MY MUSE EXPLAINS “NOW IT’S OVER; THAT’S ALRIGHT” [R, 4-29-21]

REFLECTIONS ON FAITH & LIFE FOR THE YEARS OF WINTER

“Don’t Think Twice” came up on my personal playlist the other day. I’ve always been intrigued by that song, and by the young Bob Dylan who wrote it. I was a new young campus minister when Dylan started writing, and I felt that he was saying significant truths that we could hear better because of the way he sang them.

“Don’t Think Twice,” of course, is a love song, or an anti-love song, a breakup song. His songs like “Blowin’ in the Wind” are more obviously meant to apply to world conditions, but psychologically, “Don’t Think Twice” is a universal theme, too. [You can read Dylan’s lyrics online, of course, or get an audio to hear.]

The young Bob Dylan was a remarkable combination of clever poet, insightful psychologist, double-edged social commentator, memorable song-writer, and surfer on the rising wave of youthful 1960s hopes.

In “Don’t Think Twice,” his use of colloquial grammar—ain’t, dropping the “g” at word ends, knowed instead of knew, etc.—masterfully indicates an indifference that really is a yearning. Of course, I’m not the only one who thinks he’s a good poet, since he won the Nobel Prize for Poetry in 2016. [Explanations for the images I used that might be obscure are listed at the end of the column.]

Anyway, as I listened to that song in my final-years attempt to confront God directly, almost without conscious thought, I began to hear Dylan’s song as me talking to God, yearning for clarity—was I really called to be a preacher?—but willing to accept mystery. Also, of course, in the last stanza, speaking a word of farewell to the world.

My muse told me to use Dylan’s song as a way of saying to God some things I needed to say, and to write it down before I lost it, which is why I posted it here, 4-23-21, even though I didn’t intend to write any more columns for this blog. [1]

In my writing I have often referenced the three strangers John S. Dunne, SJ, talks about—mortality, sexuality, and world. Dunne says that if we make friends with those strangers, life goes well. If not, life goes poorly. I have always said that there is a fourth stranger, God, and the same applies: if we make friends with God, life goes well, even if the friendship is carried out in mystery.

I have tried my best to make friends with all those strangers. The first three have taken a lifetime, but we’re now friends, even if we don’t understand each other very well. That fourth stranger, though, God, I’m still trying to make friends. Well, I guess it would be safe to say that we are friends, but the first responsibility of friend is to listen to the other, and I have more listening to do.

John Robert McFarland

1] I usually say that my muse comes with raspberry jam smeared on her face, meaning that she doesn’t take her job too seriously. I think her casual approach to inspiring me is why my poems usually sound like they intended to make a sophisticated entrance, but tripped over the cat as they came through the door.

EXPLANATIONS FOR THE POSSIBLY OBSCURE IMAGES IN MY VERSION OF “IT’S ALRIGHT…”

When the rooster crows thrice A reference to Jesus’ prediction to Peter that he would betray him 3 times before the rooster crowed.

I’m following Jesus so I’ll be gone Those who follow Jesus in life must expect to follow him into death, and hope to follow on to resurrection and new life.

You’re the reason I did any travelin’ at all   Back when I first thought God was calling me to be a preacher, Methodist ministers were designated as “traveling elders” because we went wherever the bishop sent us.

I’m walkin’ toward that ash tree wood In early America, cemeteries were often situated in ash groves, leading to folk songs like “The Ash Grove’s My Home.”

I’ll just ring that final bell. In recent times, cancer centers have started having patients ring a bell at the time of their last chemo or radiation treatment. Death is the end of all our earthly treatments, “the final cure.”

A hell of a good wife  Helen doesn’t comment on all my columns, but she specifically mentioned that she likes this one. The point is not that one must have a good spouse, or any spouse at all, for a good life [although that rhymes nicely with wife.] But “wife” here represents personal relationships. As we come to life’s end and evaluate, it’s the personal relationships, not the worldly acclamations and achievements, that matter.

If there are other images or lines you think obscure, well, you’ll have to figure them out on your own.

WWAGD? [M, 4-26-21]

REFLECTIONS ON FAITH & LIFE FOR THE YEARS OF WINTER

WWAGD?                  [M, 4-26-21]

 

My most excellent friend and Academy of Parish Clergy colleague, Fred Skaggs, “suggested” that I should keep on writing this column, despite my farewell column on April 17. He said that even though I am out of stories, and need to concentrate on dealing with the Word, without the words shielding me from the Word, I could cut and paste old columns, since “good stories never die.” He did not say it, but he was also probably thinking that since my readers are mostly “mature” folks, they would not remember the old stories anyway.

Fred has a history of being right about such things. Besides, I thought, surely cutting and pasting old words would not be as effective a shield against the Word as writing new words. So, I tried. But even cutting and pasting seemed to lead me into the weeds.

