LIMITED WITHOUT LIMITS [T, 10-31-17]

What old people fear most is losing control of our own lives.

At any age, we want control of our own lives. But the possibility of losing control is greater in old age—financial control, health control, housing control, food control, car control, bladder control.

I especially learned about the need for control as a cancer patient, because loss of control is the first thing you feel when you are told you have cancer. Now those in control are the cancer cells within your body, and the people outside your body who are fighting those cells.

There are 3 Cs, plus an S, that each cancer patient needs in order to get well. The S is for Support. The 3 Cs are Challenge, Commitment, and Control. We have to accept the challenge of getting well, make the commitment to it, and then have support, and get as much control as possible, even when others have so much control of us.

If we are successful, we learn that control is more spiritual and emotional than it is physical.

Some people maintain control, or gain it, by giving it up. There is a long history of this as a good thing in religion. “Let go and let God.” But letting God have control is the ultimate in control. We are not relinquishing but gaining. That’s good.

There is a difference, though, between spiritual control and daily control. Even if we give God control of our lives, by relinquishing spiritual control, we still need to make decisions about health and finances and such, the rest of what we must do to earn our daily bread

Gradually, as we age, our daily control will be diminished. That is inevitable, unless we die suddenly. The trick is to accept the controls we must relinquish and to do our best with those that remain.

I think that we get control by accepting our limits but not being limited by them. As we work through our final years, control is more a matter of the spirit than it is of the body.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

My book, NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them, is published by AndrewsMcMeel. It is available from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, etc. in hardback, paperback, audio, Japanese, and Czech.

COPYRIGHTING JESUS [10-30-17]

The first time I was aware that we were not allowed to sing “Happy Birthday to you” unless we paid the copyright owners was while watching a baseball game on TV. The announcers wanted to sing the ditty to a centenarian who had followed the team all the years of her life but had been informed they could not do it on the air because they would be sued by the “owners” of the song if they did. Instead, they wished her “a joyful natal occasion.” It wasn’t quite the same.

It seemed ludicrous. But there were people who claimed they had “written” the song, back in the 1930s, and early in this century their claim had been purchased, for several million dollars, by a company, that was now trying to enforce the copyright by making people pay to sing the song. [1]

Okay, I am going to remind you that I wrote “Happy birthday to you, you belong in the zoo, you look like a monkey, and smell like one, too.” Don’t sing that to anyone unless you send me money first.

Actually, as a writer, I am very much in favor of copyright laws, and of acknowledging and paying the folks who write and compose.

When I was at HarperCollins in NYC to record the audio version of my cancer book [2], at several points, I started singing little ditties in the manuscript, songs I had made up to sing while I was recovering, such as “No more cancer” to the tune of Edelweiss. The engineers said, “You can’t do that; that tune belongs to Richard Rodgers.” So I had to improvise on the spot, and sing to a different tune, one in the public domain. So that particular little song became “No more cancer, no more cancer,” to the tune of “Oh, Freedom.” That happened six or seven times in the process of recording that book.

The way some folks act, you’d think they had copyrighted, and now own, “Jesus Loves Me.” Only they are allowed to sing it and believe it. The rest of us have to go to their birthday party of we don’t get to party at all. It’s wise for all of us to remember that only the Creator has the copyright on life.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

1] In 2015, a federal judge ruled that the various companies claiming copyright to “Happy Birthday,” and thus exclusive use of it, unless we paid them in order to sing it, that all their copyright claims were invalid, and folks could go back to singing the song just like we always had.

2] NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them, is published by AndrewsMcMeel. It is available from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, etc. in hardback, paperback, audio, Japanese, and Czech.

I just noticed that in the October 16 blog, I mentioned “Sylvia” several times without adding a last name. It is possible that I just assumed if one is talking about a former opera and Broadway star who teaches at the Jacobs School of Music at IU, everyone will know which Sylvia it is. Or maybe I just forgot to say McNair.

SIMPLE LIVES: KATIE AND DONNA [10-28-17]

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

Today is daughter Katie’s birthday. She is the acclaimed author, Katie Kennedy. [1] She is also a professor of history—Russian in particular, in which she did her doctoral work at the U of IL—and wife, mother, cook, decorator, dog silencer, citizen, church member, friend. I am proud of her, not just for her many accomplishments, but because she lives a simple life in the midst of complexity. She knows that in the whirling midst of all those competing and challenging roles, there is only one thing that is important, and she lives it.

Next Saturday Helen and I will drive the 90 miles south to my old home town, on the unnecessary and boring new I-69 stretch from Bloomington to Evansville. We shall do so to honor the simple life of my school classmate, Donna Miller Huff. In the midst of unimaginable tragedies, she knew that only one thing is important, and she lived it.

Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. said, “I would give anything for the simplicity on the far side of complexity, but nothing for the simplicity on the near side of complexity.”

