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

COUNTING DOWN IN AN UNCERTAIN WORLD [F, 6-20-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—COUNTING DOWN IN AN UNCERTAIN WORLD [F, 6-20-25]

 

 

One of the psychological problems of the covid 19 pandemic shutdown was that we couldn’t count it down… because we had no idea when it would end. That’s hard on us. We are a countdown people. But you can’t count down unless you have a definite time when you know that the present moment—the game, the year, the rocket blastoff—will end.

That is one of the reasons the shutdown lingers on still.  Not just the folks who have “long covid” symptoms. That’s bad enough. But all of us have the lingering marks of the shutdown on our souls. Because we did not get the closure of a countdown.

I remember well the first night I realized I could count down to retirement. I had reason to expect that I would not live long. I wanted to have at least a little time to spend with my grandchildren, and the only way I could get that was by retiring. It was dark. I was taking Waggs for her nightly walk. I knew the date when I could retire. I figured up the number of days until then. So, each night as Waggs and I walked by St. John the Baptist Church, I took a day off that number. Counting down gave me a reason to keep going on, when before the countdown started, the coming days had just been a messy morass without an end.

We use countdowns so often. The last seconds on the clock to end the game. New Year’s eve as the ball drops. Any day the astronauts blast off.

I think it’s why a lot of Christians get caught up in impossible schemes to figure out when the world will end. They just want a countdown to the end. They think it will give meaning to this present time.

We want that, that knowledge of when the world will end, because none of us can count down to the time when our own world will end, when we shall die. We are countdown people, but we have no way of counting down to the day of our own end.

The people who are doing okay in the aftermath of the covid 19 shutdown are those who have figured out how to accept an uncertain future. That’s how we accept an uncertain past, the shutdown that had no countdown, by accepting the uncertain future.

That way we do that is in the words of a phrase I have never liked much, but is useful, anyway: “Let go, and let God.” Or in the words of Charles Albert Tinley, “Take your burden to the Lord and leave it there.” In other words: Trust.

Trust is not naivety or escapism. It is the only true realism. As Studs Terkel said, “We’re born to live. One is a realist if one hopes.”

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

ARE YE ABLE [W, 6-18-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of an Old Man--ARE YE ABLE [W, 6-18-25]

 

Lorraine Brugh died recently, much too young, at age 72. I have written about her before. In fact, I’m going to repeat my column of 9-2-10…

Lorraine Brugh teaches organ at Valparaiso University. She has doctorates in both organ and theology. She did the theology doctorate just because she felt she had to know the theology behind the worship music to be able to interpret and teach the music adequately. That’s real devotion.

She led one of the weekends at the Grace Institute, a two-year Lutheran program for learning about and becoming more spiritual. I was one of the few non-Lutherans, and the only Methodist, in the program.

At meals and free times, a group of young women Lutheran pastors, four to six, according to the occasion, coalesced around me. I suspect it was because I treated them as colleagues when older male Lutheran pastors were less receptive to them. Or maybe it was just my animal magnetism.

One lunch period, Lorraine and I were eating together. When the meal was over, my group of young Lutheran women pastors came and joined us.

One of them asked us about Methodist theology. Lorraine has always been a Lutheran, but she got her theology doctorate at Garrett, a United Methodist school, at Northwestern U, while she was doing her organ degrees at Northwestern.

“I’ve always thought Methodism was primarily active theologically, rather than just intellectual,” she said. “You try to do the right thing first, and only then you think about it. It’s a very heroic faith. Your hymn is ‘Are Ye Able.’”

That surprised me for a moment. I would have said our hymn was “O For a Thousand Tongues.” It’s a Wesley hymn, after all. But I think Lorraine was right. For American Methodism of the 20^th century, Earl Marlatt’s “Are Ye Able” was our hymn. [1]

Then Lorraine started to sing it. But being non-Methodist, she began to falter on the words. So I joined in and we sang it together.

