Ken Pierpont
Luke 1:31-33
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Mary’s Little Baby (Sermon)
Creative Tension
Thirty-five years ago we set out together
only to painfully and frustratingly discover how very different we are.
For years we have been doing the clumsy dance
of trying to wed our differences and produce legitimate offspring.
Along the way about three decades in… we were surprised to discover
how very much alike we are in one vital way…
After suffering though our differences for a few years
and learning to celebrate them for a few decades
—during which we raised eight beautiful, personable, creative, intelligent, unique children
—we now sit quietly of an evening in our cottage and create things.
I tell stories with words and keyboard
and occasionally even an old-fashioned pen and paper.
She tells stories with images.
In a very core way we are alike.
We both are and always have been childlike creatives.
Neither of us are easily discouraged.
We spar with each other a bit
but we have always faced the whole wide world back-to-back…
I like to consider myself the optimist of the pair
but I have never known Lois to give in to melancholy—not even for a full day.
She doesn’t pump sunshine non-stop
but I have never known her to be depressed
or yield to discouragement without a little fight in her.
She can hit the curve ball.
She may fall but she always lands on her feet.
So after all these years we have this wonderful trait in common.
We are creative types who are blessed
with a deep well of courage in our souls,
praise be to God.
Company for A Solitary Drive
During my Junior and Senior years of High School dad would allow me to drive to northwest Ohio from our home in Greenville in western Ohio to visit a girl I met at camp. It was a trip of about two and a half hours—my first long drive alone.
Dad had a policy that I did not have a curfew–because he did not want me to endanger myself racing home. He stated his policy like this: “Promise that you will leave by a certain time and you are on your honor for that, then take whatever time you need to get safely home.”
I especially remember those long, solitary late-night drives. In those years if cars were equipped with a radio it was often only an AM radio. Within a few years an AM and FM radio were considered standard on most cars, but my simple ’72 model VW was equipped with a a simple AM radio. In the night the signals would bounce across the country from major cities across the Eastern U.S. and I would search the dial for radio theater. Usually, late at night, I would find an episode of CBS Radio Mystery Theatre. Through the darkness I would ride in the shelter of my little car-a young boy becoming a man, exploring the world and love a little at a time, driving though the night and listening to the radio. Outside passing little bergs and towns, Napoleon, Defiance, Paulding, Van Wert, Celina (at the time I had no way of knowing that would meet and marry another girl and in less five years we would live just west of Celina, I would pastor a little country church there, we would have our first child. Driving thought the night past houses lit from within I had no idea). Finally I would reach Greenville and our home on 227 Victoria Drive.
I experimented briefly with a CB radio and an 8-track tape deck. They were soon laughably obsolete. At the time I could never have conceived of the personal computer or the Internet or podcasts or whole collection of digital music on a single device smaller then a cassette tape.
I had a sense of well-being on those late-night drives that has followed me down through the years wherever God has called us to serve Him. You don’t have to be rich to be happy. It isn’t difficult to find peace and joy in life if you know in your soul you are right with God and if you learn to enjoy simple things like a solitary drive and the company of good radio.
Ken Pierpont
Granville Cottage
Riverview, Michigan
November 17, 2014
It’s More Than a List (Sermon)
Title: It’s More Than a List
Place: Evangel Baptist Church-Taylor, Michigan
Speaker: Ken Pierpont
Date: November 16, 2014 AM
Text: Romans 16
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Our Home in the Country
An old oak grows on the sloping lawn in front of the house. We’ve spent the last few hours gathering its leaves into baskets and hauling them to the garden.
A few leaves still cling tenaciously to the branches. They won’t let go until they’re forced off by the new growth of spring. The rest of them lie scattered on the ground to remind us of our work.
The last green of summer is fading from the grass.
The sun has set and the moon has risen into a darkening purple sky over the red barn east of the house.
In front of the face of the yellow moon a formation of geese honk their way to the south over the woods.
Our white two-story farmhouse sits on a hill on the margin of our woods.
We stacked a bit of wood on the porch and within we are warm and secure and preparing supper.
…Or so I imagine when I look at the beautiful John Sloane painting I have chosen for a background image on my laptop in our little house in the suburbs just south of Detroit.
I love the work of John Sloane. I buy his calendar every year. When I turn the new page each month I have a cherished ritual. I stand for a quiet moment and I imagine myself in the picture, then I go back to work. I often write using Evernote. I make a narrow window to write in and around the edges I can see a beautiful painting of John Sloane. It’s like I am in the picture.
First Snowfall
Evening has fallen as I write this. Yesterday some snow flakes rode the cold air but none of them stuck to the ground. This afternoon the snow has clung to the grass and trees just enough to remind me to keep my scraper and shovels handy.
Toward the end of August, summer warmth and sun walk away and leave us standing and looking down the path that bends into the beauty of autumn in September and in October.
Autumn falls into November-gray and cold and leaves us looking for our sweaters and scrapers.
November has the redeeming virtue of being the month that our son Chuk and I celebrate our birthdays and it is the blessed month of Thanksgiving. Devout hearts stop and recall God’s mercies at the waning of each year.
By the time we have cleared the Thanksgiving table, Advent is upon us—the time of anticipation of the arrival of the long-promised Christ-child… and we are counting the days like children.
In Holy December we begin Christmas preparations and Christmas observances. We sing Christmas songs and turn to beloved Christmas passages and Christmas traditions and Christmas commitments. Christmas Sunday. The Christmas Eve Candlelight Service. Christmas Morning. Christmas Dinner. When all the celebration has cleared away we get down to the business of a fresh, new year. So we have a lot to look forward to, don’t we?
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