer my questions, I realized their past was something they would never be willing to discuss.

My parents always said we needed to live in the present. But for them to have knowledge about the very beginnings of the world and not be willing to share it made me furious. My brother always told me to forget about it, that they had their reasons and I needed to focus on the present. Then again, my brother always took their side; our parents could do no wrong according to him.

My younger brother always tried to do what he thought he was supposed to do, whereas I needed a reason to act a certain way. I would never do something simply because my family wanted me to. If an action didn’t benefit me, why do it?

Chapter Two

When I started my journey I knew that before me lay nothing but a barren wilderness. Once I left behind the rich fields and abundant streams of my home I did not expect to find water, food or shelter until I reached the green lands of the east. But as I went forward into the unknown, I could not get two questions out of my mind.

How far would this wasteland continue? Unfortunately, there was no way of knowing this for certain. I went forward on blind faith alone, trusting that I could safely reach the green lands on the far side. The other question that preyed on my mind was the one which haunted me; the one which I feared to even think about. Who would I find if I was able to make it to the other side?

Our father had been willing to tell my brother and me just a little about the others. He discussed them with us once, and this was only because of my brothers’ persistent and irritating questioning about if there were any other people living in the world.

Father had been obviously uncomfortable and hesitant, which in itself was a rare occurrence. He told us that other humans did exist on the far side of the wasteland, but they were different from us. He said they were more plentiful in numbers and dangerous to each other, though they were not dangerous to us. Father said he had realized very soon after he and my mother moved to their new homeland, where the others had been living, that the differences between us and them were significant, not only in our physical makeup, but in our innate behaviors and thought processes. For our families’ safety he had decided to send them away.

He had not wanted to say anything else, and he was in obvious distress and seemed so sad. His statements confused us and brought up even more questions in our minds, but though we were more curious then before, because of his obvious discomfort we had not pressed him any further.

For a long time we had discussed what our father said, and tried to figure out what he actually meant. How could they be so different from us if they were also human? Why were they dangerous to each other but not us? How could he send them away?

Over time, as I grew older and became busier with work and never saw any evidence of the other people, my curiosity faded. I was young, and never thought I would need to leave home or meet another human being outside my family.

In hindsight it was ridiculous to think that I had not been more curious about the other humans, but it was now abundantly clear to me why no travelers visited our land from the east. After I left my home with its plentiful water, woodlands and meadows, I quickly entered a land that no human could hope to live in for long. Travel through perhaps, if you could carry enough food and water, but since there were no springs or plants, it would be impossible to live off the land. It truly was a barren wasteland.

When I left home I did not know how long I would need to make my food and water last, but I never dreamt I would travel this far with no signs of life. While my father had told me the desert stretched to the east for many days, I had not taken this information to heart, and I had foolishly assumed the journey would take no more than fourteen or so days. Since I started my journey with a good amount of food and an inaccurate idea of how long I would travel, in the beginning I thoughtlessly took my normal daily amounts of food and water.

During the first days of my journey I began each morning by breaking my fast with bread and water and some fruit and nuts. My parents had taught us that it was important to eat well before you started the day’s work, and the fruit and nuts gave my body strength that it could not obtain just from eating bread. This meal was similar to a breakfast that I would have at home with my family, though not nearly as elaborate.

I also drank generously to give my body plenty of water before I started traveling for the day. I would then begin walking, traveling through the day and taking short breaks only when I felt the need for rest. At home we would take a longer break in the early afternoon during the heat of the day, since this was when we were least productive. In the desert it made little sense to rest at this time since there was no shade, so I continued onward through the heat.

At home we would have our second meal of the day after our afternoon break, and then continue on with our work through the day until the sun began to set. The second meal would give us the strength to continue with our work through the long afternoon. This meal would include bread like the morning meal, but we would also have olive oil and herbs with the bread, as well as cooked and raw vegetables, cheeses and fruit. I began to salivate as I thought back to those meals which I had considered so simple at the time, but now thought of as a feast.

For the first part of my journey I tried to make the afternoon meals similar to what I would eat at home. In the late afternoon after the sun had dropped in the sky, I would sit and rest while I drank water and ate some bread, cheese and fruit. Since I ate out of habit I did not ration my food during those early meals, and I would have given anything now for the taste of cheese or fresh fruit. After I had eaten, drank, and rested my body for a time, I would continue walking. I would travel until the sun went down and I could no longer see enough to keep my bearings straight.

I didn’t feel the need to continue on in the dark, since I had been confident in the beginning that I would reach the end of my journey within two weeks. When night fell I would find a comfortable spot to lie down, behind a larger rock or under some dead bushes. It didn’t matter to me as long as I was sheltered from the endless wind. I didn’t worry about predators, since it was so desolate in the wasteland that there was nothing alive to prey upon me.

