THE LAST APPLE-a poem 6-30-17

THE LAST APPLE-a poem    6-30-17

It seems likely that I shall be

the last apple on the tree,

at least on most branches,

hanging barely on, just barely

but still here, left alone

to bear the fruit, to be

used by that sneaky snake

to tempt fair Eve

and drive her far beyond

the gates of Eden.

I alone am left to hold

fast and steady the memories

of blossoms white and summer ripening

and the fall…

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

THE LIMITS OF DREAMS 6-29-17

THE LIMITS OF DREAMS    6-29-17

For so long

I dreamt that they,

all of them,

would leave me alone.

Now they do.

The reality

Is not as good

As the dream.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

YOU ARE THE ONE YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR 6-28-17

YOU ARE THE ONE YOU’VE BEEN WAITING FOR  6-28-17

Over the last 20 years or so of my career, I was often asked to speak to groups of pastors, especially new pastors. What I said boiled down to this: If you want the church to be the church, you have to do it yourself. There will be some who will help, and some who will oppose, but you have to go ahead and do church and be church. It’s up to you.

Someone has said, “God loved us so much that he did not send a committee.”

I know that no one of us is the Body of Christ alone. That takes all of us. But if you wait in the church for administrators or boards or committees or conferences to take action, you’re going to wait a long time.

Each of us is called to use our particular gifts and graces as part of the Body of Christ. No one else has the gifts and graces to be you.

Look at those in the church who got things done: Paul, Francis, Luther, Wesley, King. They didn’t wait for the church’s approval. Indeed, usually the church did not approve of them. But they just went ahead and did what had to be done. They weren’t really trying to lead or to start a movement. They just did what they saw needed to be done.

It seems to me that this is true in personal life as well as the church. If I want to be the real me, I just have to go ahead and do it. If I wait until the time is right, until I have things in order, until I have more energy, until people aren’t expecting one thing or another from me, until I have more money, until… I’m never going to be me.

There is a great line about Jesus in one of Jim Manley’s songs: “He must be a mad man, or publicity seeker, or what we’ve all been waiting for…”

Christ frees us from ourselves to be ourselves. In terms of being me, I’m the one I’ve been waiting for.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

WORTH LOSING SLEEP 6-27-17

I wrote the following in 2007, shortly after we moved to Iron Mountain, MI, following the grandchildren…

WORTH LOSING SLEEP    6-27-17

The men at the next table at the Moose Jackson coffee shop are discussing sleep patterns. “I slept only three hours last night,” one of them says. “If I sleep too much at night, I can’t sleep after work,” he continues. I do not understand what that means. It sounds like a very strange pattern to try to sleep.

I don’t have time to think about it, though. I have to concentrate on what my granddaughter is saying over her hot chocolate. Concentration is difficult for me this morning because I had trouble sleeping last night. I kept thinking about taking Brigid to the coffee shop, and how much fun it would be.

I do not see her as much now that she is in school. I usually go to the coffee shop alone, but she is out of school today, so we are here together. She used to keep us awake at night because babies and little kids do that to parents and grandparents. Now she is not a baby, but she still keeps me awake, anticipating being with her, worrying about her, praying for her.

It is hard to sleep if you are looking forward to something, either with joy or with dread. It is hard to sleep if you are angry or in pain or worried or guilty or excited. Good sleep requires a clear conscience or a dead one.

The purpose of sleep is regeneration. Dreaming is part of that. It’s part of the rhythm of the body and the brain. Perhaps death, which we often liken to sleep, is just part of the rhythm, part of the regeneration.

Or not. Speculation about what comes after death is useless. It’s not worth losing sleep over. But getting excited about seeing someone you love, that’s worth the loss of sleep.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

WAITING FOR KINDNESS 6-26-17

WAITING FOR KINDNESS   6-26-17

 I’m sitting in the coffee shop, listening to Otis Redding’s rendition of “Sitting on the Dock of the Bay.” I’ve always enjoyed it, just listening to the rhythms, and his voice. Today, though, I’m listening to the words, and hearing even more sadness than Otis’ voice tears out by itself. “I’ve got nothing to live for, looks like nothing’s going to come my way.”

Otis died in a plane crash only a few days after he recorded that song. I hope people were kind to him in those few days. We need kindness all the time, but especially when we’re thinking “nothing’s going to come my way,” when we’re sitting on the edge, all alone.

So many old people are not kind. I suppose many are just being consistent; they’ve never been kind. Others don’t feel good, and it’s hard to be kind to others when the world is not being kind to you. We have a lot of aches and pains. We also have a lot of loneliness and depression. “I’ve got nothing to live for, looks like nothing’s going to come my way.” That could be the anthem for the aged, at least for many. So, in pain or in malice or in self-centeredness, we say and do things that hurt.

My mother adored her older sister, Virginia. She gave her older daughter the middle name of Virginia to honor her. But when their mother died, a time that is hard for everyone in a family, a time when it’s especially important to be kind, my mother became unhappy with Aunt Ginny about something. I remember the look on Aunt Ginny’s face when Mother said, to her: “If I never see you again, it will be too soon.”

