GETTING THE NAME RIGHT [R, 11-21-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Confusions of an Old Man—GETTING THE NAME RIGHT [R, 11-21-24]

 

I’ve never quite understood why Oriental is a bad word. I have no problem using Asian instead of Oriental, but I grew up thinking they were the same thing. Looking it up on line, one distinction is that Oriental should be used for objects, like rugs, but not people. I get that. Persons and objects are not the same thing. But aren’t people in the Orient Orientals, like people in America are Americans?

Don’t get me wrong. I think people should be called what they wish. However, I’ve never had an Oriental person tell me to call them Asian, but I’ve had quite a few American people tell me to call Oriental people Asians.

Am I sounding like an old crank yet? No, “crank” is impolite. You should call me a person of crankiness. You can call a person anything if you put “person of…” first.

Another explanation for Asian instead of Oriental is that it’s just outmoded. We no longer say Negro for instance, even though that was once the preferred, or “polite” term for folks of African descent. But Negro is a term from the days of slavery and segregation.

Well, yes, I understand outmoded. Descriptive words, especially where race and gender categories are concerned, change so rapidly, and no one quite understands why. I suspect it’s because young people always want to say that the words they inherit are outmoded, so that they can create their own generational language. That’s okay. Maybe necessary.

When I was the Methodist campus minister at Illinois State University in the 1960s-70s, that university hired its first black professor, Charles Morris, in mathematics. I was the host of a late-night program on WGLT, the campus radio program. I invited Charles for an interview. In the course of our conversation, I referred to Black folks. He gently corrected me. “The proper word is Negro.”

No, it wasn’t. It had been, but the Black kids I hung around with on campus thought Negro was an Uncle Tom term. They wanted to be called Black precisely because it was wrong. So, in that way, it became right. No one is called Negro anymore, just as no one is called Oriental.

Well, I’m glad that’s settled. Next, I’m going to tackle the difference between Hispanic and Latino and Latinx, and which one is outmoded and which one is “correct.” Be patient with me, though. I may not live long enough to get that one right!

And please don’t ask me about homosexual and queer and gay and…

The point is…even though we are old, and it’s hard to transition from one correct word to the new correct word, we need to work at it. It’s not that hard to be respectful. People will appreciate the effort. Asians and Blacks and… oh, wait a minute… I think they’re Colored now… no, that’s not right… People Of Color… is that it… well, at least I understand the people part, regardless of the category.

Be patient with me! And with yourself!

John Robert McFarland

 

 

HOW TO BE A DIGNIFED OLD MAN [T, 11-19-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—HOW TO BE A DIGNIFED OLD MAN [T, 11-19-24]

 

Daughter Katie Kennedy, the author, was recently recalling one of our family reunions when she was a college student. The McFarlands are a big clan, eight in my father’s generation, and this particular reunion was larger than usual, because the Smiths, my Grandma Mac’s family, were included. Most of the Smiths had not come before, and one of the older Smiths picked Katie to help with identifications. She pointed at me. “Who is that man?” “That’s John McFarland.” She laughed. “Yes, I know that’s John McFarland, but who is he?”

It took quite a while before they figured out that Viola Smith thought I, in my late 40s, looked just like my great-grandfather, John White McFarland, and she thought that is what Katie meant by calling me John McFarland.

When Katie figured it out, she explained, “That’s John Robert McFarland, son of John Francis and Mildred McFarland.” “Oh,” said Aunt Viola. [1]

I’m not sure I’d heard that story before, but I’m glad I have now. I’m glad that I looked like my great-grandfather, for he was an interesting man.

He was fourteen when The Civil War broke out. He lied about his age and joined the Union navy, serving on a gun boat on the Ohio River. He got some fatal disease and was mustered out with a pension “for life.” The government assumed he would die soon. Too bad. They didn’t realize what it meant to deal with a John McFarland. He lived to be 104.

He was a farmer, but because he had a pension--not really very big, but big enough--his real vocation was reading. Books were hard to come by, but he would borrow from anybody who had one. Books were precious, though, so it was a point of honor with him, that he would return a borrowed book the very next day. He would walk to some near-by town to borrow a book, read it as he walked home, sit up with fire light or lamp light and read through the night, and finish his reading as he walked the book back home the next day. [2]

I met him once, when he was the age I am now, and I was about four. He was a dignified old man in a black suit and tie and shoes, and white shirt.

Without intending to copy my great-grandfather, I always assumed I would be a dignified old man, the kind who has a black cane with a silver knob on top, who wears a fedora that he tips to ladies, who speaks kindly and politely to women and children, and wisely to younger men, and who leaves a cloud of gentle good cheer in his wake.

To this point I have been asking children to trade hair with me, since they have so much and I have so little. I have been telling old ladies on walkers that they are clogging up the aisle at church. I tell young men that the secret to a good marriage is the absence of communication. When wait persons ask if we have any questions, I say, “Yes; what is the meaning of life?” I leave a cloud of confusion in my wake.

I may look like John McFarland, but so far, I’m a lot more like John Robert McFarland than John White McFarland. If I am going to be a dignified gentleman in my old age, I need to get started on it very soon now. First, I need a fedora…

John Robert McFarland

1] My father was named for both his grandfathers—John White McFarland and Francis Marion Smith. He was the second son, but the first was named Arthur Glenn, for his father, Arthur Harrison, so John and Francis were both still available when my father was born. Strangely, neither my grandfather nor his first-born son went by Arthur. They were Harry and Glenn. Uncle Glenn was known as a great berry-picker. When he visited us on our farm shortly after we moved there, when I was ten or eleven, he took me berry-picking and taught this city boy to tie kerosene-soaked strings around my ankles to keep chiggers from crawling up my legs and getting into places where you don’t want an itchy chigger bite.

2] He was the model for the character named John White in my Christmas story, “Sheets for Christmas,” about how walking reader John White fools a KKK bunch into providing Christmas for a black family.