However, it made me think of a conversation long past with Aunt Gertrude. She is 99 now, still the IU Hoosiers men’s basketball team’s biggest fan, and still the woman of whom Helen said, “I often can’t answer WWJD because I can’t see Jesus sometimes, so I don’t know what Jesus would do, but I can ask WWAGD, because I can see what Aunt Gertrude does, and I know it will be right.”

We were visiting Aunt Gertrude and Uncle Randall in Hamilton, OH once when I was in my 40s. I was telling AG how fed up I was with the ministry and how I wanted to change professions. She assessed all my complaints and said, “You know, I think you really just need a vacation.” As always, she was right. I wanted a permanent solution for what she realized was a temporary problem.

So when that song I wrote and posted on F, April 23, 2021--using Bob Dylan’s “Don’t Think Twice” as its template--arose, unbidden, as I faced the Word about the end of earthly life, I thought about the writing of words: maybe I just need a vacation.

We’ll see.

In the meantime, I am writing an explanation of my “Now It’s Over; That’s Alright,” that I’ll post before long, just in case it’s a bit confusing or confounding.

But remember, confusing and confounding are among my super powers, along with rationalization.

John Robert McFarland

NOW IT’S OVER; THAT’S ALRIGHT [CIW, 4-23-21]

 NOW IT’S OVER; THAT’S ALRIGHT [CIW, 4-23-21]

[With thanks to Bob Dylan]

 

It ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, God

If you don’t know by now

And it ain’t no use to sit and wonder why, God

I never needed to take a bow

When the rooster crows thrice at the break of dawn

I’m followin’ Jesus, so I’ll be gone

You’re the reason I did any travlin’ at all

Now it’s over; that’s alright.

 

I know it ain’t no use to pray for more, God

Those prayers I never understood

I know it ain’t no use to pray for more, God

I’m walkin’ toward that ash tree wood

But I kinda wish you’d change the rules for me

I’d like to see the way the future might be

You never did too much answerin’ anyway

Now it’s over; that’s alright.

 

It ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, God

You never were quite clear

It ain’t no use in callin’ out my name, God

I ain’t got nothin’ more to fear

I’m thinkin’ and prayin’ all the way down the road

I once was a preacher, pretty good I’m told

I gave it my heart, I gave it my soul

Now it’s over; that’s alright

 

So long, old world, I’m now goin’

Where I’m bound, I can’t tell

Goodbye is too good a word, world

So I’ll just ring that final bell

I ain’t sayin’ I wasted my life

Tryin’ to make you better, end all your strife

At least I had a hell of a good wife

Now it’s over; that’s alright

 

John Robert McFarland

A Final Reflection on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter [Sat, 4-17-21]

 

CHRIST IN WINTER: A Final Reflection on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter  [Sat, 4-17-21]

I was reading yesterday--in my doctor’s waiting room, there for my regular visit, for about the third time now--Reinhold Niebuhr’s Leaves from the Notebooks of a Tamed Cynic, observations he made in his first pastorate, in Detroit, mostly in the 1920s. His insights in that book have stood the test of time quite nicely.

In the pages I was reading yesterday, he pointed out that every society works on moral compromises, and it reacts with equal disconcert at criminality and prophecy. A criminal subverts the moral compromise by refusing to honor it. So does a prophet, who calls for the society to be more moral than the compromises we use to get by. Both criminals and prophets threaten to undo the compromise, so we treat both criminals and prophets in the same way, by punishing them.

Right now, once again, our American moral compromise is being challenged both by prophets who want us to be more moral, and criminals—some in very high places—who want to subvert what morality we do have left.

More applicable here, I think this is true of personal lives, too. We get by with personal compromises between Godly yearning and earthly necessities. So…yes, I’m finally getting to the point…that’s why I’m not writing Christ In Winter anymore. Or anything else.

I think I have used writing to avoid the Godly yearning. It’s my compromise. I use words to avoid Word. If I’m ever going to get around to dealing with God “face to face,” I need to get at it now. Whatever happens, I need to present it to God, rather than avoiding that presentation by writing about it, presenting it to you.

So, if you have come here looking for some whimsical story, I apologize. I apologize for ending this column so abruptly without a word of farewell. I knew I had to end it pretty soon back on March 28, because I was running out of stories, again, but I hadn’t meant to stop writing right at that moment. But then I read the poem I wrote for that day and thought, “You know, that’s a pretty good way to end this.”

So, thank you for reading. But I’m out of stories and out of defenses. I’m still going to use words with you in mind. Now, though, they will be in prayers instead of blog columns.

John Robert McFarland

What does it mean to love God? It has nothing to do with the ways we worship or the things we believe. We love God by loving what God loves.