DUTIES OF A LAY LEADER [Su, 1-31-21]

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

DUTIES OF A LAY LEADER   [Su, 1-31-21]

A Lay Leader in a Methodist congregation is an official position, the one person who represents the whole congregation. When we baptize someone, or welcome a new member, it is the LL who leads the rest of us in our part of the liturgy, promising to support the one baptized, welcoming the new member.

To a pastor, the LL is a combination of colleague, friend, counselor, reminder, helper. It’s a special relationship.

A Lay Leader’s congregation representation can go far beyond the walls of the church building. When I baptized an accused murderer in the county jail, Prof. Lee Steinmetz went with me, so that Charles would know this wasn’t a private ceremony. In Lee, the whole congregation was present.

My first LL was Jim Lybarger, at Cedar Lake, IN. I was commuting four-hours roundtrip each day to seminary. Jim took it upon himself as LL to visit regularly, with his wife, in all the homes of the members. This was in the 1960s, when just dropping by to chat was both acceptable and expectable. In a congregation, the pastor was supposed to do that, but Jim knew I didn’t have time, so he did it.

When we lived in Iron Mountain, MI, the LL of the church we attended was a MI state trooper. Scott Ritsema was one of the most intentional and thoughtful Christians I ever knew. As a police officer, he was required to be armed at all times, so when he came to worship in t-shirt and jeans---his Sunday clothes—he wore an ankle holster. When he served communion, he first knelt down on one knee behind the lectern. Most thought he was praying. He was actually removing his firearm. He didn’t think he should serve the body of the Prince of Peace while packing heat. His practical theology was Niebuhrian realism, but his ideal was the biblical Jesus.

When I was the interim pastor at Oolitic, IN, my last appointment, after we had moved here to Bloomington, LL Larry Berry started each worship service with the best joke he had heard that week, before he turned the service over to me. I don’t think that’s in the usual job description for a LL, but it seemed right.

When I pastored at Arcola, I had two LLs, consecutively. Jane Jenkins was a pleasantly elegant woman who had started as a secretary at a near-by manufacturing plant and worked her way up to VP in charge of personnel. She was a woman of the world, traveling all over for her job. I knew I could call on her in the middle of a service to come up and help me with serving communion or anything else necessary. Of course, the perfectly turned-out Jane always complained to Helen after the service that I only called on her on the Sundays that she had not dressed appropriately. Sometimes a LL represents the congregation to a pastor through the pastor’s spouse.

Byron Bradford was a high school teacher and football coach. He was comfortable in front of a crowd. More than once when I was on chemo, I got sick and had to leave before the worship service was over. I just walked out the side door of the chancel, knowing Byron would see me go and come up from his place in the congregation to lead the rest of the service as though it were planned.

Elmer Unger in Hoopeston, IL didn’t actually do anything as LL that I recall specifically. He fulfilled his role of representing the congregation not so much by action as by presence. Whatever or wherever the church was doing, Elmer was always there, not out front, not obvious, just there to support. One of our members was driving down Main St. with her six-year-old grandson in the car and they saw Elmer walking along the street. “Look, Grandma,” he said, “there’s our church.”

So many different things a LL does to be the embodiment of a congregation, and Trina Mescher of St. Mark’s UMC here in Bloomington, IN did them all. Up until this Friday just past, when she died so suddenly and so early from a heart attack. Wherever you are now, dear friend Trina, please put in a good word for the whole congregation that you served so well as Lay Leader.

John Robert McFarland

 

THE TEARS OF THE TELEMARKETER [F. 1-29-21]

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

THE TEARS OF THE TELEMARKETER  [F. 1-29-21]

I decided I needed to lie down and do my deep breathing exercise and go to my happy place and trust the moment because I had been so busy all morning, thinking about stuff, but just as I got situated on the sofa, the muscle in the back of my neck got a charley horse, so I went to put some mustard on Ritz crackers, because my friend, Allyson, says that neck muscle cramps are caused by a mustard deficiency, and then my bladder decided it needed a vacation, the kind we take in the bathroom, and when we got back to the sofa, the phone rang.

I once dated a girl named Tella Markeeter, so when the phone ID voice said it was her, naturally I answered.

How are you? she said, quite cheerily.

I’m great, Tella, I said. How are you?

No, this is not Tella, she said. This is Sandra and I’m calling about…

I know, I said, and I’m really glad you called, because I do need to extend the warranty on my car. How long can we go for?

No, said Sandra, I’m not calling about extending your warranty, I’m calling about…

But I don’t use my credit card much, Sandra, I said, because, you know, being old and all, what with the virus, I can’t go anyplace, so I don’t need a card with a smaller percentage.

No, said Sandra, that’s the bank that calls about credit cards. I’m calling about…

But the woman from the bank said her name was Sandra, too. Are you the same Sandra?

No, Sandra is a common name. What I’m calling about…

Oh, I don’t know, Sandra, about it being a common name. I think it’s really special. I once dated a girl named Sandra. Could one of you be her?

I don’t know about the other Sandra she said, sounding a bit miffy about it, but I know it’s not me.

Actually, it’s not I would be correct, but his may not be the best time to talk about the predicate nominative, I guess, I said.

