BEING AT HOME [M, 5-31-21]

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

BEING AT HOME    [M, 5-31-21]

 

I guess that is why I was attracted to folk music. It’s about a poor, wayfaring stranger, who is 500 miles from home, in the early morning rain, who can’t help but wonder where he’s bound. Yep, that’s me. Folk music, like country, is about getting back home.

I never felt comfortable if I were away from home for very long.

I don’t mean the physical place of home, although that is more important all the time as we get older, because it’s just easier to be in the same place all the time, where you know all the obstacles from getting from the sofa to the coffee pot and back again. But throughout my life, I have known that my people were my home. I can be away from Piccadilly Street however long it’s necessary if Helen is with me.

I recently realized that I have no good memories of the farm on which I grew up. We moved there from Indianapolis when I was ten. I was a city boy suddenly out place. For me, the farm was a lonely forced labor camp. We had no plumbing, so there was an outhouse. Water for everything had to be pumped and then carried in, and carried out again. There was kindling to chop and coal to carry in and ashes to carry out, cows to milk, animals to feed, eggs to gather, hay to “make,” miles of garden rows to weed, under an unrelenting sun, with chiggers gnawing at your ankles. We had no car, so going anyplace required miles of walking on dirt and gravel roads or in the weedy ditches of narrow highways.

I am always nostalgic about those years. I have so many good memories from that period of my life. But they aren’t of the farm itself. My good memories are of church and school and friends and extended family. So many. It was rather startling to realize none of them are about the farm itself. I’ve never understood people who choose to dig in the dirt in the sun when they have the option of sitting in the shade with a book.

I have always enjoyed travel, and gatherings of congenial people. I loved going to continuing education events. There was a time when I traveled a lot to speak at church and clergy and cancer events. I loved the first day or two. I felt renewed in energy and spirit by being with those good folks. Then, though, I would start missing home. If I could do it without rudeness or causing trouble for someone, I would leave early, to go home—to my children, my grandchildren, to Helen.

Now the children and grandchildren have their own homes, their own people who make them feel at home. What I have remaining for home is what I have had for home for 62 years--Helen. Today, at 2 pm,  we start our 63^rd year.

I feel very much at home.

John Robert McFarland

THE FINAL LINE IN THE JOURNAL [Sun, 5-30-21]

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

THE FINAL LINE IN THE JOURNAL  [Sun, 5-30-21]

 

The conference journal came this week in the mail. Jack Newsome got his final line. Once you get that final line, that’s the end of your “historical record.” You no longer appear in the conference journal.

The journal is for The Illinois Great Rivers Conference [IGRC] of The United Methodist Church. It takes in the whole state of IL below I-80. It tells about all that happened in the churches and meetings and institutions [colleges, hospitals, nursing homes, orphan homes, etc.] of the conference in 2020. It’s a big area. A lot happened. The journal is 662 pages.

It includes the historical record of all the clergy in the conference, when we were ordained, when we became conference members, the dates of each of our appointments—to a congregation, or chaplaincy, or campus ministry, etc.

It’s a great historical record, including the tradition of misspelling Solsberry, even though every year for many, many years, after I have read my historical record in the new journal, I have written the conference secretary and told them about that misspelling. They are sophisticated Illinois people, those conference secretaries. They can’t bear to spell Solsberry as Solsberry, it has to be Salisbury. At least this year they left out the “i,” thus misspelling it in two languages, English and Hoosier.

Of course, with that spelling, Solsberry has to be a Hoosier town. I was appointed there in December of my sophomore year at Indiana University, 1956, along with Koleen and Mineral, and served there off and on until June of 1960. It was my appointment when Helen and I married. The District Superintendent rearranged the circuits, replacing Koleen and Mineral with Greene County Chapel and Walker’s Chapel, so that we’d have a parsonage to live in. That house, like so many of the buildings of my past, is now gone. We like to point it out to people and say, “That’s where we lived when we got married, on that vacant lot.”

I was a Hoosier boy, but even I assumed Solsberry was a misspelling of Salisbury. But I was serving in my last appointment, Arcola, IL, when I, myself, learned that Solsberry was not a misspelling. At least, not the Sol part. One of my members, Jim Cummings, was delighted when he learned that I had once preached at Solsberry. “That’s home,” he said. “It was named for my grandfather, Sol. My mother lived here when it was time for me to be born, so she went back to Solsberry so I could be born there.”

So, I tell the conference secretary, every year, that it’s Sol, not Salis. I explain that the steaks of Solsberry are better than those of Salisbury. I know because I ate them, with a lot of other amazing Hoosier cooking when I was a college student preacher invited to “come to dinner” after church. I even explained about Jim Cummings telling me about his grandfather, Sol. No use.