Are ye able, said the master, to be crucified with me

Yea, the sturdy dreamers answered, to the death we follow thee.

Lord, we are able, our spirits are thine

Remold them, make us, like thee, divine

Thy guiding radiance a beacon shall be

A beacon to God, to love, and loyalty.

 

Are ye able to remember when a thief lifts up his eyes

That his pardoned soul is worthy of a place in paradise?

Lord, we are able, our spirits are thine

Remold them, make us, like thee, divine

Thy guiding radiance a beacon shall be

A beacon to God, to love, and loyalty.

 

Are ye able when the shadows close around you with the sod

To believe that spirit triumphs, to commend your soul to God?

Lord, we are able, our spirits are thine

Remold them, make us, like thee, divine

Thy guiding radiance a beacon shall be

A beacon to God, to love, and loyalty.

 

Are ye able? Still the Master whisper down eternity,

And heroic spirits answer, now as then in Galilee.

Lord, we are able, our spirits are thine

Remold them, make us, like thee, divine

Thy guiding radiance a beacon shall be

A beacon to God, to love, and loyalty.

 

Heroic, indeed, perhaps unrealistically so. That hymn still stirs me, though. It’s a sung response to Jesus’ call to forsake everything to follow him.

The young Lutheran pastors looked a bit astonished as we sang.

When we finished, they had tears running down their unwrinkled cheeks. The tears were probably the audacity of my scratchy bass intruding on Lorraine’s clear soprano, but I prefer to think it was because, even though Lutheran, they are able.

John Robert McFarland

[1] It’s # 530 in the Methodist hymnal. Marlatt wrote it in 1926. Henry S. Mason wrote the music in 1924. It was my mother-in-law’s favorite hymn when Helen was growing up, even though she was a Baptist.

 

 

 

 

THE WITNESS OF RAYDEAN [M, 6-16-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—THE WITNESS OF RAYDEAN [M, 6-16-25]

 

Annual Conferences are just wrapping up in the UMC, and it brings to mind a very important AC, when Raydean Davis engineered something everyone else gave up on…

Raydean Davis was a St. Louis Browns fan, even long after the Browns ceased their futile attempts at playing baseball. That may be all you need to know to understand Raydean. He was an off-the-wall, over-the-line kind of guy.

Raydean followed me--once-removed, after thirteen years by Tom and Sharon Neufer-Emswiler [1] --as the Director of The Wesley Foundation at Illinois State University. Anne Paxton, the long-time secretary at the WF, said to me after Raydean’s death, “Working with you was a joy. Working with Tom and Sharon was a pleasure. Working with Raydean was a challenge.” [2]

She didn’t mean that Raydean was not creative and beloved as a campus minister. He may have been the best ever. He was so open, so inclusive. Even in his sixties, he understood and loved college students, and they understood and loved him. He provided them so many opportunities to grow in grace and self. But being off-the-wall and over-the-line means you don’t sweat the small stuff. There is, though, always small stuff that somebody has to sweat, and that meant the gracious but long-suffering Anne. Fortunately, her abilities at small stuff were just as great as Raydean’s liabilities.

Raydean and I met first as table tennis majors at Garrett Theological Seminary, often partnering to suffer ignominious defeat at the backhand of James Cone, who became the famous theologian of Black Power, and his partner, Australian Malcolm MacArthur, of the power forehand. Raydean was younger, in his first year at Garrett when I was in my last, but we continued our table tennis inclinations for the rest of his life, whenever we were together in the presence of a Ping-Pong table.

I usually write a little narrative obit when a friend dies, and I fear I have neglected Raydean. It has been eleven years now since he died, fittingly—if that does not sound too bizarre—from a bicycle accident head injury, at the age of 72. It is time to acknowledge and appreciate his friendship and life.

After Garrett, we did not see each other much. He was in the South IL Conference. I started in the Northwest Indiana Conference, and then was in the Central IL Conference. The latter was when we began to make contact again, because the Central and South IL Conferences were part of the same Area, presided over by the same bishop.

