Bittersweet Farm

Bittersweet Farm

VanCleve School-October 1979

Filed Under: Current Thoughts, Pondering His Creation

VanCleve School

I have in my mind and moment in time. I am a school custodian. It is my first year of marriage, specifically, my second month of marriage. We married in early September 1979. It must be an autumn evening in October now. I am the evening custodian at VanCleve Elementary School in Troy, Ohio. Soon I will move on to a handful of other jobs before I finally land in my life-long calling as a pastor.

But tonight I am taking a break in a second-floor classroom. I’m sitting in a rocking chair by a huge open casement window looking out over the street. The building is silent. I am alone. It is the golden hour just before sunset and sun lights the upper branches of a huge ancient maple tree opposite the school. Two-thirds of the leaves cling to the branches still. A third of them are on the ground around the tree in a bright circle of yellow and orange on the green grass. Children are playing in the yard among the fallen leaves. A hint of cool air comes in from the east-facing window. The air is fresh.

The tableau stays sweetly in my memory year after year for no apparent reason beyond the mellow beauty of the hour. I cherish that quiet moment in the window for a few minutes and then I move on to finish my work. I don’t remember a single drive to work or drive home. I don’t remember much of anything else. I don’t remember ever picking up my pay though I know I did, every other week, but I do remember those few quiet moments in that window looking out on an autumn evening.

About 11 p.m. I would get in my car and go home to my young wife out on Ohio 718 west of town. We had a tidy apartment–the upstairs of an old farm house, nicely remodeled with new carpet and fresh paint. She would have something for me to eat, a glass chilled in the freezer for my Pepsi, and a snack. She would have been alone for hours and eager to have someone to talk to.

Maybe you will forget everything you do tomorrow, or maybe a little scene will stick in your mind for decades. You just don’t know, do you? May God bless you with pleasant memories.

Maple-Autumn

Two Things That Bug Me

Filed Under: Current Thoughts

  

Two Things That Bug Me. One More Than The Other. 

It bugs me a little bit if people seem to be distracted by their phone all the time and it interferes with their real-life conversations and their face-to-face communication with people. Some people are just lacking in phone etiquette. If you are in a restaurant or in line at the bank and the waitress or teller is working hard to make a living and you make them wait for you to finish your phone call that is just inconsiderate. If you are distracted or inattentive to real, live people who are physically present, it is just rude and shows a lack of respect. 

If you are visiting your grandmother and you are on your phone the whole time checking Facebook, try to remember what my grandmother often told me when I used to visit her in their little home on Auten Road in South Bend; “Kenny, I won’t always be here.” She was right. When I drive by that little house strangers live where my Grandma and Grandpa Shipley lived for over fifty years. They are not there any more. If they were alive today I would visit them and I would leave my phone in the car. There, I said it. Use the phone, but be polite and look around a little. Life is happening all around you. 

Now for The Thing That Bugs Me More:

People who are crabby about social media and electronic communication devices because they don’t know how to use them or because they don’t want to know how to use them… Oh, my. These folk make me wanna’ screech! They are so opinionated and they are just sure they are right and there can be no other opinion… “Whats-this-world-coming-to!”

They don’t seem to mind watching television. They could not imagine life without a phone. They are all nostalgic about radio. If they understand a technology they are not all moralistic about it. But if they don’t understand it or if they don’t want to understand it, then it suddenly becomes a moral issue and we get to hear a big “America-is-going-strait-to-hell (which it is, but for other reasons altogether)-and-kids-don’t-know-how-to-have-a-conversation-and-they-don’t-know-how-to-write-anymore-and-our-generation-was-so-far-superior… I kinda wanna’ say, If you really were the super-generation who raised all these losers who can’t talk and can’t spell anyway? 

I hope you are wrong about them being so completely irresponsible, because they are the ones who are going to take care of us when we get older. They are the ones who are going to defend our country. They are the ones who are going to pastor our churches. They are going to teach our children and heal our hurts and feed the nation… Oh, and keep in mind, they are most likely going to do it using modern technologies, just like we did. 

I don’t see people down by the river beating their clothes with a rock very often. I don’t see privies out behind the houses of these people who are so quick to condemn the use of modern technology–they seem to like modern electrification and plumbing…. I bet most of them don’t cut their own wood, either. 

I don’t wanna’ be too crabby about crabby people, but please spare me your moralistic speech about how worthless young people are these days. I love them and I think they have a bright future. 

Gotta’ go–my granddaughter wants to Facetime me. 

