A TALE OF TWO SELFIES

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

I passed John Mellenkamp on Kirkwood Avenue yesterday. A skinny blond was mauling him in order to get a selfie with him, much to the annoyance of the skinny blond who was actually with him, who, I am told, is Christie Brinkley, super model, his current squeeze, in lingo I think is cool and current and so must be hopelessly out of date. The “Small Town” boy, though, was being remarkably kind and accommodating, while giving me one of those man-to-man looks that say, “What can you do?”

He obviously recognized me as a guy who is used to being mauled by skinny blonds for selfies. That is because it happened at the Willie Nelson concert last week.

Willie is sort of the connection for this story. Not long ago he and Mellenkamp were on “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert,” talking about Farm Aid. They also performed, “Night Life Ain’t No Good Life, but It’s My Life.”

For the occasion they should have “adjusted” it to be “Farm Life Ain’t No Good Life but It’s My Life,” but Willie, despite being a guitar virtuoso, a unique phraser, and an excellent writer/composer, is not an adjuster. How else can you account for the fact that I have now heard him twice do concerts in Hoagy Carmichael’s home town, with a statue of Hoagy right outside where Willie’s bus was parked, and yet not do “Stardust” as part of his set, which he obviously knows since he had a big hit with it? Once his play list is set, he can’t adjust.

I, on the other hand, being an accomplished lyrics adjustor, immediately began to do “Church life ain’t no good life but it’s my life,” but it didn’t work very well, because church life is a good life more often that it ain’t. I still have work to do on that one, although I’m almost finished with “Mommas, don’t let your babies grow up to be preachers. Don’t let ‘em read Bibles and go to prayer groups, make em’ be lawyers and financial dupes…” Well, yes, there’s more work to do on it.

Anyway, soon after I saw Willie and Cougar on The Late Show, both of them came to town, Willie to do a concert with Merle Haggard, and Mellenkamp because he lives here, out in the country, with Christie Brinkley, or Meg Ryan, or whatever skinny blond has his attention at the moment.

It was at the Willie concert that I got mauled by a skinny blond who wanted a selfie. She did not want me in the selfie. She wanted it with sports columnist supreme Bob Hammel, who is more famous in Bloomington even than Mellenkamp, but I was on the aisle, and Bob was in the seat next to me, and she had to climb over me to get to Bob, and, not satisfied with that, dragged him over me bodily to get him out into the aisle so she could get more and better selfies.

On the surface, these two men don’t have much in common. A generation apart, one is a rocker, the other is definitely not. One is a staunch Presbyterian, the other is definitely not. One is a smoker, the other is definitely not. One has a series of tall skinny blonds. One has been with the same short brunette for more than 50 years.

However, they are both small town boys. They both write and love music of all sorts. They both love sports. Most of all, they are both kind, publicly and personally. Maybe that is what defines anyone as “small town boy,” regardless of gender or size of city, that ethos of kindness.

Do be careful, though, if you are with one of them, and you see a skinny blond coming with a camera.

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, BOKO, 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.

THE REAL WORLD

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

When I was in college, and in campus ministry, and I suspect even now, old people would talk about college students, and how they “did nothing but party,” and say, “Wait until you’re in the real world…”

By “real world,” of course, they meant whatever world they were in at the moment. A lot of folks can’t accept any world as real but their own.

There are a lot of real worlds. Whatever world you are in at the moment is your real world. Yes, you won’t be in it forever. There will be other worlds. The only way you are not in the real world is if you fail to live in the present, waiting for some other world.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.

THE IMMIGRANTS BECOME THE LINCHPINS

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

[A reprint from 10-26-10, because immigration is such an issue right now for American presidential campaigns, and for the world as Syrians flee Isis.]

In the posts of Sept. 30 and Oct. 24, I referred to Helen as “Grandma Mac,” as she is to Brigid and Joe. “Grandma Mac” is not just a title. It is a position. A “Grandma Mac” is the linchpin of the family, the one that holds it all together, the bearer of all knowledge, the hearer of all woes, the remover of all spots, the wiper of all spills.

