The Day I Ate the Mayor's Good Eye

Me, the Cookie, and the Mayor

A couple of radio people showed up at City Hall for a short interview with the mayor this week, and they brought with them a delicious token of appreciation: a custom-made smile cookie from Tim Horton’s. This one had a thick mustache and was supposed to be a likeness of his worship himself. Guess they knew the guy’s a good sport.

 

I also guess he’d never had a cookie with his face on it before, because after the media left, he asked my coworker to take a picture. Since he hates being the only person in a photo and since I was the only other one around in our back offices—it being lunch hour—he decided he should pose with me and the cookie while my coworker snapped the photo.

I didn’t mind. But I didn’t really get it either. And, as is my way, I started harping even as we grinned for the camera.

“Why am I in this picture?” I said. “I did not make this cookie. I didn’t buy this cookie. I didn’t give this cookie to the mayor. And I’m probably not going to get to eat this cookie.”

That’s where I was wrong.

Probably just to shut me up, the mayor broke the cookie into thirds –although I think mine was by far the most generous “third”—and said, “Here. You can have half my mustache and my good eye.”

I didn’t argue. By this time I’d gotten close enough to the cookie to realize it was still warm and had chocolate chips in it. And did I mention it was lunch time?

I enjoyed every last crumb of the mayor’s good eye.

This made me think of two things. First, the mayor is far more generous than I. If I’d been given a cookie with MY face on it—no matter how bad the likeness—I probably wouldn’t have shared it with anyone. Well, maybe with Jesus. 

Which brings me to the second thing.

Somehow this cookie with the face on it reminded me of when the Pharisees tried to trap Jesus by asking him whether the law required them to pay taxes to the corrupt Roman government. Jesus picked up a coin and asked them whose image was on it.

“Caesar’s,” they answered.

"Well, then," Jesus said, "give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar, and give to God what belongs to God." His reply completely amazed them. 

(You DO know what was made in God’s image, right?)

Jesus is one smart cookie.

"God spoke: 'Let us make human beings in our image, make them reflecting our nature...'"  Genesis 1:26