We Reserve the Right, a short story. 4-25-24.

 

BEYOND WINTER: Personal Reflections of an Old Man—

We Reserve the Right, a short story. 4-25-24.

 

[Someone—Bob Parsons, I think—said that I could still post things here, even if they were not spiritual/religious meditations. This is a short story that won an award at a conference but never found a publication. Warning: it’s 1700 words]

 

WE RESERVE THE RIGHT

John Robert McFarland

Lori first saw him as he tried to get out of the long, old dinosaur of a Chevy. It was gold, mottled by patches of brown rust. She usually didn't notice cars much, at least not old sedans, but it was just the night before that Father had pronounced one of his pronouncements, about gold cars.

            "Hardly ever see a gold car anymore," he had said, pulling at the tuft of hair in his ear. "I was just saying that to Ed this morning. Hardly ever see a gold car anymore, and if you do, it's got a woman behind the wheel."

            Father liked to quote whatever he said to Ed.

            Here, however, was proof that Father was wrong, which didn't surprise Lori much. A gold car, with an old man.

            With his feet out on the blacktop, he bounced on the edge of the seat three or four times, until he got enough momentum to lurch out and grab the open door to steady himself.

            Lori watched him through the field of plate glass while she wiped the tables and picked up trays and cups and muffin wrappers that people had left strewn around the dining room.

            They were supposed to put them in the big boxes marked "Thank You," but a lot of folks didn't. Lori was the newest girl, so she got the cleanup job, instead of working behind one of the cash registers with the cute little pictures of food in place of numbers.

            Cleanup was dull but it was fine with Lori, at least for today. Brenda, the morning manager, was in a real mood. The first thing you learned from the other girls, and even the older women, was "Don't do anything to set Brenda off when she's in one of her moods."

            Besides, Lori was happy just to have a job. Since the canning factory had closed, they were barely able to pay the rent and the heat bill from what Mother made at Wal-Mart.

            The old man was thin and stooped, wrinkled red skin pulled tight over the bones of his face. He wore a black baseball cap with a logo Lori didn't recognize. Thin, white hair wisped out from underneath it, like cobwebs that had collected on the cap's black felt while it hung on a hook. His light yellow shirt was buttoned at the neck. Dark blue pants gathered in folds around his pipe-stem waist. His shoes were long and bright brown and had strings tied in big looping bows. 

            Lori wasn't sure why the old man had caught her attention, why she was watching him so closely. Maybe it was because he looked like a grandpa. Allison had a grandpa who took her places and listened to her. That was neat. Not many grown-up men were willing to listen to a girl talk. Lori shrugged. It was probably just because he was more interesting than cleanup duty. She could wipe the tables and watch the old man at the same time, anyway. “Fast food ain’t rocket surgery.” Maybe she would say that to Allison and then quote herself to Father.

            She didn't want to stare at the old man, though. That was rude. Besides, he might stare back. Lori didn't like for people to notice her. But maybe he looked like the grandpa she had never seen, the one who would take her places and listen to her talk, if he hadn’t been killed in the mine. The only picture she had of Grandpa was when he was very young, in a Marine uniform, but he would be old now. Maybe he would drive a gold car. She watched him out of the corner of her eye.

            The old man weaved his way across the parking lot like she'd seen soldiers do in mine fields during the war on TV. His bird-like head moved from side to side, as if he expected to be run down by a “16” at any time. That’s what Father called a 4x4, a “16.” Maybe that's why he went to the wrong door, because he was watching out for “16”s.

            It was simple enough to do. The door was toward the rear of the building, back where the rest rooms were, and he had parked in that end of the lot. It looked like a regular door, until you got up close and could see the sign that said "Exit Only." He tried to pull it open, though, before he saw the sign.

            He stood there for a minute, looking confused, like maybe he thought they weren't open. That was silly to think, of course, on a Friday morning, with a bunch of other cars in the lot.

            Then he saw her inside, wearing her red and gold overseas hat, like those singing sister acts wore in old movies, and the red and gold uniform smock, too. It looked like he knew she was watching him, even though she was trying not to stare.

