LETTERS: LOOK PAST MISERY -- ALL IN SAME POT

To the editor:

The heavens declare the glory of God. The seas tell a few wild tales too. Here's an interesting fact as best retold by a hopelessly landlubbering shepherd.

Have you ever seen caught lobsters in a cage, properly called a lobster pot? There is a mystery here I'd like to explain. When caught, separated and loaded into baskets headed for the seafood market, lobsters do not escape. What is weird is that the baskets don't have lids. Yep, they take that last ride to the market in a convertible basket mere inches from freedom, doomed as dinner.

What keeps them bound in their lobster prison when all they have to do is climb out and run for water? What keeps any lobster from a successful break is his fellow lobsters.

When Louis the Lobster decides to bust out, he heads for the top of the heap, crawling over the mound of other lobsters who are, no doubt, as miserable as he. And when finally Louis makes it to the bop and tries to crawl out, there's no chance for a successful escape. The other lobsters grab him by the tail, claw -- whatever -- and drag him right back into the basket every time. Yet another edible decapod to be boiled alive.

If these crustaceans would look past their personal miseries and see that they are all literally in the same basket -- and the lemon tartar sauce is chilling quickly -- they might figure out that the only way to freedom is to help each other escape. But lobster nature being what it is, they all stay captive held by invisible chains in misery together, singing the seafood blues.

Next time you see someone with his eyes on a prize no one else can see, don't grab for his tail and pull him back to mediocre living. Push him up and over. Who knows? He might reach back and help pull out up and over too.

Loving your neighbor just might keep both of you out of boiling water.

The REV. BRYAN HUPPERTS

Cape Girardeau