As with my late, great friend, Jack Newsome, my final line will note simply, “Deceased.” The next year, I shall be no more.  Each year, the journal has listed all my pastoral appointments and reminded me that I belong to “the goodly fellowship of the prophets.” It has been my identity since I was nineteen. It’s a little sad, to think about that last line. Finally, though, I won’t have to worry about the misspelling of Solsberry!

John Robert McFarland

Today is Trinity Sunday in the church calendar, so I am reminded, as I am of every year, of the man who went to church only on Trinity Sunday, because, as he said, “I just love seeing the preacher get so confused.”

IF I SHOULD DIE BEFORE THE SUMMER COMES-Poem [F, 5-28-21]

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

IF I SHOULD DIE BEFORE THE SUMMER COMES-Poem  [F, 5-28-21]

[From my poetry journal of 4-18-21]

 

If I should die

before the summer comes

I shall not feel regret

I have summer memories

enough to take

wher’er I go

A dragonfly

A watchful crow

A hollyhock

in ancient clothes

A laughing boy

A running girl

A book where velvet

 rabbits stir

a glass of lemonade

A dusty road

that leads me home

 

John Robert McFarland

 

THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG-DISTANCE CLASS PRESIDENT [W, 5-26-21]

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

THE LONELINESS OF THE LONG-DISTANCE CLASS PRESIDENT   [W, 5-26-21]

 

[Yes, I’ve told this story much too often, but I like it, and it gets better every time. Besides, I tried to stop writing…] 

I was surprised, but I should not have been, for without knowing it, I had worked hard to get to be class president.

Not only did I know every kid in our class by name, I knew every kid in the school by name, and I said “hello” to each one, by name, every time I saw them. Not a big deal in a class of 80, or a school of 300, but I was the only one who bothered. [By graduation, our class was down to 62.]

I wanted to be… not “popular,” exactly. That was for athletes, and cheerleaders, and kids with clothes and money. I had nothing to offer but myself, and I so much wanted that self to be… yes, not “popular,” but included. So, I learned every name, and said hello every time, so that no one could ignore me, and thus exclude me.

Since we started high school in 8^th grade, that meant I knew all the upperclassmen by name, and spoke to them. They were surprised that a “little” 8^th grader--as we were called every time they deigned to acknowledge our unwanted presence--was saying hello to them by name, but even if you’re a haughty senior or sophisticated sophomore, you’re pleased that some peon knows your name.

When class sponsor Mr. Cato called during our class home room for nominations for president for our freshman year, the first year we had class officers, I was sitting across the aisle, in our rows of old-fashioned screwed-down desks, from Gary Harper. I didn’t know Gary well, but I could almost see the wheels in Gary’s head grinding, and saying, “Hey, John always calls me by name and says hello to me, even though the rest of the kids shy away from me because they think I’m sort of weird.  I’ll nominate him.”

He did. Those were in the days that the first nomination was an automatic election. It was rude to put up competition. So, I was elected by acclamation. The first of 3 years running.

I was a good, hard-working president, and I probably would have been elected senior class president, too, but I proclaimed that I did not have time for another presidential year, because I wanted to focus on being editor of “Oak Barks,” since journalism would be my profession. I didn’t realize until after the class had accepted my demurer that I really wanted them to rise up and cry, “No, we cannot do without you. You have always been our president. You must continue.” [Does that sound Trumpian, or what?]

I think they were actually glad to have a chance to get rid of me, and Mike Dickey, my best friend in the class, was a good choice for senior president.

I think they were probably just a little tired of me. I did not abuse my presidential power, but I wanted everybody in the class to be involved in everything. I could not stand the thought of being left out, either myself or anyone else. I could not understand that not everyone wanted to be as involved as I did. I didn’t force people to participate, but I didn’t leave them alone. I kept encouraging them to be part of all the class activities. I didn’t threat or bribe or manipulate. I just kept inviting and reminding. As Lee said of Grant, “That man just keeps coming.” Yes, I can understand why they would be tired of me.

I didn’t really need that “Oak Barks” editorial experience, since I didn’t pursue that journalism career, although the writing and people skills were useful. [Reporters are a lazy and fractions and rebellious lot, even at the high school level, and learning how to conjure them into action is a precious talent.]

However, name skills and “hello” skills are quite useful anywhere, certainly in a church, where we’d rather leave out the weird people but have to include them anyway. Yes, even you. Hello.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

THE HITS I DIDN’T SING [M, 5-24-21]

 

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

THE HITS I DIDN’T SING   [M, 5-24-21]

 

Being totally blind in one eye, and almost blind in the other, listening to country music was one of my father’s major pleasures. He especially enjoyed the raucous voice of the four-foot nine-inch Brenda Lee.

