WHO WILL YOU BE IN THE ASYLUM? [W, 7-30-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Pretending of An Old Man—WHO WILL YOU BE IN THE ASYLUM? [W, 7-30-25]

 

English poet John Clare spent the last 23 years of his life in an insane asylum, a second stint since he had earlier escaped from another asylum. During those final asylum years, he thought he was Lord Byron or Robert Burns, and, according to Garrison Keillor’s “Writers’ Almanack,” did some of his best work.

Well, yes, if I could think I’m Lord Byron or Robert Burns, or even Garrison Keillor, I could probably write better, too. I don’t think I’d do well in an asylum, though, or even Minneapolis.

If you were committed to an asylum, who would you want as your asylum doppelganger? Apparently, you can do such much better work if you’re someone else.

When I was young, I did some pretending that I was someone else, especially when heaving basketballs at the netless, tilting, rusty iron hoop on the side of the barn. It never occurred to me that it was at least a bit unusual for a Southern Indiana white boy in the 1940-50s to pretend he was Meadowlark Lemon.

It pretended that I was Gil Hodges when I played baseball with Uncle Johnny in our orchard field. That made more sense. Gil and I both played first base, and he lived only a dozen miles from me before he went to play in Brooklyn.

And we were both polite young men. His real name was Hodge, but the secretary in the Dodgers’ office mistakenly added an “s” to his name on his first contract, and he didn’t want to embarrass her by pointing out the mistake. It was more polite to go by a different name the rest of his life.

I wonder if she ever knew about that? And, if so, did she then pretend to be some other secretary?

When I was in high school, I decided I to pretend I was someone who was interesting. I became Johney. The different spelling was so no one would think that I was my father or uncle or cousin or nephew, all of them John or Johnny.

I was really pretending to be Johnny Dark, a comic book action hero. It didn’t work. My friends kept me calling me John. As one said, “You’re too square to be a Johnny.” So much for my life of pretending.

If you want to be taken seriously as a pretender, to be The Great Pretender, you have to be persistent. [1] Like Bob...

When we lived in Mason City, IA, our daughter and her family had a neighbor, Bob, who claimed he was retired as “The # 2 man in the FBI.” He smoked a bent-stem pipe to prove it, as he leaned over his wire fence to tell anyone who passed by about his “real” identity.

It was a total fabrication. He had been a minor functionary for a railroad. But he told that to so many people that the FBI folks came around and told him to stop pretending. He did not, and in his obit, he was identified as the # 2 man in the FBI. That’s great pretending.

Well, back to the earlier question: If you were committed to an asylum—or even to your back yard, as Bob was--who would you want as your asylum doppelganger?

I think I can still hit a hook shot. They’ll probably let me have a nerf ball and a trash can at Peaceful Acres. I think I’ll still be Meadowlark Lemon.

John Robert McFarland

1] A great song, written by Buck Ram, and recorded by The Platters in 1959.]

 

FORGET FIRST; IT’S BETTER THAN FORGIVING [SUN, 7-27-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Preacher—FORGET FIRST; IT’S BETTER THAN FORGIVING [SUN, 7-27-25]

 

[This column is just a personal reminiscence, and a confession of sin, and twice my usual 500-word length, so read only if you have extra time on your hands.]

I wrote last time about my best friend from my time at Garrett Theological Seminary, at Northwestern University. I remember Walt Wagener so well. But when I saw the death listing for Gene Fields [not his real name] in the Garrett alum magazine, I didn’t remember him at all. The name seemed vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t remember… then I read his obit. Oh, yes, Gene was my main adversary/competitor in seminary… and I had totally forgotten about him.

I was so proud. That’s progress, to forget someone you didn’t get along with. I had done the ultimate in forgiving, not just forgiven but forgotten. So I began to review all the reasons we had been competitors… That’s the wrong thing to do.

When I was at the height of my career years, a young woman preacher called and asked to see me. She said, “They say if you want to talk theology, you’re the one to go to.” I was pleased; apparently, I had a rep as a theologian.

We didn’t get to theology right away, though. A little small talk, and then she began to cry. “Why is it that you men preachers are so competitive?”

That’s when we got to theology: original sin. That competitive nature that wants the best for one’s own regardless of what happens to others. Even among preachers. And seminary students.

At Garrett, there were four of us in my class from the same state who were considered the ones to watch for success. I didn’t really feel competitive with the others, but they felt they had to compete with me. We were equal but I was more equal. I wore the bishop’s mantle. [1] I was the one to beat if you wanted to be the best.

I wasn’t really the one to beat, because I wasn’t better. I was just different. That, however, apparently made me look like the one to beat. If there is competition in your nature, you need someone to beat.

Back then, 99% of Protestant seminary students were 22-year-old white males. [About one % of seminary students are 22-year-old while males now.] Gene and Bill and Don were “normal.” They had graduated from small religious colleges. They lived in student apartments and went to school fulltime while their wives supported them—a very common arrangement in those days for guys in any kind of graduate professional education. They ate lunch in the cafeteria. They had church jobs, but only on Sundays, mostly youth work.

I stood out, and everybody knew who I was, because I was different. For a lot of reasons.

I already had a reputation as a civil right advocate. I had started at Perkins School of Theology, at SMU, and Helen and I had been thrown out of town [not the seminary] because we integrated the community center we directed.

I was the first transfer student at Garrett to receive a scholarship. They did not give scholarships to transfers to avoid being accused of stealing students from other seminaries. They made an exception for me because of why I had lost my job and thus could not continue at Perkins.

I pastored a full-time, two-point charge [two churches] while having two children and commuting 65 miles each way every day. No other student had a load like that.

I had graduated from the major state university, “the Godless state university,” in our conference, rather than from a small denominational college.

I commuted and took a sack lunch rather than eat in the cafeteria. That was purely for financial reasons, but the lunches Helen packed for me were far better than eating in the cafeteria. [2] And I got to eat with the elite.