Ken Pierpont-Parson, Storyteller
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
August 18, 2015

Jesus Led Me All the Way

Filed Under: Current Thoughts

John W. Peterson John W. Peterson

The longer I live the clearer I can see that Jesus in kindness and mercy has guided every step of my life for my good and His glory. I woke early with that on my heart this morning. The thought came in the memory of a song. Our home growing up was filled every day with Christian music. Mom loved to sing and play the piano. She often sang the songs of John W. Peterson. One of his songs has stayed in my heart all my life. Whenever I hear it my soul resonates with deep agreement. The song is entitled Jesus Led Me All the Way. I’m not sure where God will lead me, but when I reach the end and the beginning I’m sure… “I will tell the saints and angels as I lay by burden down, Jesus led me all the way.”

Some day life’s journey will be o’er.
And I shall reach that distant shore;
I’ll sing while ent’ring heaven’s door,
“Jesus led me all the way.”

Jesus led me all the way,
Led me step by step each day;
I will tell the saints and angels as I lay my burdens down,
“Jesus led me all the way.”

If God should let me there review
The winding paths of earth I knew,
It would be proven clear and true –
“Jesus led me all the way.”

And hither to my Lord hath led,
Today He guides each step I tread;
And soon in heav’n it will be said,
“Jesus led me all the way.”


Lord Jesus, thank you for your faithful guidance every day of my life. Guide my hands and my eyes and my heart and my words and even my secret thoughts today. I will see you one day face to face and thank you with all my heart. -Amen

Everything Important Depends on This

Filed Under: Current Thoughts, Discernment, Past Ministry

PrayerI can be a slow learner. I am tempted to believe that through personal charisma, charm, enthusiasm, energy, or wit I can accomplish things that really only God can do. What is really important and eternal only God can do and to get what only God can do–that can only be accomplished through prayer. Prayer is God’s appointed means to accomplish impossible and eternal things.

The other night I was alone at home and I was facing a challenge that was seemed humanly impossible. Since I was alone it was easy for me to pray aloud. There in the night in my room alone I began to cry out to God. Within a few days God had answered my desperate prayer in such a remarkable way that I know I will always remember it as one of the greatest answers to prayer in my life. A few nights later Lois and I were lying in bed debriefing after the day and she mentioned that she, too, had cried out to the Lord for this same need. God is the God of the impossible and when He is going to do something He puts a prayer burden on the heart of believers.

Today while I was thinking about the flourishing of God’s work and the spiritual flourishing of the people who are dear to me I was reminded of a letter written by one of the most effective christian workers in the history of the church. In the letter he was talking about the flourishing of the church and he wrote:“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.”

We are responsible for planting and watering and praying. God is the only one who can give the increase. I’m praying for an increase that can only come from God.

An Arc of Fire

Filed Under: Discernment, Faith and Family

Fire

We used to live out in the country where you could burn your paper trash in a fifty-five gallon drum out back. I needed to started a fire but I had no matches and we lived about ten miles from the nearest store. There is a right way and there are dozens of wrong ways to start a fire. The way I chose was entertainingly bad.

I had a wicker waste-basket full of trash to burn. I lit a scrap of paper with the coils of the electric stove and grabbed the wicker waste-basket on the way out the door. The paper leaped into flame so I tossed it into the basket. When I reached the outdoors I was still fifty yards from the burn barrel out on the margin of the field to the west. The wind was blowing–acting a bellows. The flames quickly roared through the contents of the basket by the time I was only a third of the way across the yard. Now I was in trouble.

By the time I was halfway across the yard, the basket itself was burning in my hands, and I do mean burning as if it was soaked in kerosene. I ended up getting about ten yards from the burn barrel and throwing the flaming ball. Arcing into the dusk it must have made an impressive sight, because when I turned around toward the house the children were behind me and they all exclaimed their approval.

“Wow, Dad, that was neat.”

“Can we do that again.”

When I got back into the house I soon realized the Lois must have seen my little pyrotechnic display. Unlike the children, she was not impressed or amused. She said; “I liked that waste basket.”

A years ago I was called to a children’s hospital to visit two boys who make the mistake of using gasoline to start a brush fire. The has severe burns over 70% of their bodies. They would be scarred for life and they would never fully recover from their devastating injuries. Sex outside of marriage is like plying with fire. Indulgence in explicit material is like soaking in gasoline and hoping no one lights a match.

When you are dealing with fire its a good idea to plan ahead a little and act with special caution.

The Proverbs of Scripture are collected wisdom for young men. They paint pictures of money and friends, of work and sexuality, the kinds of things that make or break young men. When dealing with matters of moral purity special caution is in order. Whole lives can burn to the ground if we’re not careful and sometimes they will see the smoke for generations.

Can a man take fire to his bosom,
And his clothes not be burned?

Proverbs 6:27

The Goodness of God (Sermon)

Filed Under: Current Thoughts

Knowing God By Heart-Web Button

Series: Knowing God by Heart
Title: The Goodness of God
Text: Psalm 84, 145
Place: Evangel Baptist Church-Taylor, Michigan
Date: August 9, 2015 AM
Speaker: Pastor Ken Pierpont

Ken Pierpont
Ken Pierpont
The Goodness of God (Sermon)
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