The Central IL Conference was about twice the size of South. As the UMC suffered declines from the 1960s on, the South IL Conference became too small to be viable, and our bishop tried to get the two conferences to merge into one. Central was doing pretty well, though. A lot of Central folks thought merging with South would be a drag on the pension and hospitalization plans. South IL voted to merge, but Central did not.

I joined Central in voting against merger, not because of pensions and health plans, but because The South IL Conference had a history of rejecting ministry candidates, and folks in general, if they were not white enough and masculine enough. A lot of southern IL would have fit nicely in Mississippi.

In fact, Raydean had spoken to that at the South IL Conference a few years earlier, when yet another group of outcasts knocked at the door of the church. He said, “When we had a black preacher who wanted to join the conference, we said no. Eventually we had to let him in, and we are a better conference because of it. Then Mike and Roy Katayama wanted to be pastors here, and we said no, because they were of Japanese descent. But eventually we were forced to let them in, and we are a better conference because of it. Then women wanted to be preachers, and we said no, but we were finally forced to let them in, and we are a better conference because of it. Now…]

By the time of the merger vote, Raydean had left the South IL Conference to be Director of The WF at ILSU. He knew both conferences well. He worked for a second vote, trying to get us to merge.

At Annual Conference that year, he sat down with Helen and me one morning as we had breakfast. He asked me to vote in favor of merger. I told him I would.

When he left, Helen said, “Why did you tell him that? I thought you were against merger.”

“Raydean,” I said. “There is a time when you need to trust your friends. He’s the only guy I know who can see past the small stuff to the result. If he thinks it will work, it will.”

There are still folks who think Raydean earned a place in hell for managing that merger, but everyone knows that he was the only one who was over the line far enough to see its possibilities.

John Robert McFarland

1] I used to say that it took Tom and Sharon 13 years together to accomplish all I did at ILSU in six years, until Sharon began to say that it took the two of them together 13 years to undo all that I did in six.

2] Often, the best things I did in ministry were the hires I made. That includes Anne as secretary [Head Honcho, really] of The ILSU Wesley Foundation.

GOING TO SEE THE WOMAN IN THE WOODS [Sat, 6-14-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Befuddlements of An Old Man—GOING TO SEE THE WOMAN IN THE WOODS [Sat, 6-14-25]

 

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert should be named The Too Late Show, for that is what it is for us. Probably for most old people. But we tape it and watch some of it the next night during supper. I say “some of it,” because we rarely watch the “musical” guests, not just because we don’t know who they are, but because we like melodies and lyrics that are meaningful, as they were in our day, like “Mairzy Doats and Dozy Doats,” or “R-A-G-G, M-O-P-P, RAGG-MOPP!”

We usually do watch the “actor” segment, though, when some actor who needs to plug a new movie or show, is the guest. That’s how we became aware of Dutch actress Katje Herbers, of whom we had never heard, who is in a TV series called Evil, Westworld, Manhattan, The Leftovers, none of which, of course, we have ever seen. We don’t intend to watch their new series, especially if it has a title like Evil, but we like to keep current about “popular culture,” in case we are ever on Jeopardy.

 

Ms. Herbers is older [31] than she appears. She is attractive and bubbly. If you don’t know a person, “bubbly” can be either creative or superficial. I’m still not sure about her. I do know, though, that she is now free of the ghosts who were giving her headaches.

First she told Colbert that she is “not spiritual,” but then she said she had suffered such terrible headaches that she couldn’t function. A friend told her she needed “to see the woman in the woods.” Well, you can imagine the reaction of a non-spiritual person to that! But she was so desperate, she went. The woman in the woods said, “You have 35 ghosts living in you. I’ll have to convince them to leave.” So, she did. She spoke to each one by name. “Dawn, you have to go,” etc. A couple of them refused and she had to be stern, but she eventually got the job done.

