ANGELS [M, 12-8-25]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life From the Years of Winter—ANGELS [M, 12-8-25]

 

Angels. There is a lot of talk about them, but not by me. There has been much thought about them and songs and sermons and stories, but not by me. [1]

I don’t know anything about them. I haven’t experienced them. There is a lot of talk about them in the Bible and in the history of the church, but to me it is just talk. It’s been easier for me simply to ignore them. I can’t recall anyone every complaining, ever saying, “Why don’t you preach about angels?”

It is only now, when I am far beyond any possibility of mounting a pulpit, that it occurs to me that I really should have tried to say something useful about angels along the way. After all, there is all that talk about them in the Bible. I’m not sure that a preacher should be allowed to get away with simply ignoring a topic like angels.

Especially in the Christmas season, when angels play a rather important part in the Christmas pageant.

I always tried to preach the whole gospel, not just my favorite topics. That’s the point of the lectionary—the listing of different scriptures for each Sunday of the church year. We preach the lections designated, rather than picking out our own, to keep us from being Johnny One Note.

In using the lectionary, I have always preached first on the Gospel reading. We are Christians, after all. We need first to hear the story of Christ.

If for some reason I felt the Gospel reading for the day was inappropriate, maybe too shop-worn, I next chose whichever of the readings was hardest for me to understand and apply. I figured if it were hard for me, it probably was hard for the rest of the congregation, too, so I should spend time on it. Most of the time the Gospel lesson was hard enough to understand that it qualified for sermon status on both counts.

There may have been lectionary readings about angels, but I don’t recall any. Sure, they appear in plenty of readings, like Christmas, where they tell the shepherds about Jesus. But they aren’t the main characters. That’s Jesus, and I was always ready to preach about Jesus.

So what now, when “I ain’t gonna need this house no longer?” One of the lines in that great Sturt Hamblen song is “I see an angel peeking through a broken window pane.”

The idea seems to be that we’re going to have to deal with angels when we die. So I’d better apologize for ignoring them all these years, both to my congregations and to the angels. I don’t want angels harping at me for eternity.

John Robert McFarland

1] I actually did write a book about angels, called “The Out of Place Angel,” about the little angel, Miranda, who was supposed to go with the heavenly host to proclaim the birth of Jesus, but she missed the flight, since she was always out of place. She went on her own to try to catch up with the heavenly host, but couldn’t remember where they were going. So she just went all over the world, proclaiming the birth of Christ wherever she saw a baby being born. It was beautifully illustrated by the late, great Shelly Rasche, but we never found a publisher for it. You can find Shelly's art on line.

SLEEPING ON THE FLOOR [F, 12-5-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Rememberer—SLEEPING ON THE FLOOR [F, 12-5-25]

 

Christmas is a time when we travel long distances to stay in a hotel in the town where we are visiting family. Now. Not when I was a kid.

When I was a kid, when my family visited relatives, or they visited us, there were never enough beds, so we kids slept on the floor. Sometimes the grown-ups did, too, according to how many folks had crowded into the modest homes most of us lived in. Often the hosts gave up their bed to the visiting grown-ups [not the kids!] and slept on the floor with us.

We didn’t think of it as a hardship, even Aunt Ginny [Virginia], who was no spring chicken even when she married the older bachelor farmer, George Redinbo, and less so when she gave birth to Bobby and then Ronnie.

Sleeping on the floor was an adventure, and worth it to be part of a big extended family that would not have been able to get together if we’d had to pay somebody to put us up…and put up with us.

When morning came, we gathered up the sheets and blankets and pillows and put them aside for the next night, and we helped fix breakfast, and we started planning the day together.

Even now, in this modern time, when people have larger houses but less room for guests, and we have more money and more hotels, when we were still able to travel, Helen and I sometimes spent the night with friends, and vice versa. We are blessed with good friends. They are good hosts.

It’s still a special time, even though none of us sleep on the floor. [In part, because once down, we would not be able to get up again.]

The problem with Christians today is that so few of us are willing to sleep on the floor. When you sleep on the floor in order to be together with others in the family or friendship community, you are sharing the hosting, and Christians are called to be hosts, not just guests, in the world.

Hosting is a shared responsibility. We don’t say, “Oh, you poor worldly misfits, we’ll give you a place to sleep.” We say, “We’ll share the floor with you.” That is what good hosts do.

And, if you can’t get with the floor-sleeping metaphor, whatever you think hosting is, the bottom line is that Christians are called to be hosts in the world. Jesus said, “I am among you as one who serves.” [Luke 22:27.]

John Robert McFarland

 

 

HE LAST PLACE ON EARTH [T, 12-2-25]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—THE LAST PLACE ON EARTH [T, 12-2-25]

It’s not surprising that God threw Adam and Eve out of The Garden of Eden. After all, God had created A&E because God was lonely, and then A&E went and acted like they had created themselves and had no need of God. [Genesis 1:26-28]

When A&E were thrown out of Eden, they were homeless. No, not just unhoused. “Unhoused” means you don’t have a house. Homeless means you don’t have a home.

They tried renting. They found a new place to dwell. Turned out to be down at the end of Lonely Street. Definitely no Garden.

They had no choice but to keep looking for some homeless shelter that would take them in. Sure, they thought about sneaking back into Eden while God wasn’t looking, but no, they could not get back in. There was a flaming sword at the eastern gate. They’d get chopped up if they tried to go back. They were the first to day, “You can’t go home again.”

