THE WAY HOME

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

I am listening to Five Hundred Miles Away From Home, written by Hedy West. It may have been passed down to her in oral tradition from her grandmother. It is a perfect combination of words and music, like Mary Did You Know, Mark Lowry’s words and Buddy Greene’s melody.

Folk music spoke to me from the time I was a little boy, because it told a story. Other musical forms tell stories, too, like opera, but Folk not only told them in a way I could understand, but they told the stories of me and my people, poor people, hard scrabble farmers, coal miners. I heard it in my heart, not just my ears.

Folk and Country music are cousins. They have a lot in common. Folk and Country are both Prodigal Son music. You’re a long way off, and you yearn for home.

Folk music, though, has hope, restrained, but still hope. Hard times, come again no more. This land is your land, this land is my land. There is a chance Charley will actually get off the MTA.

Country is more about boozy romance and self-inflicted loss. As someone has said, “You never hear a country song about how my wife loves me, my pickup runs, I’m sober, and my dog didn’t die.” The Prodigal Son has friends in low places, but he’s sort of stuck there.

Folk is, I think, not just about longing for home, but longing for the wholeness that home represents. That is why folk is my genre and Five Hundred Miles is my anthem

I am 500 miles from home here in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, quite literally, 500 miles from my spiritual home, the Indiana University campus, where my ashes will eventually reside. It is where Helen and I met and married. It is where my life began and where it will end.

So we are moving home. Even then, though, I will still be 500 miles from home. It is why I look forward to death at the same time that I am willing to put if off as long as possible. Death is the way home. Home is where my spirit belongs, where I will be whole.

Life is 500 ills and thus 500 deaths. Death is the final cure for all ills, because it means, as the great old folk singer, The Rev. Gary Davis put it, “I don’t have to die no more.”

In the meantime, I shall make it easier on both Death and myself by moving to Bloomington, so that it’s just a couple of miles we have to travel together instead of 500. I am sort of hoping that by treating Death kindly and considerately in this way, Death will return the favor.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Okay, so it’s actually 625 miles from Iron Mountain to Bloomington, but Hedy West didn’t write a song about 625 miles.

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.

GOD'S FACTS

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

It has been warm enough the past few days that I have been able to walk to City Park. I do the same route each day. It takes 48 minutes. Except this year it takes 52. I am walking at exactly the same pace as I have the last 7 years, at least it feels to me like I am, but my chronograph says differently. Well aware that it could not be that I am getting slower because of getting older, I tried a different chronograph. The results were the same, 52 minutes for a 48 minute walk.

The facts tell a different story from what my feelings tell. Facts are facts. Except in the world of emotions. And politics.

When I was a campus minister at Illinois State University, we had a very successful Sunday evening supper and program series. The students cooked, and a professor or some other luminary did a presentation. But the program began to decline. Not as many students came. The presentations were not as stimulating. I decided it was time to end that program. We needed a different time, a different format, to get the students to come back.

Then I checked the facts, which I myself kept each week, a careful count of attendance. The Sunday evening program was not declining at all. Indeed, it was better than ever. The average attendance was the highest it had been in its six years of existence. Why did I misread the facts so badly? Because I felt at odds with the facts. As I thought about it, I realized that I was tired of having all my Sunday nights used up, tired of missing out on Sunday night suppers and TV and popcorn with my children. It was I, not the facts, who saw a decline when there was not one.

That’s why we use statistics, because it is very easy for us to misread the facts in order to make them fit what we want. I once had an argument with a District Superintendent about our denomination’s focus on measuring success by numbers. “Numbers don’t matter,” I insisted. “They do when they get to zero,” he insisted right back. He also thought we should pay attention to numbers before they got to zero. He was right about that, too. Facts are facts.

In our day, the problem seems not so much to be a misreading of the facts, in our churches and in our politics, but a perverse ignoring of them, claiming that they are wrong, claiming even that they don’t exist, claiming that if, through government mandates or legislation, we ignore them, even make it illegal to talk about them, that they don’t and won’t matter.

Let me give two opposite, sort-of, examples.

Almost all scientists, including medical people, either ignore the power of prayer in healing or claim that it is useless or irrelevant. But every scientific, double-blind, experiment on prayer and healing, done in the same rigorous manner than physics or chemistry experiments are done, has had the same results: prayer works in healing. It isn’t perfect. It does not always work. But surgery doesn’t always work, either. Neither does chemotherapy. We keep using them, though, because they work sometimes. Prayer is the only healing method for which we require perfection. Facts are facts, unless we don’t want them to be, because we have something to gain by ignoring them.

Almost all evangelical, conservative, right-wing preachers and politicians claim that climate change is either a hoax or just not true or irrelevant or that human activity, such as the burning of fossil fuels, has nothing to do with it, or all of the above. Some try to ban research into climate change or even ban talk about it. The only reason to ban research or conversation about a topic is because you know that the facts will prove you wrong. Because facts are facts. Unless we don’t want them to be, because we have something to gain by ignoring them.