Late in his life I discovered that she was going to perform at a venue only fifty miles from where he lived, so Helen and I loaded up Mother and Dad and drove to…I think it was called “The Little Nashville Opry,” in Nashville, Indiana, a play on the name of “The Grand Ole Opry” of Nashville, Tennessee.

It was a great success. Dad loved it. Mother was okay with it. And I was fascinated with Brenda Lee’s song list, for she started the show with a medley of “The Hits I Didn’t Sing.” It was all the songs that she had turned down which became huge hits for other singers, starting with “Rose Garden,” which rocketed Lynn Anderson to fame. As the band segued from one song to another, Brenda would shrug her shoulders and spread out her short arms in one of those “who coulda known” gestures.

When we went to that concert, she had been a major singer for over thirty years, with a long list of gold records, so she was secure enough to admit that she had made some stupid mistakes in her song selections. After all, she also had plenty of major successes, like “Rockin’ Around the Christmas Tree” and “I’m Sorry.”

I’ve thought about that ever since. What were the big hits I didn’t sing? At least, not often enough.

“I Believe? “Ain’t Gonna Grieve my Lord Anymore?” “Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross?” “Lift Every Voice and Sing?” “Are Ye Able?” “Higher Ground?” “Revive Us Again?” “They’ll Know We Are Christians By Our Love?” “Just a Closer Walk with Thee?” “I Shall Not Be Moved?” “This Little Light of Mine?” “Standing in the Need of Prayer?”  

I’m not sure I’m as emotionally tall as Brenda Lee. I don’t feel very comfortable tallying up the hits I didn’t sing. I think I’ll stick with those that were winners for me, like “Amazing Grace” and “Balm in Gilead.” And one of these days, “I’ll Fly Away.”

John Robert McFarland

MY LIFE MEASURED OUT IN CICADA YEARS [Sa, 5-22-21]

REFLECTINONS ON FAITH & LIFE FOR THE YEARS OF WINTER

MY LIFE MEASURED OUT IN CICADA YEARS  [Sa, 5-22-21]

 

Although I have stopped writing, I feel I should acknowledge to someone, since I cannot acknowledge it to the cicadas themselves, that this will surely be my last cicada summer, at least for that hardy every-17-years Brood X bunch. The next time they come, I would be 101 years old. Not likely. Not desirable.

Counting back, they came last in 2004, when I had reached my main goal in life, by being a grandfather. So happy that my brother and wife and grandson had survived cancer. So sorry that my little sister did not. Bemused that my father had told me I wasn’t really his child.

Then 1987. I was living in Mattoon, IL, on sabbatical leave between pastoral appointment at Charleston, IL Wesley UMC and Arcola, IL, wondering if I would have to move to Minneapolis when I got hired to write full-time for the Prairie Home Companion radio show.

Then 1970, a campus minister at IL State U, in the midst of strife over Civil Rights and Viet Nam, with two cute grade school daughters at Oakdale School in Normal, IL. Getting ready to go off to U of Iowa to pursue a doctorate.

Then 1953, the president of my high school class in Oakland City, IN, hoping for a career as a newspaper man, hoping God would forget the deal I had made to be a preacher. I suspect the ringing in my ears is left over from listening to those noisy little cicadas at the same time I was trying not to listen to God.

I just missed them, in 1936, the year before I was born, although I did get in on the big flood that followed them. Apparently, God, or somebody, had gotten fed up with them and decided after a whole summer of listening to their constant talk about sex just to drown the little pests. We lived in Oxford, OH at the time, and the hospital was in Hamilton. My father drove us across the river just before the bridge was closed. Mother used to talk about looking out her window in Mercy Hospital and seeing items floating downstream in the flood—cars, cows, trees, houses. She didn’t mention cicadas, but they must have been there.

Now for this 17-year appearance of the cicadas, we are back home again. We have survived Covid19. We are vaccinated and seeing family again. We get to drink coffee and eat muffins and lounge around in our pajamas when we go to church. My wife is prettier than ever, and I have plenty of time to get ready to die, since I have stopped writing.

I feel a little bit bad about this being my last cicada summer. They probably do, too. They have been present for so much that was important to me, the background music for my life. At least, every 17 years.

John Robert McFarland

The cartoon, of course, is by the great Gary Larson. 

 

 

ODDS & ENDS II [R, 5-20-21]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: REFLECTIONS ON FAITH & LIFE FOR THE YEARS OF WINTER

ODDS & ENDS II                  [R, 5-20-21]

 

Occasionally there is stuff I think is worth sharing, but it doesn’t require a whole column, so...

Our late friend, Trina Mescher, was a great cook. Helen always asked for the recipe when we ate something Trina brought to a potluck. When she asked for the blueberry buckle recipe, Trina said, “Oh, it’s in that cookbook. You know, the one with the cover falling off.” Helen knew immediately what she meant. Every woman of a certain age has a Betty Crocker cookbook she has used so long and frequently that the cover is falling off.

