WILD IN THE PEWS

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

I have been reading again the Journal of John Wesley.

As the founder of Methodism, he rode all over Britain in the 1700s, preaching wherever a crowd would gather. Some historians say that the social and economic times were as bad in Britain as in France, with a few obscenely rich people lording it over huge numbers of obscenely poor people. Those conditions led to bloody revolution in France. The Methodist movement in Britain, however, gave people hope. Hopeful people do not resort to violent revolution as readily as do desperate and despairing people, and so Britain was spared a violent revolution.

On Oct. 2, 1762, Wesley wrote: “All this week I had endeavoured to confirm those who had been shaken as to the important doctrine of Christian perfection, either by its wild defenders, or wise opposers, who much avail themselves of that wildness.”

It’s necessary to leave aside the doctrine of Christian perfection for the moment. That takes at least two or three books to explain. The point I’d like to make is: more damage can be done to a good cause by its proponents than its opponents if they support it “wildly” rather than wisely.

By “wild,” Wesley did not mean just ranting and raving, but by going beyond reason. I remember hearing Congressman John Brademas tell of the election when he came to office. It was getting down to the wire, and he had a slight lead on the incumbent against whom he was running. Desperate to regain the lead, in “wildness,” the opponent accused Brademas of being unfaithful to his wife. “But that backfired,” Brademas explained, “because I have never been married.”

Do you want to know why young people, and many not so young, are deserting the church, or not considering it in the first place? Because so many “public” Christians are so “wild” in their opposition to those who don’t agree with them. “Wild” Christians do more harm to the cause of Christ than any atheist or hedonist could do.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I started this blog several years ago, when we followed the grandchildren to the “place of winter,” Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP]. I put that in the sub-title, Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter, where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.] The grandchildren, though, are grown up, so in May, 2015 we moved “home,” to Bloomington, IN, where we met and married. It’s not a “place of winter,” but we are still in winter years of the life cycle, so I am still trying to understand what it means to be a follower of Christ in winter…

I tweet as yooper1721.

My new novel is VETS, about four homeless Iraqistan veterans accused of murdering a VA doctor, is available from your local independent book store, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, KOBO, Books-A-Million, Black Opal Books, and almost any place else that sells books. $8.49 or $12.99 for paperback, according to which site you look at, and $3.99 for Kindle. Free if you can get your library to buy one.

JOHN LEWIS ON CHANGE & FORGIVENESS

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

We heard Congressman John Lewis speak last night about the comic book, “March,” about his experiences practicing non-violence in the days of the Civil Rights Movement.

Comic books, aka “graphic novels,” are a way of communicating with people who would not hear the story any other way.

Lewis was beaten more than 20 times. Once he was on a bus freedom ride, sitting with a young white man. When they got off the bus in a southern town, they were jumped and beaten.

Forty-five years later, an old man appeared in his congressional office. He had his middle-aged son with him.

“I was one of those who beat you in that town,” he said. His son began to cry. The man began to cry. “I am asking for forgiveness,” he said. Of course, Lewis said, “I forgive you.”

“There is still much to do to accomplish justice for all,” said Lewis, “and there are always those who want to turn back the clock to the darker ways of oppression, but if you don’t think people can change, if you don’t think this country has changed for the better, then walk in my shoes.”

Except for money, Jesus talked about forgiveness more than any other subject, because it is so important. If we are so sure of our own righteousness, we never ask for forgiveness, and we never receive it.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I started this blog several years ago, when we followed the grandchildren to the “place of winter,” Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP]. I put that in the sub-title, Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter, where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.] The grandchildren, though, are grown up, so in May, 2015 we moved “home,” to Bloomington, IN, where we met and married. It’s not a “place of winter,” but we are still in winter years of the life cycle, so I am still trying to understand what it means to be a follower of Christ in winter…

I tweet as yooper1721.

