Theft and Greed and Grace and God

When you live or work with others and there's food involved, things tend to get a little sticky. Back when I lived in a college dorm, we had one fridge in a common room, and it was usually filled with delicious food - the kinds that were not served in the dining hall. I envied the girls who had a carton of milk in the fridge, as breakfast was the only time we were served milk in the dining hall (until my third year), and I never got up in time for breakfast because I valued my sleep more than a 7am breakfast (except my second year, when I lived in a 4 bedroom house with 19 other girls where the logistics of bathroom use demanded I get up at 6am in order to shower - I did go to breakfast on these days). I was also jealous of the girls with homemade food in the fridge, and those with yummy snacks like pizza pops.

In my third year I was out of the ever-expanding House of 20 Girls (where no man should dare to tread, and not just because it was against the school rules) and back in the dorm, where I probably had less square feet to occupy, but it seemed like more space because there were not bunkbeds everywhere you walked, and the classrooms were now only a few feet away, instead of 200 miles through deep snow or on planks across a 50 ft deep boggy marsh in the spring.

Now in the dorm once more, I became aware of a Food Thief. It came up in a few dorm meetings that someone was stealing other people's food from the fridge in the girls' lounge (our only common room besides the laundry room), and one day something of mine was stolen too. I must have been momentarily rich because I had bought a box of pizza pops and would microwave one for dinner whenever I was too busy with homework to eat a real(?) supper in the dining hall. But one fateful day when I went to the fridge to retrieve my last pizza pop, I found the box empty in the freezer, and boy, was I was pissed. My name was clearly written on the box - a must when you share a fridge with a million other girls - so that no one would mistakenly eat them thinking they were their own, but how do you take someone's last pizza pop and think it's okay? And LEAVE the box as evidence! Like I said, I was pissed.

These things still happen, though it's now 5 years later. I still live and work with others, and we share fridges. I have two roommates and a big fridge at home, where I spend half my time and 30 workmates and a small fridge at work, where I am the other half of the time. And the thefts still occur.

If I was going to steal someone else's food - though I don't think I would, but if I did - I'd try to cover my tracks, make it hard to detect. ("Hmmmm... did I have 8 or 9 cookies left? I'm not sure. I probably only had 8.") I wouldn't take someone's last pizza pop and leave an empty box, and I wouldn't open a sealed package, which is a terribly obvious move. But recently someone opened my sealed coffee cream and I knew who it was: the one who mooches.

I was angry, but calmed down and was kind to the person. I nicely told her that I would have happily shared with her if she had asked, and that I had been surprised to find it open when I looked in the fridge. I got my point across without being mean or sarcastic. And she was sorry.

Yet I didn't feel better. And I don't feel better. I can't help but think of the Bishop in Les Miserables, who, when he finds Jean Valjean stealing his silverware, gives him his candlesticks too. He could have had Valjean arrested, but he doesn't believe it will change his heart.

Likewise, Jesus said, ""If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you."

Where do grace and justice intersect? I think I was just by confronting the thief, but it probably wasn't the best course of action; I could have offered her my coffee cream - I even knew she wanted some, but I didn't want to share. It was mine, I had paid for it and wanted it to last; this is responsible adult behaviour. But grace sets aside responsible adult behaviour and is generous to the undeserving.

Part of me wants to end with a trite little saying to show how wise this experience has made me. But it hasn't - I'm still greedy most of the time. But I do know I'll share a fridge for a long time to come and it's no longer appropriate to label my food. Christ says it is appropriate to share.