No, Sandra said, we haven’t been doing predictive nomination calls since the election. I’m calling about…

When the other Sandra called, she said there was nothing wrong with my credit card account. Why would the bank call to say there is nothing wrong with my credit card, Sandra?

I don’t know. That’s the other Sandra. I’m calling about…

You know, you’re right. I do need a vacation. And not just the kind my bladder wants to take. Do you have a time share in Haiti?

Time shares in Haiti we do not have. It is this about which I call…

Wait, your voice has changed. You don’t sound like Sandra.

This is not Sandra. This is Thelma. I’m calling about…

Thelma is a strange name for someone who sounds like she’s from India, I said.

Well, big New Delhi deal, she said, you sound like you’re from Indiana, so who’s got the more worser accent?

What happened to Sandra? I asked Thelma.

Sandra went up onto the roof to scream, Thelma said.

Does this happen very often? I asked.

No, Thelma, said. Only when we call you.

 

John Robert McFarland

WHAT’S IN YOUR WALLET? [M, 1-25-21]

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

WHAT’S IN YOUR WALLET?                    [M, 1-25-21]

Some bank or credit card company or such has a series of ads in which they ask, “What’s in your wallet?”

At the moment, there are about fifty dollars in my wallet that have been there for ten

months, because I have been no place where I could spend them.

No problem; I am patient about the things I have in my wallet, for you never know…

For many years, I carried both a guitar pick and a basketball inflating needle in my wallet. I did not want to miss a chance to play basketball just because the ball was flat, and I did not want to miss a chance to sing just because the guitar player had no pick. I carried them every day for about forty years. In all those years, each one was needed only once.

I gave the pick to a guitar player who actually needed one in a hurry, and I gave up on the inflating needle because I could no longer get the ball to the basket from the free throw line.

Forty years, and each one got used only once. But there was a time we got to sing because of that pick, and there was a time we got to play because of that needle. The payoff was well worth the burden of the carry.

John Robert McFarland

A wise man was asked, “What is the difference between ignorance and indifference?” “I don’t know, and I don’t care,” he answered.

SHAKE THE DUST OFF [M, 1-25-21]

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

SHAKE THE DUST OFF      [M, 1-25-21]

Old friend, Nina Morwell [She’s not that old, but we’ve known each other a long time. Also, she’s a bassoonist, so you know she’s smart.] reminded me of how Jesus said “…shake the dust off your sandals as you leave town if people won’t accept the good news. He didn’t say to move into town and stay there until you’ve won the hearts and minds of all the people.”  [Matthew 10:14]

So I say that to Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr. [Can we call him JRB now?] He already knows it, but I want him to know that I know it.

He knows it, because he said, in his inaugural speech, “…enough of us came together to carry all of us forward.”

“Enough.” That’s all that is necessary. It doesn’t have to be “all.” We don’t disparage or disrespect those who will not join and move forward in democratic ways, but we shall not let them set the agenda.

The nay-sayers will always set the agenda if we let them, in a family or an institution or the nation. And their agenda to go back to the “again” that never was will win, if we spend our time and energy trying to persuade them to go forward with us. No, we need to invite them, and welcome them, to go forward with us, but not allow them to take us all backward.

As a pastor, I was educated in the school that says you try to preserve every member. There was something wrong with a church that could not hold onto everyone. It was called “unity.” The church is The Body of Christ, and it is a sin for that body to be divided.

That meant that the most disgruntled member, the one who most often threatened, one way or another, to leave, got to be the most important person, got to say what would happen to everyone who stayed. Then I heard Lyle Schaller, the church sociologist, say, “At any given moment, there are some people who are in the wrong church. It’s okay to let them leave.” We weren’t doing them any favors by making them stay, because they were in the wrong place.

So it is with the nay-sayers, the lie-believers, the conspiracy theorists in the nation. Some people are just contrarians. That is how they find fulfillment, in being “against.” They believe that those who are the best believers are the ones who believe what is least believable. If today all their demands were met, tomorrow they would have a new set of demands, because they just have to be against whatever is.

If they insist on leaving democracy, leaving civil society, leaving the truth, we have to let them go. But we don’t let them run anything, because the only thing they really run is into the ground.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

REGRETS-a poem [Sa, 1-23-21]

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

 

REGRETS-a poem   [Sa, 1-23-21]

Yes, I have a few

Like they invited Amanda Gorman

Instead of me

Of course, it helps if you are young

And beautiful, with an awesome

Hairdo, and a bright yellow coat

I have none of those poetical attributes

 

Yes, a few

Things left undone

I would have called upon the pandas

Rang their doorbell

Joined bouncing kangaroos

And racing zebras

If they had slowed enough for me

To enter into play and work

Along beside

 

Regrets for slights and pains

I foisted onto others, yes,

But they were not many

Nor grievous overlong

Yes, I know how

To accept forgiveness

But doesn’t that seem

So often an easy out?

