TIME TO WAKE UP LEROY [T, 11-11-25]

 

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Daily Devotions of An Old Man—TIME TO WAKE UP LEROY [T, 11-11-25]

 

Yes, I’ve told you about Joe and Leroy before, but it’s too good a story to tell only once.

Joe and Leroy were long-distance truck drivers, with one of those sleeper cabs, so one driver could sleep while the other drove. They were called in for a periodic driving exam. Joe was the senior driver and went in first.

The examiner said, “Joe, you are going down a steep mountain side when your brakes go out. At the bottom of the mountain is a one-way bridge. Coming at it from the other direction, down another slope, is a big rig like yours. What do you do?”

“Well, first I’d wake up Leroy.”

“Why in the world would you take the time to wake up Leroy?”

“Well, he’s not been driving very long, and he’s never seen a really big wreck.”

I recently subscribed to a daily devotional series. No, not to get ideas for my own columns. I really want to hear the Word in the words of others. I know that will be good for my soul. But those well-meaning devotionals turn out to be a drag on my soul.

No, there is nothing really wrong with them. They are well written, by able thinkers, but they do nothing for me, because they are didactic and hortatory. Not a story anywhere.

There is a line, I think from a poem by William Stafford, where a little girl asks, “When you’re old, how do you know what to do?”

It’s a perceptive question for a child. They always know what to do, because older people are always telling them what to do. Be nice to your brother. Don’t talk back. Do your homework. Pick up your toys… but being told what to do does not mean that it always gets done.

You know what to do when you’re old just because you’re old. I don’t have to be told what to do. I already know what to do; I’ve known the right stuff to do for a long time. Just telling me to do it, regardless of how enthusiastically you tell me, isn’t going to make any difference. That is more likely to depress me.

In the church, for a long time now, we’ve been telling folks what they should do, and yelling at them to try to get their attention, get them to do it. It’s not working very well. We have the best story in the world, a life-giving and life-changing story, and we need to start telling it, rather than talking about it.

What I need are stories that illuminate the possibilities in such a way that I can see the way forward for myself. Don’t just tell me what the way is. Don’t just rail at me to try to get me moving. Show me the way!

Oh, wait, I just became didactic and hortatory, didn’t I?

Well, as Rosanne Rossannadanna used to say, “Never mind.”

But you’re thinking about waking up Leroy, aren’t you?

John Robert McFarland

 

 

SUNDAY MORNING FUN [Sat, 11-8-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Theology of An Old Preacher—SUNDAY MORNING FUN [Sat, 11-8-25]

 

Tomorrow is Sunday, so I’ll be doing what I usually do on Sunday mornings, praying for my preacher friends, and listening to a CD of worship songs by the Barbary Coast Dixieland Band.

The first time I experienced a Barbary Coast worship service, I was retired and filling in, on fairly short notice, for a preacher who had to be away that Sunday. After the service, one of the musicians said to me, “We go around to anywhere from 15 to 30 churches a year, so I’ve heard a lot of sermons. That was the best I’ve ever heard.”

That didn’t surprise me. I’m always convinced that the last sermon I preached is the best one anyone has ever heard. He continued. “I’ve never before thought about what you said, that the point of life is to have a good time.”

That did surprise me. Didn’t he already know that? Isn’t that the whole point of both Dixieland and worship, to have a good time?

After all, the pivotal verse in the Bible is John 10:10, where Jesus says, “I’m here. Let’s party.”

So as I pray for my preaching friends, I don’t pray that they’ll preach the best sermon ever. That’s already been done. But I pray that they, and the people in their worship services, will have a good time.

John Robert McFarland

 

John 10:10 is often in a generic way, “I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” It means, “I’m here; let’s party.”

THE JOY HALL OF FAME [R, 11-6-25]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—THE JOY HALL OF FAME [R, 11-6-25]

 

Charlie Nelms is being inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame. It’s because of his many significant achievements in the field of higher education. He is already in the JOY HOF.