“My headaches disappeared,” Ms. Herbers said, “and I’ve not had any since.”

Colbert, who is openly Catholic, didn’t say it in words, but his expression said it all. “You went through that and still claim you aren’t spiritual?!”

Now, of course, there are explanations for that experience that can be called psychological instead of spiritual. But I’m beginning to think that the bubbliness of Ms. Herbers may be more superficial than creative.

You don’t have to be current to be relevant. My grandmother did not know who Buddy Holly or Bruce Springsteen were, but she was the most relevant woman I ever knew.

I am getting confused, and I’m not certain how to finish this. I’m not certain even why I started it. Something about there’s more to life than what we can understand…

Please be patient while I go see the woman in the woods.

 

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

WRESTLING WITH ANGELS [R, 6-12-25]

 BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Complaints of An Old Man—WRESTLING WITH ANGELS [R, 6-12-25]

 

As a follow-up, sort of, to the column of 6-10…

The pain in my hip would not go away, so they sent me to Machaela. Well, they sent me to x-ray, but it was the congenial Machaela who did the work. I complained that I had done nothing to cause the pain in my hip—no fall, no slip, no nothing. It seemed unfair to me. She commiserated, but said that she is at age where she can hurt herself in her sleep, which she did. Went to bed feeling fine and woke up hurting. And she is only 47.

I considered asking her if she had been wrestling with an angel, but I thought she might misunderstand, especially if she had not read the 32^nd chapter of Genesis recently. That’s the chapter that has the story of Jacob and that angel. Like Machaela, Jacob got hurt in his sleep, wrestling with the angel. He limped rest of his life, as a reminder of that encounter.

Which makes me think that we need to do some work coordinating Bible stories about Jacob. We are climbing Jacob’s ladder… Not if you have a bad hip!

 

Okay, the ladder is a different story. That’s chapter 28. But I wanted to complain, about something, because my hip hurt. I couldn’t even walk without pain, let alone climb a ladder. It’s especially hard to climb a ladder if you’re using a cane.

And I did not want a reminder of whatever had caused the pain, the way Jacob’s limp reminded him of the angel, who probably got his wrestling training at the U of Iowa. [The Hawkeyes have 24 national championships in wrestling.]

 

As a wrestler, Jacob was a grinder. He couldn’t pin the angel, but the angel couldn’t pin him, either. Jacob just hung on. He wouldn’t let go. He kept at it all night, until the angel agreed to give him a blessing, which included the new name of Israel, which in part means “he has overcome.”

When Megan, my FNP, saw the x-rays Machaela had taken, she sent me to physical therapy, much to my disgust. PT is a lot of work. I wanted her to give me a pill or a shot and have it over with. No, I had to go wrestle twice a week with Nicholas, who was very nice but definitely not angelic in the way he treated my hip.

So, call me Israel, for I have overcome. My hip doesn’t hurt anymore. I’m not limping. I don’t need the cane. So I guess I can go back to climbing that ladder to heaven.

All together now: Every rung goes higher, higher…

 

John Robert McFarland

 

DOUBLING DOWN [T, 6-10-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Singling Down of An Old Man—DOUBLING DOWN [T, 6-10-25]

 

I walked this morning. It was a pleasant day. Pretty clouds. Fully green trees. Fragrant flowers. Friendly dogs. I walked with no pain. Made me really mad.

I haven’t been able to walk the pleasant streets of our neighborhood for three months, because of the pain in my hip. Joint pains and problems are de rigueur for old people, yes, but this was unfair. I did nothing to cause the pain—no falls or slips. It just started on its own.

So, I made my peace with not getting to walk the green streets of my neighborhood anymore. I had done so for ten years. Surely that was enough for one of my age.

I went to the NP [Nurse Practitioner], of course, for the pain. I assumed she would give me a pill or an injection. Instead, she ordered me to the physical therapist. I was sure that would not work, even though my wife and daughters all assured me that their physical therapy had been beneficial. But they had been young women at the times when fit and youthful people pulled at their limbs. I was now an old man of elderly abilities and curmudgeonly virtues.