It feels more right

That they should rankle

In the wrinkles

Of my brain

For a longer season

Of repentance and regret

 

But, regrets have faded

My life was full

Of love and joy and memories

 

It is now for others

That I look back in sorrow

For the friend who died too soon

The one with grandson caught

In a web of dope and crime

Another with a family so diseased

Sons and daughters alive but lost

I cannot even name them all

 

I know the ways that might have been

The roads they did not take

It is for others

That I confess regrets

 

John Robert McFarland

Bonus observation on grandparent thinking: Daughter Katie Kennedy says that the reason their dog, Ernie, liked me so much was that I understood that sometimes he needed to go out not because his bladder was full but because his nose was empty. [It’s that kind of imagery that makes her such a good writer.]

YOU’VE GOT TO TAKE A STANCE SOMEPLACE [R, 1-21-20]

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

YOU’VE GOT TO TAKE A STANCE SOMEPLACE [R, 1-21-20]

The curse of old age is not irrelevancy. I have made my peace with being irrelevant, that no one wants my input on anything. The real curse is helplessness.

We were forcefully reminded, by the assault on the major citadel of democracy on Jan. 6, that our society has extreme problems. I’m too old and decrepit, both body and mind, to be helpful in dealing with those social problems. But I want my children and grandchildren to live in a just and whole society. I care so much about that, and I can do so little. Except…

…I decided that I could and should stand in the doorway against any anti-democratic mob that would try to storm Congress again or disrupt the inauguration of President Biden and VP Harris. I’m old, and due to die soon, anyway. It’s a small sacrifice to make to try to insure a democratic nation for my grandchildren.

My intention was not to engage in fisticuffs with the Proud Boys and White Power guys. I couldn’t do it very well, having no experience, and also being weak of limb as well as mind. But if I stood there, in the way, they would have to go through me, and that would at least be a witness, and slow them down a little bit. My answer to the irrelevance and helplessness of old age, which I learned in the grocery store, back when we could go in person to the grocery: old people are really good at simply getting in the way.

We were told, though, not to come to Washington for the inauguration, so I couldn’t stand in the Capital door. However, we were also told that the children of the dark web were planning aggression at state houses, the homes of governors and legislators, and court houses. So there were other doors in which I could stand.

I don’t know where my legislators live, and it is too far to go to the state house in Indianapolis to take my place in its door, should the Nazis and their ilk try to take that the government of the reddest state in the union because it is socialist. We know it is socialist because the governor wears an anti-virus mask and encourages others to do so.

No, the road to Indianapolis is fraught with peril. The I-69 destruction, especially through Martinsville, makes it a two-hour drive, which means, for me, a bathroom stop on the way, but a gas station bath room during a virus pandemic is definitely a bad idea.

Thus I decided on standing in the door of the county court house. I told my plan to my Crumble Bum friends, and Ron reminded me that with the 4^th Street parking garage torn down and its replacement not finished yet, it’s hard to get a parking place downtown.

So, what to do if you’re totally useless in old age? There isn’t much, but I haven’t given up on the idea of standing in the doorway, should that become necessary, even though it wasn’t necessary yesterday, Inauguration Day. Could you give me a ride to downtown so I won’t have to find a parking spot?

John Robert McFarland

FLOWERS FOR PAULA--THE CLASS OF ’55 [T, 1-19-21]

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

FLOWERS FOR PAULA--THE CLASS OF ’55      [T, 1-19-21]

The series just ended, about my classmate, Paula, at our final class reunion, was hard to write. But I needed to write it, for myself, to try to make sense of the situation. I didn’t really make much headway.

I love Paula. I love all the members of that class. Along with Forsythe Church during the same years, they formed me into who I am. More than any group other than my family, they were my world. It was from them that I learned how to be a citizen of that small world, our Oakland City class, and, later, of the whole world. So it was hard to write about Paula’s failings as a world citizen, especially regarding black people and poor people. I prefer to remember her “the way we were,” back in the day.

My Oakland City world started when I was 6 weeks into the first semester of 5^th Grade, just turned ten years old. We had moved from the working-class inner city of Indianapolis, where I attended Lucretia Mott PS # 3, just off busy Washington St, which doubled as US Highway 40, “The National Road.” Suddenly I was on a little hardscrabble farm on a gravel road, a long way from the city world in which I had lived up to then. It was a new and different and scary world.

I suppose my mother must have called Embrey Green, the principal of the grade school, to tell him I would be getting off of Jimmy Bigham’s school bus that day, my first day in my new school. I don’t remember him meeting the bus, but I do remember him taking me through the halls and up the stairs. As we neared May Mason’s fifth grade classroom, we ran into Jarvis Reed, the quintessential jolly fat kid who never met a stranger. Surely the best thing that could have happened to me that day.

Jarvis was in my class, and he acted like having a new kid in the class was better than ice cream. He took me into our room, introduced me to everyone with a big smile. “Look, we have a new kid in our class. This is John. He says his father had Mrs. Mason for a teacher back a long time ago.” Mrs. Mason frowned, like she remembered my father.

Jarvis and I were never close, in the sense of running around together, but he always acted like he was responsible for me being in the class, for he had discovered me before the others. He acted like he was proud of that. He came to our wedding. As soon as Helen and I entered the reunion venue every five years, he made a beeline for me, with five-years-worth of newspaper clippings about my exploits to give me, even that final sixty-year reunion, hobbling toward me on a walker, that same smile on his face that he had the first time I saw him.

