Bittersweet Farm

Bittersweet Farm

Ken

A Shocking Conversation

Filed Under: Bethel Church-Jackson

So yesterday morning I got in my car for an early meeting and backed up in my driveway. I was about to pull out onto the road when I look up over my hood and right in the middle of the hood of my car was a big frog, it looked for all the world like it was looking right at me. I drove down to the end of the road thinking he would jump off but he didn’t he hung on.

Down at the end of the road I get out of my car reach out to take the frog off the hood of my car and suddenly he talks to me… He says clear as day; “Hey. Kiss me and I will turn into a beautiful woman.”

I have to admit I was shocked. “What did you say?” I say, buying time…

He says; “I said kiss me and I will turn into a beautiful woman.”

I grabbed that frog put him in a box in my trunk…

“What are you doing?” he says.

I say, “I already have a beautiful woman, what I really want is a talking frog but I’ve never had a talking frog. That could be be worth something.”

You may have guessed that most of that story was a tall tale… I made it upon as a cheap tactic to capture your attention. But you have to admit, a talking frog could be very valuable.

If you are a Jesus-follower you have probably learned that you received a valuable gift from God the moment you were saved. You were give a spiritual gift, maybe more than one, when were saved. What could be more valuable. Your spiritual gift is for the purpose of powerful service in the work of the church.

Think of it. You have been given the indwelling Spirit and you have been empowered to serve in the church in ways that are super-human.

That is a valuable gift… how are you using it?

Ken Pierpont
Bittersweet Farm
Summit Township, Michigan
August 26, 2018

Fatherless Children and Childless Fathers

Filed Under: Current Thoughts

Playing baseball with your sons on an early spring evening is one of the great underrated pleasures of life. One such evening I was standing on the margin of the field watching my sons warm up for a game and making friendly conversation with one of the other dads. I asked him the usual polite questions about his work and his family.

He told me he had two sons.

“Are they out there,” I said, nodding toward the field. “O, no. They are grown. I’m a “Big Brother. I’m here watching my little brother.”

“Do your sons live nearby?” I asked.

“No they are both in the Chicago area.”

“Really. What kind of work do they do?”

There was a long, uncomfortable pause and then he said, “O, really I don’t know. I haven’t seen them for years. I was divorced from their mother years ago. She’s turned them against me. They really aren’t interested in keeping in touch. I’m not sure what they do.”

We stood silently looking out on the field choking back the sadness of it. In a distant city he has sons and perhaps grandsons and granddaughters. They don’t know him and he doesn’t know them, and on a perfect spring evening he doesn’t even know what they are doing. They don’t know what he is doing. He volunteers to be a significant other in the life of a child who has been sucked into the vortex of fatherless America.

How sweet to be alive when the world is alive with spring. How sweet to watch the sun go down on the baseball field, munching a hot dog, smelling the popcorn, knowing that in a few hours you will tuck your sons into bed in the next room. You will lie in bed with your wife, her face on your chest going to sleep with the beat of your heart.

And in the darkness you listen to her breathe and you breathe a prayer of thanks that comes from deep within your soul for all the family still gathered under one roof.

Ken Pierpont

In A Cluster of Maples

Filed Under: Bittersweet Farm

[audio m4a=”https://kenpierpont.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/lakelyn-dale.m4aOn Sunday our daughter Hannah and her husband Dale came to visit. They are traveling through the valley of the shadow of death and they didn’t want to it alone.

They came over from their home in Grand Haven to visit. They brought their broken hearts with them. We stood in a very, very sad little circle by a cluster of trees on Bittersweet Farm and committed the remains of their precious little Lakelyn Dale to the earth.

Lois put a statue of a little girl over the spot and with that gesture the ground there became holy ground–a sacred place. Wendell Berry once wrote;

“There are no un-sacred places;
there are only sacred places
and desecrated places”

For the most part I deeply agree with the statement, but this little spot at the foot of the shady cluster of maples became especially consecrated to us in that moment.

In giving tiny Lakelyn Dale a place on the earth and in speaking her name, I could feel a measure of healing flow into each of our hearts. We held hands and prayed and tears feel to the green earth.

Today they will celebrate their fifth anniversary. The day Hannah was married she danced and I’ve never seen her so joyful. Sunday she mourned and I’ve never seen her so sad.

There is a time to weep and there is a time to laugh
There is a time to mourn and there is a time to dance

This is a season of weeping and mourning. There will be sunny days of laughter and dancing again… like the day we all see the little girl named Lakelyn we never met but loved for a few weeks.

Ken Pierpont
Bittersweet Farm
Summit Township, Michigan
August 15, 2018

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