POPPING OUT A DEMON [R, 2-29-24]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—POPPING OUT A DEMON [R, 2-29-24]

 

I had a woman friend I’ll call “Jean.” Her husband, “Jim,” and I were friends first. That was true with many of my women friends over the years. They started out as the wives of men friends but became friends in their own right as we shared experiences.

Jean and an adult daughter, “Susan,” were totally estranged. The estrangement had caused problems with Jean and Jim’s other children, too. Susan was not speaking to her mother, would have nothing to do with her. But Susan would call the house to talk to her father. Jim would take the phone into a different room to talk to Susan.

One day, Jean called me, crying. “She’s ruining the family, but Jim’s choosing Susan over me,” Jean sobbed, “and I’m his wife. It’s not my fault Susan won’t talk to me. That’s her choice. Jim should be supporting me, not her.”

I felt her pain, and I knew she was right.

Jim and I were close friends, had shared a lot of life, so I felt comfortable talking to him about it. “I know Jean feels that way,” he said “but what can I do? I can’t turn my back on my daughter. Besides, somebody has to stay in contact with Susan or there’s never any chance that she’ll return to the family.”

I felt his pain, and I knew he was right.

The problem was, Jean and Jim couldn’t both be right. But that’s a false alternative, isn’t it? Because they were both right.

Poor Jim was caught in the middle. He needed to show Jean that he loved and supported her, but he needed to show Susan that he loved and supported her, too.

Jim was making one major mistake as he tried to deal with his wife and his daughter—he tried to reason with them. Tried to get them to see a better way. Appealed to their better angels. All that brain stuff.

I thought about how the disciples of Jesus had tried to rid a boy of a demon and been unsuccessful. Demons aren’t all the same, so they can’t be driven out the same way. Jesus said, “This kind can come out only by prayer.” [Mark 9]

Estrangement is caused by a demon, the kind that can come out only with prayer, the kind of prayer where you hug a person so hard that the demon just pops out.

I said, “Jim, you need to shut up. When Jean cries, don’t tell her she should try to understand Susan better. Don’t say a thing. Just go to her and hold her. When Susan calls, tell her that you aren’t going to say anything, you’re just going to listen to her talk about anything she wants to say. Don’t say a word about Jean. Just tell Susan that you love her.”

Susan asked me to officiate at her wedding. When Jim died, of her several children, Jean went to live with Susan.

There are some demons that come out only through a special kind of prayer, the sort of prayer where we listen instead of talking. Then the demon pops out.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

LENTEN JUSTICE M, 2-26-24]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—LENTEN JUSTICE M, 2-26-24]

 

I resent Lent and its emphasis upon the spiritual disciplines, because it makes undisciplined people like me feel bad. I’m good for prayer and Bible reading and meditation and such maybe one day out of forty, certainly not forty days in one stretch. So I justify my lack of discipline by portraying Lent as individualistic navel-gazing that neglects Jesus’ emphasis upon Christian fellowship and caring for the less fortunate.

I rant, [usually where others can’t hear, because I’m a preacher, and we are supposed to be the wagon masters of the Lenten journey, so I don’t want to be the cause of somebody else “forgetting” to be disciplined]: “If the purpose of Lent is to get ready for the resurrection, how are you going to face the resurrected Christ when all you’ve done is look at yourself for forty days, as in a glass darkly?” [I’m very proud of myself when I can justify my narrow-mindedness with a well-crafted sentence.]

Even alms giving, the one thing about Lenten disciplines which involves other people, is an individual act, isn’t it? Well, not really.

Alms giving in the Bible is not just about giving to the poor, feeding the hungry. It is about restoring justice. The Hebrew word for alms is sadaqa, which means justice or righteousness. Giving to the poor helps establish the right social order—justice.

The problem with alms giving is that it can easily go awry when it is face-to-face. Personally, I prefer to send a check to UMCOR than to give something personally to a needy person. I don’t want to see the smiles on the faces of the poor when they reach out for some pittance that I have gotten through an unjust economic and political system, one that favors tall straight white men.

