STORIES OF [UNDER] ACHIEVEMENT [M, 11-30-20]

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

STORIES OF [UNDER] ACHIEVEMENT  [M, 11-30-20]

Occasionally I think  that I have to stop writing this column because I’m out of stories. Then some friend like Howard Daughenbaugh asks, “If you’re so out of stories, why do I have to keep hearing them?”

Well, the stories in this column are supposed to lead to some semi-useful principle that folks can apply to their own lives to make them better, or at least think that they are doing so. On the other hand, the stories we old people tell our friends are basically tales of past underachievement, which really don’t lead to spiritual growth.

Our stories of underachievement are usually personal, but they also include our underachieving possessions, like the cars of our youth that Howard and some of my other friends have been telling about on an email thread that never seems to stop. [Interestingly, sphelczhek tried to make “thread” into “threat” before I caught it. Coincidence? I think not!] Considering those cars—mostly 1940s and ‘50s models, and not close to new even then—it’s amazing that any of us ever arrived at our destinations, or lived to tell the stories.

Other possessions, though, were underachievers, too. I was assured in high school that white buck shoes would attract girls. Those shoes were definitely underachievers. As were all the other things I owned.

To get stories of achievement, fit for a column called Christ In Winter, I have to tell the stories of others, and I’ve repeated all that I have heard. If you’re an underachiever, you don’t have personal stories that are very inspirational to others.

I thought about creating an organization called Under Achievement [UA], but I didn’t know how, because I was never around a place where I could learn through the programs of JA, Junior Achievement. I was aware of JA, though, because every once in a while, there would be a newspaper article about some JA kid well below the legal drinking age who had become a dillionaire by inventing a new supply chain protocol meme regimen for toilet paper and so had dropped out of school “because I’m smarter than all my teachers.” JA seemed quite proud of that.

JA’s web sites are in the UA category, though. It takes a long time on their web sites to find out what their purpose is, that the students who go through their programs have a “better understanding of finance and business concepts.” Mostly they just have buttons to click to volunteer or donate. Of course, that is the essence of “finance and business concepts”—volunteers and donations, getting you to give them money while you do the work for them, like convincing folks that “self-service” is all about making things more convenient for you rather than them getting out of paying employees to do their work.

Maybe I just need better friends, folks who have stories of achievement instead of the time during seminary that they passed a cattle truck in a convertible when all the cows were relieving themselves through the slats of the truck. Poor Howard.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

A PRAYER FOR ADVENT, 2020 STYLE [Sa, 11-28-20]

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

A PRAYER FOR ADVENT, 2020 STYLE [Sa, 11-28-20]

It seems like we have already been in a long, long advent season, waiting for the dawn of hope. Into the 9^th month of that season. But tomorrow is the beginning of Advent in the Christian calendar, the season of waiting for the coming of the Messiah… So here’s a prayer for Advent…

Come, o come, Emmanuel

To this earthly heaven

This earthly hell

Where joys and sorrows

Together dwell

Come, o come, Emmanuel

 

Come, o come, Emmanuel

At birth’s first cry

And death’s last knell

As new hopes we see

And old tales we tell

Come, o come, Emmanuel

 

Come, o come, Emmanuel

On days when we’re ill

And days when we’re well

In love’s free bloom

Or the prisoner’s cell

Come, o come, Emmanuel

 

Come, o come, Emmanuel

When we hunger

And when we thirst

When things keep going

from worse to worst

Come, o come, Emmanuel

 

[Please don’t cause our faith to teeter

When we have to change our meter.]

 

May we end this dreadful year

With keen-eyed anticipation

May we greet the Christmas message

With quiet shouts of acclamation

 

May the stable birth of a tiny baby

Give us hope, that yes, just maybe

The year of pestilence is done

All the necessary races run

 

On Christmas morn, that hopeful dawn

Tell all the demons, “You! Be gone!”

Give us hope for days to come

Let us march to the angels’ drum

 

Until then, in this Advent season

Let us know the eternal reason

That earth still turns and God still yearns

For our joyful, penitent return

 

Come, o come, Emmanuel

 

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

A NICE JEWISH BOY [w, 11-25-20]

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

A NICE JEWISH BOY          [w, 11-25-20]

Aaron Comforty was already on staff at St. Mark’s UMC, as Director of Music for Children & Youth, when we moved here, a position he’s held for six years, so I’m not sure how he got the job. Probably the same way musicians and youth workers always get their jobs—he saw an ad on the Music School bulletin board, needed some money, and so applied. Even though he is a Jew from Chicago. When it comes to musicians and youth workers, desperate churches become remarkably open-minded.

