TRADING SLEEP FOR DREAMS

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

I got up at 4:30 a.m. that’s not unusual for me. I have to be up for four hours to let my surgically altered semi-colon get through its morning routine before I can leave the house. My body is used to getting up early.

It’s also used to getting some sleep in the 7 and ½ hours I am in bed. That did not happen last night. Oh, maybe as many as 4 hours in those 7 and ½ I was asleep, but maybe not even quite that much.

I did not toss and turn. Even though I know I shall drag all day—and it’s a full day, without much possibility of a nap—I did not resent my sleepless hours in bed.

I wanted the sleep. I need the sleep. But I got something better. It was a grand night for dreaming while awake. Friends now gone and children now grown were my constant companions. Ideas for things to write pushed up in the darkness like crocuses under snow. Images of people I might see and distant notes of music I might hear in days to come danced “on gossamer wings” in my eyes and ears.

Sometimes you just have to trade sleep for dreams.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

And sometimes you are short on time and internet connections, which may be true for me the next four or six days. I try to post here every day, for personal discipline and sanity and enjoyment. Also, I think that if you are kind enough to come by on any day, looking for something new, there should be something new. Feel free to come back by any day; there may be something new, if I have time and internet. If I don’t, I look forward to that time when we can share a few minutes.

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

I used to keep a careful index of all the things I told in this blog so that I would not repeat. That has become unwieldy. Now I just trust to… what’s it called… oh, yes, memory. Sorry about repeats.

I have also started an author blog, about writing and reading, in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, in 2015. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.

THE NO-ASK LIST

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

Helen says she has a “no-ask” list, since there are certain questions to which I always answer “Sure.”

Would you like for me to start the coffee?

Would you like spaghetti for supper?

Do you want a scone with your tea?

Do you want to watch The Big Bang Theory?

Can we take care of Ernie this weekend? [grand-dog]

Pizza?

She saves time just by consulting her list.

God and Helen are a lot alike. God has a no-ask list, too. It works the other way around; God always answers, “Sure.”

Are you with me?

Do you love me?

Even if I don’t understand?

Do you love my enemies, too?

Is it okay to have doubts about You?

Pizza?

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

I used to keep a careful index of all the things I told in this blog so that I would not repeat. That has become unwieldy. Now I just trust to… what’s it called… oh, yes, memory. Sorry about that.

I have also started an author blog, JUST WORDS, about writing, in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, some time this year. Author guru Kristen Lamb says that author blogs are counter-productive, that a blog must be “high concept.” I don’t know what that means, but JUST WORDS is no longer an author blog. It is now high concept. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.

THE NON-EXISTENT CLERGY

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

There was an internet quiz recently designed to tell us what profession we should practice, or should have practiced. Minister was not one of the possibilities.

Rabbi was on the list, but not minister.

They also had poet, song writer, golfer, both football player and coach, meteorologist, stunt man, interior designer, judge, fitness instructor, guitarist, drummer, race car driver, poet, and photographer, all with fewer practitioners than clergy.

If you live in a clergy-saturated world, it never occurs to you how most of the world doesn’t even consider the possibility of your existence.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

I used to keep a careful index of all the things I told in this blog so that I would not repeat. That has become unwieldy. Now I just trust to… what’s it called… oh, yes, memory. Sorry about repeats.

I have also started an author blog, JUST WORDS, about writing and reading. Writing guru Kristen Lamb says author blogs are counter-productive, that blogs must be “high concept.” I don’t know what that means, but consider Just Words as a high concept blog in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, in 2015. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.

I HAVE REACHED PERFECTION

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

My pastor, Geri Hamlen, gave me good news, the way pastors are supposed to do. “You’ve made it,” she said. “You’ve gone on to perfection in this life.”

That’s one of the questions Methodist ministers have to answer before we can be ordained: Do you expect to be made perfect in this life? The perfect answer is “Yes.”

My pickle ball buddies gave me a birthday party. In addition to pie and brownies and cupcakes and root beer, Vicky had taped to the wall bright colored letters that spelled out, “AGED TO PERFECTION.” My pastor is part of that group so she saw the writing on the wall.

I made it. I got to “perfection.”