Well, I guess there is no JOY HOF, but there should be. I say that Charlie should be in it because, despite the difficulties of growing up as a poor black boy in Arkansas in the worst days of segregation and lynching, perhaps because of growing up in those desperate times, he has always known that joy is a form of resistance, resistance to those who run the oppressor system, to those who want to control us by fear.

We can live our life in joy, or we can live it in fear. What the oppressors and fear-mongers fear most is joy. They can’t control joy.

What do we fear?

Anyone who is different from ourselves.

People who make us uncomfortable because they are not intimidated by our status.

People who speak a language we can’t understand.

Anyone who is weak but demands to be taken seriously. That’s not right. “Beggars can’t be choosers.” Who do they think they are, anyway, equal citizens? Human beings? Children of God?

Anyone who has always been a second-class citizen and aspires to be treated like a first-class person. We think they are uppity. They should “stay in their place.”

Sex and race are the most basic human qualities, so it’s easiest for the oppressors and fear-mongers to generate fear about people who are trans or gay or black.

The fear-mongers have no joy. They don’t even have humor. They rarely laugh, and when they do, it’s with a sneer, after they have made some rude remark about someone, ridiculed or humiliated someone, usually someone who is too weak to retaliate.

I wanted to go to the recent No Kings rally. I’m a Christian. I believe in no kings but King Jesus, no lords but Lord Jesus. I used to go to rallies and demonstrations all the time. In fact, I started a lot of them. But to go to a rally now, I have to be able to use one of those squiggly squares on the computer screen to say I’m coming, and then I have to be able to drive, and then find a parking spot, and then back into it because some idiot has decided that downtown angle parking should be back-in instead of pull-in, and then walk, and then stand, and then march, and then yell…

Well, I did my own rally. I stayed home and sang, “Joyful, joyful, we adore thee…” It was a joyful time.

Joy is the silver bullet to fear.

Who would you nominate for the JOY HOF?

John Robert McFarland

JUDGING THE SUMMER BY THE WINTER [T, 11-4-25]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life from the Years of Winter—JUDGING THE SUMMER BY THE WINTER [T, 11-4-25]

 

Old people should be grateful to live in the days of screens. No, not the screens on doors. They aren’t important anymore. We don’t need them now that we have air conditioning. A lot of folks don’t even have screen doors now. Air conditioning means we no longer have to leave the outside doors open, hoping for a breeze.

It’s the screens we watch to get entertainment and news for which we need to give thanks. Some of us are old enough to remember when there were no such screens. It was a rather boring time.

And a laborious time. You had to work hard to see things. Sometimes you actually had to get up and walk across the room to change the channel on the TV. Now we can recline on our sofas and push a couple of buttons on the remote—usually the wrong buttons to begin with—and see people and events from all the world.

We need to be careful, though, as we give thanks, not to disrespect those days of yore, those days before the big screens.

What appeared in screens even a few years ago appears as primitive compared to now, but those images were important to us then.

I first saw TV in 1947, in Uncle Johnny’s hardware store in Francisco, IN. It was World Series time, and we wanted to see local boy Gil Hodges playing for the Dodgers. Uncle Johnny installed an antenna on the roof. It had a cable that came down the side of the building to a handle you could rotate to turn the antenna in different directions to grab the TV signal from different directions. The TV set itself was quite large, but with a screen that was no more than a foot wide.

The “pictures” were almost entirely “snow,” but we could hear the announcers, and we could imagine that we saw the players running the bases, hitting homers, whatever the announcers told us. It was wonderful.

The pictures of this year’s WS between the Dodgers and Blue Jays were as sharp as the blade on that knife Tom Woodall, Sr. gave Helen 45 years ago. It was a special knife, and he thought Helen should have one, because she has always been a favorite of old men. He said that if she took care of it, she would never have to sharpen it. That was 45 years ago. He was right.

 

The screen on our present smart TV is about ten times larger than the screen on Uncle Johnny’s first TV. On it, the Dodgers are very clear and dodgy, the Jays very clear and blue. Some people say this was the best WS ever. No, the best WS ever was in 1947.

It is dangerous to judge the past by the present.

It is dangerous to judge the summer by the winter.

It is dangerous to judge the decisions of young people by the decisions of old people.

