Iron Mountain ski jump

Iron Mountain ski jump

Sunday, October 26, 2014

HOPE IN DARKNESS [poem]

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

In the darkness of this morning hour
my vision of the day
is filled with hope.
Yet I know that with the dawn
comes worry,
aches of body, mind, and soul,
concerns for others,
and for my own slowly slipping
footing in this world.
Evil hides in night time, true,
but it brazens forth in daylight,
swinging the sword of power
with lies and swagger,
chanting holy verses as it strides.
Do not despair because of darkness.
In the darkness before daylight
there is hope.  

John Robert McFarland

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. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.



Thursday, October 23, 2014

COUNT DOWN-a poem

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

Life is not lived forward
Not really. It is lived backward
counting down

The most famous count-down
was from your mother
who gave you to the count of three
or else

We shared a whole new world
by counting down
with the astronauts
to blast off

We count down to children
and grand-children
I counted down to retirement’
for four and one-half years

Of all the species
only humans
have brains that can imagine
the future, counting down

I have one more count-down
to blast off
It started the day I was born
But I do not know the number
from which it began…


John Robert McFarland

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 early 2015. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/


I tweet as yooper1721.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

FOOTBALL PERFECTION

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

As I watched the Florida State-Notre Dame football game last night, I thought of all the problems FSU has had with star quarterback, Jamies Winston [charges of shoplifting, rape, and public obscenity] and of FSU’s history of such players. That sort of thing didn’t happen under Coach Darrel Mudra.

He had been fired at Florida State after only two years, for not winning enough games fast enough, even though he won more his second year than his first. Eastern Illinois University was glad to pick him up.

The year before, the EIU panthers had won only one game. In Mudra’s first year, they won the national championship.

His career record was 200-81-4, 70.9 %. He’s in the national football hall of fame. His nickname is “Dr. Victory.” His expertise and reputation were in taking long-time losing programs and turning them into winners. That’s why FSU hired him. Despite all that, FSU gave Mudra only two years to turn their floundering program around.

Bobby Bowden, who succeeded Mudra at FSU, has said that it was Mudra who really turned FSU football around and made it possible for him to win.

Mark Dantonio, the hugely successful coach at Michigan State U, says that there is no secret to football success. “You recruit one good young man at a time. You help them become better persons, academically, socially, relationally. As they become better persons, they become better players.”

It takes more than two years to turn good young men into better young men. It takes even longer to take young men who have never been expected to be good and get them to see that being a good football player is not as important as being a good person.

It takes a long time to turn anyone into a good person.

Darrel Mudra attended worship services at my church when he coached at EIU. I was a long distance runner in those days and often used the mile-long woodchip trail around the university athletic fields, including the football practice field. Sometimes Coach Mudra would be standing under a tree, watching practice from a distance, as I ran. I’d stop and chat and give him tips, the way people who know just a little about something like to advise folks who know a lot about it.

A number of the football players came to church, too. I asked them about Coach Mudra, who was famous for always coaching from the press box, not on the field. “He hardly ever talks to us about football,” they said. “He asks us what we want to do with our lives, what our goals are, who we want to be.”

One of the questions Methodist preachers are asked as they apply for ordination is: Do you expect to be made perfect in this life? It’s from John Wesley’s “Doctrine of Christian Perfection.” We are not expected to be perfect in knowledge or ability, but we are expected become perfect in love, to be good people.

Wesley said that perfection in love is the work of a lifetime, but it is what God expects of us, not just to be good players, but to be good persons.

On this Sunday morning, I give thanks for the coaches who help us become better persons, and trust that in the process we shall become better players.

John Robert McFarland

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.]


I tweet, occasionally, as yooper1721.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Running Away to Home

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

The knock on the back door of the parsonage. Helen answered. An awkward and somewhat embarrassed couple stood there. They wanted to see the preacher. I got up off the sofa, reluctantly, shoeless, and went to the door. As soon as Helen was out of ear-shot, they announced that they wanted to get married, and needed to do it quickly.

Great. Another run-away couple wanting to get married. They weren’t the first, and they wouldn’t be the last. I told them to walk over to the side door of the church building while I got my shoes on. They said they would rather wait behind the house, where they could not be seen from the street.

After I got my shoes on, they almost ran from parsonage to church building. I was hard-pressed to keep up with them. Once in my office, they explained that they had just that morning decided to get married and needed to do it before their families found out.

I said I could not marry them without a marriage license. The woman produced one out of her purse. I asked why they had a license if they had just decided that day to get married, since our state had a three day waiting period. They did not hesitate to say that had given the clerk an extra twenty dollars to backdate the license by three days. I wasn’t surprised. That was the way business was done in our county.

“Why are your families opposed to your marriage?” I asked.

“Our kids are just selfish,” they replied. “All they think about is money. They are worried about inheritance. But we’re in love.”

I was only twenty-five, and anyone over forty looked about the same to me, so I probably overestimated their age at sixty. They may well have been only fifty or so. They were nicely dressed, polite, well-spoken… and scared.

“They’re out looking for us right now, the kids are,” they said. “We’ve got to get married before they find us. If you can’t do it, we’ve got to get out of here quick and find somebody who will.”

I didn’t have much time to decide how to handle this. I’d had similar requests before, but they came from teen-agers. I felt comfortable dealing with them. But these were people the age of my parents. Surely they were old enough to know what they were doing and to have the right to marry. Didn’t love come ahead of inheritance? What right did their selfish children have to keep them apart?

Also, I’ve always had trouble saying “no,” especially to people on the run. I would have been great as an underground railroad operator.

So I got Helen to come over to witness, along with the part-time janitor, who just happened to be in the building, and stood them up in the chancel and married them. They hurried off, and I never saw them again.

I won’t detail all the problems with this event, and the way I handled it. You can figure those out easily enough. Remember, though, that you are not twenty-five and dealing with people the age of your parents. So I make no apologies. I’m sure I’d do it again, even though I’m older and wiser now.

I’m pro-marriage. Not everyone should marry, not everyone can marry, not everyone should stay married, but if you want to marry, love should come before law. Laws, and in-laws, should help people marry the one they love, not keep them from doing so.

If you want to get married, just go knock on the back door of the parsonage. Thankfully, though, I don’t live there anymore.

John Robert McFarland

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.]

I tweet as yooper1721.