A MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR JACK [T, 7-30-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of an Old Man—A MEMORIAL SERVICE FOR JACK [T, 7-30-24]

 

A friend says that the covid shutdown shows that we don’t need memorial services for the dead. We got along fine without them when we had to, she says. I love our friend, but I think she’s wrong.

Yes, you can get along without a lot of stuff when there is no choice, but I choose memorial services. Not just for myself. I’ve outlived everyone who ever knew me. There will be only eight people at my funeral, and one of them will be paid to be there.

No, I want memorial services because Jack Newsome didn’t get one, and there are so many great stories about Jack. They need to be shared.

Jack is one of those who never got a service because he died during the covid shutdown. Like many who died in those days, family and friends said, “We’ll have a service for Jack when the covid problem is over.”

Covid, of course, is not over, and probably never will be, just like flu. But it’s over enough that we could catch up on funerals now. Except… everything has changed.

Jack’s wife, Joan, moved to California to live with a daughter, and died soon thereafter. His children and grandchildren stretch from California to North Carolina. He spent 40 years in Central IL as a preacher, but he lived a long time, so he was retired a long time. Members of a congregation forget a preacher pretty quickly once he has moved on. And the colleagues of his generation are too old to drive to a funeral to share stories.

That is where the problem comes. There are so many great Jack Newsome stories. Mutual colleague Jim Bortell even keeps a folder of them. Jack was a great friend. He was smart and kind. He was a good preacher. He had all the necessary gifts and graces for the ministry, and he used them well. But…

…he was spacy.

In his last years, he began to have some neuropathy problems. He went to a famous neurologist, who took one look and said, “I can tell you have Parkinson’s without even examining you because of that vacant look on your face.” Jack said, “But I always look this way.” Everyone else who heard that story immediately said, “But he always looks that way.”

It wasn’t just that Jack was spacy. He was one of those persons who is a magnet for strange events, and whose response to them makes them even funnier.

We had a surprise 50^th birthday party for Jack. That morning, Joan put a punch bowl and plates and napkins with “50” on them on the dining room table. He was totally surprised when all his friends showed up. Joan said, “I could be having an affair in the front bedroom and he wouldn’t know it.”

Joan started out, to me, simply as Jack’s wife. But she became a friend in her own right. I cherished that, in part because I was sometimes able to serve as an interpreter when they did not understand each other. They had a deeply committed relationship, of a particular kind. This kind…

…Bishop Hodapp appointed me to our Conference’s Investigation Committee. I did not think it was a good idea. “I’ll be too easy on the accused,” I said. “That’s why I want you on the committee,” he replied. “Every sinner should have one friend.” At supper that night, our teen daughters had a perceptive question. “What will you do if you have to investigate Jack Newsome?” So, the next time we were with Jack and Joan, I put the question to them. “Don’t worry about it, John,” Joan said. “Just tell me and I’ll take care of it.”

I always said that if I went to Jack and yelled “That damn bishop” and got on his desk and jumped up and down, he would get up there with me, and jump up and down, and yell “That damn bishop” right along with me, even if he had no idea why the bishop should be consigned to hades. That immediate “withness” made him such a good friend and such a good pastor. But it meant that he was totally into this moment. Other moments, other possibilities, were not in his consciousness.

Well, I started this in order to have a service for Jack by telling stories about him, but I’ve gone too long. That will have to be manana. Oh, yes, now there’s a story…

I’ll tell it in the next column.

John Robert McFarland