Note: This allegorical story was last significantly edited 1/28/20.

The stained glass had a story, a story few remembered and fewer told, for it was, they thought, a silly legend, unworthy of telling in these days of grand scientific fact. But it was what old-fashioned people would call truth, even if the world laughed, and the world did laugh.

The dragon was the Sun-Eater, his scales larger than most stars, his wings stretching a galaxy in each direction. His teeth would have been called giant nebulae by any modern scholar, though they were more dense than a black hole. His great eyes searched greedily for that which he might devour; he prowled around like a roaring lion. The dark suns he ate, swallowing them, never sated, never filled, his measureless greed not slaked but increased by the prey.

In one sun there lived a knight, a knight by the name of Sir Eustace. He worried endlessly, taking great care with his business and living with ashy pleasure, but his sun was dark and dead. It had no life. He told himself he was searching for truth, though when he stumbled upon it in his endeavors to dig up lies, he ran. The truth was scary, and he thought his star was bright, for he was blind.

Then one day an old man came in his door. His beard was white and long, his robes were woven of linked stars, and the staff in his hand was of brilliant light. Yet Sir Eustace did not know he was there, for his eyes were as dark as his sun. The old man took him by the hand and led him to the edge of his home. Sir Eustace did not feel the old man’s pull but he walked behind him, unable to resist. They stood upon the ashy balcony of the dead star and looked out. Then the old man took Sir Eustace’s hand again and they stepped through the gray railing, off the star.

The Sun- Eater neared, watching his appointed prey, for all dark stars were his. He opened his jaws to devour it, his stony eyes glittering with lust, and all along his body, lightning- scars flared with dark light, the marks of his fall from the Highlands of Light. It was then that his winged glory had become darkness, the destroyer of worlds.

Sir Eustace felt a longing, a longing for something he could not name, something he knew was near. He knew no way to find things save by his touch; the joys of sight and sound and smell he did not know and all his tongue could taste were ashes. He knew he needed to find this something. He would search till he became nothing, till death.

The guide watched him search, running his hands over all that was around him, trying to find that which he knew he ought to find.

Sir Eustace realized what he needed to find. In this room of strange objects, like an old attic that a grandmother has filled with antiques and hand-me-downs, he needed to find a statue of a knight, a statue covered in blood red velvet. He did not know what blood was, he did not know how to understand red, and velvet was to him a closed book. Nevertheless, he must find that thing and no other.

He ran his hands over all kinds of surfaced, grids and bumps, waves and ridges, plains and hills. The textures felt nice, but not right. They were not blood or red or velvet. He walked endlessly, searching, searching, searching. He would find it, he had to, there was no other way.

The two greatest fangs of each jaw touched the gases around the ashen star, sucking and swirling the mists, two great, fetid, sterile holes.

Sir Eustace despaired, knowing that he could never find what the sought; it was here but it was hidden. Then, for the first time, he heard sound, he heard a voice.

“You cannot find that which you seek unless you do not use your own strength.”

How could he find something without using his own strength? How could he give it up? He could not find it in his strength; how was he to find it without his strength? Yet the Voice was strong and pure and awe- full. He dropped down on his knees, knowing he could never find what he so desperately desired, not in his own strength.

Then something happened. His hands felt something, something that was red and something that was blood and something that was velvet. He looked up and fell upon his face before the glory of that which the statue had become. He knew now that in front of him stood his Strength, his Glory, his All-in- All. For this one moment he could think of nothing else, nor did he want to, for by the strength of his Strength he had desired to find and had found the Glory of Glories, the Knight of Knights, the Glorified and Humble King.

Then the Sun-Eater felt in the light the glory of the Thesis to which he was antithesis, the crushing of His feet upon the dark scales of his head, and he fled.

The sun which was to Eustace a home before lit with a fierce light that could not be extinguished. But now Sir Eustace had found his true home.

He stood before a glorious figure, a man in shape, it seemed, Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  He was a King and a Father, a Servant and a Savior, a Guide and a Comforter. All his senses burned with His holiness. Sight, sound, smell, taste, touch, and thought, He overwhelmed Sir Eustace. H­e was home.