Jesus said, “You shall know the truth, and it is the truth that will set you free.” [John 8:32] Ignoring the facts leaves us in a prison of faithlessness and futility. It is God who is the Creator. “It is God who has made us and not we ourselves.” [Psalm 100:3] The facts belong to God. When we ignore them, be it facts about prayer or about the world, we are ignoring God.

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 ALLIGATOR PROBLEM

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

This post starts with my journal entry from F, 6-30-00, almost 15 years ago…

*******

I am sitting at a picnic table in the city park right in the middle of downtown Mason City, Iowa. It’s a block square. From where I sit I can see the round, glass-sided city bus depot, 23 oak trees, a water fountain, two flower beds, three statues, the only hotel Frank Lloyd Wright ever designed, the home-town bank that financed our house mortgage and then, without bothering to mention it to us, sold the mortgage to strangers in Memphis. I would tell you the name of the bank, but it will change, twice, from when I write this to when you read it, since the main business of banks is to acquire other banks and change their names. I suspect the selling of mortgages to folks in Memphis is why “I shot a man in Memphis” occurs so often in music and literature.

I am drinking from a china cup, even in the park. It is the best coffee in town. In fact, it is the best coffee in Seattle, according to the sign, “Seattle’s Best,” in Deja Brew, where they know me and so don’t worry when I meander out the door with one of their cups.

I like to write in downtown parks. Cars and trucks and buses and children and dogs wander by, giving motion to what would otherwise be a still life.

A man with a large belly and a small shirt ambles by. My table is a long way from where he is walking, but he calls over to inquire about my well-being. I assure him that I am fine and return the question.

“Well, I’m okay,” he says, “but have you heard about the alligators in Florida?”

I do not like to confess to ignorance, but I admit that I have not heard about the alligator in Florida.

“They’re dying,” he says, and then he walks on.

******

Fifteen years, and I am still wondering about this exchange.

We had six months of winter in Mason City. No self-respecting alligator would brave our frigid and frozen waters. It was two thousand miles from the alligators in Florida. Why did he tell me about them? Did he expect me to do something about those alligators?

Probably so. My whole life, it seems, whenever someone has mentioned a problem to me, it was with the expectation that I should do something about it. Is there something about me that causes even strangers in parks to assume that I am the problem-solving man, even though I am old and slow and the problem is two thousand miles away?

Most older folk were raised on a steady diet of responsibility, and even those of us who were not raised that way have had to shoulder plenty of it in our lives. It goes with the territory. If you’ve lived long enough, you’ve had plenty of problems to deal with.

Now we have two problems with responsibility: 1, we’re tired of it. 2, we feel uncomfortable without it.

We retire to get out from under that pressure of problem-solving responsibility. At least most of us do. Some know they’ll be so uncomfortable without it that they resist retirement.

As time goes by, even those of us who wanted to get away from responsibility are relieved of the responsibilities we don’t mind. Children grab our car keys and tell us if we want to go somewhere they’ll take us. The neighbors fear we’ll leave a burner on and flame the neighborhood down so they sign us up for Meals On Wheels. The librarian sees us coming and grabs an arm and leads us to the Large Print section.

Our lives, though, have been identified by our responsibilities, so we miss them, and we try to fill the gaps of their absence with…

…well, criticism. Old folk are known for being critical of younger folk, and it’s true. I mean, who else do we have to criticize? And why aren’t they doing something about those alligators?

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.

JOE SOLVES THE LONG-SPOON PROBLEM

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

I’m not sure I have this story quite right. Daughter Katie wasn’t sure she had it right when she told grandson Joe about it, either, but we’re close enough…

People in hell are hungry all the time. They sit across from one another at long tables. Before each one is a bowl of wonderful food, but their spoons are so long that they can’t get them into their mouths. All this wonderful food, with its enticing aromas and beauty, and they can’t get it into their mouths.

It’s the same setup in heaven, but there the people understand that each one can feed the person across the table with his/her own long spoon, so by feeding others, they are always full and happy.

Katie told this story to Joe, probably in an effort to persuade him to wash the spoons or some such, and he said: “Why don’t they forget the spoons and just pick up the bowls and eat directly out of them? I mean, it’s hell. Nobody is going to worry about table manners.”

Joe has hit upon an important part of the story. There is a work-around to get what you need, even in hell, but one of the hallmarks of hell is poor thinking. We are so blinded by greed and self-centeredness and our unwillingness to give up our possessions [spoons] that we can’t even see what is to our own advantage. “The road to hell is paved with good intentions,” to be sure, but it’s also paved with self-centered decisions.

We often wonder what career path Joe will take. He has so many talents and skills and abilities it will be hard to choose. It would seem, though, that inspirational speaking and culinary arts are out.

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.

RISKY LOVE

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

It’s important for a new pastor to get to know all our church members as soon as possible, and older folks are easier to find, so they are usually the ones we get to know first. So I called on an older lady, a bit older than I am now, when I arrived at a new church. She was a recent widow and told me of how helpful her daughter, her only child, had been to her in her newly-widowed period. “But you never know how a child will finally turn out,” she said, shaking her head a bit.