It’s very difficult to be kind to those who are unkind to us. Fortunately, though, Aunt Ginny understood my mother. She knew that Mother would forget about it, whatever “it” was that upset her, if Aunt Ginny continued to be kind to her.

Some old people say that life is too short now to waste time being kind to idiots. I understand that. I’m less patient with stupidity, especially willful ignorance, as I grow older. But life is too short now to waste it with unkind words or actions or even thoughts. Any time I’m being unkind, I’m wasting my life, my precious final days.

I’m sitting on the dock of the bay, looking out at a vast ocean of future life about which I know nothing. I need a kind heart to come my way. If no one else’s heart comes your way, it’s okay to let your own heart be kind to you.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.

Guitarist Steve Cropper helped Otis in the writing of the song.

EARS TO HEAR-a poem 6-25-16

EARS TO HEAR-a poem    6-25-16

As I stand here in this multi thousand dollar

Hand-crafted gold oak pulpit

Wine-red carpet beneath my feet

The choice of color being the cause

Of two good Christian women

Refusing to speak to each other

For ever and ever, amen

With a multi thousand dollar screen behind me on the wall

And a multi thousand, yes, many multi thousands

Heating and cooling system treating the air

Around us so that it will be just like Galilee

And a multi thousand dollar microphone

Slipped on my ear so

All can hear me regardless of how softly

I speak in dramatic tones to convince

Soft-bottomed people on soft-cushioned pews

That they should follow Jesus

I preach about Jesus standing with dirty feet

In a dirty robe on a dirty hillside

Calling out “Let those who have ears

to hear, hear.”

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

MORNING DEXTERITY CHALLENGE-a poem 6-24-17

MORNING DEXTERITY CHALLENGE-a poem   6-24-17

Because my body makes me do it

Mostly against my comfort-loving will

I write my lines early in the morning

Before the light of day takes its stance

And thus my theme is darkness

Yet as the poets tell us

Ad infinitum I might add

The darkness reaches zenith

Or I suppose for darkness the nadir is the zenith

Just before the dawn

So my befuddled morning brain slides back and forth

from hope to blackness just as those tiny bee-bees

try to find a place to land in Santa’s

nose and ears in that toy designed

to challenge the dexterity of Christmas day

That little unnamed thing designed to keep children

Out of sight and trouble

for at least a moment or two

That thing everyone has tried and knows about

but is so hard to describe in a poem

what was I writing about, anyway?

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

PASSING IT ON 6-23-17

PASSING IT ON     6-23-17

It is very difficult for me to learn something new, even if it’s only from myself, perhaps especially if it’s from myself, without wanting to pass it on.

For such a long time, that was no problem. I had a pulpit and a pen [well, keyboard] and so many avenues for passing on what I had learned.

I dreamt that in old age, I would be free of all outside constraints, required by my job to pass things on. I forgot about the inside constraints, the ones that say, “You’ve learned something important; you’ve got to pass it on.”

So I went back to passing things on via this blog, mostly because I am the only editor/publisher left who will accept my stuff for “publication.” [1] It’s okay if no one reads it. In fact, I haven’t told anyone, even my wife, that I am passing things on again. But Christ In Winter posts allow me in my winter years to keep on trying to think and write in ways that are coherent enough to keep on growing in knowledge and faith.

About 25 years ago, the teens in my church started coming home from summer camp with a new chorus, one they loved and sang often. “It only takes a spark to get a fire going, and soon all those around can warm up in its glowing…” [1]

Not much of what we pass on will last very long, but I hope that what I still pass on will provide a little spark…in my own mind and spirit, at least.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmil.com

1] That’s not totally true. Black Opal Books was pleased to publish my novel VETS and also took Going After Sally Ann, my fictionalized account of my experiences of being the “hit man” for a cancer center, but I withdrew GASA because VETS proved that I’m past the point where I can do marketing for my own books. It’s unfair to a small publisher to let them go to the work and expense of publishing a book and not try to market it for them.

Daughter Katie Kennedy has no problem getting her YA novels published, because she’s a tremendous writer. That’s why Bloomsburg, which also publishes JK Rowling, is bringing out Katie’s new one, What Goes Up, on July 16, 2017, available from B&N, Amazon, etc.

2] I am always distressed by lyrics sites online, like St. Tekla, that give all the lyrics to a song/hymn and never mention the composer, in this case Kurt Kaiser. That’s theft by neglect.

OLD AGE BLISS-a poem 6-22-17

OLD AGE BLISS-a poem    6-22-17

The less I know

About the happenings of the world

The better I feel

Ignorance is bliss

The wise ones say

Or maybe that’s just politicians

Who know we would not

Vote for them if we discern

Their real goals

But I am old

I would not make a good slave

So I am safe from politicians

See how easy it is to achieve

Bliss?

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

ARROGANT PEOPLE CAN BE RIGHT 6-21-17

ARROGANT PEOPLE CAN BE RIGHT    6-21-17

From my frosh year in high school up into my mid-thirties, I kept a journal. For fifty years, it has just resided in a file drawer. Now I am reading it again, with considerable surprise, both at how much I have forgotten, and at… well, how arrogant I was. I had forgotten my arrogance, too.