When Helen and I directed Rankin Community Center in Dallas, while I was a Perkins School of Theology student at SMU, we had a volunteer who insisted on being in on any aid distribution to our people. “I just love to see their faces when I give them something,” he exulted.

It was all about him, and his feelings. Poor people were just objects to feed his ego. They didn’t remind him how fortunate he was; they reminded him how superior he was.

Recently some friends were shocked to learn that I like peanut butter and cheese sandwiches. Velveeta, even. They had never heard of such a thing. But those sandwiches are a natural result, I think, of growing up on welfare.

In addition to $80 per month cash [about $900 in current dollars], from time to time we were given excess farm commodities, that stuff the government buys from farmers to prop up the agricultural economy. There were huge long blocks of very dry Wisconsin cheese, and huge glass jars of very runny Alabama peanut butter. We could moisten the cheese with the peanut butter juice. It restored sandwich justice.

As a welfare kid, I received handouts from time to time. I could tell when a person was trying to restore justice to me, and when they were just doing it for the kick they could get out of it. Government peanut butter and cheese were good things. No government officials came around to watch me eat those sandwiches, so that they could get their kicks by looking at my smeary smile.

The oft-pilloried “welfare” restores justice. Personal handouts are often humiliating, reminders that we should be grateful to people who are our “betters” rather than fellow-citizens.  

Does that mean we shouldn’t volunteer at the soup kitchen or the homeless shelter? Of course not. I have done a lot of that through the years, and would still were I physically able. But I must remember that justice is not about me. As we give our alms, let us remember that we are not just helping the less fortunate; we are restoring justice. We are getting ready for the resurrection of the Christ who says, “In that you do it to the least of these, my brothers and sisters, you do it to me.” [Mt. 25:31-46.]

John Robert McFarland

 

PROTESTANTS IN PRISON [F, 2-23-24]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—PROTESTANTS IN PRISON [F, 2-23-24]

 

In Lent, we are to practice spiritual disciplines—prayer, fasting, Bible study, meditation, etc. But we need to be careful not to neglect the social disciplines of faith. Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” [Mt 18:20]

When I was the campus minister in Terre Haute, Indiana, I was also a volunteer assistant chaplain at the federal penitentiary there. In those days, prisoners, at least in The Protestant Brotherhood, divided themselves up by crime rather than race. The bank robbers chose me as their chaplain.

I was not the only preacher in the group. The real leader was Bert. He was one of the kindest souls I have ever known—focused on the needs of everyone else. He loved singing and Bible study and his fellow inmates. But Bert never smiled.

One day a guard came to get Bert during a group meeting. I was worried, but the others assured me it was nothing strange. “It means the warden might have news about Bert getting out. He’s been working on that ever since Bert came here.” Then they told me Bert’s story… why Bert never smiled.

He was a young Baptist preacher in Memphis. His children got sick. He had no money to get help for them. So, he robbed a bank.

He immediately realized the wrongness of what he had done. He went to the men of his church and told them. They said, “We’ll go with you to the police.” They did. When his trial came up, they vouched for him, said they would watch over him to be sure nothing like that happened again.

He was a first-time offender. All the money was returned. No one was hurt. His church vouched for him. And the judge sentenced him to 40 years.

 

When I knew him, he was half-way through that sentence. His wife had divorced him. She knew he wasn’t getting out. His children had grown up without him. No one came to visit him. He never smiled. He had no reason to smile.

The warden at the Terre Haute penitentiary realized the injustice of Bert’s sentence. There were much worse men in that pen who were serving lesser sentences. The warden had worked for years to try to get Bert a new trial. It became more difficult every year. The judge died. Witnesses died. Men of the church died. Prosecutors never want to retry a case.

Bert came back to group that day. He was not smiling. Somone asked how his meeting had gone. Bert just shook his head. 

At the end of Lent, The Protestant Brotherhood had its annual Easter banquet. It was in a room off the regular prison cafeteria, with the regular prison food, but it was a banquet. The guest speaker was a former member of the group. His last name was Hood, so in the Brotherhood, he was always called Brother Hood.

