IN THE DAYS OF LINDEN HALL [Sat, 9-13-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—IN THE DAYS OF LINDEN HALL [Sat, 9-13-25]

 

Today is the 70^th anniversary of my first day at Indiana University, the start of orientation week in 1955. The 13^th was a Monday that year.

As we get really old, and are less able to do things that make memories, we depend upon memories we’ve already stored up, especially the memories of the hinge times in our lives—a wedding, the birth of a child or grandchild, taking a courageous stand, the moment we felt called to a vocation, the first day of college…

There are very few people left for whom the song below will make sense, but some of my best memories are from the first week, orientation week, of my freshman year at IU, Sept 1955, especially working in the dining room at Rogers Center, where grad students lived, and even more especially “…walking back to good old Linden Hall.”

There are some new dorms named for trees now, even a Linden, but the old Trees Center--hurriedly-built officer training barracks left over from WWII--has been long since demolished. The Education Building stands there now.

Linden and Pine were the dorms for kids on The Residence Scholarship Plan, smart kids who wanted to go to college but didn’t have the money to do so. Unlike kids in the other dorms, we furnished our own sheets and pillows and such, and did our own maid and janitorial work, and worked at least ten hours per week, and maintained a B grade average. [Jon, am I right about that grade average?]

After working breakfast or lunch, we denizens of The Residence Scholarship Program who worked at the Rogers Center dining cafeteria, would walk “home” together: Mary Winstead, Phyllis Brown [I officiated at her wedding to Henry Oakes], Susie [Sara] Hayes, Bill Ridge, Jon Stroble.

The girls had donned their yellow uniform dresses before going over to work. The boys slipped on short white jackets once we got there.

This is to the tune of Love Letters in the Sand.

IN THE DAYS OF LINDEN HALL

On a day like today, when skies were never gray

Walking back to good old Linden Hall

The girls were dressed in yellow

Our hearts were young and mellow

Walking back to good old linden hall

 

The air was full of hopes and dreams that fall

As we walked, we always had a ball

Now that I can barely stand

Wouldn’t it be grand

To be walking back to good old Linden Hall

 

The days were always fair, there was romance in the air

Walking back to good old Linden Hall

Only the sky was blue

There was nothing we couldn’t do

Walking back to good old Linden Hall

 

Our hearts back then were always young and free

We gave no thought to what might come to be

Now as I live in memory

It is so sweet to be

Walking back to good old Linden Hall

 

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

 

 

BEST & WORST OF TIMES [R, 9-11-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Times of An Old Man—BEST & WORST OF TIMES [R, 9-11-25]

 

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” That’s the famous opening line of Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities.

It has taken me more than two cities, more like eighteen, but I live in the best of times and in the worst of times. The 1950s is the best of times. The 1960s is the worst of times. I live in them both. Nothing since then makes much sense to me.

That doesn’t mean that good things didn’t happen for me in other decades. In the 1970s and ‘80s I got to wear leisure suits and a mint-green tuxedo. [1] In the ‘90s my daughters got married and my grandchildren were born. In the 21^st century, I’ve gotten to live in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where the winters are 13 months long, thus preserving us old people with cold, the way hamburger spoils less rapidly in the refrigerator or at room temperature.

It’s easy to see why anyone would want to live in the best of times. But the 1960s, the worst of times?

Okay, I probably don’t have to go back to the ‘60s to live in the worst of times. It’s quite possible that right now is the worst of times, at least for America. Democracy is under siege and almost gone. Culture is vulgar. Hate is patriotic. Education is propaganda. The world is heating at an unsustainable rate. Yes, one could make a very good case for right now being the worst of times…

…but all these current bad times had their seeds in the 1960s. To make it even worse, we were warned about them, right then, by folks as disparate as Rachel Carson and Dwight Eisenhower, and we paid no attention.

Failing to pay attention to the warning signs always produces the worst of times.