Aaron says, “I didn’t even know that places like St. Mark’s existed. It turns out that not all churches are like what you see on TV.”

It’s not too surprising that Aaron feels so comfortable in this UMC, even to the extent of serving as a confirmation mentor and VBS teacher. We are the quintessence of “United.”

Our pastor was a Baptist preacher until he was 50. Our associate pastor was a Catholic until she was thirty, and went to a Disciples seminary, to become an ordained Methodist. As with most “converts,” they are quite enthusiastic about being, and talking, Methodist.

Our music director was/is Catholic. I don’t think he’s sure anymore. As our granddaughter once said, about being in a school named St. Mary’s: “I don’t know if I’m a Catholic or a Christian.”

Our youth minister is Baptist. We’ve had 3 directors of children’s education since we’ve been here. The first was Roman Catholic. She had to resign to care for a family member in bad health. The second was an ordained Unitarian. She resigned for similar reasons. We finally got a Methodist, who is the most questionable of the bunch, since her husband is a UKY basketball fan, which, in Bloomington, IN, isn’t just a different religion; it’s a heresy!

All this reminds me of the Catholic girl who was dating a Jewish boy. Her parents said she had to stop seeing him unless she could convince him to convert. She came home crying. “Won’t he convert?” “That’s not the problem. I oversold it, and now he wants to be a priest!”

Anyway, in his six years at St. Mark’s, Aaron has pondered his life. Music has always been his passion. He’s an excellent musician. Plays many instruments. Looks like a young Bob Dylan. Gives music lessons. He says because of his experience at St. Mark’s, he began to think he “needed to sing a new song.”

He thought about being a rabbi. But, as one of my rabbi friends says, “What kind of job is that for a nice Jewish boy?”

So, he’s decided to become a lawyer. He is going “to proclaim liberty to the captives.” [Luke 4:18, or, for Aaron, Isaiah 61:1.]

We shall miss him. It’s hard to imagine him as a lawyer, because he’s so nice. But if he gets thrown out by the lawyers, we’ll take him back. We’re a church that’s so nice, people don’t even know that such a place exists.

Stanley Hauerwas, a Roman Catholic who taught in a Methodist school of theology [Duke], says, with a bit of a dismissive sneer, that the only Methodist theology is being nice. Well, wouldn’t the world be better off if that were everybody’s only theology?

John Robert McFarland

 

LISTENING TO THE FIRST METHODIST [Su, 11-22-20]

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

 LISTENING TO THE FIRST METHODIST [Su, 11-22-20]

When I was growing up, I knew I was a Methodist, but I’m not sure I’d even heard the name of John Wesley. When I was confirmed at East Park Church in Indianapolis, at age 9, I cannot remember that we studied Wesley at all, even though we would not have been called Methodist without him. It was really at IU, taking History of Christian Thought from D.J. Bowden, that I got acquainted with the man I think is the most important person of the 18^th century, his years from 1703-1791 spanning almost the entire century.

He is rightly credited, I think, with saving England from a bloody revolution like that of France in the 18^th century, because so many folks in the beleaguered revolutionary classes became involved in the methodical, highly-organized, Methodist movement that they didn’t have time or interest in bloody revolution.

Some would count that against him, for there were plenty of English Lords and moguls who deserved to lose their heads for the ways they treated the lower classes and “foreigners,” like the Irish. Of course, Wesley wasn’t trying to prevent a revolution. He just wanted to help people live the Jesus way.

In addition to helping people organize to live their faith, he was a remarkable thinker. He was the great advocate of free will, over against the predestination that dominated theology in his day.

 I recall in senior honors English with Miss Grace Robb, in Oakland City High School, she asked Bill Burns what Emerson was noted for, he said, “Quotes.” Those may not be Wesley’s major accomplishments, but he left us plenty of them, and they’re worthwhile for any Christian person to peruse…

He is probably most famous for his simple rule for Christian living: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”

He was very much into practical medicine, as one of his most famous statements indicates: “Cleanliness is next to Godliness.” [Yes, he’s the one who said it.]

