Finally, Nelatha looked up with an expression of open impatience and exasperation.
"Only man is ashamed," Nelatha said with quiet assurance, at long last overcoming her reluctance of speaking of the Invisible One again. "Not God. Foolish Si'Wren, you must try your best to live a sinless life. Do good, and shun evil! Does not the wisdom of our folk lore teach us that Adam, and Eve his wife, saw God openly and spoke to Him freely and often, before they were both cast out of the Garden of Heaven for one sin? No wonder He never shows His face! And does this not also teach us that there is but one God?"
"It is curious," Si'Wren agreed, "that Adam and Eve should have been created by only one god, when all men say there be many gods. Of a truth, I have never considered it before. How can this be?"
"There is but one God," said Nelatha, "and in this life, no one may see God and live. For all are sinful. Sin, before God, burns like charcoal in a fire. But you will see Him on high some day, if you go to Paradise after you die."
"You mean; if I have lived a good life?" Si'Wren said.
"Aye," nodded Nelatha, "that too. More, it will be to your good and everlasting fortune if you have had good inside your heart, which like Him is unseen, and not just in your outward behavior. Then you will surely rejoice to see Him in all of His eternal glory. Aye, you shall stand before the living God for all eternity, and live, and not die."
Chapter Two - A Most Curious Invisible God
"Ho so!" breathed Si'Wren with mounting satisfaction, as she kept her voice cautiously low. "One day I will see Him, then. But, why can we not worship images of Him now? Will He not be pleased?"
Nelatha looked around this time, checking wearily over her shoulder before answering, "Sister, if I make an image from dust, so…"
Nelatha took up the water skin and hunkered down into a squatting position, then took up a clump of loose dirt in her fist, and carefully dispensed a little water into her partly opened hand. She put the water skin aside, and worked the moistened handful of dirt with utmost care, making it into a rounded, flattened lump of dark mud. Then with her fingertip she poked three times, and made it into a crude face having two round eyes and a round mouth.