WHAT A JESUS WE HAVE IN FRIENDS [Sat, 2-27-21]

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

WHAT A JESUS WE HAVE IN FRIENDS [Sat, 2-27-21]

 

Old friends Paul and Judith Unger, in commenting on the CIW of Feb. 25 about the death of Dick Hamilton, quoted “What a Jesus we have in friends.”

What a delightful phrase! I love it! After 65 years of collecting preacher sayings, I thought I had heard them all, but this is a new one to me, in those words, but I certainly have known its truth for a very long time. Good friends probably bring the Christ alive in us more than anything else [except maybe grandbabies and little black dogs].

I was struck, though, as I wrote about Dick, how few friends we have now who can remember him. He, and I, have outlived so many of them.

Helen says that if this pandemic ever ends, we’ll spend a year doing nothing but attending the memorial services that have been put off until people can gather again in person.

During the 17 years in retirement in which we followed grandchildren to far countries--like Mason City, Iowa and Iron Mountain, Michigan-- Helen kept saying, “When they’re grown, we need to get back home so that we can help our friends and they can help us as we get old. Because only old friends share our memories.”

So, here we are, closer geographically to some old friends than to others, but in the general 3I League where we have spent most of our life…except we can’t see our friends! Or anybody else. It’s pandemic time… What a Jesus we have in friends…except Jesus is socially distancing and wearing a mask.

The good thing about having a Jesus in friends is that such friendship doesn’t really depend on physical presence. C.S. Lewis reminds us that we are not a body that has a soul, we are souls who have bodies. We care for one another as we get old through spirit, through prayers and memories and hopes. It would be nice if we could see one another face to face, hold hands as we pray, share the cares of the body as well as those of the soul. As spirit persons, though, not even a virus pandemic can keep us from taking care of one another, because we do have a friend in Jesus as well as a Jesus in friends.

John Robert McFarland 

 

 

 

 

A PILLAR OF FIRE: RIP DICK HAMILTON [R, 2-25-21]

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

A PILLAR OF FIRE: RIP DICK HAMILTON  [R, 2-25-21]

 

Richard E. Hamilton died on Monday. He had a long and distinguished pastoral career, serving several of the largest and most influential congregations in Indiana Methodism. More importantly to me, Dick was my first mentor in ministry. Even more importantly, he officiated when Helen and I married, almost 62 years ago now, the first couple married at St. Mark’s Methodist in Bloomington, IN, a congregation he had started only five years before [and where we attend now in retirement].

I first met Dick as a fellow-pastor at clergy meetings of The Bloomington District. That was a great group of preachers, but I was only a 19 year old part-time student preacher and felt awkward in that distinguished assembly. Dick was the youngest of those full-time, fully-ordained colleagues, so I naturally gravitated to him. It wasn’t just his youth, though, that attracted me. He was so open, so available. He treated me like a full colleague. The other, older preachers, were kind to me, but they treated me like “a promising young man.” Dick treated me like I was his equal.

I wasn’t the only young pastor Dick attracted. I was one of only two student pastors in the Bloomington District, because most of “the preacher boys” went to the Methodist colleges, Depauw and Evansville, but there were several in other districts. We would all be in attendance at The School of the Prophets, the annual August continuing education event for Methodist clergy throughout the state. During School of the Prophets, all of us would hang around with Dick. One night, after the evening session, he led us down to the snack shop in the Depauw union and bought us ice cream. I had raspberry-nut sherbet. As a kid who grew up cranking an ice cream freezer unto fatigue just to get vanilla from Junket tables, I didn’t even know such a delicacy existed. It has been my favorite ice cream for 64 years.

My last semester in college, I was without a preaching job, because my campus ministry internship at The Wesley Foundation, where Helen and I met, had ended. Dick offered to let me “shadow” him that semester, until my next pastoral appointment, full-time, started in June, watching and talking about what a full-time pastor did, and why. I had grown up in a small country church that never had a full-time pastor, and I had not been one before, so it was necessary and valuable instruction.