In many ways, Katie and Donna have nothing in common. In high school, Donna was concerned first for looks and popularity. She never went to college. She lived her whole life in one small town. Katie’s life has been the opposite.

One tragedy after another wrenched away everything that was important to Donna—parents, husband, children, grandchildren. At the end, even her life. The tragedies of life tried to take those things from Katie but were unable to.

In one way, though, these two women--removed so far from each other by age and education and status—were the same. Through complexities each learned the simple truth that the only thing that matters in life is love. Donna learned that if you have no one to love, then love everyone. Katie learned that if you have so many to love, love everyone.

Happy birthday to Katie. Happy new day to Donna.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

1] Katie Kennedy is the rising star in YA lit. She is published by Bloomsbury, which also publishes lesser authors, like JK Rowling. Her latest book is, What Goes Up. It’s published in hardback, paperback, audio, and electronic, from B&N, Amazon, etc.

Spoiler Alert: If you have read this column anytime in the past three months, you’ve already read everything that follows…

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP], where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.] Having met and married while at IU in Bloomington, IN, we became Bloomarangs in May of 2015, moving back to where we started, closing the circle. We no longer live in the land of winter, but I am in the winter of my years, and so I am still trying to understand Christ in winter. Besides, it’s getting cold HERE today.

I don’t always tweet, but when I do, I tweet as yooper1721.

I KNEW THEIR SECRETS [F, 10-27-17]

Harry Keal sat in my living room and cried. I was not really surprised. The night before he had led the fight in the charge conference [church business meeting] to deny me a salary raise for the next year.

           

The raise refusal had nothing to do with money, although Harry and his cohorts said it did. “We can’t afford it.”

           

As usual, when others pointed out the obvious, that there was plenty of money, and it was just a piddling little cost of living adjustment, and no move was made to cut increases in anything else in the budget, the argument had to shift to other reasons why I should receive no raise.

           

No one would say I was doing a poor job, because no one could say that; it was not true.

No one would say they just did not like me; it would sound too petty.

No one would say that they had to do something to reduce me in size, because they were scared to death of me, because I knew all their embarrassing secrets, because it was so true they could not even think it.

Harry, as usual, had some farming analogy, which he considered ironclad proof, of why I should not receive a raise. It had to do with how farmers depended on the weather and the markets and when they were bad, they made less money. Steve Holaday, 45 years Harry’s junior, and also a farmer, said: “Yes, Harry, but all the other farmers in the neighborhood don’t get together and decide how much you can have from the sale of your crops.” It stunned everyone. Steve had adroitly turned Harry’s own analogy against him.

So the next morning Harry showed up at my door early, as farmers are wont to do, even though he and everyone else in the church was aware that morning was a bad time for me because of my chemotherapy, and sat in my living room and cried, but it was not in remorse for how he had tried to scuttle my raise. The pay raise was mentioned only in passing, as a doorway to his real concern, which was personified in young Steve.

“I have tried,” he said, “to withdraw from leadership in the church. I gave up official positions, to let younger people have a go at them. But I assumed they would come to me for advice and counsel. But they never do. Instead they even oppose me when I try to save the church money.”

Strange, yes, that someone would one day try to cost me money and the next day cry to me about their problems, especially the problem of getting people to respect their attempt to deny me a salary raise. Actually, that is not uncommon at all.

Harry had a few allies each year in the annual attempt to deny me a salary raise. They were the ones who leaned most heavily on me emotionally the rest of the year. They hated me, because I knew how weak they were. But they needed me, because I was their pastor.

Everyone else in town knew them. They did not dare admit their foibles to friends and family and business associates; they would use that knowledge against them in some way. I was the outsider. I alone could be trusted to hear their confessions, and say nothing to anyone, and not retaliate, and they hated me for that.

I am now the age Harry was then. I have withdrawn from leadership in the church. Younger leaders in the church do not come to me for advice and counsel. Thanks be to God.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet occasionally as yooper1721.

Spoiler Alert: If you have read this column in the last 3 months, all that follows is old news:

I stopped writing this column for a while, for several reasons. It wasn’t until I had quit, though, that I knew this reason: I did not want to be responsible for wasting your time. If I write for others, I have to think about whether it’s worthwhile for you to read. If I write only for myself, it’s caveat emptor. If you choose to read something I have written, but I have not advertised it, not asked you to read it, and it’s poorly constructed navel-gazing drivel, well, it’s your own fault. Still, I apologize if you have to ask yourself, “Why did I waste time reading this?”

The story of how God tricked me into becoming a professional Xn is in my book, The Strange Calling, published by Smyth&Helwys.

My book, NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them, is published by AndrewsMcMeel. It is available from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, etc. in hardback, paperback, audio, Japanese, and Czech.

