I took a trip to Holy Land to see the only Holy Man. Not too surprisingly, he was exactly where I last saw him, sitting on top of a small boulder in the foothills and soaking in the last of the late fall sun. When I arrived, he smiled at my presence although he never looked at me.

The boulder was easy to climb, and I sat next to him, trying to emulate his every slight nuance. We perched in the sun for what felt like several hours before he reached out and grabbed my water bottle. He finished the contents in three tremendous gulps, gasped his gratitude, and set the empty bottle down as if it was his to begin with.

I almost asked him my question at that moment, but the words didn't feel right yet. Before attempting the journey to Holy Land, I wrote, rewrote and edited my question for days. Holy Man rarely said anything at all, so it was always best to be concise when asking for advice.

It wasn't easy to whittle down all of the turmoil of the past few months into one manageable question. There was the terrorist attack. Why would a multi-millionaire go to Afghanistan and teach people to hate America instead of building up the country with his wealth? There was the inevitable war that followed. I don't even talk to the neighbors on my street, so how am I supposed to feel about those on the other side of the world? There was the death of one of my best friends who overdosed on heroin. Why didn't he tell me everything that was going on? What the hell was I doing otherwise that was so important that I didn't realize the dire situation? There was the unjustified lashing out at me from one of the bosses at my day job, causing me to turn in my resignation. How can a person go to work on time every day, get all of their work done, and still be considered incompetent? There was the sudden break down of my car in the middle of traffic. What does it mean when the inanimate objects voice their displeasure? There was the recession that had apparently been going on for months before the government decided to tell us. Why is it always about the economy, stupid? There was the fact that I hadn't been able to hang out with most people for more than an hour (even Holy Man) without wanting to disappear. Is it me? Is it them? Is it all of us?

One question was supposed to represent all of this and more. I thought about asking 'What's going on?' but who am I, Marvin Gaye? Then I scribbled down 'What do all these signs mean?' but I was asking this to Holy Man, not a traffic cop. Should I change my ways? Is there something I'm supposed to do? How can I turn things around? What else is going to happen? What else? What else? In the end, I decided to wing it, and go with whatever came out of my mouth when I found him.

Instead, nothing came out. I sat silently next to Holy Man, out of water and wanting to hide under the rock rather than sit next to him. The questions swam around in my head, but none of them represented everything I wanted to have answered. The moment I decided to skip out on the whole thing and leave, Holy Man starting talking. He didn't look at me, and I wasn't sure if he knew I was sitting next to him at all. What he spoke was the most I had ever heard him say at one time:

"This rock used to be at the top of the hill. It sat at the edge, and no one believed such a large rock could stay so high and never fall. Then one day after a heavy rain, the ground gave out, and the rock tumbled down into the canyon. Save a few chips off the surface, the rock was the same, but in a very different place. Not so high. Since it fell from its fall, most people forgot it was ever up there. They only saw it for where it was at that moment. It's still as good a rock as it always was. In fact, I like it better down here. Not so hard to get to, less wind whipping around, and the sun hits it just right. You like this rock?"

Holy Man looked at me for the first time since I had found him on this trip to Holy Land. I stared into his eyes and realized he was blind. I had never noticed that any of the other times I came to see him. He always seemed to be looking at something.

"Yeah," I answered. "It's a pretty good rock."

Holy Man nodded and said nothing else to me. I knew then that it was time to move on.

Chris Jungle gathers no moss.