John Wesley’s Methodist movement has always been about “doing” more than “believing.” Oh, yes, we “believe,” many different things, and argue about which of them are best, but “doing” is what we’re all about. And not just doing in any haphazard old way. We are not called Methodists by chance; we have a method.

Wesley believed that if we worked the method, we would become perfect, not in knowledge or faith or even in doing, but in love. Not in loving actions, since one can always make a mistake in action even while thinking that we are doing good, but in loving intent. Long before the notion was expressed by modern psychology, Wesley believed that attitude follows action. He lived it, too. If we acted in love often enough, we would become perfect in love.

Matthew, in chapter 5, vs 48, records Jesus as saying, “Be perfect, just like your heavenly father is perfect.”

Obviously, that does not mean we are supposed to be like God. That’s called “original sin,” the attempt to replace God with our own selfish selves, thinking that we can be God for others or for ourselves. And God is not perfect by some outside standard of perfection. Whatever God is, that is perfection. God is perfect by being true to the divine identity

So to be perfect as God is perfect means to be perfect in our own identity, human identity, doing forgiveness, making mistakes but forgiving mistakes, those of others and those of ourselves, [1] letting God be God instead of trying to be God ourselves, and being perfect in love, since God is love.

So, despite what the wall proclaimed at my party, maybe it’s not just aging that makes us perfect. Nonetheless, I’m taking those letters from the wall with me so I can show them to John Wesley at that great annual conference in the sky.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

1] The only thing Jesus talked about more than forgiveness was money.

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

I used to keep a careful index of all the things I told in this blog so that I would not repeat. That has become unwieldy. Now I just trust to… what’s it called… oh, yes, memory. Sorry about repeats.

I have also started an author blog, about writing and reading, in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, Author guru Kristen Lamb says author blogs are counter-productive, that a blog should be “high concept.” I don’t know what that means, but consider my “Just Words” blog as “high concept.” VETS is about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, in 2015. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.

The Identity of Pain

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

It’s 14 degrees below zero [F] in the “Place of Winter” this morning, with a strong wind. There is a lot of pain for people who have to be out, or whose homes don’t have adequate heat. It’s a different pain from that of cancer and other ills of the body, but it pulls you into yourself, makes you hunker down, into a prison of cold. That reminded me of something I wrote about pain…

“Now that I have cancer, I’m in a prison of pain. That is also a cell of uniqueness, of feeling, of spirituality. I’m released from thought to walk in the fog and feel its soft and shifting contact. I am a unique person, because the pain I feel is mine alone.”

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

I used to keep a careful index of all the things I told in this blog so that I would not repeat. That has become unwieldy. Now I just trust to… what’s it called… oh, yes, memory. Sorry about repeats.

I have also started an author blog, JUST WORDS, about writing and reading. Writing guru Kristen Lamb says author blogs are counter-productive, that blogs must be “high concept.” I don’t know what that means, but consider Just Words as a high concept blog in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, in 2015. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.

MESSIANIC SILENCE

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

I remember how intrigued I was when I learned that people did not just read the Bible verse by verse but saw lines of meaning that ran through it. I was especially fascinated by “The Messianic Secret” in Mark. Over and over again, Jesus would work miracles and do other stuff that indicated that he was special, so special he was probably even the predicted Messiah of Hebrew scripture and tradition, and he kept telling everybody to keep quiet about it. Why? Why keep quiet? Aren’t you supposed to blare this from the rooftop?

The Gospel reading for this week is Mark’s story of “The Transfiguration,” when Jesus goes up onto the mountain and his disciples see him chatting with Moses and Elijah, the two major characters in Hebrew history.

He’s one of them! Their friend, Jesus, knows the main guys.

It’s impressive when someone you know in turn knows someone important. We have friends who let us eat off plates made by Pete Seeger’s sister. It’s almost like knowing Pete. Or Brian Williams.

When our granddaughter was young she wanted to meet Mark Twain and figured if he were alive I could introduce her to Mark. I knew some important writers, like Bob Hammel and Marcus Borg. So she figured I would know any good writer.

It’s like 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon. I know Bob Hammel, who knows Bob Knight, who knew Phog Allen, who knew James Naismith, the inventor of basketball, who knew Ugla, the cave woman who invented the basket. So if you ask me, I say, “Oh, yes, Ugla, good woman.”

