POTPOURRI: PERFECT ATTENDANCE TO WALK THERAPY [6-4-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—POTPOURRI: PERFECT ATTENDANCE TO WALK THERAPY [6-4-23]

 

PERFECT ATTENDANCE

My friend, Ron, told me of going to his granddaughter’s 8^th grade graduation, which was mostly an awards night. The very first award was for perfect attendance. There was only one kid who, for 8 years, had never been absent or tardy. They called out his name. He wasn’t there!

When we told grandson Joe, he said it would be worth going to school on time every day for 8 years just to be able to pull that off.

 

TOOTIEHEADS

When our granddaughter was in kindergarten, she reported to her mother one day that a classmate had been sent to the principal’s office because he called another child a “tootiehead.” “Do you know what a tootiehead is?” Katie asked. “No, but apparently the teacher does.”

ROCK THE VOTE

I received an email from Rock the Vote, a non-partisan organization “working to be sure young people are enfranchised in the political system,” to remind me to vote, for “our voices count.” That’s one of my nicest compliments ever.

 

18^TH CENTURY GREATS

On line, I came across a list of the 100 greatest people of the 18^th century. Marie Antoinette made the list. So did Benedict Arnold and the Marquis de Sade. So did Indiana’s own Wm Henry Harrison. And Black Beard, the pirate. John Wesley did not. In fact, there were figures from politics and science and literature and economics and music and philosophy and war, but no religion people at all.

 

A MAN CALLED OTIS

Otis Collier was my District Superintendent in the Calumet District of The Northwest Indiana Conference, while I was pastoring at Cedar Lake and Creston, while driving back and forth, 60 miles each way, to Garrett Theological Seminary, at Northwestern University, in Evanston, IL.

Helen says I should tell you about the reunion Otis went to each year.

The Calumet District was basically Lake County—Gary, Hammond, East Chicago, etc. Plus Crown Point, the county seat, and the smaller towns in the south end of the county, like Cedar Lake and Lowell. Otis had been out to one of his churches and was driving back to his home when a freak April snow storm hit without warning. It was huge. The highway traffic came to a standstill. Otis was on a back road. He trudged up to a farm house. They took him in.

Soon, other motorists arrived. Then a passenger train—yes, a train! It came to a halt near the farm. The passengers made their way across the farm fields to the house. The place was full! The farm family got out all their supplies and fed everybody. They were all there for almost two full days.

“We had such a good time,” Otis said. “We all gave the farm folks all the money we could muster up. Now, every year, on the date of that storm, we all go back. It’s a family reunion, but we’re not family. It’s church, but we’re not a church. It’s just… people… being what people ought to be…” 

 

TALK THERAPY OR WALK THERAPY

So many people have gone to counseling, what is called “talk therapy,” over the last few decades that it has now been studied empirically. Big surprise: The evidence is that it is useful for some folks and not for others.

I think walk therapy is best, as when Jesus says, “Come, follow me.”

John Robert McFarland