The first Grandma Mac was Henrietta Ann Smith McFarland, my grandmother, the wife of Arthur Harrison McFarland. Even now, many years after her death, whenever anyone in our family says “Grandma Mac,” we know that they mean “Retta,” not any of her successors.

She was five feet tall, in heels, which she wore into her 90s, five feet of dynamite and fun. There was nothing she couldn’t do, including having seven children without ever seeing the inside of a hospital. Indeed, she was never in a hospital until she was dying at age 96. There was no one she couldn’t beat at Chinese Checkers. She was a great fan of her grandchildren and the Cincinnati Reds. She made work into fun. She was the quintessential grandma—laughs and cookies.

Grandma Mac was the linchpin of the family, the switchboard, the one through whom we all communicated, the one who kept track of eight children [she also raised a niece] and 22 grandchildren.

There are other Grandma Macs now. Aunt Gertrude, Aunt Rosemary, Aunt Edna—they are in the next generation of Grandma Macs after Retta. But my wife, Helen, is a Grandma Mac, too, in the next generation after the aunts, and so are Evonne and Carol and Jackie. So was Sandy.

They are the linchpins for their families. They are the ones who keep the clan going, who give it that distinctive family identity.

It’s strange, isn’t it, that these Grandma Macs, who give the clan its identity, were not originally Macs? They weren’t McFarlands until they married one.

Be kind to the immigrants in the family. They will become the linchpins.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

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, BOKO, 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.

TAKING CLAYTON HOME

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

Our conference leader, I’ll call him Bob, told us about what happened following another conference he had led. It was several hundred miles from his home, but it had been more convenient to drive than to work out flights. When an old friend learned that on his way home that Bob would be passing near the town where the friend pastored a church, on the day of the men’s prayer group, he asked him to speak to the group.

Bob did not want to do it. He was tired. He wanted to get home. To make it worse, there was an old farmer who prayed so long about one Clayton Barnes [not real name] that Bob didn’t even have much time to speak.

“Oh, Lord, you know Clayton Barnes is a good man, but Clayton Barnes has fallen on hard times, and I’m afraid Clayton Barnes’ll leave his wife and little children, because Clayton Barnes can’t get a job, and Oh, Lord, if you could just do something for Clayton Barnes, because Clayton Barnes can make it if Clayton Barnes is just patient…” and on and on. Bob said he was totally sick of the name of Clayton Barnes by the time he got back onto the road and headed for home.

Several miles along the way he saw a hitch-hiker. It was a blue highway, not much traffic, not many ride possibilities, and the guy looked okay, so Bob picked him up. They chatted the way strangers do, and the young hitch-hiker began to tell him about his troubles.

Bob did a U turn.

“What are you doing?” the hitch-hiker said.

“You’re Clayton Barnes.”

The young man shrank against his door.

“How do you know who I am?”

Bob sighed and said, “The Lord sent me to take you back to where you belong.”

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.

GOD'S FAVORITE

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

I still think a lot about my friend, Mike Dickey, who died suddenly this summer. We were friends from when we first met, at age ten. Helen and I flew to AZ so I could conduct his memorial service.

There was a sharing time during the service, when any friend or family member could talk about Mike. Teri has a large family, and many of them spoke. Each started by stating his or her name, and saying, “I was Mike’s favorite… niece or brother-in-law or…”

It was done in fun, of course, but it was also true. Mike was one of those people who makes you feel like the favorite. Nothing false about it; it was just who he was.

So I hope you will understand when I say, I am God’s favorite.

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.

REMEMBERING EARL REITAN

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

The obituary for Earl Reitan is in the Bloomington, IL Pantagraph today. He was 90.

Earl was chair of the History Department at Illinois State University when I was the United Methodist campus minister there. Those were the years of civil rights and Viet Nam unrest on campuses, and Earl was one of the most important, even though understated, voices on our campus.

He spoke against the Viet Nam war with such credibility because he knew history and because he was a World War II veteran, a teen-aged rifleman, with a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star. But he spoke so thoughtfully, with respect for everyone, that his was one of the voices that kept our campus, unlike every other state campus in IL at that time, free of violence.