I was a campus minister in the 1960s. We hired students part-time to help with the ministry, being administrative or worship or small group assistants. Apparently I had asked Paul Darling to be one of those, and my journal records that he told me that he could not work with me because I was so arrogant. My journal was not surprised at this. In fact, it agreed and said that I needed to work on my arrogance. Stupid journal. Sorry I kept it. Sorry I re-read it.

It’s probably right, though. I was pretty well convinced back then that I knew the truth about a lot of stuff. I still do. Now though I’m quite aware of the limits of my knowledge and of the extent of my ignorance. So maybe I was successful in working on my arrogance. Of course, maybe thinking that is arrogant in itself.

As I look back on it, I think of myself not as arrogant but sure. The major issue of the day was racial segregation and discrimination. I was sure that was wrong, and it irritated me considerably when “good” people, especially church people, tried to excuse it or rationalize it or justify it. I was not timid in saying they were wrong.

The second major issue was the war in Viet Nam. After initially supporting it, I came to realize that it was wrong and extremely harmful in so many ways, not only to Viet Nam but to the USA. I was certain of that, and I was clear in expressing my position, personally and publicly.

I was on a panel for some event at Illinois Wesleyan University during that time. Robert Eckley was the new IWU president and introduced the panel members. When he came to me, he said, “You never have any trouble knowing where this man stands.” I was pleased that I had that reputation, but I was surprised that Dr. Eckley even knew who I was. Apparently my reputation for certainty or arrogance or whatever it was went wider than I knew.

I too often chose the wrong battles for my certainty, sure I was right about a lot of things that didn’t matter all that much. But I’m glad I was on the right side for the big ones, even if my certainty was interpreted as arrogance.

Just as paranoids can have real enemies, sometimes arrogant people are right.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.

A SHORT INCOMPLETE PRIMER ON SACRIFICE 6-20-17

A SHORT INCOMPLETE PRIMER ON SACRIFICE    6-20-17

Not all sacrifices are equal. Some folks make small sacrifices and claim they are even with those who made great sacrifices.

Sacrifices for self and sacrifices for others are different. Is “sacrificing” smoking to save your own lungs the same as giving it up to save your baby’s lungs? Is it “sacrificing,” at all, or just “giving it up?” Giving something up and making a sacrifice are very different.

We tend to say “sacrifice” about everything we “give up,” which demeans sacrifice. A sacrifice is not for self. You don’t sacrifice something for the sake of your own health, physical or emotional, even though we use that phrase. A sacrifice is for another person, or for a cause, which is another person writ large.

It’s not a sacrifice if you are doing it in order to get something for yourself.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I AM HUNGRY 6-19-17

REFLECTIONS ON FAITH AND LIFE FOR THE YEARS OF WINTER

I AM HUNGRY     6-19-17

I am hungry

I am suddenly too old

To work the kitchen

At the meal to feed

The homeless

Even to wash the dishes

I am suddenly too old

To work the food bank

Repacking restaurant leftovers

Into meals for families

I did not know how much

The feeding of others

Fed me

I am hungry

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

WORKING THE ANGLES 6-18-17

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

           

WORKING THE ANGLES    6-18-17

Cathy, one of my pickleball buddies, calls me “St. John of the Angles,” because I work the angles, sliding the ball just over the net, to the outside line. I understand the angles.

I’m like those school teachers kids claim have eyes in the backs of their heads. Teachers have that sixth sense for when a kid is trying to get away with something because they were kids once and tried those same dodges on their teachers. They’ve seen it all.

I’ve seen it all, too, when it comes to being an old person, but from the other side. I was the young one who took care of the old people, my parents and old neighbors and old folks at church. They tried every angle in the book.

Mother would not accept the information we gave her about Social Security because, she said, we could not understand it because we had never been on SS. What an angle.

We took her to look over the Rebekah Lodge nursing home. Mother was a committed Rebekah and had looked forward to living there for forty years. When she saw it, she changed her mind. She said it was because they put your name in all your clothes for laundry sorting, and she just never liked having her name in her clothes.

We heard every angle and every scam and every excuse any old person ever thought up to get out of an old person dilemma.

Of course, Helen and I scammed them back.

Mother should have stopped driving the day before she started. She didn’t learn until she was in her forties, and that was too late. She never actually drove a car. She did like her oldest brother, my Uncle Ted. It was said that Ted didn’t actually drive a car, he just sort of herded it along. When, in her eighties, the risk to her and everyone else became intolerable, we convinced her that she needed to give her car to Katie, our younger daughter, because she was in graduate school and had to have a car and we could not afford to buy her one. It was mostly true, but it was primarily a ruse to get Mother’s car away from her. I mean, how could she turn down a beloved granddaughter?

So I know all the excuses old people use, and I know all the angles and scams younger people use to get old people to behave, and when my kids try them on me, I’ll be ready, just like my friend, Jack Newsome

Jack was appointed to a new congregation. A middle-aged woman approached him and said, “Now, Rev. Newsome, when you call on my mother, Marian, in the nursing home, don’t be fooled. She’ll try to make you think she’s perfectly okay, but she isn’t.”

