It’s a quiet morning. The lush green mountaintops are bathed in warm sunshine while the valley below waits in shadow. Songbirds fill the emptiness with divine song. Two old souls meet on the stony path. A flock of crows are busy with their own conversations. The air smells of tea and wildflowers.
Jesus spots Lao Tzu first.
“Nice sandals,” he says, smiling. “You finally ditched the bare feet?”
Lao Tzu grins. “I was told you were a fisherman’s friend. I thought I’d dress for the occasion. Sandals seemed… practical.”
They laugh, and walk together.
“You talk about the Way. I talk about the Kingdom. Do you think they’re the same thing?” asks Jesus.
“If they aren’t, then we’ve been wasting a lot of time,” says Lao Tzu.
Jesus nods. “True. But people still think they have to choose - Kingdom or Way, Heaven or Tao.”
“They’re like fishermen arguing about who owns the river, when the fish are just happy it flows.” Lao Tzu laughs.
Jesus stops. “Speaking of fish… you know I once multiplied them?”
“Yes. And I once convinced an emperor to stop multiplying taxes. Different miracles, same relief.”
Lao Tzu leans against a fig tree heavy with fruit. He picks one and turns it in his hand.
“I tell people to be like water. You tell them to be like children. Maybe that’s our real difference.”
Jesus reflects for a moment. “Not so different,” he says. “Children run toward water without worrying about getting wet.”
They laugh again, but Jesus’ smile lingers differently now, as though he’s watching something beyond the horizon.
Lao Tzu steps closer. “You’re carrying something. I can see it in your eyes.”
“What’s ahead for me,” says Jesus, “will look like failure. But I’m hoping it will be the sharp reed against the sleepy spirit, the thing that startles people awake.”
“Sometimes the Way needs a jolt,” says Lao Tzu.
“Yes. And sometimes the jolt needs to be a cross.”
When they reach the bend in the path, the valley opens before them. Fields and rivers are spread out like a painted scroll.
“If they only knew how safe they are,” whispers Jesus, as if to himself.
“If they only knew the flow is already in them,” says Lao Tzu.
They share the fig in silence, juice running down their hands. Somewhere, unseen, a seed begins to split.
Reader’s Invitation
Between the sandals and the seeds, the fish and the flow, the real teaching is this:
You are already inside the great kindness. Stop trying so hard to earn what has always been yours.
If this reflection speaks to you, these are the kinds of conversations I explore more deeply in my book In The Becoming: Finding Meaning in an Unfinished World. It’s a journey through the ways we search for God, the subtle moments where the sacred hides in the ordinary, and the slow unfolding of a love that doesn’t end.
You can find it here on Amazon.