I later learned that the daughter was 53 years old and a professor. But her mother wasn’t sure how she would turn out! [I understand that better now that my children are that age.]

I suspect that God is looking at me in my dotage and saying, “I’m not sure how he will turn out.” Because God does not practice safe love.

Jesus says, “Be perfect, even as your heavenly father is perfect.” [Mt 5:48] God is not perfect as measured against some outside standard of moral or intellectual perfection. God IS the standard by which perfection is measured. Whatever God is, that is perfection. God is perfect because God is always true to the divine identity.

Perfection is a matter of being true to one’s own identity. We are human beings. We are perfect when we are totally true to that identity. When we are imperfect is when we act like animals, or parasites, or posts [“dumb as a post”], or when we act like God, trying to play God for others or the world or ourselves. As Luther said, “Let God be God.”

Parenthood is risky. God has been raising us up for billions of years, and is not sure how we’ll turn out. God could have taken the safe route, not “wasted” those billions of years of nurturing, of bringing us along, but that’s not true to the divine identity. Risk-taking love is true to the nature of the divine identity. And even though it means God doesn’t know how we’ll turn out, God still loves us enough to give that choice to us. That is part of God’s perfection. I’m still working on my perfection, but with the faith that God will stick with me all the way as I try to be true to my real identity as God’s child. God and I are both waiting to see how I’ll finally turn out.

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.

TREES IN WINTER

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

I think that I shall never see

           A poem lovely as a tree…

            Joyce Kilmer’s Trees was one of the first poems I ever memorized, partly because we sang it at Lucretia Mott Public School # 3 in Indianapolis, partly because it was short and simple, mostly because it rang true to me.

            I learned the incorrect version, of course, since we sang it. Kilmer closed it with: Poems are written by fools like me, but only God can make a tree. The song version says: Poems are made by fools like me…

            I knew more about poems than trees, though, living in the inner city of Indianapolis. It was only when we moved to a farm near Oakland City, Indiana, when I was ten, that I really began to understand trees, and to appreciate them.

            My father was a good shade-tree botanist. He was an outdoorsman. He knew animals and plants. He could name trees.

            On the farm, I learned to love trees and plants, except for the ones I had to hoe in the garden, but I rarely learned their names. I learned the ones everyone knew--maples, oaks, willows, apple trees at certain times of year. I never learned to tell a hickory from an ash, though. All that was really important about a tree, it seemed to me, was the shade.

            The summers in southern Indiana were long and hot and humid. Life was physical and sweaty. We carried water and fire wood in and out. We heated water on a wood stove and washed clothes in a wringer washer and hung them on a line. We hoed and canned vegetables. We had no air conditioning. We did have electricity, but only one old-fashioned slow-moving fan.

            In our front yard, we had shade trees—big maples. The front yard was open on all sides except for the house. There was almost always a breeze. When the heat became too much, I would flop down on the grass in the front yard, in the shade of those leafy maples, and feel the breeze.

            We are moving back to sit in the shade of those trees, where the leaves come early, full of promise, and linger late, resplendent in their many hues. But as the first spring buds appear on trees here in the Upper Peninsula, I realize that I shall miss the trees of winter, when long black limbs stand stark against the snow and lowering winter light.

            Trees are beautiful in spring and summer and autumn, in the fullness of their leaves, but in winter, we see the trunk and the limbs in their bare splendor. In winter we see the permanent beauty of what allows the seasonal beauty to spring forth.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I don't know why blogger decided to separate the two Kilmer lines at the start of this post, or use a different font for the second, but it is an interesting look...

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.

Staring-a poem

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

If I stare hard and long

into days that are no more

I may see there a moment

Long-forgotten

perhaps a day in June

with sunlight

on golden hair

riding slow on air so soft

that even angels

held their breath

on that day that is

no more

If I stare hard and long

into this day of now

I may find there some moment

present of the present

a lingering bit of warmth

from the touch of my empty cup

that gives me one more breath

on this day that is

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.

GETTING WHAT WE PRAY FOR, EVEN WHEN IT'S NOT

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

Today’s post is from page 38 of my NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love them [AndrewsMcMeel, 2007]

Someone has said that when we stand before the judgment seat, the question we’ll be asked is not “Did you believe?” but “Did you care?” That’s why even non-believers pray for those they love.

Prayer isn’t telling God or anyone else what to do or how to do it. None of us is smart enough for that.

Monica, of ancient Hippo, was a religious woman. Her son, Augustine, wanted to go to Rome, because he was a playboy and interested only in his own pleasure. Rome was a happening place. Monica prayed and prayed that her son would not be allowed to make his way to the fleshpots of Rome, for she was sure he would be ruined there. Augustine went anyway. There he heard Ambrose preach, and he was converted. The playboy became the saint.

Was Monica’s prayer answered? No, not if you mean getting that for which she prayed. But her real prayer was answered. She had cried out, “I care about this boy,” and God answered, “So do I.”

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.

IN THE SAME STORY [Part 2 of 2]

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

[The 2^nd of a two-part series.]

Ira Galloway and I rarely agreed on anything, but we respected each other, because each of us had a radical commitment to Christ.

