1. Deluded and Don't Even Know It

If someone who reads my blog comes up to you today and asks you if you are a hypocrite because he or she wants to give you a big hug from evangelinehopkins, the answer you should give him or her is "I don’t know; I hope not, but hug me just in case."

Sure, there are some truly evil people masquerading as goody two-shoes. I suppose they don’t even really believe that there will be a Judgment Day. But most hypocrites are not actors; most hypocrites truly don’t even know that they are hypocrites. It could be you. It could be me!

When Jesus Christ was sitting at Salvador Dali’s big Last Supper table pointing to God with the sun setting behind Him and He announced that someone there was going to betray Him, each of His best friends said, “Is it me?” That’s pretty funny. Wouldn’t a guy, even after a few glasses of wine, know if he was about to stab his best friend in the back? Actually, those men realized how easy it is to be self-deluded.

That’s the really scary thing about being an aspiring immortal. It is so easy to think all is well with our souls when it's not, and such a very long time will go by before we can find out for sure, and worse yet, when we find out, it will be too late! Now, if that isn’t scarier than Matrix, I don’t know what is.

I hear that eating humble pie prevents hypocrisy like eating broccoli prevents cancer. They call it a pie but it’s more like spinach pie than apple pie because it’s not very sweet. Yet, the more I am willing to eat it and the more I look for signs that I am walking backwards (eyes looking one way while feet are going the other way), the less likely that I am heading in the wrong direction.

Watch this space for favorite humble pie recipes.

2. How to Make Humble Pie – Step One

Humble pie helps prevent hypocrisy which is deadly for aspiring immortals. Eat it daily and live forever.

Humble Pie is one of those really extravagant recipes with many steps. I am being given this recipe incrementally and will pass on to you what I am told.

First of all, it is impossible to make Humble Pie in your own kitchen. The comfort zone of your kitchen is like the comfort zone of your ego. Humble Pie curdles easily. The conditions for its preparation must be just right.

Poverty, illness, conflict, new job, strange surroundings, fear: all of these situations create excellent environments for making humble pie. If you woke up this morning and everything around you is either strange or uncomfortable…excellent! It’s time to start making Humble Pie!

When God decided to shrink into the form of a human being to come to live on earth in Jesus Christ, God left his comfort zone. Immortals try to act like God, the only true immortal we know.

Step one- leave your ego, leave your kitchen behind.

Postscript: I am on my way to France where I hope to be given the next step of the recipe in the place where the world’s greatest chefs reside. I know France is not where someone thinks to go to look for humility, but for some reason, my Boss is sending me there. Not sure if I can post while on the road. Will be back in a week.

3. Humilité En France avec le Chef

I went to France in search of the next step of the humble pie recipe. My Boss told me that in France I would meet a chef who was an expert humble pie maker. Without any address or map, indeed I stumbled upon the piemeister. He said that he had been expecting me but I didn’t know how that was possible.

The French humble pie chef only tried to show me how to make humble pie; he could not make a pie for me. He explained that you can’t serve humble pie to others, as the chef you must eat it yourself. “Believe me” he said, “no one will think your humble pie is any good anyway. If you try to serve humble pie to a friend, even when you have the best of intentions, you end up growing rather than shrinking. Humble pie is supposed to make you small enough to get through the narrow gate to the land of immortality, so growing is a huge no-no.” Then he went on to explain that one has to develop a taste for the humble pie because it is so bitter like eating dandelion greens with lemon and he said that that it must be made fresh daily.

What a disappointment. I told him all that sounded like a lot of trouble, especially eating it if it was bitter. I probably didn’t have the time for humble pie making anyway. I would try to become an immortal rather than a hypocrite without it. So I thanked him very much and decided to go buy a Napoleon pastry instead.

As I turned to walk away I hit a very hard invisible wall. My head was throbbing. I looked up and around and didn’t see a thing. So then I looked inside myself and sure enough, there was my Boss. “You wanted to make humble pie, now here’s your chance. Learn or I’ll get another writer.”

I then looked in front of me and there was the pie chef smiling. It looked to me like he had just grown horns.