Moreover, I’d had PT previously, after rotator cuff surgery. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. Pretty little blonds with bouncy ponytails and cutesy names, like Polly and Penny, would take my arm down the hall to work on it while leaving me writhing on the torture table.

 

I dragged myself, on a cane, to PT. This time, there were no cute blonds, only competent-looking men, Chris, the manager of the torture chamber, and Nicolas, my personal PTist. I was grateful. They were not nearly as painful as Penny and Polly. But they didn’t help. Ha! I was right. This wasn’t working. 

People love being right, even when we’re wrong.

Until about the 4^th session. As usual, I had hobbled into their lair on a cane. But as I left, I didn’t need the cane. No pain all the way to the car. Well, that wasn’t very far, but it was a warning: this is going to work, and you’ll have to admit that the NP was right and you were wrong.

We hate being wrong, especially if we really are wrong.

 

Politicians hate it so much that “doubling down” is the current buzz word. You never admit that you are wrong, about anything. If you claim that 2 + 2 is 5, and some pointy-headed mathematician with a PhD says you are wrong, you double down: You claim that the mathematician must be a pedophile, or a Canadian. You claim that you are using new and alternative and better math. You claim that you never said any such thing, even though everyone on earth has seen the videotape of you saying it. You claim that 2 + 2 = 5 would be right if others hadn’t made this into an unchristian nation.

Well, I’m above that sort of thing. I’m not going to claim that the NP was wrong, and that I was right about the PT being the wrong therapy for my hip pain, that all I needed was a shot or a pill.

I will, however, have to get a new NP.

John Robert McFarland

POTLUCK AT THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA [Sun, 6-8-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Theological Complaints of An Old Man—POTLUCK AT THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA [Sun, 6-8-25]

 

I’ve written this before, but it’s one of my favorite stories…

When daughter Katie started dating Patrick, the man who became her husband, he was totally ignorant of Protestantism. It wasn’t willful ignorance. It was just that he’d lived in a totally Roman Catholic environment—family, friends, church, school. But suddenly he was dealing with not only a Protestant, but the daughter of a Methodist preacher.

He asked her, “What do you have to do to be a Methodist?” She replied, “You have to believe in God, and have a 9x13 pan.” [1]

That sums up Christian faith perfectly. Except for the theologians… They just can’t help messing with perfection.

Blame it on Augustine. The doctrine of the Trinity, that is. He just couldn’t leave well enough alone.

There is God for creation. There is Christ for salvation. There is the continuing [resurrected] presence of Christ [Holy Ghost] for guidance.

 

Who cares how they relate to each other? That’s a family matter. It’s none of your business. God is the Alpha and the Omega. Isn’t that enough? Just sing “He Lives” and get with it. But, no…

 

The doctrine of the Trinity caused so much confusion and furor among bishops and the like that Emperor Constantine had to call a conference to try to iron it all out. By that time he was probably saying to himself, “Why did I say it was okay to be a Christian back in 313? These idiots can’t even agree on what it means to be a Christian.”

He called everybody together at Nicaea, in 325, exactly 1700 years ago, and told them to come up with a creed everyone would agree on. It was a very successful conference. It produced that creed. And we’re still arguing about the same stuff 1700 years later.

The Trinity is okay for theologians to argue about, but has anyone ever been saved by winning a theological argument?

Is God three Persons or one? What’s a Person? Are God and Christ compacted together in hypostatic union? Is the Trinity like 3 in 1 oil? Is you is or is you ain’t filioque? [feel lee okay] [Try it; it’s fun to sing.] [2]

 

Who cares? What difference does it make? People need God, not overly parsed thoughts about God. “God is not found at the end of an argument.” Indeed, I maintain that too much talk about God takes us further from God. And I have a doctorate in talking about God!

