Bittersweet Farm

Be A Happy Person
by Ken Pierpont

Sometimes life is just hard. Our natural response when things are hard is to murmur and complain, to become solemn and go through life with a wrinkled forehead. We complain that there are children’s bikes in the driveway instead of rejoicing that there are children. We murmur about the menu instead of rejoicing that God has provided food. We gripe about little irritations and forget that a significant portion of the world’s children are without clean, safe drinking water.

One evening when I was a boy, our family was trying to adjust to an unfamiliar town, a troubled church, mild culture shock, and inadequate pay. We sat down to a meal and everyone could tell that Mom and Dad were under pressure. Things were quiet and tense. One of my little brothers reached for something without asking first and knocked over his drink. Instantly, Dad sprang back from the table, knocking the chair over and striding from the room.

The atmosphere was charged with tension, and we all sat and looked around in uncomfortable silence. No one spoke. We wondered if Dad would come back to eat. In a minute we heard noise, and then Dad showed up in the doorway. He was dressed in a full-length rain coat. We all burst into laughter. Dad sat down and we enjoyed a meal together, laughing and talking all at the same time.

Are you a solemn, sober, sullen person, or do you chose to rejoice when things are dark and difficult? Do you lift people’s sights to God and to good when things are hard?

I’m a follower of Jesus and one of the commands of Jesus is to rejoice in difficult times. If you devote yourself to obeying this command, God the Spirit will empower you to do it.

I’m ashamed of the times I failed to obey this delightful and powerful command. God forgive me for the times I have failed to be a happy man, to walk in the Spirit and have the joy of the fullness of the Spirit.

Chose to rejoice. People will want to be around you. They will be more likely to believe the good things you say about Jesus. It might even help lower your blood pressure.

Ken Pierpont
Bittersweet Farm
Summit Township, Michigan
October 21, 2018

The frost was on the pumpkin this morning out on Bittersweet Farm. The leaves are letting go high in the Maples around the old house dappling the grass with beautiful yellow-gold and orange leaves.

Just a few months ago I put on a jacket and sat out on the porch longing for those same leaves to bud and turn from the light-green of early spring to the dark green of early summer. Now they are falling to the earth and a chill west-wind is blowing them across the yard in the beautiful dance we call autumn. The leaves that remain hold the sunlight glow as it streams down through the woods.

This afternoon I will sweep the leaves off into the fields or burn them. More will follow. In a few weeks the trees will be bare as pencils again. Last week the Turkey Vultures stopped on a Sunday afternoon on their way south. They sat for a while as if brooding in the low branches of the Walnuts and on the Volleyball post until I disturbed them trying to get their picture, then they fled to the peak of the barn for the rest of the afternoon.

This week the first Sandhill Cranes were out in the near-north field calling. In the last few days they have numbered about a dozen. The corn is gone from the fields and the deer are out nibbling away at the nubs left on the ground.

I wonder if they know they are safe as long as they don’t stray to the west or into the woods north of the far-north field. I wandered out into that part of the woods north of the north field within a few hundred yards of the Falling Waters Trial and a couple hunters were out scouting a place to lie in wait with their crossbows.

Along the edges of all the fields the Bittersweet is easy to spot this time of year. I’m planning to make a grapevine wreath and decorate it with clusters of Bittersweet to remind me of the powerful truth that God turns all things to a good purpose for those who love Him and cooperate with his purpose of conforming them to the image of His son.

I button my shirt-jacket against the west wind. It’s growing a little colder every day. The Maples flame yellow and orange and red against the blue October sky. The cold air clears my head and stirs my heart. One day God will take away all that was bitter and all that is left will be sweet forever. That is the story I live that comes back warmly to my heart, especially in the waning days of autumn.

Ken Pierpont
Bittersweet Farm
Summit Township, Michigan
October 18, 2018

I returned from church this afternoon in time to take a long walk afield. It was in the high-fifties and sunny. A walk on a Michigan autumn evening is a sacramental act. The sky is October blue, the trees brushed with color. The corn is dry and brown but it’s been rainy and we are still ahead of the first frost, so the grass is green and lush.