Recently at breakfast, I was complaining about the filioque controversy that split the Roman and Eastern Orthodox churches apart, how stupid and unnecessary it was. Helen started laughing. I didn’t think that the Great Schism of 1054 was that funny, but she said, “When you said Roman, I thought you were going to tell about an Italian learning English and when somebody said, ‘How are you?’ he said, “Feely okay.’” [I told this to the Crumble Bums the other day and every one of them said, “I’m with Helen!” That’s the state of theological literacy these days…] {Kathy Roberts says I am a good husband even if I do talk theology at breakfast, so there.}

I did something “slightly” forgetful and was afraid Helen might think I was “losing it” and thus put me in “the home.” She said, “Heavens, no. When I want you to do something, I don’t want to have to drive half-way across town to get you.”

“Misery is no time to live in the moment.” Caulfield, in the “Frazz” comic strip.

An article in The Indiana Daily Student newspaper is entitled, “You Need to Start Assuming that You Are Surrounded by Queer People.” I always assume that, but I think we may have different definitions of “queer.”

During these days of pandemic, even baseball locker rooms had to provide for social distancing. Some place where the Reds were playing, the locker room was not large enough to accommodate all the players in an adequately distanced way, so some of the older guys [in their 30s] were put in the coaching office to dress. Somebody put up a sign over their door saying, “Assisted Living.”

But, as Helen famously asserted a long time ago, “Men enter assisted living the day they get married.”

In 1869, Charles Eliot became president of Harvard and deplored the state of medical education. He tried to improve said education, including written exams. The medical faculty objected. Prof. Henry Bigelow, the most prominent faculty member, said: “We can’t give them written examinations. More than half of them can barely write.” How quaint, that it is okay to unleash a medical student onto the general public even though he is so ignorant and uneducated he can’t write. [Of course, that might account for the famous doctor handwriting on prescriptions.]

A young man who had never read the Bible was given a New Testament. After he read it, he was asked what he thought. He said, “Jesus never met an unimportant person.”

In case you missed it at the time: A respondent to my 5-5-21 CIW, “We’ll Meet Again,” noted the irony of people refusing the covid vaccine because “we don’t know what’s in it,” while continuing to eat hot dogs. 

[Now this last one is funny, but it has naughty words, so stop reading now if you are trying to be pure of mind.]

Daughter Mary Beth read an article about people who receive texts that were meant for others, such as the man who got a text that said, “We’re at the ER. Leon set his butthole on fire again.” [Again?] The man replied, “I think this was meant for someone else, but please keep me updated.”

John Robert McFarland

DON’T LOOK BACK; SOMETHING MAY FALL OFF [T, 5-18-21]

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

DON’T LOOK BACK; SOMETHING MAY FALL OFF   [T, 5-18-21]

 

It’s almost time for the Brood X cicadas, the ones that appear only every 17 years. They live underground for all that time, then, at the 17 year mark, when the ground gets warm enough, they appear, with their noise-maker things on the side of the body, that, for some strange reason, attracts the girl cicadas, or maybe the other way around. With cicadas, you never know who initiates good times.

The local weather people say that the ground is going to get warm this week, and that we live in the epicenter of The United States of Cicadas. Four or five other states are involved, but our climate and our trees are just what the cicadas thrive on. They like oaks and maples for partying. They think anything conifer is so last year. Or so 17-years-ago. It’s cicada party time. But that’s not all good this year for the cicadas.

Brood X should not be confused with Generation X, folks born between 1965-1980, about 65.2 million of them, the same number of cicadas that will party on the tree just outside our bedroom window, although it is possible that both Xs use the same psychedelic drugs. Gen X better hope they aren’t exactly the same, for the newspapers are reporting that when the 17-year Brood X cicadas show up this year, they will be invaded by a fungus with psychedelic properties that, to put it delicately, and I quote the local newspaper, The Herald-Times, “…will cause their butts to fall off.”

You know, you stay underground for 17 years, just biding your time, waiting for that period of a day or two when you get to go up above ground and find a mate to spend your life with, or at least party with, which is pretty much the same thing for a cicada, and then you get covid21 and your butt falls off! That is something terribly sorry about that. I mean, why can’t their noise-maker fall off—it’s the problem!

It reminds me of my first pastoral psychology class, at Garrett Theological Seminary, with Prof. Carroll Wise. He was a small, self-assured man, about whom it was said that when he preached in chapel, he always made us sing, “Immortal, invisible, God only WISE…”

He told us of the man who went to see a therapist because he had a golden screw lodged in his belly button. The therapist tried all sorts of psychology to get the man to give up his imaginary problem, but none worked. Finally, he said, “Take this golden screw driver and go home and use it to unscrew that golden screw in your navel.” He handed him an imaginary screwdriver.

