EASTER IS A BIG PAN TIME

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

Easter is fast approaching, so it is the time to focus on…. [drum roll] resurrection? NO. It’s time to focus on the Easter dinner. And for many people, that means ham…

…which reminds me of the woman who always cut the ends off the ham before she put it in the oven. One Easter, her daughter asked her why she did that.

“Well, Mother always did that. I’ll ask her.”

So she called up Grandma and asked her why she cut the ends off the ham before baking.

“I had to,” replied Grandma. “My pan was too small.”

As I think about traditions in general, especially those by which we exclude certain people, I am reminded that a lot of them got started just because our pans were too small.

In these days of pre-slicing and microwaves and convection ovens and electric can openers, those traditions just don’t make sense anymore.

It’s big pan time.

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.

WAITING for THE BRIDE

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

I didn’t know why we were all waiting, but waiting for a bride is not unusual at a wedding. Forty-five minutes is much too long to wait, though, with 200 people sitting, looking at me, as though I should do something about it. So I did. I sent an emissary, the girl who turned the pages for the organist, who was getting mighty tired, to the bride room to see what was taking so long. She returned to explain, with a stutter she usually did not have.

It seems that just as she was to come down the stairs from the bride room, the bride had noticed a little tear in the end of her veil. Hardly noticeable, and the veil was not lace, just a net. So the bridal consultant had taken her scissors and trimmed it all the way around so that it was still even and the tear, which did not show anyway, no longer showed at all. But the bride threw a fit. The veil was too short. It was only ¼ inch shorter than it had been, and no one could possibly tell the difference, but it was not right! She insisted that the bridal consultant woman return to her shop and get a duplicate of the right length. That took 45 minutes.

And people used to wonder why I said I’d rather do ten funerals instead of one wedding! Something like that, fortunately not quite that extreme but still frustrating, happened at or before or after every wedding I performed, and I did a lot of weddings, which made for a lot of ruined Saturday afternoons, which I would rather have spent with my wife or children.

Occasionally, though, there would be a wedding where the bride and her people were not focused on the dress or the veil or the ceremony, which is a focus on self, but were focused on the love and commitment being celebrated. Those were joyful occasions, and I cherish their memory. Still, though, if you want me to officiate something for you, you have a better chance of getting me to do it if you die instead of get married.

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.

BACK HOME AGAIN, IN INDIANA

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

Helen and I are preparing to move “back home again, in Indiana.” Some friends have questioned that.

“Why would you want to live in a state that is so backward politically, so eager to deny civil and even human rights to minority groups, so hypocritical in its use of religion to justify its disdain for the weak and powerless and different, so blatantly hypocritical in claiming to be Christian but trying to stamp on the faces of the very ones Christ said to treat with kindness and dignity?”

Okay, no single one of them put all those particular words together, but taken together, that’s what they add up do.

They say those things as though civil rights and human dignity and concern for the weak are more important than basketball.

To those of us who grew up in Indiana, the latest affront to justice and civility, the so-called “religious freedom” act, this is nothing new. Indiana is the only northern state that had an active KKK chapter in every county, the only northern state that gave its vote to segregationist George Wallace in the 1964 presidential election. I have always called Indiana, particularly the SW “pocket,” where I grew up, “The Mississippi of the North.”

The “religious freedom act,” is not about religious liberty, of course. It is about religious bigotry. It is one of the same arguments used for 100 years to deny public access to people of color.

There are no absolute rights, although people who want to deny rights to others usually use a “my rights are being violated” argument to deny rights to others. For example, the right to free speech is enshrined in the Constitution, but it is not absolute. You do not have a free speech right to cry “Fire!” in a crowded theater, if there is no fire, even if you think the Bible or the voice of God requires you to do so, because of the way that would impact the rights of others, such as the right to be alive instead of trampled to death in a mad dash for the exits. Individual rights cannot be used as an excuse to deny public rights.

In the debate in the 1960s over racial segregation, the Supreme Court, and the nation, came down on the side of public rights, that if you have a business that is open to the public, you cannot deny service to individuals, even though you claim that to serve them would violate your religious freedom. “Public” means everybody.

“My religious rights are being violated” is often the last resort for those who want to discriminate against others, deny rights to others, because it is such a strong emotional argument. We hold very dear the right to practice whatever religion a person wants to. Of course, those who hold most dear their own religious rights are often the ones most eager to deny right to persons of other religions. People never hide behind religious rights to be kind or civil to others, but only to be unkind and discriminatory to others.

It is strange that in the Easter season, with Good Friday hard upon us, people who claim they worship and/or follow the One who gave up ALL his rights, his very life, for their sake, for the sake of the WORLD, [John 3:16] that means EVERYONE, want to claim that their religion requires them to be sure some people are left out. [Take a look at Romans 8:32, also.]

Those people, though, who want to leave others out, who use religion as a barrier instead of a bridge, are not my enemies. They were once, and soon will be again, my friends, my neighbors, my family. They are not malicious people, even though they sometimes act that way. I love them, and most of them love me, even though some of them think I am not really Christian.

On Sunday mornings we shall gather separately to worship different Gods, even though the Gods have the same name. But on Friday nights and Saturday evenings and Sunday afternoons, we shall gather together to cheer on black men and Muslim men and gay men as they do battle against one another for our amusement. And when enough people have refused to do business with us, and thus reduced the size of our bank account, because we refuse to do business with those black and Muslim and gay men Monday through Friday, we shall rethink just how much God wants us to leave some people out of our business, and thus out of our cash register. That’s a start. That’s reality. That’s home.