I learned some stuff about how to do pastoring from Dick, but mostly I learned how to be a pastor from his example, for he was kind and respectful to everyone. He was courageous without being self-righteous, forgiving without being enabling, optimistic but realistic. He worked at loving God with heart, soul, strength, and mind. He loved people the same way.

He had no ambitions for higher office, for advanced degrees, for acclaim. He just wanted to be a good church leader. He was an excellent and thoughtful preacher, a compassionate pastor, a faithful colleague and friend. In Ed Friedman’s apt phrase [Generation to Generation], he was that most important attribute for any group, “a non-anxious presence.” Most importantly to me, his image, like a pillar of fire, went ahead of me through all the years of my ministry journey.

John Robert McFarland

 

THINK ON THESE THINGS-poem [Philippians 4:8] [T, 2-23-21]

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

THINK ON THESE THINGS-poem [Philippians 4:8] [T, 2-23-21]

 

It is with difficulty

that I think on these things

the things our old friend,

Paul, declared were worthy

of our minds

Whatever is true

Whatever is noble

Whatever is pure

Whatever is lovely

Whatever is admirable

Whatever is praise-worthy

Think on these things

he told us

But the world is filled

with demons and devils

falsehood, baseness

adultery, ugliness

all the things so deplorable

So present

Always with us

Blaring at us in voices

both real and synthesized

Our brains and souls are

full to spilling over

with what is sinful

corrupt, unholy

boring

It is only through amazing grace

that I can “think on these things…”

 

John Robert McFarland

TOUCHING IN A PANDEMIC TIME [SU, 2-21-21]

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

TOUCHING IN A PANDEMIC TIME                     [SU, 2-21-21]

I’m still going through old files. I am surprised at how much response I received to a little half-page piece I wrote in “The Christian Century” in 1991. It was called “The Touching Time.” It appeared later in my books, Now That I Have Cancer I Am Whole and The Strange Calling.

Wait. Let me take back that “surprised.” It was not surprising that people responded to it, because its theme, of the way we are healed by touch, is universal. Certainly, in this pandemic time, this time without touching, we understand that better than we ever have before.

I was still undergoing cancer when I wrote it, still thinking that I might not live more than another year or two. In the midst of that, one of my oldest friends, Bill White, drove a hundred miles to come touch me.

I look now at the dozens of letters I received…

…one from Ralph Steele, my District Superintendent when I graduated seminary and started campus ministry. He very graciously said “I remember so well your coming to The Terre Haute District with your energies and creative ideas. Your fine intellect has stimulated all of us.” Poor Ralph. He spent so much of his DS years dealing with the fallout from my energies and ideas and intellect!

…one from a pastor in MN, who scribbled a note of thanks of thanks on his church bulletin while have a cup of coffee at a Perkins Pancake House.

…one from a cousin who was suddenly awakened in her church’s worship service when the pastor started quoting me by name and read the whole piece as part of his sermon.  

…so many just from folks who just wanted to say that they were encouraged and strengthened by it.

As I prayed the last time with another friend, Bob Butts, shortly before he died, I thought of Bill White--how he touched me, held hands with me as he prayed with and for me. I wanted to do that with Bob, but we had been six months into virus isolation at that time. We weren’t even supposed to be in the same room, but he was on the sofa, and I was in a chair on the other side, so we prayed that way, him struggling to hear, me struggling to find the words that would cross the space between us, words that wouldn’t even be necessary if we could just hold hands.

I think that’s why scripture writers refer to God’s “everlasting arms.” When we can’t touch one another directly, we can rely on God to do it for us.

John Robert McFarland

AWESOME AT CVS [F, 2-19-21]

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

AWESOME AT CVS             [F, 2-19-21]

 

I just got a text from CVS, saying: “John, you are awesome at managing your prescriptions! Your fill history shows you pick up your prescriptions before you run out of doses. Keep up the good work!”

