Flowing Water Sermon

Performed by a member of The Church of Humanity, Repentant sect Students of God's Empire, at an undisclosed Welcome and Outreach Center in the year 3200.

 There is a saying among the nobility of House Eridanus, “the river carves the rock.” It means that change is often slow and difficult to spot, but it is inevitable.

For those of you who feel that your faith is faltering, who feel that change does not come quick enough, think on these words.

It is the river that carves the rock.

It is the insistent passing of the years, the unrelenting force of movement, the deluge of millions of individual drops. That is the thing that carves the rock. Not force, nor cunning, nor the great feats of solitary people. It is time.

For time is the boon of the hopeful and the secret weapon of the just.

It is the river that carves the rock. It is the rain that molds the mountain. It is the ocean that shapes the shores.

Though the challenges we face often make us feel like we are crashing against edifices of rock, this saying shows that that which stands against the tide is the aberration, not the river. The thing that refuses to move, that refuses to change, that appears to stand against every assault. These things only appear to be solid, their victories only appear to be constant. But with the passing of time they are revealed to be no more than a temporary state of being.

It is the rock that will pass from this world and be remade, not the river. Whole planets are carved by the water on their surface. Nothing is immutable, no matter how immovable it may seem in the moment.

It is the river that carves the rock.

So I say to you: be a river. Be constant, be relentless, be ever flowing with your words and deeds. Where there is depth, fill it. Learn from it everything that you can and then move on. Where there is resistance let it pass you by. And where there is triviality, where there is shallowness and coarseness, move above it.

And if you fear the rock’s reproach remember that the river cannot be harmed by the rock. If the rock stands firm, the river moves around it. If the rock tries to move to block the river it is swept away, and even if the rock crashes down against the river in an avalanche the water is only displaced for a moment. It cannot be destroyed.

For it is the river that carves the rock. It is movement that defeats stillness. It is time that weakens all things that refuse to change.

Reportedly written by a freelancer of The PRISM Network.

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