I found this story whilst surfing and thought it had such a lovely message. As I’m not a believer in the ‘Christian god’ so I was going to change the words slightly, I thought about changing the word ‘lord’ to ‘goddess’ just to be arkward but decided that would be silly. I like to do that when singing hymns, not because I believe god is a women, just that I don’t like the way god is perceived as a man!(I do believe in the god/goddess but only as archetypes, as fragments of the whole.) Anyway this is only a story with a nice message, not to be taken literally, on my part anyway.



A holy man was having a conversation with the Lord one day and said, "Lord, I would like to know what Heaven and Hell are like. "The Lord led the holy man to two doors. He opened one of the doors and the holy man looked in. In the middle of the room was a large round table that held a large pot of stew. It smelled delicious, and made the holy man's mouth water.But the people sitting around the table were thin and sickly. They appeared to be famished. They were holding spoons with very long handles and each found it possible to reach into the pot of stew and take a spoonful. Because the handle was longer than their arms, they could not get the spoons back into their mouths. The holy man shuddered at the sight of their misery and suffering. The Lord said, “You have seen Hell.”The Lord showed the holy man to the next room and opened the door. It was exactly the same as the first one. There was the large round table with the large pot of stew, which again made the holy man's mouth water. The people were equipped with the same long-handled spoons, but here the people were well nourished and plump, and laughing in conversation. The Lord said, “You have seen Heaven.”The holy man, confused, said, "I don't understand."The Lord answered, “Simple.. it requires but one skill..”


The message/theme of this story is one that keeps popping up at the moment, in conversation, in the books I’m reading, in things I happen apon on the web, everywhere. Life is trying to plant this one deep in my psyche obviously.
(By the way, if you haven’t worked out what the skill is yet, the people in the second room had learnt to feed each other.)