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, and where we are known as “Bloomarangs.” 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…

AT THE MALL-a poem [W, 10-25-17]

The speakers squawking

Some loud noisome non-tune

Words so strange in my ear

They must be from some distant

Pestilential planet

The middle-aged woman

With the face stamped

“Made in China”

Trudging past

A reluctant teen-age boy

In tow

She sings along so sweetly

In a soft soprano lilt

With that band of raucous rockers

Whaling from the speakers overhead

In an accent coated

With honey from Kentucky

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

JUDGE NOT! REALLY? [T, 10-24-17]

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

When Jesus said, “Judge not lest ye be judged,” [Matthew 7:1, KJV] he was talking about heaven and hell. Don’t judge someone to be damned eternally. That was the biblical context for “judgment,” as in “the last judgment,” of Matthew 25:31-46. That was the context for the word “judgment” for the next 2000 years.

Now, though, hardy anyone believes in the biblical context, a literal, spatial place where we go after death either for eternal punishment or eternal paradise. So “judgment” has switched over to “evaluation,” but only when we disagree with the evaluation.

These days if you make even an innocuous evaluation like “I prefer left Twix to right Twix,” someone is likely to jump in with “Judge not lest ye be judged,” or its less King Jamesish equivalent.

That is especially true if we evaluate a political or religious position that someone else believes in. “Judge not!”

Judgment and evaluation are two very different things. As a Christian, yes, I should not judge you. But as a Christian, yes, I definitely should evaluate you, your positions and actions. If they hurt people, including yourself, then what you think and do is bad, and I should oppose you.

And don’t tell me “judge not,” or I’ll damn you to hell!

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Spoiler Alert: If you have read this column in the last 3 months, all that follows is old news:

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, and where we are known as “Bloomarangs.” 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…

Following the critical and marketing success of her first Young Adult novel, daughter Katie Kennedy’s Learning to Swear in America, is What Goes Up, a July 18, 2017 release. She is published by Bloomsbury, which also publishes lesser known but promising young authors, like JK Rowling.

Speaking of writing, 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.

THE WITTENBERG BARK [M, 10-23-17]

I saw a Facebook post from a black dog. He said, “Some day that mail man is going to break in here and murder all of you. I’ll be like, HaHa, so who should stop barking and lie down now.”

My grand-dog, Ernie, a little black shapoo, is like that, and we can all take a lesson from him.

He is resolute in warning his family of danger, especially from the garbage guys and the UPS guy and anyone who has the temerity to walk by unconcernedly on the street.

For those good deeds, he is punished, especially if he is warning about some electrician or church lady who has already breached the barricades. He is put into the sin bin, his dog carrier, and banished to the nether regions.

This, however, does not deter him. As soon as he gains freedom, he takes up his post on the back of the sofa and rises up once again with his barkly cudgels against the injustices and dangers of random walkers and blowing leaves. He will not voluntarily abandon his post, even though the whole world be against him.

It is appropriate as we approach the 500^th anniversary of Martin Luther nailing his 95 theses on the Wittenberg Door that Ernie echoes that lasting call to freedom and justice: “Here I bark; I can do no otherwise.”

Yes, if we were all as resolute in our warnings, in the protection of those we love, as Ernie is…

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

FUN AND HATE [Sunday, October 22, 2017]

Jim and Jenny Kiefer and their daughter, Emily, spent a day with us this week, and took us to lunch. Came all the way from San Francisco to do it. Well, I think they had some other reasons to drive their VW Golf all that way, but we’re glad they included us.

Jim was an undergrad at our campus ministry, The Wesley Foundation, at Illinois State University, back in the 1960s. He is one of my children in the ministry.

I told him something I have never said before in front of those particular “children.”

When I speak to groups of ministers, or to other groups about the ministry, I say: “I have 23 children in the ministry. They say they went into the ministry because I made it look like fun. They all hate me.”

Jim got a good laugh at that, then said, “Well, I did have fun, and I don’t hate you.”

My children had fun and they don’t hate me. I’ll take that as my epitaph.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I WAS SO MUCH OLDER THEN [F, 10-20-17]

I loved the early Bob Dylan. “Blowin’ in the Wind.” “Don’t Think Twice.” Those sorts of songs.

I don’t understand most of his later lyrics, especially “My Back Pages.’ There is one line, however, in that song that I love: “But I was so much older then. I’m younger than that now.”

Maybe I’ll have them put that on my grave stone.

JRMcF

NOTES TO A GRANDDAUGHTER-poem [R 10-19-17]

That time you cried before you even knew

The world existed

And that you were part of it

That was the time I prayed for you.

When you ran screeching through the sprinkler

The first time you saw the words and knew their meaning

When you were so frightened because your brother was so sick

That was the time I prayed for you.

When you went off to school with a smile and a hope

When the teacher didn’t understand

When the other girls shut you out

That was the time I prayed for you.