Being awesome at CVS is like being “hot in Cleveland.” As I remember the TV show of that name, three forty-something women are fleeing Hollywood because they are no longer “hot” there. They have “aged out” of hotness and are leaving LA. Their plane makes an emergency landing in Cleveland. The men there don’t use Hollywood standards. They think that Valerie Bertinelli and Wendy Malik and Jane Leeves are really hot. The women think that’s great and decide to stay, because they are Hot In Cleveland.

You know, if I’m awesome at CVS,  CVS shouldn’t text me just as “John.” It should be “The Rev. Dr. John.” It’s hard to be awesome if you are just in the same category as unidentified dead bodies and long underwear and customers of prostitutes and guys who get their saddles sent home.

However, since I’ve always wanted to do a sitcom on TV, I think the obvious route is “Awesome at CVS,” a series about aging customers who spend their lonely nights hanging out in the Prevagen aisle, showing strangers the proof text that they are awesome, with no success, until one day Sophia Loren walks in…

Hmm, I probably need to update this a little bit, and have someone more current walk in, someone who isn’t older than I am… like Melissa Rauch [AKA, Bernadette Maryann Rostenkowski Wolowitz of “The Big Bang Theory”]. Okay, I chose her because she’s the only name I recognize on the list of the Top 10 hottest TV actresses on the GlitzyWorld site [yes, it’s real], but she’s actually first on the list, so that makes me awesome, because I not only get my prescriptions filled before I run out, but I know a hot girl. Sort of.

Guess who the show’s sponsor will be? All that, and walk-in flu shots, too.

So, where would you like to be known as awesome? Might be worth some thinking time.

It got me to consider my obituary. Do you think it would be too ostentatious if it mentions that I was “awesome at CVS?”

John Robert McFarland

 

THE LONELY ASHES-poem [Ash Wednesday, 2-17-21]

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

THE LONELY ASHES-poem    [Ash Wednesday, 2-17-21]

 

Ash Wednesday is the only

day that ashes get to be first

in song and celebration

But the ashes are gloomy

this year. They are always

gloomy; it is the nature

of ashes. But this year

they are lonely. No foreheads

appear as resting places

for their dirty blessing

No questioning stares

from pagans and the great

unwashed hoi polio

Ashes know nothing

of foreheads virtual

They know only

Ashes to ashes

Dust to dust

They know only

that they are lonely

 

John Robert McFarland

Some ashy humor to cheer up the ashes:

Is it true, Mommy, that we come from dust and return to dust?

Yes, dear.

Well, there’s somebody either coming or going under the bed.

 

Pastor: “Oh, Lord, in your sight, we are but dust…”

She would have continued, but a little voice piped up:
“Mommy, what’s butt dust?”

 

 

SNOW DAYS [T, 2-16-21

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

SNOW DAYS [T, 2-16-21

 

Well, if there were ever a time to write a blog for “the years of winter,” this is it. 70% of the US is covered with snow, and temperatures are hitting new lows.

Snow days, though, are different in this pandemic time. Most kids are already doing classes virtually, as are their teachers. No one gets a snow day. People who work from home just keep working. No one gets a snow day. That’s sad.

I loved snow days. Not the ones I got for myself, but the ones I got by extension when my children were snowed out of school.

We lived in Hoopeston, IL in the late 1970s, when our daughters were teenagers. Those were the years of the big blizzards and the low temps. At least, we thought they were big and low then. This week’s artic blast, and winter storm Uri, may make the snow totals and low temps of the ‘70s look mild, but they are not such in memory.

It was so cold that the energy company asked us to call off worship services. We didn’t want to do that completely, so, since the Methodists had the largest sanctuary, we invited the other churches to worship with us, with leadership by all the pastors. The Presbyterians and Disciples and Missouri Synod Lutherans and Church of God [Anderson, IN variety] took us up on it. The more conservative congregations were gracious in their refusal to worship with infidels, but they got the idea and went together at the Southern Baptist Church.