They wandered for eons, east of Eden, throughout the world, from Africa to Europe and Asia and the Americas, “from earth’s wide bounds to ocean’s farthest coasts,” looking for another Eden.

When they had tried every decent place on earth, they were finally so weary, so footworn, they were willing to take anything, even the last place on earth. That turned out to be a woebegone town called Bethlehem. Our of options, A&E had found a new home.

In Advent, preachers and theologians talk about readiness. Not just using Advent to get ready for Christmas, which is the appearance of God in the world in human form, Emmanuel. We say that Christ did not appear until the time was right, when all was in readiness.

In worship, we reenact the history of the relationship between God and the creation, from the big bang to resurrection. First we acknowledge that “…it is God who has created us and not we ourselves.” [Psalm 100:3] Then we confess that we act, though, like A&E, like we really did create ourselves, that we have no need of God. [That’s called sinning.] Then we acknowledge that God has made a new creation in Jesus Christ, and, finally, we commit ourselves to live as part of that new creation.

In Advent worship, we are essentially reenacting the history of the world from the Garden of Eden up to the birth in Bethlehem, from the time of “the fall” up to the new creation.

What does it mean to say that the time was right, that finally the world was ready for Christ?

Karl Jung says that there is a “collective unconscious,” an unconscious consciousness that all humans share. We are all Adam and Eve. In Bethlehem, A&E finally learned that they could not go back to Eden, but that they could go back to God, that the lonely God was still hoping for companionship, still looking for love, so much so that God was waiting for A&E, in that stable in Bethlehem.

That happens when all is in readiness, not when God is ready, but when we are ready. That’s often when we’ve tried everything but God first. That’s okay with God. God is always ready.

John Robert McFarland

To get a picture to accompany this column, I Googled “Last place on earth.” Google says it’s Duluth, Minnesota!

 

THE IMPORTANCE OF DEAD ENDS [Sun, 11-30-25]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—THE IMPORTANCE OF DEAD ENDS [Sun, 11-30-25]

 

Some of the most important events of my life were dead ends. Maybe yours, too.

I wanted to be an inner-city preacher. In college, I was fascinated by the work of William Stringfellow and others in New York’s East Harlem Protestant Parish. They were serious Christians, trying to live out the Jesus lifestyle in a radical way. I thought that since I had grown up in poverty, I could pastor well others who were caught in that plight. But a summer of social work [Howell Neighborhood House] and preaching in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago [the Wycliffe & Halstead Street Churches] taught me that rural poverty and urban poverty are very different. I did not fit in the city. I had no idea what to do next, but I knew my life would not be in the inner city. That was a dead end.

As I began to think that I was a good preacher, I decided I should be a seminary professor of preaching. So, in addition to my three-year seminary degree, I did another three years of graduate school to get the necessary union card—an academic doctorate. But all that work so that I could stand at a podium convinced me that my call was to stand in a pulpit. I learned that my call had been to preach, not to teach. All that academic work was a dead end.

As a parish pastor, I thought it would be neat to be sought after as a pastoral counselor. My seminary counseling professor was Carroll Wise, who had joined Anton Boisen in initiating the pastoral counseling movement, “human help for human hurt,” as he used to say. I liked the idea of sitting in a big chair in my study and listening to people tell me their problems and then giving them solutions. With congregational preaching, you never knew if anything you said was helpful. In one-to-one counseling, it was easier to measure your success. Either she gave up drinking or she didn’t. Either they decided to stay in their marriage or they didn’t. Either he cheered up or he didn’t. [Psychologist joke: He said he was depressed, so I told him to cheer up.]

So I took courses on psychology ad counseling, and read books about psych and counseling, and went to psychology seminars about counseling. But I was a useless therapist. Another dead end.

It turned out that I was a terrible counselor but a pretty good pastor.

Pastors walk the walk, not just talk the talk. They go through stuff with people, whether the stuff be good or bad. I could do that. Counselors do not help folks by giving solutions, the way a physician writes a prescription on a pad. That doesn’t work. But I did not have the patience to counsel. I’m a problem solver. If someone presented a problem to me, I wanted a solution. Now.

When I gave up sitting in the big chair and sagely nodding and providing a prescription after 45 minutes, and started walking through the morass with folks without telling them where to step, I became a useful pastor. 

But my dead ends were not wasted. First, of course, they taught me where I really belonged. They also taught me about my limitations. Knowing your limits is as important as knowing your skills. And what I learned as I went down those dead-end roads was useful to me, both personally and professionally.

So, even though we’re past the one day a year that is designated for giving thanks, I give thanks for my dead ends. They cost me a lot of time, but they were important in helping me be who I was really called to be.

John Robert McFarland

A SLIGHTLY OBSCURE THANKSGIVING POEM [F, 11-27-25]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—A SLIGHTLY OBSCURE THANKSGIVING POEM [F, 11-27-25]

 

On this day of requisitioned Thanks

I am glad my life

is drawing to a close

 

Don’t get me wrong; I love

memories and puppies

and trees that weather

storms

 

But we can give thanks

in prose and prayer

only a finite number

before the infinite appears

to beckon with new

 

memories and puppies and trees

to weather storms

 

John Robert McFarland

EMOTIONAL TRUST [M, 11-24-25]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter--EMOTIONAL TRUST [M, 11-24-25]

 

We were visiting a daughter. She had been invited to a gathering of friends and didn’t want to miss it so she took us along, even though we were old and Methodist, and not likely to fit in with a bunch of Roman Catholics in their thirties and forties.

