A man spoke with the Lord about heaven and
hell. The Lord said to the man, "Come, I will show you hell."
They entered a room where a group of people
sat around a huge pot of stew. Everyone was famished,
desperate and starving. Each held a spoon
that reached the pot, but each spoon had a handle so much longer
than their own arm that it could not be
used to get the stew into their own mouths. The suffering was terrible.
"Come, now I will show you heaven," the
Lord said after a while. They entered another room, identical to the
first - the pot of stew, the group of people,
the same long-handled spoons. But there everyone was happy and
well-nourished.
"I don’t understand," said the man.
"Why are they happy here when they were miserable in the other room and
everything was the same?"
The Lord smiled, "Ah, it is simple,"
he said. "here they have learned to feed each other."
By Ann Landers