The first ten days were the exact same; eat, walk, eat, walk, sleep. On the eleventh day I awoke and it occurred to me that I had seen no change whatsoever to the horizon. I suddenly realized that I had been a fool, and the wasteland was going to continue for a much longer period than I had imagined.

I stopped eating food that morning. This decision was easy to make, since I had eaten so much during the first ten days of my journey that my food supplies were almost gone. By this time I had only one loaf of bread, a third of the cheese, and a few handfuls of nuts and dried fruit remaining. I went that entire day without eating anything. I was quite surprised when I awoke the next morning and was still not hungry. I went another day, and when I awoke the next morning I had only mild hunger which was relieved by a mouthful of bread and a morsel of cheese.

From this point onward, instead of eating twice a day as I had done all my life, I decided I would eat only when I was actually hungry, and I would eat only what my body needed to get by. I began rationing my food this way, and the results amazed me. Though I almost stopped eating, taking food only when my body indicated that it was needed, I had no ill effects. I had no overwhelming hunger, no weakness, and no loss of strength. I could have eaten more, and it would have tasted good and been satisfying, but my body obviously didn’t require all the food I had been eating out of habit.

Once I discovered my ability to go without eating through the simple testing of my body’s actual requirements, I decided to try the same experiment for both my drinking and sleeping needs. I needed to discover what the real requirements of my body were; to identify anything I had been doing thoughtlessly throughout my life out of habit or a perceived need that had been put upon me by my parents.

My continued strength after two days with almost no food had given me the confidence to try the next step. That very night I had not lain down and rested. Prior to this, though I had never been weary from my long hours of travel, as night approached I stopped to rest. I had done this only out of habit; because every other night of my life when night came I had slept.

The first night I continued walking was a revelation. When darkness fell I was not tired from the exertion of walking through the day, nor was I actually sleepy. As I continued on through the night I expected something to happen; that my legs would tire, that I would run out of energy, or that I would become fatigued and need to stop and sleep. It never happened. I continued traveling, using the stars to keep my bearings as I walked eastward. To walk through the night gave me a sense of power.

When the sun came up I broke my fast with a bite of bread and took a short break, and then I continued onwards. As when I experimented with my eating requirements, I wanted to continue until my body told me it needed to rest. I walked through the day, stopping only briefly to do what was necessary for my physical needs, and I kept walking into the night. That night I did become a bit weary, and when I stopped to rest I realized I felt the need to sleep. I lay down when the moon was high in the sky, over halfway through the night, and I awoke that dawn feeling absolutely refreshed.

This now became my normal pattern for resting. I would stop when I realized I needed a break, walk when I was refreshed and sleep only when I was tired. My body quickly established a rhythm of sleeping every other night for just a few hours.

I was glad my body wanted to sleep during the nighttime, even though it was cooler and more pleasant to walk during the night. Though I had yet to see any signs of life, either human or animal, I needed to keep watch for this possibility, and even with my excellent eyesight, signs could be difficult to see in the dark.

Since I knew water was so important for survival, especially in this desert environment, I was worried that this would be the area where my body failed me. Unfortunately, I had already drunk the greater share of my supply when I began the experiment of severely limiting my water intake.

I started to drink only when I was consciously thirsty, and I drank only what I needed to quench my thirst. My intake immediately dropped to almost nothing. Even though I walked through a desert, I needed to drink only rarely. This made me angry with myself for squandering my supplies earlier in the journey, because by this time I had less than half a water skin left.

I was delighted to have found these powers. I was discovering strength in myself that I had never dreamed existed, and I loved testing myself to uncover the limits of my body and mind. The realization that I didn’t require the food, water and rest I had assumed I needed to survive made me realize that I should question every other assumption I held about my life. In order to understand who I was, I needed to re-evaluate everything I knew or thought I knew about myself, my parents, the things I had been taught, and even the very way I thought.

From this point forward I would test myself in every aspect of my life. I no longer wanted to do anything just because I had been doing it my entire life, often with no thought as to the purpose or reason. I made a conscious decision to reach an understanding of myself during my trek through this harsh land. I decided that whether I lived or died out here, I needed to make sense out of my past and know who I was. Only by knowing myself could I control who I would become.

Chapter Three

I had grown up in a very ordered house, with a scheduled routine. Every day, with the exception of the seventh day, followed the same pattern from the time we rose until we went to bed at night.

My family broke our fast in the morning after we awoke at sunrise. We sat together at the table to eat as a family, and my mother would put out what I now realized was a feast. Most mornings we would have eggs. Sometimes they would be plain, other days cooked with vegetables or cheese. With the eggs we would always have bread with butter or honey, milk and fresh fruit. We often had warm cereal made from grain harvested from my fields. We would mix the cereal with honey and milk to make a delicious dish.