The 1960s gave us the Viet Nam War, which in turn gave us drugs and an abiding mistrust of government and public institutions. The 1960s gave us new insight into the deep roots of racism and the perils of global warming. The assassinations of JFK and RFK and MLK showed us where a gun culture would lead. The 1960s gave us Barry Goldwater and the anti-communist domino theory, and the corruptions of Richard Nixon. The 1960s gave us Ronald Reagan and the “trickle down” economic theory and the start of the great wealth divide. [2]

In each new generation, each of these problems has gotten worse.

I live in the present age, but the present age doesn’t live in me.

On my good days, I live in the 1950s, with the joy of “Oh, What A Beautiful Morning” and the innocence of “I Believe.”

On my bad days, I live in the 1960s, with the sarcasm of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright,” and the warning of “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

Yes, here I should provide a note of optimism, but I have outlived optimism. The best I can offer is… well, it’s from the ‘60s…

Keep the faith, baby.

John Robert McFarland

1]I didn’t choose the mint green tux with the ruffled shirt. I had to fill in as a groomsman at the last minute when my associate pastor, Bob Morgan, married Nina Cogswell--thus becoming the Morwells--and the tuxedo was part of the position.

 2] Yes, Reagan was not president in the 1960s, but he was honing his war on the middle class then as governor of California.

ON BEING OPEN [T, 9-9-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—ON BEING OPEN [T, 9-9-25]

 

Recently, on two successive days, with two different groups of friends, I was asked, “How did you handle telling other people about it when you had cancer?”

This arose because each group was concerned about someone who has significant health problems but is secretive about it. “Isn’t that bad for their health?” they asked.

The answer is “Yes.” We have a better chance of getting well if we are open about our difficulties. But…

…there are problems with being open, especially for women, who are often accused of being hypochondriacs if they are open about their symptoms, and accused of being hysterical if they are open about their feelings.

When I was going through cancer, I was totally open about my disease and treatments, and about my feelings. I think it was an important part of my healing. Some folks, though, thought I was too open, and I probably was. I undoubtedly talked too much about throwing up, but that was a regular part of chemotherapy in those days, before the great new anti-nausea drugs were developed, and I felt I needed to be honest about it.

Also, I tried for humor in my openness, because a laugh, or even a smile, makes folks more comfortable, and “puking” or “calling Ralph on the big white phone” or “tossing cookies” is in the humor division, at least the groaning sub-division.

As I contemplated what my first oncologist indicated, that I’d be dead in “a year or two,” I read that cancer patients who kept a journal of their feelings had a 50% better chance of getting well. I read someplace else that patients who went to support group had a 50% better chance of getting well. I’m no dummy; that’s 100%! So I kept a feelings journal and went to support group.

You can be open automatically in a support group, because everyone else has the same problems. No judgment, just understanding.

I had no intention of writing a book about my experience, being that open, with the whole world, but as I wrote in my journal each day, it began to read like a book. I thought, “Okay, this is a way I can be open and be helpful to others, and help with my own healing, too.” [1]

Yes, I think people need to be open about their maladies and feelings. But sometimes that is dangerous. One of the great things about keeping a feelings journal, or just a daily journal, is that you can be totally open, because nobody else sees that openness. Actually writing, on a page or a screen, “I feel like crap,” does something for you that just thinking it does not.

[My great, late friend, Bob Butts, once said to our mutual physician, Dr. Raluca Vucescu, “I feel like crap.” She said, “Bob, you’ve got to give me a symptom I can work with.”]

I was once asked to be the program for a group of old people in my church. I went through Erik Erikson’s 8 stages of psycho-social growth with them.

Erikson points out that each time we enter a new stage, such as moving from intimacy vs isolation to generativity vs stagnation, we have the opportunity to rework all the previous stages. Anything we did not get done at industry vs inferiority, for instance, we have a chance to go back and get right when we start final integrity vs despair, the last stage, the old people stage.

A dignified and intellectual woman approached me after the program. “When I was three,” she said, “my infant brother died. No one talked to me about it. I just knew that I had a little brother, and then I didn’t. I think I’ve carried that as a secret weight in my soul for 77 years. I need to be honest with myself about that. I need, finally, to grieve his loss…”

Old people have some particular problems in trying to be open. Writing, either with a pen or keyboard, might be difficult because of recalcitrant eyes and arthritic fingers. But I recommend trying it. Just do the best you can. Old age is not a disease, but it is our final chance to be open, to ourselves, about who we are.