The other brown bag guys were PhD students. There were just five of us, and I was the only one on his first degree. Tom Tredway became president of Augustana College. Ron Goetz became a religion professor at Elmhurst. Bill White became chaplain and religion professor at Ill Wesleyan. James Cone became the famous professor of black power at Union Seminary in New York City. And me. I was considered to be one of that elite group just because I ate with them.

I was a firebrand who took on the establishment. Sometimes the church establishment over pensions or organization. Often the cultural establishment over racism.

I was accused of being the favorite of our bishop because he protected me when I caused problems. But he protected me only because most of the problems I caused were of the “good trouble” variety that John Lewis espoused.

Even though I was young and supposed to keep my mouth shut and let the older and wiser voices prevail, I was a major voice in our conference for racial justice. I got into trouble with lay folks and preachers and even District Superintendents. Some were just gentle racists, advocating always for “more time,” hoping that the problem would solve itself. Others were downright real racists, claiming that black folk “should know their place and stay in it.” [3] They didn’t want to put up with some wiseacre young guy who was too loud and too sure of himself.

Bishop Richard Raines would call me in, tell me to be careful, and then protect me even when I was not careful. That gave me a special status. I wasn’t really Raines’ favorite. Anyone could get the bishop’s favor; you just had to get into “good trouble.” I looked like the favorite, though, because I was the one who wasn’t careful.

There were others, of course, who shared my concern for racial justice. In retrospect, I’m sure that Gene and Bill and Don were among them. But others were more careful about expressing it. Because I was loud, and too sure of myself, I was noticeable, and thus the object of competition.

Gene never gave up competing. Not with me. I hope he forgot about me, as I did him. But it was obvious that he had written his own obit. It was full of accolades and awards that no one else would even know about or care about. Even in death, he wanted everyone to know that he was the best, that he had won the competition. It’s too bad. He really did have a good and useful career. I don’t think he was ever satisfied with it, though.

The problem for me is now that I have been reminded of Gene, I’m going back to competing with him, rehearsing all the ways that he and the others tried to show they were better than I, and all the defenses I used to try to show that they were not. Including all the stuff I have written above.

Sometimes, forgetting is even better than forgiving.

John Robert McFarland

1] The Bishop’s Mantle is by Agnes Sleigh Turnbull.

2] I would not say that the cafeteria food was bad, but one day during lunch someone yelled at Mrs. Rice, the cafeteria director, “Hey, Mrs. Rice, the garbage man is here.” “Good,” returned a female voice, “tell him to leave three bags.”

3] I had a famous confrontation with the local high school principal where I pastored because he would not let the lone black boy in our church go to school there, but insisted he would have to go the city, 20 miles away, to a black high school, even though there was no transportation available.

 

 

 

 

HE BLOOMED WHERE HE WAS PLANTED: WALT WAGENER, 7/7/36-7/17/25 [R. 7/24/25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Hopeful Memories of An Old Man--HE BLOOMED WHERE HE WAS PLANTED: WALT WAGENER, 7/7/36-7/17/25 [R. 7/24/25]

 

Walt was a good listener. One of the people to whom he listened often was Wolfgang Roth, Old Testament professor at Garrett Theological Seminary. Wolfgang pointed out a place in the Talmud where we are reminded that on the day of judgment, we shall be called to account for every thing of beauty in this world that we failed to appreciate.

Walt loved to quote that. More importantly, he lived it. Walt was always the best example I knew of the maxim, “Bloom where you’re planted.”

Walt and I met at Garrett, when he still went by Wally. Strangely, it was after he had graduated, technically, before we met. I did not know many other students at Garrett, only the other daily commuters with whom I shared brown bag lunch time. Walt was a year ahead of me, and the essential home boy. He lived in the married student apartments just a couple of blocks away and went home for lunch. We had no reason to meet.

Yet, I was the only roommate he ever had. For college, at U of WI in Milwaukee, he lived at home and played tight end on the football team. Then he married, so lived in the seminary apartments, not the dorms…

…until the summer after he graduated. He still had one course to take to complete his degree. He was already appointed to be the Methodist campus minister at Whitewater State U. It was too far for a daily commute, so for three weeks, he had to live in the dorm at Garrett, going home only on the weekends.

It was the same three weeks that I could go home only on the weekends because I was taking two semester-length courses crammed into one summer session. Walt and I were assigned to room together just because we were the leftovers.

I know we must have gone to classes and studied, but it seems now that we spent the entire time just sitting on our beds and talking. We found that we shared in commitment to baseball and social justice. It was one of those “I’ve known and liked this guy forever” relationships. Thus it remained forever. We usually lived too far away geographically to continue our eternal conversation regularly. Walt was in WI or NE, I in IN or IL. But we talked on the phone, visited in each other’s homes, met in Chicago to go to baseball games.

That was one of the things we always talked about—baseball. Walt was a true Milwaukee baseball fan, the Braves when they came from Boston, then the Brewers after the Braves moved to Atlanta. But he always honored my love of the Cincinnati Reds and would suggest that our Chicago forays include games when the Reds were in town. He even had a photo made of the Reds’ ballpark jumbotron with a sign welcoming me to the stadium.

Walt’s commitments were few—family, friends, baseball, church, social justice. Through the years he lived out his commitments as a campus minister, a parish pastor, a seminary admissions director, and a hospital chaplain. Wherever those commitments took him, he lived in that moment, bloomed where he was planted.

Whenever we could, we got together on July 7 to celebrate his birthday. He was always seven months older than I. These last few years we celebrated first through the telephone, and when that became too much, through email from me that his wife, Judy, read to him, and email replies from him that he dictated to her. Walt died less than two weeks after that most recent celebration.

I rejoice for all the years he graced the earth with his gentle and caring presence, and I rejoice that he now graces that “great cloud of witnesses” with that same presence.

“For all the saints, who from their labors rest…”

John Robert McFarland

The photo is from Jan. 17, 2013, when Walt was speaking at the MLK Day celebration at Mitchell Community College, in Statesville, NC, telling about marching with MLK in Chicago to end school segregation.