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.

STEALING DONKEYS FOR JESUS

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

[I wrote this a long time ago, and it has appeared often in published form, originally in The Christian Century, and here it is again, still too long for a “high concept” blog…]

As they approached Jerusalem, Jesus sent two of his disciples to get a colt that had never been ridden. “If anybody sees you taking it,” he told them, “tell them I need it.” They found the colt and brought it to Jesus and put their coats on it for a saddle and Jesus rode on it into Jerusalem. Many people spread their own clothes on the road, or leafy branches they cut from the trees, and they shouted “Hosanna” as he rode into town. (Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:28-40; John 12:12-19, VSR)

“It’s Palm Sunday, so I want you to go into town and steal me a donkey,” Jesus told his disciples. “If anybody catches you, tell them I need it.”

Reminds me of the time “Gunner Bob” Reinhart, one of my colleagues in the “Willing Workers” Sunday School class, happened to notice the keys dangling from the ignition in Mr. Bothwell’s new Olds Rocket 88. It was Palm Sunday afternoon, and Gunner decided to take the car for a Holy Week spin. Mr. Bothwell noticed his car taking off from in front of his house and ran down his driveway after it, house slippers on feet and Sunday funnies in hand.

“Why are you taking my car?” he cried.

Gunner, apparently remembering our lesson on the morning, yelled back, “I need it.”

One of Jesus’ disciples nudged the other as they walked into town. “And if they go for that, I’ve got some nice recreational lots along the Dead Sea I can sell them.”

Both capitalists and communists claim Jesus, but he was neither. His approach was entirely different; he just borrowed everything. He borrowed the water he turned into wine, and he borrowed the stone jars from which that wine was poured. He borrowed a boat from which to teach or by which to cross a lake. He borrowed houses in which to eat, teach, and heal. (Some of them did not fare very well, either–one lost its roof so a paralytic could be lowered in to be healed.) He borrowed sons, brothers and husbands to be his disciples. He borrowed the upper room in which he ate his last supper with his borrowed friends. Borrowed was the manger in which he was born, borrowed his cross, and borrowed his tomb.

We think of Jesus as a giver, not a taker. He was the giver of health, love, truth and even the ultimate, his own life. Yet Jesus throughout his entire career borrowed things.

This was not just his lifestyle was an itinerant preacher. He was teaching us that all we have is borrowed from God. He ignored all strictures against lending and borrowing, be it a cloak or a second mile or even one’s other cheek, because none of us really has any possessions. Bigger barns, Swiss bank accounts, even gaining the whole world–none of that is enough for us to establish a claim upon ourselves. You yourself, your very life, is borrowed, so how can you claim anything you have as your own?

Gunner and I learned in Sunday school the “accounting theory” of faith. You get what you have coming to you. Indeed, Gunner got it when he returned Mr. Bothwell’s car. One doesn’t steal donkeys–or Oldsmobiles–and get away with it in my hometown.

Over against the accounting theory stands the unexpected Jesus, the one who says, “If you would follow me, take up your cross, and steal me a donkey.” Jesus lived the reality of grace, of God being good to us not because we are good but because God is good; not because we have been true to some legalistic plumb line of stewardship but because God is rue to the divine identity. To see ourselves as borrowers is to recognize ourselves as those who live by grace, who have no claim upon God except the one that God give in Christ.

Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia launched the New York City Center of Music and Drama, but he never attended the ballet there. Someone asked him why, since he otherwise seemed to be such a supporter of art. He replied, “I’m a guy who likes to keep score. With ballet, I never know who’s ahead.” There is some kind of relationship calculator built into most of us that causes us to keep score.

Relationships, however, have a way of refusing to go by the numbers. That is why so many of us end up forsaking relationships altogether–relationships to other people, to God and even to ourselves. Unless we can keep score and know who is ahead, we do not even want to attend the performance. We may support the idea, and say that it is beautiful, just as LaGuardia did with ballet, but we do not go.

The unexpected Jesus says to us, “Give to him who begs from you, and do not refuse the one who would borrow from you.” (Matthew 5:421). “And if you lend to those from whom you hope to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners, to receive as much again. But…lend, expecting nothing in return…” (Luke 6:34035a). “And forgive us our sins, for we ourselves forgive every one who is indebted to us…” (Luke 11:4a).

That’s a clue. The last sentence comes from a prayer; it is a plea to God. “God, you forgive us our sins, for sins–­those attitudes and actions that keep us so far from you–are our debts, and there is no way we can pay off those debts. The only way we can make right our relationship with you is if you forgive those debts." Each one of us is a Third World nation.

Grace has no contract requirement, nor can it be attained through manipulation. Grace is what we borrow, knowing we can never repay, and knowing that the Lender understands we can never repay

Jesus frees us to be borrowers from God. Perhaps it is too much to expect us to borrow easily from one another. We are not ready to be fellow borrowers until we have borrowed life from God. That is what Jesus teaches. “Look at me,” he says. “I’m a borrower. If I can be a borrower, you can be one, too. Borrow what you need from me.”    

