Mudpies and Memory Lane

It was only in my adulthood that I recently learned my favorite childhood playground used to be the location of a rambunctious 1950’s bar.  Now in ruins, the then-small-town Missouri saloon was given the nickname “The Bloody Bucket.” It had gained an unfortunate reputation for its Saturday evening brawls. Ironically, this spot is also where I gave the neighbor boy his first-ever bloody nose and broke my first bone. These confrontations were completely unconnected and entirely due to my own competitive nature and grisly hardheadedness. One day, while playing on this infamous playground alone, I discovered a well-constructed mud pie. The neighbor girls later told me they had made it just for me to eat. Ugh! Looking back, I’m sure it was in retaliation to something else foolhardy (and forgotten) that I had done to them. I did not eat the “pie”, and truthfully, hope I wasn’t tempted by it. But I was hurt, by the girls’ actions just the same.

A good friend recently told me that we are afraid of what we do not understand. I think this is why growing up, most the girls my age stood clear of me. I was a tenaciously-tomboyish- vine-swinging Tarzan who ate green onions and always had tree bark under her nails. Likewise, I was even further away from understanding them.  C.S Lewis had his own thoughts on mudpie experiences, “We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea.”

I’m beginning to understand that every season in life is peppered with mud pies of all shapes, sizes, and disguises. What I struggle with now is different than what I struggled with back then. So, the next time you’re tempted, think of how damaging mud pies really are. Eve knew what it was like to take one singular bite and then suffer the consequences. Fruit? Mud pie? Same consequence.

PS. A good book to take up your time The Weight of Glory Quotes by C.S. Lewis