John Robert McFarland

1] Now That I Have Cancer I Am Whole: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel]

 

HOW SHALL THEY HEAR? [Sun, 9-7-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Preacher—HOW SHALL THEY HEAR? [Sun, 9-7-25]

 

As I write this, it is early Sunday morning, and I am thinking about what I’ll preach, even though there is no chance to do so. Because preaching is important. As the Apostle, Paul, said, “How shall they hear without a preacher?” How will folks hear the Good News of Christ, and have the chance to respond to it, unless someone can present it in a helpful fashion?

Unfortunately, preaching is at a low ebb.

My theological alma mater sent all alums an invitation to mentor current students. I was intrigued. I once wanted to teach preaching in a seminary. I thought this mentoring was something I could do even in my old-age decrepitude.

The invitation listed all the areas that might be included in pastoral work and asked us to mark the ones where we could mentor. I ran through categories such as Faith & Culture, Educational Leadership, Pastoral Care, Public Ministry, LGBTQ Studies, Peace Studies, Chaplaincy and Spiritual Care, Ecological Regeneration, Evangelism & Church Planting, Social Organizing…looking for Preaching. It wasn’t there.

Not surprising, really. Very few students at my old alma mater want a career as a parish pastor, and if they do, their interest is in pastoral counseling or church administration, not in preaching.

The assumption seems to be that everyone already knows the Gospel and so, there is no need for preaching. Now we just need ways to apply the Gospel to the world.

 I don’t think that is true.

For sure, traditional forms of preaching are outmoded. One person standing up in front of others for 20 minutes, to educate and inspire… that is totally foreign to the way we do communication now. Yes, even with video clips on the now ubiquitous sanctuary screens, who can take that seriously?

Frankly, I think that the church, and the world, is ready, even yearning, for a renewal of preaching. Yes, I mean one person standing up in front of others and speaking the Word in words.

It’s actually a novel concept in this world of little screens and big screens and all screens in between. I mean, a real person? Just talking? Right to us? No filters? Telling stories? No explosions or dances or flashing lights? How intriguing!

It’s too bad that no one understands what an exciting job that can be.

John Robert McFarland

“How shall they hear without a preacher?” Romans 10:14.

RIP, MARK COX [F, 9-5-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Poignant Griefs of An Old Man—RIP, MARK COX [F, 9-5-25]

 

I don’t have any sons, boys who bear my genes or whom I raised, so I can’t really say what losing a son would be like, but I think it would be a little like losing Mark Cox, who died August 29, 2025.

It was about eight years ago that this tall [6’4”], handsome man, dressed in a three-piece suit, white shirt and silk tie, slipped into our row at church just as the prelude ended, and sat down beside Helen. He crossed his legs. Helen nudged me and nodded at his socks. They were reticulated, pictures of giraffes, his legs so long that they displayed the whole animal. Then we started singing the first hymn. He had a beautiful baritone voice and sang with gusto. Helen had him adopted even before exchanging names after the service.

Michael was with him that day. He, too, was handsome, but dressed more like a special ed teacher than the manager of a men’s clothing store. They hadn’t been together long, and were church shopping, not an easy thing to do for a gay couple. But they had come to the right church. St. Mark’s UMC accepts everyone. As Mark himself complained a few years later, “We’ll accept anyone, as long as they’re not Christian. What’s the point of being included if all you get out of it is good coffee?”

Mark was that rare Christian, gay and born again. As he said to me in an email not long ago, “It’s important to me to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is my savior.”

The church tried to keep Mark out, but he would not go, because he knew Christ was his savior. Mark understood that you can’t separate Christ and Church, because Church is the post-resurrection Body of Christ.

Not just the earthly institution/organization that we call church, although the organization is a part of Christ’s Body. So even if the institutional church treats you badly, and tries to keep you out, if you are a follower of Christ, you can’t give up on it.

Mark never gave up on the church, even though so many of its ways, and so many of its congregations, told him that he was not only a sinner but an “abomination.” They tried to keep him out, and he would not have it, because he knew that he was saved through Christ. With that salvation came membership in the Church, even if the church didn’t like it.