 

IT’S IN THE BIBLE…MAYBE [Sun, 11-17-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—IT’S IN THE BIBLE…MAYBE [Sun, 11-17-24]

 

I looked for my Arndt & Gingrich Greek-English lexicon this morning. I wanted to look up the use of some New Testament word. Of course I couldn’t find the lexicon. I don’t have any of my Greek and Hebrew language helps anymore. There was a time when I had a whole shelf full. They have gradually disappeared, just as those languages in my brain have gradually disappeared.

I miss those books. I was never a very good scholar of the Bible languages, but I got satisfaction from working at it. It seemed like what a serious preacher should do, exegete the scriptures of the coming sermon in their original languages.

Well, I do I have an inter-linear, Greek & English [KJV] New Testament, that I use once in a while for break-of-day Bible study, when I’m suspicious of the paraphrasers, especially the jargon “translators.” My Ethics professor, Henry Kolbe, used to say, “The surest way to be irrelevant tomorrow is to be too relevant today.” Jargon is too relevant. It changes so rapidly. What is “dope” today becomes “sick” tomorrow and is almost immediately replace by “brat.” [1] But jargon translations usually get a laugh when used for the scripture reading in Sunday worship, so they are popular. And they really are easier to understand.

The question, though, is: are they accurate? Are we understanding what the Bible writer said in the original language, or are we understanding what some jargon repeater thinks? Or, more importantly, what some jargon listener hears?

The Living Bible [1971]is a paraphrase, not a translation, done by Kenneth N. Taylor for good reasons, so that his children could better understand the Bible passages they used in family devotions. It has been criticized for being both too conservative and too Arminian [free will, 2]. The first criticism is probably valid, since in the original printing, the introduction even said it was written to make it more conservative. That was dropped in later printings. I have to recuse myself on the charge of too Arminian, since I am myself a Wesleyan Arminian.

More than any other type of language, jargon is open to the interpretation of the hearer. Especially when a word that already has a common meaning is appropriated to mean something else.  Dope and sick and brat are probably going to mean something quite different to me than they mean to anyone else.

Jargon is fun. If I say something silly, and a friend says, “Get out of here,” I know it is not meant literally. At least, I hope not. If my friend answers with “Twenty-three skidoo,” well, you know they’re really old!

Jargon is probably necessary as well as fun. But not for the Bible. Best, I think, to stick with the translations of someone who still has an Arndt & Gingrich.

John Robert McFarland

1] “Brat” is the name of the new album by Charli XCX, released just this recent June 7, so it is the current word for the Gen Z and millennial lifestyle, which according to Ms MCX is “…very honest, very blunt, a little bit volatile.” [I had no idea that such a lifestyle is new.]

2] Arminian means free will, [what you do on earth makes a difference about where you’ll spend eternity] as expressed by Jacobus Arminius, rather than predestinarian, [what you do on earth makes no difference since God already knows whether you’ll go to heaven or hell] as espoused by John Calvin, in the Protestant Reformation.

MANAGING OLD PEOPLE [F, 11-15-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—MANAGING OLD PEOPLE [F, 11-15-24]

 

Long-time friend Bob Hammel, the great Hoosier sports writer, had to move recently, with wife Julie, to a retirement home, because neither of them can drive now. Bob and I have always shared coffee and conversation together, so I go out for a morning each week, to drink from the cup that never runs dry, continuing that eternal conversation. [Which is more upbeat this year since Indiana U actually has a football team, rather than a bunch of guys who run around the field doing football-like activities without actually playing football.]

Bob and I often talk about the changes that old age brings, and how old people don’t need as much help as younger people think we do. Well, we might need it, but we don’t want it.

Younger people think that what we need most is security; we should sit in a chair and never move, so that we don’t fall. We don’t want to fall, but we don’t want just to sit in that chair, either. Unless we feel like it. Then we want to be left alone instead of doing the “socializing” that younger people think we need. [I don’t think younger people are going to come out very well in this column, regardless of what they do.]

I was touting independence in one of our conversations, on the theory that any skills and knowledge we suspend, we’ll end up being unable to do at all, so that it’s important to keep doing it so we don’t lose it. Bob, who is a truly wise man, said, “More importantly is the sense of self-worth you get by being able to keep doing things for yourself.”

Well, yes, and that’s where I had the most trouble when I was doing things for my parents when they were in their 80s and 90s, and I was a younger person, in my 50s and 60s.

The problem was: my parents wanted to do for themselves, and they couldn’t. My father was blind and my mother was basically an invalid. Helen and I would work out some plan for them, sometimes at their request, and at the last minute, they’d play fruit-basket-upset. They became both a frustration and a management problem.

Even though it wasn’t exactly my fault—because they really were a management problem—I still feel bad about treating them as such. They probably did not even notice, because they were wrapped up in their own emotions and relationships, and I was surprisingly patient. [And my wife was unsurprisingly competent.] But I knew that I was treating them like a management problem rather than like my parents. I was treating them like I would treat any other cantankerous old person, and, as a pastor, I had plenty of experience with cantankerous old people.

Is there a life lesson here for old people? One I can apply myself? Yes. Don’t be a management problem for your children… oh, wait, that doesn’t sound quite right… oh, here we go… Don’t be a management problem…

John Robert McFarland

THE GREAT ASSUMER [W, 11-13-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Lyrics of An Old Man—THE GREAT ASSUMER [W, 11-13-24]

 

I have been asked several times recently how people can go on these days, in the midst of great disappointments, with little hope. Well, do what I do, and assume that everything will be okay. Just be an assumer…

Remember The Great Pretender song? Buck Ram wrote it as a classic lost love song; he pretends he’s okay, even though she has left him. The Platters had a big hit with it in November of 1955.

Being a hopeless romantic myself, it spoke to me. As it hit the airwaves, I was in my first semester at IU. I had just had a disastrous experience with my first college girlfriend, and also with first semester mid-terms. I realized that I was pretending to be a college guy, able to win the affection of girls and the plaudits of professors, when I didn’t know how.

My biggest problem, though, was not pretending. It was assuming. I assumed I knew more than I really did. Assuming has dogged me my whole life, so this is my theme song…

[You can hear The Platters sing The Great Pretender on You Tube to get the melody.]