His speech was simple and eloquent. I am not demeaning his way of speaking, just trying to let you get the real hearing of it…

 “When I done come to this big house, I didn even know how ta read and write. But here, in this bruthuhood, you done taughten me ta read and write. And I didn know ‘bout Jesus, or the Bible. But here in this bruthuhood, you done taughten me ‘bout Jesus. Now I’m on the outside. I’ve got a good job, driving heavy ‘quipment. I’m the assistant pastor at my church. Because I’ve been in this bruthuhood, if I don’t make it on the outside, you don’t make it, either. But if I make it on the outside, then you done made it, too.”

I was sitting across the table from Bert… and I saw Bert smile.

John Robert McFarland

I tell this story in more detail in The Strange Calling.

 

 

THERE IS NO WRONG TIME TO START BELIEVING IN GOD [T, 2-20-24]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—THERE IS NO WRONG TIME TO START BELIEVING IN GOD [T, 2-20-24]

 

Actually, I started this column to say the exact opposite—that I know people who start believing in God at the wrong time. Then I realized that I had it inside out. There is no wrong time to start believing in God.

I read a Pew Research report that says about ten percent of Americans are “religious without being spiritual,” the opposite of that rather tiresome thing so many people like to say—mostly as excuse to not go to church: “I am spiritual but not religious.”

The 10% who are religious but not spiritual like the creeds and liturgies and books and songs and candles and church/synagogue/temple stuff, the feeling of belonging to a people and a tradition, but don’t really believe in God. Until something bad happens to them…

…then they start believing in the wrong God, the god who gets blamed for everything. “Why did God let this happen?” That is why I was going to say that some folks start believing in God at the wrong time. But it’s the wrong God, not the wrong time.

You know, God can take anger. God welcomes it. It’s a way to get real about God.

I’ve told before [1] about the time a consultant was working with the Cabinet [Bishop and District Superintendents] of my Conference. He asked Bishop Leroy Hodapp, “In what sorts of situations are you most comfortable?” “Conflict situations,” the bishop replied.

The others were astounded. Nobody likes conflict. But the consultant asked Leroy why he liked conflict. “Because that is the only time people are really open to change.”

So a conflict time with God is an opening time, when people can change. For religious but not spiritual folks, there’s a possibility to add the spirit to the forms of religion.

Maybe we need to get mad at God more often. There is no wrong time to start believing in God.

John Robert McFarland

1] My “I’ve told before” is like the dog owner who scolds the dog for peeing in a neighbor’s front yard. It’s not to communicate with the dog, but as an apology to the neighbor. I know that you know you’ve heard it before. I’m just letting you know that I know it, too. But I’m going to tell it again, anyway!

 

 

FOMO, JOMO, & HEARING AIDS {Sat, 2-17-24}

CHRIST IN WINTER: reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—FOMO, JOMO, & HEARING AIDS {Sat, 2-17-24}

 

[Yes, I have hearing aids on my mind; just not in my ears.]

One of the online newspapers I read recently ran two seemingly contradictory news stories. One was about JOMO replacing FOMO. The other was about people who wear hearing aids living longer, because they are more socially involved.

FOMO is Fear Of Missing Out. It affects a lot of people. That’s why folks are looking at their screens all the time. The screen is the source of all activity. Might miss something if you’re not looking.

JOMO is Joy Of Missing Out. I am a strong advocate of JOMO. I think it’s great to miss out on almost everything. Ignorance is bliss, because very little of that stuff that appears on your screen is worth your time. Advertisers and pundits and fraudsters and politicians all proliferate there because they know they have a captive audience. I don’t want to be a captive. I’m glad to miss out on what they are selling and saying and scamming. If you wear hearing aids, you hear all the stupid stuff people say. You can’t miss out. Viva JOMO!

