ORIGINAL BLAME [SAT, 1-31-26]

 

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—ORIGINAL BLAME [SAT, 1-31-26]

 

I noticed about 20 years ago that I got angry when I dropped something. Not because it broke, or hit my toe, or had to be mopped up--although all those were real once in a while--but because I had to bend over to pick it up, and it was beginning to get difficult to bend over.

Or was that the real reason? Maybe the aging that made bending over difficult was just the way my real reason was revealed: I was angry when I dropped something because I couldn’t blame someone else for it. It was clearly I who had made the drop.

Whenever I have made a mistake, my first impulse was to blame someone else for it. I think I learned that from my mother. One of her favorite phrases was, “Look what you made me do.”

 

Or, maybe it was just part of original blame.

I wasn’t the only one who dropped stuff. Sometimes other people dropped things in our house, Helen or the grandchildren. But if Helen did it and left it there, it was just because she had not noticed it, like something dropping out the back of the clothes basket as she took it from the dryer to the bedroom. The grandkids just didn’t notice things they dropped, or they were so intent on getting on with their activities they didn’t stop to pick up.

In those cases, I didn’t really blame Helen or the grands, but I was pleased that I did not have to blame myself. I really like to blame someone else. That inclination to blame others, I call original blame, as a part of original sin.

 

Actually, we blame, because we need blame. The great thing about blame is: it resolves the tension.

That’s why the substitutionary atonement of the death of Jesus [Jesus took the blame for us] has been such an enduring notion: stuff happens, folks get mad, somebody gets blamed, the tension is resolved.

It’s called justification. Auto mechanics used to talk about justifying an engine, when they got all the parts of the engine to work together correctly.

The original English translators of the Bible didn’t have a word for the concept of the death of Christ making things right with God, putting things into wholeness, so they translated the Greek as at-one-ment, which became atonement. [1]

Jesus, of course, is not blamed for our sin. He himself is sinless, according to the theology. But he takes the blame for our sin—our separation from God and others and nature and our own true selves—and takes the punishment, death, that is rightly ours.

 

There. All the tension about God and salvation and the whole holy schmear settled, because someone got blamed. And it wasn’t me!

John Robert McFarland

Yes, I know that grammatically that last sentence should be “And it wasn’t I” instead of “It wasn’t me,” but somebody else made I do it

1] There is a bit of controversy about that. Was it really Bible translators, or just regular English speakers in the early 1500s, who used the word atonement, which then was picked up by Bible translators?

MY REAL HEIGHT [R, 1-29-26]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Confessions of An Old Man—MY REAL HEIGHT [R, 1-29-26]

 

Indiana winters, especially those in the southern part of the state, aren’t all that bad as a rule. This winter, though…whee! Cold! I mean sub-zero, for weeks at a time. And snow! Measured in feet instead of inches.

The snow and cold are bad enough, but even worse, a bad winter makes you face your lies, because you’re stuck inside, with nobody else to lie to.

So, I have finally faced my long-time lie. I have said, since I was 14, that I am 6 feet and 1 inch tall. I am actually only 6 feet and 5/8 inches tall.

 

When it started, I did not intend to live a lie. I was 14. I was on the basketball team. I measured 6 feet and ½ inch. Coach Alva Cato said, “We’ll list you as 6’1. You’ll get taller.” He was assuming and hoping that I would get a lot taller. Basketball is a tall game, and 14 is rather young to stop growing, especially if you’ve grown 6 inches the year before. It was reasonable to assume that I would grow at least another half inch. I didn’t grow anymore, though. But I did keep saying I was 6’1. Eventually I forgot that I was really much shorter.

 

Six-foot-one people are not better than six-foot people. Indeed, I do not think that taller people are better than shorter people. I’m proud to be a McFarland, and McFarlands, at least our branch of the clan, are not tall. My father was the tallest of 7 children. He was 5’7. [Or was he?] My late brother and I were the tallest in later generations, because of my mother’s genes. Jim was 6’3. [Or was he?]

Our culture does think of taller as better, though. Surveys show it. It’s not just a practical matter, being able to reach higher shelves or see over others at a parade. Taller people receive more promotions, make higher salaries, get more dates, receive more votes.

On the popular Big Bang Theory sitcom, height is a major concern. Characters are often put down and ridiculed for being short. Sheldon Cooper is the tallest of the characters, and the others sometimes refer to him in tall terms—giant, big bird, etc. Jim Parsons, who plays Sheldon Cooper, is actually only 6 feet and 1 inch [or is he?] but looks gigantic by comparison to the other actors.

My friend, Dave Shogren, told a story about Ole and Lena, who lived in southern MN. The surveyors told Ole, “We’re sorry, but there was a mapping mistake. Your farm is actually in Iowa.” Ole replied, “Thank goodness. Just this morning I was telling Lena I didn’t think I could take another Minnesota winter.”

When we lived in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, I hoped for a surveying mistake that showed Iron Mountain was actually in WI, on the other side of the Menominee River, because I didn’t think I could take another winter in the Upper Peninsula.

The point, though, is that I’m still the same person, regardless of my height. And regardless of my lies.

