Candace

Talmadge

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June 19, 2009

Parable of the Stew (and the Congressman)

(Adapted from the parable of the spoons.)

Fed up with the endless partisan bickering and infighting over even the slightest legislative proposal, a weary member of the U.S. Congress one day took a break, drove to the beach and wandered along the shoreline, walking right into a meditative state.

The politician soon became aware of a radiantly loving presence and realized that it was God. The legislator was stunned.

“You don’t look familiar,” God remarked. “It’s been a long time since you visited me. You don’t even bother to think about me much.”

“No, I guess not,” the politician replied, chastened. “Look, I am very busy trying to solve real-world problems. The country’s a mess. The economy is in the tank. Millions of Americans are unemployed with more joining their ranks every day. Our schools are in crisis, our national infrastructure is crumbling and we desperately need a comprehensive reform of our broken health care system. And don’t even get me started on world problems and dangers. We just dodged a flu pandemic bullet.”

God considered the statement for a moment. “Seems like Hell, doesn’t it?”

“It sure does,” the politician replied. “Can’t you do something about it all? We could really use your help. I know many of my colleagues pray to you earnestly every day.”

“Come with me,” God said, leading the legislator to two doors and opening one. Curious, the politician peered inside, and saw a large round table in the middle of a room.  In the middle of the table was a large pot of stew that smelled delicious and made the legislator’s mouth water.

The people sitting around the table, however, were thin and sickly, obviously famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles that were strapped to their arms. Each was able to reach into the pot of stew and take out spoonfuls.

But because all the handles were longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths. The legislator shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering.

God said, “What you have just seen is the real Hell. For all its outsized egos and empty posturing, Capitol Hill doesn’t even come close.”

They shut that door, opened the other and looked inside. It was exactly the same as the first room.

There was the large round table with the large pot of mouth-watering stew. The people sitting around this table were equipped with the same long-handled spoons attached to their arms, but that was where the similarities between the two places ended.

In this room, the people around the table were well nourished, laughing and talking at ease with each other. They looked happy and content.

The politician was baffled. “'I don't get it. Heaven is exactly the same as Hell, yet it isn’t.”

“It is simple,” God replied. “It requires but one insight. Those in Heaven realize that I have already provided them with all of the tools they need to help each other. Using the creativity innate to them as created souls, they discovered that when they feed each other, they also feed themselves.

“The fearful and greedy think only of their own narrow self-interest, and so wither away even in the presence of plenty. They will keep starving in a Hell of their own making unless and until they recognize that all souls are intimately connected, and that those who withhold from others, thinking that will leave more for them, only impoverish themselves, too.”

© 2009 North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.

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