When you tried to make the team and didn’t

When you lost the spelling bee

When you cried because you held a tiny death in your hand

That was the time I prayed for you.

When you saw that boy and he walked away

When you didn’t even want to go

But they chose you queen at the prom

That was the time I prayed for you.

When those in power lied

And sneered at you in arrogance

When the world teetered on destruction

When injustice seemed so overwhelming

That was the time I prayed for you.

When you laughed out loud at nothing

When you saw the stars at night, and felt so small,

When you felt the presence of God in every angle of your soul

That was the time I prayed for you

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

FLOPPY EARS [W, 10-18-17]

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

My Grandma Mac-Henrietta Ann Smith McFarland, who was Retta to her friends-made me a stuffed dog. I called it Floppy Ears.

I was three years old, and Grandma’s favorite grandson. That’s what she always called me, up to when I was ten. Then she stopped calling me that. It was years before I realized she had stopped calling me that when her second grandson was born.

It was the time of The Great Depression. We lived with Grandma and Grandpa-Arthur Harrison McFarland, who went by Harry-in a big old house at the edge of Oxford, Ohio that my mother dubbed Cedar Crest because of the big trees in the front yard. Sometimes there were just nine of us, Grandma and Grandpa, my parents and my sister and I, and my father’s three late teen/early twenties bachelor brothers who could not marry because they could not get jobs. Occasionally there would be twelve or fourteen of us, if Uncle Harvey or Uncle Glen lost a job and they had to move in, too, with their wives and daughters.

Grandma was no more than five feet tall and weighed maybe 90 pounds. She had seven children, at home, and raised along with her own seven the daughter of a brother, from the age of four until Genevieve graduated high school. She was never in a hospital until the day she died, at age 96.

Grandma worked full-time, at Western College for Women, now a part of Miami University, first as a maid, then as a salad cook. She had a house full of people, and a purse full of nothing, but she found the time to make me a stuffed dog.

Grandma wasn’t a great crafter. Floppy Ears wasn’t intricate. He was just a profile dog, about two inches across, one leg in front and one in back. His sides were in a black and white pattern, and his legs and middle were red. But he had two eyes, and those great floppy ears, on the outside the same black and white material as his body, red on the inside.

I loved Floppy Ears, and yet he didn’t last long. I forgot about him when my father got a job in Indianapolis and we moved away from Cedar Crest and I started school. When I was about twelve I came across him in a box in the attic. I was a little embarrassed at twelve to be so happy to rediscover a little stuffed dog. I put him back in the box.

I don’t know what happened to that box. It disappeared when my parents moved while I was in graduate school. But as I listen now to a Billy Vaughn CD with a recitation of Little Boy Blue, that starts with “The little toy dog is covered with dust…” I remember Floppy Ears, and a woman who covered the world with kindness, and I am happy.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Spoiler Alert: If you have read this column in the last 3 months, all that follows is old news:

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, and where we are known as “Bloomarangs.” 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…

SCONE THINKING [T, 10-17-17]

This is a story about an old man sitting in the doctor’s waiting room thinking about scones. I know this story well.

There were 30 empty seats plus mine in that room. I felt slightly lonely. I wondered if someone else would come in. If they did, I figured said newcomer would ask me what I was thinking about, because I don’t like that, since I never have an interesting thought, at least not one I’m willing to admit to.

But this time, I was ready, for I knew when I got home Helen would have coffee and scones ready, so I would answer the inquisitive stranger: “I am thinking about whether I prefer cinnamon or oatmeal scones. There really is no question. I like oatmeal best, but my wife prefers cinnamon, so I maintain the myth that I like them equally, since I want to keep her happy, since she is the one who bakes the scones, and equal liking is only a venial lie, for I do like them both. In fact, it is fair to say that while I do have regrets, none of them involves cinnamon scones.”

Then a total of five people came and checked in and spread out onto the empty seats and not a one of them asked me what I was thinking, which was rude of them and disappointing to me.

Do not ask for whom the phlebotomist came, for she came for me. I asked her what she intended to do to me, for I tend to get phlebotomists and lobotomists confused, one with another, and I wanted to be sure which she was, which I explained to her, in lieu of the scones soliloquy which by that time I had memorized. When I left, I thanked her for not giving me a lobotomy, to which she replied, “Or perhaps I did and you don’t remember it.” [As Dave Barry would say, I am not making this up.]

This is a story about an old man sitting in the doctor’s waiting room thinking about scones. I know this story well. At least I thought I did. Now, though, I wonder if the botomist replaced my memory with that of someone else in that waiting room. But I think this cinnamon scone I am eating might be a clue…

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

BEING THE MUSIC [Monday, October 16, 2017]

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

I chatted with legendary US Congressman Lee Hamilton yesterday afternoon. During his 34 years representing Indiana’s 9^th Congressional District, he was probably the most universally respected member of the US Congress, especially for his level-headed approach and his expertise on international affairs and national security. Now retired, he continues to serve as an advisor to many government agencies, and as the Director of The Indiana Center on Representative Government at Indiana University.

