Bittersweet Farm

It’s Christmas again, the season of love and good will. It is the season of undying hope and Christian charity. It is the time of the year when kindness wells up within the most hardened souls. Christmas is the season when we look forward to the sound of carols, and sleigh bells, and most of all the musical laughter of little children.

It also just happens to be the season when, if you are not careful, a perfectly harmless-looking old lady may deal you a mortal wound with a shopping cart if you get between her and whatever widget the store has lured her there to buy.

In our family it’s also the season the family always learns a new Christmas song to sing for the Christmas Candlelight Service. We always wait until the last minute because our schedules are so full and because there are so many schedules to coordinate. There are ten of us.

I always want the children to smile and sing. It’s Christmas after all. I want their voices to be angelic and their faces radiant with joy. But if you are parent you know there is a fine line between merriment and folly. A merry heart is like a continual feast according to ancient Scripture, but the Bible also says the laughter of a fool is an irritating noise, like the crackling of thorns under a pot. (Which I assume must have been the ancient equivalent of scratching your fingernails on a chalkboard).

During practice for our annual Christmas song folly frequently overtakes merriment. As much as I savor the joyfulness of the season, I loathe the idea of the family falling into the “sillies” when we are trying to learn a new song. I hate it when the kids get the collective “sillies” when I am trying to practice with them. Once the “sillies” have set in threats of capitol punishment cannot restore order. I could vow to turn them over to the Taliban for a slow torturous death but it would not sober them a bit. It is as if they are possessed by dark forces of silliness. No power on earth can restore their sobriety once they are oppressed by the “silly” demon.

Our oldest is incurably silly at times. Our first born son, the oldest of eight often falls victim to the sillies. Were not talking about a toddler here or a frivolous Jr. High School girl. We’re talking about a grown man ready to go out into the world and start his own Pierpont franchise with his own wife and a career and a house and everything that goes with it. I tell you when that young man gets the sillies it is like a volcano of humor boils up within him and demands release. This release will of course come at the climax of my threatenings and imprecations. Nothing can suppress it until it has run it’s course.

Of course by now you may know the result of hours of practicing lilting, festive, joyful, Christmas music while hovering over the children with the treat of torture, starvation and banishment to the attic until the first of the year. They learn to sing looking like the characters in the American Gothic painting. They end up caroling without cracking even a hint of a smile, pale as Marley’s ghost. They look like subjects of a century-old portrait.

So if you hear my family sing for Christmas and they look like the death angel in Dicken’s Christmas Carol have sympathy. Christmas is hard on them.

Don’t be fooled by all the talk of peace and good will. They say Christmas is for the children. Maybe but Christmas isn’t for sissies. Having a great time can be hard work, it can be down-right dangerous sometimes. We are starting into a very dangerous season. I hope you survive it with your peace intact. It helps to keep your mind on the Prince of Peace.

The Prophet Isaiah, who told us about the Prince of Peace said; “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” (Isa 26:3 ESV)

Ken Pierpont
November 29, 2004
Riverfront Character Inn
Flint, Michigan

Last Christmas Eve I was sitting in our cozy home when I felt a tug to go to a downtown church for the Christmas Eve service. I got my topcoat and keys and headed out. Kyle and Hannah went along. It was perfect. Snow was falling in the city.

The service was everything you could expect of a Christmas Eve service. The people were friendly and warm. Everyone dressed for the season. The choir was delightful. The pastor was at his best. The children’s choir was perfect. It was a candlelight service. At the close of the service we extinguished our candles. We put on our coats and scarves and gloves and hats. On the way out we extinguished the candles and stepped through the thick solid wood doors into the winter night.

Snow was falling, thicker now. It was coming down in heavy flakes like you see in a Christmas movie. Just as we stepped though the door the chimes began to peel out over the City as if to say in celebration, “Christ is Born. Christ is Born. What sorrow or sickness or sinfulness can ultimately prevail. Christ is born!” The scene before us was like a Currier and Ives Christmas card. My son and I exchanged a wordless look of understanding. It was spectacular. It was perfect.

Just as we stepped into the night a woman walking behind me blurted out, “Oh, that’s just great. More snow. I’ve seen enough snow already for a full year.”

I felt irritation and then pity. I looked at my son again and smiled. He looked back and shook his head. Later in the car he said, “She missed a perfect Christmas Eve Moment.”

“She did, Kyle. That is so sad,” I said.

If this night didn’t stir up any spirit in her something must be wrong. Like a bird with a broken wing her spirit must have been grounded. She had just experienced the ancient story of the incarnation of God for man. She had just sung ancient, sacred carols of the advent and the gospel. She had just seen childrens faces awash in candlelight. Good tidings of great joy for all people were still ringing in her ears. All that was capped by one of the most ideal Christmas moments I have ever experienced. I had to wonder what circumstances and decisions would make a woman so dead to wonder that she could overlook the obvious beauty of such a moment.

It’s almost Christmas. Be alive to life and love and wonder. It really is everywhere you look.

Ken Pierpont
Riverfront Character Inn
Flint, Michigan
December 20, 2004