            He muttered something and looked down at his brown shoes and tried to make a quick turn. He almost lost his balance and started to fall into the bed of ivy and gravel and little spotlights. He reached out, like he was grabbing at an invisible trapeze bar. Somehow he managed to catch it and hang on and right himself. He backtracked down the concrete walk and found his way around the gravel to the two sets of glass doors.

            It took him a while of tugging and pulling to get the doors open. Lori thought maybe she should hurry over there to help him. She actually took a couple of steps, but she knew he was already embarrassed about going to the wrong door. She didn't want to make him feel any worse. She stopped and let him pull until he finally wedged himself through the opening. He pushed his cap back a little and darted a quick glance at her, then fixed his gaze on the wood and metal sculpture on the wall above the plastic booths. It showed two women and a pig driving an open, old car past a barn.

            "Been a long time since I've been out," he said.

            Lori wasn't sure he was talking to her, but there was no one else on that side of the restaurant.

            "Forgot about that door bein' just for leavin'."

            She thought she should say something, but didn't know what, so she just stood and looked at her pink and white running shoes. Finally he'd seen enough of the sculpture on the wall and went around to the counter.

            "May I help you?"

            Lori could hear it even around the corner. It was Kim's voice, bright and cheery and false. Kim was perfect behind the counter. You could tell her your mother had just died and she'd perkily inquire if you wanted fries.

            "You got them chili dogs, don't you?"

            "Yes..."

            Kim's voice was a little more tentative now. They had chili dogs, but...

            "Good. I'll have me one of them chili dogs, and a side salad, and a hot tea. And I get ten percent off, don't I?"

            "Well...uh...we have chili dogs...but it's not lunch time yet. It's still breakfast. We can't serve chili dogs until 10:30."

            Lori slipped around the corner, still carrying a stack of brown, plastic trays. The old man looked confused. Kim was pointing at the clock on the wall above the fryer.

            "You mean, you've got 'em, but I can't have one?"

            "Well..." Kim looked exasperated. "It's not that you can't have one. You can have one at 10:30. That's when we start lunch."

            Just then Brenda lurched into view from behind the warming slots where the ready sandwiches lived between cooking and eating. Her face was red and her hair was spreading out in what was known behind her back as "the mood special."

            "What's wrong, Kim?"

            Brenda didn't like for things to be wrong.

            "Uh, this man wants a chili dog, and I'm trying to explain..."

            "She says you have chili dogs..." the old man began.

            Brenda pointed at the clock.

            "No chili dogs until 10:30. That's when we start lunch."

            "No chili..."

            "No chili dogs until that clock says 10:30, Sir!"

            Brenda was almost shouting now, in her manager's voice, the one that said whatever was wrong, it wasn't her fault.

            The old man ducked his head and shoved his hands down into the pockets of his ballooning pants. It made him look like that famous clown with the sad face. Aunt Edna had a little statue of him on her coffee table.

            "I...been a long time since I've been out...That's why I went to the wrong door...I thought there was a discount..."

            He seemed to be muttering to no one in particular. Brenda's mouth turned down in a disgusted scowl.

            "No chili dogs until that clock says 10:30," she declared again.

            The old man turned away from the counter and started shuffling toward the doors.

            He started to get wavy in front of Lori, and she realized she was crying. She didn't know whether she was crying for him or for the grandfather she had never even seen. Maybe I'm crying for myself, she thought, because she already knew what she was going to do.

            "And I really need the job, too..." she muttered.

            She dropped her stack of trays on top of one of the big trash boxes. She stepped in front of the man. She reached out and gripped his thin arms.

            "Wait," she whispered. "It'll be okay."

            She turned him back around to face Kim and Brenda. Then she went behind the counter and pulled herself up onto the shake machine with a move she had learned in gymnastics class, back when Father was working and she was taking lessons. She put her finger on the long clock hand and pushed it down to the bottom of the circle.

            "Ask him if he wants fries with his chili dog, Kim," she said.

 

FOND FAREWELL [T, 4-9-24]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—FOND FAREWELL [T, 4-9-24]

 

Well, it finally happened. I’m out of words, ideas, stories, energy. I suppose I could keep on writing if I were out of just one or two of those, but all of them together…that’s too much.