Jarvis led the way, but everyone in that class made me feel accepted, at a time when I was excruciatingly aware of my poverty and outsider status. Mike and Bob and James and Russell and Mina Ann and Donna and Marietta and… all the others. They trusted me. They elected me class president three times. [1] They asked me to be the speaker at the reunions, even though a speaker was hardly necessary. They had elected me Most Likely to Succeed, and were proud that I had done so, at least in their eyes.

So many times in my life, when I was tempted to cut corners, take the easy way, avoid the hard decisions, fall for the glib lines, I looked up and saw the waiting faces of my classmates, smiling at me, expecting me to do the right thing. So when Jim said we should send flowers, even though we weren’t sure there would be a funeral, I sent the money for them.

John Robert McFarland

1] They nominated me for a fourth term. I asked them to elect someone else, since I would be busy as editor of Oak Barks, the school newspaper, in preparation for my career as a newspaperman. That was a good move for an unanticipated reason: I dropped out midway through that last year. But that’s a different story. Also, they elected Mike Dickey, who was a better president than I was.

THE LAST REUNION, PART IV: THE SIN OF POVERTY [Su, 1-17-21]

 

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

Seeing in our hometown newspaper the obituary of Paula, my classmate from fifth grade through high school, reminded me of the last time I saw her, at our 60-year class reunion, and all the confusion our last conversation produced. Reflecting on it took far too many words for one column, so here is the conclusion of the four-part series.

THE LAST REUNION, PART IV: THE SIN OF POVERTY  [Su, 1-17-21]

As Paula and I walked out the door after our 60-year class reunion, our final reunion, just the two of us in conversation, out of nowhere she told me what an awful president Barack Obama was.

But she didn’t stop there. One of my frustrations with Obama was that he did not do enough to help the economically disadvantaged, but Paula saw that quite differently. Again, out of nowhere, but apparently linked to her unhappiness with Obama, she started a rather angry speech about welfare recipients.

“Paula,” I said, “you know I was raised on welfare.”

Momentarily she had that “caught with her hand in the cookie jar” look, but recovered quickly. “That’s different,” she said.

I told this story to my friend, Glenn. He said his mother in her last years was the same way, about immigrants of color. She regularly bashed them all.  One day he said, “You know my daughter-in-law is an immigrant of color.” Without even stopping for breath, she said, “That’s different.”

It’s hard to argue with people who dismiss any evidence that does not fit their prejudices with “that’s different.”

“For welfare people,” Paula continued, “it’s a culture, generation after generation of feeling entitled to get something for nothing.”

I flashed back to an earlier class reunion, thirty-five years, the one when I had been on chemo and tired easily. We were having a pool party at Hovey’s house before the evening banquet. I had gone inside to rest in a bedroom. Mike Dickey told Helen to stay at the pool and have a good time; he would go in and sit with me. So she was sitting poolside with Paula and some of the other “kids,” and somehow my childhood poverty came up, the welfare kid who succeeded, just as his classmates predicted. Helen reported that Paula said, “We just respected him so much that we didn’t even know he was poor.”

That made me smile when Helen first told it to me, and every time I thought about it for the next 25 years. It was one of the reasons I sought out Paula especially at each of our reunions. I reveled in that. My classmates respected me! Even as a teen, when I had no resume of degrees and awards and experience. I wasn’t popular as a kid—that required good looks and good clothes and good cars—but I was respected. Just for myself. They had known me when I was nothing but the poor kid, and respected me anyway. That meant the world to me.

Except, apparently for Paula, who would not have respected me if she had known that I was not just poor but on welfare. She had used respect as a way of denying that I was even poor. "We didn't know he was poor..." She had to deny that she knew I was poor, for there was something wrong with poor people.

I was confused. I did not want to continue that conversation at the end of our last reunion. So, I lied. Not completely, because my back really was hurting, the way it always does when I have to stand in one position too long. But I made it sound worse than it was as I explained to Paula that I had to go. She was a smart woman. She saw through that. To her credit, at that point, Paula apologized for having brought up politics as the last conversation we would ever have.  

Paula’s obit said that she was always willing to help people. I’m sure she was. As long as they weren’t black. Or on welfare.

If you’ve always had enough while others had less, if they get enough, too, you think you are deprived.

I miss my friend, and I grieve for her.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

THE LAST REUNION, PART III: INTENTIONAL IGNORANCE OF RACISM [F, 1-15-21]

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

[Seeing in our hometown newspaper the obituary of Paula, my classmate from fifth grade through high school, reminded me of the last time I saw her, at our 60-year class reunion, and all the confusion our last conversation produced. Reflecting on it took far too many words for one column, so here is the third in a four-part series].

THE LAST REUNION, PART III: INTENTIONAL IGNORANCE OF RACISM   [F, 1-15-21]

“The media” is one of the favorite whipping dogs for stuff we don’t like. Especially for right-wing folks, it seems. So I guess it wasn’t surprising that Paula blamed the media for Obama’s election. “He would never have been elected if the media had told us the truth about him.” I reminded her that he was elected twice. She looked puzzled. “Yes, I never did understand this.”

Well, it takes no genius to understand it. A majority of voters had four years to watch him as president and concluded they wanted him for a second term.

