Providing a Way Out

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

I gave a second benediction. I think it is the only time I have given a second benediction at a graveside, but the first one didn’t work. I held my hand really high. I wanted it to look more like a sign of danger than one of peace. I wanted it to say, “Don’t mess with this old bald white-bearded preacher.”

The young man whose body lay in the coffin had come to worship for the first and only time at the church where I was serving an interim. That’s the one where the bishop removed the pastor for being a sexual predator. Like most predators, though, he had covered his tracks well and made the congregation emotionally dependent on him. When the bishop came to explain, the people threw hymn books at him and chanted, “We want our preacher.” The District Superintendent called me and said, “We think this would be a good place for you to do your thing before we appoint another pastor on a regular basis.” {I told a bit more about this in the Christ In Winter for 7-16-13.}

It was about the fourth Sunday of this interim when the young man came to church. He looked to be about twenty years old. He had just moved to town to take a job. No one knew him, but everyone was friendly and welcoming. They dragged him over to me so we could meet. It had to be a quick meeting, though, because Helen and I had to leave immediately after worship to drive three hundred miles to put my father into a nursing home. Again. But that’s a different story. [1]

When we returned, we learned that the young man had gone back to his apartment after church and hanged himself. The job was not complete, though. He was in a coma in the hospital.

The hospital waiting room was full of angry people, from his home town, about 100 miles away. I learned why he felt he needed to commit suicide. He was married and had a child. He also had several girlfriends, at least one of whom was pregnant. His parents were divorced and remarried and openly expressed hate for one another and the new spouses of their ex-spouses. It was not a happy scene.

I returned to that scene day after day. There were fewer people there each day. Finally he died.

No one in his home town had a church or a pastor, so I drove a hundred miles to do his funeral service, at the funeral home. There were a lot of angry people there, none of whom wore a dress or a tie. There were a lot of t-shirts advertising Buds and Marlboros. It was a short service, no more than 20 minutes, but some mourners could not go that long without a cigarette. One by one they got up, went out to the porch to smoke, and returned. I could see them on the porch from the lectern. One of the pall-bearers wore shorts so low that he could be a plumber.

After I did the committal at the cemetery, a young woman came up to the coffin and placed a ring on it. Another young woman came up and grabbed it and threw it to the ground. This was repeated with two other young women and a rose. People began to mutter and glare at one another. That was when I did the second benediction, the one that said, “Don’t mess with this preacher,” the one that wasn’t in The Book of Worship, the one that said, almost literally, “It’s time to get your sorry behinds out of here.”

They were relieved. The mean old preacher had given them permission to back off. They could say to themselves and one another, “I wouldn’t have let her get away with that, except…”

That’s one of the roles of a pastor, or a parent, or a friend, or a president, giving folks an acceptable way out, away from hate and violence. If no one else is around to do it, it’s okay to give yourself a way out.

John Robert McFarland

jmcfarland1721@charter.net

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where people are Yoopers, a word in the new Merriam-Webster dictionary, and life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

You don’t have to bookmark or favorite the CIW URL to return here. Just Google Christ In Winter and it will show up at the top of the page.

I have also started an author blog, about writing, in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, in late 2014 or early 2015. For some reason it does not appear when Googled, even though it’s a Google blog. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.

Prayer for a Summer Day

O gracious and loving Lord

Thou who hast brought into being

The beer of root

And the cream of ice

Thou that knowest how

When they are melded together

In a mug of frosted mien

With a spoon of generous length

And bowl of genial girth

Art a hallowed step

Albeit small

Toward belief in heaven

Glorify thyself

By providing

Beer of root

And cream of ice

On every summer day

Amen

'SCAPE, BAMPAW, 'SCAPE!

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

“Scape, Bampaw! Scape!”

            It was usually when his mother had slipped into the bathroom for a shower that Joey reached his arms up to me and gave me the order. I’d pick him up, hold him close with my right arm, grab his six-wheeled IV pole with my left hand, and we would escape from the third floor pediatric oncology unit at The University of Iowa Children’s Hospital. When we were past the final doors, he’d muster as much of a smile as he could and whisper, “Red one.”

            We’d roll down the hall to the elevator and ride down to floor two, where the “red one” sat in splendor in a glass case. It was a huge red Christmas ornament with view holes in its sides. Through the holes we could view a marvelous animated winter scene—skiers gliding down a slope, skaters circling round and round on a silver pond, the twinkling lights of a village ready for Christmas, and best of all, a train that circled the whole scene. Joey’s tiny wasted body stiffened each time the train disappeared into the tunnel in the side of the mountain, relaxed each time its hopeful light appeared at the other end.

            Each time we ‘scaped, we went to the red one, like pilgrims to Lourdes or Mecca, and we watched the skiers and skaters and the little train, the brave little train that had to risk the darkness of the tunnel time after time, until our eyes and arms grew weary. Then we’d ‘scape even farther.

            Sometimes we’d just cruise the halls, picking up chicks. I mean, that boy was the ultimate chick magnet. Young ones, old ones, it made no difference. Not one of them could pass him by. I didn’t understand why he got all the attention and I got none. We were both bald, after all.

            Other times we’d go to the nursery and look at the babies. He loved babies more than babes. He took the babes for granted. They were just hindrances in the hallway. But the babies were a mystery. He would stare at them, trying to figure them out, until my arms were breaking. [1]

            On our way down the hall he would point out objects of interest—“Guys!” and “Wowers!” [flowers]. Then we’d ‘scape to the library on the ninth floor. He was too weak and tired and haggard to play with the games or stuffed animals, but he’d sit on my lap and we’d read the few books he didn’t have personal copies of in his room.