It was a pleasant occasion, back yard cookout on an evening of good weather. We were the oldest people there. Our daughter’s friends were being very careful around us, in a respectful way, for they were all Catholics, and they knew that I was a Methodist preacher. The host had gone to the university where I did my doctoral work, so he even introduced me to everyone as a theologian, not just as a preacher.

At one point I was sitting in a circle of 7 or 8 women. They sort of forgot about me, except for the woman beside me, who seemed especially uneasy as the subject turned to abortion. Everyone had an opinion, an uninformed opinion, an anecdotal opinion, different from every other opinion. They were all quite adamant that their opinion was best because it was backed up by a story they had heard from the friend of a cousin whose brother had been a priest. The woman beside me whispered, “Shouldn’t you say something about this?”

“I’m just a theologian,” I replied. She thought for a moment, then looked a bit sad as she said, “Oh, yeah…”

In this age of internet and social media, we not only ignore the educated, the informed, the specialists, but we don’t trust them. Their opinions count for less than those of the uneducated, uninformed, friends of cousins, and anonymous posters on the web.

Trust is now upside down. We now trust people who are ignorant or even people who are known liars. We mistrust people who are educated about a subject, people who rely on facts.

Trust now is based not on reality but on emotion. Trust is equated with emotional comfort.

It’s all Garrison Keillor’s fault. In his Lake Wobegon, all the children were above average. Those children are grown up now. They’ve accepted for so long that they are above average that they don’t need experts or specialists.

They are those whose gravestones will read, “I did my own research.”

Like the first emotional task of a baby, the last emotional task of an old person is learning to trust. A baby has to learn to trust parents and other care givers, who are stand-ins for God. An old person has to trust some care givers, yes, but they aren’t stand-ins for God. We are faced directly now with God. Shall we trust God for what is real and true, or shall we trust what we get from the internet, or a cousin’s friend?

You can tell the difference between true trust, trust in God and false trust by the way it makes you feel. False trust makes you feel comfortable. Trust in God makes you feel real.

John Robert McFarland

VALUABLE ILLUSIONS [Sat, 11-22-25]

 

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—VALUABLE ILLUSIONS [Sat, 11-22-25]

 

Illusions are good. Delusions not so much.

An illusion is when you pretend to be Meadowlark Lemon while you’re shooting hoops in the barnyard. A delusion is when you think you are Meadowlark Lemon. Or Christ. Or God, when you’re only the president.

Don Lemkau was the Minister of Visitation at Charleston [IL] Wesley UMC when I became Directing Minister there. I was 42. He was 72.

“The problem with middle-aged people,” he said to me, “is that they think they’ll never get old. But everybody gets old.”

I believed him. I knew I would get old. Now, though, now that I’m older than he was then, a whole lot older, I don’t just believe, I understand. I’m still sort of mad at him, though.

I mean, why did he bust my bubble, take away my illusion of eternal youth?

I’ve never understood the people who want to disillusion younger people about what will happen to them when they get older. I am especially irritated at older people who tell children how bad it will be “in the real world.” Okay, they’re correct, but why destroy the present with fear of the future? The real world is whatever your world is now. That’s where you have to live. And being able to live in the present real world sometimes requires some illusions.

As Jesus said, “Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof.” [Mt 6:34]

No, I’m not talking about lies, like saying “It’s okay” when you know it’s not okay, or the lies of omission, like refusing to tell someone that the doctor has said they’re going to die.

I’m talking about illusions like the one I told Kim Wagler, my first cancer nurse, during my first week of chemo. “I’m just not the kind of guy who gets side effects,” I said. It wasn’t a lie. I really believed it. And even though I was spectacularly wrong, it kept me going in spite of all the evidence to the contrary.

Old people do a lot of denying. We think the time will never come when we can’t walk, or drive, or eat. But reality says all those unpleasant things are very close to a time when they can happen.

Especially dying. Lots of denying there. We can’t imagine a world without us. We all assume we’ll live forever, that this “one person-one death” scheme will be suspended in our case.

I am beyond denial. I have made my peace with death. I intend to go out in a blaze of glory, facing down the terrorists who have invaded the hall where I am receiving the Nobel Prize for the advances I have made in both narrative theology and quantum field theory. If you don’t think that’s an illusion, keep it to yourself.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

 

LIVING IN ALL THE MOMENTS [W, 11-19-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—LIVING IN ALL THE MOMENTS [W, 11-19-25]

 

I read a lot of stuff about brain science and psychology, not to try to apply their insights to pastoral work, the way I used to do, since I no longer have any pastoral work, except occasionally when I try something I have learned on some unsuspecting friend, but to apply new insights to my own life. You would think that I would understand my own life pretty well by now, but no, the more I learn about it, the less I understand it.

One of the most frequent and common pieces of wisdom that confronts me is: live in the moment! I think that’s good advice. Don’t regret the past and fret the future; live in the moment. I try to do it…mostly.