 

BOB HAMMEL, 10/6/36-7/19/25, RIP [M, 7-21-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of an Old Man—BOB HAMMEL, 10/6/36-7/19/25, RIP [M, 7-21-25]

 

The first thing we think of at the name of Bob Hammel is “writer.” Particularly sports writer. That’s how most of us first came to know him. That’s the main reason for all those awards, accolades that would make the rest of us be full of ourselves. In the sports world, those in the know said that he was the equal of Jim Murray of The Los Angelos Times, or Frank Deford, of Sports Illustrated. Most folks didn’t know it though, because Bob wrote for the Bloomington Herald-Times. Acclaim never changed Bob, though. He was always that good-hearted Hoosier boy from Huntington. 

As Helen and I got better acquainted personally with Bob and Julie, we learned that the writing was enabled by that phenomenal memory. He said he retired when he did because he could not remember things like who was the second highest scorer in some 1924 junior varsity game between two schools that didn’t even exist anymore.

No one ever questioned the accuracy of Bob’s facts or the integrity of his writing.

His writing was enabled by his family, both the Huntington family of his youth, and the family he and Julie created over 67 years of marriage. They not only encouraged him and taught him about love but often provided unintentional fodder for his articles and columns.

His writing was also enabled by his faith, acted out in his church commitment and in his life of Jesus values. Bob felt a spiritual dimension in a typewriter keyboard. He once told me that he often felt like a concert pianist as he typed, with the musical notes of words flowing from his fingers, the words selecting and correctly spelling themselves as they came from his fingertips.

And his writing was enabled by his vast array of friends.

So, as one of those friends, I want to concentrate not so much on Bob, the writer, but Bob the friend.

Bob and I missed each other as IU students by only a year. He was only four months older than I, but he graduated high school when he was just sixteen, a year ahead of me. Had I been a year older, we might even have been roommates, for we both lived in the leftover WWII BOQ that served as a dorm for The Residence Scholarship Plan, for poor kids who were motivated but didn’t have the money for college.

We sometimes talked of how much we missed by not meeting then. Instead, forty years later, Methodist Bishop Leroy Hodapp introduced us. IU basketball coach Bob Knight said that Bishop Hodapp was his pastor, and that Bob Hammel was his best friend, most of the time, so the bishop thought Hammel and I should meet. When we met, we did our best to make up for lost time.

Bob was loyal to his friends. Sometimes he was criticized for that, as with his most famous friendship, with Bob Knight. Make no mistake, he recognized the faults of his friends. As a reporter, he always told the truth. But he didn’t let the faults of a friend affect the friendship.

Through the years, when Bob and Julie found out Helen and I were to be in town, they would host us in their home and at one or another of their many favorite restaurants. When we moved back to Bloomington, they welcomed us with tickets to a Willie Nelson concert at the IU Auditorium, and hosted us often for lunch or supper. After they could no longer drive and had to move to assisted living, Bob and I met weekly for coffee, until a bad hip hampered my driving and prevented my walking, and he had a long stint in hospital and rehab and then entered hospice care.

Perhaps I can sum up Bob, my friend, with this story: One day about 30 years ago, Bob and I went to lunch and then to IU basketball practice. Coach Knight was his usual famously profane self. Afterward, I said to Bob, “I wish he would be more creative. He just uses the same foul words over and over. Doesn’t even mix up the order.” Bob replied, with heart-felt Presbyterian gentleness, “Oh, I just wish he wouldn’t use those words at all.”

I thought, “Oh, wait. The preacher wants the coach to cuss creatively, and the sports writer wants him not to cuss at all. Isn’t that backwards?”

Not exactly. That was Bob Hammel.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

 

MY ESSENCE IS PERFECTION [F, 7-18-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Essence of An Old Man—MY ESSENCE IS PERFECTION [F, 7-18-25]

 

I am re-reading Healthy Aging, by Andrew Weil, MD. In Chapter 17, he talks about “unchanging essence.” [1]

He notes that all of us change as we age. Obviously, our bodies change, but so do our brains and our emotions. We learn new information, get new insights. We are not exactly the same persons today that we were yesterday.

There is, however, an “unchanging essence,” that which has always been and will always be the core of who we are. He gives a whole page of questions to help us determine what that essence is, for we shall age better if we know that personal essence.

It doesn’t take me a whole page to know my essential identity. I am still that little boy who always wanted to be perfect.

I didn’t want to be perfect for bad reasons, so that I could lord my perfection over others. I wanted perfection so that there would be no reason for anyone to criticize me or punish me. Especially, I did not want to have to criticize or punish myself. I wanted to be at-one-ment with God and with myself. I did not want to suffer, either the criticisms of others or the doubts and guilts of myself.

Yes, I wanted everyone to like me, but that is sort of a sub-category of perfection. When I was young, I did not know how hard it is for people to like you when you are perfect.

I learned early that perfection is not possible, but if perfection is your essence, you have to find excuses for your imperfection, because you are still going to try to be true to your essence, still try to be perfect, even when you know you can’t be.

[That’s how essence is: it keeps on trying even when it doesn’t work, even when it knows it doesn’t work.]

There are three excuses we use for not being perfect.

One excuse for imperfection is denial, but that’s never been helpful to me. I can’t claim to be perfect where there is so much evidence to the contrary, especially when there are so many folks willing to point out that evidence.

Another excuse for imperfection is the actions of others. My mother often said, “Look what you made me do!” It’s hard to be perfect when you are causing imperfections even in others.

A third excuse is circumstances. The weather did it. Or society. Or a dog tripped me, or ate it.

Well, there may be more than three excuses. So, you expected me to know them all? I’m not perfect, you know… [Oh, that’s the fourth one—blame others for their expectations.]

John Robert McFarland

1] Weil’s book was pretty good when it was published 20 years ago. He was a pioneer in integrative medicine. I don’t recommend it now, though. He’s not a particularly good writer, and he puts in too much extraneous stuff. Other writers are more up-to-date. However, if you like the food and cooking aspects of health, he’s very much into that.