It was usually there that Nicole Alcorn or one of his other nurses would find us and give him a swig of medicine or attach a new bag to his IV pole. We were not supposed to leave his unit without signing out, telling where we would be, but I didn’t know that. We’d just ‘scape, and the ever-gracious Nicole would track us down and not say a word about our mysterious AWOL status.

Perhaps she had read the story about Jesus in his home town, when they tried to throw him into the abyss, and realized that sometimes a person just needs to ‘scape for a while. [Luke 4:30] It wasn’t that Jesus was afraid. He knew his life would be forfeit. But that bluff in Nazareth that day just wasn’t the right time or place. So he ‘scaped.

Joey ‘scaped, too, not just to go to see the red one with its brave little train. He had more living and loving to do, just as Jesus had more living and loving, teaching and healing, to do, before the place was Golgotha and the time was on that Friday we now call Good.

            Joey is now Joe, a tall handsome chick magnet instead of a short bald one, a Quiz Bowl champion, a Ping-Pong champion, a five-instrument musician, an archer, a soccer forward, with a driving permit in hand.

            Today Joe has his annual checkup. We trust and pray that he will ‘scape again.

Still, soon or late, the time for ‘scaping will be over for all of us, even Joe. Or will it? Perhaps death itself is the ultimate ‘scape. When that time comes for me, I hope Joe is there, so that he can whisper, “Scape, Bampaw. Scape.”

John Robert McFarland

jmcfarland1721@charter.net

1] About age four, he told his mother, “They would never give me a baby, even though I asked for one very politely.”

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where people are Yoopers, a word in the new Merriam-Webster dictionary, and life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

You don’t have to bookmark or favorite the CIW URL to return here. Just Google Christ In Winter and it will show up at the top of the page.

I have also started an author blog, about writing, in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, in late 2014 or early 2015. For some reason it does not appear when Googled, even though it’s a Google blog. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.

The End of the Line-a poem

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

When you write a poem it

is important to

end each line with a

strong word, one that

carries with authority into

the next line. Otherwise it

will be a weak and

wobbly effort that is not

helpful to anyone but

stupid people and snails and

such, so be strong when

you come to

the end of the line

John Robert McFarland

jmcfarland1721@charter.net

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! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

You don’t have to bookmark or favorite the CIW URL to return here. Just Google Christ In Winter and it will show up at the top of the page.

I have also started an author blog, about writing, in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, in late 2014 or early 2015. For some reason it does not appear when Googled, even though it’s a Google blog. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.

EXPECTING THE RIGHT STUFF

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

Our granddaughter has decided where she is going to college. To do it she had to leaf through a lot of college catalogs. Well, not exactly “leaf through.”

I love college catalogs. I remember my first college catalog better than I remember my first girlfriend.

I was standing beside an old gray Chevy, in a gravel parking lot, outside Oak Grove General Baptist Church, in the open country, on a humid summer day, waiting for my little sister, to drive her home from Vacation Bible School. It was the summer before my senior year in high school.

           

The windows on the car beside mine were down. On the front seat was the catalog—five by seven, plain white, with a round red seal in restrained red, and underneath, in simple but elegant type, Indiana University. I reached through that car’s window and pulled out the catalog.

As I looked through it, I knew my life had changed forever. I saw there a world where no one in my family had even visited, but I knew it was a world where I wanted to live. I was no longer a simple country boy. I was going to college. One of the greatest sacrifices I ever made was putting that catalog back into that car when VBS was over.

The idea of me going to college made no sense. My father was blind. We were on welfare. There were three other children. No one on either side of the family had ever gone to college. I was already working part-time to help support my family. But when Iva Jane McCrary, our high school Home Economics teacher, asked me what I would do after high school, I said, “I’m going to IU.”

Iva Jane was a large and forbidding woman. In addition to Home Ec, she taught biology to the girls. Because of scheduling problems, I had been in her biology class, one of two misplaced boys. She looked at me strangely and finally said, “Yes, I suppose you are college material.”

Suddenly I was not sure about that catalog. Iva Jane had given me her imprimatur, said that I was college material, more or less, but I had never before considered that I was not. Sure, I knew that I did not have the right clothes or the right money to go to college, but I had not considered that I might not have the right stuff.

I had been class president for three years. I was editor of the school newspaper. Only James Burch got better grades than I. But maybe I wasn’t college material. Ann Turner, the doctor’s daughter, was going to IU. Bob Nation, who was going to be a doctor, went there. So did Shirley Black, the cheerleader, whose father had his own business. Was college for the likes of me?

When I heard that the factory in the next town was hiring, I applied, set the record on their entrance test, [which James Burch later broke], and quit high school to go to work.

My forewoman said that I was their best adjustor of electrical relays and got me a date with her very attractive daughter, but I think she knew my heart wasn’t in the factory. They didn’t have a catalog.

I did go to college. I went to graduate school. I got a doctorate. Altogether, I did ten years of higher education. All the way, though, Iva Jane’s grudging acceptance of me as “college material” pulled sideways on me, trying to get me to put shaky answers on the page.

I think one of the best things I did as a minister was expecting people to be better than they thought they were. I said, in any way I could, “Yes, you are Christian material.” People who had little faith in themselves learned to have great faith in God, because their pastor expected it.

I still love college catalogs. I regret, though, that they are electronic instead of paper. It is unlikely that some poor girl or boy will see a CD on the seat of a car with open windows and pull it out and stick it into the computer that just happens to be sitting there in that gravel parking lot on a humid summer’s day.

John Robert McFarland

jmcfarland1721@charter.net

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where people are Yoopers, a word in the new Merriam-Webster dictionary, and life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

You don’t have to bookmark or favorite the CIW URL to return here. Just Google Christ In Winter and it will show up at the top of the page.

I have also started an author blog, about writing, in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, in late 2014 or early 2015. For some reason it does not appear when Googled, even though it’s a Google blog. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.