The Little Thief and the Plums

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I’ve been reading Augustine’s Confessions, and somewhere between his grand theology and his stolen pears, I found myself unexpectedly disarmed.

Augustine—this giant of Christian thought—paused to reflect not on some dramatic crime, but on a moment from his youth when he and his friends stole pears from a neighbor’s tree. He didn’t even eat them. He threw them away. And yet, he confessed it as sin—not because of the fruit, but because of what the act revealed about his heart. He did it because others did it. He did it for the thrill of transgression itself.

That moment took me back.

I must have been in Standard VI when a few of us, just kids with more energy than wisdom, found ourselves wandering near a garden. There was a plum tree inside. It started as a joke—someone said, “Let’s take some,” and the idea gained traction not because we were hungry, but because we were together. The peer pressure was gentle, disguised as play. One friend warned us that the owner was known to use poison arrows on thieves. That should have ended the idea, but somehow it made it all the more daring. We hesitated. Then we crossed the line.

After we took the fruit, we ate it, half-laughing, thinking we had gotten away with it. But one of us started running—we were fleeing from someone or something harder to name. I remember running faster than anyone, not because I feared punishment, but because the owner knew me. If he had seen me, it wouldn’t have been scolding I feared—it was the shame of being recognized. I wasn’t just escaping his eyes; I was running from the version of myself I didn’t want to be seen! 

Funny how the moments we later laugh about often carry more weight than we admit. Back then, we called it mischief. But now, through Augustine’s eyes, I see something else: a moment where my desire to belong was stronger than my desire to be good. A time when I traded conscience for company, knowing deep down that I wouldn’t have done it alone.

That’s the power of Confessions. It doesn't just make us think about Augustine’s life—it quietly calls us to examine our own. And so, as I continued journaling, I wrote this small psalm as a response—not to the plum, but to the pattern it revealed.

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🕊️ Journal Psalm: On the Day I Stole Fruit with Friends

O Lord of the orchard and the heart,
You saw me when I was still small,
barely taller than the bush I trespassed.

I ran with the pack—
not for hunger,
not for hatred of the owner,
but for the thrill of doing what we whispered we should not.

It was not the plum I loved,
but the moment we plucked it—together,
like rebels against a law
we only half-believed.

I laughed,
but even in laughter, I knew—
This is not mine.
And yet, I ate.
Not from need, but from belonging.

You did not strike me with a poison arrow,
though I feared it.
You let me run, legs burning,
heart louder than footsteps—
and still, You watched with mercy.

What fruit have I stolen since then, Lord,
not from gardens,
but from truth,
from love,
from time that was Yours?

Let me no longer be the boy
who runs after what is wrong
just to run with others.

Let me be the one who runs to You,
even if it means standing alone,
even if the fruit stays hanging
where it belongs.

Amen.