The day came that Jack made his nursing home calls. Marian turned out to be lovely. She was well-dressed and well-coiffed and well-spoken. They had a great conversation.

Jack sat there thinking, “Why, Marian’s daughter is one of those middle-aged people who puts down old people just because they’re old. What an awful excuse for a daughter.”

As he got up to leave, Marian said, “Rev. Newsome, would do me a favor?”

“Why, of course,” Jack said. “What is it?”

“I want you to bring me a pistol. I’m going to shoot that son-of-a-bitch next door.”

Jack learned the lessons. Now he is old. He can’t hear or walk, but no one knows it because he fakes both very well. When he falls down, he claims a badger tripped him. When someone says something, he says he can’t hear because an earwig got into his ear and lost its wig there.

He keeps wanting to borrow my pistol. I know I shouldn’t loan it to him, but I do, even though I don’t have one.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.

I have often extolled my old friend, Walt Wagener, as one who is expert at “blooming where he’s planted.” Once when I did so, Helen said, “I want to bloom BEFORE I’m planted.” So I started writing a book of meditations for old people, sort of like my book for cancer patients. I called it BLOOM BEFORE YOU’RE PLANTED. I was never able to get an agent or publisher to be interested in the idea, though, so I’m now using some of the “chapters” for that book in this blog.

CHURCH SOCIAL 6-17-17

REFLECTIONS ON FAITH AND LIFE FOR THE YEARS OF WINTER

CHURCH SOCIAL    6-17-17

Not long ago I had to miss church on Sunday morning for medical reasons. So I thought I would look at pictures of Sunday morning worship and other church events on the internet. If you do a Google or Bing search you can come up with hundreds of interesting images. By looking only at pictures, you don’t have to listen to someone else’s misbegotten theology.

I searched for “church worship” and “people going to church” and “old church buildings” and saw some nice images. It’s easy to switch from one category to another because the search engine gives you similar category names to click on at the top of the page. One was “church social.” I thought, “Great. I’ll do a short worship service and go to the church potluck after.” NOT!

In this age and era, “social” does not mean “people gathering together” but “people all by themselves using social media devices,” like iphones and ipads and ipods and ilonelies. “Church social” did not bring up potlucks, just stuff about “social media in the church.”

Isn’t it interesting that “social,” even in the church, has come to mean the exact opposite? I suspect the church does not need to use social media more effectively, despite the plethora of books and articles that explains why and how to do so. The church does not need social media, but it does need to be social. People can do without social media, but we can’t do without the social.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I have told no one, even my wife, that I am writing again, so if you were a CIW regular in former days, welcome back. If you arrived here by accident, welcome. Just don’t expect too much…

LYING 6-16-17

REFLECTIONS ON FAITH FOR THE YEARS OF WINTER

LYING   6-16-17

Save me, O God, from lying

Except when it is to my advantage

To lie

After all, everybody does it

Niece Kira has even written

A book that says so

Half of what we lie about

Assuming I am not lying about it

Is in hope

To make us appear better

Than we are

The other half is in fear

So we can avoid angry faces

And angry voices

And jail

So help me, O Lord,

To accept myself as I am

So that I do not have to appear

Better than real

And help me to acquire

The virtue of courage

Surely with courage

I shall not be afraid

For someone has said that without

Courage, no other virtue

Is possible

And that does not sound like a lie

Then in acceptance and courage

I shall have no need to lie

Except, perhaps, in poems

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Kira Vermond, the daughter of my little sister Margey, is Canada’s leading non-fiction writer for travel, finance, and kids. The book for children mentioned above is Half-Truths and Brazen Lies: An Honest Look at Lying

PLAYING WITH PAIN 6=15=17

REFLECTIONS ON FAITH FOR THE YEARS OF WINTER…

PLAYING WITH PAIN    6=15=17

I was once a professional janitor. I was not a Fellow of the AMA [American Maintenance Assn.] or anything like that, but I got paid, and that’s what separates amateurs from professionals. That’s true in all of The Four Cornerstones of Life–sex, education, religion, and sports.

It’s true especially in sports, which is the main cornerstone and only metaphor of contemporary life, even for people who hate sports and have no idea it is now our only metaphor for life.

In sports, if you’re paid, if you’re a pro, you’re expected to “play with pain.” That’s the highest accolade a sports commentator can give: “He (or she) is a real pro. Plays with pain.” If you’re paid, you’re expected to suck it up and go out and give it your best shot, even if it hurts, without whining about the pain. Pain is an excuse only for amateurs.

I mention this because old people are pros, too. We’re paid, often by the government, sometimes by former employers, who pay us now to stay away. Being old is our profession. If you’re old, pain is pretty much a given.

Being pros, old pros, we’re expected to “play with pain.” That means we do the best we can to help our team, even though we’re hurting. Our team is family and friends and community and world. By playing with pain, we don’t let our pains get in the way of our team’s victory. If our team members have to spend too much time taking care of us, instead of fighting the forces that try to destroy our family and friends and community and world, we are not being good old pros.