There was a good result from that bad time, with our fellow pastors and congregations feeling more at ease with one another, ready to do more things together. In fact, when the Lutherans had a fire, we offered to share our building with them. We had such a large education wing that we could accommodate all their Sunday School classes at the same time as our own, and then as we worshipped in the sanctuary, they worshipped in the fellowship hall. It was sad when their building was ready for them to return, because it was fun to have such a full house on Sunday morning.

The best thing, though, was what it did for our family. I was busy. Helen was working at the local newspaper. Our daughters were deeply involved in all the things high school students do. In regular weather, we saw one another only in passing. On snow days, though, we did stuff together. Predictable stuff, like working jigsaw puzzles, but stuff we undoubtedly should not have done. But we were young and…

There was a cut-rate grocery store about 3 blocks from us. Its name, Grab It Here, gives you an indication of its ambiance and its clientele. We did not usually shop there. But in the midst of a blizzard, one of those with winds so strong they blow you over, we ran out of hot chocolate mix, or marshmallows, or cookies, or maybe all of those. The streets were too bad to drive, but we roped ourselves together and walked down to grab it there at Grab It Here.

With snow in the foots high, we would jump in the car—just a sedate preacher sedan, no four-wheel drive or anything like that—and wheel down to Champaign, fifty miles away, to go to the mall. Once, on IL highway 49, I think it was, we came to a 9 foot high snow bank. The truck had been plowing the snow, and it got so high that apparently it had just turned around and gone home, leaving this huge bank of snow blocking the highway. So we turned around, too, and took an alternate route to the mall. 

Too late to scold us for being so foolhardy. Besides, I wouldn’t pay any attention to you. I sit here on my sofa, drinking hot chocolate from mix that we got in last October in anticipation of snow days, but if I run out, I’ll be walking down to the 7/11 three blocks away, even if the wind chill is 20 below and the snow is knee deep. That’s what snow days are for.

John Robert McFarland

SUNDAY MORNING, GETTING READY [Su, 2-14-21]

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

SUNDAY MORNING, GETTING READY   [Su, 2-14-21]

 

drenched with summer heat

or brittle with the icy shape of winter

the weather makes no difference

in the air or in my joints

Sunday morn is always this

pulling me from out the comfort

of soft-weave blankets

 and the form beside me

calling me to get ready

 

for the others are in preparation

prepare, ye, the way of the Lord

 

hymns are shouting out their numbers

ready at any point, regardless of the season

to proclaim that Jesus loves the little children

to ask if you were there

 

prayers are rounding up stray forgotten words

calling them in from fallow fields

lining them up in their proper places

sneaking a peek to see if heads are bowed

 

bible verses shrug their shoulders

knowing they will soon be strained

beyond their limits, glazing eyes

and waxing ears with layers thin

of meanings, points, and morals

sad, for they only want to be a friend

 

dusty sins scurry out the door

and through the cracks

around stained glass

clumping up as delinquents juvenile

around the edges of the parking lot

waiting for the postlude’s final note

 

then I stand up and see the faces

wrinkled or smooth

eyes bright or dull

smiling with joy and hope

or hopeless with fear and pain

 

and I say, good news, chariot’s comin’

alleluia, amen

 

John Robert McFarland

 

DORIS TRIES TO FORGIVE [F, 2-12-21]

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

DORIS TRIES TO FORGIVE  [F, 2-12-21]

 

Going through old files, I came across this handwritten 4-28-78 letter from a woman I’ll identify only by her first name, Doris.

I always considered the writing I did for publication as part of my ministry. That turned out to be especially true with my writing about cancer, but almost everything I wrote got one or more responses that led to correspondence that extended and continued the pastoral relationship.

