The Cheez-It Lesson

In fifth grade, we were asked to write a business letter. At supper that evening, my family decided I should write to the Sunshine Co., makers of Cheez-Its, about my dad’s broken tooth and an underbaked box of product.

A few weeks later, a Sunshine rep showed up at my school with a carload of goodies—cookies, crackers, Cheez-Its, and more. Clearly, they were meant to be shared with the whole class.

But I wanted to take them home to my dad.

If I could go back to that fifth-grade classroom, I would make a different choice. I’d open the boxes and say, “Look what we got!”

It’s the sort of shift that happens in our ever-evolving understanding of abundance and Oneness. As we allow what supports life’s good to flow through us, we experience a widening of the circle—from “me” to an awareness that there is no such thing as private good.

What comes to us is also what we’re called to give from. The abundance, joy, peace, and wholeness we experience become gifts we share.

The possibility available to me in that fifth-grade classroom is on the table for us all. We can hold fast to the blessings of good we receive, or we can become the kid who doesn’t need to take the Cheez-Its home, but gets joy from opening the box and sharing them with everyone.