Some of us don’t recognize the difference between playing with pain and just being a pain. We think we’re old in order to inflict pain, not to play with it. We don’t suck it up; we stick it out, where everyone can see it.

We have a friend who was gracious enough to let her father come to live with her in his last days, even though he had caused her and the rest of the family nothing but trouble all his life. He was in pain, but made no attempt to deal with it himself. Instead he demanded that his daughter give him twenty-four hour attention. That kind of old person thinks his or her pain is an excuse to make life miserable for everyone else. Misery loves company, it is said, and they’re out to prove it, by making everyone else as miserable as they are. Pain is their excuse for refusing to “play,” for refusing to do their part for the team

Simply refusing to accept help, however, is not being a pro. Some of us play with pain so well that we don’t get the help we need when we need it and we end up being more of a pain, to ourselves and to others, than if we’d gone to the trainer when the pain first hit and got that charley horse rubbed out instead of letting it become a full-blown muscle tear.

Some of us play with pain so well that we end up all alone, just whacking the ball up against a brick wall instead of across the net so other folks can hit it back and keep the game going.

There is no simple formula for being an old pro, a pro at being old. Part of it is taking the help we need when we need it; that’s better in the long run for everyone. Most of being a good old pro, though, is knowing that our team is more likely to win if we spend our energy cheering our teammates instead of complaining about our pains.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

HALF-LIFE 6-14-17

HALF-LIFE    6-14-17

My end point is not predestined

nor my fate predetermined

but it is true

“when my time comes”

 I must go

coffee cup half empty

scribble page half full

a quantum particle

half-life decayed

half-life yet to come

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

THE PRICE OF BEING AN ANGEL 6-13-17

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

Yesterday I posted the official biography of Tony Shipley. This is an unofficial follow-up.

THE PRICE OF BEING AN ANGEL   6-13-17

Tony Shipley called. We are supporters of his school.

Tony was one of two black students at Garrett Theological Seminary, at Northwestern University, when I was a student there. One was PhD student, James Cone, who became the famous professor of “black theology and black power” at Union Seminary in NYC. I knew Jim primarily as a great backhand, since we both played table tennis at lunch time. [Raydean Davis and I always said that we were ping-pong majors in seminary.]

I was impressed with Tony, and I followed his career. I was also impressed with his wife, Barbara.

When they came to Garrett, she did not have a college education. She worked at an insurance company to pay the bills. She decided to start college part-time. Her work supervisor said, “You know, Barbara, even if you have a college education, you’ll still be inferior.” She decided, “Well, if I’m going to be inferior, I’m going to be inferior with a college education.” She got that education, multiple degrees. At our 40 year seminary reunion, she was one of those elegant mature women who, even on a cane, glides through a room like a tall ship. She became a distinguished educator in Detroit.

Detroit was where Tony ended his pastoral ministry. In between, he served as the Conference Council Director [chief administrator] of the Detroit Conference of the United Methodist Church, which included all the UMC churches and institutions [colleges, hospitals, etc] of the entire eastern half of MI’s lower peninsula and all of the upper peninsula. He served a term as a District Superintendent, the sub-bishop for churches in a geographical area. He served the entire denomination as a General Board administrator. After all that, he asked to be assigned to the UMC congregation in the poorest part of Detroit.

There he and his congregation went to work. They bought and refurbished houses for single mothers. Those women went through a year of training before they got a house. Most importantly, he started Chandler Park Academy. The neighborhood was so poor that 90% of its students qualified for free lunches.

They started with one kindergarten class. Each year as a class moved up, they added another under it, until they finally had a graduating class.  Every member of that class went to college on scholarship. Now they have added a branch of a community college to their campus so “When 3:00 comes, the high school kids who want to go around the corner and they are in college.” In a dangerous neighborhood, that’s a real plus. This year, five kids graduated high school with 2 years of college already done. This fall, they added a pre-school.

Three summers ago, Helen and I signed 8^th grade grandson Joe up for a week’s hands-on camp at the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, MI, just outside Detroit. Then we found out it was a day camp, not a residential camp, so we got a room in a motel, right down the street from a new mosque. During the day we hung out at Greenfield Village and Joe spent the suppers and nights with us.

I had not had any contact with Tony for years, but I knew he was in Detroit, and I thought it would be nice to have Joe meet the Shipleys, just because they are interesting people, and since he hardly ever saw people of color in Iron Mountain, or anywhere else in the UP. I emailed Tony and invited him and Barbara to supper. He accepted and took us to the 1917 Bistro, a really neat restaurant near his house. Helen and Joe and I were the only white people there.

Tony was alone, though. As we chatted and got reacquainted and ordered meals, he said, “Last spring our only child, our daughter, got married, in Atlanta. Our retired bishop friend, Woodie White, did the service. She left on her honeymoon, and the next day, Barbara died.”