“I’m writing to tell you that your week of devotionals in The Upper Room Disciplines has been great.

            I’m going through a lot of emotional and spiritual, as well as physical pain at this time, you’re your articles have meant a lot.

            Tuesday night my sister-in-law’s grandmother was murdered by a 17 year old boy. They don’t know why. All I know is, at this point, I can’t forgive him. Grandma as 89, and he could have stolen what he wanted without hurting her; she couldn’t have stopped him. If he had just knocked her out, it wouldn’t be quite so bad, but he just kept beating her, even after she was dead. Grandma was a Christian and is with the Lord now, but it still hurts. Every time I close my eyes I see her with her head all bashed in and her body battered.

            I know I have to forgive that boy, before I can get any peace, and I can’t do it.

            Thank you again for your devotionals.”

On the envelope, I noted the date I replied to her, but that was before I had a computer or a copy machine, so I have no record or memory of what I said. Whatever I said, I’m sure it wasn’t very helpful. Such anguish can’t be easily dealt with, especially at a distance. Maybe, though, it was more useful than I imagined, for we already had a relationship of sorts established. She was used to reading my words and thinking they were helpful.

The main point of Doris’ letter, though--the reason Jesus talked about forgiveness more than any other subject except money--is that forgiveness is so necessary… and so hard…and so continuing..

 I think we should look at Jesus’ “requirement” that we forgive in the context of that prayer he taught us: “…give us this day, our daily bread. And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”

Forgiveness is like bread. It is what we live on. It is not all at once, and done. It is “daily.” Give us our daily forgiveness…

I think of the old woman who said she didn’t have an enemy in the whole world. “You must have done a lot of forgiving.” “No, I outlived all the bastards.”

I don’t know if Doris ever got all the way through to the end of the daily work of forgiving that boy. I know, though, that just outliving everybody is not enough. I still have some forgiving to do. Not huge sins against me, like the sin that boy did to Doris, but things that still rankle. Even though I’ve outlived most of those folks who rankled me, I still have some daily work of forgiving to do.

Maybe you do, too.

Thanks, Doris, for reminding us.

John Robert McFarland

TOMBROWNONARGA [W,2-10-21]

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

TOMBROWNONARGA  [W,2-10-21]

 

I’m afraid I’m becoming Tom Brownonarga. That’s what Helen thought his name was, for years, because he was the pastor in Onarga through most of the years she went to annual conference with me, and he loved to speak on the floor of annual conference, [1] on any and every subject.

When you stood at one of the floor microphones at annual conference to speak, first you stated your name and the name of your church. It was only after Tom was moved from Onarga that Helen realized Onarga was not part of his name. He was so eager to start talking that he just ran it all together.

Tom was a good and sincere Christian preacher, but he did not understand boundaries of any kind, or how he was seen by others. And, apparently, he loved the sound of his own voice. Nothing at all came before the conference, from the smallest matter of rules of order to the largest concern of mission outreach, that Tom felt could go by without his input. And he was always on the wrong side, not because he was a bad person, but because he did not understand rules of order or the results and ramifications of mission activity.

It reminds me of the story of the preacher who had never gotten to say anything at all at a conference, until one day they asked him to make an announcement. As he did so, seeing all those faces out there, he got carried away and just kept talking. On and on and on. The presiding bishop kept trying to get his attention, to bring him to halt, even pounding the table with his gavel, all to no avail. Finally in frustration the bishop threw her gavel at the man. But she missed, and hit a guy sitting in the front row. He gasped out, “Hit me again; I can still hear him.”

That was the way people reacted when they heard “Tombrownornaga…”

Tom had a brother who was also a clergy member of conference. He never spoke at conference. He kept a low-profile. He loved his brother, Tom, but he was also a little embarrassed by him, and for him.

