To: Neighbor
Cc: Neighbors Bcc
Subject: God, Church, and Apple Pie
Hey neighbor. It was great spending time with you the other day—getting to know you better truly was the highlight of my day.
Lately, I’ve been encouraged to step out of my comfort zone and meet my neighbors. I’m a little ashamed to admit it, but for too long, I believed the lie that neighbors are to be feared. As awkward as this may sound, I’m realizing you and I aren’t so different after all. I just didn’t know what I was missing.
I just remembered something—you said that you had never tried apple pie. And what did I do? I encouraged you to try it and left it at that, but later I realized I should have told you more.
I love apple pie! Growing up, my mom made the best one. It was a Sunday tradition that after sharing a meal together—often shared with friends—she’d bring out her famous apple pie. No matter how full I was, there was always room for her pie.
Let me describe her apple pie. You’re going to love this! Like any good pie, it starts with a bottom crust that gives the pie structure, especially when serving. Unlike some types of crust where all you experience is a thick, overbaked, tough-to-chew crust, mom’s was thin, light, flaky, and utterly delicious.
I remember watching her prepare the dough, carefully adding just the right amount of salt. When you bit into it, you could just catch a slight hint of salt. She said it helped draw out the apple’s juice. I never really understood how salt in the crust impacted juice. I guess it’s one of those paradoxes.
After rolling out the dough, she would gently press it into a pie plate with angled sides, a sturdy base, and oven-safe. It gave a firm foundational form to every pie she made.
She would then carefully prepare the apple slices, layering them onto the bottom crust. After each layer, she sprinkled just the right amount of sugar, cinnamon. and nutmeg. She placed layer after layer until the pie was almost overflowing.
I’ll let you in on a secret. I have a serious sweet tooth. I love sugar! Somehow, she knew just the right amount of sugar and spice needed to make the pie taste amazing.
To finish the pie, she placed a thin layer of dough over the top to form an upper crust. She made small decorative cuts in the dough not only for decoration, but also to let the steam out during baking. As the pie baked, the sweet aroma filled the whole house, causing my mouth to water.
But the aroma only comes with heat. Without baking, it would have remained nothing more than a pile of raw apple slices in an unbaked crust. The pie needed heat—it always needs heat.
Now comes the best part! Tasting the pie!
Every bite was warm and comforting. You can still feel the texture of each apple slice, but they were tender. Yet, strangely, they all seem to melt together in perfect harmony.
As the pie baked, each slice released its juice, mingling with the sugar and cinnamon to create a flavour that’s hard to describe. You really have to taste it to understand.
I remember how the juice would sometimes bubble up through the decorative cuts in the upper crust and spill over the edges. Mom wasn’t happy when that happened—it bothered her that the crust looked messy. She’d apologize to our guests as she served the pie, clearly embarrassed. But honestly, no one ever seemed to mind.
In fact, I was secretly excited when I got the piece with the overflowing juice. Whether I fully understood it at the time or not, seeing that rich juice always made me anticipate something wonderful on the inside. created a great anticipation of a very juicy inside.
Still, I never told her that. I just assumed by her reaction that it was a bad thing. Eventually, I learned to admire a neat-looking pie. But a part of me always longed for the messy ones.
Over the years, I’ve listened to people argue about the “right” way to make an apple pie. Arguments over what the upper crust should look like. How thick should the bottom crust be? I am saddened that all the arguments have seemed to miss the point. It is not about any of that. It’s about the apple slices.
There is hope, though. For the majority of them, they have quit arguing about these issues. Being gracious with each other and coming back to the belief that it is all about apple slices. Sadly, I must admit there are still those who passionately argue over the type of sugar to use, quoting references from the recipe book to back their arguments. Sorry for going on about this, it’s just that these arguments frustrate me.
Sometimes, though, something went wrong. My mom never explained why.
One pie stands out in my memory—the overbaked one. I’m not sure how it happened, but the crust turned out hard. When I tried to cut into it with my fork, it cracked into chunks. It tasted burnt and bitter.
You know how I said earlier that I loved when the juice spilled onto the crust? Well, this pie had plenty of that, and I was excited to try it.
I remember thinking, If I just peel back the upper crust, I’m sure the inside will be just as wonderful as I imagined.
Sadly, it wasn’t.
The apples were shriveled and dried up. And the little bit of juice that remained had turned stiff and bitter.
If you come across an apple pie with juice seeping through the crust, I’d suggest this: use your finger to touch it. See if the juice is still fresh or if the crust has hardened and burned.
But let me offer a word of caution. Some people, when they see you reaching out to touch the pie, will insist you wash your hands first—or even tell you to walk away altogether.
