Can I have a cookie?

Mark 6:30-46

           When I was a very young lad, I had three spinster ladies that lived next door. Of course they fauned over me and always made me feel like a million bucks. I don't know how the habit started but almot every day I would wind up at their back door and ask if I could have a cookie. The routine then was to invte me in, sit me down with a glass of milk or Hofmann ginger ale and vienna fingers. If I was really lucky, lady fingers were on my little plate. I think, even then, they recgnized how different I was from a lot of the other kids in the neighborhood and they took me in and loved me. Not only did these wonderful, saintly ladies feed me with food, they fed my soul, made me feel loved, welcome and I was a better person for it. 

           This passage actually speaks about being fed in both ways as well. Jesus said to his disciples ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’  The time away is a way of feeding your soul. Jesus is shown to do this often in scripture. This practice of getting away either in the form of a retreat or a walk in the woods or sitting at the beach is what we need sometimes to re-invigorate ourselves. The solitude is a time to collect ourselves and perhaps more importantly, time to sit and listen to God.

            So there are other forms of feeding that have nothing to do with loaves and fishes even if it that is the object of probably every other reflection involving this passage. Yesterday at work I had lunch with my daughter who was attending a class. After lunch she treated me to coffee and each of us met people we knew and many who did not realize we belonged together. One woman heard my daughters name called out and saw me grab the coffee. She commented on my 'female' name. I jokingly added "do you have a problem with that?" It turned out it was a very, very old friend who had returned to work at the hospital after a long absence. She had lost a great deal of weight but I finally recognized her new (and older) persona. My heart lept. I was so thrilled to see her, it fed my soul and enriched my day.

             I am not sure if we realize the capacity we have to feed others. I suppose I could focus on how we can starve others by marginalizing them or cutting people out of our lives. That seems too negative even if it is true. (perhaps that might be a good daily Lenten reflection for yourself?) I don't think we realize how much even a simple hello and a smile can feed some one's soul. I hate to think that someone might be that fragile but we all are in some ways. Some people are so broken and all they need is to be fed by some kindness that we could so easily supply.

             As much as I enjoy a good meal, I think it is wholly more important that we think about the other ways we feed ourselves and feed others.  Let us feast on love.

The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, ‘Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.’ For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things. When it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, ‘This is a deserted place, and the hour is now very late; send them away so that they may go into the surrounding country and villages and buy something for themselves to eat.’ But he answered them, ‘You give them something to eat.’ They said to him, ‘Are we to go and buy two hundred denarii worth of bread, and give it to them to eat?’ And he said to them, ‘How many loaves have you? Go and see.’ When they had found out, they said, ‘Five, and two fish.’ Then he ordered them to get all the people to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups of hundreds and of fifties. Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all. And all ate and were filled; and they took up twelve baskets full of broken pieces and of the fish. Those who had eaten the loaves numbered five thousand men.

Immediately he made his disciples get into the boat and go on ahead to the other side, to Bethsaida, while he dismissed the crowd. After saying farewell to them, he went up on the mountain to pray.