My new novel is VETS, about four homeless Iraqistan veterans accused of murdering a VA doctor, is available from your local independent book store, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, KOBO, Books-A-Million, Black Opal Books, and almost any place else that sells books. $8.49 or $12.99 for paperback, according to which site you look at, and $3.99 for Kindle. Free if you can get your library to buy one.

MARCHING INTO HISTORY

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

We are going to hear Congressman John Lewis speak tonight. He was the youngest of “The Big Six” Civil Rights leaders, and the only one who survives. When he was just in his early 20s, he led The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee [SNCC]. He was beaten badly by Bull Connor and his uniformed thugs as he tried to march with MLK over the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, AL. [1] Later, with court orders and federal troops, they marched from Selma to Montgomery, the state capital, to rally for Civil Rights. I was in the group that marched into Montgomery. [1]

In the summer of 1965, students from my Wesley Foundation [Methodist campus ministry] in Terre Haute, IN, and nuns from St. Mary of the Woods College cooperated with SNCC in Albany, GA, registering black folks to vote. Renate Judson, MD, of Terre Haute, loaned them a station wagon. They returned to Terre Haute with bullet holes in the wagon. Rednecks had chased Bob Mullins, our Wesley Foundation president, a boy barely past 20 himself, while he drove the wagon, and shot at him numerous times. It was that sort of era.

Last fall, granddaughter Brigid went to hear Lewis at Michigan State University. She stood in a long line to get his autograph for me. She told him that I had marched into Montgomery with him at the end of the Selma march. He said, “Tell your grandfather I said, ‘Thanks.’”

I’ve never had a better granddaughter, a better gift, or a better “thanks.”

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

1] There are people even today who are willing to say, “Well, it was their own fault. If they had obeyed the police command to go home instead of insisting on their constitutional rights, they wouldn’t have gotten beaten.”

2] You can read a more complete account in my book, THE STRANGE CALLING.

Harper Lee’s “new” GO SET A WATCHMAN is a flawed but fascinating look at a Southern family riven by the tensions of the time.

I tweet as yooper1721.

My new novel is VETS, about 4 homeless and handicapped Iraqistan veterans accused of murdering a VA doctor. Available from your local independent book store, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, KOBO, Black Opal Books, and almost any place else that sells books. $8.49 or $12.99 for paperback, according to which site you look at, and $3.99 for Kindle. Free if you can get your library to buy one.

ON GAME DAY, THE 2ND MEAL IS MORE IMPORTANT

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

I apologize to you if you have checked this blog in the last several days to see if there were anything new, but I’ve been busy. For instance, I had to appear in person at the radio show of Kevin Wilson, the IU football coach.

Among other things, Coach Wilson told about game-day preparations. He says their nutritionist has pointed out that they need to eat two meals before the game, but if the players eat too much in the first meal, then they don’t eat enough at the second meal, and they run out of fuel in the fourth quarter of the game.

In the spiritual life, John Wesley referred to this as “first blessing” and “second blessing,” or justification and sanctification.

We’ve all known new Christians who ate too much at first, then didn’t eat enough later, and ran out of fuel in the last quarter. Justification, or conversion, was just so strong that they forgot to stay open for what was to come.

Spiritual life is not a sprint; it’s a marathon. And as we marathoners know, no matter how slowly you are running, you can always run slower. The point is to keep going, regardless of the pace.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.

They called them heroes. They said, “Thank you for your service.” Then forgot about them. Joe Kirk lost a leg. Lonnie Blifield lost his eyes. Victoria Roundtree lost her skin. “Zan” Zander lost his mind. Four homeless and hopeless Iraqistan VETS who accidentally end up living together on an old school bus. With nowhere to go, and nothing else to do, they lurch from one VAMC to another, getting no help because, like the thousands of other Iraqistan VETS who are homeless, unemployed, and suicidal, they do not trust the system and refuse to “come inside.” After another fruitless stop, at the VAMC in Iron Mountain, Michigan, a doctor is found dead, and the VETS are accused of his murder. Distrustful, strangers to America, to each other, and even to themselves, they must become a unit to learn who really murdered the doctor, so that they can be free. In doing so, they uncover far more, about themselves and about their country, than they dared even to imagine. Available from your local independent book store, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, KOBO, Black Opal Books, and almost any place else that sells books. $8.49 or $12.99 for paperback, according to which site you look at, and $3.99 for Kindle and other editions.