THE GREAT ASSUMER

Oh, yes, I’m the great assumer

Assuming I know what to do

Directions I eschew

I already know what to do

At least, I assume that is true

Assuming I know what to do

 

Oh, yes I’m the great assumer

I’m sure that I know where it is

I drive up and down

All ‘round the town

Enclosed in a great cloud of bliss

Even though I don’t know where it is

 

I look for your face

But it’s not in this place

 

Oh, yes, I’m the great assumer

I’m sure the parts are all there

I forge on ahead

Instructions I can’t bear

So where does this last thing go

I really have no way to know

 

Oh, yes, I’m the great assumer

Baby, a hard rain won’t fall

Although prognosticated

It is now belated

Surely it won’t be coming

Oh, I’d better start running

 

To the church I drive

But it’s no longer alive…

 

Oh, yes, I’m the great assumer

Dreaming of heaven above

I know I’ll go there

Eternal bliss I shall share

Until they see my sins on a scroll

Then they’ll tell me where else I can go

 

John Robert McFarland

 

VETERAN’S DAY REGRET [M, 11-11-24]

 BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of an Old Man—VETERAN’S DAY REGRET [M, 11-11-24]

 

One of my semi-regrets is that I did not serve in the military. No, I did not have bone spurs, like some people claimed to get out of military service.

I certainly expected to be in one military branch or another. I grew up during the draft. Unless you had some excuse, like a bad heart, or you were a preacher, you automatically had to serve two years. I was in good health, and certainly didn’t intend to be a preacher.

If you didn’t volunteer for the branch you wanted, the Selective Service just told you where to go. My eyesight wasn’t bad, but I wore glasses, so I figured the Air Force was out. Also the Navy, since I couldn’t swim and didn’t want to. Probably the Marines, since my beloved Uncle Johnny had been a Marine in WWII. But the Army would be okay. Uncles Randall and Bob and Mike had been in hard combat in WWII.

Those WWII guys were real heroes. Not the way we say "hero" now, just anyone who wears a uniform, but men, some very young, who asked not what their country could do for them, but did what they could for their country, regardless of the cost. I wanted to be like them. I think all boys did.

When I was starting high school, several of the junior and senior guys joined the National Guard. They said it was easy money. They just drove thirty miles to the armory at Evansville once in a while and marched around. Then Korea. Their Guard unit was activated. They went to Korea. Hadn’t finished high school. Some just seventeen. Some did not return, and those who did became criminals and wife beaters.

I was too young for Korea and too old for Viet Nam. Besides, by the time Nam came up, I was married, with two children. And I was a preacher.

In high school, I thought I had totally suppressed my promise to God that I would be a preacher if “He” would save my sister’s life. “He” did. I didn’t. So I went to college to become a newspaper reporter.

In my college, though, all male students had to take two years of ROTC. IU had both Air Force and Army ROTC, but we didn’t get to choose. I was assigned to the Army.

I liked it. Uniforms and ranks and orders were right up my alley. I was gung ho. I became the ROTC unit’s DFMS, Distinguished Freshman Military Student. I joined the elite Pershing Rifles. I was going to do four years of ROTC and be an officer in the regular army. Career man. RA all the way.

Then, in the summer before my sophomore year, my deal with God caught up with me. By the time I returned to IU for my second year of ROTC, I was a preacher with three churches. I was no longer interested in a military career, or even ROTC.

The cadre, the teaching officers, didn’t understand, and I didn’t want to tell them. It seemed a bit shameful to drop out of the military, because that’s what it was—dropping out. Even my Selective Service status changed. I was no longer draftable.

Sure, I could have volunteered, but we were without a war then. Korea was done. So what was the point? I was headed for three years of graduate theological school after IU. Besides, I had met a really cute girl. My future was marriage, not military.

I have always honored military folks, active and retired. I tried to be a helpful and understanding pastor to veterans. Sometimes I tried to support soldiers by opposing wars, In the words of Pete Seeger, “Support our boys in Viet Nam, bring them home, bring them home.”

I’ve always been a realist follower of Reinhold Niebuhr about war, though. I’d like to be a pacifist, but I can’t. There are times when you have to oppose evil with force.

On a day like today, though, at all the concerts, the band will play the songs of each of the military branches, and those who served in that branch will stand. I will hum along. I know all the words to all those songs, the WWII words and the more modern versions, too. I say a word of thanks for all who have served, especially those, like the older high school boys I admired, who did not return from war. And I feel a bit of regret that I can’t stand during one of those songs.

John Robert McFarland

THANKS FOR THE THORN [Sat, 11-9-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—THANKS FOR THE THORN [Sat, 11-9-24]

 

My first reaction is the same, every time—irritation, frustration, disgust.

For the last 36 years, my surgically-reduced semi-colon has required me, every day, to stop what I’m doing, with no more than 30 seconds notice, and dash to the toilet. Usually during my early morning hours, my best hours for thinking and writing. When that short notice starts, as I have just ascertained the meaning of the universe but have not yet had time to write it down, I think, Not again! But that is a notice that will not be denied, and by the time I have gotten back to my keyboard, the meaning of life is no longer remembered.

It's my cross to bear. Well, no, it isn’t. It’s not a cross. It’s a blessing. It’s a reminder, of how blessed I am.

It’s similar to the thorn in the apostle Paul’s flesh. [II Corinthians 12:7-9] It certainly started in the same way. I had a pain in my flesh that the surgeon discovered was a tumor penetrating my bowel wall. Had I not had the thorn in the flesh, that sent me to the operating room at midnight on my birthday, I would probably not be alive today.

Paul’s thorn? We’re not sure what it was. He obviously was not speaking of a literal thorn, but it was something—either physical or emotional—that caused him real pain, so much so that he had repeatedly asked God to remove it from him. But God said, “My grace is sufficient for you. My strength is made perfect in weakness.” So, Paul counted his pain as a blessing. It kept him humble, a constant reminder that he was the same as everyone else, that he needed the grace of God.

