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There is a story told in the village of a man who leaves his family to find God. He travels far and wide: to the tops of high mountains, the depths of dry deserts, into the middle of trackless swamps and across wide prairies. He searches in forests and arctic wastes, along forgotten shorelines and in lost grottos. For forty years he searches, never once finding that which he seeks.
When finally he despairs of his search and returns home, he finds his family is gone. His wife is remarried, his children grown, his house abandoned and left to fall into disrepair. He enters the house and sits upon the floor in the dust and cries. When he has cried and can cry no more, he looks up to find a deer mouse sitting on the mantle, watching him.
“God?” he asks.
“Yes,” says the deer mouse.
The man falls forward into the dust. “Why did you leave me?” he cries.
“I’m not the one who left,” says God. “You are.”