Jesus comes to us in a borrowed manger, on a borrowed cross, up from a borrowed tomb, breaking to us the borrowed bread of life, lending us life, forgiveness and hope. “Borrow from me,” he says. “Borrow the things that make for life. Let others borrow as well, and do not hinder them. Hell is a life that is earned. Heaven is a life that is borrowed. Borrowed is best. Go steal me a donkey…:”

              

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.

MARCHING TOWARD JUSTICE

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

Bill Walters is retired now. He used to be head of the National Park Service. 60 years ago, though, he was just an Illinois kid on a bus in Alabama, on the way to basic training for the army. A couple of girls his age were sitting in front of him. The girls were pretty, and Bill was handsome, so naturally they got to talking. Eventually one of them asked him, “What do you think about the problem with the coloreds?” Bill allowed as he didn’t see a problem, since colored people were just like anyone else. Those pretty girls jumped up and screamed with their pretty bright red mouths to the whole bus, “We’ve got a goddammed nigger-lover on this bus!” After that bus experience, he said, basic training was a piece of cake.

On March 7 we commemorated Bloody Sunday, March 7, 60 years ago, when peaceful demonstrators in Selma, Alabama, asking simply for their rights as citizens to be voters, were attacked by police and civilians and brutally beaten. They were local black folks of Dallas County who had tried to register to vote, but were denied that most basic right of citizens. They wanted to march to the state capitol to appeal. They were not only denied the right to vote, but the right to walk.

They did get attention. Others came to help them, including the Indiana Methodist Student Movement. The Alabama Methodist Student Movement called us up and said, “We’re going to join the march outside Montgomery on March 24 and march into the city with Dr. King. Come and walk with us.” We did. I was the Methodist campus minister at Indiana State University and Rose Polytechnic Institute [now Rose-Human University] in Terre Haute. With my good friend, Andre’ Hammonds, the first black person to receive a PhD from the U of TN, a sociology professor at ISU, and Bob Mullins, the student president of the Wesley Foundation, I was on the third of the marches from Selma to Montgomery, the one that actually arrived, and heard MLK speak from the steps of the State House, on March 25.

My contribution to Civil Rights is so minor compared to so many others, like John Lewis, now Congressman John Lewis, who was in the front rank of that march. All I did was walk for a while in heat and fear. Like MLK and Jimmie Lee Jackson and Medgar Evans and Viola Liuzzo and James Reeb and Michael Schwerner and James Chaney and Andrew Goodman, and so many others, John Lewis put his life on the line.

In the fall of 2014 John Lewis spoke at Michigan State University. My granddaughter got in line to get his autograph on a copy of March to give to me as a gift. She told him that I had been there. “Please thank him for me,” he said. I have been thanked a lot of times in a lot of ways for many things. I appreciate them all, but none of them quite equal that vote of thanks.

There are still forces that want to deny certain people the right to vote, to deny them even the right to walk. Try being a black person walking in an expensive all-white neighborhood if you don’t believe that. There are still nigger-haters on the bus. There are still folks who can’t believe they are included unless they can see that others are excluded, who cannot feel comfortable in their rights and opportunities unless others are denied those same rights and opportunities. We need to love those excluders, assure them that they are loved and included, that they belong.

In the meantime, though, we can’t allow them to exclude others. No one has a right to deny rights to others. Love isn’t really love, peace isn’t really peace, unless they include justice.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I googled Selma to check some of my facts. “Selma civil rights march” came up in the list after Selma Cinema 6. That’s either a sign of significant improvement or significant back-sliding.

You can read more about this in my book, The Strange Calling.

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.

HOW OLD PEOPLE CAN STAY OUT OF TROUBLE

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

I have known Pat since high school. She is, however, much older than I, [a whole semester], so it is no surprise that she is pushing 80, pushing it hard. She also recently pushed her face hard, into the pavement.

She has been a runner for 50 years, give or take a decade. She still runs every day, traipsing her 90 pounds, assuming she is wearing lots of heavy clothes, all around the town. Recently, however, as pale old people do in winter, she decided she and Roy should go to FL for a while, using the excuse that they have a son who lives there, relatives being the excuse most northerners use to go to FL in winter, since we don’t want to admit we would want to live there any other time. She was not familiar with the running terrain. She was looking up at strange green winged creatures in the air and wondering what the big orange ball in the sky was. She tripped, and down she went. She looked like she had been in a gang fight, which, come to think of it, is the way I remember her from her days as a grade school teacher.

Pat has always been a lithe and adroit runner. Once while running home from the track at the university, a dog began to chase her. It was a big dog, and it had bad intentions. Pat thought fast. She changed her course to run by the police station. Just as the dog caught up and was ready to pounce, she grabbed the door of the station and pulled it open, standing behind it. The dog could not stop in time, so skidded in the only open direction, into the station. Pat just closed the door and jogged nonchalantly on. 

We always wondered what the police did with that dog, since it probably could not fill out any paper work explaining why it was there. If it had been Eugene “Shammy” Shambarger on duty that day, he would have arrested it.

Shammy was a great auto mechanic, and delightful country singer, and an auxiliary cop in another, smaller, town where we once lived. One night all the other officers were gone and Shammy was on duty. People called in complaining that a dog was barking incessantly and keeping them awake. Shammy investigated. The dog was tied in the back yard, and had run out of water, and his people were gone. So Shammy arrested the dog and took it to the jail. Everyone was happy. The neighbors could sleep, and the dog had water and food and a nice warm jail cell in which to sleep. When its case came up, it was released for time served.

