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.”