So, I think he would say these days: “Avoid all the people you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, as long as ever you can.”

When he discovered the medical uses of electric shock, he said, “Christians should be electrified daily.” [Preachers have used that forever in a symbolic way.]

He advocated free thinking as well as free will: “If your heart is with my heart, then give me your hand.” Not all Christians had to think alike.

Nonetheless, he wanted Christians to be thought-full: “Let us unite the two so long divided, knowledge and vital piety.”

The “vital piety” part meant that following Jesus wasn’t just a theological exercise: “Light yourself on fire with passion and people will come from miles around to watch you burn.”

And faith wasn’t just about heaven and hell. In fact, despite the prevailing theology of his times, heaven and hell didn’t figure very much into his thinking. “Whosoever will reign with Christ in heaven must have Christ reigning with him on earth.”

And all that organization, doing things methodically, wasn’t just for obeying the rules. The rules had a purpose, nothing less than changing the world. “The church changes the world not by making converts but by making disciples.”

His last quote, his dying words: “The best thing is, God is with us.”

I’ve studied Wesley a lot through the years. Been going back to him again now that I am old and trying to make sense of my life and my future. Methodist or not, it’s a good thing to listen to John Wesley as you do that.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

 

 

EMBARASSMENT-THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING [F, 11-20-20]

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

EMBARASSMENT-THE GIFT THAT KEEPS ON GIVING [F, 11-20-20]

 

I mentioned in the CIW for M, 11-9-20, about laughter, that sometimes things in church went well because people got to laugh together at me. So it was the time I called the new wife, as she was up in front of everybody to join the church, by the name of her husband’s first wife. [I don’t use real names for any of the people in this story. Well, the names are real; they just don’t go with those people.]

For some reason, a lot of people in that church got divorced, and then married somebody else in that church. It created problems. Like Gary and Terri. They both told me separately that they could not come to church anymore because they didn’t want to run into their ex. I said, “Okay, here’s what we’ll do. We’ve got two main doors, at opposite ends of the building, and we have two worship services, with an hour in between. I’ll assign each of you to a different door and a different service. No chance of you running into each other.”

I knew that I needed to take a more pastoral approach to them. Their avoidance of each other was not just a management problem, which door or service to use. I’d been in the ministry for 25 years. I knew that an excuse like running into an ex was only that, an excuse. They just didn’t want to come to church, but they didn’t want to tell the preacher that. Especially since they might want him to do a wedding for them when they got married again. [They did.]

But I was tired. Tired in general, and tired of that sort of church member game. At the time, I was the only pastor of a church that needed at least three. I always say that congregation had a thousand members, but it was only about 900 then, I think, but growing. Also, it was on a university campus, and although students no longer came to worship in droves the way they did in my university days, there were still enough who came to swell the average Sunday morning attendance to 400, and to give me a lot of extra pastoral counseling.

And, as I said, the congregation was growing, including Jack and Jill. [1]

Jack was one of those guys divorced from a woman—a very well-known woman—in the congregation. He got married again. He was one of those constituents-part of the church “community,” but not actually a member. Jill decided that they should join. So there they were, in front of the congregation, with me saying, “Today, we are receiving Jack & Betty into membership…”

Of course, Betty was his first wife’s name. There was a total gasp from the congregation. All I could do was turn to Jill and say, “Do you have any suggestions for how I can get out of this?” She smiled and said, loud enough for everyone to hear, “We could just ignore it.” That was when everybody had a good laugh. Except for me. I was so gratified at Jill, but I haven’t yet gotten over the embarrassment of giving that poor gracious woman the name of the former wife.

When I feel despondent, I try to conjure up good memories. For some reason, it’s always the embarrassing memories that make it out of the bottle.

John Robert McFarland

1] There was a real Jack and Jill couple in a church we attended in retirement. They had been married a long time and so genially assured people upon first meeting that they there was no need to make any jokes about going up hills or breaking crowns, since they had heard them all. Just about killed me.