It wasn’t exactly the last of that conversation, though. I’ve given up Facebook entirely now, but Paula and I were Facebook Friends back then. At some point I “Shared” a portrait of the Obama family on my page, just because I thought it was a nice photo. Paula commented, “Yes, they are a nice-looking family, but he did irreparable harm to our nation.” [2]

Paula posted quite a bit on Facebook. Most of it was Bible verses about love. Occasionally, though, she posted positive remarks about President Trump, thanking the most racist president we’ve had since the Civil War “for being such a great president,” sure he would make America great again, and praying to God to “cause his enemies to stumble and fall into confusion and panic.”

The “again” is the key word in making American great again. Back like it was when we were kids, when black folks stayed in their place, which wasn’t Oakland City, Indiana… or The White House.

Paula’s complaint wasn’t really about the media. It was about race. It was about having a black man as president. It was about white privilege and white fear, without really knowing it.

We grew up together, Paula and I. We grew from the same soil and were cut from the same cloth. Our classmates saw us in the same way, as the most likely to succeed. We were both lifelong Methodists. We both had multi-degree higher educations. We were both kind people personally, who were glad to help out others. We were also racists.

We grew up in a culture where there were no other races but a lot of racism. Racist jokes. Black-face minstrel shows put on by civic clubs and even schools. Never a hesitation about saying “nigger,” like “grab a nigger by the toe” or “there’s a nigger in the wood pile.” “They’re okay in their place, but their place isn’t here.” “Why don’t they go back to Africa?” Where one of my ten-year-old school bus companions quoted his father, saying “The worst white man is still better than the best black man.” Black folks did have a few redeeming qualities, which made them okay—in their place: they looked funny eating watermelon, and they all had rhythm and thus could dance. And it was okay to have one on the basketball team, but not more than that.

Fortunately, I grew up in an enlightened church, out in the country. Not the town church, where “rich” folks, including Paula, went. If you put all the college educations together in Forsythe church, you still wouldn’t have a junior college degree, but these were smart people. And open minded as well as open hearted. I was about 12 when they had a black evangelist come to preach a revival. They asked for a woman pastor when there were only two in the conference. I thought all churches were like that.

Still, I grew up in a racist culture, and you never totally overcome that. But I know I’m a racist, and I try to make allowance for it. I’m sure Paula would have been appalled had someone said she was racist. She was not violent, toward anyone. She did not want harm to come to black people. She appreciated those who were “a credit to their race,” as we said in southern Indiana when we wanted to say something nice about a black person but didn’t want our friends to think that we were “nigger lovers.” Paula apparently did not know she was a racist, so she could not make allowance for it.

I had no idea about the politics of anyone in the class, because we had never talked about such as teens. We were interested in sports and cars and dates. Those were more than enough to keep us busy. Besides, we were part of “the silent generation,” the Eisenhower years.

So why did Paula bring up the politics of race, at the very end of our time together, our life together, at our last reunion?

Maybe it was because of what Nancy said earlier. Each of us was giving a reprise, what we’d done in the five years since our last reunion. Nancy said, “I’ve been elected to one county office or another every election for 50 years. People voted for me even though I’m a Democrat, because they know me. This time, they said, ‘Can’t vote for you, Nancy. You’re on the same ticket as Obama.’” I think that is the only time anyone said anything political at any of our reunions, and it was only in the context of Nancy bringing us up to date on her life.

Maybe the end of our class reunions made Paula think of Obama’s election as the end of the society as we had known it as kids, the end of white privilege.

If you’ve always had privilege, equality makes you think you’re a victim.

John Robert McFarland

1] Media truthfulness and electability have very little to do with each other. The media told us the truth about Donald Trump, and we elected him anyway. Heavens, even Trump told us the truth about him, and we elected him anyway.

2] Disclaimer: I voted for Obama twice, worked for his election, and was mostly disappointed in his presidency, for, instead of pushing ahead with an agenda to help people and take the country back from the plutocrats, he kept trying to win his foes over before he did anything. His foes were implacable. They were never going to cooperate with him on anything. That was obvious to everyone but him. So, I considered that—for the most part--he had wasted his presidency by doing nothing. [Except the Affordable Care Act. That was insufficient, but a significant achievement.]

Speaking of The AFC, I recently saw an interview with a local social worker. One of her jobs is to help people get health insurance. She said that she often has clients who start by saying “I don’t want that Obamacare.” She tells them, “Well, I can get you the most coverage at the least cost with The Affordable Care Act.” “That’s okay,” they say, “as long as it’s not that Obamacare.”

 

 

 

THE LAST REUNION, PART II: DISAPPOINTMENT [W, 1-13-21]

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

[Seeing in our hometown newspaper the obituary of Paula, my classmate from fifth grade through high school, reminded me of the last time I saw her, at our 60-year class reunion, and all the confusion our last conversation produced. Reflecting on it took far too many words for one column, so here is the second in a four-part series]. {Through the years, I have told young preachers: “NEVER start a sermon by saying this is one of a series, and telling which # it is.” People are bored before you really start preaching. It’s a good thing this isn’t a sermon.}

THE LAST REUNION, PART II: DISAPPOINTMENT   [W, 1-13-21]

I’ve rarely been disappointed by my friends, mostly, I’m sure, because they were good people who tried to be good friends. No reason for disappointment. But also my disappointment possibilities have been reduced because I loved stories, and I tried to hear a person’s story before I assumed anything about them. The hearing of the story was more important to me than making judgments about it.