The point though [You were wondering about that, weren’t you?] is that bad stuff, like falling on your face, when you are doing a good thing--trying to stay healthy, and visiting your children--should not happen to old people. We have been around long enough that lots of bad stuff has already happened to us. All that former bad stuff should act as a vaccination, inoculating us against current bad stuff. Unfortunately, life does not work that way. The only solution is to stay out of FL, because that is the place where bad stuff happens to old people.

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.

LOOKING LIKE PAUL

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

I look enough like Paul Baker that we could be twins. Well, maybe not twins, but certainly brothers who wear the same hair and beard style.

Paul is smart and thoughtful and well-read and insightful and perceptive, so much so that Illinois State University named him a Distinguished Professor. Since we look so much alike, I have always assumed that I was distinguished, too.

I look a lot like my real brother, Jim, but not as much as I look like Paul. I look so much like Paul that when he and Sharon attended our daughter’s wedding, which I officiated with the rabbi at the Jewish temple in suburban Cleveland, many people on the groom’s side told Paul what a good job he had done. He understood; he just thanked them and let it go.

I suppose that is what I should have done when members of our church thanked me for various events of pastoral care when Paul Mallory was our pastor. I’ll call him The Vicar, since that is his name in his email address, and to distinguish him from the Distinguished Professor. I look almost as much like The Vicar as I look like Paul Baker, so much so that throughout his pastorate at Trinity Church various people would thank me for calling on them in the hospital. I told them it was fine, but they should stop getting sick so I would have more time to practice my ski-jumping. The Vicar did not last long at our church. He claims it was because he was old enough to retire and that the VA declared him disabled because he was exposed to Agent Orange when he was a foot soldier in Vietnam, but…

Since I look so much like Paul Baker, and he is smart and thoughtful and well-read and insightful and perceptive, I have always assumed that I was smart and thoughtful and well-read and insightful and perceptive, too. Not as much as Paul, since no one ever named me a Distinguished Something, but close enough to be brothers in sagacity. [Saga City would be a good place name for the setting of one of those long family saga novels. You’re welcome.]

Yesterday, though, Helen insisted that we have our photo taken before church with Bill Verrette, a distinguished friend and church member. Helen and Bill look great in the photo, but I look like a goofy dip, not like Paul Baker.

Then, however, I began to look at photos of Paul Baker. He looks wacky in pictures, too! Not like a smart and distinguished and perceptive professor, but a goof ball, with a wild glint in his eye. No one would ever guess what sort of brain is at work behind that ragged moustache. [Well, the brain is not that low, but you get the point.] The Vicar looks bemused, slightly distant, in photos, and my brother, Jim, looks like he is puzzling out an eternal conundrum, but Paul Baker and I look just daffy.

We used to say that “the camera doesn’t lie.” In these days of Photoshop, the camera lies all the time. When our daughters were little, they explained anything that could not be explained otherwise as “trick photography.” I think that is what has happened to Paul and me; someone is using trick photography. Maybe Paul and I don’t really look goofy in person.

But if I have to look like dippy, I’m glad I get to share that look with an old friend. When I get to the Pearly Gates, St. Peter will exclaim, “Paul, how wonderful to see you.” I’ll just say “Thank you” and walk right in.

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.

PAINT THE DRIVEWAY... OR TELL ABOUT IT

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

We have a friend who paints the rocks in her driveway. Well, not all the time, but when the utility guys came by and spray-painted some orange lines on the ground to show other utility guys where to dig, or not to dig, some of her driveway rocks got oranged. She didn’t like the look, so she went to the local hardware store and asked for outdoor gray paint. “We have several outdoor grays,” the hardware guy told her. “What are you going to do with it?” “Paint the rocks in my driveway,” she said. Then she realized how that probably sounded. “I know you’ll make fun of me when I leave,” she said. “Oh, I can’t wait that long!” he replied. “Hey, guys, guess what this lady is going to do with this paint!”

That’s the way tool guys are. I know because my father was a tool guy, and so was my Uncle Johnny, for whom I was named, my mother’s youngest brother, who ran his own hardware and lumber business.

I have always liked tools and tool guys, in part because Uncle Johnny, from the time I was ten years old, would have me come down to his store to help with inventory, and take me on lumber-buying excursions. I was never a tool guy myself, though, even though I love hardware stores, because just when I was hitting the tool-learning stage, what Eric Ericson calls “industry vs inferiority,” my father said to me, “You can’t use tools.”

I think what he meant was, “You can’t use MY tools,” because he was blind, and each of his tools needed to be in its exact place for him to find it, and I liked to play with them and leave them around just any old place. I didn’t know then what he meant, though; I only heard what he said, which to me was, “You are unable to use tools. You don’t have the necessary skills.” It certainly seemed to be true, so I never tried to use tools. In fact, I have always tried to avoid using tools, for I did not want to feel like a failure.

So I turned to words. My father did not use them very well, sometimes not at all. It was something I could do better than he could. For a very long time, I did not realize that words are tools, that I was able to use tools very well. It was just a different kind of tool that I was using.

In old age, we face “industry vs inferiority” all over again.