When I founded SADMOB, I figured Ira would not come. He was already senior pastor of the largest church in our conference, several thousand members. Before Peoria First Church, he had been a bureaucrat in the high reaches of the denomination. What did he have to learn from the likes of me?

But I invited him. And he came. Every time. When it was his turn to lead, to tell how he did a particular area of ministry in his congregation, he presented his work humbly, and listened to comments and criticisms carefully and appreciatively. When others presented, he listened just as carefully and made thoughtful comments. There was no sense that he considered himself better than anyone else just because he served the largest church and had the longest resume`. He acted like we were all equals in learning from one another. Often people in high places are lonely there and hunger for fellowship.

As we got to know each other in SADMOB, Ira became one of my major supporters. Even though we were miles apart on almost all social and theological issues, he respected my approach and my commitment. He felt I was underemployed, that I should be serving a much larger church, and lobbied to that end. He rarely missed a chance to praise me to our colleagues.

As he was coming close to retirement as a pastor, he helped to found The Institute for Religion and Democracy. Unfortunately, it moved very quickly to become a justifier of using any draconian measure against anyone deemed an enemy of the US, especially if someone referred to them as communist. No dictator was too brutal, even in the atrocities they committed against Christians in their own countries, including Noriega and Pinochet and Marcos, if he claimed to be anti-communist and pro-American.

Ira became shrill and narrow. He was sad, without the mob of colleagues, including people like I, who disagreed with him and were willing to say so, to serve as a balance.

How I like to remember Ira is as he was in SADMOB, and how he was when I preached at annual conference, a gathering of a thousand or so souls to do the annual work and worship of the several hundred churches in the lower 2/3 of Illinois. He was always surrounded and followed by a group of young conservative pastors who vied for his attention and approval. Immediately after the service in which I had preached, I was walking down a hallway. Ira was standing in the hallway, surrounded by his acolytes. They did not see me approach. As I neared, I realized that they were discussing my sermon. “But he’s just a story-teller,” one young man said. Ira smiled. “Exactly,” he said. “Exactly.”

Ira knew we were in the same story, and we were both tellers of it. I regret so much that he narrowed that story so much in his later years, willing to leave so many folks out of it, but I’ll always appreciate his support. You don’t have to agree with folks to appreciate and love them. And it is okay to oppose them, even if you appreciate and love them. We’re still in the same story.

Ira has gone to his reward, as we say. I still pray for him. I hope he is still lobbying for a better appointment for me.

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.

WE ALREADY HAVE CHURCH CONSULTANTS

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

The church has lost some giants in recent days, Fred Craddock and Ira Galloway and Lyle Schaller. The latter two died within a few days of each other, both at the age of 91. They were significant leaders in the church, Lyle as a sociologist-consultant, and Ira as a pastor-leader. I knew Lyle primarily through his books, but also because my good friend, Ed Tucker, “Friar Tuck,” illustrated his books. I also met Lyle at various church gatherings, and got him to spend a day with SADMOB. I knew Ira primarily through SADMOB, and in general because we were both pastors in the Central Illinois Conference of the UMC.

What I want to say about these two important leaders, Schaller and Galloway, is too long for one CIW, so I’ll talk about Lyle today and Ira tomorrow, both in the context of SADMOB.

SADMOB stood for Senior And Directing Members Of Bigchurches, and Lyle was one of the influences that caused me to call it into being.

The other was The Academy of Parish Clergy, APC, of which I was once president. It was founded by Granger Westberg as the first continuing education forum for clergy. Westberg worked in hospital settings and realized that just as physicians needed continuing education, so did pastors. The one group of clergy that did not have a professional organization that provided continuing education was parish pastors. Hence, APC.

I learned in APC that the real experts in parish ministry are those who practice it, and that we can learn from one another if we “share the practice,” which is the title of APC’s quarterly journal. That is a hard thing to get across to the church, even to pastors. Go to any conference for clergy, including the annual APC conference, or a seminary commencement, and hardly any leader will be a pastor. They are always professors or administrators or consultants or journalists or street walkers. Pastors can learn from all those folks, but if you go to a conference of professors or street walkers, they never have pastors as leaders. The ONLY people we assume can teach us nothing about how to lead the church are those who actually do it. 

I learned from reading Lyle Schaller that the big churches [distinct from mega churches] were declining rapidly, and that no one was paying attention to a loss that would be tragic for the church and impossible to reverse. Even county seat towns, especially in the Midwest, had “big” churches, a thousand members or more. Small cities, with names like Springfield, might have several. They were big, but out of step. They were downtown and had no parking. They had traditional buildings that cost a lot to maintain and were single-use and did not adapt easily to praise bands and movie screens. They grew large when they were main street; now they were back street. People started going to new church start-ups, beyond the edge of town, with lots of parking, or stopped going altogether.

I was pastoring one of those big churches at the time, and I decided to do something about the problem. I did not go through the church hierarchy. I just called the pastors of the big churches in our conference and said, “Let’s get together and learn from one another how better to lead these churches.” Every one of them came, including Ira Galloway, the pastor of Peoria First, the largest church in the conference, around 4 thousand members. We decided to meet monthly, with each one taking a turn leading, telling us how he [they were all male at that time] did a particular area of ministry. The one exception to that leadership style was when we had Lyle Schaller come.

