Bittersweet Farm

Bittersweet Farm

Archives for June 2019

Bittersweet Farm Journal (Number 50)

Filed Under: Bittersweet Farm

Bittersweet Impressions:

-Red River George (my red Jeep) faithfully helping with a few chores
-Friends that show up with trucks and vans and trailers just when you need them
-Grandchildren playing in the yard
-Lois puttering among in the flowers
-Sweet Hope getting some sun then doing Keira’s nails
-The first of the fireflies over the lush, green lawn
-Swapping stories on the porch with my grandson Koen. He’s talking with his hands and eyes.
-Three sunny days in a row
-A warm Sunday afternoon
-Cool evening breeze moving the leaves in the dark green canopy of trees over Bittersweet
-A soft rain comes in overnight. We don’t see it our hear it. We are fast asleep but in the morning the freshening effects of it were apparent everywhere.
-Thank you, Lord. Thank you. Thank you from the depths of my soul. Your goodness overcomes the darkest evil.

Kindness

I watched a series of programs on Netflix recently. It was called The Kindness Diaries. There were two seasons. In the first season a fellow named Leon drove around the world on a bright yellow motorcycle with a side-car, depending entirely for gas, food, and lodging on the kindness of the people he met along the way. In the second season he drove a fifty-year-old yellow VW convertible from Alaska to Argentina using the same method. (This without a working heater. Sometimes ice and snow formed inside the car).

It was fascinating to watch. The sights were stunning. The acts of kindness were heart-warming often coming from people who had very little. The poverty was oppressive in some places. Leon said he often was helped by people who attributed their kindness to belief in God. He said; “They believe in God. I believe in humanity.”

His theology was incomplete, but along the way he began to call himself a “believer.” I thought of Cornelius, the God-fearing man in Acts who eventually came to follow Christ. Leon seemed like a sweet guy. I hope one day he, too will know and follow Jesus.

Kindness is a beautiful thing, it is a powerful thing, it is a universal thing. When I finished The Kindness Diaries series my heart was stirred with a powerful desire to honor God as a Christian by practicing kindness. Kindness is a fruit of the Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit occurs in those who continually yield to the impulses of the Spirit in the power of the Spirit. The results of that kind of living are not just powerful and heart-warming, they are life-giving and miraculous.

While we are thinking about doing kindness and receiving kindness from people all around the world it is a good idea to remember the teaching of Jesus and how kindness to our “neighbor” the one nearest us with a need. Often the people who need our kindness the most are those who live under our roof.

Bittersweet Farm
Jun2 25, 2019

On Eating an Apple

Filed Under: Faith and Family, Village Parson

He worked hard but when he arrived home it would still be a few hours before sunset. He got an apple and his pocket knife and sat on the edge of the porch in the sun. The simple pleasures of the warm sun on his head and the sweet taste of the apple took him back in time 50 years to his boyhood in the little village of Logansville.

In his memory he is eating a small apple, a tart Jonathan. He is wearing his Levis and a pull-over tee-shirt with stripes. A red felt ball cap is sitting back on this head, a shock of white-blond hair jutting out from under the bill of the cap. Birds are singing and school is out for the summer. Bright sun is taking the chill off of the morning.

His dad is the pastor of the little white church on the edge of the village. Their home is the modest parsonage across the road. He always has his chores in the morning, but by late morning or early afternoon on those summer days he rides his bike along country roads around the little village where they live. He picks up empty bottles and cashes them in for a cold orange pop and drinks it on the steps of the Sinclair station. He has a red bike with 24 inch balloon-style tires and coaster brakes. (Think Opie Taylor and you will have the picture clearly in mind).

For a dollar a week he push-mowes the church lawn. Pop is fifteen cents and a candy bar is a nickel. They take a trip every week out River Road to the dump and bring along the BB-gun to take turns “plinking” cans. Dad makes 80.00 a week. Every Friday the boy rides up the hill to the treasurer’s house to get the check and a dozen brown eggs. The church provides the parsonage. There always seems to be enough.

One afternoon his Dad built him a small “tree-fort” up in the branches of a Maple. He spent hours there that summer. They have a garden. They even have a chicken for a while. They have a mutt dog, the boy’s companion.

Funny what you think about when you are sitting in the sun munching an apple on a summer evening. What he didn’t know as a boy was that the feeling of warm sun on his head, the tart sweetness of the apple, the sound of the birds, the quietness and sense of well-being in his heart, the thoughtfulness and the thankfulness behind them… each of these were acts of worship to His God and they would follow him through his life and overtake him time and again when driving down a long country road, or hearing the strains of organ music, or singing an old hymn that reminded him of Prayer Meeting night in the little white church across the road in the village of his boyhood.

Now he is grown and has grandchildren. He is a pastor himself, has been for 40 years. On Sundays he stands in the front row and throws back his head and sings along with the praise team with his whole heart…

“Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.”

Bittersweet Farm
June 2019

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