Our daughters were both youth members of annual conference, one after the other. As a high schooler, Katie was new and did not understand that you did not argue with Tom Brownonarga on the floor of conference. You just let him speak and then everything went on. So she and Tom got into a spirited debate on the floor of conference about some long-forgotten subject just before lunch time. They were not about to let lunch slow them down, so they continued their discussion on the way to the cafeteria. Jack Newsome and I were walking down the hall behind them and Jack said, “What in the world are they doing?”

Well, the answer was that they were circling each other as they walked, a strange kind of debate dance, so intent on their argument they didn’t see what they were doing, for Katie was deaf in her left ear and needed to get Tom on her right side, and Tom was blind in his left eye, and needed to get Katie on his right side. Round and round they went.

The church, especially the conference, was Tom’s world. He loved it. It meant everything to him. I think the only time he had a problem with words at annual conference was when he gave his retirement speech. You’re allowed only two minutes, and that was not enough for Tom. He stumbled around, trying to tell how much the conference meant to him, never getting it right.

He didn’t live long after retirement. He didn’t have anything to live for.

As he lay dying, he was mumbling things others could not understand, until his brother said, “Oh…he’s doing his retirement speech at annual conference. He felt like he didn’t get it right, and he’s been redoing it, over and over, ever since he retired, trying to say how much he loved it.”

I can’t even remember what I said at my retirement. Two minutes wasn’t enough for me, either. But there are other speeches, other moments, other statements, that I want to redo, get right. Not for others. Most of those who heard me back then are dead now anyway. But I’d like finally to get it right for my own sake.

If you do that sort of thing… well, for heaven’s sake, stop it. That’s like being Tom Brownonarga.

Or maybe that’s okay.

John Robert McFarland

1] In Methodist terms, a conference is a geographical area. All the churches, pastors, institutions, etc. in that area are part of the conference. The annual conference is the annual meeting of all the pastors and lay members from each of the congregations meeting together for doing business [ordinations, mission budgets, etc] and mutual encouragement.

 

ON BEING A FALSE PROPHET [M, 2-8-21]

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

ON BEING A FALSE PROPHET     [M, 2-8-21]

 

Way back in 2004, I wrote an article that caused Prof. Stanley Hauerwas of Duke University Divinity School to call me “an illuminating false prophet.” I still haven’t decided whether I should feel complimented or insulted.

The article was titled “It’s Time to Disband the United Methodist Church: Why a Denomination Must Lose its Live in Order to Save it.” [1] It got a lot of response—positive response from the wrong people and negative response from the right people. That’s the dilemma, I guess, of an illuminating false prophet.

In a “Peanuts” comic strip, Linus tells Charley Brown that he has decided to be a prophet. Charley affirms that, sort of, but reminds Linus that “prophets almost always turn out to be false prophets.” Linus says, “Well, maybe I could be a sincere false prophet.” I think it’s probably better to be an illuminating false prophet than a sincere false prophet, although I really was sincere.

I’m going through old files, discarding stuff that is no longer relevant to me and would be of no interest to my heirs. I kept all the articles and columns and letters that either praised or excoriated me for what I said in that article, but now it’s time for all that to go into the recycling.

I thought I was getting a good conversation going about the future of the denomination. Not so, for all the readers and responders were “just” lay people and preachers and professors—not bishops and denominational officials, the ones who had the power actually to change things.

That was understandable, of course, for basically in that article I argued for doing away with bishops and denominational officials, so that we could focus on the place where the church really gets its work done, the local congregation. Understandably, folks don’t like to be told they are useless, or irrelevant, or—much worse, as I did—that they are a hindrance.

I didn’t expect us to become totally congregational, of course. We need connections. But I thought it was time that we rethought church structure in terms of putting function [mission] first.

I’m used to be ignored by church hierarchy folks. About 20 years ago a District Superintendent in my conference said to me, “To show you how far the church has declined, we’re now taking seriously ideas you put forth twenty years ago.” Taking them seriously apparently did not mean doing anything to implement them. Imagine how past-the-possible-moment those ideas are now!

