How could anyone possibly make an idol of the Invisible God? Why, one might as well try to make an idol of the wind itself, and did not God so breathe the very wind of life into the first man, the Patriarch Adam himself?
Adam and Eve had seen God, and talked with Him, when He came walking in the Garden of Eden, before they were cast out. Was not man said to be made in God's image, according to the ancient but discredited folklore and children's fables about Adam and Eve? Hence, the form of man must resemble the form of God, although man was but man, meaning mankind, which included womankind, and God was God. Nelatha had once said that if one went to Paradise, one would see God and live, a God Who walked, and talked, and could be seen, and Who was yet spirit.
Si'Wren was perplexed, and her thoughts ran to confusion. It was then that the very real wisdom of Nelatha, which had come from L'acoci, now betrayed its deeper truths, for Si'Wren remembered at the last that it was sufficient in Nelatha's understanding as a lowly ignorant slave girl, like Si'Wren herself, to compare the Invisible God to water, which one could see, and yet remained invisible. For could not one hold pure water in one's hand, and both see the water, and yet at one and the same time, see right through it? And water, she remembered, reflected all things faithfully. Thus might a righteous and holy God reflect all men's souls to them in the hereafter, rewarding the good with more good unto life, and the evil with more of their own evil unto eternal wailing and damnation.
Thoughtfully, she turned to the window, the frame of which was overgrown by clinging vines which stretched forth their profusion of white-streaked, green ivy leaves in every direction. Looking out, she saw a collection of dirty beggars sitting by the wayside in the street. They were the maimed, the blind, the diseased, always to be found among the countless throngs of city-goers and inhabitants.
She turned from the decoratively barred window and went back to the table, where she stood gazing down at the finely carved wooden ox. To the poor beggars, it would represent a fortune in coppers. She picked up the carved wooden ox, so dark, so smooth and lifelike, and returned to the ornate window. There, she paused for a long time, looking out on the beggars.
She already thought of the Invisible God as all-powerful by his very nature. But somehow she could not help imagining that surely he must desire at least a little agreement, some form of willful participation on her part, to better the lot of her fellow creatures.
Let the beggars sell the wooden ox, for money to buy food.
So saying to herself, she looked carefully, and tossed the wooden ox out through the ornamental bars past the green ivy vines.
It turned over slowly in the air and landed unbroken in a pile of dirty straw beside a group of filthy, crippled street beggars.
As Si'Wren stepped back into the shadows of her window sill, an outcry arose below in the narrow street. The anxious voices of the beggars could be heard talking animatedly about this perceived 'miracle'.