It’s tempting to do that. I have less energy in winter, so I assume I am wiser. I judge much of what I did in summer to be fruitless. But that’s winter talking. What I did in summer was necessary then. What I did in earlier years was not “youthful silliness” just because I’m too old now to engage in the fun of silliness.

We are not wiser just because we are older. It is wise, though, to say that we should not judge the summer by the winter.

John Robert McFarland

SINCE WE KNOW NOT… [Sun, 11-2-25]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith and Life for the Years of Winter—SINCE WE KNOW NOT… [Sun, 11-2-25]

 

I wrote about my brother, Jim, in this column for Aug. 24, since his birthday was coming up, on August 28. I wrote about how much I like having a brother, even though he was nine years younger, and so we didn’t get to do a lot of the brother stuff.

I have a brother now only in memory and hope. When I wrote about him back in August, he and his wife, Millie, were making plans to go someplace warm for the winter. We had no idea that he would die on Nov. 1, yesterday.

About a month ago he began to have significant pains in his back. They went to the ER. He was diagnosed with an “angry” [inflamed] pancreas. That was not really surprising; he’s been diabetic for a long time. Because of the location of the pancreas, its pain shows up in the back. They sent him home with pain medicine and instructions for a clear liquid diet.

That lasted only a couple of days. The pain became too much. This time they were sent to the cancer hospital, an hour’s drive away. At first, he was diagnosed with stage 2 pancreatic cancer. As they did more tests, the stage went up to 3 and then to 4, plus spreading to his stomach.

They got the pain under control, mostly, and sent him home to decide if he wanted to do chemo. Of course, we all know that chemo against a diagnosis like that is like spitting into the wind.  

Throughout, we spent a lot of time with Millie on the phone. It was the only way we could be supportive, since they live in New Mexico, and we can’t even drive to the airport, let alone get on a plane.  

Jim and Millie have no children or grandchildren, and none of their siblings are able to travel. It’s hard to have no family around when you are in trouble, and it’s hard on the family members who want to be helpful but cannot.

Early yesterday afternoon, Millie told us of all the appointments they had this week, to put in place the services Jim would need. We were glad they were getting his severe pain under control, because it looked like he would live for several weeks. Millie was looking around for a warmer place where they could go for the winter. We started plans to have a “memorial” service for Jim while he was still alive to enjoy it. We planned to do it via Zoom so that far-flung family members and friends could participate.

When she called back a few hours later, she said Jim had been napping on the living room sofa when she went to the kitchen to get something to eat. When she returned, she realized that she had to call 911.

Thank you for listening, as I try to process my brother’s life and death. As it says in the funeral ritual that I read so many times in the course of my years as a preacher, “Since we know not what a day may bring forth, but only that the hour for serving Thee is always present…”

John Robert McFarland

Following is a screed about the reason for our family’s battles with cancer. I put it down here where you can ignore it if you wish, because it doesn’t seem really appropriate, as I mourn my brother’s passing, and as I hold out hope for his different life now, but it is a part of what I feel…

Jim was nine years younger than I. Our sister, Margaret Ann, was 8 years younger. She died from cancer when she was only 60. Jim had it first in his 30s, but made it to 79.

When we moved to the farm, Margey had just turned two, and Jimmy was still a babe in arms. Our older sister, Mary Virginia, was already a teen, and I was ten.

I think there is a good reason that Mary V is 93 and still in great health, without ever having cancer, and I had cancer 35 years ago but am still alive, while the youngsters, Jim and Margey, are the ones who died first.

They lived on the farm much longer than Mary V and I did, through the heyday of the pesticide, DDT. Their exposure for so long, starting when they were so young, made them more vulnerable. The manufacturer assured everyone that DDT wasn’t dangerous. Pour it on; it’s as harmless as chocolate. Just because it kills bugs doesn’t mean it’s deadly...

DDT was banned in 1972, 25 years after we moved to the farm, way too late to help my little sister and brother. But that’s okay; Montrose Chemical Corporation had already made lots of money from it, and isn’t making money the American way, regardless of the consequences?