I should not be too hard on Augustine, though. He wasn’t the only Trinitarian, just the most prolific writer.

And he also said, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.” That, I think, is true. It’s just that we don’t find that rest by arguing about the nature of God.

Nicaea would have been a lot better if it had been a potluck instead of a theological conference.

So what now? Trust God, and put something into your 9x13 pan to share with others.

 

John Robert McFarland

1] For those of you too young to recall the days of constant church potlucks, 9x13 is the size of a potluck pan—meat, vegetable, dessert, they all require a 9x13 pan.

2] Filioque means “…and the son…” and is part of the Nicene Creed, added to get everybody on the same page about the Trinity. But we continued to argue about it for 724 years. We couldn’t agree on three little words, and so that in 1054, those three little words caused The Great Schism, between Western [Roman] and Eastern [Orthodox] Churches.

 

AUDACITY OF AGE [6-6-25]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—AUDACITY OF AGE [6-6-25]

 

I have gotten back onto an every-other-day posting, rather than the every-third-day regimen I was trying. I just have so much to say about what it’s like to be old, so old that I am no longer even in “the winter of our years” but actually “beyond winter.”

Isn’t that the most audacious thing you’ve ever heard? I mean, why in the world would anyone think that folks would want to hear about stuff that happened so long ago?

This came to mind as Helen and I reviewed our first 66 years of marriage, to see if we could make improvements for the next 66. I thought about folks celebrating their 66^th anniversary on the day we got married in 1959. They were wed in 1893!

Young people in 1959 thought that people who got married in 1893 were hopelessly out of it. I mean, that was in “the gay 90s,” before “the turn of the century,” way before “the roaring ‘20s.” Before all the WWs, not to mention Korea and Vietnam and Desert Storm and… Way before The Great Depression.

That was stuff you study in history class, not stuff anybody actually lived through. Photos in black and white, made not by a cell phone but by a camera on a tripod with a photographer draped in a black cover. Henry Ford’s first Model T didn’t sell until 1908. Folks married 66 years before us left for their honeymoon in a buggy pulled by a horse. Those brides couldn’t even vote until they’d been married 26 years,

To those of us married in 1959, 1893 young married couples lived only in history books. [Not even in film strips, the hot new technology of our day.] To young people now, folks married in 1959 live only in history books, not in real life.

That’s why it’s audacious for an old person to write about “back then.” Even old people now don’t believe in stereographs and mimeographs and graph paper. We forget so easily. We think that cars always had seat belts, that you could always control the TV from across the room, that you didn’t need cash to pay for your Pepsi.

There is an audacity of age that is unlike any other.

In my final sermon, I told of my early years on a farm, with 13 families on one telephone line, and growing up without a car, and milking a cow by hand. Some friends heard a young teen boy sitting ahead of them say to his parents, “Is any of this true?”

Well, no. It’s just stuff old people make up so that we’ll sound more interesting. We always had cell phones and electric cars and computers. One thing different, though. We didn’t have AI. Our intelligence had to be real.

 

John Robert McFarland

COUNTING HAIRS [W, 6-4-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—COUNTING HAIRS [W, 6-4-25]

 

I have a woman friend who has a rare and mysterious skin illness. The doctors say no one knows what causes it or how to treat it. One result of it is that she is losing her hair.

That’s more traumatic for a woman than a man. Men in general don’t prefer baldness, but it’s no big deal if we have no hair on our heads. Some guys even shave their heads, choosing the bald look. I did not choose it, but I’ve been bald and white-bearded since I was 45, so the comment I get most often is, “You haven’t changed a bit.”

If a woman loses her hair, though, it’s more than just a bit of a change. The change to her sense of self is even greater than to her physical being. [Yes, I checked this insight with some women.]

Jesus says that even the hairs of our heads are numbered [Luke 12:7.] That’s how carefully God pays attention to us. “His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.”

I’m not sure I want that much attention from God. I do lots of things I’d rather God not know about. On the other hand, God should cut me some slack, because I’m not nearly as much work when it comes time for God to count the hairs of our heads.