Living in the moment is a great idea if the moment contains something worthwhile—something challenging or hopeful or wholistic or interesting or…

But I’m old. Most of my moments are just boring. So I live best in the moment by living in memory. Yes, that sounds contradictory. But it works… at least for me.

Like most old people, many of my most important memories are early ones, from when we were kids and young people. Those moments set the way for all our future moments. When those are present memories, they provide present moments.

Preachers don’t seem to visit in member homes much anymore, but in my preaching years, it was a regular part of the job. Mostly it was just to get better acquainted, and that was good, for when a real need arose—an illness, a wedding or funeral, a wayward child or lost job—the preacher already knew what was important in that home.

As a young preacher, I called especially in the homes of the elderly, because they were always at home. It was easy to find them. Also, I felt comfortable with them. Even though I was as much as sixty years younger, we had a lot in common, for I, too, had grown up with an outhouse, using a horse to get to town, killing chickens for Sunday dinner, making hay the loose-load way, picking field corn by hand…

One thing we did not have in common was memories. Certainly, I remembered my former days. I’ve always had a good memory. I had not lived long enough, though, to have many memories. Besides, I was interested in the future, not the past. My elderly members, though, would tell long and intricate stories of events about when they were barely into school, always with a bit of wonderment, like maybe they were telling me about it in case I had an insight that they could not find.

I had no idea 70 years ago that I would now be telling my own versions of those same stories, over and over, peering into them, trying to gain some insight about why they happened, and what they meant, and if I might have done them better in some other way. And then deciding, no, this is the way it was, and that is okay.

I live in the moment by taking all those past moments and bringing them forward into this moment.

When Phil Jackson was coaching the Chicago Bulls professional basketball team, he told them, “Trust the moment.” I think that is even better advice than “Live in the moment.” Trust it, because it contains all your moments, and that makes it whole.

John Robert McFarland

JOYS AND CONCERNS [Su, 11-16-25]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—JOYS AND CONCERNS [Su, 11-16-25]

 

It’s Sunday as I write this, so I’m thinking about Joys and Concerns…

A newly married young woman—I’ll call her Lori--was sent to me by a friend who was a member of my church. Lori had spent quite a bit of money on something without consulting her new husband. She was afraid that he would be upset. She didn’t know if she should tell him. She also realized that he would probably find out even if she didn’t tell him. Then he would be angry because she had kept a secret from him. It’s the sort of dilemma that drives the story of almost every TV show.

Lori was a little embarrassed about coming to me for marriage counseling. She was not a member of my church. She had a college education, and had been teaching school for several years, but she had never even been to a church service. Any church. Not even once. What right had she to waste the time of a preacher when she wasn’t a church supporter?

I assured her I was glad to be of help, regardless of her church affiliation, or lack of it, and encouraged her to follow her instincts about talking to her husband. [I’ll call him Jeff.] I also suggested it might be good for her to bring Jeff and come to church. She did.

After a couple of months, I asked her how it was going. “It’s great with Jeff,” she said. “I told him about the money, and why I spent it, and he was very understanding. As far as church is concerned, I don’t understand a thing, but I like the singing, and I like Joys & Concerns.”

That was intriguing to me. I like the singing in church, too, but I’ve always had doubts about Joys & Concerns, the part of the worship where we share our… well, our joys, and our concerns.

Most preachers would agree that it’s okay to print joys and concerns in the worship bulletin. Clem and Clemidia Kladdilhopper are new grandparents. Their daughter, Theodosia, had a baby… Chauncy Thistlewhite requests prayers as he has surgery this week… The flowers on the altar are in honor of…

Allowing people to pop out of the congregation, however, to voice their joys…Trump got elected again… or their concerns…Trump got elected again… can create a lot of problems. It’s hard for the preacher to keep things from getting out of control. You begin to feel like you’re playing whack-a-mole. And it can get very picky. We once heard a man whisper to his wife, “Was that the left ventricle or the right ventricle we were supposed to pray for?”

Doing Joys and Concerns is a long-time Christian tradition, though. The Apostle Paul was the first one to do Joys and Concerns. Look at the last chapter of Romans. But is tradition enough reason for doing it? Joys and Concerns can take a lot of time, and either cause controversy or get quite boring. Sometimes both. Is it worth it?

Probably so. Even someone who is an outsider to the congregation, or to the church as a whole, like Lori, feels like she’s in the community, when people share what’s important in their lives.

Lori and Jeff are no longer outsiders. They are in church, every Sunday, sharing joys and concerns.

John Robert McFarland

I don’t know if he said it during Joys and Concerns, but Ben Franklin, upon recovery from an illness, said that he felt “lightsome.” That’s a great word, and a joy to share.

CAUGHT BETWEEN WORD & WORDS [F, 11-14-25]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter-- CAUGHT BETWEEN WORD & WORDS [F, 11-14-25]

 

As I listened to a recording of “It Is Well with My Soul,” I sang along. But then I was struck by the phrase, “the clouds be rolled back as a scroll.” As I sang along with it, I had sung “like a scroll.” Horatio Spafford [1] used “proper” English when he wrote it in 1873, meaning grammatical English. I had not used proper English when I sang it 145 years later.

I should have known better. At Indiana University, when I was in freshman composition, that would have been a “gross illiteracy.” If you committed 3 gross illiteracies in a composition, it was an automatic F.