After the breakfast meal we would clean the table, kitchen and house as was needed. We would then wash ourselves to get ready for the day, cleaning our teeth, face and hands, before going out to our work.

The morning was spent working alone in our area of specialization. The afternoon was used to do our communal work, where we would help each other on whatever job had need of an extra set or two of hands.

When my brother and I were children our chores had varied as our parents taught us to do all the tasks that were required to support the family. As we had grown to adulthood we had moved towards working in the areas that we most preferred. He loved working with animals and preferred a slow pace. He liked to have lots of time to sit, think and sing. For years now he had taken care of our flocks. I wanted to work hard and see the fruits of my labor grow before my eyes. I loved to work with plants and was responsible for growing all our field crops. I provided most of our family's food.

My father took care of our orchards, and he could build or fix anything. He was quite ingenious and had made everything we needed to have a very comfortable life. We had a table with chairs for eating our meals, and we had soft beds to sleep in. There were shelves and cabinets for storing food and cooking tools in the house. My father had even diverted a stream so the water ran right behind our home. We did not need to walk far to get water to drink, cook or wash with.

My mother was in charge of our household. She cooked our meals, made our clothes, and took care of the house, whether it was cleaning it herself or telling us what to do. She was also in charge of the herb garden, where she grew the many herbs she used in her cooking. Though it was a very rare occasion when one of us did not feel well, she also grew special herbs which could be used to treat our family for illness or injury.

After breakfast and cleaning up, I would be able to go out to my fields to work for the morning. I loved the time I was able to spend there alone, with no one to bother me. Depending upon the season and what had to be done with my crops, I would at times need help from my family in the afternoons. Planting season was difficult and time consuming and I always needed assistance in the spring, but during the growing season and the quiet fallow season the pace was more relaxed and I needed no help at all.

Harvest was an especially hectic time, when many hands were needed to bring the grain in. Harvesting the fields of grain was a lot of hard work, and it had to be done quickly lest you lost the seed off the stalk. The more hands the better in order to complete the harvest as swiftly as possible. I was able to harvest all the fruits and vegetables myself, as they had a slower paced growing pattern and they yielded their produce over a longer period of time.

My mornings were spent in solitary work; hoeing, watering, spreading manure, harvesting what could be taken. This was my time alone, when I could work and not have to interact with my family. I did not like to sit around and think and talk as the rest of my family always wanted to do; I needed to be active.

By the time I left home I had come to the point where I often did not want to speak with my parents. They enjoyed giving me counsel in areas where I had no need, and I would get frustrated and angry with them. It seemed that the older I became, the more they told me how they thought I should think and act in my life.

On different occasions my parents had said I needed to be less arrogant, especially with my brother, that I needed to be more giving in my worship of God, and even that I needed to think less of myself and more of the family. They actually told me they thought I was selfish!

I hated that they seemed to think so little of me. I was not arrogant with my brother, though I did believe him to be simple in his outlook on life. I did not feel the need to be more giving to God. My giving was sufficient. Everything I grew was because of my hard work and intellect, not His. As for selfish, since I produced almost all our food, I believed I was generous to share everything with my family.

I believed my family needed to think more highly of me and be more grateful. I provided our abundant food. They should have been respectful and impressed by what I did. Without me they would not have eaten nearly so well.

My brother was just as bad as my parents, if not worse. Though he was younger than me, he felt he had the right to give me his opinion on how I should live my life. I was especially bothered by his superior attitude regarding his relationship with God.

For some reason he thought he knew better than me how to worship God. He would constantly tell me how I should praise God more, and give God the glory for the success I had in my own fields raising my crops.

This infuriated me. He just sat around all day watching his sheep, singing, and as he liked to say, praising God. While my brother played around like this, I, not God, had real work to do in my fields raising the food our family ate. I, not God, deserved the glory.

When the sun started to drop in the sky my father would blow a horn to signal our afternoon rest, which we took during the heat of the day. This would not be a long break, just enough time for us to regain our energy while the sun dropped a bit lower in the sky. The rest time would be followed by our afternoon meal.

After a morning of hard work in the sun, I was always ready for both the rest and the repast. Dinner was taken in the same manner as the morning meal. We would gather around the table to eat that which my mother had prepared.

We would always have bread and cheese, and there would be butter or olive oil with herbs to go with the bread. From my fields we would have various raw vegetables such as lettuce, tomatoes and peppers, as well as wonderful soups or stews made with beans, potatoes and vegetables. The food was always delicious and filling.

We would finish the meal with our choice of the many fruits we grew, such as strawberries, apples, melon or citrus. In addition, to quench our thirst we would have water, milk or juice squeezed from fruit.

While we were eating, we would discuss what we had accomplished that morning and what was still to be done. After talking over our morning work and whether any of us had need of help that afternoon, my father would decide what project to work on for the rest of the day.