Nobody gets through life without disappointments in others, though. I wrote in this column some time back about the man with whom I had been close friends when we were in graduate school, both in our mid-30s at that time. 20 years later, when I had cancer and had been told I would be dead “in a year or two,” he was hired as pastor at a church near where we lived. I went to see him, told him about my plight. He wasn’t really interested, spent almost all our time together talking about his problems with the president of his new congregation. That was disappointing.

Nadia Bolz Weber, the tattooed profane Lutheran pastor who started a congregation in Denver that takes in all the folks that other exclude, says that she tells people as they become a part of that congregation, “Sooner or later, you will be disappointed here. We won’t be what you expect us to be or what you want us to be. That’s the nature of life and the church. Don’t even join if you’re not willing to work it through when you’re disappointed.”

I’ve tried to deal with life that way when I’ve been disappointed. It’s my responsibility to adjust my assumptions. It’s my responsibility to forgive the one who disappointed me, and to forgive myself for having put that person into a box of my assumptions. I’ve tried to do that with Paula. I assumed she was someone other than who she was. My assumptions about her are not her responsibility.

Also, I worry about her assumptions of me. Did she think I was a person who, in those circumstances, yet, going out the door of our last class reunion, would enjoy hearing about her disgust with a black president or with welfare recipients? Did I disappoint her, too? If so, I’m glad I did.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

THE LAST REUNION, PART I: MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED

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

Seeing in our hometown newspaper the obituary of Paula, my classmate from fifth grade through high school, reminded me of the last time I saw her, at our 60-year class reunion, and all the confusion our last conversation produced. Reflecting on it took far too many words for one column, so here is the first in a four-part series.

THE LAST REUNION, PART I: MOST LIKELY TO SUCCEED

I saw Paula’s obit in the hometown newspaper last week. She was voted The Girl Most Likely to Succeed in our high school graduating class. She fulfilled that prediction of our classmates, mostly. There were two glitches. She was not successful in marriage, and she was not successful in empathy.

The marriage was not a disaster. She and Jack were wed for 40 years. But, as she said in a group chat at one of our every-five-years class reunions, “We had lived parallel lives for so long it just didn’t seem necessary to live in the same house anymore.” The marriage did produce a daughter, though, who in turn produced grandchildren, so that when Paula retired from her community college English teaching position, she moved out east to be near her family.

Paula was elegant. Old friend Mary McDermott Shidler, the theologian, defined elegance as “beauty plus organization.” That was Paula. Tall and slender, even at 78, the age we all were at our final high school class reunion. She looked then just like she did in high school. Pleasant, just a little bit reserved, lovely smile, clothes exactly right for her slender figure. Her elegance was more the Hoosier girl type than the New York girl type, but real.

She was smart. Not top of the class. Nobody could outdo James Burch and Russell Riddle. In grades, she and I tied for 12^th in our class of 62, which was appropriate, since I was voted Boy Most Likely to Succeed.

Those Likely to Succeed expectations linked us at class reunions. We always spent some time together, talking over old times. We never talked politics, though, or social policies. That is not what class reunions are for.

I had no idea about the politics of anyone in the class, because we had never talked about such as teens, either. We were interested in sports and cars and clothes and music and dates. Those were more than enough to keep us busy. Besides, we were part of “the silent generation,” the Eisenhower years.

We said personal bittersweet good-byes as our 60-year reunion ended, knowing that those of us who were not local would never see one another again, for we had decided that this reunion was the last one. We were going out the door, just Paula and me, when, totally out of nowhere, she brought up her great distaste for President Obama. “We never would have elected him,” she said, “if the media had told us the truth about him.” [1]

“Well, you know,” I said to Paula, treading carefully, because I had the impression that I was in a mine field that had existed over 60 years and I didn’t even know it was there, “Obama was elected twice.”

Her pleasant face turned puzzled. “Yes,” she said, “I never did understand that.”

This was an elegant woman. Most Likely to Succeed. Two college degrees. A 40-year English teacher. An active, life-long Methodist. I knew she wasn’t stupid.

But understanding why he was elected twice was not difficult. A majority of voters learned the truth about him in his first term in office and decided they wanted him as president for a second term. That’s pretty simple, and “the media” had nothing to do with it. Claiming not to understand that was being willfully ignorant.

I was so disappointed. I had known and liked this woman for almost 70 years, but I did not know her nearly as well as I thought I did. Life is always going to bring disappointments, and perhaps the people we think we know best are the ones who disappoint us most, when they turn out to be someone other than who we thought they were.

More about disappointment in the next column.

John Robert McFarland

 

PUSHING ON THAT ARC [Sa, 1-9-21]

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

PUSHING ON THAT ARC  [Sa, 1-9-21]

I have nothing to say about this current outrage and continuing sinfulness that others have not already said better, but it’s not a time to tell some slightly humorous little story and follow it up with a semi-witticism, as I usually try in this column. So, we have to talk about them. Not him; he’s just a result. Them, the ones whose hearts are so corrupt that they cannot even see that others have hearts.