I thought I was out of writing possibilities at my birthday, Feb. 4. But I had a few more ideas, especially since Lent and Easter were on the way. But Easter is over; resurrection is here. Now seems to be a good time to say farewell.

I’ve said two or three times in the past that it was time for me to stop writing, that I was replete with depletion, but it didn’t stick. Some event or idea or memory would come along, and it just seemed right to share it.

Now the only events in my life are cups of coffee. Each one is precious to me, but provides nothing unique to share. My ideas and memories… Nothing new there. I’ve written about all of them, many times.

And energy? Just a shimmering recollection. I wouldn’t even have those cups of coffee if I didn’t make them strong enough so that they can walk from the kitchen to my sofa by themselves.

So now, you’ll just have to go elsewhere to hear shopworn stories, and irrelevant ideas, and memories of times so remote that no one today can believe that they were even real.

But sharing those shopworn stories and irrelevant ideas and remote memories has been so meaningful to me in my years of winter, and I thank you for reading them.

It would be reasonable, of course, for you to say, “Why Christ in Winter? Yes, it’s clear that you’ve been writing in the winter of your years, but why Christ in the column title? You’ve never said much about Christ.”

 Well, I’ve never said much about Jesus--even though I have a great interest in Jesus--but every searching and wondering and remembering and rejoicing word has been about Christ, for “Christ is God’s eternal answer to the world’s eternal why.”

Now, deep in winter,

fondly, farewell.

Grace and peace,

John Robert McFarland

 

7 STANZAS AT EASTER [Sun, 3-31-24]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter--

7 STANZAS AT EASTER [Sun, 3-31-24]

[A Holy Week contention with John Updike]

           

MONDAY [1]

No, there need be no body

            TUESDAY [2]

Escaping the grave

Rising cinematically into the sky

            WEDNESDAY [3]

Before we can know

The resurrection

The daily presence of the Christ

MAUNDY THURSDAY [4]

Some call it Tenebrae

This celebration of bread and wine

Broken and sipped in darkness

I’ll sing, “This little light ‘o mine”

GOOD FRIDAY [5]

Were you there?

Does anyone care?

Is it just a song?

Listen to the answers

Of the 14 questions from the cross

            HOLY SATURDAY [6[

What does a Messiah do on the day between

Crucifixion and resurrection? He goes to hell

To preach there the same good news

Lived out upon the dusty roads of Galilee

That no one perish eternally

Without the chance to choose The Way

            EASTER DAY [7]

Christ is risen! Christ is risen, indeed!

So we greet the morn and one another

Sin, original and not, still with us

What difference where the body lies?

We are souls that have bodies

Not bodies that need another chance

He lives! He lives!

 

John Robert McFarland

You can find Updike’s poem, “7 Stanzas at Easter,” online.

…

 

 

BEING REASSEMBLED [W, 3-27-24]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—BEING REASSEMBLED [W, 3-27-24]

 

I loved to hear Max White give the pastoral prayer in Sunday morning worship. He always started with, “O God, bless those of us assembled here…” 

I knew that he was asking a blessing upon the congregation, the corporate body, we disparate individuals who had come together for this special time together. I rejoiced in that.

I heard his prayer as well, though, as a request for reassembly for those whose parts had been scattered all over by the forces of the world. We came to church to be put together again, to have our brokenness made whole. “Bless those of us being assembled here…”

Max White was a blessing to me. In his retirement, he was the part-time minister of visitation at Wesley UMC in Charleston, IL for twenty years.

He and Ruth moved to our town when he retired after 40 years as a preacher. Ruth came to see me shortly thereafter. “This church is too big for you to handle by yourself,” she said. “You should hire Max to be a part-time parish visitor. He’s great with old people.” “I’d love to hire Max,” I told her, “but we don’t have enough money.” “How much to you need?” she asked.

Apparently she had, as the old saying goes, married Max for love but not for lunch.

So, I talked to some folks and found enough money to hire Max. I figured it was easier than doing marriage counseling.

So, every few weeks, when our associate minister or campus minister wasn’t helping to lead Sunday morning worship, I’d include Max as the pastoral liturgist for the day, complementing the lay liturgist. The lay liturgist’s primary duty was scripture reading and the pastoral liturgist’s primary duty was the pastoral prayer.

