Current Thoughts

I just returned from the village with my coffee. The forest understory is greening this morning. The daffodils and forsythia add a splash of color. Birds are flocking to the feeders especially in the morning and evening including finches so bright they boost your spirit. The trees will bud and turn green in the next couple weeks. Oh, how my heart longs for those first couple weeks of May. I spent a few hours in the writing loft yesterday mostly puttering, vacuuming up ladybugs and thinking on paper. Sometimes I write with my typewriter-like keyboard. Sometimes up in my loft I just take a nice Pelikan fountain pen and put real words on real paper and pray that they will amount to something artful. Bethel Church is doing well. Bethel Church is my Cherry Log, but that is a story for another day. Ask me if you wanna’ know. Linger in the sun this week if you can. It’s good for you.

 

Learning to Pray

Last week I received an exuberant text announcing that our oldest son Kyle had taken a turkey on opening day of spring turkey season. He had his youngest son Leland along. He tells the story in a guest post. They prayed before they went. They prayed as they hunted. They prayed grateful prayers when they got their Tom. It was a lesson in answered prayer for a little boy.

We heard from out on the west coast where another of our little grandsons lives. He went fishing with some new gear he had won by saying AWANA verses and he was skunked. He caught nothing. He was broken-hearted.

How do we learn to pray and how to deal with unanswered prayer.

This winter I stumbled on an old recording of Uncle Johnny, Holman Johnson, the founder of Camp Barakel, giving testimony, telling story after story of answered prayer. At the end of the talk he quoted John 15:7 “If you abide in me and my words abide in you, you will ask what you want and it will be done unto you.”

A powerful part of answered prayer is to ask according to the will of God. A key to asking according to the will of God is abiding in Christ and his words abiding in us. When that happens we are likely to have the heart God and we are more likely to ask for things that are according to his will.

When I heard the stories of our little grandsons learning of prayer and answered prayer and unanswered prayers I found myself longing that they would abide in Christ and that the word of Christ would abide in them. That is the kind of man I want to be, a man who abides in Christ. A man in whom the words of Christ abide… so that the thing for which I pray and the things I desire are things that please the Lord, things he desires to give.

“If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” (John 15:7, ESV)

 

For most of my life I have lived with the suspicion that if there is a thing called ADD I have it. Today I stumbled on an article about a pastor with ADD and found this little gem of a quote:

“People with ADD have special gifts, even if they are hidden. The most common include originality, creativity, charisma, energy, liveliness, an unusual sense of humor, areas of intellectual brilliance and spunk. Some of our most successful entrepreneurs have ADD, as do some of our most creative actors, writers, doctors, scientists, attorneys, architects, athletes, and dynamic people in all walks of life.”

I used to feel little shy about it, but now that I have read this I’m thinking about having “I’m ADD” hats and tees printed. Apparently it is something to be proud of.

Who knew?

Bittersweet Farm

April 13, 2022

Our oldest son, Kyle is a pastor in Grand Rapids. A couple years ago a family needed his pastoral services. Grandpa had died. Kyle preached his funeral and ministered to the family. A few months later the family called again. This time the news was especially bitter. Their fourteen-year-old son had died at his own hand. The family was devastated. Kyle spent time with them. He prayed with them and listened to their stories.

The boy’s mother and father had divorced. They shared custody. Kyle asked the boy’s mother if she could share a happy memory about her boy. She told him this story:

One summer they drove to Kentucky to visit Natural Bridge. The plan was for them to hike up to the Bridge together. It is a tough hike. On the way up mom ran out of strength. She just couldn’t go on. She found a bench and sat down to rest. Brokenhearted, she told her son, “Go on without me. I’ll have to wait for you here.” He sat down with her. “Mom, I love you. I didn’t come here to see the Natural Bridge. I came to spend time with you.”

She insisted. He took off and ran to the top and quickly returned to join his mom on the bench. He said, “There’s someone up there with an instrument, mom.”They sat there in silence at dusk or a few minutes when, suddenly beautiful music began to drift down from somewhere above them. Not just birdsong and wind in the leaves, but something more.