So the disciples of course wanted to go tell everybody what they had seen. “You know, we hang out on the mountain with Elijah and Moses.”

But Jesus said, “No. Keep your mouths shut about this.”

I knew a college professor who had a series of one semester jobs, filling in for faculty members who were on sabbatical. He got a chance for a full-time job at a semi-Christian college in another state, a job for which he was very well qualified academically. When he returned from his interview, he told me that the first thing he had done when he entered the interview room was to “testify to Jesus,” since that was what a Christian was supposed to do. He did not get the job.

I suspect his interviewers did not reject him because they were against testimonies to Jesus, but because Walter did not understand the difference between the time to speak and the time to keep quiet. Why would you hire a teacher who did not understand about teachable moments?

Not everyone is always ready to hear. There is a teachable moment, and maybe it is not now. Even the most important news will be ignored if the hearer is not ready. Sometimes the proper testimony is silence.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

I used to keep a careful index of all the things I told in this blog so that I would not repeat. That has become unwieldy. Now I just trust to… what’s it called… oh, yes, memory. Sorry about repeats.

I have also started an author blog, JUST WORDS, about writing and reading. Writing guru Kristen Lamb says author blogs are counter-productive, that blogs must be “high concept.” I don’t know what that means, but consider Just Words as a high concept blog in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, in 2015. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.

Adios, Mi Corazon-RIP, G.L. Story

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

I was in the car when I got the word from Judith Unger that G.L. Story had died. A Chad Mitchell Trio album was playing, as always after Helen has been in the car. The next words I heard after “I just learned that G.L. died last night” were “I don’t look much like a lover…” Mike Kobluk was singing the beautiful Adios, Mi Corazon.

The one thing you need to know about Geoffrey L. Story is this: he was a lover. That will sound strange in this time and culture. G.L. did not fit the image of what we call a lover.

G.L. was not physically imposing. He did not have a big personality. He did not fill up a room when he entered it, but was quite able to sit in a corner and not be noticed. He was not an exuberant professor, nor an oft-published scholar. He was a quiet, well-mannered, farm boy from Beauregard, Alabama, which he pronounced as Borregard.

After Birmingham-Southern College, he spent almost his whole life in Illinois, as a graduate student at Garrett Theological Seminary and Northwestern University, and as a Religion professor at Illinois Wesleyan University.

But this is the one thing you need to know about G.L. Story: he was a lover.

He loved his children and grandchildren. He loved his friends and colleagues. He loved learning and scholarship. He loved The New Testament. He loved mochas at Barnes & Noble. He loved books and movies. Most of all, he loved his wife. For 61 years.

Helen and I visited G.L. and Bettie in the spring of 2014. They asked us to stay for supper. Their health was not good, and we did not want to put extra pressure on them, but their lovely and beloved helper, Kay Lynn, had left a jello salad for them, and they had some leftovers, and Helen and Bettie bustled around in the kitchen, in that special way that older ladies bustle, and put a delightful meal on the table, while I helped G.L. with his walker and oxygen cord as we maneuvered our way to the dining room. Bettie was the last to arrive at the table. Before she got seated, G.L. looked up at her and, I think with no awareness that anyone else was even present, said to her, with total adoration, “I love you so much.” She smiled that little smile and said, “I know you do.’

It never occurred to us then, I think to anybody, that G.L. would ever have to get along without Bettie, that she would die first. That’s what happened, though. G.L. continued to be his kind, loving self, but he didn’t have much reason to go on.

G.L. did not set the world on fire, but he tended so well the fire around which his wife and family and friends gathered for warmth against the uncaring of the world. If there is a life to come, the one thing you need to know about G.L.’s place in it is this: G.L. will be there as a lover.

Adios, mi Corazon…

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], 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.

PASTRIX & PAST TRICKS

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

I’m reading Nadia Bolz-Weber’s PASTRIX. It’s a fascinating book. I recommend it. I think everyone should read it. Unfortunately, it twists my nose way out of joint. I wrote a similar book, THE STRANGE CALLING, on the same subject. It’s just as good, just as well written, just as interesting. [Just sayin’] But Bolz-Weber gets lots of accolades for her book, and hardly anyone has ever heard of mine.