Buy Vets Wherever Works Best for You

Daughter Katie says I should put the telephone # for Black Opal Books, the publisher of my new novel, VETS, on this site, because if you buy directly from Black Opal, I get a bigger cut of the price. That is good, because then I would have more money to contribute to helping homeless veterans. However, one friend who tried to buy directly from Black Opal said that we could solve the drug problem simply by requiring that all drugs be purchased through the Black Opal site, since it's difficult to negotiate. All the people at Black Opal have been exceptionally kind and helpful to me, and I hate to say anything bad about anything connected with them, but just go ahead and buy VETS in whatever way works best, and easiest, for you. You having the book and reading it is more important than me making more money from it.

JRMcF

THE BACKWARD UNION OF MEN

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

I belong to a backward union. The union of men.

Today is Labor Day, a day created by labor unions. I have celebrated it by doing man[ual] labor, something I don’t do much anymore, since we have moved to a condo. The condo, though, is the occasion for the labor, building shelves in the garage to fit in several cubic yards of Christmas, Easter, autumn, spring, etc. decorations.

Women belong to the house decorating union. To those of that union, houses exist so the decorations can be changed from one season or holiday to the next.

Men belong to the backward compliment union. To those of that union, other men exist so that we can say unkind things to one another, to show that we belong to the union.

At church Sunday, the greeter let us in the door, but then closed it in the face of the next man and insisted he could not come in. I felt sort of bad. The greeter doesn’t know me and like me well enough yet to try to keep me out.

I spoke at the funeral of my friend, Bill, on Saturday. He was a distinguished scholar and gentleman. He had a wonderful smile, and was really quite playful, but because he was so smart and kind himself, not many men said unkind things to him. He relied on me for that. If he showed up at our house with mud on his pants because he had slipped and fallen on the walk over, he would say, “I know you’re going to make fun of me and tell me how klutzy I am,” which took a little bit of the fun out of it, since all I had to do was put ditto marks on his statement, but I went ahead and made the whole criticism anyway, because I liked him, a lot.

The union is not united now, with Bill gone from it. It seems wrong not to have him to kick around. Since you’re available, you’ll have to do: If you’re a man, you are ugly and smell bad and are a klutz. If you are a woman, no, there is no room on the new shelves in our garage for your excess decorations.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I started this blog several years ago, when we followed the grandchildren to the “place of winter,” Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP]. I put that in the sub-title, Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter, where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.] The grandchildren, though, are grown up, so in May, 2015 we moved “home,” to Bloomington, IN, where we met and married. It’s not a “place of winter,” but we are still in winter years of the life cycle, so I am still trying to understand what it means to be a follower of Christ in winter…

I tweet as yooper1721.

They called them heroes. They said, “Thank you for your service.” Then forgot about them. Joe Kirk lost a leg. Lonnie Blifield lost his eyes. Victoria Roundtree lost her skin. “Zan” Zander lost his mind. Four homeless and hopeless Iraqistan VETS who accidentally end up living together on an old school bus. With nowhere to go, and nothing else to do, they lurch from one VAMC to another, getting no help because, like the thousands of other Iraqistan VETS who are homeless, unemployed, and suicidal, they do not trust the system and refuse to “come inside.” After another fruitless stop, at the VAMC in Iron Mountain, Michigan, a doctor is found dead, and the VETS are accused of his murder. Distrustful, strangers to America, to each other, and even to themselves, they must become a unit to learn who really murdered the doctor, so that they can be free. In doing so, they uncover far more, about themselves and about their country, than they dared even to imagine. Available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, KOBO, Black Opal Books, and almost any place else that sells books. $8.49 or $12.99 for paperback, according to which site you look at, and $3.99 for Kindle.

