The Oral Tradition

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter For the Years of Winter…

Helen says that if women talked to one another the way men do, there would be much wailing and scratching with claws.

Male friends greet one another with sobriquets of affection, such as “You’re even uglier than the last time I saw you.” Try that on a woman friend and see what happens. “Oh, and your feet smell, too.”

The late Dave Goodell and I were at a conference at our theological alma mater [1] some years back. The chapel organist, a pretty and sincere young woman, ended up seated at the end of our table, probably because it was the only place left when she arrived, with Dave on her right hand and me on her left. With no one else to talk to, she did her best. She asked Dave about the church he pastored. I explained that he had retired but had not yet informed the church. She asked me about the sales of my book. Dave explained that “two” should not be decried because it was twice as many as my last book. This went on for some time, until she finally threw her fork down in exasperation and said, “Whenever I ask one of you a question, the other one answers!”

Well, of course. The only thing better than saying rude things to a friend is to say them in front of an audience.

I once was part of a theological discussion group in a foreign land, the North IL Conference of The United Methodist Church, one of the stops in our odyssey of following the grandchildren. My own land was the Central IL Conference, the border of which was thirty miles south of where we lived. Charles Sensel, a fellow pastor who had served his sentence in Central IL but had now retired to North IL, was also in the group.

Charles is one of those good-hearted people who, despite being a leading Bonhoeffer scholar, [2] or perhaps because of it, dresses differently, just enough that you’re not sure if it’s intentional or accidental. As Bill Browning said one morning when Charles arrived at a meeting of SADMOB [3], “His wife’s letting him dress himself again.”

As foreigners do, Charles and I always huddled together in the discussion group, speaking of persons and events from our past that no one else in the group shared. We also said affectionate things to each other, like “Have you been arrested for malpractice yet?” and “The Salvation Army rejected your hat again, didn’t they?”

A young woman pastor always sat with us, even though she did not share our memories or receive any of our affectionate remarks. “I just love to hear you old guys talk to each other,” she said. “You’ve been through it all, and you’ve survived.”

That’s always been one of the ways young people learn, through the oral tradition, the ways of the clan, the stories of the faith, “overhearing the Gospel.” I suspect, though, that if Rev. Sensel and Rev. McFarland had told Pastor Nancy [note how we distinguish generations by forms of titles] that she should do her ministry in this way, or her preaching in that, she would not have been interested. In fact, she would have resented it, just the way we resented it when we were young and older people tried to force on us ways and ideas that had been precious and valuable to them but were no longer relevant.

We need to tell our stories, but we need to let young people listen to us, not require them to.

Oh, and Sheila, please don’t let Charles out of that house in that hat.

JRMcF

1] We graduated from Garrett Theological Seminary. It later united with Evangelical Theological Seminary and became Garrett-Evangelical. It is located at Northwestern U, in Evanston, IL.

2] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, German theologian, a leading foe of the Nazis, a participant in the Abwehr’s plot to assassinate Hitler, who was hanged in prison at the age of 39, 23 days before the Nazi surrender. The established church embraced Nazism, and Bonhoeffer was the first and almost only voice for church resistance to Hitler and the Nazis, founding The Confessing Church as a means of resistance.

3] SADMOB = Senior And Directing Ministers Of Bigchurches.


The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!

You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.

{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}

(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)

Yo mama...

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…

I have told you before of Helen’s necklace that reads WWAGD? She says that it’s not always easy to figure out what Jesus would do, but she can see what Aunt Gertrude does, and that’s close enough.

It turns out that in basketball season, the answer to WWAGD? is: “Talk trash.”

Aunt Gertrude loves basketball, especially IU basketball, even though she moved from Greensburg, IN to OH when she married my late Uncle Randall, and has lived there ever since. She now lives with her daughter, my cousin, Kae, and Kae’s husband, Tim. They wanted to go to FL last week for a little R&R. Aunt Gertrude refused to go along until they assured her she could see the IU-PU game and the Greensburg HS team in the state tourney on the computer. The reason WWAGD? works so well is that Aunt Gertrude’s priorities are clear.

Kae is a nurse, but not just any nurse. She’s a super-nurse. She’s the sort of nurse you get to create new departments in medical schools. So for three years, she’s been flying back and forth to the Howard U. School of Medicine in Washington, DC, creating some new program, like a school for surgical nurses, or something like that. [Give me a break. I’ve got about a hundred cousins. I can’t keep up with the details on all of them.]

When IU beat Howard in basketball earlier this year, Aunt Gertrude asked Kae to pass on some trash talk to the folks at Howard. Kae, who is very Scandinavian-looking, said the thought of transmitting the trash talk of an eighty-nine-year-old white Greensburgian Presbyterian lady to black folks in Washington, DC, almost did her in.

Just because you’re old doesn’t mean the devil gives up on you. In fact, sometimes he thinks we’re easier marks because we’re too tired to recognize or fight off his ploys. So WWAGD when the devil comes along and tries to muddy up the clarity of your priorities and get you to cheer for the wrong team? Dunk it in his face and talk a little trash.

“Hey, Devil, I’m going to continue to associate with Jesus, because your maternal parent is so overweight that she ought to attend Weight Watchers… not necessarily every week… or I could be wrong… maybe she’s just big-boned… but if you were a good son you’d at least look into it…” That’ll get him.

JRMcF

I told this story to the great Indiana and Olympics sports writer and Presbyterian layman, Bob Hammel, “retard,” which is how we pronounce “retired” in southern IN, or at least that’s what we tell him, who said it needed to be shared with a wider audience, so make your complaints to him at presbyteriantrashtalk.omg.

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!

You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.

{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}

(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)