I also remember the controversy over a 1950s Winston cigarette commercial that used the phrase, “Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should.” Grammarians were offended and protested so much that Winston’s advertising agency actually came out with a new ad wherein an English professor marked through “like” and replaced it with “as,” while smiling college students looked on with nicotine addled approval. [Their bright teeth gave lie to the idea that they actually smoked the things.]

I have always been caught between the law of language and the grace of language, wanting to be accurate, keeping the laws of grammar, but also wanting to be creative, using the flexibility of the words to convey old truths in new ways.

That’s our problem, caught between grace and law, even in our language, caught between the language of the rules and the language of the streets, or these days, the language of the tweets. [2]

One of the graces of the English language is its flexibility. We have so many ways to say things. The more arrows we have to shoot at the truth, the more likely we are to hit it once in a while.

The laws of grammar are important. They help us to communicate clearly. I cringe when I hear someone say “I could care less,” because they are trying to say the exact opposite, “I could NOT care less.”

The main thing, though, is not to keep the laws of the words, but to use the words to express the grace of the Word.

John Robert McFarland

1] The music is by Phillip Bliss.

2] I’m quite sure I have mentioned this before, and I apologize for doing so again, but I think it’s insightful, and fun. Daughter Katie said years ago, when Vance Law played 3^rd base and Mark Grace played 1^st base for the Cubs, that the reason the Cubs could not win was that they were caught between Grace and Law.

 

 

 

 

TIME TO WAKE UP LEROY [T, 11-11-25]

 

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Daily Devotions of An Old Man—TIME TO WAKE UP LEROY [T, 11-11-25]

 

Yes, I’ve told you about Joe and Leroy before, but it’s too good a story to tell only once.

Joe and Leroy were long-distance truck drivers, with one of those sleeper cabs, so one driver could sleep while the other drove. They were called in for a periodic driving exam. Joe was the senior driver and went in first.

The examiner said, “Joe, you are going down a steep mountain side when your brakes go out. At the bottom of the mountain is a one-way bridge. Coming at it from the other direction, down another slope, is a big rig like yours. What do you do?”

“Well, first I’d wake up Leroy.”

“Why in the world would you take the time to wake up Leroy?”

“Well, he’s not been driving very long, and he’s never seen a really big wreck.”

I recently subscribed to a daily devotional series. No, not to get ideas for my own columns. I really want to hear the Word in the words of others. I know that will be good for my soul. But those well-meaning devotionals turn out to be a drag on my soul.

No, there is nothing really wrong with them. They are well written, by able thinkers, but they do nothing for me, because they are didactic and hortatory. Not a story anywhere.

There is a line, I think from a poem by William Stafford, where a little girl asks, “When you’re old, how do you know what to do?”

It’s a perceptive question for a child. They always know what to do, because older people are always telling them what to do. Be nice to your brother. Don’t talk back. Do your homework. Pick up your toys… but being told what to do does not mean that it always gets done.

You know what to do when you’re old just because you’re old. I don’t have to be told what to do. I already know what to do; I’ve known the right stuff to do for a long time. Just telling me to do it, regardless of how enthusiastically you tell me, isn’t going to make any difference. That is more likely to depress me.

In the church, for a long time now, we’ve been telling folks what they should do, and yelling at them to try to get their attention, get them to do it. It’s not working very well. We have the best story in the world, a life-giving and life-changing story, and we need to start telling it, rather than talking about it.

What I need are stories that illuminate the possibilities in such a way that I can see the way forward for myself. Don’t just tell me what the way is. Don’t just rail at me to try to get me moving. Show me the way!

Oh, wait, I just became didactic and hortatory, didn’t I?

Well, as Rosanne Rossannadanna used to say, “Never mind.”

But you’re thinking about waking up Leroy, aren’t you?

John Robert McFarland

 

 

SUNDAY MORNING FUN [Sat, 11-8-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Theology of An Old Preacher—SUNDAY MORNING FUN [Sat, 11-8-25]

 

Tomorrow is Sunday, so I’ll be doing what I usually do on Sunday mornings, praying for my preacher friends, and listening to a CD of worship songs by the Barbary Coast Dixieland Band.

The first time I experienced a Barbary Coast worship service, I was retired and filling in, on fairly short notice, for a preacher who had to be away that Sunday. After the service, one of the musicians said to me, “We go around to anywhere from 15 to 30 churches a year, so I’ve heard a lot of sermons. That was the best I’ve ever heard.”

That didn’t surprise me. I’m always convinced that the last sermon I preached is the best one anyone has ever heard. He continued. “I’ve never before thought about what you said, that the point of life is to have a good time.”

That did surprise me. Didn’t he already know that? Isn’t that the whole point of both Dixieland and worship, to have a good time?

After all, the pivotal verse in the Bible is John 10:10, where Jesus says, “I’m here. Let’s party.”

So as I pray for my preaching friends, I don’t pray that they’ll preach the best sermon ever. That’s already been done. But I pray that they, and the people in their worship services, will have a good time.

John Robert McFarland

 

John 10:10 is often in a generic way, “I have come that they may have life, and have it abundantly.” It means, “I’m here; let’s party.”

THE JOY HALL OF FAME [R, 11-6-25]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—THE JOY HALL OF FAME [R, 11-6-25]

 

Charlie Nelms is being inducted into the Arkansas Black Hall of Fame. It’s because of his many significant achievements in the field of higher education. He is already in the JOY HOF.

