velvet steel

Celebrating the Tendernessof Covenant-Keeping Love

Marriage is a parable of the relationship between Jesus and his church. And according to John Piper, such tough-minded covenant-keeping is “the best soil for the long-term flourishing of tender affections.” Velvet Steel uniquely expresses this rich, emotional dimension through a series of poems Piper has written for his wife Noël during their forty-plus years together.

The ebbs and flows of not just being in love but staying in love are movingly shared in these pages, offering a taste of tender affections that will nurture your own affections for the Maker of marriage.

JOHN PIPER is pastor for preaching and vision at Beth-lehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. His many books include This Momentary Marriage, Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, What Jesus Demands from the World, and Don’t Waste Your Life.

Velvet SteelThe Joy of Being Married to You

JOH N PI PE RSelections from the Poems of

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PIP

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CHRISTIAN LIFE/ LOVE & MARRIAGE

Velvet Steel

Copyright © 2009 by Desiring God Foundation

Published by Crossway Books a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers 1300 Crescent Street Wheaton, Illinois 60187

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be repro-duced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopy, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher, except as provided for by USA copyright law.

Cover design: Josh Dennis

First printing, 2009

Printed in the United States of America

ISBN PDF: 978-1-4335-1132-5

ISBN Mobipocket: 978-1-4335-1133-2

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataPiper, John, 1946– Velvet steel : the joy of being married to you : selections from the poems of John Piper. p. cm. ISBN 978-1-4335-1131-8 1. Marriage—Poetry. I. Title.PR3566.I59V45 2009811'.54—dc22 2008048761

L B 1 9 1 8 1 7 1 6 1 5 1 4 1 3 1 2 11 1 0 0 9

1 5 1 4 1 3 1 2 11 1 0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

VelvetSteel.11318.i03.indd 4 1/28/09 8:21:14 AM

Contents

Introduction 11

To Come and Capture Me 15

To a Diamond on Our Engagement 16

A Whispered Yes 18

She Kneeled to Be His Wife 19

The Christian Hedonist Takes a Wife 20

Heartbeat the Morning of Our Marriage 22

Our Wedding Text: Habakkuk 3 23

A Promise to Be Kept 24

Good Promises 25

Our Solstice Anniversary: December 21 26

Love’s Prominence 27

Ephesian Covenant 28

Nature and Your Face 29

Love Never Felt Before 30

Being a Gift on Your Birthday 31

Feeling a Fake Kiss 32

Her Love, My Day and Night 33

Design 34


Away by Noël 35

A Tender Piece of Sovereignty 36

Wo Brennt die Liebe Immer Fort 37

Georgia Belle 38

“Just Tell Me When to Pack” 39

Pity Millionaires 40

Paradise Still Cursed 41

None But You 42

The Way to Joy 43

How Firm You Deal 44

Roots 45

The Feeble Rich 46

Valentine’s Grace 47

This Marriage: Old or Young? 48

Going for Gold by Noël 50

Go Make a Parable for Jesus’ Sake 51

And Ripened Full, Fed Her Beloved 54

A Season That Will Pass 55

A Crystal Tear 56

To Look at All Things New 57

Hosea and Gomer 58

The Gadarene in His Right Mind 60


Ruth 61

Boaz 62

Job 63

Dawn: On Hearing That I Have Cancer 64

That Fragile Afternoon 65

That Glad Afternoon When We First Met 66

The Servant of Our Love 67

Your Mirrored Treasures Shine 68

Trust Him Who Cuts 70

Leaning into You 71

A Mother’s Day Vision 72

On Becoming a Grandmother 73

Braiding Talitha’s Hair 74

Losses: On Turning Sixty 75

How a Grandmother Knits 76

Take Us to Yourself Together 77

But If I Die 78


11

Introduction

This poetry is an overflow of my affection for my wife of more than forty years. Two

of them are exceptions—they were written by Noël.

Most of them are excerpts from longer poems. The reasons for not including the whole poems is that some are too long and my aim is to give tastes, not meals—tastes of one man’s affections for his wife.