I was struck dumb. Tony, though, had a way of coping with dumbstruck people. He concentrated on Joe. In fact, he told Helen and me to shut up and not interfere so he could talk with Joe. [He said it much more diplomatically than that.] He drew Joe out, learned his interests, told him about how to get college scholarships.

We talked for a long time. Finally, Tony said, “Since Barbara died, I’ve been so depressed. I know I need to be raising money for the school, but I just can’t do anything. But here you are, with this bright and handsome grandson, people I’d forgotten I even knew, but you know all about my career, and you thought enough of me to want to see me and to have him meet me. I feel like you are angels sent from heaven. I can get back to doing what I need to do. How would you like to make a contribution to Chandler Park School?”

So that is how we came to be monthly contributors to Chandler Park.

When Tony calls, it’s usually to thank us for our support of Chandler Park, so when he called this time, I assumed he was updating us on the school, and quite possibly suggesting that we increase our pledge. After all, there is a cost to being an angel. We did talk about the school, but he had more important things than money to talk about.

The first thing he did was ask about Joe. The second thing he did was say that he got married last Christmas eve, to a woman who is a psychologist by profession but has spent her career in the prison system. I said she should be perfect for him. He said she is ten years younger than he but looks forty years younger. I said that since he looks to be 100, that’s not saying much for her.

[Men express affection that way. When I told Helen about this, she said, “What’s his new wife’s name?” I said, “I was too busy insulting him to ask.” She gave me one of those looks.]

Tony said, “I told her she treats me like her grandson, but I know she loves her grandson, so that’s okay.”

As we closed the conversation, he said, “You know, you helped change my life. You came into my life just when I needed you to. And I love your grandson. He’s such a neat kid.”

Tony doesn’t have a grandson, but he understands about them. Yes, Joe is a neat kid, and he’s even neater because he knows Tony Shipley.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.

Joe’s mother is the delightful YA author, Katie Kennedy. Her novel Learning to Swear in America is a great read for grandsons and grandfathers of all ages. So is her What Goes Up, which will be released July 6, 2017. She is published by Bloomsbury, which also does lesser writers, like JK Rowling.

CELEBRATING TONY SHIPLEY 6-12-17

Continuing an occasional series celebrating the lives of long-time friends, today I lift up Tony Shipley, my seminary classmate. Tomorrow I’ll tell of how we got back in touch with each other after many years. The following is an “official” biography and its formatting doesn’t mesh entirely with my program, so please forgive any short lines and such:

When Tony Shipley graduated from Garrett Theological

Seminary on June 5, 1964, he had no idea of the role that

President Dewight Loder would play in his life.

Tony returned to his birthplace New York where he was appointed to serve the Metropolitan DWayne (UMC) located in Greenwich Village.  He was the first African American to be assigned to a predominantly Caucasian congregation in the New York Annual Conference.

Tony soon became a member of a group of pastors in

Greenwich Village who were advocating for the rights of

women. They discovered that there were many women in

New York who needed to terminate their pregnancies

for a variety of psychological, emotional and physical reasons. 

 After serving in Greenwich Village Bishop Wicke invited Tony to become the pastor of the Union United Methodist church in Bedford Stuyvesant. Tony became the first African American pastor of this predominantly Caucasian congregation which had been brilliantly led by Dr. Arthur Calliandro. After two years of service to the Bedford Stuyvesant community Bishop Wicke invited Tony to become the first African American to serve on the Conference Staff in the New York  Conference.  

Tony became responsible for the Conference Camping, Scholarship, and  Urban Ministry Programs. After two years of service the Conference Camping Program under Tony’s leadership was expanded from New York city to Albany, NY  and included youngsters from  almost every social/ethnic group.  The Camping Program became a haven for young people who wanted to expand their horizons beyond the limitations of their ethnic community.

Then Dwight Loder the former president of Garrett Theological Seminary who had now become the Bishop of the Michigan Area flew to New York to convince Tony to become the first African American Conference Council Director in the country (a position he held for 11 years).

 After his first year in Michigan, John Dawson, President of

Adrian College invited Tony to accept an Honorary Doctor’s

degree from Adrian.  After receiving the degree John Dawson

then invited Shipley to become a member of the Board of

Trustees at Adrian. To this day Shipley is the longest serving

Trustees with the exception of one other trustee who is over 90

years old!

When Edsel Ammons became Bishop of the Detroit Annual

Conference, he invited Tony to become Superintendent of the

Detroit West District.  After his term ended as Superintendent

Tony was appointed to the largest African American Methodist

church in the Conference at that time, the Scott Memorial

church.  Where he created the ASPIRES Program.

The Adrian College, Scott Church Program, to inspire readiness

for educational success.

This program was related to McKenzie High School, a

predominantly African American school where the quality

of education provided to the students did not qualify any of

them to go on to get a degree in higher education.

The ASPIRES program changed all of that when Adrian College

agreed to dispatch three of its professors to re-train teachers in

English, Math and Science at McKenzie.  The following year 35

students from McKenzie High School enrolled in Adrian College;

four years later 29 of them graduated from Adrian College. 

Dr. Shipley served Scott Memorial church for five years until he

was invited to become the Deputy General Secretary of the

National Division of the Board of Global Ministries. 