So, I have learned to ignore that initial frustration and anger at my semi-colon, for interrupting my great thoughts, for I know that it is actually a blessing. For one thing, that semi-colon, although decreased in size and controls, has given me 34 years, when my first oncologist said I’d have only one or two. In those 34 years, I’ve gotten to walk my daughters down the aisle, and play with my grandchildren as they have grown up, and go from 31 years of marriage to 65. And preach the Gospel of Good News. And live it.

There are other thorns we must deal with these days, thorns in the soul as well as the flesh. And yes, my first reaction is still the same, every time—irritation, frustration, disgust. That’s being human. Don’t sweat it if you react that way to your thorn. Just ask God to remove it, and you’ll get the same answer Paul did: “My grace is sufficient for you…”

Go forth in pain, giving thanks for your thorn, to live in love.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

ELECTION POST MORTEM [R, 11-7-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—ELECTION POST MORTEM [R, 11-7-24]

 

In the aftermath of the election, I am thinking of Augustine of Hippo--who by the time he died was Augustine of Rome, and who became St. Augustine--because he was the James Madison of Christian theology. Yes, it was Madison who was the primary writer of The Constitution, and Augustine was the primary theologian who gave us Substitutionary Atonement, The Trinity, and Original Sin, with the transmission of said Original Sin through sex.

 

When Augustine died, he could hear the shouts of the barbarians at the gates of Rome. He knew that the Pax Romana of the great Roman Empire was at an end. He had given his life to making Christianity both palatable and primary in the Roman Empire, and he died knowing that all his work was for naught. The vandals, those without the law, were taking over.

As a young man in Hippo, Augie had no interest in theology, or anything but his own pleasure. His mother, Monica, was a Christian, though, and she prayed devoutly for her son to be converted. Instead, he decided to go to Rome, because there were many and better fleshpots there. Monica prayed even more devoutly. “Don’t let him go to Rome, God. He’ll be lost forever.” Augie went anyway, and there, by chance, he heard Anselm preach his famous bee hive sermon. [2] He was converted, and set about making Christianity acceptable to the legalistic Roman culture and philosophy, which is why the simple belief “…in Jesus Christ, and him crucified” became a huge and impenetrable edifice of conflicting legalisms.

Two points: Monica’s prayer was answered the way she wanted, conversion for her son, even though it wasn’t answered the way she prayed. If Aug had not gone to Rome, he would not have heard Anselm and become a Christian.

And he would not have developed the theology that was so completely in sync with Roman philosophy and culture and government that it became The Roman Catholic [universal] Church—not The Jesus Universal Church.

Second Point: Augustine was a serious and devoted Christian. He really wanted everyone in the Roman Empire to be able to become Christian. He worked to that end. But as he died, he heard the barbarians at the gate. Original sin was going to overwhelm from without rather than from within, and all the work of his life was completely useless.

But the church went on. Lots of bad times along the way, some periods were so bad they were called the dark ages. And Augustine’s theology is triumphant, available for a Hoosier hillbilly to take issue with it.

The bottom line, I think, was said by John Wesley as he died: “The best thing is, God is with us.”

There are plenty of times that we don’t know the way or the will of God, but we can still know the presence of God.

John Robert McFarland

1] He died twelve years younger than I am now.

2] The church is like a bee hive, with one queen bee, and lots of workers, etc. It’s why the sports teams at St. Ambrose University in Davenport, IA are called The Bees, and why I give “Ambrose” as my pickup name at restaurants. [Don’t spend too much time thinking about that last part.]

 

FRAGILE IN THE TRANSITIONS [T, 11-5-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—FRAGILE IN THE TRANSITIONS [T, 11-5-24]

 

I started to get up off the sofa and thought, “This would be a good time to go do something stupid.”

My ability range for doing stupid stuff is rather narrow anymore. It’s mostly, “This would be a good time to go eat something bad for me.” When I was younger, though, I had a wide range of stupidity possibilities. “This would be a good time to tell the bishop what’s wrong with him,” followed by “This would be a good time to apply for a PhD program…” Once you start stupid stuff, it gains momentum.

I hardly ever considered the stupidity possibilities, though, except when I was in transition, from one place to another, from one activity to another, from one…

Helen had a yoga instructor who said, “We are fragile in the transitions.” She meant when moving from one yoga position to another, of course, but I find that it is true emotionally and spiritually, too. My brain and body are always ready to do stupid stuff, but the urge to stupidity is greatest in the transitions.

I don’t understand that. I can be perfectly happy, staid in place, writing a mundane poem or an irrelevant column, with no hint of stupidity rising, but then…yes, it’s usually my bladder that requires me to get up, and I think, “Well, as long as I’m up anyway, what stupid thing can I do?”

It’s never, “Well, as long as I’m up, I could take out the garbage.” No, it’s “As long as I’m up, I could go look at new cars and surprise Helen with a Morris Minor or 2025 Bel Air that looks like the 1956 model.” [1]

I think that we have learned from Trump’s Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol that even as a nation, we are fragile in the transitions. As long as I’m up here, what stupid thing can I do?

Actually, for me, at least, I think it comes from trying to follow Jesus. Have you ever noticed that it was in the transitions that the disciples did stupid stuff? They would be doing fine, taking the roof off somebody’s house so they could lower a sick person down to Jesus to heal them, but when they got out on the road, that’s when the stupidity came out. “Hey, Jesus, can I get a special place in your Kingdom, even though I’m no more deserving than anybody else?” Then, of course, “You don’t deserve a special place; you’re stupid.” “No, you are!” That’s the surest way not to get what you want.

Well, I guess the point is: Be careful in the transitions. What I do in the transitions, when that stupidity urge comes, I think about going out to the road beside our house, where Jesus is passing by, and I get in behind. The way is straight and narrow, so there are no transitions.

John Robert McFarland

1] Blame this on old friend, Jim Bortell.

ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT…ALMOST? [Sun, 11-3-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of an Old Man—ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT…ALMOST? [Sun, 11-3-24]

 

I had totally forgotten about the time I decided to become an advisor to Bobby Kennedy in his run for the presidency in 1968, until the strange life of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has appeared to remind me of a memory placed long ago in the back of my non-worm-eaten brain—the time I decided to be the Protestant/youth advisor to the middle-aged Catholic running for president, Robert F. Kennedy, Sr.