 

 

 

 

 

IN MY EARLY MORNING-poem [W, 11-18-20]

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

IN MY EARLY MORNING-poem [W, 11-18-20]

 

In my early morning legs

I am running on the back roads

Passing deer like frozen statues

In my early morning legs

 

In my early morning eyes

I can see beyond the ending

Stirring light into the darkness

In my early morning eyes

 

In my early morning mouth

I can taste the fruit of loving

Breathe in the air of plenty

In my early morning mouth

 

In my early morning soul

I can hear the babies laughing

Feel the empty places filling

In my early morning soul

 

John Robert McFarland

UNITED BY FRENCH FRIES: CHURCHES & BARS [Su, 11-15-20]

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

UNITED BY FRENCH FRIES: CHURCHES & BARS  [Su, 11-15-20]

When we lived in Arcola, IL, there was a place called The Embassy. It was sold to a “French” chef from Belgium, who apparently, because it had a name like that, thought it was a high-end restaurant. When he got to the US, he found out it was a bowling alley with a snack bar that sold hot dogs! Undaunted, he turned the snack bar into a high-end French cuisine venue. We used to eat there, with Jan Faires’ harp music accompanied by the muffled rolls and thuds of bowling balls in the next room. We thought the food was excellent. The real locals said it was a pretty good place, except the portions were small, and the new chef didn’t use sausage gravy.

Also, he didn’t serve French fries. I mean, aren’t those the essence of French cooking? Well, more like the essence of Hoosier Baptist cooking, actually.

Helen’s family moved from Monon, Indiana to Gary when she was ten, because of her father’s job at US Steel. She never acclimated, even though she was the valedictorian of Tolleston High School. She was a small-town girl, always claiming Monon as her home. And even though she was a Presbyterian in Gary, and agreed to become a Methodist if I would marry her, in Monon, she was a Baptist.

[None of the names in the following story, except for Baptist and French and Monon, are real.]

In Monon, for funerals and fellowship meals, the Baptist ladies did French cooking, meaning they served French fries. Except one night they ran out. They needed a French fry machine, one that would cut big potatoes into little French strips, in a hurry. The only one anybody could think of was in Duffy’s Tavern, downtown. Thelma, the head Baptist lady, called Duffy and got permission to use their potato cutting machine. The only Baptist lady free from other duties, available to go downtown, was Ethel, the most righteously Baptist of all the ladies. Reluctantly, she agreed to go.

She could not, however, stand the thought of people in the tavern seeing her in such a disreputable place, and she certainly did not intend to mingle with them, so she marched through the bar and into the kitchen, carrying her sack of potatoes, saying nothing to anyone, including the folks in the kitchen, went up to the French fries machine, and silently fed each of her potatoes through its cutter, then marched out the same way.

When she got back to the church, Thelma asked her if she had any trouble finding the place. As Ethel described her adventure, Thelma suddenly realized that Ethel had gone to the wrong tavern. She hadn’t gone to Duffy’s; she’d gone to Moe’s! Having never been to either one, Ethel just didn’t know…

So, head Baptist lady Thelma called up Moe to apologize. “Oh, it’s okay,” said Moe. “Glad to help out, now that we know what it’s for. We just figured she was a deaf mute who really likes French fries.”

Taverns and churches have a lot more in common than is usually realized, and it’s not just a liking for French cooking. “I love this church…” [1]

John Robert McFarland

1] “I Love This Bar” is a song by Toby Keith. Look up the lyrics and you’ll see that churches and bars are so very much alike. In fact, in terms of inclusion, bars may be more churchly than churches are. As I look forward to going back to church in person some day, I sing with Toby: “I love this church, it’s my kind of place, just walkin’ through the door, puts a big smile on my face…we’ve got doubters, we’ve got shouters, silent pray-ers and Jesus shouters…” [Well, those lyrics are mine more than Toby’s.]

 

 

 

 

 

THE GARDEN IN THE SHADOW [F, 11-13-20]

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

THE GARDEN IN THE SHADOW  [F, 11-13-20]

 When daughter Katie Kennedy, the author and college prof, was doing graduate work at UIL, she was the teaching assistant for Geoffrey Parker, the world’s preeminent Western Europe and military history scholar. One of many awards, he was knighted in the UK, so Katie calls him “Sir Geoffrey.” Because of her intellectual depth, sideways humor, and charming personality, Katie was always a favorite student of any professor, so she and Sir Geoffrey have stayed in touch.

Recently he suggested to her that her father might enjoy a book by James Atlas called The Shadow in the Garden: A Biographer’s Tale. Atlas wrote the biographies of Delmore Schwartz and Saul Bellow. Shadow is the story of how he did those, and an explanation, in general, of how biographers work. So she sent me a copy.