The man returned the next week and the therapist asked if he had done as instructed. “Yes,” the man said, “but when I took the screw out, my butt fell off.”

So we would-be pastoral counselors learned that often folks actually need a problem, because it is holding us together. We use such problems to our advantage. As counselors, we needed first to learn what a problem was doing for the person who confided in us, before we tried to “cure” it.

I’m glad I’m not a cicada therapist.

John Robert McFarland

GOOD INCARNATIONAL GRIEF [Sun, 5-16-21]

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

GOOD INCARNATIONAL GRIEF  [Sun, 5-16-21]

 

Last week I received an email request from a woman who was seeking information about an aunt. She enclosed her aunt’s short funeral notice. It said that it was a graveside service only, and that I had conducted it.

She had only recently learned that she even had an aunt. The aunt was Downs Syndrome and had been in a care institution in a slightly distant town. She died in her early 50s, in 1992.

I have only the vaguest remembrance of that funeral. I had never met the woman being buried. In addition, I was still  recovering from a year of chemotherapy and suffering the memory losses of “chemo brain.” I probably would not remember her funeral anyway, for it was one of those occasional “convenience” funerals, meaning she was a Methodist from somewhere, and I was the Methodist pastor in the town where she was being buried, so the funeral director had called on me.

Neither the niece nor I knew why she was buried in that town, though. Neither of us knew anyone with the name of that family—not a very common name-- who lived there. Now, when the niece had just learned about her aunt, there was no one in the family left alive who could give her any information.

So she’s left to wonder… and to grieve… grieve for a woman she didn’t even know existed until… or is that really grief… Can you feel a sense of loss for something you never had? Maybe.

We are thinking more these days about grief and mourning and what it means and how to do it well—good grief—because the covid19 pandemic has not only caused so many occasions for grief, killed so many people, but also made it difficult for us to use our traditional methods for coping with grief.

In our congregation, St. Mark’s, the past year has seen the deaths of several major members of the church, folks who were church leaders not just officially but emotionally. Only one was from covid, but they were all unexpected. Our pastors were able to do private services for families, masked, and I’m sure those helped, even though they were faceless. They did not help the rest of us, though. And those deceased folks deserved the traditional full-church funeral. Through this pandemic, our grief has been so open-ended, no “closure.” {I don’t like that word. It is used so much, and often so shallowly, but it fits here.}

As a society, we were already in the process of change in the procedures of grief. Pandemic isolation has increased that change exponentially.

 The most obvious change is the cemetery. As more people choose cremation and columbaria and such, cemeteries no longer provide a place for grief, either at the time of burial or for continuing in memory.

And place is important. Christians are incarnation people. We call Jesus of Nazareth the Christ, meaning he is the incarnation of God, the divine in the flesh. Everything spiritual, everything divine, in this world exists in material form. Having a place to focus our grieving is important.

We need to be able to come together in a church building, or a funeral home--which is culturally accepted as a substitute for a church--or a spot in nature, or a favorite hangout, to do a funeral/memorial service. We also need a place for “burial,” a “final resting place,” where we can continue working toward good grief through memory in space.

The traditional places, though, aren’t the only ones that work. The gathering for “saying the words,” and the scattering of ashes in a spot important to the deceased, provides a place for memory and grief work in the same way that a cemetery does.  

Helen says that the only thing we’ll be doing for a year after society really opens up again is attending memorial services, for so many have been put off until it’s safe to gather again. I look forward to that. In the meantime, I try to concentrate on good memories and good hopes.

John Robert McFarland

ASSIGNING THE LINES-poem [F, 5-14-21]

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

ASSIGNING THE LINES-poem    [F, 5-14-21]

 [From my poetry journal of T, 1-19-21]

 

I don’t know who it is

but someone assigns

the poetry lines

to their respectable places

 

Perhaps it is God

or the muses

or an algorithm

developed by angels

working the angles

 

But like the water

that now exists

and has always existed

every drop right now

that is every drop

that has ever been

 

So every poem line

has existed from the start

of time, waiting

for its placement

Just the right time

The necessary place

The correct poet

The open poem

 

Hoping that its big break

will come

in a place pleasing

to the eye and ear

Hoping to be

the final line

The one recited

in the heart

 

John Robert McFarland

 

WHAT A FRIEND WE HAVE IN TRUTH [W, 5-12-21]

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

 

Our worship service Sunday morning was about friendship, pretty much about being friends with Jesus. We missed a really good chance to sing “What a Friend We Have In Jesus.” Those old hymns with familiar, singable tunes are especially helpful to those of us who have to stay home and worship via livestream.

That means almost all of us, even now, although the last couple of Sundays we’ve let 25 people come to church in person. But we’ve gotten used to going to church in our pajamas while reclining on the sofa drinking coffee and eating muffins. As one of our women friends said, “I’m not going to get dressed for 25 people!”