Someone had hiked up to the bridge with a cello and on the top of the bridge they began play. The music filled the giant amphitheater of mountain and forest with with music.

They sat and listened to the music that day on the bench on the mountainside—music that seemed especially arranged for them. She said; “I will always cherish that memory.”

Deep silence.

Kyle listened to the story quietly and then said; “One day there will be a new heaven and there will be a new earth. I think in the new heaven and the new earth there will still be a Natural Bridge. I think you can go back one day.

As believers in Christ, in your glorified body, you will be able to reach the top together.

Life in this broken world can damage your spirit and threaten your faith, but we have the promises of God that one day all that is wrong in this world will be made right and those who hope in Jesus will be with Him again in a place were divorce won’t divide young lovers and young boys will never again be crushed with despair.

And every mountain and every valley will be filled with music once again.

Bittersweet Farm

April 13, 2022

News from Bittersweet Farm

If you know me well you know I am a “Gentleman Farmer” which means we don’t really grow crops or raise animals on our acres in the country but we live where we have some elbow room. I grow grass and feed birds and putter about, but mostly I work with words. I write a lot. Lois grows flowers.

Pastoring is part contemplative and part people.

I do the people part of ministry at Bethel Church and around Jackson.

I do the contemplative part of ministry out on Bittersweet Farm.

Our home is a 120-year-old farmhouse with a matching century-old carriage house a half of the upstairs is converted into a writing loft where it is always quiet save for the kind of noises that contribute to contemplation.

Across the road is a forest wrapped over a hill. To the west a deer preserve. To the north field on field of field and forest and wetland habitat for waterfowl. We have wildlife on our acres every night and birdsong every morning this time of year.

For the last week we have been away. We travelled to Texas to meet two of our newest grandchildren, a son born to our son Daniel and his wife Kate and a daughter born to our son Wes and his wife Dylan. It was springtime in Texas.

One afternoon Lois explored antique shops and I walked around Historic Downtown McKinney just to feel the warm sun on my neck. There is something powerfully therapeutic about the sun on your neck after a long winter as any aging person will tell you.

In McKinney I found a hat shop. They outfitted me with a beautiful Open Road Stetson straw hat. I like to call it my “Storyteller” hat. We had some BBQ and visited In-and-Out and Whataburger. Mostly we enjoyed being with our son and his wife and their daughters who are building a good life in a good place there in the Lone Star State.

Spring will be here soon. It’s walking steadily north now as it does every ear. Soon we will sit on the porch in the morning and feel the full benevolence of the warm sun and watch the antics of the birds. We will enjoy the color of the flowers and the greening of the countryside once again and our hearts will flutter like we are young and in love. And we will make sun tea and maybe sweeten it a bit and it will remind us of our trip to Waco to see the “Silos” and the Magnolia Market… 

Back in the 90’s we leased this rambling farmhouse in Ohio. It was almost impossible to heat. I would lay in bed and listen to the furnace kick on and worry about not having money to fill the fuel-oil tank… but God provided.

I worked very hard doing whatever needed to be done to start a church and provide for the family. I packed UPS trucks. I built swing sets. I took insurance claims. I worked hard to shepherd my little flock in the Grange Hall. We made some memories here.

Most of all I remember our sweet children so small and all under one roof, simple meals, working together, trying to create a country life. I wasn’t very good at it but remembering still brings tears of gratefulness to my eyes and great thanksgiving to my heart.

I drove past the old place on the way to my Aunt Ann’s funeral this week and sweet memories flooded in of a tree house, basketball in the driveway, children riding the moped, potato soup, “checking the load” baseball games, Saturday nights at the Liberty Grange Hall getting ready for Sunday.

We gathered some people there who were good to us and loyal. We remain friends to this day. Some of them are in heaven now. I pastored them for ten years. I was still in my 30’s when I left for Michigan. Four of our children were born in Knox County.

Bittersweet Farm

Spring 2020