Mark and Michael got married at St. Mark’s. I was pleased, but a little worried. I knew that Michael didn’t share Mark’s emphasis on Christ as Savior. To him, the church was primarily a place to do good for others. He participated in all the many helping activities of our congregation, what Methodists call “social holiness.” Mark was into the moral and spiritual aspects of faith, “personal holiness.” I think that was what split them apart in the end.

We were close to both of them, emotionally and socially. Before covid isolation, when Helen and I were still able to get around, we often ate together, at our house, or theirs, or some restaurant. They came to us for a listening ear when they were down, or struggling with some personal or medical problem. When Covid 19 isolated us, they brought groceries to us. It was that kind of relationship, the kind you’d have with sons.

Indeed, one day after worship, a man there for the first time encountered Mark in the aisle and started chatting. He noticed Helen standing there and asked, “Is this your mother?” Mark just said, “Yes.”

At a Quarryland Chorus concert, where Mark was singing, Michael brought one of his teacher friends. We chatted. After we went back to our seats, another friend overheard the teacher say, "Who are those people?" Michael said, "They think they're our parents." Well...

As they were getting ready to leave Bloomington, to move to North Carolina, the late Dan Hughes, one of our Lay Leaders, said, “We’re going to miss Mark so much. He’s a beacon.”

That he was. In the words of one of those old hymns he loved so much, Let the lower lights be burning. Send a gleam across the wave. Some poor fainting, struggling saman, you may rescue, you may save. Mark was that kind of beacon, especially for other gay folks who had been hurt so badly by the church that they were frightened to keep trying. But when they saw him, towering above the crowd, singing out, they knew they had a home.

The beacon has gone out. It’s way too much like losing a son. But I trust that his salvation, in Christ, is sure.

John Robert McFarland

Mark and I talked frequently of what hymns we wanted to sing in church. We most often longed for: “He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today. He walks with me, and talks with me, along life’s narrow way. He lives! He lives! Salvation to impart. You ask me how I know he lives? He lives, within, my heart!” He wanted to lead it, making the congregation draw out that last “He lives” forever and ever…

 

THE IDEAL PATIENT [W, 9-3-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Adventures of An Old Man—THE IDEAL PATIENT [W, 9-3-25]

 

The main social life of old people is medical appointments, so I went to see our doctor last week. She’s smart, insightful, diligent, and pleasant. She’s managed to stick it out with me for ten years. I thanked her for that.

As I thanked her, I admitted that I am not the ideal patient, because I am not cooperative. I have sometimes rejected tests that she wanted me to take, not because I think I am smarter than she is, or even that I know my body better, but because I do know best what I want out of life. That is more likely to include drinking coffee and watching ballgames than colonoscopies and heart monitors. After all, I’m a busy guy.

What any doctor wants is to help people have better health. Sometimes, though, that is not what we patients want.

That’s especially true with old people. If we want to zip line or parasail, why not? Yes, it would be embarrassing to die from a fall on a mountain, when we are supposed to die from a fall on the doorway rug, but, cremation costs the same, either way.

Even though I am not her ideal patient, our doctor did once say that I am “the perfect patient,” because I tell her my problems in the correct order of symptoms, and stick to the order without distractions. She says she doesn’t even have to take notes.

That’s not surprising; I was a narrative preacher for almost 70 years, and a narrative person for almost 89. I know where to start a story, and where to end it.

So, she was probably expecting one, or more, of those narratives when, after I told her my hip was now better, she asked what else was wrong.

“I’ve got a lot of stuff wrong,” I said, “but I’m not going to tell you about it, because you’ll want to do something about it. Medical people and wives, you dare not tell them anything, unless you want to go through all the annoying bother and pain they’ll put you through to fix it.”

I told her about my encounter with the physical therapist for my hip. I was getting along fine, when one day he had me start all kinds of really exhausting exercises that didn’t seem to have anything to do with my hip. “Why are you making me do this?” I moaned. “I’m dying.”

“Well, you said you wanted better balance.”

“No, I didn’t,” I protested. “I said I have bad balance. I didn’t say I wanted better balance.”