I saw one of those throw-back pictures on Facebook. “How many of you remember typing class?” They showed a classroom full of new-fangled typewriters, the kinds with cords plugged into the wall. Those aren’t old-fashioned! I sat in typing class with a Royal Manual in front of me! Electricity wasn’t even invented! {Well, not for typewriters! Fortunately, though, the ! had been invented!}

Old people can feel very inferior in the face of modern computer technologies. Our teen-age grandson said recently, “I wish I lived in an age when a guy could fix his own stuff.” Well, yes, but that age is over. We’re lucky just to be able to USE our own stuff, yet alone fix it.

We are not inferior, though, because we cannot use the tools of some other generation. Each of us is a tool guy or gal; it’s just that our industriousness is different. [That’s my story, and I’m sticking to it. After all, words are my tools! So are exclamation points!]

 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.

I WANT A DO-OVER

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

I recall Woody Allen saying that life is miserable and tragic and awful and some other words that mean the same thing, then adding,  “…and it is over much too quickly.”

That’s the dilemma, isn’t it? There is a lot of life that is at least unpleasant, and quite a bit that is downright gut-wrenching, yet we don’t want to let it go.

I started a poem this morning, something like Where did it go so fast… and then realized I had nothing more to add. It has just gone by so quickly, and there is so little left.

Oh, I know all the bromides we use. There’s plenty of time left. The trick is to concentrate on the moment. You can still be happy, even though all your friends are dying. The world needs more old curmudgeons. It takes a lot of courage to be the last apple left on the tree. Big whoop!

I don’t want to be the last apple. I want all the other apples to hang out there with me. I don’t want the present moment, I want all the past moments so I can do them over, better this time.

That, however, is not going to happen.

I really tried to be a good son and brother and friend and husband and father and grandfather and pastor and citizen. Some people are kind enough to say I did fairly well at those. I know it to be true, sort of. I’d love to have a do-over, though. That’s one of the reasons we adore grandchildren, I think. They give us a do-over possibility. Now, though, my grandchildren are out living their own lives, like that’s what we raised them for, or something.

That’s the nature of life. Put on your long pants and deal with it.

Big whoop. Or big fat hairy deal, as we said in the olden days. That may be the way life is, and there’s nothing we can do to change it, but I still don’t like it.

Don’t worry. I’m not depressed. I just want a do-over!

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.

THE WORM TATTOO

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

I’m thinking about getting a tattoo. For two reasons:

First, Nadia Bolz-Weber has tattoos. And she says bad words, out loud, during her sermons. It’s probably just as well she did not come along sooner, or I would have tried to emulate her on my last Sunday in the ministry. [Any Sunday I had emulated her, it would have been my last Sunday.] I’ve always been attracted to women like Nadia, bad girls with tattoos. You can’t get much badder than marrying a tattooed girl from Gary, Indiana.

Second, it is “appointment” season. Methodist ministers are not called or hired. They are appointed by the bishop, who presumably knows where God wants each pastor. God apparently has it in for certain churches. Announcements are being made even now about which pastor will be appointed where, at the start of the conference year, July 1.

So I’m thinking about appointments and tattoos.

I think the best appointment ever made was that worm that God told to cut down the shade tree over Jonah’s head.

Jonah was so disappointed when he heard that God had appointed him to the Nineveh Circuit that he ran away. [Before bishops, apparently God just made appointments directly. ] Jonah got on a Holland-Nineveh cruise ship. Got thrown overboard by the Philipino crew who mistook him for an albatross. [Cruise ships are usually staffed by Philipinos, but maybe it was Philippians. The various ancient texts are a little quibbly there.] Got swallowed by a thirsty whale. [Thirsty Whale also being the name of a tavern where I live. This is the very first time I have realized it is a biblical tavern.] Gave the whale gas and got burped up on the shore. Went up on the hill where he could have a good view of Nineveh getting drone-bombed by God.

And then, the scriptures tell us, “God appointed a worm to the Shade Tree Circuit, to cut down the shade over Jonah’s head, so he could no longer avoid going to Nineveh and speaking the truth God had appointed him to speak.” [Reversed Standard Vision translation]

So, a tattoo, either of Nadia or the worm.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Yes, Helen really has a tattoo. Back in nuclear scare days, school children in cities were tattooed on their ribs with their blood type, like there would be anything left that needed blood after an atom bomb. However, she resents being called a Gary girl. Her family moved there when she was 10, but she still calls Monon, IN home.

You can read Nadia Bolz-Weber’s bad words, and a lot of really good ones, too, in PASTRIX [Jericho Books]

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.

COMMUNITY DOES NOT LAST, BUT...

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

I have known Paul Unger for almost 60 years. Throughout those years I have often been dismayed at things he said. Well, okay, always. Most recently, though, I actually got a little angry at something he said.

“Community doesn’t last.” That’s what he said.

Well, sure, everybody knows that, but why bring it up? Isn’t it bad enough that so many of our friends are dying? And doesn’t that fly in the face of Christian theology, “for all the saints,” and “so great a cloud of witnesses,” and “neither life nor death nor…”?

He’s right, of course. All those dismaying times, or almost all, he’s been right. He’s especially right about community not lasting.

We want it to last, though. That’s why so many of us identify so strongly with institutions, like university, or church, or even nation, and why we mourn when the school or church we went to closes, or is absorbed into something else. As long as that school or church or town is there, our community remains. As long as our nation is stronger than all the others, our community is intact, we think, even though our friends and family, and even we, ourselves, are no longer a part of it.

