The French writer, Antoine de...
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The French writer, Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of The Little Prince, was a
pilot in the French Air Force during World War II, stationed in North Africa. He became
friendly with some of the local Bedouin: that tough, resourceful race of desert-dwellers.
On one occasion, he even managed to fly a few of them back home with him on a visit to
France.
On that visit, he expected those desert nomads to be wowed by Western technology: the Eiffel Tower, the railroad locomotive, the automobile -- but the desert tribesmen observed these things with indifference. The one thing that truly impressed them was a waterfall in the French Alps.
The thing about the waterfall that filled them with wonder was that it never stopped. These were men who had measured their lives by water: by how much water their canteens could hold, how many hours' ride it was to the next oasis, how long they or their camels could hold out without taking a drink. Yet here, gushing from the side of a mountain, was an endless cascade of God's abundance. In the author's own words:
They stood in silence. Mute, solemn ... gazing at the unfolding of a ceremonial mystery. That which came roaring out of the belly of the mountain was life itself ... The flow of a single second would have resuscitated whole caravans that, mad with thirst, had pressed on into the eternity of salt lakes and mirages. Here God was manifesting Himself: It would not do to turn one's back on Him.
(From Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Wind, Sand and Stars, p. 143; quoted by Belden Lane in The Solace of Fierce Landscapes [Oxford, 1998], pp. 203- 204.)
On that visit, he expected those desert nomads to be wowed by Western technology: the Eiffel Tower, the railroad locomotive, the automobile -- but the desert tribesmen observed these things with indifference. The one thing that truly impressed them was a waterfall in the French Alps.
The thing about the waterfall that filled them with wonder was that it never stopped. These were men who had measured their lives by water: by how much water their canteens could hold, how many hours' ride it was to the next oasis, how long they or their camels could hold out without taking a drink. Yet here, gushing from the side of a mountain, was an endless cascade of God's abundance. In the author's own words:
They stood in silence. Mute, solemn ... gazing at the unfolding of a ceremonial mystery. That which came roaring out of the belly of the mountain was life itself ... The flow of a single second would have resuscitated whole caravans that, mad with thirst, had pressed on into the eternity of salt lakes and mirages. Here God was manifesting Himself: It would not do to turn one's back on Him.
(From Antoine de Saint-Exupery, Wind, Sand and Stars, p. 143; quoted by Belden Lane in The Solace of Fierce Landscapes [Oxford, 1998], pp. 203- 204.)