It was a great day. We had a good time. We learned a lot from Lyle Schaller, and I am grateful for his leadership in the church over many decades. It was he, when asked about using church consultants, said: “The church already has a great consultant system in place. It’s called pastors.”

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.

WINTER SURVIVAL

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

This last week I have gotten out of bed without the usual fear of my toes getting frostbite before I can reach the bathroom. It’s spring in Iron Mountain! It’s only a little below freezing in the morning!

I grew up about 700 miles south of where I have lived the past 8 years and where I will live another month. Even there, though, there were cold mornings, even though we had a Warm Morning™ stove.

My little brother and I slept on a pull-out sofa in the living room. We were awakened by the sound of our father shaking down the ashes and stoking up the stove. We had no choice about getting awake and getting up. A southern Indiana farm floor is colder in the morning than an Upper Peninsula floor in a house with a gas furnace and a thermostat. I wondered how the pioneers managed. They didn’t even have a stove.

I am told that soldiers in training for Arctic duty are dropped into the wilderness with a winter survival pack, but they are not wearing it. To survive they have to strip naked in order to get into their packs. If they are not willing to strip naked in the miserable cold, they will not survive.

It’s a bit like being old. Old people have to strip down to the basics, get out of all the stuff that has kept us warm thru the years, to put on the survival pack of resurrection trust. Otherwise we live out our last days in despair.

So as we pack, getting ready to fit into a condo, I think of that. Yes, we are getting rid of lots of stuff that used to be useful and have meaning to us. Yes, there is a feeling of loss. But there is also a feeling of anticipation, of hope, of getting stripped down to fit.

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.

Wondering About Things Done--a poem

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

If you’re dying young,

a white-sheet lump,

lying still in some strange

fourth-floor bed, the pain

not so bad that you can’t

think,

as I once did,

you wonder what it means

that you did not do

the things for which you hoped.

When you are old,

and you are dying,

but without the deadline

marked upon a page of days,

on the wall

of a fourth-floor bed,

you wonder what it means

that you did

the things for which you hoped.

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.

A MAN OF ALL AGES

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

I was in Springfield, IL and thought I would look up Jean Cramer-Heuerman. Jean and I were friends even though she was about 20 years younger than I, serving on denominational committees together, sitting in the back making witty remarks [or so we thought] to each other, but we were even closer after we got cancer at the same time. Cancer does that.

I called her church. Her cheery voice answered, but it was “the machine.” It told me all about events at the church, including a Sunday School for people of all ages.

I told the machine that I was busy in other places on Sunday mornings, but I would like to come to their Sunday School, since I would fit in, for I was, indeed, a person of all ages. [1]

I am an old man, but I am also a man of all ages. That’s one of the nice things about being old, getting to be of all ages.

Through the years, various folks have said that I seemed to be a mind reader, or that I was able to see from inside their own life.

I suspect most old people, people of all ages, do that, but it may have been more noticeable in me because of my penchant for responding to a problem by telling a story, a story that allows both the teller and the hearer to find their own place. It seemed like I was reading minds or understanding from the inside because we were in the story together.

I started preaching when I was only nineteen. I was fascinated by 3 things about the old people I encountered in my churches: First, their stories. Second, although they had lived a long time, the stories were usually about their childhoods. Third, their willingness to share them with a young kid pastor. At first I thought it was just because old people like to tell stories of their own lives. Then, however, I realized the stories had a point. They were trying to work out, understand the meanings of, those childhood events and feelings, and the ways they had affected their lives through the years.

The last stage of psychological-social growth, the stage of the winter years, is final integrity vs. ultimate despair. Final integrity is the ability to accept all that was our life, even the painful parts. Ultimate despair is the feeling that we just wasted life, that it had no meaning. To get to integrity, we have to work through in our minds, mostly in reverse order, all the stages that we lived through before: trust vs. mistrust, autonomy vs. shame and doubt, initiative vs. guilt, industry vs. inferiority, identity vs. identity diffusion, intimacy vs. isolation, generativity vs. stagnation. [2]

A lot of that working through is telling the stories of those earlier years, so we can see them, and see that while they were not perfect, they are OURS, and so they are okay. In the process, we are not just old, we become people of ALL ages

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

1] After I retired, Jean was serving Wesley UMC in Urbana, IL, where our daughters attended while in graduate school at U of IL. Helen and I occasionally worshipped there while visiting Mary Beth and Katie. One Sunday, I was told by choir members, Jean had looked into the sanctuary, saw us there, came back to the choir room and said, “OMG, he’s out there. Every time I preach about something he’s said, he shows up!” She was using “man of all ages” that Sunday. When she was much too young, she was transferred from the church militant to the church triumphant. She is now preaching where I cannot terrorize her by showing up when she’s going to quote me; I miss that.

2] As defined by Erik H. Erikson. I add a couple more stages for the winter years.