I was aware, of course, in 2004, that we had a homophobia problem in the church, but that wasn’t the reason I suggested doing away with the church’s hierarchy. I thought the denominational structure had become an end in itself and thus was getting in the way of the congregations instead of helping them to do better ministry. [I think that is still true, but for different reasons in different ways now.] Now the same issue of denomination structure and identity has become front and center because of homophobia. Everyone pays attention to whether LGBTQ folks are welcome and ordainable, but with the assumption that after they are finally either embraced or shunned, the denomination[s] will go on with the same super-structure as always.

We clearly must deal with homophobia. It’s a problem we have to solve. But including gay folk in a church with a counter-productive denominational structure is like welcoming them fully for the maiden voyage of the Titanic.

But what do I know? I’m a false prophet. But… remember… an illuminating one.

John Robert McFarland

1] It was published in “Zion’s Herald.” The editors told me the publicity generated by my article was probably why it won an award as best church magazine in 2004. Like most church publications of the print era, it is now defunct.

 

 

A YELLOW DOG’S REVENGE [Sat, 2-6-21]

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

A YELLOW DOG’S REVENGE   [Sat, 2-6-21]

My school classmates and I are at the dying age. In the columns on this blog for Jan. 11-19, I wrote of the death of Paula, and how much I liked her when we were in school, and how disappointed I was in her at the end of life. Now the death notice is for Jack Dye.

Jack dealt with Parkinson’s disease for 22 years. The last time we “talked” was via email. He dictated it for his daughter to send to me. He said simply, “I’m okay.”

Jack and I were good friends in high school, but not close friends. Close friends you run around with, go to each other’s houses for pickup basketball, drive around together at night looking for girls. Jack lived in town. As a farm kid whose family didn’t have a car, I didn’t hang out with town kids. I ran around with the guys with whom I’d ridden the school bus since 5^th grade. Also, with his looks and sweet, shy smile, Jack didn’t have to go looking for girls; they came looking for him.

It was at the every-five-years reunions of our class that Jack and I got deeper into friendship.

It must have been the 40 year reunion, maybe the 45. I asked Jack what he was doing. He said, “I’m the president of a big insurance company in Indianapolis.” That surprised me. Five years before he had been the truant officer in a fairly large county seat town.

Jack saw my confusion and told me, “I got weary with truancy, and when the banker offered me the job as the insurance agent in the bank, I took it. But that was sort of routine, and we’re old enough to retire. [Hard to hide your age from your high school classmates.] I just wanted to play golf. But the bank was bought by a big conglomerate. They came to me and said, ‘We’ve just acquired an insurance company, but we don’t know anything about insurance. But you do, so how’s about you running it for us?’ I said, ‘But I was going to retire and play golf.’ ‘They said, Well, if you’ll be president of the company, we’ll get you a membership in the best golf course in the city and pay you a salary of half a million per year.’ I figured, ‘Well, as long as I can golf…’”

I thought it was a great story, but it wasn’t over. “The best thing, though,” he said, with that sweet, shy smile that always attracted the girls, “is that I’m a yellow dog Democrat, and all these Republicans in brown suits have to report to me.” [1]

Wait, the story gets better. Five years later, I asked him how it was going at the insurance company. He said, “Oh, those guys were crooks. They were robbing the company blind. They thought I was a country hick they could keep on the golf course and I wouldn’t see what they were doing. I turned them in. They’re all in jail.”

The death notice his wife and children sent out said “He was always concerned about economic justice.” There are guys in jail who can attest to that.

RIP, Jack. You never disappointed me.

John Robert McFarland

1] A “yellow dog” Democrat is one who would vote for a yellow dog before voting for a Republican. In checking the definition on line, I came across a Quora post that says the Republican equivalent of Yellow Dog Democrat is just Republican. I am personally opposed to Yellow Dog voting of any sort.