Well, I guess there is no JOY HOF, but there should be. I say that Charlie should be in it because, despite the difficulties of growing up as a poor black boy in Arkansas in the worst days of segregation and lynching, perhaps because of growing up in those desperate times, he has always known that joy is a form of resistance, resistance to those who run the oppressor system, to those who want to control us by fear.

We can live our life in joy, or we can live it in fear. What the oppressors and fear-mongers fear most is joy. They can’t control joy.

What do we fear?

Anyone who is different from ourselves.

People who make us uncomfortable because they are not intimidated by our status.

People who speak a language we can’t understand.

Anyone who is weak but demands to be taken seriously. That’s not right. “Beggars can’t be choosers.” Who do they think they are, anyway, equal citizens? Human beings? Children of God?

Anyone who has always been a second-class citizen and aspires to be treated like a first-class person. We think they are uppity. They should “stay in their place.”

Sex and race are the most basic human qualities, so it’s easiest for the oppressors and fear-mongers to generate fear about people who are trans or gay or black.

The fear-mongers have no joy. They don’t even have humor. They rarely laugh, and when they do, it’s with a sneer, after they have made some rude remark about someone, ridiculed or humiliated someone, usually someone who is too weak to retaliate.

I wanted to go to the recent No Kings rally. I’m a Christian. I believe in no kings but King Jesus, no lords but Lord Jesus. I used to go to rallies and demonstrations all the time. In fact, I started a lot of them. But to go to a rally now, I have to be able to use one of those squiggly squares on the computer screen to say I’m coming, and then I have to be able to drive, and then find a parking spot, and then back into it because some idiot has decided that downtown angle parking should be back-in instead of pull-in, and then walk, and then stand, and then march, and then yell…

Well, I did my own rally. I stayed home and sang, “Joyful, joyful, we adore thee…” It was a joyful time.

Joy is the silver bullet to fear.

Who would you nominate for the JOY HOF?

John Robert McFarland

JUDGING THE SUMMER BY THE WINTER [T, 11-4-25]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life from the Years of Winter—JUDGING THE SUMMER BY THE WINTER [T, 11-4-25]

 

Old people should be grateful to live in the days of screens. No, not the screens on doors. They aren’t important anymore. We don’t need them now that we have air conditioning. A lot of folks don’t even have screen doors now. Air conditioning means we no longer have to leave the outside doors open, hoping for a breeze.

It’s the screens we watch to get entertainment and news for which we need to give thanks. Some of us are old enough to remember when there were no such screens. It was a rather boring time.

And a laborious time. You had to work hard to see things. Sometimes you actually had to get up and walk across the room to change the channel on the TV. Now we can recline on our sofas and push a couple of buttons on the remote—usually the wrong buttons to begin with—and see people and events from all the world.

We need to be careful, though, as we give thanks, not to disrespect those days of yore, those days before the big screens.

What appeared in screens even a few years ago appears as primitive compared to now, but those images were important to us then.

I first saw TV in 1947, in Uncle Johnny’s hardware store in Francisco, IN. It was World Series time, and we wanted to see local boy Gil Hodges playing for the Dodgers. Uncle Johnny installed an antenna on the roof. It had a cable that came down the side of the building to a handle you could rotate to turn the antenna in different directions to grab the TV signal from different directions. The TV set itself was quite large, but with a screen that was no more than a foot wide.

The “pictures” were almost entirely “snow,” but we could hear the announcers, and we could imagine that we saw the players running the bases, hitting homers, whatever the announcers told us. It was wonderful.

The pictures of this year’s WS between the Dodgers and Blue Jays were as sharp as the blade on that knife Tom Woodall, Sr. gave Helen 45 years ago. It was a special knife, and he thought Helen should have one, because she has always been a favorite of old men. He said that if she took care of it, she would never have to sharpen it. That was 45 years ago. He was right.

 

The screen on our present smart TV is about ten times larger than the screen on Uncle Johnny’s first TV. On it, the Dodgers are very clear and dodgy, the Jays very clear and blue. Some people say this was the best WS ever. No, the best WS ever was in 1947.

It is dangerous to judge the past by the present.

It is dangerous to judge the summer by the winter.

It is dangerous to judge the decisions of young people by the decisions of old people.

It’s tempting to do that. I have less energy in winter, so I assume I am wiser. I judge much of what I did in summer to be fruitless. But that’s winter talking. What I did in summer was necessary then. What I did in earlier years was not “youthful silliness” just because I’m too old now to engage in the fun of silliness.

We are not wiser just because we are older. It is wise, though, to say that we should not judge the summer by the winter.

John Robert McFarland

SINCE WE KNOW NOT… [Sun, 11-2-25]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith and Life for the Years of Winter—SINCE WE KNOW NOT… [Sun, 11-2-25]

 

I wrote about my brother, Jim, in this column for Aug. 24, since his birthday was coming up, on August 28. I wrote about how much I like having a brother, even though he was nine years younger, and so we didn’t get to do a lot of the brother stuff.

I have a brother now only in memory and hope. When I wrote about him back in August, he and his wife, Millie, were making plans to go someplace warm for the winter. We had no idea that he would die on Nov. 1, yesterday.