I put this collection together in the days immediately after writing a book on marriage called This Momentary Marriage: A Parable of Permanence. This collection of poems completes that book. What seemed to be missing there was the taste of my affections for Noël.

In fact, the point of that book was that covenant- keeping, not the affections of being “in love,” is the main point of marriage. But I also empha-sized that tough-minded covenant-keeping is the best soil for the long-term flourishing of tender affections. Therefore, it seemed helpful that I give


Velvet Steel

12

some tastes of what those affections were like over the last forty-two years.

Why poetry? Because poetry helps me inten-sify and express feelings that cannot be captured sufficiently in ordinary language. In fact, my defi-nition of poetry is: an effort to share a moving expe-rience by using language that is chosen and structured differently from ordinary prose.

Being in love is a very moving experience. It is like a river that over the years has rush-ing currents, crashing waterfalls, deep peaceful flows, eddies that swirl with scum, windblown backward drifts, surface heavings from boulders beneath, and long clean stretches of open water.

Not even poetry can render this reality in another form. But some of us must try. It is built into us humans that we must try to express the affections of love in ways that are not like the affections themselves.

We do it with songs, paintings, sculpture, drama, novels, woodwork, flower arrangements, purchased roses, notes left on the dresser, eating out, bed-and-breakfast weekends, repairing the leaky faucet, dressing up, sexual favors, special gifts, surprise phone calls, visiting concerts, mov-


Joh n Pi Pe r

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ies, museums, gardens, oceans, mountains, and a hundred other ways.

My prayer is that these small tastes of my imperfect affections will fan affections into flame—for God, for your spouse, and, in every fitting way, for all the treasured people in your life.

Marriage is a parable of something greater than itself—the covenant-keeping relationship between Christ and his church. Christ’s love for his church was tough enough to keep him on the cross until our purchase was finished.

But it was also tender and warm. Already through the Old Testament prophet, God gave this expression of affection:

How can I give you up, O Ephraim?How can I hand you over, O Israel? . . . My heart recoils within me;My compassion grows warm and tender.

(Hosea 11:8)

May God cause such tender shoots of affection to grow in the covenant-keeping soil of your life. May the fullness of Christ’s love be known and shown in the wholeness of every marriage bond.

John Piper


15

To Come and Capture Me

My love for you, Noël,will drive me to pursue

with God and youthe one pure love and unity

that God’s own Sondid show in birth and death for us.

As He cast off His glory onceto capture me,

so would I shed my freedom nowto gainNoël.


Velvet Steel

48

This Marriage: Old or Young?

At twenty-four is marriage old or it is young?I think the answer comes to this:Have all the songs been sung?

Have all the songs been sung, or are there any more?I think the answer comes to this:Can aging poets soar?

Can aging poets soar, or are the wings too weak?I think the answer comes like this:Is all the beauty bleak?

Is all the beauty bleak, and nothing left but pain?I think the answer comes to this:Does any love remain?


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Does any love remain, or has it turned to stone?I think the answer comes like this:Is God still on the throne?


Celebrating the Tendernessof Covenant-Keeping Love

Marriage is a parable of the relationship between Jesus and his church. And according to John Piper, such tough-minded covenant-keeping is “the best soil for the long-term flourishing of tender affections.” Velvet Steel uniquely expresses this rich, emotional dimension through a series of poems Piper has written for his wife Noël during their forty-plus years together.

The ebbs and flows of not just being in love but staying in love are movingly shared in these pages, offering a taste of tender affections that will nurture your own affections for the Maker of marriage.

JOHN PIPER is pastor for preaching and vision at Beth-lehem Baptist Church in Minneapolis. His many books include This Momentary Marriage, Sex and the Supremacy of Christ, What Jesus Demands from the World, and Don’t Waste Your Life.

Velvet SteelThe Joy of Being Married to You

JOH N PI PE RSelections from the Poems of

VE

LVE

T ST

EE

L JO

HN

PIP

ER

CHRISTIAN LIFE/ LOVE & MARRIAGE

velvet steel

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