Richard Bach
	JONATHAN LIVINGSTON SEAGULL Beautiful in it’s story, the first time you read it is a fantasy and then an awareness. Jonathan Livingston Seagull is an metaphor about a bird that forgoes the normal life of a seagull and acceptance by society in order to pursue the ideal of flight….and life, learning to take nothing for granted. "To Begin with," he said heavily, "you've got to understand that a seagull is an unlimited Idea of freedom, an image of the Great Gull, and your whole body, from wingtip to wingtip, is nothing more than thought itself" Order Hardcover Order Paperback Order Audio Csst Order Video
	ILLUSIONS In the cloud-washed airspace between the cornfields of Illinois and blue infinity, a man puts his faith in the propeller of his biplane. For disillusioned writer and itinerant barnstormer Richard Bach, belief is as real as a full tank of gas and sparks firing in the cylinders...until he meets Donald Shimoda--former mechanic and self-described messiah who can make wrenches fly and Richard's imagination soar.... In Illusions, the unforgettable follow-up to his phenomenal bestseller Jonathan Livingston Seagull, Richard Bach takes to the air to discover the ageless truths that give our souls wings: that people don't need airplanes to soar...that even the darkest clouds have meaning once we lift ourselves above them... and that messiahs can be found in the unlikeliest places--like hay fields, one-traffic-light midwestern towns, and most of all, deep within ourselves. Order Hardcover Order Paperback Order Audio Csst MESSIAH'S HANDBOOK: REMINDERS FOR THE ADVANCED SOUL (The Lost Book From Illusions)

Excerpts:

Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently over them all-young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going its own way, knowing only its own crystal self.

Each creature in its own manner clung tightly to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging was their way of life, and resisting the current what each had learned from birth.

But one creature said at last, "I am tired of clinging. Though I cannot see it with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go, and let it take me where it will. Clinging, I shall die of boredom."

The other creatures laughed and said, "Fool! Let go, and that current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks, and you will die quicker than boredom!"

But the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks. Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom, and he was bruised and hurt no more. And the creatures downstream, to whom he was a stranger, cried, "See a miracle! A creature like ourselves, yet he flies! See the Messiah, come to save us all!"

And the one carried in the current said, "I am no more Messiah than you. The river delights to lift us free, if only we dare let go. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure."

But they cried all the more, "Savior!" all the while clinging to the rocks, and when they looked again he was gone, and they were left alone making legends of a Savior.