Lessons from the Sea

I've heard two variations on the story ... both from First Nations elders ...

The first version is about fresh water crayfish - the second was salt water crabs.

Both stories spoke a truth worth considering in the Church and in small communities everywhere ...

The story (the first version) goes like this:

An old man was catching crayfish and tossing them in a small ice cream bucket. He had caught a couple of dozen cray fish when some young boys strolled by and glanced in the bucket.

"Hey old man," one of the boys called, "your cray fish are gonna escape on you."

"Nay," replied the old man without looking up, "they're Indian Cray fish."

"What does that mean?" asked one of the young men.

"It means that when one of the cray fish actually makes it up to the lip of the bucket and gets ready to climb out," the old man looked up at the boys, "the other cray fish pulls them back down into the bucket ..."

The elders who shared this story with me both lamented the with resignation the truth of this story not only for First Nations communities, but for many small towns where relationships and familial ties run strong. One of them even cited the example of Jesus returning to his hometown of Nazareth where his reading of the Prophet Isaiah is met with the crowd wanting to toss him off the nearest cliff.

Too often success in small communities, be they native or non-native, is met with derision and criticism rather than support and encouragement ...

The challenge is to escape the tendancy to be like the cray fish and crabs, and rather than viewing those who are climbing up to the edge of the bucket holding ALL of us with jealousy, we need to open our eyes to the possibility that with their success THEY might be able to lead ALL of us to FREEDOM ...

It's true in the Church ... it's true in communities ... it's true across all divides of race, colour and creed ... it's about being HUMAN and moving past petty jealousy to a place of co-operation and community building ...

Sometimes it's worth listening to old fisherman ... they've got much to teach us ... if we dare to hear!