Walking the back streets of this Persian city, the scrape of my sandals echoing against the dusty stones of a back alley in the market quarter, I hear the call to prayer. A broad grin touches my face, for at the very moment the muezzin calls out the greatness of the divine, I see five loaves of bread at my master's door. He has anticipated my return; he has prepared a lesson.

Up two stairs to the door. As I reach for it, my master's servant, a brother of our order, opens the door and we embrace, tears of reunion run down our cheeks, the musk of clove and rose flowing out from my master's house. Here all hearts open, here all are welcome, and among us, all are brothers. I place my sandals by the door and wash my feet in the crumbling tiled basin set into the floor by the entry. Between my toes I watch the broken patterns that had once been whole, and I begin to weep, as I do so often when I am reminded of that night lost in time when the divine expressed itself in a moment of forgetfulness, and we were born: man, woman, animal, rock, wind, wave, time space, life - all things that now are.

Five loaves, set by the door, each different. Each feeds hunger, each appeals to one but not to another. Each appears one way on the outside, another on the inside. What lesson might the Master, in his wry and twisted way, be teaching?

I know better than to broach the subject of the loaves with him. He teaches in his time, in his way. When he sees I am fertile ground, he plants the seed, when he sees I am bearing fruit, he harvests. When I am before him, I may as well be naked, as my motivations, my fears, my doubts are as obvious as if I were wearing them written on my forehead. It is like the deceptions of a child that are so clear to a parent.