There was once a woman who had a long stay at the airport. So she bought a good book and a bag of cookies to eat. She found a nice little place, put her stuff down and started to read.
When she reached over for a cookie from the bag on the seat between her and the man beside her, she noticed that the man next to her also reached over and took a cookie. Every time she had a cookie, he took one. "Unbelievable!" she thought, along with many other unpleasant things. This went on until the last cookie."What's he going to do now?" she thought. To her surprise, he reached down and broke the last cookie in half, handing her half and eating the rest. Just then the voice over the intercom announced the plane was ready.
She departed as quickly as possible, with never a word to the rude man. When she sat down and put all her stuff out, there was a bag of cookies in her bag. Whoops! She had been eating his cookies. (based on a poem "Cookie Thief" by anonymous)
Reflecting on this story Father Brendan McGuire said, "We hold onto things, and when people start to use our stuff, we think, 'Hang on a second. That is mine!' We have all those thoughts that go on in our head as others use our stuff.
"Most often we do not have the sense of generosity. Most of the stuff we have, the stuff that is important to us, is a gift from God and not really ours.
We are stewards of many gifts, to be shared. We often think these things are ours."
Jesus is the bread of life, shared out for us. Christ held nothing back but shared every drop of his blood with us. Every word from his mouth was food for us. Shared down to the last morsel.
Another aspect of our cookie story is the utter futility of judging others. We never have all the information. Each one of us is a work in progress, a vessel in the potter's hand. And God is still forming each of us.
So often we are sure in our righteous judgements. How can it be otherwise? Can't we believe the evidence of our eyes? The woman in the cookie story could not.
Only God sees our inner hearts and marks our generosity. Yes, the man in the cookie story was very generous. Let us imitate him in not judging others and in sharing the gifts and the goods we have been given.
