The hearty stew simmering on the stove isn’t quite ready. Sneak a molasses cookie and come by the fire. There’s time enough for the crone to tell a tiny tale, so open your mind and heart and find what meaning you will.   

A barren woman begged God to give her a child. That night she dreamed of a small boy with her husband’s features playing alongside a river flowing with wine and figs. “I must find this river,” she declared upon waking. “It is there I will be a mother at last!”

Her husband readily agreed to leave their home in search of flowing wine and figs. “Where is this river?” they demanded to know of everyone they met on their journey. People believed the woman and her husband to be mad and offered them bread to eat and tonics to drink.

Years passed.

One chill autumn morning, it all became too much. “I will never have my daughter!” the barren woman wailed. “Why does God abandon me?” With these last words, the pain in her heart was so great she fell stone cold dead.  

The husband railed against God as well. “No flowing wine and figs! Why is God so cruel as to make this promise and not keep it?” With these last words, he clutched his chest and fell stone cold dead as well.

After three days the woman woke to cooing doves and a clear sky. “Let us go home,” she told her husband, shaking him awake. “Let things be as they are. Our seeking is ended!” With these last words, she was born again, and her husband as well. They returned to their village where they laughed with friends over what they had done.

Heaven on earth is like this.