At the Board he was responsible for church development in

Alaska, the Caribbean and the United States.

 Being back in New York reminded Tony of his early beginnings and the enormous impact the United Methodist Church had had on him as a

youngster growing up in East Harlem. Tony decided that he wanted to spend his final days of ministry in a community that was like the one he had grown up in and so he asked Bishop Donald Ott to appoint him to the eastside of Detroit.

The Bishop pleaded with Tony and tried to discourage him from reducing his salary and limiting his future career. Finally, 

the Bishop decided to appoint Tony to the east side of Detroit

for one year and then they could re-consider. So in 1960 Tony

became the pastor of the Christ United Methodist Church

located in a community where more than 50% of the

inhabitants were unable to read.

Given Tony’s strong belief, that a pastor is appointed to a

community and not just to a church, and the lack of an access

to a college preparatory education for the children of this

community, Tony established the first Charter School sponsored

by a United Methodist church in America. Chandler Park

Academy was created in the Christ church with 100 sixth graders.

The next year Chandler Park Academy opened another building 

on Jefferson Avenue with sixth graders and now the school

consists of 100 6^th  graders and 100 7^th graders. The next year

Chandler Park opened a third school but this time on the

Westside of Detroit at Peoples UMC increasing enrollment to 300 students. The next year a church building became available in Oak Park for first graders. The next year Chandler Park Academy was able to purchase land from a Lutheran church that was located on the Campus of the Roman Catholic Men’s High School and the Roman Catholic Women’s High School.The following year Chandler Park purchased those properties. Today Chandler Park Academy has consolidated all of its students on one campus on Kelly Road in Harper Woods, Michigan 90% of its students are in the lunch program, which is only available to students who live in poverty.

Chandler Park Academy has an enrollment of 2,475 students and a Pre-School with 45 students. Chandler Park has an enrollment contract with Wayne County Community College so that when a student from high school at Chandler Park they also have the opportunity to receive a two year degree from Community College giving them a head start as they move into a four year university. Chandler Park now has an enrollment of 697 at the High School and 598 graduates who are attending

colleges all over the United States.

Now the entire Chandler Park Academy student body is located at the sight on 8 Mile and Kelly Road in Harper Woods, Michigan all previous locations have been closed.

CHANDLER PARK ACADEMY

SCHOOL LOCATIONS

First Location:                        Christ Church – Havenhill

Second Location:       Jefferson Avenue UMC

Third Location:          Peoples UMC

Fourth Location:        Oak Park Catholic Church

Combined campus on 8 Mile and Kelly Road in Harper Woods, Michigan.  All other campuses closed.

Shipley Appointments:

1964 New York:  Metropolitan –Duane

1966 New York:  Brooklyn-Union

1968 New York: Conference Staff,

Associate Program Director

1971 Detroit: Conference Staff, Program Director

1982 Detroit: Detroit West District Superintendent

1987 Detroit: Scott Memorial

1992 New York: Deputy General Secretary, National Division, Gen. Bd. Of Global Ministries

1994 Detroit: Christ UMC

2007 RETIRED

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

ONE THING TO SAY 6-11-17

ONE THING TO SAY    6-11-17

It is Annual Conference time in Methodism, when all the preachers and lay members from the congregations in a Conference [geographical area] gather to worship and transact business… and accept retirements. At his retirement speech at his Annual Conference, one preacher said, “Those of you who have heard me over the years will understand that I really had only two themes.”

Afterwards, someone overheard two of his colleagues talking about it. “You mean there was a second one?”

Well, not if he had really understood preaching. When I would get worried about finding some new way to tell “the old, old story,” Helen would remind me, “You have only one thing to do in worship each week, and that’s to remind us that God loves us.”

Morrie Schwartz, of Tuesdays With Morrie, said, “Love is the only rational act.”

Soren Kierkegaard said that “Purity of heart is to will one thing.” That one thing is love.

John Wesley told his preachers that he expected them to “become perfect in love.” Not perfect in knowledge or morality or preaching. Perfect in love.

So, no, there was not a second one. We have only one thing to say to one another: Love.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.

THE LAST CHASE 6-10-17

THE LAST CHASE    6-10-17

When I go

it will not be with trumpets

blaring clarion calls

to hills and valleys

summoning forth

the force to meet the foe

but like an old dog walking

slowly

sniffing out a hare

beside still waters

wondering

if it’s up for one more chase

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721

ROOTS and COURAGE 6-9-17

Today is the all-class reunion of Oakland City/Wood Memorial High School, my Indiana alma mater. I won’t be there, but I’ll be thinking about my friends there, because that’s where my roots are.

ROOTS and COURAGE    6-9-17

The vegetation comes up close to the Jackson Creek trail I walked this morning. I could smell the honeysuckle. That smell always makes me think of our farm at Oakland City.

