One day, a devout man prayed to God to show him the nature of Heaven & Hell … Seeing as how the man had been living a humble & generous life, God decided that such a request could be granted, and led the man to two doors.

As the man looked on, the first door opened to show a large room containing one large, round table. In the middle of the table was an enormous steaming pot of vegetable stew, and the aroma therefrom was so thick and smelled so hearty that the man’s mouth couldn’t help but begin to water.

And yet around that table were seated twelve of the thinnest, palest, sickliest people the man had ever seen, and the cause of their obvious despair soon became clear — they each had only been given spoons with extremely long handles with which to eat, and while it was possible for all of them to reach the pot and spoon out some of the stew, there was no way for them to bring that nourishment to their mouths.

“This”, said God, with more than a bit of solemnity, “is Hell.”

After the door to Hell closed, the second door opened. The man looked in and saw exactly the same room, containing exactly the same table, with exactly the same twelve people seated around it, holding exactly the same long-handled spoons. And yet this time everyone present was healthy & happy & rosy-cheeked, with eyes that laughed and mouths that smiled … They were completely content & at ease.

“This”, said God, with more than a bit of peace, “is Heaven.”

The second door closed, and the puzzled man turned to God and said, “I don’t understand. How is it so that the same twelve people can be so miserable in the first room and yet so happy in the second?”

“The difference,” God replied, “rests in one simple choice. You see, in Hell, people only think of serving themselves, while in Heaven, they have learned to feed each other.”

(while this parable is attributed to Rabbi Haim of Romshishok, variations of it are heard all over the world — from Europe, where the pot is filled with stew and the people are using long-handled spoons, to China, where the pot is filled with rice and the people are using elongated chopsticks)

“The allegory of the long spoons teaches us that when we struggle to deed only ourselves, we all go hungry. And yet when we focus on relieving our neighbor’s hunger, there is always enough to feed everyone.” ~ Caritas

Amen … Let it be so!

Filed under: Wisdoms from the Journey by Scaughdt