I ran into Lee after the “Sylvia and Friends” concert to raise money for the Shalom Center, which serves Bloomington’s homeless community. Sylvia is another IU icon, recently retired from the Jacobs School of Music, following a spectacular performing and recording career in opera and Broadway musicals. This was her 10^th year doing the concert, which always includes Charles Webb, the retired dean of the Jacobs School, who has been the organist at First United Methodist Church, where the concert was held, for an astounding 58 years, and another 7 or 8 musical friends, at all stages of their professional careers, some retired, some just starting.

That list of pianists and guitarists and singers includes Bloomington’s mayor, John Hamilton, Lee’s nephew. The play list was mostly Leonard Bernstein, who was a long-time friend of Charles Webb and IU’s school of music, but, naturally, the mayor was requested to sing Hoagy Carmichael’s “Stardust.” Lee laughed when I noted that Bloomington is the kind of place where even the mayor sings. [Quite professionally, by the way]

No one sings like Sylvia, though. A consummate performer. And human being. She has retired early to spend full-time in service to others, ministering directly and via agencies to the homeless and abused among us. We won’t lose her musical voice entirely, of course, but we shall be better because of her advocacy voice on behalf of those who most need a song in the dark.

What appeals to me most about Sylvia, though, is that we are both cancer survivors who say, along with many others, that cancer is the best thing that ever happened to us. Cancer gave us a new view of life, and a new song to sing. So I sit here this morning, humming my life songs as I go, ready to face a new day with a new song.

An event like yesterday afternoon works as a reset for me, because it contains all the elements that make life worthwhile—an attempt to help those who need it, real human beings who make the world better by their service and their presence, and music.

Being in the presence of Lee and Sylvia and the mayor and all the other folks there, in that beautiful church, with the music of Hoagy and Lennie, raising money for the homeless… all that is great. But it’s not necessary. All each of us has to do is be a real human who tries to make the world a better place, while singing a song.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet once in a great while as yooper1721.

Spoiler Alert: If you have read this column in the last 3 months, all that follows is old news:

My book, NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them, is published by AndrewsMcMeel. It is available from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, etc. in hardback, paperback, audio, Japanese, and Czech.

I stopped writing this column for a while, for several reasons. It wasn’t until I had quit, though, that I knew this reason: I did not want to be responsible for wasting your time. If I write for others, I have to think about whether it’s worthwhile for you to read. If I write only for myself, it’s caveat emptor. If you choose to read something I have written, but I have not advertised it, not asked you to read it, and it’s poorly constructed navel-gazing drivel, well, it’s your own fault. Still, I apologize if you have to ask yourself, “Why did I waste time reading this?”

Katie Kennedy is the rising star in YA lit. [She is also our daughter.] She is published by Bloomsbury, which also publishes lesser authors, like JK Rowling. Her new book, What Goes Up, came out July 18. It’s published in paper, audio, and electronic, and available from B&N, Amazon, Powell’s, etc.

Speaking of writing, my most recent book, VETS, about four homeless and handicapped Iraqistan veterans, is available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BOKO, Powell’s, etc. It’s published by Black Opal Books.

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…

WHY I AM GOING TO HEAVEN [Su 10-8-17]

Old people often have mortality dreams. Mine are usually preparation dreams, or, more clearly, non-preparation drams, in that I am not ready to die. I have to take a test in a course I did not even know I was enrolled, or I have to go on stage and I haven’t learned my lines. It’s never a musical dream, like I have to sing a solo when I’m not prepared, because I’m always ready to sing a solo, as long as it’s “Bill Grogan’s Goat.” But, clearly, the message is: You are not prepared to die.

Last night, though, I had a different sort of mortality dream. I was walking in my brown jersey gloves, which I always stick into my pocket on nippy mornings, just in case. But in my dream, they were not enough. My hands were cold. “I should have worn my leather gloves,” I thought.

Now, it’s possible to think of this as another non-prepared dream, but I think this means I am going to heaven, for surely there would be no need of warmer gloves in hell.

JRMcF

Johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

WE DON’T SAY NO TO DONNA [F, 10-16-17, A repeat, mostly]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…

I got the news last night that Donna had died. Donna Huff now. Donna Miller when we were school classmates. Everything went wrong for Donna, right up to the end. She was hit broadside by a pickup truck and spent three weeks in the hospital, not in a coma but unresponsive. I often said that in her last thirty years, she made a life out of nothing. That wasn’t exactly true. She made a life by being a host for every soul that needed a smile or a hug. The CIW below, repeated from four years ago explains more about Donna. May she find in death the peace that she was so often denied in life.