It’s really quite sad that someone my age isn’t over that sort of pettiness by now.

Why the difference? Why does Nadia get all the attention and I get none? Because I have lived a happy life and she’s had a miserable one. Also, she has tattoos.

Nadia Bolz-Weber is the founder and pastor of the ELCA House for all Sinners and Saints in Denver, the Lutheran Anne Lamott, except she grew up in a fundamentalist home and Lamott grew up churchless and faithless. They both lived lives of booze and drugs and promiscuity and misery, what conservative evangelicals call “building a testimony,” and I’m really jealous, because now they write books about how they have finally gotten some faith, humbly, to be sure, and everybody says, “How nice. How interesting. Let’s buy their books and give them lots of money and praise.”

Except me. I say “How about me?” and everybody says, “Your story isn’t interesting. Nice family. Great wife and children and grandchildren. No addictions. Great friends. What’s your problem?”

Well, my problem is I’ve got no problem! 

Yes, I grew up in a family that was very poor, financially and emotionally, with parents who didn’t know very well how to deal with that, but I had great sisters and a great brother, a huge and extremely supportive extended family, friends who always had my back, a tax-supported welfare system that kept us alive and a tax-supported school system that gave me a great education, and a wonderful little open-country church that was the epitome of “Open Doors, Open Minds, Open Hearts.” At pickle ball I make people half my age cry for mercy. I’ve had the same persistently kind and generous wife for 56 years. My daughters are beautiful and my grandchildren are brilliant. My friends never disappoint me or dessert me. [Well, sometimes they dessert me, but it’s with gooseberry pie.]

What’s wrong with that? Well, you can’t get much of a testimony, or a best-selling book, out of it. In terms of testimony, I’ve got nothin’.

So go ahead and read PASTRIX. It’s a great story, beautifully written, excellent theology. [Reader alert: It also has bad words.] And read Lamott. PLAN B, or any of her similar books. Again, great stories, beautiful writing, good theology. Just ignore me; I’m used to it. Or maybe… I can write a book about how I lived this life of pettiness and pathetic envy but overcame them and… Oh, but first I have to do actually overcome… maybe I’ll just get a tattoo…

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

I used to keep a careful index of all the things I told in this blog so that I would not repeat. That has become unwieldy. Now I just trust to… what’s it called… oh, yes, memory. Sorry about repeats.

I have also started an author blog, JUST WORDS, about writing and reading. Writing guru Kristen Lamb says author blogs are counter-productive, that blogs must be “high concept.” I don’t know what that means, but consider JUST WORDS as a high concept blog in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.

THE PAST IS THE PRESENT

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

Pastors don’t have “favorite” church members. That wouldn’t be right. However, we do have members, if we are blessed, who serve as models and mentors and pastors to us. One such of mine was Jane Jenkins.

In response to one of my recent columns, [1], in which I told a story from my childhood, Jane said, “Your past is your present.”

What a neat double-meaning. My past is a gift to others as I tell the stories from that past. But my past is still here, still active, still present.

My past is a gift to me, too. Is that three meanings?

Past is past. But it is also present, in “the eternal now.” [2] Everything that has happened to me in what we call the past is still a part of my life now, my present.

It’s hard to be afraid while you sing. I sing a lot. Not just in the shower, but there, too. One song I sing as I drip off after showering is “Michael row the boat.”

For each “Michael” I insert the name of one of my friends who is now across the river, and for “Milk and honey on the other side,” I sing “Friends are waiting on the other side.”

For example, on days when my high school friends are especially present, I implore Darrel Guimond and Phyllis Graham and Mina Ann Jones and Don Survant and Bob Robling and Donald Gene Taylor to row the boat ashore.

Phyllis, row the boat ashore, alleluia. Darrel, row the boat ashore, alleluia. Jordan River is chilly and wide, alleluia. Friends are waiting on the other side, alleluia. Don Survant, row the boat ashore, alleluia. Donald Gene, row the boat ashore, alleluia. Bob Robling, row the boat ashore, Alleluia!

I shall have no new conversations or adventures with them on this side of the river, and that is sad, but it is a gift from my past to my present to be with them again.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

1] I always wanted to be a human-interest, anecdotal, little-story-telling newspaper columnist. In the e-world, a columnist is a blogger.