About a month ago he began to have significant pains in his back. They went to the ER. He was diagnosed with an “angry” [inflamed] pancreas. That was not really surprising; he’s been diabetic for a long time. Because of the location of the pancreas, its pain shows up in the back. They sent him home with pain medicine and instructions for a clear liquid diet.

That lasted only a couple of days. The pain became too much. This time they were sent to the cancer hospital, an hour’s drive away. At first, he was diagnosed with stage 2 pancreatic cancer. As they did more tests, the stage went up to 3 and then to 4, plus spreading to his stomach.

They got the pain under control, mostly, and sent him home to decide if he wanted to do chemo. Of course, we all know that chemo against a diagnosis like that is like spitting into the wind.  

Throughout, we spent a lot of time with Millie on the phone. It was the only way we could be supportive, since they live in New Mexico, and we can’t even drive to the airport, let alone get on a plane.  

Jim and Millie have no children or grandchildren, and none of their siblings are able to travel. It’s hard to have no family around when you are in trouble, and it’s hard on the family members who want to be helpful but cannot.

Early yesterday afternoon, Millie told us of all the appointments they had this week, to put in place the services Jim would need. We were glad they were getting his severe pain under control, because it looked like he would live for several weeks. Millie was looking around for a warmer place where they could go for the winter. We started plans to have a “memorial” service for Jim while he was still alive to enjoy it. We planned to do it via Zoom so that far-flung family members and friends could participate.

When she called back a few hours later, she said Jim had been napping on the living room sofa when she went to the kitchen to get something to eat. When she returned, she realized that she had to call 911.

Thank you for listening, as I try to process my brother’s life and death. As it says in the funeral ritual that I read so many times in the course of my years as a preacher, “Since we know not what a day may bring forth, but only that the hour for serving Thee is always present…”

John Robert McFarland

Following is a screed about the reason for our family’s battles with cancer. I put it down here where you can ignore it if you wish, because it doesn’t seem really appropriate, as I mourn my brother’s passing, and as I hold out hope for his different life now, but it is a part of what I feel…

Jim was nine years younger than I. Our sister, Margaret Ann, was 8 years younger. She died from cancer when she was only 60. Jim had it first in his 30s, but made it to 79.

When we moved to the farm, Margey had just turned two, and Jimmy was still a babe in arms. Our older sister, Mary Virginia, was already a teen, and I was ten.

I think there is a good reason that Mary V is 93 and still in great health, without ever having cancer, and I had cancer 35 years ago but am still alive, while the youngsters, Jim and Margey, are the ones who died first.

They lived on the farm much longer than Mary V and I did, through the heyday of the pesticide, DDT. Their exposure for so long, starting when they were so young, made them more vulnerable. The manufacturer assured everyone that DDT wasn’t dangerous. Pour it on; it’s as harmless as chocolate. Just because it kills bugs doesn’t mean it’s deadly...

DDT was banned in 1972, 25 years after we moved to the farm, way too late to help my little sister and brother. But that’s okay; Montrose Chemical Corporation had already made lots of money from it, and isn’t making money the American way, regardless of the consequences?

Montrose paid millions to lawyers, for years, fighting attempts to hold them accountable for the damage done by DDT. They never did pay anything to people who were DDT victims, but finally agreed to escape accountability by paying a sum for general environmental cleanup.

 

 

FALL BACK [F, 10-31-25]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—FALL BACK [F, 10-31-25]

 

Yes, an extra hour of sleep is fine, but, more importantly, come Sunday at 2:00 a.m., the rest of the world will once again be in sync with my wrist watch.

Old people love change. We like to be in the forefront of new achievements and ideas and technology and systems. Such as wearing wrist watches. And since the world in general has been threatening for some time to eschew DST [Daylight Savings Time], and stay on GST [God’s Standard Time] all year, for the last few years, I have kept my wrist watch on GST, so that I would be on the cutting edge, pushing the envelope, and all that stuff, the very first to be on GST year-round

All I have to do, six months each year, is mentally adjust the time one hour from what my watch shows.

Well, plus minus four minutes. The watch gains time, about a minute per year. When I started, I had to adjust the time by two minutes. Then three. Now four. I like it. It’s progress.

Yes, it is true that I couldn’t change the hour and minutes even if I wanted to, because I don’t know how to change either the hour of the minutes of my water-proof Casio. Charlie Matson can’t figure out how to do it anymore, either, and he’s an engineer!

But that has nothing to do with my decision to live dangerously close to being an hour early wherever I go, for 6 months of the year, since I might forget to make the mental adjustment. That’s another thing old people like, living dangerously. [We usually show up an hour early, anyway.]

It’s also true that I don’t need a water-proof watch since I don’t go near the water. These matters are insignificant, though, compared to the thrill of being out in front of a major societal change, such as doing away with DST. It’s important for old people such as I to show that it can be done; we can live successfully on GST alone.

I’m sort of looking forward to my watch being right on its own, though…

John Robert McFarland

SIMPLE SONGS FOR SIMPLE PEOPLE [T, 10-28-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Lyrics of An Old Song Writer—SIMPLE SONGS FOR SIMPLE PEOPLE [T, 10-28-25]

 

What is art? There are a thousand definitions. Anything artistic is notoriously difficult to define.

Justice Potter Stewart said, “I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it.”