WE DON’T SAY NO TO DONNA

The package contained ELEVEN tubes of toothpaste. With a note that said, “Donna will call you and explain.”

There were supposed to be only FIVE. And that was only because we overpaid last time. I am old. I don’t even buy green bananas. How am I doing to use up eleven tubes of toothpaste before I die? [1]

Donna was my high school classmate. She is a distributor for Forever Bright™ toothpaste. We buy from her because a long time ago she asked us to. We don’t say “no” to Donna.

She did call to explain. She owed us five tubes from our previous overpayment and tried to get the company to send them directly to us. She doesn’t have much time for boxing up out-of-town orders. Her mother is well over a hundred years and in a nursing home. Donna slept on a mattress on the floor of her room until her back got so bad she had to have surgery. Now she sleeps at home but spends most of her daytime hours at the nursing home. So why not get headquarters to send directly to us? But apparently eleven is the minimum to mail to a separate address. Who knows why? If 13 is a baker’s dozen, perhaps 11 is a dentist’s dozen.

I knew Donna in school, of course, but not well. We had a class of only 62, and I was class president for 3 years. But we didn’t run in the same social circles. I was high in the work circle of the class and school—class president, Student Council officer, newspaper editor, orchestra bassoonist—but I was not high in the power structure, which was based mostly on money and family, or the social structure, which was based mostly on looks and clothes. [1] Donna was high in the social structure; she was Homecoming Queen.

We expected a high society life for her after school, of course. It didn’t turn out that way. Her first husband divorced her, her second committed suicide. Her two sons died in their twenties, one of cancer and the other in a motorcycle accident. Her only grandchild, Jada, either committed suicide or was murdered in Donna’s house, at the age of 19. Her only family now is her mother and two sisters, one deep into Alzheimer’s, and the other living in a different state and unable to walk. Donna takes care of her mother and sells toothpaste. [10-6-17: Her mother and one sister are now dead.]

Except, Donna makes a life out of nothing. She knows everybody and she knows their stories. Helen says one of the best times she ever had was when we went to lunch with Donna when we were back in Oakland City for our 55 year reunion. She introduced us to everyone in the restaurant, including the pig farmer who was, thankfully, getting take-out and whose clothes were splattered with what Helen devoutly hoped was mud. Young or old or in-between, Donna knew them all, and later she explained why each one needed her special attention, although she didn’t put it that way, because of the difficulties of their lives. We’ve been with her several times through the years at nursing homes. She goes in like a swarm of laughing bees on a summer day, landing on every worker and every patient with a hug and a smile and a “How are you, Sweetie?” And besides, who can’t love a woman in her 70s who is a backup dancer/singer for an Elvis impersonator?

 

She’s still in the social circle, but she’s in the work circle now, too. She was telling us about how some sorority she belongs to was doing a benefit for some burned-out family or good cause or… I’m not quite sure because it’s hard to stay up with Donna. They were trying to get 25 people to sponsor it at $100 each so they could pay the band and then all the money they raised would go to the good cause. Turns out sponsors got 4 free tickets. Donna found some young married folks who wanted to go but couldn’t afford it and told them, “Pick up tickets at the window. Just tell them you are named McFarland.” We don’t say “no” to Donna.

We decided a long time ago to stop going back for class reunions. 700 miles is just too far away. But through the years we’ve become a talisman for Donna. When it came time for our 50 year reunion, she called and asked us to come. “Everyone will tell about how long they’ve been married, and about their children and grandchildren, and I won’t have anything to say. But I think I can make it through if I can sit between you and Helen.” When it was 55 years, she called and said, “I’ve got to have back surgery the Monday after. I think I can make it through if I can see you first.” We don’t say “no” to Donna.

Helen wrote the following on Jan. 13: So last night I was lying awake in bed, and this morning when I first awoke, I was feeling kind of sorry for myself. Nothing specific—just mid-winter blahs. Seemed like there are so many wrong with the world, and in the lives of people I care about, and in my own diminishing abilities to think and work and affect my world. Just feeling kind of down. I prayed about it, asking God for guidance and direction And what does God do?? Before I finished breakfast, God tapped Donna on the shoulder and said, “Call McFarlands—and be sure you talk to Helen, not just John.” {After Donna and I had talked, she said, “Does Helen have anything she wants to say to me?} Donna!! Of all the people I’ve ever known, Donna is probably the one who makes the most of what she’s been given, stays upbeat when her world is falling apart [which it has several times] and does the most good for the most people. God could have sent any number of reasonably cheerful people into my life today and it would have helped me on my way, but NO—He has to call out Donna—the BIG GUN! After we had talked and I was cheered and inspired as I always am by her, I smiled and said, “God, you really know how to send a message.”

So, we don’t say “no” to Donna, but… do you need some toothpaste?

