Bittersweet Farm
You don’t have to own a lot to be happy. Drink in everything good and beautiful around you—enjoy anything worthy around you. Sometimes, maybe often, things are much easier to enjoy if you don’t own them—if you are not responsible for them. I’ve often taken great pleasure walking the hills another man owned but rarely visited. A public park really belongs to me alone and no one else for the moments I sit in solitude by the water’s edge and enjoy the slanting evening light.
All the talk on the news today is the blizzard of historic proportions that is about to hit the east coast but this morning here in Michigan the sky is clear and the sun is shining. The snow storm passed south of us last night and we are cheerily about our business.
Here’s a story that I hope will warm your heart on this cold winter day.
This morning on my desk in front of me is a handwritten note written on a small yellow legal pad.
Our third-born is a son name Charles Kenneth. Chuk manages a business in the Grand Rapids area but he was here for the weekend. Sunday he sang at Evangel to close the service. I’m preaching on angels and he sang one of my favorite songs by Fernando Ortega: Jesus, King of Angels.
Last night I left for evening church and Chuk had to get back across the Mitten for work in the morning. After the service I had a meeting and got in late. My study at home doubles as a guest room. I noticed that Chuk had left a hand-written note on my desk before he left. I looked for long time at the simple words of love scratched out on the little yellow pad there. As simple as they were they warmed my heart.
This morning I read them again. Again, my mind went back over the nearly thirty years he has been my boy. What a treasure he is to me. I think of Chuk continually. I love him deeply. I enjoy him thoroughly. He is bright, witty, full of ideas, generous and loving.
A lot of things in my life need improving. I have goals and ambitions and even some regrets. I have plans and hopes and dreams. I have fears and failures and frustrations. I have responsibilities, deadlines, and people who depend on me. In the middle of all those things that can press in on my heart I have a fine son who loves me and wants to spend time with me.
That fact, affirmed on a little piece of yellow legal pad, warms my heart like the bright January sunshine streaming though the windows this morning and I thank God for it.
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
January 26, 2015
I stumbled on this story surfing EricWoods site. I love stories about God’s provision like this. Take a minute to watch the story.
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Today I noticed an old journal entry that made me think. “On January 8, 1991 I went to Cedarville College to hear Jerry Falwell speak. Jerry Falwell is with the Lord, but during his lifetime he started the Thomas Road Baptist Church which grew to thousands and thousands of members and he founded Liberty University, the largest Christian university in the world. That day Falwell said, “There is not a pastor here who couldn’t double his attendance in a year if he just got out of his office and off the golf course and out into the coffee shops and into the homes of people.”
A pastor I admire once said; “One rainy day I decided not to go out and follow-up on some church visitors but to stay in my study and read because it was raining. I put my feet up on the desk, opened up a good book and began to read. Looking out the window I saw two Mormon missionaries going door to door. It ruined my day.
People are out there. They need the Lord. Let’s go get ‘em. Ask the Lord to lead you to someone who is open. Pray for them. Love them. Do kind thoughtful things for them. Invite them to church or to a Christian event or concert. Tug them into a gospel conversation. Listen to them with your heart. Tell them the good news. Get out of the office rain or shine. By all means golf or fish but sometimes take along a seeker, that way even if you slice the ball into the woods or get skunked you will not have wasted your day.
Once I neglected to aggressively follow-up on a visitor to our church, a young woman who was pregnant. The older lady in our church who had invited her asked if I had seen her. I had phoned but no one had answered and I had not followed up. Chastised, I called again, made an appointment, and went over for a visit. I was greeted by a huge, white Alaskan Malamute who put his paws on my shoulders and looked directly in my face. He decided not to eat me, I had a good visit with the couple. Soon Mark and Vicky were followers of Jesus and regulars at our church.
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
January 19, 2015
Today (January 16, 2015) a distant cousin watched his mother die. He’s a colorful and interesting man. He lives in a distant state and I have been watching his thoughtful posts on social media while he has been watching his mother decline. Today she died. He wrote; “She has slipped the surly bonds of earth and sailed away…”
I recognized it as a quotation and went searching to find this fascinating and poignant story behind the poem:
“High Flight”
by John Gillespie Magee, Jr.
John Gillespie Magee, Jr. was a pilot with the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Second World War. He came to Britain and flew in a Spitfire squadron.
One day while he was flying at a very high altitude, he was suddenly inspired to write a poem … which he did, right there in the cockpit of his airplane, in flight. After he landed, he turned the paper over and wrote a letter to his parents that said, “I am enclosing a verse I wrote the other day. It started at 30,000 feet, and was finished soon after I landed.”
This is the poem:
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I’ve climbed and joined the tumbling mirth of sun-split clouds, – and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there,
I’ve chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless falls of air…
Up, up the long, delirious, burning blue
I’ve topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, nor e’er eagle flew –
And, while with silent lifting mind I’ve trod
The high, untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.
On December 11, 1941, he died in a crash during a training flight. He was 19 years old.
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