JUST LIKE A TREE THAT’S PLANTED BY THE WATER… [W, 7-10-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings and Memories of an Old Man—JUST LIKE A TREE THAT’S PLANTED BY THE WATER… [W, 7-10-24]

 

My friend, with his wife, are moving today from the home they built many years ago to a retirement village. He doesn’t want to, for many reasons, one of which is that he has to give away most of his books. But it’s time. They need to move. I feel for them, but I’m glad that my friends will be in a good place. I hope those books find good homes, too. I suspect that some young person is going to get one of those books, and see my friend’s name in it, and be inspired to do great things.

I still have a book that was Floyd Selig’s. He was a preacher in the Indiana Conference when I was just starting out. [1] When he retired, he gave his books away to young preachers. I have gotten several books that way. I cherish them. They connect me to that “long line of splendor of the goodly fellowship of the prophets.”

This was back in the day that pastoral appointments weren’t even discussed by the Cabinet [the bishop and District Superintendents together] ahead of the week-long annual conference in June. The annual conference was held in the Indiana University Auditorium. [2] While other business was going on, reports and such, the DSs would huddle around the bishop’s table on the stage, and they would decide where each guy {all guys then} would be appointed for the next conference year. [3]

The bishop had his list made already, but he wanted to consult the DSs before finalizing. Took a lot of huddles, all week. You didn’t know until the last hour of annual conference, when the bishop read the appointments, where you were going to go… or if you were going to stay. [4]

It was common then for preachers to move often. Three years was a long appointment. Floyd had just built a new parsonage at his Evansville church and had been there 3 years. He was due for a move. But he wanted to get some good out of that parsonage.

Floyd was the conference song leader. [5] Whenever there was a lull, he’d jump to the microphone and lead us in song. Great sound, with a thousand preachers singing lustily.

So, as the cabinet huddled to decide his fate, he jumped up and led those thousand voices in several rousing choruses of…I shall not be, I shall not be moved. I shall not be, I shall not be moved. Just like a tree that’s planted by the waaater, I shall not be moved!

He was not moved.

I told this story to my friend yesterday. He liked it. The body can move to any place, but the spirit is like a tree that’s planted by the waters.

John Robert McFarland

1] When I started preaching, there were three Methodist conferences in Indiana. The southern conference, basically everything below Indianapolis, was just called The Indiana Conference. The Northwest Indiana and North Indiana Conferences divided the rest of the state via a line straight up from Indianapolis.

2] The bishop consulted the cabinet, and sometimes a DS individually, but the final decision belonged to the bishop. Our bishop then, Richard Raines, had no problem accepting that authority.

3] The Methodist Church agreed to ordain women in 1956, the year of my first appointment.

4] The real old-timers could remember that sometimes, as the bishop was actually reading the appointments, he would take out a pencil and erase one place on his list, and write on it, and then erase another place, and write on it. He was switching pastors even while reading the list!

5] I do not want to prejudice you about whether to capitalize bishop or conference or annual or cabinet, so I have done them all in every possible way, so that you can make up your own mind about it.