Our sanctuary holds about 200 people, or more if we set up some extra chairs. I’ll not think about getting dressed and going in person until I have to fight some little old lady for the last seat. [She always wins, anyway.]

So, I sang “What a Friend” as I walked outdoors after the service. With livestream, you can always add in anything you want on your own. Which is good because in the regular worship service, we only sing modern psychobabble social justice hymns. Don’t get me wrong. I know that we got most of our theology through hymns, and I’m all in favor of social justice, but considering the academic/non-poetic lyrics sung to unmelodic non-tunes, anybody coming in from the highways and byways would say, “These people think that social justice is really boring.”

Also, we have only one theology point in our worship: everyone is included. But included in what? If it’s sailing on the Titanic, I’ll be happy to be excluded. We also need a little theology about just what we’re being included in. [Yeah, but “that in which we are being included” is back to boring!]

Am I sounding like an old guy, or what? [Also, while you’re at it, get off my lawn.] But… wait for it… there’s a bit more… about friendship.

We have a new men’s basketball coach at Indiana University. Mike Woodson, who was a star on the great Bob Knight teams of the mid-1970s. The first thing he did was to persuade our star player, Trayce Jackson-Davis, to come back for another year instead of going pro. “I stayed,” Trayce said, “because he told me the things I didn’t want to hear.”

Isn’t that neat? Trayce is only 20 years old, but he’s smart enough to know that a friend will tell you the truth, even if you don’t want to hear it. Mike Woodson has had a long career in the pros. He knows that world. He told Trayce the truth, that even though he’s so very good at basketball in college, he’s not yet ready for the pros. And when a friend tells you the truth, you need to listen.

Which brings me to a woman I won’t name. She is one of a surprisingly large number of people, starting with my ministerial and writing colleague, Fred Skaggs, who have objected to me ending this column. I stopped writing because I was afraid my columns were just self-absorbed falderal that were not useful to anyone else, and my absorption in my own words was keeping me from hearing God’s Word.

This unnamed woman said in an email, “I understand that you want to hear the Word of God clearly in your last years, but God has already spoken clearly to you and said, ‘You’re a story teller.’ So shut up and tell stories.”

She said it much more gently, of course, and less illogically [it’s hard to shut up and tell stories at the same time]. But God speaks truth through friends. When a friend speaks, it’s probably the truth, because that is what friends are for, and you need to listen.

John Robert McFarland

END-OF-PANDEMIC PROBLEMS [M, 5-10-21]

REFLECTIONS ON FAITH & LIFE FOR THE YEARS OF WINTER

END-OF-PANDEMIC PROBLEMS   [M, 5-10-21]

 

At Crumble Bums in Glenn’s Garage this week, Ron told of how he had “gone” to worship in his former church, way back in Pennsylvania, via livestream. That congregation had just opened up for in-person worship again, and he wanted to see how it would go. “There were three people up in front, helping to lead,” he said. “I know them all quite well from when I was in that church. At least, I thought I did. Now they look so decrepit!”

That’s one of the problems with “opening up” after the pandemic—people are going to find out how far we have declined.

Our younger daughter, Katie Kennedy, the author, was here this past weekend. She brought grandson Joe with her. Haven’t seen them “in a coon’s age.” [Coons live 1.8 to 3.1 years, according to Google.] It was delightful to see them, but we were aware it might panic them to see how badly we have deteriorated during the pandemic, causing them to put us into Shady Pines immediately. We don’t want to go to Shady Pines. We don’t want people to think we are a management problem instead of just anti-social curmudgeons. We want to be left alone to play with matches and eat cat food.

We especially worried about making noises. We have become rather free about emitting any sounds that might desire emission, without even a nod to social niceties, since there are never any socially nice people around to hear them. We especially worried about the groaning noises we make when we are trying to get up off the sofa. They make us sound like delirious and dying elephants in the throes of existential angst.

I’m still not writing words, but sung words don’t count, so we decided we would sing from Broadway musicals/movies while they were here, and just incorporate our groans into the scores… Ohhhhhld man river… Ohhhhhhh what a beautiful morning….  Ohhhhhhhklahoma…. In Katie’s case, the nut doesn’t fall far from the tree, so she saw through this. She says that our singing was vastly more frightening than any physical ailments it might be covering.

But, you know, she didn’t look all that good, either. She had so much hair Helen took her to her own hairdresser to get it “trimmed.” Took two men and a boy to sweep it all up off the floor.

Technically, this pandemic isolation has been “only” 13 or 14 months, actually less than the bottom of the coon’s age scale. But it’s been much longer on the deterioration scale. That scale takes in more than months. It has fear and worry and concern and death and isolation and homelessness and joblessness and hunger and fatigue mixed in, too. That takes a much bigger whack at our stasis than just a year of Sundays does, even if all those were stay-at-home Sundays.