After my walk and sat out on the porch and read draining the very last drop for the bottom of the cup of this sweet Lord’s Day. Finally the sunlight dropped into the trees. The evening grew chill. I stepped down into the leaf-strewn yard and looked west one more time to where the sun and dropped behind the trees just in time to see a perfect V-shaped flock of geese cross the sky over the farm honking their way south and west over the line of trees.

Your Default Home Setting

Last week I received permission from the woman who owns the land north and east of Bittersweet Farm to freely walk her property. The generous gesture moved me to tears. It is a large tract of land including farm fields, wetland and woods. So I set off exploring on a brisk October Friday.

When I dress for work Hazard ignores me but he can tell when I’m dressing for a walk and he tails me around the house while I’m getting ready as if to say; “Take me too. Take me too.” I took him along and walked due north of Bittersweet Farm along the rocky, overgrown fencerow. We had covered about a mile going north in to the field behind that, skirting the east side of a low spot and woods. So two long fields run end to end north of us and woods is north of that. Beyond that, further north, is the Falling Waters Trail. Just south of the woods I let Hazard off his lead. He would run ahead and I would call him back before he got to far.

We repeated this an half-dozen times then I got distracted by a huge deer rub and about twenty Sandhill Cranes fishing and sunning in the pond in the south edge of the woods. I surprised them and they all rose into the air flapping their huge wings and calling out with their loud rattle-like call. They flew over the trees and east out of sight. By the time I climbed back to the high ground little Hazard was nowhere in sight. I called to him. He didn’t come.

I called Lois and told her that Hazard was lost. We prayed we could find him before Hope got off work. I turned and started the long walk back to the house. Along the way I called for Hazard. I worried that he might have strayed onto the property west of us where we don’t have the right to walk. It took me a half hour or more to get back to the line of trees that separate the two fields north of the house.

When I walked along the north side of the thicket I could hear Hazard barking. A smile came to my face when I realized that when he could not find me he beat it strait for home. No one was there but he was standing on the porched barking for someone to let him in.

He has a powerful instinct for home.

This week at Bethel I started a series of messages about Jonah, the prophet who, when he received his assignment, thought he could flee from the presence of God. I told the people this: There are three things I want to tell you about fleeing from the presence of God.

First, it is natural to flee from God because of our sin.

Second; It is Impossible to flee from the presence of God because of his power.

Third; It is foolish to flee from the presence of God because of his mercy and love.

The rest of the afternoon I sat in my chair and did some reading. Little Haz curled up on the ottoman at my feet, safe, secure, and well-fed. Take a lesson from Ole’ Haz. Train your soul to run for God whenever you are lost or lonely our burdened with guilt or shame.

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

Here is a little treat for you. This is a short clip from a Camp Barakel Men’s Retreat in October. My little brother, Nate is playing the piano, so my brother Kevin sent me this clip.

https://youtu.be/PgCLBSFddUE

We’ve been sleeping with an extra cover the bed for the last few weeks, but tonight the temperature is dipping into the mid-forties so we turned on the furnace. Down in the basement the faithful appliance goes to work and in just a couple minutes a beautiful stream of warmth fills the room to just the perfect temperature and then falls quiet.

Last week I decided to test the furnace just to be sure it was ready for the season. It wasn’t. I called Keith Gillmore who is as handy as they come and an expert at furnaces. He came over tonight for a good talk and noticed a part that was supposed to be turning was not turning. He removed a few screws and discovered a dead bat was plugging the works.

We stood outside for a bit to talk about furnaces and restoring old cars and making cider. Keith grew up on a farm with an orchard making cider. I asked him if he missed it this time of year. He said he didn’t but a smile comes to his face as the tells his cider-house stories. Something about it just seems right standing out in the cool of an October nightfall while the farmer back of Bittersweet Farm shaves the last remaining rows of corn off his place and pours the precious fruit of the earth into a waiting grain truck.