He would not have been in that position, though, had it not been for our willingness to care for veterans after WW II, especially with the GI Bill. Earl was a child of the poverty of the Great Depression. He liked the army; he got enough to eat there. But after his army days, he was able to go to college, and get a PhD at the U. of Illinois because of the GI Bill.

I think of all the absent Earls, Earls we need now, and will need in the future, veterans of our current wars, whose experience and wisdom we shall not be able to use because our greedy politicians are willing to ignore them in order to feather the nests of their financial contributors.

I have some Christian friends who agree with those politicians because they claim that not only should the government not help anyone in need but that individuals should not help them either, because people must learn to “stand on their own two feet” and earn their own way. It is hard to claim that is Christian thinking. Everything Jesus said would seem to contradict it. He was in favor of helping anyone in need, just because they were in need. Even if you take do that extreme “own two feet” libertarian position, though, it is hard to claim that military veterans have not earned their way. Many cannot “stand on their own two feet” anymore because they no longer have two feet.

Greed, which is the real reason for ignoring the needs of others, is not Christian, regardless of how many wordy philosophies we wrap it in.

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, BOKO, 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.

Comfort In the Words-a poem

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

Even when I have wandered

Into dark deep woods

Without a compass, so far lost

Not even moss to be a guide

On North or any other side

So lost I cannot grasp

The horns of sanctuary

In the Word

I still find comfort in the words

A rhyme perched bird-like on a branch

A hymn in stanzas of the leaves

A story writ on fallen bark of birch

Or writer’s oak

A story writ from end to start

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, BOKO, 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 or other ebook. Free if you can get your library to buy one.

We Ought To Have a PIcture-a poem

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

“We outa hab a pictu a dis.”

She could barely say the words

but she wanted a picture

We called her

The Phototerrorist

the one who could not feel

the world but through a lens

I take pictures now,

seeing the world

that way

The days are short and few

I want to feel each moment

twice

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.

SPIRIT OF GENTLENESS

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

I have to arise early, usually no later than 5:00, and often earlier, for medical reasons. I have always found that my day starts best with music, but Helen is still asleep, so I have to be quiet. However, I have discovered YouTube, which is better than ear phones because if I call up “Swing Low” or “Morning Has Broken,” I can see the hymn as well as hear it. I sit on the living room sofa with my coffee, turn my iPad down low, so that only I can hear it, and start my day with the classic hymns of faith and hope.

One of my favorites to start the day is by my old friend, Jim Manley. Don’t look him up on YouTube by that name, or you’ll get the trumpet player. Even James K. Manley won’t work. But you can put “Spirit of Gentleness” into the YouTube search box and you’ll get this delightful way to start the day, with Jim’s gentle, beautiful tune as the perfect setting for the lyrics:

Spirit, spirit of gentleness

Blow through the wilderness

Calling and free

Spirit, Spirit of restlessness

Stir me from placidness

Wind, Wind on the sea

You moved on the waters, you called from the deep,

Then you coaxed up the mountains from the valleys of sleep,

And over the eons you called to each thing,

Awake from your slumbers and rise on your wings.

Spirit, spirit of gentleness

Blow through the wilderness

Calling and free

Spirit, Spirit of restlessness

Stir me from placidness

Wind, Wind on the sea

You swept through the desert,

You stung with the sand,

You goaded your people with a law and a land,

And when they were blinded with their idols and lies,

You spoke through your prophets to open their eyes.

Spirit, spirit of gentleness

Blow through the wilderness

Calling and free

Spirit, Spirit of restlessness

Stir me from placidness

Wind, Wind on the sea

You sang in a stable, you cried from a hill,

You whispered in silenced when the whole world was still,

And down in the city you called once again,

When you blew through your people on the rush of the wind.

Spirit, spirit of gentleness

Blow through the wilderness

Calling and free

Spirit, Spirit of restlessness

Stir me from placidness

Wind, Wind on the sea

You call from tomorrow, you break ancient schemes,

From the bondage of sorrow the captives dream dreams,

Our women see visions, our men clear their eyes,

With bold new decisions your people arise.

Spirit, spirit of gentleness

Blow through the wilderness

Calling and free

Spirit, Spirit of restlessness

Stir me from placidness

Wind, Wind on the sea

[James K. Manley, 1978. Tune: Spirit]

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

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.