It is a delightful book. Atlas writes with insight and sparkle and omniscient scholarship. I’m sort of a biographer, sometimes writing about my friends in these little columns, so I appreciated the book for the craft insights. But “enjoy” is not quite the right word for my reaction to the book, for it is a reminder that I will never catch up.

Atlas grew up Jewish in Evanston/Chicago, the child of professional people. I grew up Methodist in southern Indiana, the child of primitive farmers. [No water or heat in the house. No car or tractor, just a horse.] He notes on p. 96 that in high school, he had read the high school canon. Howl. The Naked & the Dead. Tropic of Cancer. On the Road. Naked Lunch. The Beat Generation. No Exit. Waiting for Godot. The Duino Elegies.

High school? Really? I didn’t read any of these until I was through college and seminary. I still haven’t read most of them.

Where I grew up, philosophers were Will Rogers and Abe Martin [1], not Alfred North Whitehead and Bertrand Russell. Authors were Robert Louis Stevenson [2] and Howard Pease [3] not J. D. Salinger and Jack Kerouac. Musicians were Hank Williams and Kitty Wells, not J.S. Bach and Leonard Bernstein. Poets were James Whitcomb Riley [4] and Gelett Burgess [5], not Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg. Certainly not Delmore Schwartz.

I had heard the name of Delmore Schwartz along the way, and remembered it, because it’s different, but I had not read any of his poems. [I have now.] And even though I have read almost all of Saul Bellow, I had no idea that Schwartz was a character for Bellow, whose works of “fiction” are almost all veiled biography. [I learned that from James Atlas.] [6]

On every page of this book, Atlas reminds me how far behind I am. Every page contains the names of authors of whom I haven’t even heard, let alone read. The unread canon just keeps getting longer.

Of course, Atlas and I are from almost different generations [He was born 12 years after I was.] and very different cultures. If I wrote The Garden in the Shadow: A Storyteller’s Tale, about how I composed story-sermons, naming theologians famous and forgotten, like Reinhold Niebuhr and Leslie Weatherhead, and preachers like Fred Craddock and Harry Emerson Fosdick, and hymn writers like Natalie Sleeth and Fred Pratt Green, Atlas might feel like he was a long way behind.

Leslie Stahl interviewed me the other night. I think it may have been in a dream, but these days, who knows? She seems to be willing to interview almost anybody. She asked me what is the most important thing for an old person to do. I said, “Don’t just accept irrelevance; embrace it.”

James Atlas died last year, when he was only 70. I’m already way beyond that age. It’s going to be really hard to catch up. So, about the literary canon, I think I’m just going to embrace my irrelevance.

John Robert McFarland

1] A comic strip featuring a home-spun Hoosier raconteur.

2] Often the Classic Comics version of standards like Treasure Island.

3] Books about teen boys who stow away, etc., with titles like High Road to Adventure.

4] “Little Orphant Annie’s come to our house to stay…”

5] “I never saw a purple cow…”. Actually, I read more Ogden Nash, but “Purple Cow” is important to show my literary level.

6] When I pastored in Charleston, IL, I occasionally had genial arguments with a young English prof at EILU about who was the most important novelist of the previous 50 years. He claimed Bellow, I claimed John Updike. Our cultures were obvious—he an urban Jew, and I a hillbilly Protestant.

A MILITARY BAND

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

“THE ONLY THING NECESSARY FOR WAR IS A MILITARY BAND”           [11-11-20]

Occasionally I regret not being a military veteran, especially at those concerts where they play the songs for each branch of the military, and the vets of those branches stand during their song. I think that would be neat. Once in a while I get to stand during the song for my branch of service, “Are Ye Able,” but everyone else is standing, too, because the preacher has told us to, so it’s not quite the same.

I grew up in a time of Selective Service, “the draft.”  All males registered and were expected to serve two years of military service, either as a volunteer or a draftee. As far as “active” service was concerned, I was too young for Korea and too old for Viet Nam, but I expected to be in some branch of the military for a couple of years, probably the army, since I was assigned to army ROTC in college.