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

1] I guess I could put the toothpaste in my will. Daughter Katie looked up McFarland wills in the county courthouse in Xenia, OH. One of my ancestors, Greene Clay McFarland, I think it was, had willed a three-legged stool to the daughter “with a bad eye,” and “the bucket without the hole” to another, etc. Eleven tubes of toothpaste might look pretty good.

2] I experienced the difference of work, power, and social circles primarily in the church, but most groups of humans, and primates generally, are like high school. {Shudder!} There is some overlap between the circles, but also some clear distinctions.

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!

SPIRIT OF GENTLENESS [R, 10-5-17]

On YouTube there are several versions of Jim Manley’s great hymn, “Spirit of Gentleness.” Most mornings I listen to one or another of them on my iPad, with my coffee, sound turned low since I’m up early.

Spirit, Spirit of gentleness,

blow through the wilderness, calling and free.

Spirit, Spirit of restlessness

Stir me from placidness,

Wind, Wind on the sea.

It’s a hymn, in many hymnals, not that anybody uses hymnals anymore, since someone discovered that a screen can be mounted on a wall, but it can be used as a choral number, too. One year the St. Olaf College Choir used it in their Christmas concert, one of those lovely specials you see on PBS.

You moved on the waters, you called to 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.

Back in the 1960s, when I was minister at The Wesley Foundation [Methodist campus ministry] at Illinois State University, I came across an LP [high tech in those days] of Jim’s first album, ”Raggedy Band.” I was grabbed by his voice, his lyrics, his theology. I especially loved the song, “You’re Gonna Hear From Him Again.” I thought one of the best things I could do as a minister to my students was get Jim to our campus so that they could meet him and hear him.

Spirit, Spirit of gentleness,

blow through the wilderness, calling and free.

Spirit, Spirit of restlessness

Stir me from placidness,

Wind, Wind on the sea.

So I wrote to him through the record company that put out “Raggedy Band” and asked him to come to Normal, Illinois to do a concert. He wrote back and said he’d be glad to come. The reply was from his home, in Hawaii! I had no idea that his day job was as chaplain in a home for troubled children out in the middle of the Pacific. Getting him to Normal was going to cost a bit more than I had in mind. Fortunately, we had a small fund that a family had given as a memorial for their daughter who died while she was a student at ISU. It was for special events. I knew Jim would be special.

You swept through the desert, you stung with the sand,

And you goaded your people with a law and a land,

And when they were blinded by their idols and lies

Then you spoke through your prophets to open their eyes

Since Jim lived in Hawaii and his brother was in Kansas City, they rarely got to see each other. Jim thought it would be great if his brother could come see him while he was back on the mainland. So DeVerne Dalluge, chemistry professor and Wesley Foundation treasurer, and his wife, Shirley, said they would host Jim’s brother and his wife in their house.

Spirit, Spirit of gentleness,

blow through the wilderness, calling and free.

Spirit, Spirit of restlessness

Stir me from placidness,

Wind, Wind on the sea.

Jim’s brother was better off than Jim. We housed Jim in the new room my brother and I had finished in the basement. We didn’t know that our cat, Princess, went down to sleep with him. We didn’t know Jim was allergic to cats. His concert was a huge success, not just because of his lyrics, but because of his new voice, that sounded like it came right out of a concrete mixer! It fit his lyrics so nicely.

You sang in a stable, you cried from a hill

You whispered in silence 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

Twenty-five years later, I was pastoring in a small town in Illinois—Arcola. I had just published my book for cancer patents, and was receiving a lot of invitations to speak at cancer gatherings. We got home from the one at MD Anderson in Houston, and our grad school house-sitting daughter said, “Oh, you won’t believe who stopped by while you were here. It was Jim Manley. He was in town to visit his aunt.”

Spirit, Spirit of gentleness,

blow through the wilderness, calling and free.

Spirit, Spirit of restlessness

Stir me from placidness,

Wind, Wind on the sea.

“Jim Manley has an aunt in Arcola?” “Yes, Mary Nay.” Well, Mary Nay was one of my favorite church members, and Jim Manley was her favorite nephew, but we had no idea we had that connection. Actually, Jim had so many Aunt Marys that he called Mary Nay, at her request, “Uncle Mary.” That was the kind of woman she was.

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

Mary was elderly, and good health can leave quickly when we are old, especially after a fall and a broken hip. So it was not long before Jim came back to sing at her funeral. It was a completion of the family circle for him, and a completing of the friendship circle for the two of us to work together in worship again.

Spirit, Spirit of gentleness,

blow through the wilderness, calling and free.

Spirit, Spirit of restlessness

Stir me from placidness,

Wind, Wind on the sea.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Yes, I have referenced this great hymn before, most notably in the Oct. 15, 2015 CIW column. 