“The toughest thing about success is that you’ve got to keep on being a success.” Irving Berlin [Writer’s Almanac]

 

I’M WORRIED ABOUT YOU; PLEASE GO AWAY

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—I’M WORRIED ABOUT YOU; PLEASE GO AWAY [T, 7-15-25]

 

I recently had a very nice encounter with a man I’ll call Rick. Over ten years, we have occasionally met as we walked the narrow sidewalks of our pleasant neighborhood. Now that Heather has moved, we are the only early morning walkers.

He said, “I’ve been worried about you. I haven’t seen you for so long. I asked around about you, but…”

Asking around in our neighborhood, about anything, will usually result in, “But…”

We are good neighbors in our ‘hood. We greet one another. But if we know another’s name, it is only the first name.

I think the dogs are responsible for that. I know the names of all the dogs in the neighborhood, but they think they are celebrities, and use only one name, like Waggs or Blue, so we humans have begun to do the same, like Madonna or Lizzo. [Yes, I know who Lizzo is.]

I explained to Rick that I had not walked for several months because of my bad hip, but that I was able to walk now because of physical therapy.

Rick did what we all do in a casual conversation. He heard something that caught his attention and went with that, rather than remembering that he was supposed to be worrying about me, since he had not seen me for so long.

“My mother had to have physical therapy. She had a stroke at Thanksgiving time,” he said. He went on to describe his mother’s symptoms before and after PT. “Not surprising that she’s slow to recover,” he said, “because she’s almost 89.”

Almost 89? Guess who else is almost 89! [I thought that; didn’t say it out loud.]

I was dumbstruck. Rick is an old guy. Obviously retired. Yes, he walks better than I do. He’s faster, long loping stride. But I thought that he and I were the same age. No, his mother and I are the same age! That means he must be the same age as my children.

So now I have done it, the same as Rick, the same as we are all wont to do until we learn to listen--hearing that thing that caught my attention and took me away from the main point.

No, the main point is not that I misread his age, that I’m old enough to be his father. No, the main point is that he was worried about me. That is what I need to hear, not that I’m once again flummoxed by how old I am.

Here’s the point: It’s nice to have folks glad you’re present. And it’s nice when they notice your absence and worry about you.

I think a lot of the trouble makers in the world, nobody noticed them when they were absent, so they had to act out their frustrations in order to get attention, to get noticed. Those folks, we need to say to them, “I noticed your absence. I worried about you.”

Now, though, before we can say it, those folks will need to be absent, go away. We probably have the same folks in mind.

John Robert McFarland

My older sister used to work for a travel agency. Their business slogan was, “Please Go Away.” For cruises, it was “Please Go Aweigh.”

 

 

STARTING AT ONE [SAT, 7-12-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—STARTING AT ONE [SAT, 7-12-25]

 

Daughter Katie told us about a little child who called Grandpa to wish him a happy birthday. “How old are you?” she asked. “62,” Grandpa replied. There was a long pause, and then she said, “Did you start at one?”

I recently wrote [6-20-25] about the importance of counting down. Counting up is important, too.  

When I was in grade school, at Lucretia Mott PS # 3, in Indianapolis, we received a weekly “newspaper.” It was about four pages, and often had illustrated articles about what life would be like in the future, especially the 21^st century. The accompanying drawings would show flying automobiles, and people hopping from car to school in space suits, and kids eating a school lunch that was just a little tablet.

I thought it would be neat to experience that, at least a car that could fly, and I asked my mother if she thought I would live to see the 21^st century. After all, I would be 63 when that century arrived, an almost impossible age to comprehend, even though I was starting the counting up at a bit higher than one. Mother allowed as how it was possible that I would see the 21^st century. She was right, even though it took a lot more counting up.

Old friend and former student, Dennis Heller, telephoned recently. He congratulated us on our 66^th wedding anniversary. Then, without meaning to, I think, he gave us a goal. He told us of a couple that has been married 81 years! That’s a lot of counting up! [1]

I have now counted up 25 years into this 21^st century, this century which once seemed so far away. A lot of stuff in those pictures in my grade school paper has happened. I’m disappointed about the flying cars, though.

We could really use flying cars. The roads are clogged. No one can get anywhere.

We used to have trains and buses. What happened to them? Wouldn’t it be better if we had good public transportation? Our idea of public transportation is a Uber, just another car to clog the roads and foul the air.

Yes, but we don’t have public transportation. Or flying cars. We have to live in the reality of our own time. There are no time machines. We get no choice about when we shall live. Only about how…

We all start at one, and count up…

John Robert McFarland

1] They are each 99.

THE HEAVENLY FESTIVAL [W, 7-9-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Speculations of An Old Man—THE HEAVENLY FESTIVAL [W, 7-9-25]

 

 [Fear not; You believe in God; believe also that there will be a Christian application, sort of, at the end.]

It’s fair and festival season.

It’s time for the Toledo, Iowa “Stoplight Festival.” Toledo now has three stoplights, but the festival celebrates only the first one. It was the only one for many years, starting in 1949. It’s still there, smack dab in the middle of the intersection, on a sturdy metal pole, about five feet tall.

Every town needs a festival, something to rally around, build community, see local girls in bathing suits, eat rubber pancakes, sell raffle tickets to get a new defibrillator for the volunteer fire dept.

If the only thing you have that sets you apart is a stoplight, then you have a Stoplight Festival.

When I pastored in Arcola, IL, we had two festivals, one long-standing and one that started while we were there, because folks felt that one festival wasn’t enough to keep us going.

 

The first is the famous Broom Corn Festival. Broom corn is exactly what it sounds like—a corn-like plant that provided the bristles for brooms. It was grown locally, and so broom factories located there. The most famous of those is Libman. You can see their ads on TV all the time. Now most of the brooms have plastic bristles, and broom corn is imported from Mexico, but that doesn’t slow down the festival. One little patch of broom corn is still grown in Arcola so its harvesting can be demonstrated during the festival.