I never intended to be part of the Civil Rights movement, or any other movement. I just wanted to get an education and a pretty wife and have people think I was a good preacher. And be a decent Christian.

The movements of history, though, like time and tide, “wait for no man.” When you are confronted with a moral issue, you have to take a stance. I became a part of the Civil Rights movement just one decision at a time, trying to be a decent Christian, trying to do the right thing at that particular moment. 

The same thing happened with my opposition to the Viet Nam war. I was a campus minister in the days of Viet Nam. My kids were going off to war. I first supported the war, and then learned that our own government was lying to us, that the war was unwinnable, that we were sending young men off to die because, as both Johnson and Nixon said, “I don’t intend to be the first president to lose a war.” It was madness.

There were challengers, though, who said we could do better. When presidential aspirant Eugene McCarthy was asked if he could end the war if he were president, he replied, “Anyone who is president can end the war.” I liked “Clean Gene,” but I thought Bobby Kennedy had a better chance of winning the presidency, and thus of ending the war. I decided to back him.

Not just back him. Work for him. Not just as a volunteer. On his staff.

I thought he needed someone on staff who could advise the Boston Catholic how to deal with Midwest Protestants. Moreover, he needed someone who knew how to communicate with young people. Who better than a Methodist campus minister?

I was afraid to tell anyone. I knew they would ridicule me for thinking I could get onto RFK’s staff, even make contact with him. But I was determined. We needed to end that war. Bobby could do it. I could help him.

So I laid out my plan. I made lists. I collected resources. I put them in folders. I looked over his current staff. I started writing my pitch, why he needed me. I had no idea how to make the necessarily deep connection, but I was sure I could figure it out. I was committed. We had to end that war! Now, how would I explain this to my wife?

Then…RFK was assassinated. It made no difference to me personally. My life would go on as it had been. But…what about Bob? His family? The nation? All those boys—American and Vietnamese--yet to die in the tunnels and ride paddies?

I still have all those ideas I was going to use to help RFK. It’s a different kind of war now, but the nation is just as divided as it was then. I wonder if my ideas could be adjusted to work for a Baptist instead of a Catholic? I wonder how I’m going to explain this to my wife

John Robert McFarland

 

STUPID VOTING [F, 11-1-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Sort Of Relevant Musings of An Old Man—STUPID VOTING [F, 11-1-24]

 

When I learned that the Potter & Brumfield electric relays factory in the county seat was hiring, I went immediately. I really needed a job. There were only two requirements: you had to be 18, and you had to pass the entrance exam.

I had not graduated high school, but they didn’t care about that; I was 18. And I aced the exam. I was hired on the spot.

The quality engineer who gave the exams was impressed by my score. That pleased me, but surprised me, because the exam seemed quite easy. No dates to remember, no equations to prove, no predicate nominatives to place or match case.

Mr. Pohl explained that the exam wasn’t about such things. “We are trying to see if you can think,” he said. “More than half of those who take the exam fail it. They can’t think.”

In civics class, our teachers extolled the high voter turnout we had in our county. But as I heard Mr. Pohl, I realized that more than half of those voters couldn’t think well enough to do a job on a factory line. But there is no test for voting. Those folks have been voting for 70 years. Those still alive will vote again in November. All without being able to think.

My friend and former pastor, Paul Mallory, used to remind me that half of all voters are below average. They are highly motivated to vote, because they want to show the above-average people that their below-average stupidity is just as good as above-average intelligence.

There was a TV commercial a few years ago featuring the founding fathers working on the Constitution, replete with powdered wigs and knee stockings. I can’t remember what product they were touting, but I do remember that as Jefferson argued for the right of all citizens to vote, one of the others incredulously said, “You mean even the stupid ones?”

Well, yes. But if you are not stupid, be sure to vote, for the founding fathers had you in mind…way back then.

John Robert McFarland

THE NECESSITY OF A DOCTORAL DEGREE [W, 10-30-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—THE NECESSITY OF A DOCTORAL DEGREE [W, 10-30-24]

 

I am showing appreciation to pastors at the close of Pastor Appreciation Month [Can you believe October is almost gone already?] by bestowing a doctoral degree on anyone who has a three-year seminary [school of theology] degree. I am doing this by the authority invested in me by Common Sense.

Ministers are the only professionals who do not receive a doctorate upon completion of three years of specialized graduate work. Scholars get Doctor of Philosophy degrees. Physicians get Doctor of Medicine degrees. Dentists get Doctor of Dental Surgery degrees. Veterinarians receive Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degrees. Lawyers get Doctor of Jurisprudence degrees. Physical therapists get DPT degrees.

Ministers just get Master of Divinity degrees. [1] Anybody else gets a master’s degree for one year of work. If you want a DMin, Doctor of Ministry, you have to do a fourth year.

In my day, we didn’t even get Master’s degrees. I have a BD, Bachelor of Divinity. Four years at university and three years in seminary and two bachelor degrees. Later, when someone pointed out the disparity with other professions, my seminary said that for $20 they would send me a post-it note for my diploma that said they meant for it to be a Master’s. I didn’t have $20, because the job they prepared me for didn’t pay minimum wage, so I still have only two bachelor’s degrees. [Well, also a doctorate from a Godless state university that I did another three years for.]

And they are, of course, right. Preachers should not have doctoral degrees. Seven years of education to be a preacher? Seven days is probably six days too much.

All that education is not necessary for church leadership. Anybody can get up out of the pew and lead a worship service or a funeral. [2] Or ordain, or serve communion, or baptize—according to the denomination. Education for ministry is unnecessary. Superfluous. Maybe even counter-productive.

You really don’t want anybody getting up from the pew and giving you a colonoscopy, or drilling on your teeth, or arguing your case. The people who do that stuff need all that advanced education. But anybody can say, “Let’s all pray together: Our Father…”

So, for Pastor Appreciation Month, if you have a three-year seminary degree, so that you can be called “Doctor” like everybody else, here is your DSK—Doctor of Superfluous Knowledge.