The Christian hope, though, is not that community, one way or another, will last, but that it can be reconstituted. No, it does not continue forever. But in its very failure is the possibility of something new to replace the old, something even better. Christian faith is really about resurrection, not immortality, something new, not just the same old thing going on forever.

The basis of community is love, and Paul, the Apostle, does remind us that even death does not conquer love. [Romans 8:31-39] Love does not just continue forever. It does something better. On the ruins of community that does not last, it builds something even better.

That’s the Easter news.

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.]

UNPREPARED FOR SPECIAL DAYS

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

Well, here it is, and once again, I’m not ready. Yes, St. Patrick’s Day, and I did not write anything specifically for the day. Other folks plan ahead. They know that 2016 is the 300^th anniversary of the first line dance, and so one of them has already written a novel, The Salsa Murders, and another an historical monograph, Line Dances Through the Ages, and someone else has posted a photo montage on Facebook, not to mention the several Facebook quizzes, such as “Which Famous Line Dancer Best Expresses Your Inner Salsa?”

And here I am, St. Patrick’s Day, and I’m barely able to remember to wear green so that I don’t get pinched if I go out in public, which, admittedly, isn’t so bad when people are trying to pinch you through long underwear, a flannel shirt, a wool sweater, and a parka.

We are in Lent right now. I didn’t realize it until I saw all those people with dirty foreheads. When I did, I groaned. Didn’t we do that last year?

I hate the church seasons, not because of their meaning, but because preachers think that a season calls for a series of sermons. They have to find a theme, like “Journey to the Tourney,” although sort of more religious, like “Journey to Golgotha,” and every week they torture the Scripture into a variation of it. “The First Step. The Second Step. The…” well, you get the idea. Or, “People on the Journey,” or “Stumbling Stones on the Journey…”

Mea culpa. I used to be the worst. I could think up really clever series names. Then, of course, I had to make life fit the series.

Well, life doesn’t fit a series, or a special day. While some folks are getting pinched today, others are mourning the loss of a loved one, others are trying to get sober, some are going to jail. It doesn’t matter which saint’s day it is, or what season it is, or how many round-numbered years it’s been since the last time. All they want is a chance at some comfort and safety and hope.

I suspect that God doesn’t even know it’s Lent. God doesn’t care about your ashes in the form of a cross. God just wants to wash off your dirt, regardless of how or when it got on your face.

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.

536 VIEWS YESTERDAY-THE FAIRY NUMBER

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

The counter at blogger claims that yesterday 536 folks read this blog, the post about watching your hands every minute. That is quite remarkable, since my blog posts usually don’t get more than 200 views. Who told 535 friends that they should slouch over to CIW? Were that many people really interested in faith in winter, or did all those folks just want my meat loaf recipe? What is it about watching hands that is so interesting? I suspect it is more about fairy hands, because blogger outsources blog view counting, since only fairies are small enough to fit into the blogger machine, and that the fairy assigned to CIW was not watching her hands and made a slip with her abacus.

536 is a hard act to follow. I have tried all these years to keep my blog views under 535 per day, knowing that more than 535 is the threshold of greed. If the word gets out, that CIW surpasses 535 per day, blogger will have the fairies put ads on the CIW page, for leek soup, and apple sauce, and hands. For that last items, normally you would just go to the second hand store, but past 535, Amazon.com will start selling hands, in case you don’t want to use one of your own to stuff the turduckens they also sell.

The problem and the hope is this: I don’t have control. People can come read CIW or not. Each one is only one, regardless of how many they add up to at the end of the day. They can grasp what I said about faith in winter the way I meant it when I wrote it, or they can get some entirely different meaning from it. Each of us can play only one side of the relationship, just as each of us can play only one side of the net in pickle ball.

Some folks don’t understand that. They both want to say stuff and tell us what we are think about it, how we are to respond to it. They even want to tell us how to feel. “Come on. Don’t be sad. Be happy.”

I have experienced a new type of “both sides of the net” email recently. They are usually of a political screed nature, and at the end, they say: “If you agree, pass this on. If you don’t, then just forget about it.” No, if I don’t agree, I have the right to hit “return” and tell you so, or I have the right to pass it on and add, “This is the stupidest thing I have ever read.” If you send me an email, you have no right to tell me what to do with the “forward” and “reply” buttons.

God says, “I love you.” God does not tell us how we have to respond. The world is a lot messier that way, but there is no real Love if God plays both sides of the net. The good news is that God does not give up, even if we say “No” the first 535 times.

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.

WATCH YOUR HANDS-EVERY MINUTE

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

When grandson Joe was about four years old, he brought a cut on his hand to his mother for repair. “How did you get the cut on your hand, Joe?” she asked. “I don’t know,” he replied, a little indignantly. “I can’t watch it every minute.”

A lot of life’s wounds come just because we can’t, or don’t, watch our hands all the time.

I cook just often enough to claim that I can do it. Recently I made meat loaf. I like to make apple sauce meatloaf, but Helen gave me a recipe that uses leek soup mix [better than the onion soup mix usually called for]. That’s even better than apple sauce meatloaf, although apple sauce with the leek meatloaf makes a very nice combination.