I love living in a place where deer and wild turkeys stroll around the back acre, geese and cranes soar overhead, bittersweet grows in the rocky fencerow, and bats and other critters flit and seal about in the darkness. The windows are closed to the night air tonight, but my walk will be bracing in the morning.

The trees bending over the road are beginning to turn orange and yellow. When the sun falls on them they irradiate their color. Something in the beauty of it leaps into our soul.

When I drive through a tunnel of October-tinted trees it is a worship experience without fail. May heart rises up in grateful praise. The Great Artist of the Universe did not have to paint with such vivid and captivating colors but He did. He did it as a witness to His goodness to draw your soul upward to Him.

Jesus himself is the Great Creator and only he can satisfy your heart. He alone should have your heart.

On one of the Apostle Paul’s church-planting missions he visited Lystra. God allowed them to heal a man who had not been able to walk from birth. When people of Lystra saw this they tried to worship Paul and Barnabas. The men quickly reminded them that only God who made the heaven and the earth and all that is in them was worthy of worship and able to satisfy the deepest longings of their souls.

“Yet he did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”” (Acts 14:17, ESV)

There is something to think about when you are lying in your bed on a cool October night and you year the furnace kick on.

Ken Pierpont
Bittersweet Farm
Summit Township, Michigan
October 8, 2018

It was one year ago today we found Bittersweet Farm. We came across it while looking at another property. When I first saw it I cried out in surprise; “Look it’s a John Sloane house.”

The place remained me of the country houses painted by John Sloane, a favorite artist. Every year I would buy the John Sloane calendar. Every month I would stand quietly before it and turn the page on a new month and imagine I was standing in the picture or sitting on the porch or warm within reading by a glowing light.

We immediately recognized the smiling providence of God that afternoon. It was the first of October nearing the golden hour in the late afternoon. The sky was clear and shirt-sleeve comfortable. We walked though the house and around the property and before we left we had a agreement to buy the place. The owner, Charles Perlos, took the house off the market until we could sell Granville Cottage back in Riverview.

By mid-January Granville Cottage sold and that afternoon Bittersweet Farm was ours.

This afternoon I took a little drive in George the Red Jeep with the windows down, slow along a remote road a few miles east of here. I separated a doe from her fawn. The fawn ran along in the woods parallel my Jeep until he could return to his mother.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tuyRoUDhwL4

Tonight I found more bittersweet growing in the fencerow that runs along the Spring Arbor-Summit Township line that is the western border of our property. Geese passed overhead in a perfect wedge formation. Crows called put over the corn. Walnuts thumped to the ground. Leaves danced along the ground ahead of the wind.

I got out my little John Deer and mowed, breathing in the fragrance of new-cut grass. You think when you mow. Tonight I thought about how many more times I will need to mow, when the leaves will come down, and when I should perform my annual maintenance and attach the snow plow. The experienced guys in the church will know. I will ask them.

Mowing I watched the house. A little light shown from within. I was waiting for Hope to step out on the porch and call me in for supper. Lois was making one of our favorites tonight. I finished the lawn, put away the tractor and came into the house. Supper was ready. The house smelled like apples and cinnamon.

Bittersweet Farm hasn’t been good for my writing but it has been good for my soul. I don’t want to come inside until a half-hour after dark and then I’m tired and my thinking isn’t crisp so I put my writing aside—but my soul is glad and my body is tired. I crawl into our high bed. It sits between the south-facing windows in our upstairs bedroom. When the moon is shining the light falls into the room on either side of the bed. Some nights I put my arm around Lois. She rests her head on my chest. We lie together in quiet security and humble thankfulness and we pray for the children and we thank God for Bethel and for Bittersweet Farm.

Ken Pierpont
Bittersweet Farm
Summit Township, Michigan
October 1, 2018