John Robert McFarland

1] A Doctor of Divinity is someone who heals white fudge.

2] You need a chair and a whip for a wedding, but those don’t come with a seminary degree, anyway,

 

 

 

 

 

THOSE WHO TAKE US IN, AND TAKE US THERE [Sun, 10-27-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of an Old Man—THOSE WHO TAKE US IN, AND TAKE US THERE [Sun, 10-27-24]

 

Most of us who are part of a church get there because someone took us when we were young. But that doesn’t mean it was someone in our family.

Kamala Harris’ father is ethnically Afro-Jamaican. Her mother is Tamil Indian. That makes the first US female vice-president both Afro-American and Asian-American. So, naturally, she is not only Christian, but Black Baptist.

Well, not exactly “naturally.” She is married to a Jew. Her mother took her to a Hindu temple. But when she and her sister were little, a neighbor took them to a neighborhood Black Baptist church. She says that the 23^rd Avenue Church of God in Oakland was where she learned that love is a verb. Religiously, she-self identifies as a Black Baptist. Her home church now is 3^rd Baptist in San Francisco.

Oh, what those helpful neighbors do!

 

The late Nic Christoff was one of my doctoral studies classmates. He was a Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor. In case you don’t know, the Missouri Synod is German in provenance and extremely conservative. They don’t even associate with other Lutherans, yet alone the likes of Methodists or Black Baptists.

But Nic had olive skin, and big brown eyes, and jet-black hair. A very handsome man, in a gentle way. We said, “How did you get into the Missouri Synod?”

“My parents immigrated from Greece. Like all Greek immigrants, they started a restaurant. My mother died when I was little. My father had to spend all his time running the restaurant. The family next door basically raised me. They were German Lutherans. They took me to church. Missouri Synod Lutheranism is the only faith I know.”

Accidental churchmanship doesn’t always come from neighbors, though. Sometimes it’s desperation.

Anne Lamott got into a black Presbyterian church because she heard singing one “Sunday morning, coming down.” At first, she couldn’t go in. She was strung-out. She sat outside the door and listened to the singing, and to the woman who was preaching. She eventually got up the courage to go inside. It was a very small congregation. They all stared at her. Then they took her in.

 

Lamott was a relatively successful novelist. She had been a state champion tennis player when she was young. But her life had spiraled into drugs and all that goes with that. Now she is a major voice for practical Christian faith. An accidental Christian.

She says that the three essential prayers are: Help, Thanks, and Wow!

All those apply to the folks who take us to church, and to those who take us in when we’re not even sure where we are.

John Robert McFarland

SNOW ON THE MOUNTAIN [F, 10-25-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of an Old Man--SNOW ON THE MOUNTAIN [F, 10-25-24]

 

Granddaughter Brigid called. She does that while she walks. We’re always glad when she has to go to the post office.

She is a Renaissance woman. Among other things, she is semiologist, a specialist in Irish independence propaganda films, an executive for a national academic consortium, a gourmet cook, a quilter, a game player, a friend who is in lots of weddings, and a camper.

She wanted to go camping last weekend, but didn’t have enough time, so just went up Table Mountain [1], since she had never climbed it. She got tired and it got late, so she decided to cut the climb short. Later, she was disgusted when she learned that she had quit when she was only 500 feet from the summit. It was around a curve; she hadn’t been able to see how close she was to the top.

I said I was sorry that I am not still preaching.

She said, “Yes, it does appear to be a life lesson. [She sees right through me. She knew I wanted to use her story as a sermon illustration.] “But it was beginning to snow, and if I had waited, I’d have to go down the mountain in the snow. I got home okay, so maybe the life lesson is to quit when there is snow on the mountain.”

Well, fiddle; there goes a good sermon. Or maybe I have two, now!

Either way, it got me to thinking about staying in the moment, which is the life lesson we hear about all the time anymore. You gotta stay in the moment!

Well, yes. That’s good advice. When coaching the Chicago Bulls, Phil Jackson said, “Trust the moment.” I like that. Trust the moment, because it has everything you need.

Gunther Bornkamm said that was what Jesus did. The folks of his day were either fixated on the past—the glories of King David, etc—or anticipating the future—the Messiah will restore the Kingdom of Israel. Nobody got to live in the present. Except Jesus. He lived in the moment. [Which is why it is strange that his followers got fixated on a future so far away that it’s after death.]

I’m inclined to spend a lot of time regretting the past—Why did I tell that police officer the one about the cop who went into the bar with Thomas Aquinas?—or awfulizing about the future—I wonder how many years you can get for a bad joke? I need to spend more time in the present moment.

But some people stay in the moment so completely that it’s a toxic moment. Their moment is informed neither by the past nor the present. They don’t learn any life lessons from the past, and they don’t consider the results or the consequences of what they do in the moment. We see that often these days as people choose how they will vote for president—no lessons from past performance and no awareness of what their choice will mean in the future.

So, what is it? How do we live successfully in the moment, but not have it become useless because the moment has no life lesson from the past nor any awareness of the future? I think Phil Jackson had the right idea, but he left out a word: Trust God in the moment.

God will tell you when to leave the mountain.

John Robert McFarland

1] The one near Seattle.

SAYING WORDS IN PUBLIC {W, 10-23-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of an Old Man—SAYING WORDS IN PUBLIC {W, 10-23-24]

 

When I was a young man, there was a well-known public speaker by the name of John McFarland. I recall that maybe he was a college president, too, but he was known primarily for being a public speaker, what today we call a motivational speaker. I never heard him. I didn’t want to. I knew there was more than one of us John McFarlands. After all, my own father was one. But the public speaker guy was so well known. People would often mention him to me. It felt to me like he was stealing my identity.

Maybe it was because of him that I once aspired to be a public speaker myself. Perhaps it was just because all preachers assume that since they are public speakers already, albeit a rather specific slice of the public, that they can switch the pulpit for a lectern and have the fame and fortune that accompanies secular public speakers. Well, being a public speaker wasn’t actually an ambition for me. It was more like an assumption—I could outdo that other John McFarland and win back my name.