I’m kind of like curmudgeonly old Jim of my long-ago cancer support group. There was a lot of then-new research that showed that patients with a positive attitude lived longer. We talked about it in group. Jim didn’t believe it. He was out to show that you could survive with a bad attitude. Everybody played along. If his oncologist encountered him in a hallway, she’d exclaim, “I thought you died.” He loved it. Being negative was very positive for him. He missed out on a positive attitude, and it was a JOMO time for him.

I’m inclined to say that JOMO is a gift of God.

I understand, though, why people who wear hearing aids live longer, because of the experience of my long-time [for 68 years] friend, Bob. He says that when he got hearing aids, his wife gave up her plans to murder him.

Of course, had he continued without hearing aids, he would have had the JOMO of not knowing what she was contemplating. Now, knowing what she was contemplating in silence, he has the fear of what she might be contemplating without saying anything about it… FOMO…

John Robert McFarland

 

 

HAVEN’T YOU EVER HEARD? [Ash Wednesday, 2-14-24]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter--HAVEN’T YOU EVER HEARD? [Ash Wednesday, 2-14-24]     Isaiah 40:21-31.

 

No, I do not need hearing aids, despite what some people, like my wife and my doctor, think. What I need is for other people to stop mumbling. [Good grief, people, haven’t you ever heard of e-nun-ci-a-tion?]

Besides, if God had wanted everybody to hear everything, why did They [Yes, They. Haven’t you ever heard of the Trinity?] invent Sub-Titles/Closed Captioning? Well, actually They got deaf actor Emerson Romero to do it, in 1929, when “talkies” left deaf actors and audiences out, but that’s the point of this devotional. [Wait for it; the point is at the end. Haven’t you ever heard of foreshadowing?]

According to people who invent ecclesiastical calendars, in Lent we are supposed to get ready for Easter, for celebrating Resurrection, through Bible reading, giving alms, self-examination, prayer, and fasting. Hearing aids will not help with any of that stuff.

So, I can do Lent perfectly without hearing aids. [No, that’s not the point yet. Haven’t you ever heard about building anticipation?] Or, hearing at all, for that matter. Getting ready for Easter is just about doing stuff I don’t need to hear other people for. Except alms, and they don’t have to say anything, just reach out with an open alm palm.

A silent Lent worries me a little, though. Almost all the times I’ve heard Them speak, it was through some other person. Grandma Mac… Uncle Johnny… Mrs. Darringer… Bishop Raines… Rev. F. T. Johnson… Joan of Arcadia… Helen… Emerson Romero…

At my last doctor visit, she looked me straight in the eye, which is a good feat considering that I am a foot taller, and said, “I’m used to your refusal of everything I think will be good for you. You won’t take tests. You won’t take medicines. You won’t take advice. But if you get to the place when you can’t understand what people are saying, you must get hearing aids. You can live without tests and medicines and advice, but you can’t live without people.”

That’s the same as saying you can’t live without Them.

Listen to what people say. When you hear what they say, you might hear what They say. It might get you ready for Easter.

Haven’t you ever heard…

John Robert McFarland

Our church, St. Mark’s on the Bypass, asked for contributions for a Lenten devotional booklet. I submitted this, but our church staff does not acknowledge or reply to emails, so they may not have received it, or if they did, they may have decided not to use it. If they did, I apologize if you are a St. Mark’s saint and have to see it twice.

 

 

 

COMMUNITY & COMMUNION [Sat, 2-10-24]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter— COMMUNITY & COMMUNION [Sat, 2-10-24]

 

From early on, the following was part of my cancer talk: “I read somewhere that people who went to support group had a 50% better chance of getting well. I read somewhere else that patients who kept a journal of their feelings had a 50% better chance of getting well. I’m no dummy. That’s 100%! So I kept a journal of my feelings, and I went to support group.”

The journal became Now That I Have Cancer I Am Whole. The support group--at Carle Cancer Center in Urbana, IL--became the source of so many inspiring friends. I’m sure that group was one of the main reasons I defied the pale oncologist’s prediction of “a year or two.”