I watch my hands very carefully as I make the meatloaf. I have to watch my hands very carefully all the time anymore. I have to look at what I’m doing or I end up with cuts and breaks, to myself and to dishes. That requires doing only one thing at a time. If I do more than one, sort of looking at all of them but not really looking hard at any one, the kitchen is not kind to my hands.

Jesus said that if your hand offends you, you should cut it off. Better to go without a hand than to lose it in sin. I take that as an instruction to watch my hands carefully so that I don’t have to cut one off.

Paul Byrnes preached the first sermon I can actually remember. He was the post master in our town, and a lay preacher. Whenever the District Superintendent couldn’t find a “regular” preacher for our little open-country church, he would send Paul to fill in. That sermon I remember was about hands. Paul preached about hands in the Bible, and what each different set of hands brought to the Bible story. “What do you bring in your hands?” he asked. I’m still answering that question. Sometimes the answer is “meatloaf.”

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, n 2015. 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 consider JUST WORDS to be high concept. http://johnrobertmcfarland-author.blogspot.com/

I tweet as yooper1721.

CAN YOU TOP THIS?

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

In the days before TV and the internet, there was something called “radio.” It had actual programs, sort of like TV or movies or YouTube, but with only sound. For pictures, you had to use your imagination, and depend on the writers’ ways with words, and the sound effects man. A favorite program was called “Can You Top This?” [CYTT]

It was a joke-telling competition. The winner was determined by a studio applause meter. The joke that got the loudest applause won.

When I was in college, we students competed in CYTT, but it wasn’t on the radio, just on campus. It was a sleep-deprivation competition. Well, that and a how-far-behind competition. And a how-much-to-do competition. We would announce to anyone who would listen, and whether anyone listened or not, how little sleep we had gotten, and how far behind we were in our work, and how many things we had to do. The winner was determined individually, and each one of us always won. Each of us was much tiereder and behinder than anyone else.

Old people have only two CYTT competitions, age and # of surgeries-days in hospital. For # of surgeries, or days in the hospital, it’s fairly easy to determine a winner. It’s just math. The biggest # wins. [Yes, that # means number; it’s not just a hash tag, although if one looks at Twitter, one realizes there is a CYTT for # of #s.]

Age is a matter of numbers, too, but it’s not immediately obvious. You can’t tell who is the oldest just by looking. Age CYTT takes 2 forms: “I’m 70 but I only look 50,” and “I’m 70 but I look 90.”

I’ve had two occasions just recently where men asked me my age and went away sorrowful because they thought they were older than I, and they were not. They were getting ready to brag that they could still feed themselves despite their great age only to learn that I was not only older but also able to tie my own shoes.

Recently in the Dilbert comic strip, a woman bragged that she had only 3 hours sleep. A man claimed that while she was sleeping, during those 3 hours he had kept an asteroid from hitting the earth just with his mind. She huffily told him that CYTT had to be in the same category. He said, “Not if you’re good at it.”

There is some CYTT in our DNA, and maybe the ATM. Old people are at a disadvantage in most CYTT contests, which is why we proclaim, “I am older than you are.”

If you don’t get the point of this column, it’s just because I’m older, and you got more sleep, too.

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.

SACRAMENTS & BULLET HOLES

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

When I was in my first year out of seminary, I was invited to give a lecture at a Roman Catholic women’s college. I was very impressed with myself, even though I knew that I was invited primarily because I was local and free and the only Protestant minister that Sister Mary Jane knew.

            Pope John XXIII had declared a new day in the Roman Catholic Church, a time to throw open the windows and let in some fresh air, a time to talk with one another rather than at one another, a time to emphasize our commonalities more than our differences. So St. Mary of the Woods decided it needed a Day of Ecumenism. Sister Mary Jane was put in charge. I was the Wesley Foundation [Methodist campus ministry] minister for Indiana State University and Rose Polytechnic Institute [now Rose-Hulman University]. Since I ministered in an academic setting, Sister Mary Jane assumed I was an academic person and could give a lecture on ecumenism.

            The entire student body and faculty assembled. They all listened intently. I cannot remember what I said, but all there were gracious in hearing, and in laughing politely when they were supposed to.

            Then we had a panel discussion in front of the whole group, three Sisters of Providence professors and myself, about the way forward in the church toward ecumenism. Sister Mary Jane, who was 25 years older than I but was then and always remained one of my favorite friends, started by saying: “First, there can be no altering of the sacraments. There will always have to be seven sacraments.”

            I knew it wasn’t a good way to start a dialogue. That kind of statement automatically closes down rather than opens up. The other, younger sisters on the panel looked quite uncomfortable, so I decided to let them take that on. That was difficult. Sister Mary Jane was a grand dame. They had to defer to her. But they did their best to push back up the window that Sister Mary Jane had pulled down. We had a good conversation. It opened up good avenues of ministry that my Wesley Foundation students and St. Mary of the Woods students and faculty were able to pursue together.

            The next year Wesley Foundation students and nuns from St. Mary’s, including Sister Mary Jane, went together to Albany, GA to register black voters, before that was allowed in GA. Dr. Renata Judson loaned them her station wagon. They brought it back with bullet holes in it, from when Bob Mullins, our Wesley Foundation student president, was chased by KKK members while driving to a grocery. It was that kind of time.

            It doesn’t make much difference how many sacraments you think the church needs when you are being shot at for Jesus.

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.