So when Jack Newsome was on the program committee of his service club [Lions? Kiwanis?] and asked me to speak at a noon meeting, I gladly accepted, both because it was Jack asking, and I was glad to do a friend a favor, but also because I was finally going to be a public speaker.

Oh, I’d done “public” speaking before, mostly when I was in campus ministry, but they were less formal occasions--chatting with students in dorm lounges, talking to a town council meeting abut liquor laws, welcoming a group of foreign students, etc. Or occasions that were just other forms of preaching, like at community race relations events.

Jack and I were in our early forties. So were most of the members of his service club, all of us in some stage of midlife crisis. It was to this group of distracted men, as they ate plates of unhealthy food and wondered about what they had to do that afternoon, that I was called on to motivate with some secular gospel.

It was okay. I told funny stories. They laughed. I explained theories of humor, and why we laughed at jokes. They looked mildly interested. We ended by singing, not well, some patriotic songs. All in all, a totally… unnecessary time.

Oh, I know. Service clubs do actual service. That’s good. They also make it possible to identify potential drinking buddies. Not quite so good. Friendship? Good, but pretty shallow. Like church groups without much religion. 

Don’t misunderstand. They really do good work. One good work was Jack’s group convincing me that I didn’t want to be a public speaker. That was good. For me, and for the public.

My college roommate, Tom Cone, Indiana’s foremost criminal attorney, was a faithful friend to me all his life. He had trouble speaking after a stroke. When we had lunch together, he mostly listened while his wife, Sally, and Helen and I did the talking. Afterward, though, he tried hard to say something to me. He finally got out, “Do you still…say the words?”

Preachers and public speakers both say words. But Tom knew that I never could say only words. I had to say the words.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

YOU NEED A HATCHET [M, 10-21-23]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Memories of an Old Man—YOU NEED A HATCHET [M, 10-21-23]

 

When I was a young preacher, back in the 1950s, I heard my bishop, Richard Raines, tell this story: A little boy went to the corn crib to chase away the rats. There was one really big, scary rat that bared its teeth and glared at him. He did battle, and “vanquished” it. He ran to the house to tell his parents. He burst into the parlor. “There was this big scary rat. He bared his teeth at me. I swung my sick and hit him. I hit him again and again. He was a bloody mess…” He realized his parents were looking at him in wide-eyed shock. Why? They were used to… Then he saw another figure sitting there. The preacher! So he piously put his hands over his heart and sonorously intoned, “And then the Lord called the rat home.”

It was hilarious. If you lived on a farm. And if you understood that the preacher might drop in, unannounced, at any time of day, to check up on your spiritual condition. And if you understood how piously people tried to act on those occasions.

I understood all those things, and so did the people of my churches. So I used that story every time I was in a new church. It was great… until the telephone and television changed the whole culture.

Before telephones, not only preachers, but neighbors, relatives…almost anyone… would just drop by. But once folks had telephones, people no longer wanted anyone dropping in unannounced, especially the preacher. You were expected to telephone ahead and make an appointment. And you certainly didn’t want anyone, especially the preacher, interrupting your favorite TV program, since it aired only once and was non-retrievable.

But people really didn’t want you in their house at all, even if you did make an appointment, or the TV wasn’t on. Checking on your spiritual condition? That was way too personal. The need for an appointment was a handy way of avoiding that embarrassment entirely. 

In a way, I was ahead of my pastoral colleagues, for I was only nineteen when I started, and I did not feel comfortable dropping in on people. [Old widows were an exception. They thought of me as a grandchild.] Especially unannounced. And asking people about their spiritual condition? And giving advice or “counsel” to these people who were all older and more spiritual than I?

I knew, however, that this was an expected part of the job. I wasn’t quite sure why or how, but I tried. Until I stopped. The last thirty years of my ministry, I always made appointments. Still, I have dreams to this day of suddenly realizing I was supposed to be calling in the homes of my members and I had forgotten. And wondered if anyone had noticed. I wake up in a panic. [As much of a panic as I can muster about anything these days.

There were lots of funny stories about pastoral drop-in visits, and I loved hearing them, and telling them. In the one I like the most…a family had a front door that stuck badly. They could open it only by inserting the thin end of a hatchet blade between the door and the frame to pry it open, so they just didn’t use it. They went around to the back. All their friends and neighbors knew to go to the back door. The new preacher did not, so when he made a drop-in visit, one of the children looked out the window and saw who it was. The poor pastor heard a yell from inside, “It’s the preacher. Quick, get the hatchet.”

Anyway, you can relax. I’m not going to drop in on you, even if your spiritual condition could use some sprucing up.

John Robert McFarland

Daughter Katie Kennedy, the author, says that all the recent “weather events” have taught us that you need to keep a hatchet handy in case you have to chop your way out of your house after a tree has been clown down and blocked the door, etc. I keep a hammer beside the bed to break the window in case of fire, but I think I’ll replace it with a hatchet, which is more versatile in providing escape possibilities.

 

 

PERSONALLY SPEAKING… [Sat, 10-19-24]

BEYOND WINTER; The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—PERSONALLY SPEAKING… [Sat, 10-19-24]

 

Theologically, I am a Borden Parker Bowne personalist. Have been ever since I came across his book, Personalism, in the stacks of the IU library when I was a janitor, supposedly dusting those dusty books instead of pulling them off the shelf to read them.

Personally, I don’t see how any Christian can be anything but a Borden Parker Bowne Personalist. I am, however, probably the only one. Not only because Bowne has been dead since 1910, the year my mother was born, but because Personalism makes too much sense to be a good theological doctrine. You think Karl Barth could write 12 volumes of Church Dogmatics about Personalism? Hardly!

Bowne said that God chooses to treat persons in a Personal way, the way persons deal with persons. As in, “I know the Lord has laid his hand on me.” and “We are upheld by the everlasting arms.” We are persons, so we know only personal ways of living and treating one another. We aren’t transcendent and eternal and omnipotent and such, the way God is, so God relates to us not transcendently and imperishably and omnipotently but… personally.

After all, who is Jesus but God treating persons in a Personal way?