Step Two – The Crust

When oxygen seeps through the cork into a bottle of wine the oxygen ruins the wine. Likewise, when pride seeps through the crust of a humble pie, it is good for nothing, throw it away and try again. The piemeister explained that some humble pie-makers don’t work on the crust enough and end up with false humility. False humility is even worse than pride because it's pride with a lie. Some poor self-deluded hypocrites got that way from eating humble pie with a bad crust.

The crust is awareness of truth. It is like porcelain because of its very tight cellular structure and because it can be made very thin and still be very strong. The awareness-of-truth crust, like a perfect short and light buttery pastry must be pure. If you can imagine how adding ketchup to pie dough would affect it, then you can imagine how even a quarter teaspoon of fraudulence, worse yet, a pinch of lie would spoil the awareness-of-truth crust.

The perfect humble pie, the kind that Jesus ate every day, is enveloped by truth. Without the awareness of truth the pie is indigestible. Imperfect humble pie is no humble pie at all; it’s something else. If you are aware of the truth (that hypocrisy is like invisible carbon monoxide and it kills, that perfection is found in humility, that pride is only for mortals) it’s time for the secret filling.

4. Secret Humble Pie Filling– Step Three

Reminder – this whole Humble Pie recipe started with my love (pity) for hypocrites and my fear that I may be one. The problem with being a hypocrite is not even knowing it. That’s scary because when all of the immortals are squeezing through the narrow gate into the land of immortality (home sweet home) to their surprise the hypocrites will be too big to get through and they will have to die after all like the mortals. Humble pie is anti-hypocrite food. An immortal that eats humble pie regularly never has to worry about being a hypocrite in disguise.

When my Boss sent me to France to meet the humble pie chef I thought I had taken my tongue to Disney World while my body was just going along for the ride. Morning, noon, and night that tongue was experiencing one delightful flavor after another: wine, cheese, pastries, even sweetbreads if you know what they are. Then came the humble pie lesson. Let me tell you here and now, no one eats humble pie for the fun of it. If humble pie wasn’t so effective in shrinking me smaller than Alice in Wonderland I wouldn’t have anything to do with it. The reason that humble pie tastes so bad is the secret ingredients.

Some pies, such as Greek spanakopita, have lots and lots of wonderful ingredients: creamy feta cheese, spinach, dill, mint, onions, and eggs; it just goes on and on. Other pies like peach pie just have peaches, sugar and maybe a pinch or two of spice. Humble pie recipes can go either way. Some immortals make humble pie with lots of ingredients, others with just the basics. Because I’m just a beginner pie chef I was only given the most basic recipe to pass on to you.

To make the pie filling first get the ingredients out. Like a TV chef I pour the ingredients into separate little bowls.

1 cup Obedience – Each immortal is given a few people to whom they must demonstrate the ability to be obedient. Obedience helps you shrink like Jesus like when He went to the Cross even though He absolutely did not want to go. Obedience is good for killing poisonous pride particles. Sometimes obedience is very bitter, but it is healthful.

1 cup Resilience – take abuse. Mean and rude people help you shrink. That’s good. Peace.

2 cups Trust – I was surprised to see this ingredient in the humble pie, but there it was. Trusting God when the eyes are giving a different message actually sweetens the humble pie... a bit.

1. Pour trust into a large heart shaped bowl, whip until it gets big and frothy.
2. Gently fold in the obedience and mix. Stop before reducing the plume of the trust.
3. Sprinkle the salt of resilience on top. Do not mix, it will slowly dissolve.

I told you humble pie wasn’t delicious. I think my Boss sent me to France to soften the blow on my tongue. Now I have to go on a big boat to another part of the world to find out how to bake the pie and how to eat it without throwing up. (He knows I get seasick.) Stay tuned. I’ll be back in about a week.

5. Why to Bake an Award Winning Humble Pie

I’m back from the boat ride where I thought I would be tossed around trying to hold down my food and from that experience I would be able to tell you how to digest humble pie. But I never got seasick because the ride was so smooth. This was not the first time that I thought I knew what I was about to learn and was wrong. The element of surprise is probably why I like this job so much. Instead, I was taught that aspiring immortals who get sick the most when eating humble pie are the impatient pie makers and those who try to eat raw humble pie.