When we lived there, Arcola started the Raggedy Ann Festival. The connection to Arcola was tenuous. Johnny Gruelle created Raggedy Ann. He was born in Arcola. He moved away when he was two. No one was sure if he ever returned. But if you don’t have even one stoplight, you create a festival from whatever you can find. 

A few years ago, an Arcola bank was robbed. One of the local jokes was, “Now we’ll have to have a Bank Robbery Festival.” [1]

Garrison Keillor paid tribute to the small-town festival ethos with Toast & Jelly Days in Lake Wobegon, MN.

Cities try to have community-building festivals, like the Taste of Chicago. But they fall flat. Too many people and too few tastes. Everybody who lives in Toledo, Iowa passes that stoplight every day. That makes every day a festival.

Most of us, when we think of heaven, just lying around on cloud 9 all day, playing the harp, doing nothing…well, that sounds boring. When we think of heaven, it’s the community we look forward to. [They don’t worry much in heaven about ending a sentence with a preposition.]

If heaven is worthwhile, it’s got to be for the community, seeing all the folks we love who are already there. Which is why I think heaven is just a small-town summer festival. You know everybody. All the old relatives show up. There is music and laughter. Some local kid, who went away and made it big, like Jesus, gets to be the parade marshal. God tells Dad jokes at the talent contest. Isn’t that enough to make you want to go there?

And if that’s not exactly the way it is in the next life, at least it’s fun to think about in this life.

John Robert McFarland

1] A side light on the bank robbery: it was one of several in small towns in the area, done on his lunch hour by a counselor at the county mental health department. He was very dutiful in trying to get back to work on time after each robbery.

PIGS & BELONGING [Su, 7-6-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Pigs of an Old Man—PIGS & BELONGING [Su, 7-6-25]

 

The Gibson County Fair is July 6-12 this year. Fair time always reminds me of Sadie.

I was a Cub Scout in Indianapolis, but not for long, just a year or so before we moved to the farm near Oakland City, when I was ten. There were probably Cub Scouts in Oakland City, but we lived three miles outside of town, and didn’t have a car, so that was the end of my Scouting career. I like uniforms, and I missed wearing my Cub Scout beanie and neckerchief

However, the Forsythe Church community, where we lived, had 4H. No uniforms, but you could put that four-leaf-clover logo on anything you wanted. All you really needed for 4H was a pig.

At least, that’s what Uncle Ted thought, so he bought me a cute little Hampshire piglet. I named her Sadie, probably after Sadie Hawkins, of the Little Abner comic strip. Barbara Streisand had not yet sung, “Sadie, Sadie, married lady,” but if I had heard it, I would have sung, “Sadie, Sadie, you ain’t no lady.”

 

Sadie was the world’s least cooperative pig. She didn’t like being a pig at all. I borrowed Uncle Ted’s cane to direct her around the show ring at the Gibson County fair. Didn’t do a bit of good. She went anyplace she wanted. We didn’t get a blue ribbon. Or red. Or yellow. If they’d had a puce ribbon…I’m not sure they would have awarded even that to us.

It wasn’t just me or the fair judges. Sadie didn’t cooperate with anybody, including her own offspring. When it came time for them to be born, Sadie got her back end up against the barn side so they couldn’t come out. Daddy and I had to keep dragging her away from that wall.

 

Once born, she wanted nothing to do with them, including nursing. When she saw them coming, she would run away, down to the pond lot. They would chase her, going wee-wee-wee-wee, all the way. They’d catch up, and she’d spread her legs and brace herself so they couldn’t get at her. They’d all get on one side and push until their sheer numbers—about a dozen—would overcome her resistance. They’d all jump in and get some dinner and she would grunt and try to ignore them. Until the next time they wanted to eat. They the same scenario would play out.

In addition to Sadie, I also exhibited carrots at the fair. They looked like octopuses. They won a yellow ribbon, which was pretty much like a participation prize. I just didn’t have the right color thumb for being a farm boy, which I guess was blue, since that was the color ribbon the good 4H kids got.

I would have liked blue ribbons, but what I really cared about was being included. That was my blue ribbon—just being a part of things.

I related better to people than to pigs and vegetables. I was elected president of The Lucky 13 4H Club and quickly grew it out of its name. I liked being included so much that I wanted everybody else to be included, too. Any kid I saw, I invited them to join up.

That club won a lot of blue ribbons at the fair. None of them were mine. But that was okay. No blue ribbons. No uniform. But, I belonged. You don’t have to be able to control pigs or grow carrots to be included.

John Robert McFarland

PARTNER WITH THE WORLD [F, 7-4-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—PARTNER WITH THE WORLD [F, 7-4-25]

There are many different theories of how to deal with the imperfections of living in this world. We are told to bloom where you’re planted, or to make lemonade if life gives you lemons. Good approaches. Good skills.

Here’s a slightly different life skill: partnering with the world.

I’m thinking about that because it’s sweet corn time. That means Art Snider. I learned about world-partnering from Art’s sweet corn approach to life.

When Art retired, he decided to be a “truck gardener,” which sounds like growing trucks but is actually growing vegetables to take to farmers’ markets to sell out of the back of a truck. The problem was deer. There were a lot of them in the area where he lived, and they would eat all his produce as soon as it got almost ready for market. He thought about fencing, but it would take a lot of fence, which would eat into his profits, too, and create its own problems. So he planted a couple of rows of sweet corn all around his huge garden before he put in the other plants. The corn was up and ready for the deer by the time the other vegetables showed their heads. The deer were satisfied with the corn. They didn’t bother the other stuff.

That doesn’t work with the occasional rose bush. Shortly after our daughter, Katie, moved to Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, she planted a rose bush at the corner of her house. She went around the corner to get the watering hose. That took only a few seconds, but by the time she got back to the bush, a deer had run out of the woods—woods are everywhere in the UP, even in towns—and eaten her rose bush.

For the eight years that she and her family, and her parents, lived in Iron Mountain, we, like everyone else, had flowers only in hanging baskets on porches, where the deer could not get them.