            I know from our reunion talks that Jack wasn’t really a Yellow Dog Dem. The Yellow Dog statement developed when pro-slavery, anti-black Southerners claimed they would not vote for any Republican because Republicans were the anti-slavery party of Lincoln. Jack was a New Deal/Roosevelt Democrat, in favor of “socialist” economic justice programs like Social Security, Medicaid, FDIC, etc.

USING THE RIGHT OBIT PHOTO [R, 2-4-21]

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

USING THE RIGHT OBIT PHOTO [R, 2-4-21]

My friend, Bill White, died 9 days short of his 84^th birthday. All the obits said he was 83. They cheated him out of 356 days! That is why I am today greatly relieved. They can’t cheat me out of any of that 84^th year now. At least they used a good photo of him. Bill had a beautiful smile. It was the right photo to sum up his life.

I read the obits in 3 different newspapers each day. Two of them send them to me by email. I am struck by the number of people who don’t have a good photo available for their obit.

By good, I don’t mean from a photographer’s studio or a church directory. Those are okay, but not necessary. Just a decent shot that captures the soul, that tells us who that person really was.

But so many obit photos are only un-posed snap shots, and look like they were taken with a Brownie by a drunk, [or maybe a drunk Brownie], [I’m assuming you are old enough to remember Brownie cameras and thus realize that I am not belittling junior Girl Scouts by suggesting they drink too much booze] or are obviously cut out of a selfie with a bunch of other folks. It just doesn’t seem adequate. After all, that photo is trying to capture a whole life, show us what that life was like.

I admit, though, that I especially like the photos from when we of the dying generation were young—nurses in their white caps at graduation, soldiers and sailors, college year books. It’s nice to be reminded that we once looked like that. I guess those don’t capture the whole life, but they do show what we hoped for.

So pay some attention to the photo that will go with your obit. Pick it out ahead of time and make sure your heirs or the funeral director know to use it. Be sure it captures your essence, floppy socks and all. 

 

 John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

ROOTIER THAN THOU [T, 2-2-21]

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

ROOTIER THAN THOU       [T, 2-2-21]

Helen and I often watch “Finding Your Roots” on PBS with Henry Louis Gates, Jr. It’s surprising how many people know almost nothing about their family history.

I thought I knew my family history pretty well. My mother was exceptional with names and dates from both sides of the family. And our daughter, Katie, in her desire to be a professional historian, went to the court house in Xenia, Ohio, when she was just a high schooler, and traced the McFarland side back another three generations beyond what we already knew.

One of my ancestors had filed in that court house a will that, among other items, left “the three-legged milking stool to the daughter who has the wayward eye.” I mean, that’s detail! We know a lot about our family.

Of course, it made me wonder if I knew nearly as much as I thought I did when my father told me, when I was 67 years old, that I was not really his child. I think it was just wishful thinking. We look an awful lot alike.

I’m not sure this roots tracing is a good thing. A lot of people do it so they can claim to be “rootier than thou. My ancestors came over on a particular boat, or from a particular country, so I have a better lineage, family history, than you do.”

Our granddaughter traced Helen’s lineage back to King Tkvysht of Turkey. She’s been kind of hard to live with ever since. It would be even harder if she could pronounce Tkvysht.

The archeologists say the same thing about Susie, that little black woman from East Africa from whom we all descended 200,000 years ago. They gave her the formal name of Eve, which is appropriate, but those of us who know our roots know that her nickname is Susie. Of course, to be mother of us all, she had to have a husband. I assume his name was John, as in John Doe, and in “Dear John, I’ve sent your wooly mammoth skin home.”

Well, the bottom line, on the family tree chart, is that we are all children of God. That’s the only root we need to know about. The rabbis say that the point of the Adam and Eve story is that none of us can claim better parentage than anyone else. When we forget that, we get into trouble.

John Robert McFarland

Roots are important, but so are wings.