Despite our unsuccessful attempts while Katie and Joe were here, I still believe it’s a good idea to sing musicals as we come back into the light, into society. “Over the Rainbow” would be a good place to start…

John Robert McFarland

FOURTH GRADE, REVISITED [Sat, 5-8-21]

REFLECTIONS ON FAITH & LIFE FOR THE YEARS OF WINTER

A whole lot of folks have gotten dogs during the pandemic isolation, which means I meet new dogs all the time as I walk our neighborhood. So, I met Miss Demeanor last week. She was quite eager to get acquainted.

She is a redbone Lab-Weimaraner mix. Just a puppy now, but with paws and jaws that say she will soon be an 80 lb lap puppy. I’m not writing anymore, for fear that my writing of the words will get in the way of my hearing of The Word, but dogs are a well-known way of hearing The Word, since “all dogs go to heaven,” so I thought it was okay to get acquainted with her. As we rubbed ears, her servant girl talked to me, too, although without the rubbing of ears.

In addition to attending to Miss Demeanor’s needs, Mattie is a fourth-grade teacher. I’m sure she’s a good teacher, but I’m not really interested in repeating fourth grade. I was quite satisfied with Miss Betsy Moore for fourth grade.

My first four and ½ years of school were at Lucretia Mott PS # 3, on Rural Street, in the working-class near-east inner-city of Indianapolis. I can remember the names of all my teachers. Except one.

Mrs. Peterson was first grade. She retired immediately after my time in class with her. Apparently, she felt I was the pinnacle of her career. Also, she was rather old.

Then came Mrs. Gilbert in 2^nd grade. She started out as “Miss” Something, but she returned from Christmas break as “Mrs.” Gilbert, which was a bit confusing. She was young and pretty.

Fifth grade was Mrs. VanMeter, an old woman, perhaps 35, but she was really neat, for she read a chapter from some exciting book to us each day after lunch. I lived for finding out what happened next in that story. She was smart; no matter how much we begged her to keep reading, she always stopped when we wanted more. She created a great love of reading, at least in me, and I suspect in the other kids.

And, of course, the Swiss Miss Betsy, of fourth grade. I think I remember her well because I can’t remember a thing about my third-grade teacher. I mean, third grade is a total blank. I was sick a lot in that grade, missing out on most of the multiplication tables and the third verse of “Sweet Betsy from Pike.” As far as my memory is concerned, I didn’t even have a third-grade teacher.

So I must have been ready for academic renewal in fourth grade, especially with Miss Moore being so exotic, from Switzerland and all. I thought “Sweet Betsy” was a song about her, that “Pike” was one of those tall mountains in Switzerland. My parents suggested that I had misunderstood and she was probably from Vevay, the seat of Switzerland County, down on the Ohio River, rather than the real Switzerland, with all the holey cheese, but I prefer to remember her skipping down an Alps slope in a Heidi dress.

Most importantly, though, Miss Moore chose me to be the fourth-grade member of the student council. That was so astounding.  I thought I was the least noticeable kid in the class, and I didn’t even know the sum of 7x7, or what a Shanghai rooster was, even though the song said she had one. But she chose me, anyway!

I don’t remember that said council ever did anything, or even met, but I was quite pleased to be one who ran errands for Miss Moore and got to present official documents to the principal whenever she came to our room for some sort of reckoning, especially since said principal didn’t like me and smacked me across the face whenever she got the chance. Well, only once, but that was the only chance she got, because I figured that since I was smart enough to be on the student council, I was smart enough to avoid her backhand. I don’t remember her name, either, so there!

Anyway, I honor the memory of Miss Betsy Moore, and I hope Ms. Mattie chooses some forlorn kid for the fourth-grade rep to student council at Binford School, even if s/he doesn’t know all the multiplication tables, or all the words to “Sweet Betsy from Pike.”

John Robert McFarland

WE’LL MEET AGAIN-Surviving the Virus War [W, 5-5-21]

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

 

My Reds and the White Sox of Hall of Fame Sports Writer Bob Hammel played a two-game series this week. I figure it will be preview of a repeat of the 1919 World Series, but this time in the WS the Reds will beat the Sox without taint, since the Sox all make way too much money to need to throw any games. 

All this is a preamble to noting that writing about baseball does not void my attempt to hear God’s Word, without the writing of words by me getting in the way, since baseball itself is a well-known pathway directly to the Word of God. As we all know, the Bible itself starts with, “In the big inning…”

Bob Hammel and I are almost the same age. Grew up in opposite ends of Indiana, and lived very similar lives, even though we didn’t meet until 30 years or so ago. So you’d think we might share a common childhood image. But we don’t, not exactly.