Then Helen and I moved “…back home again, in Indiana.” No deer in a college town of 70,968, right? No, not right. Helen decided to get creative with her flowers. She put a pot of those pretty pink flowers--the ones for which I don’t know the name—outside our brick-walled patio so the neighbors could enjoy them, too. I hope the neighbors saw them quickly, for they were enjoyed almost immediately as a deer snack. So, Helen did not curse the deer. She understands. She brought the pot inside the patio. The flowers are pinkly blooming again.

Too often, if we don’t like the way life is, we just bulldoze it out of existence. We always pay a price for that, even if it is not immediately available. Far better to plant a row or two for the pests.

Life works best if we partner with the world.

John Robert McFarland

This being Independence Day, I think it especially meaningful that the lectionary Gospel for this Sunday, July 6, includes “I have given you authority…to overcome all the power of the enemy…” [Luke 10:19]

HARD WORK FOREVER [W, 7-2-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man--HARD WORK FOREVER [W, 7-2-25]

 

I was thirteen years old. Maybe twelve. Maybe fourteen. Hard to remember, through the haze of 75 years of memory. And through the sweat.

I had lost touch with the rest of the crew. The corn stalks were so tall, way above our heads. And so thick. Even if a fellow “corn jerker” was only two rows over, he was hard to see. [We detasseled the rows on either side of us, so the nearest other corn jerker was always two rows away.] [1]

It was slow work, walking through that long, long corn field of Princeton Farms, pulling the tassels out of the tops of the stalks. I had to reach as high as I could, bend the stalk over without breaking it to get it down to where I could grab the tassel and jerk it out.

It was uncomfortable work. There was no breeze down in amongst the corn stalks. They were wet with dew, and the humidity was always over a thousand percent, so we were drenched. We had to wear straw hats and long sleeves and pants, because the corn leaves were like knives.  

When I got to the end, everybody else was already there. The other guys didn’t worry if they missed a “few” tassels, or broke some. They were just in it for the quick money, fifty cents per hour. They made fun of me for doing the work the right way. Even the foreman was more interested in getting it done quick than in getting it done right, and was disgusted with me for slowing things down.

Yes, they were in it for the quick money, but I was in it for the slow money. Anyone who worked the entire detasseling season, from first day through the last, made an extra twenty-five cents per hour. That was a huge extra bonus. Only two of us got it.

More importantly, I was in it for the satisfaction. No, I didn’t like farm work. I had experience with it already. We lived on a farm where all the labor was manual. I knew all about being hot and sweaty and chigger-eaten and hen-pecked. But I liked the feeling of achievement, of beating the hard work at its own game.

Anne Lamott says that staying sober is “…hard work forever.” I think that is probably true of life in general. I think about that now in this late June-early July season of corn detasseling.

I still don’t like being miserable and uncomfortable, whatever the reason, any more than I did growing up on the farm, any more than I did down amongst those tall corn stalks. But I want to be able to say to myself, on my final day of life: You did it. You did the hard work, and you did it right.

Well, not just my final day. I want to be able to say that on any day.

But here’s the catch: the hardest work is remembering the satisfaction of hard work. Every day, sometimes every moment all day, I need a reminder. At any time, there is that temptation to take the easy way, to break the stalks, to leave some jerks unjerked, to hurry to the end of the row. 

When you are old, remembering the satisfaction of hard work...that is the real hard work…forever.

John Robert McFarland

 

1] I did not know then that detasselers were called cornjerkers. I came across that name when we moved to Hoopeston, IL and the high school teams were called Cornjerkers.

 

 

PLAYING FAVORITES [M, 6-30-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—PLAYING FAVORITES [M, 6-30-25]

 

Ten years ago today, two of my closest friends died.

 

Ann White scheduled Bill’s funeral for September, and Terri wanted Mike’s funeral right away, so I was able to preach at both of them. 

We had moved from Iron Mountain, Michigan to Bloomington, Indiana only a month before, so it wasn’t a good time to fly to Arizona, but there was no way I would miss Mike’s funeral. I was his favorite friend.

 

At Mike’s funeral, there was a time for people to get up and say whatever they wanted to about him. I never put that into a funeral when I was in charge; too easy for things to get out of hand, especially to get long and boring. But I wasn’t in charge of Mike’s funeral, just the preacher.

The first man who spoke introduced himself by saying he was Mike’s favorite brother-in-law. There was an appreciative ripple of laughter. Then a woman spoke and introduced herself as Mike’s favorite sister-in-law. More laughter. By the time all of Mike’s favorites had spoken, we were having an uproarious good time. The message was clear: everyone was Mike’s favorite, because that’s how he made you feel.

It's tricky, claiming to be someone’s favorite, especially if they haven’t said anything about it. Mike never told anyone that they were his favorite; it’s just the way we felt.

I wrote recently of how I told my doctor’s new nurse that I was Dr. V’s favorite patient, by accident, when I was trying to say that she called me perfect because of the way I presented symptoms to her.

It was very embarrassing when Olivia told me that she had asked Dr. V if I were, indeed, the doctor’s favorite. I mean, that’s so arrogant, so hubristic, to claim to be the favorite.

It’s okay, of course, to claim the favorite spot, if there is no competition. Brigid can rightly claim to be my favorite granddaughter, Joe my favorite grandson. [Just to be sure, I often tell them that.]

It took me a long and somewhat fretful time, though, to understand why Grandma Mac no longer referred to me as her favorite grandson. That happened when I was ten and my cousin, Paul, was born.

We all want to be favorites, don’t we?

Remember how James and John asked to be the favorites when Jesus became king? They wanted to sit on either side of him at the banquet table. [Mark 10:35-45]

 

Sometimes we want a favorite status for someone else. In Matthew 20:20-28, it is the mother of James and John who asks Jesus to give her sons preference, the favored status of sitting beside him at the kingly banquet.