FREE EBOOK, ANYONE? IT COSTS ONLY YOUR SOUL, MAYBE

I’m not exactly sure what I’ve gotten into. I have agreed with “aspiring overlord” Rainy of The Dark to participate in an ebook give-away raffle, featuring my new novel VETS. Part of the deal is that I have to share the event or whatever it is, on my blog.

I doubt that it will satisfy her overlordness, but here is the link to her blog, as an advance on whatever it is I’m supposed to do to participate. http://www.rainyofthedark.com/

At the end of the event, in which readers who want to get a free ebook must perform chores for the authors, such as following them on blog or FB or hearting their tweets, or something, Ms. Rainy Kaye selects a winner of said free ebook.

Anyway, if you’re interested, go to the site above.

JRMcF

A BRUSH WITH FAME

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

I’ll call them Stan and Stella, but those are not their real names. We were friends for a long time. I admired them both—smart, spiritual, sensitive, funny people. When Stella died, Stan sent us a copy of her obituary and also the worship bulletin from her funeral. In both pieces, the times of her life that featured most prominently were her brushes with celebrity, one a brush, quite literally. She was so pleased when a famous man, an entertainer, once accidentally brushed her cheek. In the other, she had once danced with another famous entertainer for a few bars. 

I was flummoxed by that. I know we live in a celebrity-focused culture. It seems so sad, though, that this smart, spiritual woman—an educated wife, mother, grandmother among other things—would see as the highlights of her life such minor brushes with celebrity.

I’m not immune to celebrity interest myself. I’ve met a few famous people, exchanged a few words. My celebrities are more in the categories of thinkers than entertainers, but I’m glad to tell the stories of my brushes with them, gain a little celebrity for myself by osmosis.

We went to hear Congressman John Lewis recently. He is the last of “The Big Six” of the leaders of the Civil Rights Movement. The comic book, “March,” was written/drawn to tell the story of his life during the movement. A comic book [now called graphic novel] is an especially good way to teach history to young people. He told of how a nine-year-old who read the book asked him, “Why are you so awesome?” He said, “I had no answer.”

Why are we so in awe of fame? Well, there are obvious answers. Famous people are important, and a brush with one makes us seem more important than we are. Etc.

I think, though, of a woman who had a literal brush with fame, as Stella did, but this woman just brushed the hem of the robe that famous person was wearing, and in so doing, she was healed.

It’s not the importance of celebrity that we really want. What we really want is healing, to be made whole. We need just a brush with the most famous one of all to be healed, to be made whole. Our problem is equating famous with awesome. By reaching for celebrity, we are settling for fame when we could have awe.

Those who have led me to Christ were not famous, but they were awesome.

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.

BORN AGAIN IS NOT ENOUGH

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

One of the problems of Christianity today is the unchurched fundamentalist, folks who have been born again, and think that is enough, and so are prey to any charlatan, religious or political, who gives them a shallow cup from which to drink some kool-aid.

Of course, churched fundamentalists are a problem, too, if the church is shallow, and in the service of charlatans, religious or political, and so only enforces the prejudices of those who wish to exclude all but the “true believers.” It used to be that fundamentalist Christians despised non-fundamentalist Christians the most, but in these latter times, fundamentalists despise fundamentalists from other churches most because true believers cannot stand other true believers who disagree with them.

And the unchurched fundamentalists just rattle around.

I saw a documentary on Billy Graham recently. I have come to appreciate him in more ways than I used to, but his biggest flaw remains. He gave the impression that conversion was all that was necessary. He gave lip-service to church, saying that people ought to be part of a church, to be able to continue to grow in faith, but he did almost nothing about it.

Learning to be a trapeze artist, or a lion tamer, or even a clown, takes a lot of work. If someone tells us that just going into the big top and watching is enough, we are more than glad to accept the idea that there is nothing more to the circus than sitting on the bleachers and clapping.

John Wesley had something to say about this, in his Journal of R, Aug. 25, 1763, he says:

“I was more convinced than ever, that the preaching like an apostle, without joining together those that are awakened, and training them up in the ways of God, is only begetting children for the murderer. How much preaching has there been for these twenty years all over Pembrokeshire! But no regular societies, no discipline, no order or connection; and the consequence is, that nine in ten of the once-awakened are now faster asleep than ever.”

