CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter
[Self-indulgent navel gazing again, and too long, so caveat emptor.]
One of the tasks of old age is looking over your life and accepting it. Yes, that’s who I am, “warts and all.” I never understood myself very well. I thought I did, but…
Up to old age, I probably would have described myself as calm, patient, cerebral, logical, careful. In truth, I was hasty, impatient, emotional, and foolhardy. It has been a wrench to get turned around to see my life as it really was. I was primarily an impulsive and audacious guy.
My impulsiveness and audacity sometimes made trouble for me and for others, but I have to accept it—that’s who I was. I guess it’s who I am still, except I have fewer opportunities for rash actions now.
It started when I was 14. Impulsively, I promised God I would be a preacher if “He” would save my sister’s life. What followed wasn’t entirely my fault; I mean, who would think God would take a deal like that?
Then, after trying to ignore that deal for five years, I went to the District Superintendent and told him I might want, maybe, someday, to be a preacher. He said, “Good, you can start next Sunday.” Any sober, careful person would have said, “Wait a minute!” Instead, impulsively, I said, “Where?”
Having been married for three months, I dropped Helen off at class one day [She was a college senior when we married.] and picked her up an hour later, in a brand-new car, because it doesn’t take me long to decide to buy a car, and it never occurred to me that one should mention that to a wife before doing it. She explained to me, patiently, why that would never happen again, but it didn’t stop me from buying cars for others, like family members, that way.
When I was campus minister at Indiana State U, I saw a bunch of little kids at the Hyte Community Center hanging around on a dusty playground with no equipment and nothing to do. I didn’t ask anybody’s permission or advice. I just put out a call for INSU kids to be tutors at Hyte. I expected six or seven at the first meeting. There were 80. We had a program! But that required a new board and a new budget and a new building. I didn’t have authority to form any of those, but so what? I didn’t ask the current board. I got my friend Andre’ Hammonds, and we formed a new board and built a new building.
While campus minister at Illinois State U, Dr. Jim Collie announced his retirement as basketball coach. I wrote Milt Weisbecker, the AD, and told him to hire Will Robinson, the hugely successful black high school in Detroit, as the first black coach at a white university, which would give us a great recruiting advantage. In old files this week, I discovered a letter from Milt saying that per my “request,” he was sending Will application materials. Milt and Will made history.
Also while campus minister at IL State U, in Normal, IL, Charles Morris got his PhD in math from the U of IL and was hired at ILSU. He was told he would have to live in the twin city of Bloomington since blacks were not allowed to live in Normal. That was clearly wrong, so I started an “Open Housing” campaign to change the law. It was successful. Charles bought on the block behind ours—the big houses, we lived in the servant quarter houses-- and eventually became VP of ILSU.
When I pastored in Charleston, IL, I read a bunch of articles that said the big churches in the UMC were failing and nobody was doing anything about it. So, I started SADMOB, Senior And Directing Ministers Of Bigchurches. Just called up the pastors of the 20 biggest churches in the conference and invited them to a meeting, so that we could share ideas. Every one of them came, every month.
When I turned my cancer journal into a book, I didn’t know I had to have an agent to submit it to publishers. I had read a cancer book published by AndrewsMcMeel, so I figured they liked that sort of thing. I didn’t send a query; just sent them my manuscript. I got a call from Donna Martin, the VP, who said, “We really want this. We’ll send the contract to your agent.” “I don’t have an agent.” “You mean… we deal with you?” Well…yes.
When I wrote my reminiscences about ministry, The Strange Calling, I sent it to Dave Barry, the humorist, and told him he should write a blurb for it. He wrote me a note, by hand, “How’s about, John Robert McFarland is a wise and funny man?” I didn’t realize he should have said, “John Robert McFarland is an audacious and annoying man, who thinks he should be able to approach celebrities and ask them for favors.” But Dave is like that.
Well, there’s more, but that’s more than enough to get the point across.
Now, I tell you all this in part, of course, because I’m proud of all these things. Because I was impulsive, since I didn’t know any better, I was able to accomplish some good stuff. [I’ll tell you about all the impulsive stuff that went wrong in a later column-not!]
The point, though… I think… is this: if you learn in old age that you were somebody else all those other years, different from the person you thought you were, both of those persons are okay.
John Robert McFarland
Being Christian isn’t trying
to be good, it is trying to be real.
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