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]