THROW HARD EVERY DAY

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

I have been reading David Halberstam’s October of 1964, about the baseball season leading up to the unlikely World Series between the fading white Yankees of Mickey Mantle and the increasingly fast and black Cardinals of Bill White and Lou Brock. [It was a gift from daughter Mary Beth’s baseball fan friend, Bill Napolillo.]

Like all of Halberstam’s work, it is a marvelous read, a complete melding of accurate journalistic reporting, smooth writing, and social awareness.

Much of it centers on the pitchers, those rising in their careers, and those declining, so there is a lot of pitching philosophy in the book. One older pitcher explained to a younger one that the body wants to keep doing what it has been doing. If you’ve been sitting around doing nothing, the body wants to keep sitting around doing nothing. If you’ve been running every day, the body wants to keep running. So, you need to throw hard every day, so that when it comes your turn to pitch, your body will want to throw hard.

I’m not sure you should throw hard every day. The body needs rest as well as work. There is a necessary rhythm. But there is a lot of truth in the old pitcher’s philosophy, too, especially for old people. If you sit around doing nothing, the body gets used to it and wants to keep on. Life is not much fun that way. Even if you can’t throw hard anymore, get up and throw.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I started this blog several years ago, when we followed the grandchildren to the “place of winter,” Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP]. I put that in the sub-title, Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter, 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 SUMMER OF MY DISCONCERT

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

This has been the summer of my disconcert.

Bloomington, Indiana has so many concerts. Concerts in the park. Concerts at the IU auditorium. Concerts indoors, concerts outdoors. I love concerts, and I fully intended to go to them all. Why move to a place of concerts only to be disconcerted?

Life got in the way. There is so much to do when you move, from getting the roof leak fixed to a new driver’s license to convincing the water department that you really did pay the bill. It’s fall, and classes have started, and I have not been to a single concert.

So my life is a failure. The move was for naught. I am disconcerted.

Well, not exactly. We have met delightful new friends. We have seen delightful old friends and family members we haven’t seen for a long time. We have heard some marvelous preaching. We have been to a great library. We saw a game at The Great American Ballpark. We have been surrounded every day by trees and flowers in their fullness.

Just because the summer was not what I intended or anticipated, it was still mine. Life does not have to be what we planned for it to be good. The coming time may be the winter of my disconcert, too, but it will still be mine, and that is a gift.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I started this blog several years ago, when we followed the grandchildren to the “place of winter,” Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP]. I put that in the sub-title, Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter, where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.] The grandchildren, though, are grown up, so in May, 2015 we moved “home,” to Bloomington, IN, where we met and married. It’s not a “place of winter,” but we are still in winter years of the life cycle, so I am still trying to understand what it means to be a follower of Christ in winter…

I tweet as yooper1721.

They called them heroes. Then forgot about them. Joe Kirk lost a leg. Lonnie Blifield lost his eyes. Victoria Roundtree lost her skin. “Zan” Zander lost his mind. Four homeless and hopeless Iraqistan VETS who accidentally end up living together on an old school bus. With nowhere to go, and nothing else to do, they lurch from one VAMC to another, getting no help because, like the thousands of other Iraqistan VETS who are homeless, unemployed, and suicidal, they do not trust the system and refuse to “come inside.” After another fruitless stop, at the VAMC in Iron Mountain, Michigan, a doctor is found dead, and the VETS are accused of his murder. Distrustful, strangers to America, to each other, and even to themselves, they must become a unit to learn who really murdered the doctor, so that they can be free. In doing so, they uncover far more, about themselves and about their country, than they dared even to imagine. Available from your local bookstore, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, KOBO, Black Opal Books, and almost any place else that sells books. $12.99 for paperback and $3.99 for Kindle and other ebooks.