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 BIG STORY

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

I have profited much through the years from the books of John Killinger. Most recently I have been reading his Stories That Shaped My Life & Ministry. It has gotten me thinking about the stories that have shaped me.

Because I have always loved stories, I assumed from an early age that I would be a newspaper reporter. Those were the folks who got to tell stories on a daily basis. So I loved the radio show, “The Big Story.”

Each week the show recounted, in dramatic form, how one reporter got his big story. [It was always “his” in those days.] {1} One in particular that I remember was about how a reporter got his big story about a coal mine cave-in, by defying the mine owners who were trying to minimize it and keep it away from public awareness. The reporter took risks, actually got into the mine, and then told the real story. That appealed to me especially because my maternal grandfather, Elmer Pond, was killed in a coal mine cave-in before I was born. I always regretted not getting to know him.

The first story that really shaped me, however, was the Jesus story. I didn’t know it was the Jesus story, though. I read it in Tramp, the Sheep Dog, by Don Lang. Tramp just wanted to help, but he was rejected and despised. He was persistent, though, and saved the sheep, laid down his life for them, even though he was not wanted. I don’t think Don Lang intended to tell the Jesus story. He was just telling a good dog story. It set me up, though, to be a patsy for Jesus when I found out that it was really his story.

It was truly “the big story,” and I have been reporting on it ever since.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

1} Journalism is the first profession in which “the pink collar effect” was felt, or at least noticed, that being the depression of wages and status when a large number of women first enter a field.

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.

ASSUMPTIONS

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

Yesterday was Assumption Day. According to Roman Catholic theology, it is the anniversary of the day when the BVM, Blessed Virgin Mary, was bodily assumed into heaven, before her body could begin to decay, representing our own assumptions about resurrection.

I tend to get Assumption Day and Ascension Day confused. They sound alike, and come at the same time of year. This year Ascension Day is May 15, one month after Assumption Day, 40 days following Easter, when Christians commemorate the bodily ascension of Jesus into heaven.

Sort of the same idea, isn’t it? Muslims have a similar day, when Muhammad ascended bodily into heaven. I have seen “the rock” in Jerusalem, which still has Muhammad’s foot print that he left, his last bodily mark on earth, as he ascended.

When Nick King came to Normal, IL to be Episcopal campus minister at IL State U, the local paper did an introductory article on him. It mentioned that his home town was Assumption, IL.

Shortly after, he received a long letter from a disgruntled Episcopalian, excoriating him for believing in the doctrine of the Assumption, and explaining all that is wrong with it.

Talk about assumptions! The letter writer saw only the word “Assumption” in the article and did not read carefully enough to realize it referred only to geography, not theology.

A whole lot of trouble in the world comes from our assumptions, basing our relationships on incomplete reading of what Anton Boisen called “the human documents.”

I always worry when someone starts a sentence with “I’m the kind of person who…” because they are almost always wrong. They are making assumptions about themselves based on poor reading of themselves. Or at least, that’s my assumption.

I can’t do much about the assumptions of others, about themselves or about me, but I can try to control my own assumptions by being careful.

My home town is Oakland City. Yes, I believe in the doctrine of Oakumption, that mighty oaks coming from little acorns. Don’t assume anything about that.

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.

SENSITIVE TO THE SPIRIT'S LEADING

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

Our older daughter once sold household products door-to-door. She liked it. It gave her confidence. Also she got to meet interesting people

Her customers got more interesting than usual when they learned that her father was a minister, for folks always assume, when they find out you are a PK [Preacher’s Kid] that you should either have to defend your parent’s faith, or that you will be interested in hearing about the customer’s beliefs.

So one of her customers explained to Mary Beth how she depended on the Holy Spirit. “We needed a new refrigerator,” she said, “so I prayed to the Spirit to lead me.”

“What happened?” asked Mary Beth, rather excited about learning how the Spirit leads, and thinking she might receive a tip on how to get a free fridge. “Did you get a new refrigerator?”

“Oh, yes,” the woman said. “I went down to the appliance store and bought one. It was on sale.”

Mary Beth asked me later if it were necessary as a Christian to have the leading of the Spirit to get to the appliance store.

“Some people,” I said, “are more sensitive to the leading of the Spirit than the rest of us are.”

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.

INEVITABLE DISAPPOINTMENTS

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

One of the main parts of a preacher’s job is disappointing people. Folks are disappointed when we preach something other than what they want to hear, and by every hymn we choose, since it is never one of their favorites, and because we are not perfect.

They are especially disappointed when we do not have answers to ineffable questions, and when we don’t have the ability to perform the miracles they so desperately pray for when someone they love, or perhaps themselves, is/are in trouble, or even have adequate words or rituals to make them feel that life has meaning even in their grief.

Thus I was not well suited for life as a parson, for I hate to disappoint people. I even hide around the corner after I ring my grandson’s doorbell, to let him know I am there, so we can go practice driving for his license exam, for fear that Ernie, the granddog, will see me and be disappointed that he is not getting a walk, since he ALWAYS gets a walk when he sees Grandpa, for he is able to work my reluctance to disappoint to its highest point. Yes, he won’t even remember his disappointment once we are gone, but that makes it all the worse, since in that one moment his disappointment is complete. He does not understand that this, too, will pass.