I can’t define folk music, but I know it when I hear it.

Folk music is both immediate and simple. Immediate and simple are not necessarily better than distant and complicated, especially in music. But I’m simple, so I’m a folkie.

Young people like to think of themselves as complicated. I certainly did. I thought I was complicated when I was really just confused. The older I get, the more I realize how simple I am. I’m a simple guy, so folk is my music.

Folk has no intermediaries, no handlers who present an image different from the musician him or herself. The same is true with the songs.

In a former life, I was a bassoonist. Bassoon isn’t a folk instrument. It really needs other instruments, preferably an orchestra, at least an ensemble. It’s hard to sit around the camp fire and sing to a bassoon, especially if you are the bassoonist, and also trying to eat s’mores.

I like simplicity. The older I get, the more I like it.

I am partial to running/walking as a sport because it is so simple and immediate. You just put on your shoes and go out the door. Other than the shoes--and not even those for folks like Zola Budd-- you need no clubs or rackets or skis, no special court or floor or field, no machines or pool. Unlike other sports, you can use running/walking actually to go some place useful, like the donut shop, to recoup the calories you lost along the way.

Because I like simplicity, I am a folk music singer-songwriter. I’m known for writing songs like “I’m In the Poor House Now,” and for my renditions of the songs of others, like the Snake Oil Willie Band’s I Don’t Look Good Naked Anymore or If My Nose Was Running Money, I’d Blow It All On You. [1]

Our granddaughter is coming to visit us, and she is bringing with her Pansy. Well, not the whole band named Pansy, just the lead singer/songwriter, Vivian, who needs a place to get away to write some more songs. I assume they are coming to visit us because they know I can be helpful with the writing. Electric punk isn’t all that different from acoustic folk, is it?

John Robert McFarland

 

1] The internet is confused about who wrote If My Nose Was Running Money… It was either Mike Snider or Aaron Wilburn.

 

 

 

 

 

I DON’T KNOW, AND I DON’T CARE [Sat, 10-25-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—I DON’T KNOW, AND I DON’T CARE [Sat, 10-25-25]

 

The responsive reading to start tomorrow’s worship service:

Leader: I don’t know and I don’t care

People: I don’t know and I don’t care

Leader: If the devil wears fireproof underwear

People: If the devil wears fireproof underwear

Leader: Amen!

People: Amen!

Leader: Hallelujah!

People: Hallelujah!

All: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John… Matthew Mark,  Luke! John!

Wouldn’t that be a great responsive reading to start a worship service?

It’s October. Yes, it means colored leaves and such to me, as it does to everybody else, but to me it also means marching in ROTC. That was one of the cadence counts in ROTC marching when I was in college. I have changed the words a little from the original, which was…

Leader: I don’t know and I don’t care

People: I don’t know and I don’t care

Leader: If the general wears dirty underwear

People: If the general wears dirty underwear

Leader: Sound off!

People: Sound off

Leader: Cadence count

People: Cadence count

All: One, two, three, four… one, two,   Three! Four! [1]

One of the great things about being old is that you no longer have to know anything. Or care about it. You can say, “I don’t know, and I don’t care.” It’s very relieving, to have that responsibility off your shoulders, that responsibility for knowing things, and for caring about what other people know or don’t know, caring about who’s right.

Even if old people do know things, young people don’t want to hear about it.

Uncle Johnny Pond was in his early 20s when he started building Francisco Hardware and Lumber, right beside his oldest brother’s general store. Ted Ellis was 20 years older than John Hubert. He knew a lot about stores and shared his knowledge freely. But, Uncle Johnny told me, “I want to make my own mistakes.”

I have talked before about Harry, the older man in one of my churches, who was so disappointed that “the younger men in the church don’t ask for my advice.”

You’ll be disappointed almost all the time if you wait for that.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m well aware that “those who do not study history are doomed to repeat it.” And who better than old people to provide history? After all, we’ve lived it.

People don’t need our advice all that much. They need our support, a prop up on their leaning side, a push back onto the path.

“I don’t care” doesn’t mean I don’t care about people. It means that I don’t care whether I understand, understand the politics or the religion or the falderal of what’s going on. So many of use our lack of understanding as an excuse for not acting. We don’t have to care to care.

As Kris Kristofferson wrote, “I don’t care who’s right or wrong. I don’t try to understand. Let the devil take tomorrow, Lord, tonight I need a friend. Yesterday is dead and gone, and tomorrow’s out of sight. And it’s sad to be alone, help me make it through the night.”

That’s why I’ll be joining folks from all over the Midwest at the Miami

Correctional Facility [ten miles north of Kokomo, IN] at 2:00 pm, EDT, Monday, Oct. 27, to pray together for the migrant detainees, and their families, being held there. This is neither a protest nor a demonstration. It is a witness, to say to those who are held there, and to those who put them there, “We see you. We are with you.” I can’t be there in person, of course, but I shall be praying along with those who are, and I invite you to do so, too.

If someone says to me, “Did I get it right?” I say…

I don’t know,

and I don’t care.

I’ll still be with you,

in hope and prayer.

John Robert McFarland

1] I suppose in the ROTC cadence count above, I should have put “Sgt.” where I have “Leader,” and “Marchers” or “Soldiers” where I have “People,” but I have been writing litanies for churches for so long that I automatically used “Leader” and “People.”