2] Maybe that is why no one uses past tense anymore to tell a story but tells everything in the present tense. Probably not; it’s more a style thing. It’s also often confusing.

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

I used to keep a careful index of all the things I told in this blog so that I would not repeat. That has become unwieldy. Now I just trust to… what’s it called… oh, yes, memory. Sorry about repeats.

I have also started an author blog, about writing and reading, in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, in 2015. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.

THE LAST OF THE PIE

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

I am eating the last piece of mincemeat pie this morning, for breakfast. Helen makes mincemeat pies for Christmas, some as gifts for people who love mincemeat, and some for our family, primarily meaning me. She then freezes enough mincemeat to make me a pie for my birthday.

I start each morning, either when I am still lying in bed or when I am on the sofa, in front of the fire, waiting for the coffee and the sunrise, one of which comes much earlier than the other, by counting my blessings. Pie figures prominently in that count.

Daughter Katie brought two kinds of pie for my family birthday party. We usually have ice cream pie when we celebrate a grandchild birthday. Pickle ball buddy Lee made two kinds of pie for my pickle ball birthday party. He is a medical marijuana dealer and usually puts cannabis into the many things he is famous for baking. He says there was none in the pickle ball birthday pies, but I felt awfully good after that party.

Don’t worry overmuch for me, that the mincemeat pie is “all,” as they say where we used to live in Amish country. I have other resources. Some of the cookies Helen made for Christmas are still in the freezer, and some of the brownies she made for my pickle ball party, and some of the cupcakes Vicky made, are still with us, as is Scottish shortbread that came to our house as a gift.

Still, though, I worry about the end of the mincemeat pie. I would hate to give it up. Obviously, for me, there is more than just beef and fruit below and above the crust. There are memories in that pie, smiles and hugs and laughter.

Mincemeat, though, takes a lot of hard work by hand. Helen’s hands are aging, not as strong or persistent as they once were. Some folks make pie very late in life. Ida Belle Paterson’s mother, who made pies for 13 children, still made pies at age 100. She would roll out dough, then sit down to rest, peel some apples, then sit down to rest, and on through the whole process. It took quite a while to make a pie, but it was what she did. Not everyone can do that, though.

I suppose I could learn to make mincemeat myself, and bake it into a pie. Roy Meyerholtz has always made the excellent pies I have enjoyed at his and Pat’s house. And Eunice Synder taught Art how to bake.

Eunice was famed as a cook, especially as a baker. When she was dying, she would sit in her wheelchair in the kitchen to teach Art. We have eaten his Moravian sugar cake for breakfast, so we know that she taught him well.

When their son, John, committed suicide, Eunice made me a gooseberry pie, one of the favorites of my childhood, when I used to pick the gooseberries myself, as her way of grieving well, by doing something special for someone else, something that would bring up good memories for me at the same time she struggled with her own.

I am here on the sofa. The last bite of pie and the last sip of coffee are before me. Sufficient for the day is the pie thereof. If there is mincemeat future, I shall count it as a blessing. If there is only mincemeat past, I still have blessings to count, including mincemeat memories.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

I used to keep a careful index of all the things I told in this blog so that I would not repeat. That has become unwieldy. Now I just trust to… what’s it called… oh, yes, memory. Sorry about repeats.

I have also started an author blog, JUST WORDS, about writing and reading. Writing guru Kristen Lamb says author blogs are counter-productive, that blogs must be “high concept.” I don’t know what that means, but consider Just Words as a high concept blog in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, in 2015. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.

Beggars Together-a quote

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

I still think the best definition of evangelism I have ever heard is that of D.T. Niles: One beggar telling another beggar where to find food.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.

A 25 YEAR SURVIVOR

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

Today I am a 25 year cancer survivor.

I sometimes say my survivorship started on my birthday, Feb. 4, for that was when I first really felt the pains that led to the surgery that revealed the cancer. It was a Sunday. I felt so bad that retired pastor Max White had to come do the worship service for me. Daughter Katie, then a grad student at the U of IL but, like I, a B.A. graduate of Indiana U, had gotten tickets for us to go the UIL-IU basketball game that afternoon. Helen said she didn’t worry when I missed church, but when I was unable to go to the basketball game, she knew something was wrong.

