Bittersweet Farm

The driveway was full out on Bittersweet Farm on Friday. We had a Thanksgiving meal with a big bunch of our family. The ground was covered with snow. It made things festive and created a holiday feel. When the families come over there are toddlers and babies and small children everywhere. Our hearts are filled with love and with thanksgiving for God unwavering kindness and mercy.

My message at Bethel Sunday was aimed at things that darken the human spirit. It was entitled A Dozen Ways to Be Happier. I will attach it to this post. Maybe it will cheer you up a bit!

Today I added some very special books to my personal library. Most of my books have a story behind them. Here is one of those stories about one of those books.

Books and Poems and Words

I love to putter among my books. Ideas come to me then, sermons, articles, and stories. Memories spring into my mind and heart among my books in the soft light of my study.
Before I began to build my own library, at about 14 years old, I would spend long hours on Sunday afternoons puttering around my dad’s library. One Sunday afternoon I found a book of poems by Alfred Lord Tennyson. I read “The Charge of the Light Brigade,” “The Eagle,” and “Crossing the Bar.”

Dad is thinning out his library these days and I discovered it among the ponderous commentaries and theological works he gave me. He added this to his library when I was ten. Now it is a part of mine. In 1968 it sold for 35 cents, but it is a treasure to me now. I was an easily-distracted, hyper-active kid, but took time one Sunday afternoon to taste the rhythm and rhyme of words set to poetry. It was one of the many ways God used to make me a “word man.”

For forty years I have made my mark and fed my family and paid the bills and tried to be a blessing to others with written and spoken words. Words from the pulpit. Words of counsel and encouragement. Teaching words. Words to lead in a multitude of meetings. Words in messages at camps and conferences and words across the table between messages. Words when people are born and when they die. Words to dedicate infants and words at baptisms. Words for when they graduate and words for when they die. Words typed and hand-written. Words whispered and words proclaimed. Good news words and warning words. Commending words and even sometimes words of rebuke and correction. Words over coffee or a shared meal. Words arranged for maximum impact and long retention.

Proverbs records: “From the fruit of a man’s mouth his stomach is satisfied; he is satisfied by the yield of his lips. Death and life are in the power of the tongue and those who love it will eat its fruits.” (Proverbs 18:19-20)

Words are powerful things. May God help us use them artfully, thoughtfully, and lovingly. Now I’ve gotten wordy, I suppose.

Bittersweet Farm
November 18, 2019

Koselig

It frosted hard out on Bittersweet Farm this week for the first time this fall. We’ve had a couple snows already. Thursday morning I drove over to Plymouth to speak for the Baptist Convention of Michigan Leadership Conference and the ground and branches were covered with a thin layer of snow. Still some of the trees were bright with color. This week the last of the leaves came down except some of the stubborn oaks.

It’s “shirt-jacket” weather. I have a fleece-lined buffalo-plaid shirt-jacket that I keep near my writing desk up in the southeast corner of the house. It was a gift from our son Daniel and his wife Katelynn. I’m wearing it right now. Hope, Hannah, and Dale bought me one for my birthday that hangs at the top of the basement steps. I have worn it for the whole “leaf-blowing” season this year. It’s lined with thick fleece and has quilt-lined arms and handy pockets. It is heirloom-quality, outdoor, shirt-jacket. The Norwegians would call it “Koselig” (Pronounced kinda “Koose-u-lee” or “Koosh-lee”). A shirt jacket on a cool fall night is cozy, comfy, Koselig. It’s like a mug of coffee or a fire crackling and a favorite book on a winter night. It’s like a meal and a warm conversation with a friend. It’s like bundling up for a walk. It’s like stepping out on the porch as the moon rises into the bare trees east of the house like it did last night. It’s like the feeling you get when geese or cranes fly over at dusk, calling to each other as they fly. Koselig. You know what I mean.

I told Lois she needs to make a Koselig Candle but I discovered that it’s alread been done: Koselig Candle Company

A New Jeep on Bittersweet Farm

We have a new Jeep in the family. Hope owns a Wrangler now. When Hannah and Dale are here it looks like a Jeep lot now.

“Mitfordly”

Some of Bethel’s finest servants sit in the back row every Sunday. They keep an eye on things and miss very little. The Back Row Ladies at Bethel and salt-of-the-earth. They are the heart and soul of the church.

This year my birthday landed on a Sunday. This is a smiling providence for a pastor. There were songs and cards and gifts and fruit and balloons and warm, happy greetings all-around. Between Sunday School and church some of the Back Row Ladies filed into my study with one of the most thoughtful and useful gifts ever. The ladies are a part of a Monday-night card-making group. They made me dozens of home-made cards for my use in ministry. They put them is a large stationery box and presented the to me.

Jan Karon has created a fictional small town in the mountains with an small Episcopal Parish served by a pastor named Tim Kavanagh. The town in Mitford and the books are all full of warm, feel-good stories of love and kindness, of characters who really care for one-another. Mitford is a wonderful place to be. There are times that Bethel is “Mitfordly.” Sunday was one of those days.

A couple weeks ago Wayne and Scott Bliss drove out to Bittersweet Farm and they gifted me with a beautiful film of the place taken from overhead with a drone. That day when they drove away and I waved until they were out of sight, deeply grateful for their kindness. Mitfordly, you see?

I want to be Mitfordly like Pastor Tim Kavanagh.

The other day our water-heater failed. Come to think of it, it was on the cold morning when the snow first covered the ground. I called Tom McGee. Tom is a pipe-fitter and comes from hard-working, God-fearing, Jesus-loving and serving people. His dad kept the busses running at a church across town for many, many years. His mother was the secretary there for 35 years. I called Tom.

“Are you without hot water? I’ll be over tomorrow.”

He was there. A few hours later we had enjoyed some good conversation and a shopping trip to Home Depot and we were back in the hot water business. He refused to take any money for the help. When we pressed him he said, “Well, why don’t you do this. Why don’t you send an Operation Christmas Child box for each member of the household.”

Mitfordly, don’t you think.

It’s November. Thanksgiving month. It’s getting cold out there. Be Koselig and Mitfordly. Spread a little love around. It’s a warm and wonderful way to live.

Bittersweet Farm
November 10, 2019