When I started going to group, it had been running for twenty years, started by Everett and Rae Endsley, when Everett was a lung cancer patient. With only a few necessary absences, they had come to every meeting for all those years, even though Everett had been declared cured long before. They were personable and friendly and funny, but they didn’t say much at the meetings. They knew there were others, newer in the cancer journey, who needed to do the talking. They always came, they said, just in case a new patient had come and no one else was there that night. They wanted to be sure every bewildered survivor had someone who would listen to their fears and hopes.

There weren’t any meetings during the four years I was a part of the Carle group—before I helped form a group closer to where I lived—when the Endsleys were the only old survivors there, but sometimes it was close.

Later, when I began slowly to ease out of the cancer community, I realized what a significant commitment Rae & Everett had made. There comes a time when you need a different identity beyond being a cancer survivor, being a part of the cancer community. Rae and Everett had moved on. They had other interests. But they also had that commitment, that no new cancer patient should be without a support group.

The problem is: community does not last. Rae and Everett could not go on forever. No group, however supportive, goes on forever.

I have trouble giving up on community, both individual friendships and supportive groups. I hang onto them as long as possible. But I’m getting closer to being “the last apple on the tree.”

I think old age is helping me to be more aware of communion in place of community. Heaven, or its alternative, is coming close. One of the great appeals of heaven is that community will be restored. “I’ll get to see Mom and Dad and my dog, Sparky, again, and…”

I don’t have any knowledge of heaven, whether we’ll have that sort of community again, but I do feel sure that the same God who has always been available for communion in this life with continue to be present with us.

Community doesn’t last… but communion does.

John Robert McFarland

BONUS THOUGHT--ONE TRUE SENTENCE: “God’s forgiveness is more than a blessing. It’s a challenge.” Wm. Sloane Coffin

 

A REALLY BIG BUT… [2-7-24]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—A REALLY BIG BUT… [2-7-24]

 

I really thought that I was going to stop writing with the 2-4-24 column on my birthday. It seemed like the necessary exit, at the right time.

But, and as one of the preachers I heard in my retirement years unwittingly said, at the turn point in her sermon, “And I have a really big but here…”

I wrote to my young Lutheran pastor friend, Rebecca, and told her. I should have known better. Her feedback always makes me think again. That is the purpose of a preacher, to cause a second thought, and why preachers need pastors themselves.

I had several good reasons to think I should exit this column as gracefully as possible:

1] I’m at a life point where I need to focus inwardly instead of outwardly. For 70 years now, every insight, every step toward wholeness, has immediately been put into words that I can say, by speech or writing, to others. It’s possible that I have been so focused on speaking that I have done no hearing. If there are Word words that I need to hear, I must get to them.

2] Not many will fail old age without CIW as a crib sheet. According to Blogspot, each of my columns gets about 100 views, but none of my columns ever go “trending.” There are plenty of blogs that give good advice instead of just telling little stories and then turning you loose to see if you can get anything from them.

3] I have used up all my stories, and my current motionless life does not lend itself to creating more. I’m beginning—continuing, really—to use the same stories and ideas over and over. Yes, most of my readers are old, so I can count on them not to remember, but sooner or later they’re going to say, “This sounds awfully familiar… and it wasn’t that great the first time. Or the second or third.”

4] Increasingly, as old people need to, I muse over events and stages in my own life, to try to understand who I was and who I am. [1] Good writers are able to expose their personal lives and in doing so help the reader get a better look at their own lives. But the self-musings of bad writers just become self-indulgent. I fear doing the self-indulgent thing.

5] One of the appeals of my preaching and writing is that I use language well. Unlike most current talkers and writers, I know more adjectives than the F word. My language abilities, however, are declining. I’m not vain. I don’t feel I have “to quit while I’m ahead,” to avoid embarrassing myself. I’m willing to expose my decline if my words are still useful and interesting, even while stumbling. But I really don’t like inflicting mundane language on others.

But, the “bottom” line is: I need to keep writing. I like it. It keeps me socially engaged. I don’t need hearing aids to do it. [Yes, THAT is a topic you’re going to hear about a lot.]