I actually considered seriously a career in the military when I was a freshman at IU. I liked ROTC, so much that I was IU’s Distinguished Freshman Military Student that year. That meant that I accumulated more points, via tests and extras, such as being part of The Pershing Rifles drill team, than any of the other thousand freshman army ROTC students. I was rather impressed with myself. I didn’t realize at the time how little competition there was. I was the only cadet who actually studied for the tests. Everybody else was just enduring ROTC because it was required for the first two years.

Then, in the summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college, I finally agreed with God that I would be a minister, the way I had promised when I was fourteen. That took not only a military career out of the picture, but military service as well, since I was then 4D--too religious to be trusted to kill. It was hard on the cadre, the ROTC faculty. I was their star student. They were grooming me for advanced ROTC and a military career. They couldn’t understand what had happened. They kept giving me extra jobs to do, trying to rekindle my interest, but I was already preaching at three churches. Extra work was the last thing I needed. 

All of America’s wars through Viet Nam were fought by citizen soldiers, mostly those who were drafted, or who volunteered so they could choose their service branch before they were drafted. Every family in the nation was affected. Everybody had friends who were in military service. Since the draft ended, it’s been easy to avoid the concerns of veterans, because such a small % of the population is now part of the military/veteran group. Today less than ½ of one percent of the population serves in the military.

Ten years or so ago I became aware that so many of our veterans do not get the support they need. I was appalled at the levels of suicide and homelessness and mental illness among veterans. That’s why I wrote my novel, VETS. I wanted to do something for veterans, which meant writing, since that is my only skill. I knew I did not have the necessary experience to write non-fiction about the concerns of veterans, so I did it in novel form. The proceeds from that book are donated to helping homeless and handicapped military veterans.

I am basically a pacifist. War is stupid. We should not glorify war. But I am also a realist, in the mode of Reinhold Niebuhr. You cannot leave unchecked the most ruthless and heartless people, those who are willing to use violence to force their will upon others. Which means that soldiers are necessary, and they should be cared for and honored for their service when they are veterans. Honoring veterans doesn’t mean just humming along when their song is played by a military band.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

UNIFYING LAUGHTER [M, 11-9-20]

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

UNIFYING LAUGHTER                  [M, 11-9-20]

At the news of Donald Trump’s election defeat, so many people said, in one way or another, “I’m smiling for the first time in four years.”

I realized that no one, NO one, had smiled for four years. Certainly not Trump, even though he was president. Not his supporters, even though they had gotten what they wanted. The Trumpian way is humorless.

Trump’s idea of a joke, and that of his followers and enablers, is to ridicule someone, for being poor or handicapped or colored or gay or female, or, especially, fat.

Even when Trump’s followers chanted, it was not a chant of joy, like “We’re number 1!” It was always a chant of hostility, “Lock her up.”

There is no humor, no laughter, in that segment of the population. They don’t laugh when a pompous ass slips on a banana peel; they laugh when a peasant banana picker slips on the peel. They also dock her for a spoiled banana.

I got into more trouble in my years of ministry for my sense of humor than almost anything else. Yes, there was good reason. I told too many lame “Dad jokes.” Mostly, though, I was in trouble with people who thought there just shouldn’t be any laughter in church. Were they alive to do so, they would have voted for Trump.

I think, though, that when we got along, when I was able to bridge a division in the congregation, it was because I got people to laugh together. Sometimes it was because they got to laugh together at me.

Real laughter is a great unifier.

Almost half the voters in this election voted against laughter. They voted for the humorless candidate, the one who only knows how to laugh at people instead of with them. “Making fun” of someone is not really fun, even for the one who is pointing the finger. It corrodes the heart and the soul.

It is important that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris and all of us who want to unify our country learn to laugh in such a way that it includes the folks who haven’t yet learned what real laughter is.

I recently “heard” a guy say that he was in a store, wearing his mask, of course, and at the cash register there was a sign that said, “Stand here.” He said, “I’ve seen too many Roadrunner cartoons to fall for that.”