He thought about it and said, “You’re right. You only said you have bad balance. I just assumed that meant you wanted better balance.”

My doctor listened to that, nodded, and said, “Yes. Sometimes we do not listen well. So, we’ll negotiate, you and I. What tests are you willing to do today?”

A breakthrough. She has always just handed a note to the nurse and told her to take me to the lab and have them do the tests on the note. She started reading the stuff on her list. I agreed to some of it. She marked off the rest of it.

 

I was happy that I agreed to some testing, because I got to spend time in the lab waiting room. I had a good time there being pastoral with a young woman who was waiting for a scary test. When the lab woman told me I could go, I said, “No, I want to talk some more.” I didn’t want to leave the young woman in that small room by herself.

I have a bit of a reputation in the doctor place. Once, a nurse stuck her head into the lab waiting room and said, “The word is out that you are in the building.” They have an early warning system, apparently.

As I checked out this time, and made my next appointment, the computer lady asked if I wanted a summary of my visit. I said, “No, I just told her jokes.”

“Oh, tell them to us, too,” she said.

“No,” I replied. “They were all bad jokes. Old men always think they are funny, but they aren’t.”

“Actually,” she said, “you sort of are.”

John Robert McFarland

“Everybody you meet will be either better off or worse off because they spent time with you, even just a moment. Help them be better.” Bill Lennon to his daughters, The Lennon Sisters.

STAYING HUMBLE-WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR [M, 9-1-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man--STAYING HUMBLE-WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR [M, 9-1-25]

 

It’s Labor Day. School starts tomorrow. Well, school has been in session for close to a month now, but back in my day, we started the day after Labor Day, like it says to in the Bible.

I was class president for three years. I was principal bassoonist in the band and orchestra and “loud, clanging cymbalist” in marching band. I was editor of the school newspaper. I was a cleanup-hitting first baseman. I set the all-time record on comprehensive exams [1]. I set the all-time record on the entrance exam at the Potter & Brumfield factory. [2]

What my classmates remember, though, was that I once tried to catch a run-away typewriter carriage. That is ALL that they have ever remembered!

It was our freshman year, in typing class, with Mr. Manford Morrow. I had never experienced a typewriter before. These were manual Royals, with a strong reflex. The first time I hit the “return” button, the carriage raced from left to right with great alacrity, so fast that it was clear that it was going to come right off the machine. I dove for it, ending up on the floor out in the aisle between desks, and I definitely was not just trying to get a better look at Linda Luttrull’s legs, although that was the view I had once down there.

Despite my best effort, I did not catch the carriage, since it, of course, had not come off. How was a farm boy, unused to advanced technology, who even plowed with horses instead of a tractor [3], to know about such things? In my world, if something flew fast from left to right, it came off.

Whenever the class of 1955 has gathered--the class Miss Grace Robb said was more closely involved with one another emotionally than any she ever saw in her many years of teaching--that is the story they have told, with great jocularity, of the skinny farm boy and the run-away typewriter.

They have kept me humble all these years. Whenever I have been tempted to think of myself “more highly than I ought to think,” I remember the laughter of Mike and Bob and the other three Bobs and Shirley and Hovey and Linda and Jack and Kenny and Bill and Donna and Jim and Nancy and Jarvis and Phyllis and Wally and “Rowdy Russ,” who, of course, was not rowdy at all, and the rest of my 61 classmates. And that run-away typewriter.

John Robert McFarland

1] Until James Burch turned his test in 30 minutes later.

Comprehensive exams took a whole day, covering the material of all four years of high school.

2] Until James Burch took the exam the next day. I missed one question. James, of course, got a perfect score.

I love James Burch. He was always willing to take the “smartness” pressure off me. We called him “Wally,” after the Mr. Peepers character of Wally Cox.

When we went to the Dog ‘N Suds in Ft. Branch, he tried to pick up girls by saying things like, “Hey, baby, want to hear me spell parsimonious? No? How’s about antidisestablishmentarianism?”

3] We later had a tractor, an orange Case. I kept a model of it on my book case, until I gave it to my grandson. It’s time to do things like that.