Montrose paid millions to lawyers, for years, fighting attempts to hold them accountable for the damage done by DDT. They never did pay anything to people who were DDT victims, but finally agreed to escape accountability by paying a sum for general environmental cleanup.

 

 

FALL BACK [F, 10-31-25]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—FALL BACK [F, 10-31-25]

 

Yes, an extra hour of sleep is fine, but, more importantly, come Sunday at 2:00 a.m., the rest of the world will once again be in sync with my wrist watch.

Old people love change. We like to be in the forefront of new achievements and ideas and technology and systems. Such as wearing wrist watches. And since the world in general has been threatening for some time to eschew DST [Daylight Savings Time], and stay on GST [God’s Standard Time] all year, for the last few years, I have kept my wrist watch on GST, so that I would be on the cutting edge, pushing the envelope, and all that stuff, the very first to be on GST year-round

All I have to do, six months each year, is mentally adjust the time one hour from what my watch shows.

Well, plus minus four minutes. The watch gains time, about a minute per year. When I started, I had to adjust the time by two minutes. Then three. Now four. I like it. It’s progress.

Yes, it is true that I couldn’t change the hour and minutes even if I wanted to, because I don’t know how to change either the hour of the minutes of my water-proof Casio. Charlie Matson can’t figure out how to do it anymore, either, and he’s an engineer!

But that has nothing to do with my decision to live dangerously close to being an hour early wherever I go, for 6 months of the year, since I might forget to make the mental adjustment. That’s another thing old people like, living dangerously. [We usually show up an hour early, anyway.]

It’s also true that I don’t need a water-proof watch since I don’t go near the water. These matters are insignificant, though, compared to the thrill of being out in front of a major societal change, such as doing away with DST. It’s important for old people such as I to show that it can be done; we can live successfully on GST alone.

I’m sort of looking forward to my watch being right on its own, though…

John Robert McFarland

SIMPLE SONGS FOR SIMPLE PEOPLE [T, 10-28-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Lyrics of An Old Song Writer—SIMPLE SONGS FOR SIMPLE PEOPLE [T, 10-28-25]

 

What is art? There are a thousand definitions. Anything artistic is notoriously difficult to define.

Justice Potter Stewart said, “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.”

I can’t define folk music, but I know it when I hear it.

Folk music is both immediate and simple. Immediate and simple are not necessarily better than distant and complicated, especially in music. But I’m simple, so I’m a folkie.

Young people like to think of themselves as complicated. I certainly did. I thought I was complicated when I was really just confused. The older I get, the more I realize how simple I am. I’m a simple guy, so folk is my music.

Folk has no intermediaries, no handlers who present an image different from the musician him or herself. The same is true with the songs.

In a former life, I was a bassoonist. Bassoon isn’t a folk instrument. It really needs other instruments, preferably an orchestra, at least an ensemble. It’s hard to sit around the camp fire and sing to a bassoon, especially if you are the bassoonist, and also trying to eat s’mores.

I like simplicity. The older I get, the more I like it.

I am partial to running/walking as a sport because it is so simple and immediate. You just put on your shoes and go out the door. Other than the shoes--and not even those for folks like Zola Budd-- you need no clubs or rackets or skis, no special court or floor or field, no machines or pool. Unlike other sports, you can use running/walking actually to go some place useful, like the donut shop, to recoup the calories you lost along the way.

Because I like simplicity, I am a folk music singer-songwriter. I’m known for writing songs like “I’m In the Poor House Now,” and for my renditions of the songs of others, like the Snake Oil Willie Band’s I Don’t Look Good Naked Anymore or If My Nose Was Running Money, I’d Blow It All On You. [1]

Our granddaughter is coming to visit us, and she is bringing with her Pansy. Well, not the whole band named Pansy, just the lead singer/songwriter, Vivian, who needs a place to get away to write some more songs. I assume they are coming to visit us because they know I can be helpful with the writing. Electric punk isn’t all that different from acoustic folk, is it?

John Robert McFarland

 

1] The internet is confused about who wrote If My Nose Was Running Money… It was either Mike Snider or Aaron Wilburn.