SEND YOUR COUSIN TO A CONFERENCE

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

I once wrote an article for “The Christian Century” magazine in which I opined that in all the talk about church renewal and reorganization, the not only neglected, but totally ignored, element is the local church, the congregation, which is actually, finally, the only important element for church life, renewed or otherwise. As such articles, written by no-name small-town pastors, always are, it received some mild praise and was then ignored…

…until the well-known president of a well-known theological school, a president I was surprised read “The Christian Century” at all, a president who was at the time basically the rock star of seminary presidents, admittedly a category without a lot of competition, discovered it.

He took my points, one by one, and made them into a lecture series, fleshing out my points but using each one and what I wrote about it almost verbatim. He did not steal or plagiarize. At the start of the series he acknowledged from whence and from whom he got the ideas. I would not know anything about this, however, if my cousin, Paul, a second-career minister, had not been in attendance at the lecture series.

The series was so popular that the seminary president published it as a book, again with a nod in the Introduction to me and my article, albeit I was described only by name, not by any of my achievements, such as playing bassoon in high school or third base in The Rocking Chair League. Again, I would not know anything about the book, except a copy was sent to “The Christian Century” for review, and my editor there, Victoria Rebeck, sent it on to me. I declined to review it. I was too busy playing bassoon at third base, or something like that, maybe trying to help my congregation grow toward being the Body of Christ in our place, for our time, living out the importance of congregations.

The publisher of the book was one that often declined to publish my books, although they published quite a few of my articles and sermons, but always in anthologies edited by the secretaries of well-known theological school presidents and their ilk. I didn’t have a name or position that sold books.

My nose is not as far out of joint as it sounds. I’m glad the seminary president and his publisher were able to disseminate my ideas, and get them a lot more credibility, than I could have, since my status was not exactly that of a theological rock star.

It’s a tricky thing for writers and speakers. Do we have a responsibility, if we use someone else’s ideas and writings, to let them know of that, beyond an acknowledgement in an introduction? Probably not. I guess I’ll just hope my cousins keep going to conferences.

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.

BE HAPPY; IT'S THE LOVING THING

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

Jane was bright and beautiful and talented and, for a long time after I met her, single. I consider her a friend, but her father is one of my best friends, and so I worried about her on her own behalf, but especially for her father.

The problem was that of many bright and beautiful and talented women: she had waited too long. With each passing year, the numbers of single men who were both available and acceptable dwindled. She was the church-going type, not the bar-hopping type. Had she gone to bars, she would have found plenty of available men, but no acceptable ones. All the men she met in church, or almost all, were acceptable, but not available.

Until Fred. Actually she had met Fred when he was not available. He lived in another town but they went to some of the same church functions. Fred’s wife died. Some years later, he and Jane ran into each other again at a church weekend. They clicked. After a while they married.

I had lunch with her and Fred and her parents a couple of years later. “I’m so glad I waited,” she said. That made me happy, for Jane, and for her parents. There is nothing that makes parents as happy as knowing that their children and grandchildren are happy. Our own greatest happiness comes from seeing those we love be happy.

So if you love someone, be happy. It will make them happy. That’s the loving thing to do.

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.

REMINDED OF WHO WE ARE

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

“My father and Dan had always been close, the whole 25 years of our marriage. One of the last things Dan did before the divorce was go to see Dad on his death bed. And what did Dad do? He asked Dan about some point of biblical interpretation. He always taught Sunday School, but he wasn’t going to anymore. And he and Dan never talked about that sort of thing before. Why in the world… when Dad was dying… and his only daughter was getting divorced from the scum bag…”

As you can tell, it was not exactly an amicable divorce, not on Sue’s part. Dan had had an affair. He had married the other woman. Sue had been blind-sided. So had all their friend, including us. Dan was a minister, one of the best. A year later, when I was back in town for a conference, Sue had asked me to meet her for supper. She wanted to talk about the whole thing, see if I had any insights from the days when we had been couple friends.

“I understand about the slut. She’s sexy, sure, and seductive, and vulnerable, and Dan is just a man. You all fall for that type. But why would my father, on his death bed, ask Dan a Bible question? It didn’t have anything to do with death or heaven or that sort of thing. It’s like my father gave up on me, too, like the divorce didn’t matter.”

“No,” I said, “it mattered a great deal to him. The best thing he could do was to remind Dan of who he was, the guy who provides the answers to the questions about important stuff, not the guy who falls for the same kind of woman every other guy does.”

It’s good, in old age when we can no longer do all the things that defined us when we were younger, to be reminded of who we are.

That’s why I love playing pickle ball. I have always been an athlete. But my shoulders don’t allow me to play baseball or basketball anymore. My lungs don’t allow me to race long distances. But pickle ball reminds me that I am an athlete.

That’s why I still read the Gospel portion for each Sunday in Greek during the week leading up to hearing it in worship. It reminds me that I am a follower of the Jesus who said to love God with our minds as well as heart and soul and strength. [Luke 10:27]

That’s why I read brain research and quantum physics. They remind me that I am a scholar who learns new things.

That’s why I’m going to wring the neck of that woodpecker that keeps making holes in our house. It reminds me that… Oh, wait, Jim Bortell says the woodpecker is my Moby Dick, and I’m not Captain Ahab.

It’s good to have folks who, when we go astray, will remind us of who we really are.

 John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Dan and Sue were not their real names, of course.

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.