The truth? Whether your hands are clean or not doesn’t really matter. If the crust is that hard and the juice that dried out, nothing on your hands could affect it anyway.
On a side note, there’s another kind of pie I used to enjoy—pecan pie. When you first try it, it’s fantastic. It has a bottom crust, just like apple pie. The filling is rich—so sweet, some might even call it sinfully sweet. But that’s all it is: just fabricated filling. No apple slices.
There’s no upper crust, either. Instead, it’s topped with a layer of nuts—usually pecans, though sometimes walnuts. Trust me on this one: stay away. After eating a piece, I’d get the shakes and a headache.
There’s also another dessert I’ve tried, though it’s not really a pie—it’s called baklava. Nothing like apple pie. It’s made of layer after layer of paper-thin crust, with syrup and crushed walnuts tucked between each one. Sounds delicious, and at first it is. But after a while, it becomes too much. And again—no apple slices.
As much as I love my mom’s traditional apple pie, there’s a new kind I’ve come across lately.
This new pie starts with the same base crust. The filling is familiar: apple slices, sugar, cinnamon, and nutmeg. But there’s one radical difference—it has no upper crust.
As much as I’m drawn to this pie, I’m also slightly apprehensive. It just feels wrong not to have a top crust. For one, it doesn’t look like a pie—at least, not the way I think a pie should look. It looks messy.
And don’t they know the risks? When it bakes, the juice can spill over the edge. That juice might even catch fire. It’s risky.
Here’s the wildest part: those serving the pie encouraged me to taste it—with my finger.
I have to admit, when I was encouraging you before to take your finger and touch the juice of the dried-out pie, I am ashamed to say it, there was a time in my life when I would have wanted you to first wash your hands, too. I guess to you, I am no different than those who openly reprimand you for your dirty hands. I’m sorry. Please forgive me.
That being said, I’m drawn to this new pie.
It’s one thing for them to encourage you to taste it that way, but they openly say they don’t care whether your hands are washed or not. That’s kind of radical.
Get this: they even go as far as to say that after you’ve tasted it and licked your finger, you should go ahead and taste it again.
I’ve asked a few of those who love this kind of pie about that, and they’ve told me that no matter what’s on your finger, it won’t change the pie at all. They say the juice is of a kind that can’t be affected by anything on your hands.
How crazy is that?
They even claim that by touching it, the juice becomes sweeter.
Now that’s just downright illogical! Although I have to admit, it makes me want to taste that juice.
This has done nothing to convince you that you should eat pie. I wonder if you’re trying to figure out what the big deal is. I’ve gone on and on about all the issues surrounding apple pie, only to realize that tasting a pie without an upper crust might be more my problem than yours. You may even be asking, “Isn’t this how pie should be?”
Lately, I’ve noticed something. When I get together with a neighbor or even a bunch of neighbors, even if it is not Sunday, we share, you guessed it, apple pie.
Oh my! I’ve been talking so much about apple pie that I forgot something vitally important: I never told you about the apple.
That’s a terrible assumption on my part. How could you ever understand what apple pie tastes like if I don’t first tell you about the apple itself?
I used to eat my mom’s apple pie every Sunday, yet I never ate fresh apple. Even now, I’m not sure why. You’ve probably heard the saying, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” Now I enjoy the apple every day.
The skin of the apple is a deep, rich red, and the inside is lily white. The texture is crisp. And the juice—oh my—the juice! I don’t know how to describe it. When I bite into the apple, it’s so juicy that I end up making a mess. Part of me is embarrassed, but another part doesn’t care—because the taste is worth the mess.
At the very center of the apple is what’s called the core.
The apple core has an interesting texture. It has a different kind of crunch, and in the very center are the seeds.
For a long time, I was led to believe that you should never eat the core—that it was dangerous and would harm your insides. But I had a friend, even as a child, who learned to eat the whole apple—core and all. I’ve watched him, and from my own experience now, I can say it’s not dangerous at all.
I would even say that my insides are being affected—but not in the way people warned me about. The change is hard to describe. But lately, people have been commenting on the difference they see in me. And I’ve come to believe it’s because of the seeds.
Neighbor, are you going to be home tomorrow evening? We can have some apple pie, just like mom used to make, and I’ll tell you about my apple. Better yet, I’ll share my apple with you. Then, you’ll start to understand everything I’ve been trying to tell you.
Actually, are you home right now?
Your neighbor
PS: It will be mom’s apple pie with no upper crust. Oh! Secondly, don’t worry about cleaning up or washing your hands. I’ll take you as you are. A friendly warning: eating apple pie and eating apple at the same time can get messy. A good kind of messy. You just might fall in love with eating apple and sharing apple pie. It is SO GOOD!
Psalm 34: 8 Taste and see the Lord is good …