First I learned that eating humble pie slowly one bite at a time with plenty of time between bitter morsels helps the digestion process. Patience is not an ingredient in humble pie, but probably should be if the pie maker, like me, isn’t naturally a patient person. The other important lesson is to never, under any circumstances eat a humble pie before it is fully baked.

There are some pies such as strawberry chiffon or some bake-less cheesecakes that don’t require the transforming power of 400 degrees to make them what they are intended to be. But that’s not humble pie. A raw humble pie, even with the awareness-of-truth crust and the rich filling of obedience, trust, and resilience is as raw chicken pot pie before it is baked. Please don’t try to eat a raw humble pie. If you do, all the patience in the world won’t keep you from vomiting it right back out and then you won’t receive the benefit of its nutrients.

What I saw on the boat that I could have never seen anywhere else, which is why I suppose the Boss sent me to that part of the watery world, was how very devastating pride can be and therefore the golden value of humble pie as an antidote. I have read that pride is poisonous, but I could never before understand why. In the course of learning about humble pie- making I am slowly coming to realize why immortals throughout history have warned us about the deadliness of pride. In fact, as soon as I finish making this pie I will tell you what the Boss wants me to write about pride and oxygen. For now, let's get this pie in the oven.

The transforming power of heat for a humble pie takes it from the kitchen counter of the mind like knowing the difference between right and wrong and places it safely in the oven of the heart where the transformation from a mortal to a true immortal occurs. Humble pie that never goes into the oven of the heart remains raw, indigestible, ineffective. Tomorrow I’ll give you the details about baking because now I have to go to my other world and you need time to think about what I’ve already written.

6. The Fiery End in Humble Pie Making

The Creator of the heavens and earth thought it wise to populate a second earth with immortals just like Him, who are born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man but of the immortal God Himself.

When God gives birth to His children His Spirit actually dwells within their hearts. Then God baptizes His precious immortals with fire to purify their hearts like gold.

The mind of man receives and processes humble pie like the mouth receives food and chews on it. Like the stomach accepts the nourishment of food from the mouth, the heart accepts what the mind sends to it. Raw humble pie is so bitter that it is typically spit out by the mind and not sent to the fires of the heart to be baked.

The heart of an immortal is a busy place because two persons live there, the Person of the Holy Spirit of truth and love and the aspiring immortal, the child of God.

Imagine such a heart to be a tiny dorm room where two students must live in harmony in extremely close quarters. A key to the success of good dorm mates is the attitude that personal comfort is less important than consideration for the comfort of the other. For example, anger forces the Holy roommate out because He is peace of soul and can’t abide with anger.

The baptism of fire that the aspiring immortal must endure is used to bake the humble pie. Fire hurts. But, without fire there is no baking. The fire of humble pie making takes the form of listening to insults, contempt and rebuke and all manner of mortification. A hard working and obedient aspiring-immortal if left for any length of time without being censured or reproached loses that meekness. Good, fruitful and fertile land if left without the water of dishonor can revert to being a forest that can produce thorns of vanity, cowardice, and arrogance. Gold is purified in fire and humble pie cooks in the slow burn of disrespect and rudeness of others. God has arranged it that no one can see his own faults as clearly as his neighbor does. That’s why we should be so grateful to those who criticize us and to God, not to ourselves for our healing. Look for punishment for the sake of humility knowing that angels fall and rise and devils only fall. (Climacus gems)

Of course, fire can also take the form of illness, poverty, disappointment and other maladies that diminish the ego. 

To be humble and small is to give more space to the heart’s Holy roommate. It is to be small enough to pass through the narrow gate to the new world and it is to be like God who shrunk Himself to come to earth. Humble pie helps us to turn the other cheek, let thieves have what they took and tells us to take the last seat at a banquet.

So, my friend and fellow aspiring immortal bake your pie slowly and with patience, endure the flames that will shrink you. Once your humble pie is fully baked you may eat it with pure relish, for after it is baked the humble pie loses some of its bitterness. Wash it down with the milk of human kindness. After eating your meals of humble pie, your every cell will receive the holy nutrients to make your body immortal. Yes, I said your body, the very one that will meet Jesus in the sky to begin the journey to our new purely-life saturated world without end.

Now to write about the dangers of oxygen to an immortal.