So to keep this blog from being disappointing, I try to post something new each day, so if you come here looking for something you will find it, on the theory that the one who seeks shall find, and I try to say something at least slightly amusing.

To fulfill that latter rule, I shall point out that today Helen says she thinks she is getting taller, because when she bends over to pick something up from the floor, the floor is farther away than it used to be.

If, however, you are one of those people who is disappointed when nothing new appears here each day, or if you are the other one, you are going to be disappointed every once in a while over the next month, for we are moving from Iron Mountain, MI to Bloomington, IN. We came to Iron Mountain because the grandchildren were here, but they are grown up now, and living in a place where life is defined by winter even in the summer has lost its appeal. We want to live where winter is defined by summer, and where everyone is identified by the IU School of Music and the Hurryin’ Hoosiers basketball team. Now is the late winter [We had 6 inches of snow yesterday.] of our discontent, which requires much carrying of boxes and packing of stuff we could surely do without but which no one else will take, and so, while I shall make a real effort to post something once in a while, it’s not going to be every day until this move is over and I can find my desk, and my brain, in Bloomington.

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.

THOSE WHO MOVE US

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

In the process of down-sizing to fit into a condo, I am throwing away hundreds of cards and letters, almost three file drawers worth. They came from former students and colleagues in campus ministry, from fellow clergy around the world, from other writers, from former parishioners, from friends in all walks of life.

I read each one, think about that writer and the circumstances that prompted the letter, and then drop it into the recycling bin. There is no point in saving these anymore. My wife or daughters will have to sort through everything that is left when I die. These cards and letters will not mean anything to them. They don’t know who wrote them, or what prompted them to say what they did. One gift I can give them is to put my friends into the recycling.

The largest number of cards and letters is from fellow cancer folks. Because of my book, and speaking at so many cancer survivor gatherings, I met many, many fellow cancer survivors. There is an instant bond. Often it carries over to keeping in touch. So I have had many survivor correspondence friends. I can remember only a few of them. I had extensive correspondence with some, but now cannot remember them at all.

Maybe that’s just old age forgetfulness, but it doesn’t seem to extend to high school. I am hanging on to more mementoes from my high school days than from my cancer days. I remember every one of those high school friends.

At first that surprised me. Cancer has been the defining thread of my life, not only my own cancer, but that of my wife, my brother, a sister, a daughter, our grandson, my parents. Cancer has been a significant part of my life for 25 years. High school took only four. The people from my cancer days, though, were not those who defined me, who helped me learn in the first place who I am.

It was those years of high school, and the people in them, many with whom I am still in touch, who helped me become me, the guy who was able to deal with cancer, the guy who was able to help others as they walked the cancer journey.

Jim Shaw called last week. I hear from Jim once a year, a card at Christmas. I haven’t talked to him in person in five years. Nonetheless, I recognized his voice immediately. We were not close in high school, didn’t run around together, but we share those years. He was the one who said to me, in the summer after I had dropped out of high school to work in a factory, “On your day off, let’s go up to IU and see if they’ll let us in.” That was the hinge moment of my life.

When Jim learned we are moving, he called to offer to bring his truck and help. I so much appreciate all the folks I have met on the cancer journey. They, however, aren’t going to help me move.

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.]

You can read more about the last 25 years in NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE, available just about anywhere on the web.

I tweet as yooper1721.

PREACHER'S DILEMMA-EASTER

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

I would love to say that Easter is my favorite time of the Christian year, but it is not. I like Christmas better.

Those two holidays are the hardest time for a preacher, not just because the church is very busy and people are under a lot of stress, but because you know you will preach to a lot of folks who will not hear a sermon any other time. It’s a once a year, or maybe twice a year, opportunity. You want to make the most of it. Besides, since they come only on those holidays, they have heard those sermons before, the only themes they ever hear. There is a whole lot of the Gospel that is not included in the Christmas and Easter narratives, and people need to hear the fullness, but how to you do justice to the major points—incarnation and resurrection—and cover the rest, too, all in twenty minutes?

Christmas I did pretty well. I could always write a story to use as a sermon for Christmas, something folksy that people would understand, be able to see themselves in, help them to think about the meaning of the whole Gospel, inspire them to live more hopefully. It’s easier to preach if you don’t have to preach.

Easter does not lend itself easily to stories. The stories that are already there are overwhelming. It’s hard to do them justice by telling them in another way, and it’s also hard to do them justice telling them in the same old way. People have heard them over and over. Some folks, those are the only stories of faith they have heard, and they are inoculated.

For fifty hears I laid awake on Saturday night before Easter morning, knowing I needed my sleep, since we get up extra early on Easter, and being unable to sleep because I was still trying to find that elusive word to preach. Maybe it was just out of habit, but I did it again last night, trying to find the proper word for this blog this morning.

