Fried Apple Pies

My granddaddy had a lot of brothers and sisters – nine in all.  One of his sisters was Aunt Sissy.  Her real name was Pearl, but everyone called her Sissy.  Everyone except my brother.  Once he found out her real name, that is what he called her.  My Aunt Sissy and his Aunt Pearl.  He could not be persuaded to call her anything else.  She thought it was funny and seemed to like it, coming from him.  Nobody else could get away with that “Pearl” business.

Aunt Sissy lived in a big white house with a porch that wrapped around three sides.  My favorite side was the one with the swing.  The house really belonged to my great-grandmother - that would be Nanny.  Her name was Sally, but even my brother called her Nanny.  Uncle Reese (Aunt Sissy/Pearl’s husband) also lived there.  They had boarders who lived there and certain meals were included for the boarders.  Everyone ate at a huge table at the same time.  Boarder or not, if you wanted to eat, you showed up at the table with your appetite and on time.  Aunt Sissy did most of the cooking.  But she only did it once a meal.

When I was a child, I think people must have been made of sterner stuff.  Nobody with a delicate constitution would have survived some of those meals.  Here is why.  At Aunt Sissy’s house, they observed a weekend ritual that would probably kill us today.  On Saturday, they did all the cooking for both Saturday and Sunday.  The food for Sunday’s lunch went on the table on Saturday, but it didn’t get eaten until after church on Sunday.  It just sat there all night and through the morning, everything covered over with a tablecloth or two.  After lunch, it got covered up until time to eat again that evening - after growing who knows what kind of micro-organisms all day.  Nothing got heated up.  You just ate what was there at whatever temperature it happened to be.  If you didn’t like it, you didn’t have to eat.  Simple.  Nobody got coddled.  Not even the paying guests.  I have no idea what they ate for breakfast – but whatever it was, it was not cooked on Sunday morning.

I think Aunt Sissy was credited with being a pretty good cook, but there was one thing she made that was just awful.  Fried apple pies.  At least that is what she said they were.  You wouldn’t have known it.  They weren’t pies as much as they were just big gobs of greasy dough with some apples inside.  We mostly didn’t like them at all, except for my brother who LOVED them.  He praised them so much that every time we went for a visit, Aunt Sissy would whip up a batch just for him.  And send them home with us – in a brown paper bag that very quickly developed large greasy patches.   Before we could drive the sixty miles home, the greasy spots grew wider and wider until they met one another and the whole bag was soaked.  No way would I eat one of those things.  Even as a kid, I knew they were just – wrong.  

One of the things I loved about Aunt Sissy’s house was the old organ.  It was the kind you had to pump with your feet.  I didn’t know the first thing about reading music or playing an organ.  I just knew it had lots of knobs to pull on, lots of keys, and made the greatest noises ever.  I didn’t even try to use it for the intended purpose.  My goal was to make it blare the longest, loudest, most continuous racket possible.  I was usually very successful.  Nobody else really appreciated my organ playing.  I think most people viewed it the same way I viewed the fried apple pies.   Pretty awful and completely unnecessary.  I was sentenced to sit in the porch swing more than once for my organ playing escapades.  

Sometimes I think God must look at me and see a human version of those fried apple pies and organ playing.  I don’t think He is ever surprised at who is making all the noise or conjuring up some sort of inedible mess.  I think He loves me (and you) just the way we are.  He sees us just like my brother saw Aunt Sissy’s fried apple pies.  He loved her and he might have loved those awful pies because she made them especially for him. When we are feeling pretty worthless, God looks beyond the commotion and sees the person who caused it. All the noise and failures in our lives can fit into His perfect plan for us.  He sees our hearts.  That is what matters to Him.  Aunt Sissy was a terrible fried apple pie maker.  But her heart, well, that was something else.  

So - sitting through another chemotherapy treatment now and I’m pretty sure God knows what’s in my heart.  This is not where I would choose to be – except for how close it brings me to my Heavenly Father and how assured I am that He loves me –even the noisy mess that I can often be.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.  -  Luke 12:34