When Max prayed, “Bless those of us assembled here…” he was asking for help for each of us in being put back together.

As we age, our bodies become disassembled. It’s called senescence. It’s not the number of years that causes old-age problems. It’s the disassembly that happens in our cells over the years. Every time cells divide, there is a chance that something will go wrong, that they won’t come back together in the same way. The longer we live, the more opportunities there are for disassembly of those cells.

The same is true with disassembly [senescence], of the mind. Which is why we worship, not only when we are assembled with others in a church, but when we pray.  We need reassembly. In taking our lives to God in prayer, we are being assembled, put back together.

John Robert McFarland

LENT AS SPIRITUALLY RELIGIOUS [PALM SUN, 3-24-24]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—LENT AS SPIRITUALLY RELIGIOUS [PALM SUN, 3-24-24]

 

According to a Pew research study, about 10% of Americans are religious but not spiritual. They like religious stuff, but not God stuff. They like chanting liturgies and putting water on babies. They like wearing yarmulkas and crosses and hijabs and turbans. They enjoy religious music. They like kneeling in the right way at the right times.

But they don’t care about prayer and heaven and hell and eternal life and that soul stuff. They don’t need a relationship with God to enjoy talk and activities about God. They are in the religion, but not of the religion. Who needs a “higher power?” Well, alcoholics, but that’s different.

This, of course, is the opposite of the tiresome, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” which is mostly what people use to excuse their absence from church or synagogue or temple. Until they want said venues for a wedding or funeral. Free, of course.

Despite my snarkiness, I understand why people want to be spiritual without being religious, and also why they want to be religious without being spiritual. I suspect most people live in one or the other of those categories a lot of the time, often without knowing it.

I see this especially in retired clergy colleagues. Some drop out of the church altogether. They’ve handled holy things too long. They’ve learned that most Christians aren’t. They wonder why they ever bothered with being religious. Or being spiritual.

Others, of the conservative or evangelical variety, become Episcopalians, or even Catholics. They’ve trusted in feelings, getting worked up, and those feelings wane with overuse. Now they’re tired. Now they feel more comfortable if they hold a prayer book that is responsible for producing the prayers and words and auras.

Psychologists tell us that as we age, we become more like ourselves. Which is why old people are often described as “set in our ways.” As I age, I find myself being the same as I have always been spiritually, but less religious. By that, I mean that I have always known the Presence of God in the same way that I do now, but I am less reliant upon the traditional forms for acknowledging that Presence.

I’m a bit reluctant to say that, because it reminds me of the old man giving his testimony in church and saying, “When I was just a boy, the Lord filled my cup to the brim, and He hasn’t taken a drop out or put a drop in since then.” Some boy in the pews said, “It must have wiggletails in it by now, then.”

I have become less religious, meaning I don’t use the tokens of religion as much as I used to. I still like them—the liturgies and books and candles—but I feel no loss without them. God is always present, in all of life, not just in churchly appurtenances.

Lent is the perfect time for those who are religious without being spiritual; there is a lot of outward stuff to do for Lent—forehead ashes, giving something up, lighting candles, etc. And Lent is the perfect time for those who are spiritual without being religious; there is a lot of inward stuff to do that does not depend upon ashes or candles.

I suspect that the right blend for old age is both—being religious without being spiritual, and being religious without being spiritual.

John Robert McFarland

 

GIVING UP OMISSIONS [R, 3-21-24]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—GIVING UP OMISSIONS [R, 3-21-24]

 

It’s a bit late to decide to give up something for Lent, but I have decided to give up omissions. If that sounds oxymoronic, well, maybe it is, but…

About 35 years ago, I preached the memorial service at the annual conference of The Central IL Conference of the UMC, honoring the preachers and spouses who had died in the previous year. Present were about a thousand people—preachers and lay members of the conference and family members and friends of those we honored. Each time I have remembered that sermon, for lo, those many years, my heart has sunk a little.