Some are ignorant, either by nature or by choice. Some are stupid. Some are mentally incompetent and thus prone to any rumor or conspiracy theory. Some are just selfish. Some are mad with power or mad for power. Some are afraid and willing to follow anyone who promises safety. Some actually enjoy the suffering of others. Some are so full of violence that they will lash out at whoever is available, just to get temporary relief from their frustrations. They are not going to change.

No, they are not going to change. We are all tainted by original sin, and the original sin manifestation of the USA is slavery/race. Some white people know we are racists, and make allowance for it, trying to create a just society. Others know only their own fear and hate, and occasionally one or another will come face to face with God and see in that mirror their own sin and decide to join the community of the common good.

In the meantime, since they will not change, they must not be allowed to have power. No, I don’t mean take away any of their rights. We cannot do that. But those who believe in civilization, who believe in a common good, must be so well organized and so passionate that the children of darkness cannot taint the common air with their poisons. We don’t ignore them, but we have no illusions about their willingness to change. We just do what is right, and call them to accountability when they do what is wrong.

Barack Obama liked to quote the statement that MLK made popular, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it tends toward justice.” So do I. [1]

Helen says it is true only if enough people keep pushing on that arc in the right direction. As usual, she’s right. I’m going to push on that arc, and I hope you will, too.

John Robert McFarland

1] Apparently it was first stated by abolitionist minister, Theodore Parker, in 1853.

 

 

THE SIDETRACKED REPORTER [R, 1-7-21]

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

THE SIDETRACKED REPORTER  [R, 1-7-21]

[Warning: there’s no point or moral to this column, no spiritual justification. It’s just a self-indulgent piece of my personal story.]

I have often said that my desire to be a newspaper reporter came from listening to The Big Story show on radio. That makes sense, because internet research points out that The Big Story debuted on radio April 2, 1947, right after we had moved from Indianapolis to the little farm [“Five acres and independence…”] three miles outside Oakland City, on March 21, and continued to 1955, when I left high school. It was also on TV from 1949 to 1958, but I don’t recall ever seeing it on TV. We had no car and no TV. Radio was our contact with the outside world.

But I may have given radio and The Big Story too much of the credit for my journalistic ambitions. Some goes to The Evansville Courier.

I’m a little surprised now that my parents used money for a newspaper subscription. We had so little money, and a newspaper could be considered a luxury, especially since you could get news from the radio. On top of that, living in the country, the newspaper came by mail, and so was always a day late. Even more, Daddy could not read, except with a bright light and a big magnifying glass, so his reading was reserved for things like instructions for assembling the brooder house. But Mother was a literate person, and older sister Mary V was a consummate reader, although she preferred books. For whatever reason, we had a newspaper subscription.

I think I was the main beneficiary of the daily newspaper, because I was able to keep up with baseball talk on the school bus and playground by reading the sports pages. On the school bus, I could contribute the stats of my beloved Reds, a love bequeathed to me by Grandma Mac, against those bandied about by the Cardinals fans on the bus. The Cardinals were major in southern Indiana because of the reach of Harry Caray on KMOX radio out of St. Louis.

Keeping up with the news in general, though, seemed to be a part of my life from an early age. I recently discovered my old report cards. My grades were always best in social studies, and my Indy teachers—grades 1 through 4—commented on how much I seemed to know about current affairs. That, of course, makes sense for a newspaper reporter, too.

I think it was from the newspaper baseball pages that my love of lists comes; I pored over the batting and pitching statistics lists that the paper printed. Since I could not count on the newspapers staying around long--because newspapers were useful for many things on a farm, such as starting fires in the stoves--I made my own paper and pencil lists for later research.

And, of course, the newspaper was important because of a feature you couldn’t get on the radio, “the funny pages…”

I have written, including in The Strange Calling, that one of the reasons my friends and I went to church was because it was the quickest way to get the news of our comic strip hero, “The Phantom.” There were only 3 or 4 of us in Mary Louise Hopkins’ Sunday School class, but we would hurry down to our corner of the basement at Forsythe Methodist Church [named after an early preacher there] after “opening exercises,” before Mary Louise managed to get down the narrow stairs, to find out from John Kennedy [not the one who was president] what was happening with The Phantom.

John’s bachelor uncle, Jim, lived in town, where he didn’t have to wait for newspaper delivery. With the right change, he could buy one out of a box right there on Main Street. He came to breakfast each Sunday morning to his sister’s house in the country, with the newspaper, and nephew John was able to make a quick read of “The Phantom” before leaving for Sunday School, where he breathlessly passed the Phantom news along to the rest of us. That led to quick and endless futuring by our “committee,” anticipating what might happen next to The Phantom and his adversaries, even continuing on the school bus the next morning.

Also, unconsciously, I think I wanted to be a reporter so that I would not be left out. If you’re covering the news, you are part of what’s going on, you are on the inside. It was important to me to be included. Because I didn’t want to be left out, I didn’t want anyone else to be left out, either. From my earliest writing, I wanted to tell the stories of those who could not tell their stories for themselves.