It was at midnight, the first minutes of Feb. 6, however, that they actually cut me open from Los Angeles to Boston and took out a third of my colon, including a malignant tumor that was penetrating the bowel wall and causing the pain.

My first oncologist said “a year or two.”

I tell this story now to give new patients hope. Back then, cancer was really equated with death. The best thing for Helen and me was when we began to hear stories of 20 year survivors. I didn’t have to settle for a year or two. That sustained us also during the cancers of Helen and daughter Mary Beth and grandson Joe.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

I used to keep a careful index of all the things I told in this blog so that I would not repeat. That has become unwieldy. Now I just trust to… what’s it called… oh, yes, memory. Sorry about repeats.

I have also started an author blog, about writing and reading, in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, in 2015. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721. 

WHY WE ARE IN THE BATTER'S BOX

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

In the Gospel reading for this coming Sunday, Feb. 8, Jesus is thrust into his healing ministry in an odd way, via Simon’s mother in law. I’ve always admired Peter for that. His mother in law was sick, and instead of rejoicing, he asked his new friend, Jesus, to get her up on her feet again. That may, of course, have been because he was hungry, since Mark [1:29-39] tells us that as soon as she was well, she got up and started fixing lunch for them, in which case Peter was not quite as well motivated as I like to think.

As soon as the neighbors find out about this, they start bringing everyone and anyone who has a problem, to get them fixed up just like Mavis. [Peter’s mother in law’s name is usually not mentioned in this story, but I feel that is a disrespectful omission.]

Later Jesus goes off by himself to pray about what just happened, all those people coming to him with their physical and emotional ailments, and when Peter and his other disciples find him, he says, “Let’s take this show on the road, because this is what I was sent to do.” [The KJV translates Jesus here saying, “For therefore came I forth.” That’s a nice phrase.]

It reminds me of the time Hank Aaron came to bat against the Dodgers. John Roseboro was catching. He noticed that Henry had the brand of his bat toward the front, toward the pitcher. Every sandlot ball player knows that is a no-no. If a pitched ball hits the bat directly on the brand--the spot that gives the information about the bat, its manufacturer and name and number, etc.--it is more likely to break.

“Hey,” Roseboro said, “you’ve got the brand toward the front.” Aaron replied, “I didn’t come up here to read.”

That’s why he’s the all-time home run leader. [1] He had one mission, and he knew what it was.

During annual conference one year when the late Leroy Hodapp was the UMC bishop in IL, he was called up to MI to do the ordination service for the annual conference there. The MI bishop had suddenly taken sick and was unable to do it.

Annual conference is when all the ministers of a geographical area, plus lay representatives from all the congregations in that area, plus anyone else who wants to sell something or spend a long intense week of boring meetings, come together to transact business. Bishops get no rest. They are in charge. They sit up in front and try to keep things going smoothly.

Leroy was already tired, half-way through the week of the IL annual conference, but MI needed a bishop, fast. A thousand people had gathered, including the families of those to be ordained. It needed to be done now. They sent a plane for Leroy. He hopped on it after the evening conference session in IL. When he got to MI, they had been singing for several hours. He ordained the new preachers at midnight and flew back to IL.

I encountered him in the hallway the next morning as the IL conference was about to start up again. I commiserated with him about what a tough life he was leading. He looked thoroughly surprised that I was so clueless. “But this is what I was elected for,” he said. He had a mission, and he knew what it was. If it had to be done at midnight, when he was already tired, so what? [2]

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

1] Barry Bonds doesn’t count.

2] Note to UMC insiders: Yes, I know I generalized the names and dimensions of conferences, but this makes it more understandable.

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

I used to keep a careful index of all the things I told in this blog so that I would not repeat. That has become unwieldy. Now I just trust to… what’s it called… oh, yes, memory. Sorry about that.

I have also started an author blog, about writing, in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, n 2015. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.

Google Remembered!

After I posted the one just below, about the birthday no one remembered, I opened Google and found SEVEN cakes, with a “Happy Birthday, John.”

Google remembered!

If Google had been around in 1946…

THE BIRTHDAY NO ONE REMEMBERED

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

Today is my birthday. It’s been a long time since my birthday that no one remembered.