Hair has always been important to people as we try to present ourselves to the world, more so now, I think, than ever before. Men now not only sport the bald look but some have long, flowing locks. Women color their hair in hues that are not even in the Crayola 120 box. God must be more intrigued than ever before while counting our head hairs. Is this what I had in mind when I created these people and realized I had to count the hairs of their heads?

Hair is especially important to cancer patients. Not much of a problem to me; I was already bald when I got cancer. The chemo thinned out my beard some, and my right leg went bald, but that was all.

Helen, though, lost her hair entirely. He beautician cried when it got so thin and scraggly that she had to cut it all off, so that Helen could start wearing a wig. When her chemo was over, Helen burned that wig. [It was already half-way there, since she forgot she was wearing it while pulling cookies out of the oven and got her bangs singed.] Through the years she has sewn many beautiful head-foofies as hair substitutes for women on chemo.

It's nice to quote Luke 12:7, about God counting head hairs, but with all the world’s problems, shouldn’t God be working on more important stuff than counting head hairs? Well, if you are like my friend with the strange skin disease, no. She takes comfort in knowing God is still counting, even though the count takes less time now for her.

I think Jesus is simply saying that God deals with each of us individually. What you need from God is different from what I need. What God wants from you is different from that God wants from me.

Each of us has a different hair count—some many, some few. But all our heads get counted, every hair.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

 

THE LOST PAINTING [M, 6-2-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Searchings of An Old Man—THE LOST PAINTING [M, 6-2-25]

 

We could not find that framed picture. Anywhere.

It was Kathy’s fault, really. She was the one who swapped out our T.C.Steele  winterscape over my sofa for the similar summer painting.

Kathy makes the 45 minute drive to our house from the woods of Brown County with delightful and frequent irregularity, bringing not only her gentle enthusiasm, but food. Enough that we can feast together but have some left over for a second meal. This time it was chicken legs and potato salad and kohl slaw, as befits the advent of a summer painting.

Although she did not know that we would be changing that painting when she came. But, yes, it was she who did the actual swapping of the paintings. She is still young and nimble [under 80] and able to climb ladders and sofas.

After she left--planning to stop at two stores on her way home, since she refuses to leave the woods unless she has three places to go, to justify the gasoline and time—Helen said that it was too bad we did not have more paintings, since it would be nice to get a change of scenery more often. [Since her sofa is across the room from mine, she is the one who might get bored with the same painting over my sofa for too long.]

The problem, she noted, is that we don’t have other framed paintings. Well, I said, what about that red barn painting I bought for you? She had no memory of it, until I gave the details of its provenance, as I am wont to do.

When we lived in Sterling, IL, I frequented a coffee shop that was formerly a funeral home, in a big old house. It doubled as an art gallery, paintings for sale by local artists. Helen had a birthday coming up, and I was much taken with a painting of an old red barn in snow. It reminded me of the barn I grew up with—although ours had never known paint, red or otherwise—and, besides, it was just quite pretty.

Helen loved it. It became a favorite for our wall, not just in Sterling, but also for our eight years in Iron Mountain. Then we became Bloomerangs. Ten years ago.

She finally remembered it. “That’s my favorite,” she said. “We need to have it out.”

So we looked. For two days. Behind all the furniture pieces large enough to store an out-of-season painting. In the garage, since I display all my baseball pictures there. In all the closets. Under the beds. No red barn.

Until one morning, as I reclined on my sofa, underneath the painting that is not changed often enough, my laptop computer appropriately enough on my lap, when I heard Helen giggling in the kitchen. “Come here,” she said.

There, on the wall, was the red barn painting, where it has been for ten years, because we like it so much that we wanted it to be in a place where we could see it every day.

It is so easy to let the things—and people—that we love become so familiar that we forget them. But it’s good news, any time we can say, it once was lost but now is found. 

John Robert McFarland