I don’t regret the detour that took me away from a career in journalism. I had a good time as a preacher. I got to be part of an inclusive story, and I got to tell that story

I do appreciate, though, that journalistic goal that kept me going through my teen years. It gave me focus, and a love of words.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

 

AFTER THE CAMERA CUTS AWAY [T, 1-5-21]

Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

The hit sit-com of the 1990s, “Friends,” is on during the time we eat lunch, so we watch. It has held up—still seems interesting—very well. It has good acting and good writing. Also, it has no pandemic statistics or lies by Donald Trump. That makes for good lunch-time watching.

I think people like “Friends” because it’s the kind of group we wished we had when we were that age. Fun people, supporting one another as they flounder about trying to find their way. Even better, the “Friends” don’t have to deal with what happens after someone says or does something embarrassing, insulting, awkward. The camera just cuts away to a commercial or a different scene. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could do that in real life?

I actually did have a group like that, almost exactly like that—3 boys, and 3 girls, all single, living in the same building. A little younger. We were in the summer before our senior years in college, social work interns at Howell Neighborhood House in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. Randy and Dan and me, Marian and Nancy and Barbara,

For a long time, I have wondered why our group, obviously so similar to the Friends of TV, was so different. Well, it’s because we didn’t have a director who could tell the camera to cut away whenever something awkward or untenable came up.

I guess Marian was the “Rachel” of our group, the one who attracted all the guys. One too many. Paul. Her boyfriend, from California, who surprised her, and all of us, by just showing up one day and basically refusing to leave.

Needless to say, there were plenty of awkward moments when we really wanted someone to say “Cut,” and just close out the scene. That doesn’t happen in real life, though, does it?

It turned out that Marian had come to Chicago to get distance from Paul. He was a nice enough guy, but the typical California frat boy—tall, blond, good-looking, entitled. I think Marian liked Paul, but she wanted the distance to be able to think clearly about her relationship with him. His surprising and constant presence, of course, made that impossible. She tried hard to do the work assigned to her as an intern, and to be a part of our social group, but Paul was always in the way. She finally gave up. One day she didn’t come to breakfast. She just left a note that she was returning to California with Paul.

The director finally cut the camera away. That solved the problem. For the moment. But I’ve always wondered about them. I give thanks for my “Friends,” not just those at Howell Neighborhood House that summer, but all those who stayed in the scene with me after I said or did something stupid or awkward, who didn’t cut the camera away.

John Robert McFarland

The photo is Howell House in the 1950s, but I’m not sure that it is from my summer.

 

 

 

IN THESE VIRAL DAYS -poem [Su, 1-3-21]

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

IN THESE VIRAL DAYS -poem                  [Su, 1-3-21]

 

In these days of viruses

in the air and on the skin

In hearts of women and of men

gone mad with sunless power

 

It is so hard to find

a hope within

the mud and muck

 

I search so hard

the classic blind pig

of lore, nosing

in the mud, trusting

in the promise

of a truffle

 

The comfort of old age

is the great store house

of memories that were once

but hopes, then nurtured

into memory with springtime

rains and summer sun

 

It is winter now

I sit in the middle

between the hopes

and memories

and choose the ones

that sparkle

in the snow

 

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

WHAT TO DO FOR SNAKE BITES [F, 1-1-21]

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

WHAT TO DO FOR SNAKE BITES            [F, 1-1-21]

Some advice to start the new year…

Writers tend to be a bit different, so daughter Katie Kennedy [1] has a writer friend who raises goats. I don’t know why anyone raises farm animals unless they have to. I grew up on a farm, so I know that even though we call them “dumb animals,” they are really smart. They know our intentions. They know we are just using them—for eggs and milk, and chops and steaks, and leather and labor. So, anytime they get a chance, they run for the hills.

In the case of Katie’s writer friend, recently the goats ran quite literally for the hills, for the very steep hills that surround her place. Her daughter was gone, and she had the care of the grandkids by herself, so she had to take them with her, as they went up and down hills and brambles and streams and the other places that abound in a story like this, trying to get the goats back..

In the process of rounding up the recalcitrant goats, she saw a snake. She didn’t point it out to the grands, for fear it might be poisonous. When they finally got back to the house, they looked it up in the snake book. It was indeed poisonous, very much so, with symptoms, if bitten, of “vomiting and swearing,” as her little granddaughter read the book out loud to them.

“Grandma, that snake must have bit you,” she said, “for you were doing a lot of swearing out there.”

Turns out that the book said “vomiting and sweating,” not “swearing,” but the grandkids insisted on checking Grandma for snake bites, anyway.

That’s a good idea. There must be a lot of snake biting going on, because there is plenty of swearing going on.

When you see a snake bite, you’re supposed to put your mouth on it and suck the poison out. I don’t think I’ll do that, because sucking on a snake bite would make me swear even more.

So, what do you do when you find a bite? For heaven’s sake, you shouldn’t be putting yourself in the way of snakely harm in the first place. Just get rid of the damn goats

John Robert McFarland

1] Katie Kennedy’s most recent book is The Constitution Decoded.

Please note that I wrote 2021 above instead of 2020. I’m unduly proud of that.