The afternoon was the time for the large jobs that had to be done. These projects would sometimes take many days to complete, but together we would build a new structure to store grain or keep animals in, a fence for livestock or a trench for irrigation in the fields. There was always plenty to be done, and these projects could be completed more quickly with all of us working together.

Though the work was often tedious, I took pleasure in being able to form things with my hands. The creation of items for the house was my father’s primary job, but on occasion my brother and I would help him make furniture or other small household items, such as the utensils that we would eat or cook with. These household objects were fashioned from wood and sometimes stone, and all of them were shaped by tools which my father had devised and built.

I enjoyed turning the wood and stone into beautiful, functional objects almost as much as I enjoyed working in my fields.

Following the afternoon meal, the men would go out to work on whatever project my father had decided upon. Though sometimes mother would need to help us, she normally stayed at the house and worked outside in either her kitchen or herb garden, or inside the house cleaning, making cloth on her loom, or sewing. If she felt the desire, she would sometimes spend time in the afternoon creating a drawing or painting.

When darkness came we would all be back at our house, where we would wash the dirt and sweat from our bodies and join together to converse for a time with candles lit before going to our rooms for the nights rest.

Every day was much like the day before, with little variation in what we ate, our work, the time we rose and the time we slept. There was a sameness about everything my family did, even the things that we spoke of, which I found tedious. Nothing ever seemed to change or happen, and I could foresee my life going on like this forever.

On the seventh day we would rest from our labors. This was a practice my father had taken from God, who had created the heavens and earth in six days and rested on the seventh.

The one thing my parents were willing to speak of from their past was their relationship with God. They told me and my brother that in the beginning they had lived in a garden where their life was wonderful and filled with peace. In this garden they had somehow known God personally; they said they actually spoke with Him. At the time I found this ridiculous and hadn't really believed them. How could they know and speak with the Creator of the world?

Something had happened to my parents; something that forced them to move to our homeland and fundamentally changed their relationship with God. According to them someone they named the Deceiver had lied and caused them to do something which made God sever their close relationship, changing it radically. This change was not my parents’ desire and caused them great sadness.

Now, instead of being close to God physically and emotionally like my parents said they originally were, we worshiped Him from a distance. This fundamental change in their relationship with God caused my parents great pain, and the separation also seemed to bother my brother. I really couldn’t understand their problem with this arrangement, as I had no real desire to know God personally.

My mother and father liked to call our family people of God. They told me and my brother that they were created by God to be a blessing to Him, to be righteous and do His will. They said we were created in God’s image; that we were able to reason and make choices, to think and act righteously like God if we had the strength of will and chose to do so.

Our parents were insistent that we never listen to the Deceiver. They said he no longer walked the earth as he had when he first deceived them. Now he was the voice within us which tried to sway us to do wrong, just as God was the voice within that wanted us to do good. My parents told us that God had given us free will, and He left it to every person to make their own decisions as to how they would live their life.

Other than these things of God, my parents would not talk about their past. They would not tell us what it was like in the beginning, about their original home, or why they had to leave.

My father told us resting on the seventh day was a way of honoring God and His power. He said God wanted us to take time to contemplate Him and also relax; that He wanted us to enjoy the beauty of the world around us and do what we enjoyed without feeling guilty about taking time away from our work.

It was on rest days that my father would construct things for pleasure. He had made my knife over the course of several rest days, carefully shaping the blade and then carving the handle to fit me perfectly.

He carved a flowing guard into the hard wood, and the end of the handle was shaped into an ornate circular design like the inside of a shell curling in upon itself around the large, deep red stone. It was such a beautiful knife that for the longest time I would not use it for fear of damaging it in some way. My father had finally found it necessary to talk with me to convince me to use the knife. I consider the lesson he taught me that day to be one of the most important I ever learned, and I have tried to keep it central to my life.

Father said everything that exists on the face of the earth was put there for God’s purposes, whether it was created through the hand of man or by God Himself. Everything in existence, from our human minds and bodies to our talents, abilities and our man-made tools, is from God. Anything which is not used by man to its absolute fullest potential is not serving the purpose for which God put it on the earth. To not reach, or not be allowed to reach your full potential is worse than to not be created at all, for by this you fail both God and man.

It was on rest days that my mother would create her most beautiful paintings. My father had devised an ingenious construction for her to paint upon. He would take the skin of a sheep, clean it and allow it to dry almost completely. He would work the skin to keep it flexible as it dried, and finally he would stretch it over a square wooden frame and let it dry fully.

My mother would then take this smooth skin, and paint upon it with every color. She made these paints herself by mixing various elements she grew or found in nature. She created the most wonderful paintings, mainly of flowers and her gardens, though she also painted scenes of the forests, mountains and meadows, often with animals in them.

My parents spent much of their time together on the days of rest, often just walking through the forests and meadows. They always seemed happiest when they were alone with each other.

My brother wasted