Those sleepless nights always produced some variation of this: resurrection is not really about a body getting out of a grave. It’s not about the future. It’s about the present. The hope of resurrection takes away the fear of nothingness in death, and that allows us to live without fear now. As always, the Gospel, the Good News, is about the eternal present.

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.

On Not Keeping Silent

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

One of the first things I wrote in this blog, in 2010, a quote from Jurgen Moltmann, passed along by Nina Morwell…

“If women really had kept their mouths shut in church, we never would have known about the resurrection.”

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.

PATRIPASSIONISM

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

“This is our God. Not a distant God nor a sadist, but a God who weeps. A God who suffers, not only for us, but with us. Nowhere is the suffering of God more salient than on the cross. Therefore what can I do but confess that this is not a God that causes suffering. This is a God who bears suffering. I need to believe that God does not initiate suffering; God transforms it.” Nadia Bolz-Weber, Pastrix, page 128 [Jericho Books, 2013].

Patripassionism. The suffering of God. A heresy. Only the second person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ, suffers. If theology has God suffering, too, then all hell breaks loose, or something like that. But Bolz-Weber talks about it like it’s just common-place stuff that everybody believes. Because it is.

This is what happens to heresies; they become orthodoxies. Patripassionism, the suffering of God, was a heresy for the first 2000 years of Christian faith, or at least since Augustine came up with the concept of the Trinity. In the last 50 years, it has become the most universally accepted theological concept.

Fifty years ago I started claiming I was the world’s leading authority on patripassionism. It was an easy claim. No one knew what it was or how to say it or even spell it. [Sphelzchek doesn’t even have patripassionism in its vocabulary.] I thought it would be neat to be called as an expert witness in a trial, when some theological renegade was brought up on heresy charges, having claimed, Unitarian [1] fashion, that God suffers along with us. Alas, now that will never happen.

I must confess my hypocrisy. All this time I have claimed to be an expert on the patripassionism heresy, I have preached that heresy. Nothing else about suffering makes much sense.

“God is good all the time; all the time God is good.” Really? I think that is the heresy. But “All the time God is with us; God is with us all the time?” Not just with us in our suffering, but suffering with us. Call me a heretic, but yes.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

1] Sphelczhek also insists that I capitalize Unitarian even though I use it as a common rather than proper noun.

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.

THREE MISTAKES

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

Recently a man I know in a non-church setting found out that I used to be a preacher. Whenever a person finds out you are or were a preacher, they want to preach to you either about why they don’t go to church, or they want to preach to you about what the Bible says. I prefer the
“why I don’t go” sermons.

So when Scott learned I used to be a preacher, he asked me what I thought about women preachers.

“Depends on whether she’s any good,” I said, which was the wrong reply. Of course, any reply other than “There should be no women in the ministry” would have been the wrong reply.

He immediately explained to me why there should be no women preachers, because he is a Bible believer, and it says in Titus that there should be no women preachers.

I expressed approval that he was basing his beliefs on the Bible and said I assumed that he also did not take interest on his money since there are far more prescripts against taking interest on your money in the Bible than there are against women preachers. He had a very good answer. He explained that the rule against interest was made in a different time and culture, that the purpose of that rule was to make the economy better, and the development of capitalism had done a better job of making the economy better, so it superseded the old rule.

I am not at all sure that he is right that capitalism has made the economy better, but the main problem is that it never occurred to him that if you apply the “different time and culture” rule to one part of the Bible, you have to do it to all the others, also.

Then he made it clear that his disconcert about women preachers was much more emotional than biblical. The same rule against women preachers applied to women soldiers, he said, for it was his job as a man to protect women, and he could not do that if they were fighting on the front lines, and women should not be preachers because it was too stressful a job for them.

I agree that preaching is too stressful for women. I also think it is too stressful for men. I think only chipmunks should be allowed to preach. I did not say that to him, though. What I did said was, “You are a Neanderthal who is totally out of touch.” He accepted that with remarkably good grace.

I made three mistakes.

The first was getting pulled into the discussion in the first place. I should have said at his very first question, “I don’t come to this group to discuss religion. I’m willing to talk with you about this over a cup of coffee, but I come to this group to get away from the stuff preachers usually deal with and right now we are both tired, and we want to get home, and that means it is not a good time for a serious discussion.” I have never been smart enough to do that.

The second mistake was expecting rationality. At first he sounded very rational, with his “different time and culture” argument. But then he went on to “It’s my responsibility to protect women,” which is an emotional basis. If one person is trying to be logical and consistent, and the other is emotionally based, the discussion won’t get very far.

Religious beliefs, in general, are rarely based on logic, and so it is hard for people to talk about them logically. And religion is often used simply to justify what a person already feels. “I’m afraid of black people, or women, or strangers, so I’ll look around in the Bible for some stuff to make my shunning of them, or domination of them, acceptable.”

My third mistake was calling him a name, Neanderthal. Name-calling cuts off discussion, it does not foster it. Of course, I wanted to cut off discussion. I didn’t want to talk about it anymore. I wanted to go home. Name calling got me what I wanted… for the moment. But not in the long run. The only way we make progress on these issues is to talk to one another, and listen to one another, patiently. I’m still working on that.

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.