I was nine. We were poor, living in a near east working class neighborhood in Indianapolis, before we moved to the little farm near Oakland City a year later. It was dark and getting close to supper time. No one had said anything about my birthday, and there was no cake in the kitchen. That was not surprising. Mother had a new baby, in a time before cloth diapers and refrigerators [we had an “ice box”] and cake mixes. I mentioned the absence of a cake. Mother scrabbled around and found a dime and a nickel and some pennies and sent me off to buy my birthday cake.

We had several neighborhood groceries. I went a lot of places after dark by myself in those days. It was the only way we had to get around. I was always scared, though. I went up New York Street but couldn’t find a store that had a cake that matched the money in my pocket. Then I cut back over and went down Washington Street to the most decrepit of the mom and pop stores. It didn’t look open, just one bare bulb burning behind the counter. I tried the door. It gave. I went in. An old man in an undershirt came out of a door and stood behind the counter. He had a cake, small but really a cake. I gave him my money and took it home.  

Helen knows this story. Last Sunday as we celebrated son-in-law Patrick’s and grandson Joe’s and my birthdays together, she made me a chocolate cake. Today she will take brownies to celebrate my birthday at my pickle ball venue, even though she does not play pickle ball. H.L. Mencken said that original sin is the one Christian doctrine for which there is empirical proof. I think he was wrong. There is another. Helen is the empirical proof of the doctrine of mercy.

In addition to telling this story often enough to insure that she keeps baking me cakes, it has another application. It made me aware of how people feel when they are left out and forgotten.

Grace Robb, one of our high school teachers, said that she had never seen a class that was as closely involved with one another emotionally as the class of 1955. I think that was, in part, because I was class president for three years. I did not want anyone left out. For any party or project, I contacted everyone in the class, especially those who were not in the mainstream of activity, to be sure they were invited and involved.

Later, as a pastor, I asked at every church meeting, “In what we are doing in this area, who’s being left out?” In pastoral prayers, I always included “those who have no one else to pray for them.”

It was sad, sure, to be turning nine with no one noticing, but it’s quite minor to what many children have to endure, and it gave me the lasting gift of awareness. I give thanks this morning that I have had so many birthdays, including the one that no one remembered.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

I used to keep a careful index of all the things I told in this blog so that I would not repeat. That has become unwieldy. Now I just trust to… what’s it called… oh, yes, memory. Sorry about that.

I have also started an author blog, about writing, in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, n 2015. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.

SINGING VS. AWFULIZING

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

You just can’t sing and be afraid at the same time. That’s why we sing in the dark. It’s very difficult to sing and awfulize at the same time. Awfulizing is the process of imagining all the awful things that might happen to us. We spend more time at it than we realize. The less awfulizing we do, the more likely we are to get well. The immune system doesn’t like awfulizing; it does like singing.

From NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them, page 16 [2^nd edition, AndrewsMcmeel]

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

I used to keep a careful index of all the things I told in this blog so that I would not repeat. That has become unwieldy. Now I just trust to… what’s it called… oh, yes, memory. Sorry about repeats.

I have also started an author blog, about writing and reading, in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, in 2015. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.

RELATIONSHIP DISAPPOINTMENTS

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

We’ve all had the sad and sorrowful experience of someone we care about walking away because we didn’t meet their expectations. Nadia Bolz-Weber, the founder and pastor of the [ELCA, Lutheran] House for All Sinners & Saints in Denver explains what she says to prospective church members about this:

“This community will disappoint them. It’s not a matter of when, not if. We will let them down or I’ll say something stupid and hurt their feelings. I then invite them on this side of their inevitable disappointment to decide if they’ll stick around after it happens. If they choose to leave when we don’t meet their expectations, they won’t get to see how the grace of God can come in and fill the holes left by our community’s failure, and that’s just too beautiful and real to miss.” Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix [Jericho Books, 2013] pp 54-5.

A good thing to remember, on a Sunday morning as we go to church… or as we don’t go…

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.]

I used to keep a careful index of all the things I told in this blog so that I would not repeat. That has become unwieldy. Now I just trust to… what’s it called… oh, yes, memory. Sorry about repeats.

I have also started an author blog, about writing, in preparation for the publication, by Black Opal Books, of my novel, VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans who are accused of murdering a VA doctor, in 2015. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.