Okay, so that’s probably not going to get everyone laughing, but it’s a start. Let’s keep it going. Let’s learn to laugh together.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

FAILED HOPE, RENEWED HOPE [Sa. 11-7-20]

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

FAILED HOPE, RENEWED HOPE    [Sa. 11-7-20]

Like many people, four years ago, when Donald Trump was elected president, I was amazed and worried. Here is what I wrote then, first on Facebook, then in this column on Dec. 3 of 2016…

HOPING FOR TRUMP TO SUCCEED 12-3-16

I want Donald Trump to succeed as President of the USA. I want him to be a good president. I pray for him. I am distressed by folks who say “He is not my president,” or “We shall resist him at every point.” That is what many did to Barack Obama. The results were disastrous, not because Obama did not try to be a good president, or did not have the skills to be a good president, but because his opponents determined ahead of time to resist everything he did and said, regardless of whether it would be good for America.

I want Trump to be the best president we have ever had, just as I wanted Obama to be the best president we ever had. Obama had what it took to be a great president, but his opponents determined ahead of time that they would resist everything he said and did, even if it were something they favored. That is the classic example of “cutting off your nose to spite your face.” It was stupid and destructive and disastrous.

I will resist Trump every time he does or says something that is un-American. I will not determine ahead of time that that includes everything he says and does. I hope he’ll do good things for America and the world. If he does, I’ll cheer. If he does not, I’ll resist. If everyone had tried to help President Obama succeed instead of trying to make him fail, the world would be much better off. I don’t want to repeat that with President Trump.

JRMcF

Unfortunately, Donald Trump did not want to be the best president we ever had, even a good president. You can’t be a good president without doing the work and taking the responsibility, and Trump just wanted the power and acclaim, not the work and responsibility. Now that it looks like Joe Biden will be our president, I hope that he’ll be the best president we ever had, and I shall pray and work to that end. I hope everyone else does, too, but experience shows us that some folks are willing to burn the house down just so they can be king of the ashes. I’ll pray for them… but also I’ll carry a big bucket of water at all times. I’m not afraid to use it.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

PANDEMIC DAYS-poem [R, 11-5-20]

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

PANDEMIC DAYS-poem     [R, 11-5-20]

 

In these pandemic days

each pebble beneath

my foot becomes

a boulder, each drop

of rain becomes a flood

 

Still, every pansy

becomes a smiling face

each star

a shining beacon

lit with grace

 

each moment of living

a prayer

 

John Robert McFarland

HOPE-By Emily Dickinson [T, 11-3-20]

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

HOPE-By Emily Dickinson               [T, 11-3-20]

This election day, a word about hope is necessary, and Emily Dickinson speaks that word so well…

“Hope” is the thing with feathers-

That perches in the soul-

And sings the tune without the words-

And never stops - at all -

 

And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little Bird

That kept so many warm -

 

I’ve heard it in the strangest land -

And in the chilliest sea -

Yet - never - in Extremity

It asked a crumb - of me.

 

John Robert McFarland

Emily Dickinson speaks so well, so to balance her, I now speak poorly a puny complaint…

One thing I’m looking forward to, hopefully--to misuse that word--is the demise of political fund-raising appeals via email. What gripes me most about them is the attempt to guilt and manipulate me into giving. “We’ve emailed you 28 times. Don’t you care about what happens to the world?”

Yes, I care, and that’s why I don’t give through you. It only encourages you to send me more emails, and to share my email address with anyone who is running for dog catcher in Podunk, Louisiana, so that they can try to bully money out of me, too. Yes, I care, and I give, but I’ll never give to/through someone who tries to bully and manipulate me.

It’s insulting that people think they can manipulate me, especially when it’s not necessary. “I’ll bet 98% of you won’t repost this.” Won’t repost what? “Cancer is bad.” “It’s better to be a good person than a bad person.” “Smiles are nice.” Those aren’t controversial! Why do you think you have to bully or manipulate someone into agreeing that cancer is bad?

Also, get off my lawn!

HOW TO GET A BETTER WORLD [Su, 11-1-20]

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

HOW TO GET A BETTER WORLD            [Su, 11-1-20]

 

I think that one reason

perhaps the chief reason

that old people are so irascible

and cantankerous

is that there are so few

hearts left to pray for us.

Grandparents, parents, aunts

and uncles, long-time friends,

they have passed on

to where, I trust,

their prayers still resonate

in the ears of God

but are used up

in the other reaches of the soul

before they find

their place in the universe

to return to now,

that God might use them here.

If it’s a better world

for which you yearn

double up on your prayers

for the curmudgeonly.

John Robert McFarland

My late and much-missed friend, Herb Beuoy, used to say: “It is our business to love people, and God’s business to change them.”