DO NOT ASK AN OLD MAN-a poem [W, 10-4-17]

Do not ask

an old man

We do not know

Why the water is running

in the bathroom

How our glasses

got into the refrigerator

Where the check book

is currently residing

What the doctor said

about whatever it was

Who called on the phone

and left the unreadable message

Our brains are busy

with weightier matters

Why babies giggle

when you pull their toes

How dust motes dance

in the light of memory

Where dragonflies go

when the snow is deep

What will happen

on the eighth day

Who will hold my hand

at the end

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

THOSE BLAMED SANDWICHES [T, 10-3-17]

I make coffee twice a day in our “percolator,” which is actually a drip-through, but I like to say “percolator.”

The first coffee is immediate, as soon as I get out of bed. It is only for me, since Helen gets up later and prefers tea for breakfast, anyway. So I fill the water to “my” line, the first line. I always put the water in first so that I don’t forget it. Turning on the coffee pot without water is definitely not a good thing. I know. Then I empty out the grounds from last time and rinse out the basket. Following that comes a scoop of pinon and one of chocolate. Then I push the button and finish up doing the dishes from last night.

The second coffee is mid-morning, when we have done the morning things old people do—walk, email, water aerobics, newspaper [which is not paper but electronic], read morning books, authors like Marcus Borg and Bill Bryson and Anne Lamott. I fill the water to the second line, “our” line. I empty out the grounds and put in one scoop of chocolate and two of decaf pinon, because Helen’s heart can’t do caffeine. It goes very well with one of Helen’s homemade scones or muffins.

I did the first coffee this morning while still half-asleep, dark outside, 5:30, then did the dishes and toasted half a slice of Helen’s “squaw” bread. Half-asleep is not good. For when I lifted the pot to pour into my morning mug, the one old friend Gary Bass made in his potting shed, I immediately knew something was not right. It had the weight of the mid-morning coffee, not the daybreak coffee. It immediately made me think of… a story, for everything makes me think of a story.

Two construction workers opened their lunch boxes. The first one looked in and said, “Durn! Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches again!” The second worker said, “Well, why don’t you tell your wife to make something else,” to which the first replied, “Hey, I make those sandwiches.”

I got to the first part of that story with my coffee this morning. I could tell just by the weight of that pot that I would have to drink weak coffee. I looked around for someone else to blame. I was the only one there. So I had to go to the second part of the sandwich story: I made that.

We make most of our mistakes on our own. Nobody else to blame. We blame them anyway. “Look what you made me do,” as my mother used to say whenever she did something wrong. We live in community, but the way we do so successfully is if each of us acknowledges our own mistakes instead of blaming others. It makes it a lot easier for others to forgive us our mistake and help us to make better coffee and sandwiches next time.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Spoiler Alert: If you have read this column in the last 3 months, all that follows is old news:

I stopped writing this column for a while, for several reasons. It wasn’t until I had quit, though, that I knew this reason: I did not want to be responsible for wasting your time. If I write for others, I have to think about whether it’s worthwhile for you to read. If I write only for myself, it’s caveat emptor. If you choose to read something I have written, but I have not advertised it, not asked you to read it, and it’s poorly constructed navel-gazing drivel, well, it’s your own fault. Still, I apologize if you have to ask yourself, “Why did I waste time reading this?”

My book, NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them, is published by AndrewsMcMeel. It is available from Barnes & Noble, Amazon, etc. in hardback, paperback, audio, Japanese, and Czech.

CAN I MAKE IT THROUGH THE WINTER? [M, 10-2-17]

Can I make it through the winter? When we get to a certain age, that is what we ask. If we think we can’t, if it’s too much trouble to try, we die in October. Funeral directors and ministers know this. October is the most popular dying month.

If we have started into winter, though, we really want to hang on. We don’t want to die in winter. So we wait until spring to die. That is why May is the second-biggest dying month.

So often we lose the joy of autumn by dreading the advent of winter. But autumn should be a joy in itself, not just a prelude to winter.

But, you know, it’s also a joy that winter is coming, because winter is a privilege. Not everyone gets to winter. I am glad when I make it to winter.

I hope you make it to winter, and I hope it is a joy.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Spoiler Alert: If you have read this column in the last 3 months, all that follows is old news:

Katie Kennedy is the rising star in YA lit. [She is also our daughter.] She is published by Bloomsbury, which also publishes lesser authors, like JK Rowling. Her new book, What Goes Up, comes out July 18. It’s published in paper, audio, and electronic, and available for pre-order even now, from B&N, Amazon, Powell’s, etc.

FOR JOSEPH [Su 10-1-17]

 Last night your grandmother

made a slow descent

down into the ravine

through falling leaves

behind the inn

at Spring Mill Park

Her knees protested

but she insisted

her eyes moist in dusk

fierce in focus

She told me it was there

in that ravine

when you were so sick

she used to take you in her heart

and hold you close

as she sat on a big rock

and watched

the yellow leaves

of autumn

fall

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Written 10-1-8