I enjoyed life as a kid growing up in the southern Louisiana woods. I exalted in the wonderful liberty I had there. Many an hour was spent on a quiet grassy bank, shaded by a cornucopia of oak and pine trees, lying on my back staring at clouds, sometimes serenading myself with a cheap harmonica. I didn't think any great thoughts. Mostly, it was a simple absorption of the experience, of the moment, soaking up the beauty of the blue sky marbled with the clouds, and loving the warm caress of the sun.
Often, those times were spent with a coffee can beside me and a piece of string floating in the water of a ditch or small creek. The string was tied to a stick I held loosely, and at the other end of the string was tied a piece of raw bacon.
Pretty soon, a creature that has fascinated me since I first saw one, would come creeping along, drawn to the bacon for reasons I could never fathom. It had no discernible nose, but instead, had two very long thick hair-like tentacles that sprouted from where a nose should have been. It would creep forward ever so slowly, the tentacles moving around, testing, sensing, feeling. And then, as if in slow motion on a film, it would reach out with a giant claw and grasp the bacon, drawing it in slow-motion towards its strange mouth.
When I was satisfied the creature was committed to keeping that bacon for himself, I would begin to tighten up on the string. Very slowly, I'd pull that dark-red and purplish creature out of the water, matching his earlier slow motion. I always marveled that the creature could not tell when he left the water. Slowly, I'd maneuver the creature over my can or bucket, shake the line once or twice, and he'd release the bacon and plop right into the can.
We called those creatures "crawfish." The Yankees call 'em "cra-a-a-fish," and even spell it wrong (crayfish). All good Southern boys know that it's spelled "crawfish," or if you lived far enough back in the woods, they were called "crawdads," and spelled just like that. I'd take them to grandma and she'd dump them into a pot of boiling hot water, and we'd eat them.
People are a lot like crawfish. I never realized that then, as a boy contemplating life in the Louisiana woods. It never occurred to me that people can get so fixated on possessing something their appetite demands, that they can't let go, even when it pulls them away from everything they love and from life itself. Drugs are that way, you know. Drugs are the "bacon" for lots of folk. Alcohol is some folks' "bacon," with a bucket of disease and death on the end of the string. But even more than those things, sex is the tempting morsel that will cause a man or woman to be drawn out of their relatively safe environment, and be dropped into a boiling cauldron of emotion and hurt. For many, adultery is no longer considered "sin," and in the mind of an increasing number of Americans, is viewed as a "fling" or justifiable because...well, just fill in the "blank." There are a myriad of excuses offered as "why" men and women commit adultery.
But whatever one may believe about God and the Bible, it's difficult to argue with its veracity on the subject thousands of years ago. It seems almost incredible that words written hundreds and hundreds of years ago would be so applicable today, but they are.
Judge for yourself:
"For by means of a whorish woman a man is brought to a piece of bread: and the adulteress will hunt for the precious life. Can a man take fire in his bosom, and his clothes not be burned? Can one go upon hot coals, and his feet not be burned? So he that goeth in to his neighbour's wife; whosoever toucheth her shall not be innocent. Men do not despise a thief, if he steal to satisfy his soul when he is hungry; But if he be found, he shall restore sevenfold; he shall give all the substance of his house. But whoso committeth adultery with a woman lacketh understanding: he that doeth it destroyeth his own soul." -- Proverbs 6:26-32 (KJV).
I never saw as a kid how closely we imitate some of God's dumbest creatures. But now as an adult, I see the tunnel vision of the "crawfish" in men and women who have about as much a sense of reality as a crawfish hanging on a string, clinging tightly to the bacon, ignorant of the boiling cauldron to come. Men and women stare longingly at another, not caring for the emotional pain their selfish act will bring to their spouse, unaware and uncaring of the confusion they will bring to their children, and caring only for the "bacon."
I guess it's only fair to wonder, the next time your feel your "string" being tugged on.
Wonder why you feel the tug. Then wonder who's tugging on the other end.
And then remember the hot water.