Sure, existence—space and time—show us a Creator who is transcendent and is busy with lots of stuff besides me and my life, and you and your life. God is in the past and the future and everywhere, while we are here just in the now and the here. But God doesn’t get caught up in that stuff. God treats eternity in eternal ways. God treats persons in Personal ways. Why? Because… God! As Luther said, “Let God be God!”

Don’t get me wrong. I think God enjoys theology, finding out what people think about them. {Yes, God’s pronoun is “them.” Haven’t you heard of The Trinity?} {Grammatically, you’re supposed to use {} when bracketing about God rather than [].} God, however, knows that theology—thinking and talking about God—is for fun. If we take it seriously, we get into all sorts of trouble. God just wants to have fun. That’s the whole point of the creation. That’s why God treats persons Personally.

That’s why I am a Borden Parker Bowne Personalist. He wrote the book on Personalism. Literally. Also, if you look at his photo on Google, you’ll see that his beard looks a lot like mine.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

TWO KINDS OF DISCIPLINE [R, 10-17-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of an Old Man—TWO KINDS OF DISCIPLINE [R, 10-17-24]

 

 

I am not a very good Methodist. That is an embarrassing confession for one who spent sixty years as a Methodist preacher-theologian and gets his pension because of the contributions of Methodist lay people over the years. But I was just never very Methodistic.

Methodists got the name, of course, because John and Charles Wesley, and their fellow students in “The Holy Club” at Oxford University, were deridingly called Methodists, because of their methodical way of trying to follow Jesus, to live out the Good News.

They wanted to be sure they didn’t omit any part of living the Jesus way, so they designated regular times to meet for worship and prayer and Bible study and soul examination, for practicing the personal holiness, Gospel. They designated times each week for practicing the social Gospel, as well--to visit the sick, visit the prisons, feed the hungry.

I was in favor of all those things. I gladly sang both “Take Time To Be Holy” and “Are Ye Able?” But I was really more inclined to “Every Time I Feel the Spirit…” I was glad to follow the Spirit in the ways of personal or social holiness, in that irregular way the Spirit operates, but I didn’t have the patience or inclination to abide by The Discipline, the big rule book of the way all things Methodist should be organized and done, I was not a methodical Christian.

I admired the people who were. I thought it would be a great comfort to keep the good rules, to know that I wasn’t leaving out any part of being a Christian. I certainly tried. Quite often I would go to some assembly or retreat where a motivational speaker would talk about how their life had been changed by learning a few simple rules, and that I could have a renewed life, too, by buying their book and following the rules. I loved the fellow feeling of a retreat. I loved buying books.

I would go away, determined to follow the new set of rules from my new book. Occasionally, my determination would last a long time, like three days. Usually I was done in one. The need of some parishioner or child or friend would upset my new schedule. I always kept the book, though, as a reminder to the unseen jury of methodical people that I really did intend to rejoin them some time…

My late, great friend and cancer guru, Rosemary Shepherd, was a good Methodist. When cancer hit, though, she thought she needed a reset. “I just need to schedule in more serendipity,” she declared. She was such a good Methodist she couldn’t even be serendipitous without a method.

That’s kind of the point here. Rosemary and I were best friends, and I was also her pastor. She was often my pastor, even though she was actually The Regional Superintendent of Schools. But even though she was a good Methodist and I was a bad one, we lived out the Christian life together.

If you live life like it’s a string of beads, that’s okay. If you live it like it’s a handful of confetti, that’s okay, too. If we just hold hands, bad Methodists like me can pull the good Methodists out of the house of discipline when it starts going up in flames, and the good Methodists can pull folks like me back into the bucket line. Together, we can douse the fire.

John Robert McFarland

And if you’re not any kind of Methodist… well, you’re okay.

 

 

SURVIVAL IN A HANDBASKET [M, 10-14-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of an Old Man--SURVIVAL IN A HANDBASKET [M, 10-14-24]

 

Alan Walker [1911-2003] was a well-known evangelist when I was a young preacher, even though he was from Australia. In pre-internet days, that was almost like a different world. At a conference, I heard him tell this story…

He was asked to be the preacher at a big downtown church. Fifty years before, maybe even twenty, it would have been a plum appointment, but the neighborhood had changed, and the church had declined. There was a huge building, but only a handful of people. [1]

He said that he would take the appointment only on one condition: the first month, everything that came into the church through the offering plates—the only way donations were collected then—had to be given to missions. The church could spend nothing on itself.

Years later, as he spoke to us, the church was full and vibrant again. He had reminded them of why they were a church. Survival wasn’t an adequate reason.

If you’re working only to survive, you’re going to fail. Even if you survive.

Right now, we are focused on survival, because the environment, democracy, the church…maybe human existence, all are faced with extinction.

There is a caveat embedded in Alan Walker’s story. It is tempting to think that his experiment worked because it worked. Not so, in Christian terms. It would have worked even if it hadn’t worked. The proof was not in the church being full again, but because they had done the Jesus thing. That’s always the only reason for the existence of the church—to do the Jesus thing.

In the wing of the church called “progressive,” we are so focused on service that we forget about God, who is the reason we serve the world. If we don’t serve God, we can’t serve the world. In the midst of the Reformation, Martin Luther wrote, “I am so busy right now that if I did not spend four hours each day in prayer, I would not survive.” I would say, “No, you’ve got to use those hours in work.” Don’t listen to me; Luther had it right.

Neither survival nor service is the right reason to survive. The right reason is to love. God is love. The Jesus thing is love.

We shall survive only if we do the right things for the right reasons, not if we do them so that we can survive. The right reasons are the God reasons. God did not create us for survival, but for love.

John Robert McFarland

1] I was fascinated, for it sounded just like the Halsted Street Institutional Methodist Church in Chicago, where I preached when I was a summer social worker at Howell Neighborhood House, in the Pilsen neighborhood. Its neighborhood had been eliminated in favor of a new interstate highway. Only a handful of people were left.

The Poplar neighborhood of London on the Call the Midwife TV show on PBS reminds me greatly of Pilsen. 

I assume that you are old enough to know the phrase “going to hell in a handbasket.”