Jesus, of course, said that he came not to have the status of favorite, to be served. He didn’t claim to be God’s favorite, even though he was The Christ. “Even the Son of Man comes not to be served but to serve.” [Mark 10:45]

We all want to be favorites, and we are. Jesus didn’t claim to be God’s favorite, because he knew that you are God’s favorite.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

THE FIXING AND HELPING DILEMMA [Sa, 6-28-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Reflections of An Old Man—THE FIXING AND HELPING DILEMMA [Sa, 6-28-25]

 

Rachel Naomi Remen makes a useful distinction between fixing, helping, and serving. I call it the FHS dilemma. It’s a dilemma for anyone, but especially for professionals in helping professions.

Indeed, by referring to doctoring and nursing and pastoring and teaching and social working, etc as “helping” professions, we are setting up ourselves and our patients/clients for failure.

Not total failure, of course. Most of us are better off-- at the physical level of need--if we are fixed and helped. But fixing and helping also diminish us at the spiritual/human level of need.

Remen is an MD, and has Crohn’s Disease. She had an ileostomy when just a young woman, and the bag ever since, of course. She makes the FHS distinction both as a physician and a patient.

 

She notes that as a physician, she is constantly tempted first to fix and help. As a patient, she understands that what we need most is service.

Fixing and helping are efficient. They make the fixer/helper feel good. “I have done something worthwhile.”

Fixing and helping make the “patient” feel weak and diminished. “I cannot be a person on my own; I require someone else to fix and help me.”

Like Dr. Ramen, I had intestinal surgery, for colon cancer. Unlike her, I did not end up with a colostomy and the subsequent bag. Neither of us could have done our own surgeries or recovery regimens. We needed fixing and helping… no. We needed doctors and nurses. But as they work on us, doctors and nurses can serve us instead of fixing and helping us.

The end result physically is usually the same, but the attitude is different, and so the emotional outcome for both server and served is different.

The difference is in approach and attitude.

Remen tells of a doctor friend who had delivered hundreds of babies when one day he had to make an emergency delivery. Even before he could hand the little girl to her mother, she opened her eyes and looked straight at him. He suddenly realized that he was the first person in the whole world that she had seen. He would always be that person. It was a spiritual bond. It felt like he needed to welcome her to the world. He said that she was really the first baby he ever delivered, because she was the first he delivered through serving, welcoming her to the world, rather than fixing and helping.

I have always been a fixer/helper. That’s why I wasn’t a very good pastoral counselor. People who come to a pastor don’t need fixing; they need pastoring. When I stuck to pastoring rather than counseling--listening and being, instead of providing solutions--I did better.

Most of us who are old now were trained, by parents and culture and education and life, to be fixers and helpers. But we don’t have to be. Now, even in small every-day exchanges with people, we can choose to serve rather than fix or help.

By serve, I don’t mean being a servant, as in a maid or hired man. Serving is the attitude of: I’m not better than you. I don’t have something you don’t have, something I can give you out of my superiority. We are spirits together in this mysterious life, and we can fix each other, and help each other, without fixing and helping.

Jesus, in announcing his purpose in the world, said: “I am among you as one who serves.” [Lk 22:27.]

John Robert McFarland

GORDON MORRISON IN IRAN [R, 6-26-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Friends of An Old Man—GORDON MORRISON IN IRAN [R, 6-26-25]

 

The old song of “Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran” becomes more relevant every day. We finally got around to doing it.

That song was written by Fred Fassert in 1979, and set to the familiar and popular and simple tune of Barbara Ann, which made it easily singable. Fassert himself had written Barbara Ann 20 years before. Bomb Iran hit the airwaves in a recording by Vince Vance and the Valiants.

As I hear Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran, I think of Gordon Morrison. Gordon was a year behind me in high school, so I did not know him well then. In high school, you pay attention only to the kids who are older than you, except for pretty girls.

But while we were students at Indiana University, we got better acquainted, enough so that we kept up a steady and deep correspondence when he graduated and went to Iran as a Peace Corps volunteer for two years, with a later three-year stint as the director of youth work for The Episcopal Church for the whole nation.

He was a Methodist prior to Iran. I think he became an Episcopalian just because he wanted to study Islam up close and personal, and so took that job with the Episcopalians so he could go back to Iran. One of the few things his 2013 obituary says beyond the usual listings of jobs and survivors is that “He was a deep thinker about the theological connections between Christianity and Islam.”

During our IU days, he thought that he might be called to be a preacher, but wasn’t quite sure. By the time he returned from Iran, however, he was convinced of his call, and a convinced Episcopalian. He spent the rest of his life as an Episcopal priest in several different congregations.

As he moved first to Alabama and on to Kentucky and then to Maryland, we lost touch, the way you do as life gets in the way. He was 73 when he died after an automobile accident.

Now I wish that he were alive and available. I’d like to hear what he thinks of our current program of Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.

In 1953, an Iranian “regime change” was engineered by the US CIA and the British MI6. It deposed the democratically elected prime minister and reinstalled Mohammad Reza Pahlavi as absolute monarch, the Shah. The problem? Iranian oil. US oil companies wanted its profits [40%] and the British wanted the rest. The elected government of Iran thought the profits of Iranian oil should benefit Iran. The Shah was quite happy to let Westerners have the oil in return for putting him and keeping him in power.

Gordon’s years in Iran were during “the white revolution,” which wasn’t a revolution but a program by the Shah to modernize Iran. He enlisted the minority Sunni Muslims to help him create it. The Shite Muslims and Sunni Muslims have hated one another for a thousand years for reasons that make no sense to anyone on the outside, so the Shah was inviting the majority of his citizens to rebel. They did, especially the clergy. [Clergy are notorious for opposing change!]

As the Shiites resisted the white revolution, the Shah’s regime became more and more brutal in putting them—and anyone else who opposed him--down, primarily through his dreaded secret police, the SAVAK, who were trained and equipped by the US, which was intent on keeping the Shah in power and keep the oil flowing. It’s not all that surprising that the US became known in Iran as “the great Satan.”