Bob says he thinks of himself as a Great Depression kid, because of the effect that had on the people who raised him. Despite our similar age and circumstances, I think of myself not so much as a Great Depression kid but as a WWII kid. Unlike Bob, who was raised in a “peace church,” and who remains a practical pacifist, although he does approve of gas wars, I was pulled in by the glamorous side of war. I glorified soldiers, at least the soldiers on our side. Besides, I had an officer’s uniform, with a Sam Browne belt, and a wooden pistol in case any Nazis got too close. I knew every word of every military service song [except The Coast Guard; they weren’t very obvious in southern Indiana].

WWII was a time of huge loss and anxiety and fear and destruction and deprivation. But I was a kid. That was all I had ever known. I accepted the war time as normal. I just wanted to be on the winning side. I didn’t know yet that there is no winning side in war.

I don’t remember the song, “We’ll meet again” from those days, but it was the quintessential WWII song, or at least one of them. It was especially popular in a recording by Vera Lynn.

We’ll meet again

Don’t know where

Don’t know when

But I know we’ll meet again

Some sunny day

It was a glimmer of hope for families torn apart by loss and death, but it was more than that. It was hope not just that we would meet separated loved ones who survived the days of fighting, but that we would meet again a world being put back together after being torn apart so badly.

It's a song I’m beginning to sing again, because we are all now Covid19 kids—the Covid19 Great Depression and the Covid19 World War. It’s better in Vera Lynn’s voice than mine--and you can find her recordings on YouTube—but it is meaningful even in my croaking. We have survived Covid19—almost. We’ve been torn apart in this world-wide war. We’ve lost loved ones, some “overseas,” out of contact in isolation wards. Some have suffered lasting traumas. But we’ve had some soldiers to glorify, those front-line workers who have battled the virus, fought to keep us alive, to keep us going until we could meet again.

And now, if we can meet again, in person, face to face, there is hope. It’s not yet time for victory songs, for “Happy Days Are Here Again,” because “don’t know where, don’t know when,” but it’s time for a song of hope. We know “we'll meet again, some sunny day.”

John Robert McFarland

THE CHOICE: DEATH FOREVER, OR MORE LIFE [M, 5-3-21]

REFLECTIONS ON FAITH & LIFE FOR THE YEARS OF WINTER

THE CHOICE: DEATH FOREVER, OR MORE LIFE  [M, 5-3-21]

 

My plan of not using words in my final days, so that I can hear the Word without my words getting in its way, does not include talking, just writing, so I talked last week to an old friend. I officiated at her wedding sixty years ago. Her health has deteriorated badly in the last couple of years. She’s home-bound now. “I read a lot,” she said. “Nothing worthwhile. Just trash to pass the time. I see that somebody my age has died, and I get mad. How come they get to go and I don’t? I’m tired. I’m ready to go.”

That happens when our health fails. Sometimes just when we’ve been old for a long time and are getting bored with it all. We’re not sure about what comes next, but we’re getting tired of what is now.

I had a night/day dream this morning, in that first glimmer of consciousness when you’re not sure if you’re awake. I had died, and I was faced with a choice.

I could take death forever. My molecules would be returned to circulation, to become a cicada, or school bus, or maybe a tree. I’ve always thought it would be nice to be a tree. I could just wrap up this life that was called John and that would be the end of it. That seemed okay. It’s been a good life. No need for more.

The other choice was new life. Intriguing. The catch was that it would be the new life I have earned in my old life. Not overly worrisome. I’ve lived decently. Plenty of original sin selfishness, but worked out in minor ways. No egregious sins, like murder or refusing to get vaccinated. Loved as best I could. Tried to be helpful to others. So, I have surely earned a decent new life. Maybe not enough to appear in a Suburu commercial, but at least worthy of Geico motorcycle insurance.

But I’ve been old for a long time, too. I’m tired. The idea of starting over is forbidding. The thought of “forever” is daunting, even though every day I sing the IU fight song that says includes “Never daunted, we never falter, in the battle we’re tried and true…” Well, yes, but in that game, I have to be undaunted for only sixty minutes. Forever? That’s a different game, for sure!

Reminds me of one of my very first sermon illustrations, about eternal life. The young man has gone to his girlfriend’s house for supper. She is a new cook and has fed him an execrable meal. After supper she sits on his lap and says, “Just think. When we’re married, I can feed you like this forever.” He thinks, “Forever?!? I don’t think I can stand this forever.” [Yes, it’s a dated and sexist sermon illustration, but it was just standard stuff in 1956.]

I guess the bottom line is: whatever comes. If it’s all over, if there’s nothing more “when my eyes are closed in death,” that’s okay. It’s fun to think of my molecules getting to do new stuff. If there’s more, though, well, I hope you’re there, too.

John Robert McFarland