It wasn’t much of a farm. Five acres. But we had all the stuff that any farm had, only less of it. I called it a “one” farm—one horse, one cow, one pond, one barn, one garden, one pig, one chicken, one duck, one apple tree. The first five of those were literally only one, but the garden was big, very big when hoeing it on a hot summer day, and we had a wood shed, and a granary, and a chicken house, and an outhouse, too, and a grape arbor that flanked the path to the outhouse, under our one big pear tree. To the south was the field we called the orchard. It had half-a-dozen runty peach and apple trees, and Daddy built a brooder house for hatching chicks in it, close to the house but beyond the fence. That field had a “valley” down the middle, and was mostly pasture. That was where Uncle Johnny used to hit flies for me to chase down, up and down the slopes of the valley.

There were gooseberries in the hedge along the garden, but we relied on roadsides and Punch Knowles’ woods, just north of us, to provide wild raspberries and blackberries and boysenberries, which they did in abundance, along with an even greater abundance of ticks and chiggers.

Mother made peach jam from the meager peach trees in the orchard and even more grape jam from the rather enthusiastic bunches of grapes on the way to the outhouse. My job was to get as many seeds as possible out of the pulp before cooking and putting into glass jars with paraffin tops. It wasn’t quite as hard as it sounds, because the seeds were quite large and easy to see and we had a colander of the right size.

Daddy was usually able to rent or share-crop another five to fifteen acres, for corn or soybeans or hay. Sometimes he hired the two of us out to a neighbor to make fence or to put up hay.

As I thought about Oakland City, how much it meant and means to me, what a gift it was to me in so many ways, one gift I had not previously thought about was the gift of extended history. Not only did my parents grow up there, but their parents did, too. Gibson County was home to the McFarlands and Smiths since at least the 1880s, probably longer since John White McFarland was a fourteen-year-old bugler on a Federal Navy ship on the Ohio River in the Civil War. [Yes, he lied about his age.] I can’t remember how the Smiths got there, if I ever knew, but the McFarlands came from Posey County, down on the Ohio River, because Oakland City had a three-year high school, a big deal then, and John White McFarland and his wife wanted Ella Blaine McFarland, their daughter, the one we called Aunt Nellie, to have that high school education.

I have always known and enjoyed all the family stories from GC, but only today did I understand what a gift it is to have such deep roots, and to have experienced them for myself. When I left at 18, the family had been there in one way or another for 75 years. It’s still there, although in much diminished form, since David Pond, Uncle Johnny’s son, and his children are the only ones still there from either side of the family.

It is often said that the two things parents need to give children are roots and wings. My roots are in Gibson County, and that was also the source of my wings. Perhaps the greatest gift my family and friends there gave me was the courage and the encouragement to leave.

As I get closer and closer to the next life, I give thanks to those who give me the courage to leave this one.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.

THE NEW RECRUIT 6-8-17

THE NEW RECRUIT    6-8-17

So many failures all lined up

their uniforms in disarray

brass unpolished

shoes unshined

ties askew

weapons missing

It’s hard to think

that this battle

will be better

than the last

If it is up

to these besotted losers

it will be another failure

but there is a glimmer

about this new recruit…

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

THE GIFT OF LOST MEMORY 6-7-17

THE GIFT OF LOST MEMORY      6-7-17

In the process of down-sizing to fit into a condo, I threw 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 parishoners, from friends in all walks of life.

I read each one, thought about that writer and the circumstances that prompted the letter, and then dropped it into the recycling bin. There was no point in saving them 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 those who must turn the lights off when I am gone is to put my friends into the recycling.

The largest number of those letters that went into recycling was from fellow cancer survivors. I can remember only a few of them. Most were short-term relationships, although some were clearly quite intense over their short duration. People struggling, quite literally, with issues of life and death, and the meaning of “those two imposters.” Most of the relationships started when someone read my book [1] or heard me speak at a cancer conference. They wanted to reach out to someone they were sure understood what they were feeling.

Strangely, I am hanging onto more mementoes from my high school days than from my cancer days. Well, not just the mementos, but the memories themselves.

Some brain research indicates that we hold onto early memories better than later ones because our brains are simply better when we are young—more pliant, more accepting. Those early memories get in there and stick. New memory possibilities just bounce off brittle old brains. Or something like that.

This may explain why we old people can remember what we had for breakfast sixty years ago but not what we had for lunch today. Or why we can remember the name of our first grade teacher but not our second wife.

But does it make any difference? A memento—a letter or a photo or a toy—is useful for jarring a memory loose, but sooner or later we shall have to let go of both the mementos and the memories.

That sounds like a downer, and in a way it is. I think, though, that the loss of memento and memory is God’s way of reminding us that life in this body is fleeting. We dare not put our trust in this life and its memories, but only in God, both for the present and for the future. If we get too attached to the past we are not able to go forward.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.

1] NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them

WHEN THE LAST DREAM ENDS 6-6-17

WHEN THE LAST DREAM ENDS    6-6-17

When the last lost dream

has ended without end,

a paper cup pulled down

by a muddy whirlwind,

the day has started

before my sleep-numbed

feet have found

the night-numbed floor,

begun in chaos of the mind

with two simple queries

of the spirit:

Why something

instead of nothing?

Toast or oatmeal?

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.