As things got worse and worse, the Iranian people became bolder in demanding change. This time, it was the folks inside who wanted the regime change. They especially resented the way America helped the Shah in his authoritarian ways to keep them oppressed and American oil companies rich. In 1979, the US embassy was invaded and the equally repressive Khomeini regime started. The clergy got their revenge. The common citizens, as usual, got disappointment.

All of this fueled Gordon’s interest in Muslim theologies. He never lost his love for the Iranian people, both Sunni and Shiite. He would not think that Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran is the best policy. He thought that the best thing Christians could do was to create a strong church in Iran, as some sort of safely minority middle ground, a place where Sunnis and Shiites could talk to one another.

He was my Oakland City Acorn brother in faith, faith in God rather than in bombs. I miss him.

John Robert McFarland

Whole books have been written about the confusing history of Iran over the last century. Of necessity, I have just recalled a few facts that help explain Gordon.

 

 

 

 

 

 

TALKING TO THE GOD IN YOUR BRAIN [T, 6-24-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Brain Research of An Old Man—TALKING TO THE GOD IN YOUR BRAIN [T, 6-24-25]

 

There’s an old sermon story about the young preacher who got his tongue all twisted around while trying to pray in the worship service. This was back in the day when we used thees and thous in prayer; it was easy to get confused. So an old lady in the congregation called out, “Just call Him Father, ask Him for something, and sit down.” Not bad advice, really, but it leads us into faulty thinking about prayer.

Critics of prayer suggest that prayer is just auto-suggestion; we’re only talking to ourselves. As a believer in prayer, I agree. I agree also because I’m a Christian, also, and so I believe in incarnation, the spiritual in the physical.

Every spiritual dimension, every God dimension of life, has a physical manifestation in this life. That’s simply the way this physical world is. Even prayer. There is nothing in this physical world that isn’t physical. Including the spiritual.

When we pray, it’s not to God out there; it’s to God in there. In our own brain.

There are neural circuits of the brain tied to the periaqueductal gray area of the primal brain stem. [Say periaqueductal three times real fast…] That’s the physical place in the brain where God meets us. That’s the place where prayer communication happens. [Some folks say it’s the amygdala. Same idea.]

Each person has a different brain, so we have different word meanings, even though we think we agree on meanings. Each person has a different view of the world, different memories, different thought patterns. As you read these words, your brain and mine actually have different ideas of exactly what I’m saying.

It’s more efficient for God to use our particular personage, our particular periaqueductal, in the work of prayer, than trying to change us into one size fits all. Praying isn’t like ordering tube sox.

So each of us needs to pray, to talk to God, in our own way, in the language that make sense to us.

Yes, there is a place for common prayer, public prayer, in public worship. And we should use there the language that we have mostly agreed upon for talking to God. When I started doing public prayers, that included those confusing thees and thous and thines. I got pretty good at them, because I was pretty good at using words in general.

These days, not so much. I sometimes have to rehearse sentences, even those to my wife, to get words in the right order, so that they make sense.

When a new nurse showed up at our physician’s office, though, I just had to wing it. In getting acquainted, I told Olivia that I was Doctor Vucescu’s favorite patient. That is not what I meant. Dr. V had once said that I was the perfect patient, because I told her my symptoms in the right order. My brain got favorite and perfect confused. Fairly regular sort of brain work for me these days.

I did not realize what I had said until Olivia returned. She did not know about my problems with words, and so assumed that I knew what I was saying. To my horror, when she returned, she said, “You really are Dr. V’s favorite patient. I asked her.” Now I’m embarrassed. I have to find a new doctor.

Facility with words or getting stuff in the right order is nice in the doctor’s office, or for public prayer, but the God in your brain doesn’t care about that. Just say hello, state your symptoms, and get your prescription.

John Robert McFarland

Why we need to read as much as possible: “All I know is what I have words for.” Philological genius Ludwig Wittgenstein, who helped me pass a graduate statistics course.

 

 

FIX ME. JESUS; NO, NOT YOU, NICHOLAS [Su, 6-22-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Fixin’s of An Old Man—FIX ME. JESUS; NO, NOT YOU, NICHOLAS [Su, 6-22-25]

 

I thought the physical therapy for my hip was going well. The pain had decreased quite a bit. I knew how to do a “bridge.” I had learned how to spell “piriformis.”

Then, one day, Nicholas put me on a balance board and made me rock back and forth on it. It was exhausting. Not satisfied, he made me rock from side to side. I was enervated. [Yes, I looked up a synonym so I would not repeat “exhausting.” The alternative was “plumb tuckered.”] I could barely drag myself to the car, cane or no cane.

Finally, the third day, I said, “How come you’re debilitating [synonym search again] me with this balance board? It’s killing me.”

“Well, you said you wanted better balance.”

“No, I said I have poor balance. I didn’t say a thing about wanting it to get better.”

He thought and said, “You’re right. You just told me about your bad balance. You didn’t say you wanted to do anything about it.”

So, I have learned never to say anything to a physical therapist or a wife that can be construed a request for help. What to you is just information is to them a call to arms, a request that they fix whatever you seemingly have acknowledged is wrong with you. They already have enough ideas about how to fix you; they don’t need other suggestions.

I think about that as I sing “Fix me, Jesus” as one of my break-of-day songs.

Oh, fix me. Oh, fix me. Oh, fix me, Jesus.

 

Fix me for my journey home.

Fix me, Jesus, fix me.

 

Fix me for my dying bed.

Fix me, Jesus, fix me.

 

It’s a slave spiritual, with two meanings that are melded in the word “fix:”

First, there is the old Southern meaning of “fix,” as in “I’m fixin’ to go there.” In other words, “getting ready.” I heard that a lot growing up down in Gibson County.

Second, to go to heaven, one needs to get ready, by having a healed and whole soul. We need Jesus to fix, repair that soul, so we can be fixin’ to go “home.”

Just don’t sing “Fix me, Jesus,” unless you are fixin’ to be fixed, because Jesus takes that sort of thing pretty much literally.

John Robert McFarland