I know, however, that I don’t write very well anymore, so, please, don’t feel like you have to read my words just to be kind to me—although I appreciate unmerited kindness. When you are not receiving something worthwhile from this column, you have whatever permissions you need to go elsewhere.

Until then, thank you for being in this elite company of Christ In Winter readers. I appreciate your fellowship in this adventure, be your readership named or secret.

Especially since it’s not easy to get into this fellowship. A lot of columns, like The Writers Almanack, will send each new post right into your email box. With CIW, you have to bookmark it and then check every third day or so to see if there is anything new. That takes a special kind of reader, and I thank you for doing the extra work so that we can keep in touch.

“Hope is the conviction that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.” [Vaclav Havel] There! You have read one true sentence. Hemingway said that the key to writing was to write one true sentence, then follow it with another… The rest of this column was rather self-indulgent, and if it gave you nothing else, at least you have this one true sentence.

John Robert McFarland

A big thanks to Mary Larson Childs for linking CIW to her Port Wing Passages blog. [You should read it. https://portwingpassages.blogspot.com/]

1] Erik Erikson’s last stage of psycho-social understanding: final integrity vs despair.

 

 

THE WRITER’S ALMANAC FOR FEB. 4, 2024

 

THE WRITER’S ALMANAC FOR FEB. 4, 2024

By Garrison Keillor

            Today is the birthday of long-forgotten small-town preacher, John Robert McFarland.

            Born in Ohio, his family moved to Indiana when he was four. His mother once told him to “act like a human.” Confusing “human” with “Hoosier,” he retorted, “I’m not a human; I’m a Buckeye.”

            It was the last time he refused to identify as a Hoosier. He went to Indiana University, which he saw as the turning point of his life, primarily because he met there his wife, Helen Karr, the noted Home Management expert. “From that chance meeting at The Wesley Foundation,” he said, “stemmed all the good things in my life.”

            He said that being a father was the most important task of his life, and being a grandfather was the high point of his life.

            He was a story-teller who called himself “…a servant of the Word through words.” He wrote sermons, poems, novels, short stories, devotional materials, biographies, memoirs, newspaper articles and columns, plays, satires, gags for comic strips [especially Frank & Ernest]. songs, and radio scripts. [He even wrote for “Prairie Home Companion.”]

            Many of his works were actually published, primarily via periodicals and publishing houses that no longer exist. There is no conclusive evidence that his works led to their demise.

He was a cancer survivor who spoke at cancer conferences around the country and wrote a book for other cancer patients, Now That I Have Cancer I Am Whole, which was published in Czech, Japanese, and audio. The “Cansurmount” oncologist, Paul K. Hamilton, called it “The best book ever for cancer patients, by a cancer patient.”

He wrote a blog called Christ In Winter, which was available only to readers who qualified for The Light Web.

            In addition to preaching, he was a public speaker, which for him was simply preaching in a non-church setting. He was an actor, in community theater, and in radio and TV commercials.

            He was a long-distance runner, widely appreciated in the insect community for running so slowly that bugs could hitch a ride on his chest.

            He read in ten to twelve different books daily, which he called his “page a day” books--science, biography, medicine, history, fiction, Bible, theology, sports, politics, psychology, poetry. “I like to see how the authors interact with one another,” he said.

            Consequently, his brain was a cluttered landscape of random ideas and facts which he could instantly combine into some story that would make you think he almost knew what he was talking about.

It was said that, if given enough time, he could tell you the name of anyone he ever met. That was probably because he loved having friends and hoped that anyone he met would become a friend.

He loved being part of “the goodly fellowship of the prophets.” He was a strong advocate for respecting pastors as professionals, and was a Fellow and Past President of The Academy of Parish Clergy. 

Even at an advanced age, he was still trying to understand the ways of God so that he might explain them to others, and he was indulged and supported in that pursuit, and in his elderly curmudgeonlyness, by his wife of 65 years.

He loved intercessory prayer, good hymns, children of any age, and little black dogs.

 

[A special thanks to Keillor for including me in The Writer’s Almanac, even though he may not recall doing so, and a special thanks to you for reading Christ In Winter. JRMcF]