This week's Theme: Be Careful You Don't Fall
Day 1: As easy as pie
As a child, my son never cared much for desserts or sweets—except for "Mom's apple pie." So whatever other dessert on the family table for the holidays, my apple pie was among them. “I can make this pie in my sleep,” I often thought.
There was no apple pie in 2020. For my family, as for millions world over, COVID19 fears and protocols kept us confined to tiny, isolated sub-groups. So like many families, we welcomed the opportunity to celebrate the holidays together in 2021. With all the holiday favorites. And apple pie.
Late Christmas Eve, as I stared down the list of remaining chores, I decided that the apple pie could “wait until tomorrow.” So it was that on Christmas day in the few available hours between breakfast and dinner, I found myself battling not just “Murphy’s Law” but an entire Magna Carta of mishaps as I juggled apple pie and a salad that was determined to go awry. (An entire blog on time management is forthcoming!) Eventually I salvaged the salad, pulled the pie from the oven, and headed to dinner at my brother’s.
When it was time for dessert, I expected my son to be first in line for apple pie. But surprisingly it wasn’t just him, but all the young people who converged on the pie, plates and forks at the ready. I registered most of this absently without really paying too much attention, until my nephew materialized at my chair, girlfriend in tow, odd looks on both their faces. “Uh, something’s wrong with the apple pie,” he stuttered.
“Something’s wrong with the apple pie” turned out to be a major understatement. The apple slices sloshed around the pie dish in soupy abandon, pieces of pastry clinging to them like ridiculous top hats. My first instinct was to laugh and laugh and laugh (perhaps it was a touch of hysteria). But the crestfallen look on my nephew’s face prompted me to offer a hasty apology. He had apparently extolled the merits of my pie to his girlfriend who was meeting us for the first time.
Recounting each step of the pie making process in my head, I quickly realized I had forgotten to put in the touch of flour needed to bind the apples together. That “small” omission had ruined the entire pie.
I don’t generally use recipes for most of my cooking, at least not in the traditional way. (Caribbean cooks would understand this—it’s more a pinch of this and a handful of that). For baking, though, I at least look over my list of tweaks and notes. In this instance, with my limited time and my confidence in my pie making skills (I could make it in my sleep, remember?), I hadn’t bothered to retrieve my recipe/notes.
Evidently I had not bothered to retrieve my "notes" from Scripture either. The ones that warn against smugness and overconfidence:
So, if you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall! (1 Corinthians 10:12).
Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall (Proverbs 16:18).
Of course some falls are more serious than others. This one was clearly not a fall of Humpty Dumpty proportions. But it was a good reminder that little things can trip us in the most unexpected ways. Slipping can be as easy as pie.
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