Yes, you can be a good person without being a Christian, and you can be a Christian without belonging to a church, but you can’t be a Christian without being part of the Body of Christ, however that is expressed, and we’ll be better people if we learn to put up with one another as we work together toward fuller citizenship in God’s world.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

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.

BUTTONED LOVE

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

Yesterday after church, a woman told us of a time she helped in Vacation Bible School when she lived in another town. She was just a teen-ager and not smart enough to stay away from the Jones [not their real name] children, the way all the other VBS teachers did. The Jones kids were always dirty, always had head lice and other vermin, were always ill-behaved. Maralee liked Jimmy Jones, though, because of his eyes, big brown eyes.

Years later she was back in that town and had business at the bank. There, at the manager’s desk, sat Jimmy Jones.

“Do you remember when you taught at Vacation Bible School?” he asked. “You helped me make a butterfly out of yellow felt, and you said we had to find the biggest brown buttons in the jar to put on it for its eyes, because you said my eyes were so big and beautiful they could see into souls.”

“I still have that butterfly,” he said.

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.

ALL I HAVE NOW

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

Continuing to think about the encounter of Jesus with “the rich young ruler,” who “went away sorrowful, for he had many possessions,” [Mark 10:17-31] I recall a story of Bishop Everett Palmer…

As a boy growing up in the West, during high school and college summers, he worked for a very wealthy rancher, on a huge ranch. The rancher was very generous, to the point of supporting entirely by himself the work of his brother as a missionary doctor. But economic times went bad for ranchers.

Years later, when the rancher was an old man, and his former young ranch hand was a bishop, Palmer sought out his old mentor. He had lost everything. He was living in a hut, on the last little piece of land he still owned of his once-huge ranch, in what when Palmer worked there was just a line shack.

After they had talked a while, Palmer said, “I guess maybe now you wish you hadn’t given away so much.” The man looked totally perplexed. “Oh, Everett,” he said, “all I have now is what I gave away.”

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.

I'll Take You With Me--a poem

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

I’ll take you with me

Whenever I go

On a day of sunshine

Or when the cold winds blow

I’ll take you with me

Whenever I go

I’ll take you with me

Wherever I go

Though the road is mystic

With just a shadow’s glow

I’ll take you with me

Wherever I go

I’ll take you with me

However I go

As a starburst spinning

Or plodding step or slow

I’ll take you with me

However I go

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.

REAL LIVING

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith for the Winter Years.

Continuing to reflect on the story of “the rich young ruler” in Mark 10:17-31, and Jesus’s statement that it is easier for a camel go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into heaven, I am reminded of the rich man who arranged for his funeral in his will.

His body was dressed in his best suit and Stetson hat. He was seated in a new Cadillac. The stereo blasted “Money, Money, Money” from the speakers in the car. A big lighted cigar was stuck in his mouth. Hundred dollar bills floated around him.

As a crane lowered him into the grave, Cadillac and all, an onlooker said, “Man, that’s living!”

JRMcF

WHAT YOU DON'T SEE BEHIND A HEARSE

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

The Lectionary Gospel for this week is Mark 10:17-31, often called the story of “the rich, young ruler,” although his youth and status don’t appear in Mark the way they do in the versions of this story in Matthew and Luke. In all three, though, he goes away in sorrow, even though he really wanted to follow Jesus…

…or maybe he just wanted to get Jesus’ affirmation. After all, he had been to Sunday School, so he knew what he was supposed to do to get to heaven--keep the commandments.

So he starts by buttering up Jesus, calling Jesus “good.” Jesus sees through it. “Don’t call me good. Only God is good.”

I think it is necessary to hear that clearly to understand the whole rest of this story. No one but God is good. We cannot claim eternal life--which is life that starts now, not at the body’s end--through our own righteousness. We are all sinners. We enter the Kingdom of God only through forgiveness, not by keeping the commandments, and certainly not through our possessions.

You never see a U-Haul on the back of a hearse.

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.