Not that it was a bad sermon. In fact, it was pretty good. When I went to the audio desk to buy a copy, the company that was recording the various services told me, “Oh, you get a free copy. We’ve sold more copies of your sermon than everything else put together.” That pleased me, but, still I remembered… my omissions. [1]

I preached about how the mission of the church is to tell the story of God, put simply, the story “…of Jesus and his love.”

That is a line from “I Love to Tell the Story,” by Katherine Hankey. [2]

We ended the service by singing it. I thought its last verse was the perfect capstone for a sermon/service honoring those who had spent their lives telling the story and had now gone on to their reward: “I love to tell the story, for those who know it best, seem hungering and thirsting, to hear it like the rest. And when in scenes of glory, I sing the new, new song, ‘twill be the old, old story, that I have loved so long.”

I told stories in that sermon, of course, of how the church tells that story “of Jesus and his love.” By that time, I had been preaching for almost 30 years. I was no longer using a manuscript or outline to preach. I had never written a manuscript for a sermon, except in the days of Civil Rights and Viet Nam, when I wanted to prove to people who wanted to misquote me exactly what I had said. And you don’t need a written outline if you have a narrative outline in your head. A narrative outline flows naturally from one part of the story to the next. And it is valuable to see the faces of those in the congregation. You get feedback, know when they are getting it and when they aren’t. You can’t do that if you’re looking down at a manuscript or outline.

So all I had on the pulpit was the bulletin for that service. Early in the sermon, my eye fell on the bulletin and I saw there the list of the names of those we were honoring. We were honoring them because they had told the story. So after each of my stories of how the church tells the story, I picked out a couple of the names and said, “That is what Tom Brown and Clarence Young did, told the story.”

The problem was, it was spontaneous. I was picking out names at random, names I recognized. I lost my place. I had not started soon enough, had not called out enough names at each segue in the sermon. It was over, and I had omitted some of the names.

No one assumed that the honorees had to be named in the sermon, of course. In fact, I think in the 40 years I listened to memorial sermons at annual conference, I was the only preacher who included the names of the deceased in the sermon itself. They were honored earlier in the service when each name was called and a single bell note was sounded for each. It’s a solemn and moving moment. But I had omitted some who deserved as much as those I included…

I know that I am probably the only person left who even remembers that. So I am giving it up for Lent, along with the other omissions I have committed [can you commit an omission?] through the years.

The important point is that I did honor my fellow tellers of the story in that sermon. I honored them all by preaching as best I could. That’s my Lenten discipline—to remember and appreciate the ways I have included my fellow tellers and livers of the story, rather than the ways I have omitted them

John Robert McFarland

[1] This was before Apple. Cassettes were still the cutting edge of recording.]

2] Music by Wm. G. Fischer

REVERSE ALMS JUSTIFICATION [M. 3-18-24]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—REVERSE ALMS JUSTIFICATION [M. 3-18-24]

 

I think another necessary Lenten discipline—one that I not usually listed by the ecclesial calendar makers—is accepting alms, not just giving them.

Justice is restored when there is equality between giver and receiver. It’s like the old auto mechanics who talked about “justifying” an engine. It was justified, ran correctly, when all its parts were working together in the correct ways. There is no alms justice when giving and receiving are out of balance.

One of the kindest things people have done for me in my old age is to accept alms from me. Not just money or stuff, but books, time, advice… You are accepting from me right now by reading what I am thinking.

After a lifetime of giving, in my old age there is little I can give, and even less that people want to receive from me. It is almost a work of supererogation for someone to accept something from my hand, or brain.

When someone does accept something from me—including reading what I write—that reminds me of who I am, reminds me of my calling, reminds me of who called me.

I am restored to wholeness not just by receiving the help that people give to me in my old age, but by being allowed to give help to others. You give me a gift by accepting my gift.

Individual personalities make a difference of course. There are old people who only want others to do for them. There are others who don’t want to accept any help at all. [They are usually the ones who cause the most trouble!]

This is true throughout life, regardless of age. Many folks can’t accept. They don’t want to be beholden. Others can’t give; they feel the world owes them an easy life.

If you are a giver, this Lent, practice receiving. If you’re a taker, this Lent, practice giving.

Lent is the time for working on the discipline at which you are least able. That way your personal life is justified. You are made whole.

John Robert McFarland