We lie for one of two reasons, either to get out of trouble, or to make ourselves look better than we really are.

Old people need to make peace with our real selves. We have to accept who we really are. We can’t lie about it any longer.

Okay, then. I lied up above. I’m not really 6 and 5/8, either. I’ve been getting shorter. That’s what a lot of bad winters do to you. Now I’m only 6 feet and 2/8 inch. I’m breaking myself in slowly to the truth about my real self.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER [T, 1-27-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter… WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER [T, 1-27-26]

 

[This is a replay of a column of several years ago, when we lived in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula  [UP], where 16 below zero for days at a time, even weeks, is normal. Ten years ago, we moved 600 miles south, to Bloomington, to get away from that sort of extended cold period. And now here it is again, right where we are. Here’s that old column…]

It was 15.4 degrees below zero when I got UP this morning. That’s minus 26.333 in Canada, which sounds even worse. Technically winter started on Dec. 21, but real winter starts UP here today. Our predicted HIGH for the WEEK will be three BELOW zero [F]. All the schools in the UP are closed today. Old people are still going to go out and warm up their cars and drive to church to play pickle ball, though. There are some natural instincts even the cold cannot stifle.

I haven’t checked the Siberian reading for this morning, but I imagine it’s even worse there. I remember reading Ken Follett’s THE MAN FROM ST. PETERSBURG. Said man is a political prisoner who has escaped and is riding a train hobo style through Siberia. Frigid to the bone, he vows that he will never be cold again. A lot of bad things happened just because he wanted to be warm.

A lot of bad things happen when people are cold, but too much heat is not a good thing either. Hell, for instance.

Once, on the first day of Vacation Bible School in June, in Arcola, IL, we had a record crowd of kids, parents all over town suddenly realizing what it was like to have the little darlings home all day. Sharon Bickel, our highly efficient VBS leader, had anticipated this and bought extra craft kits. It still wasn’t enough. Whenever Sharon started toward me with that look on her face, it usually did not bode well for me, but this time she just wanted me to drive like a bat out of the hot place the necessary 20 miles to the Bible book store to get more kits. I drove as instructed. I ran in and grabbed the requisite number of kits. I got in line to pay. That’s when things stalled.

The line wasn’t long. Just one woman in front of me. But she was arguing with the couple who ran the store about how hot it would be in hell. They had all read III Esdras, but interpreted it differently. The woman thought it would be only 40 thousand degrees in hell while the couple though it would be 400 thousand degrees. I wanted to yell, “What the hell difference does it make? You’re going to be toast either way.” I didn’t, though. They knew who I was and already thought Methodists did not pay enough attention to the important parts of the Bible. They were willing to take Methodist money, though.

I worry more about people who are too cold in the here-and-now than those who will be too hot in the hereafter. Through the years I have done little things to try to help people who are cold in winter. I worked homeless shelters. I contributed money to the organizations who help folks with heating bills. I even paid a few myself. And I would sneak over to the church building after dark and unlock the street-side doors so that some drunk stumbling around in the dark and unable to find his way home, or some teen who had run away to escape abuse, could get in out of the cold.

Still, though, I don’t think I ever did enough. I was like the man from St. Petersburg, who wanted to go to the other St. Petersburg to get warm, regardless of what happened to others who were cold. It wasn’t my body that was too cold, though, it was my heart. As Hank Williams wrote and warbled, “Why can’t I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold, cold heart?”

We know that a cold heart is worse than a cold body. A cold heart here and now is likely to lead to way too much heat in the hereafter, regardless of how many degrees it is.

I hope hell is in Canada, though. I think Celsius degrees won’t sound as bad.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

 

 

PERSON COMES FIRST [Sun, 1-25-26]

CHRIST IN WINER: Reflections on Life and Faith for the Years of Winter—PERSON COMES FIRST [Sun, 1-25-26]

 

As this winter blast covers so much of the country with ice and snow and bitter cold, I have been worrying about people who have no shelter. We are regular donors to organizations that work to help homeless people, but… no, wait. One small thing I can do to help them is to call them something that puts their humanity first…

A man I know was recently bereaved. Family came from near and far to spend time with him. After about a day, he called a friend and said, “You’ve got to get me out of here. These people are being too helpful!”

That’s a dilemma for old people. We often need help, but those who give it don’t know when to stop. Sometimes the helping makes things worse…

 

…like when folks help me get into my coat. I know where the arm holes are! It just takes me a while to find them. And it’s good for my back to twist my shoulders like that. Keeps me limber. You’re holding it too high! Why are we in such a hurry, anyway? Yes, CVS has threatened to throw my curmudgeonlenol prescription away if I don’t pick it up soon, but they’ll just send some more “reminder” texts. Chill out! [Do people still say that?]

Well, okay, we do need help sometimes, and good people want to do good things for us. Why is that so hard to work out?

Because any amount of help, regardless of how much it is needed or how well-intentioned it is, reminds us that we are no longer people. Yes, yes, I know; we’re still people, just “differently abled” people now. Big deal! We used to be better abled than you are, you young do-gooders, with your nimble younger-than-eighty bodies!

To those of us who are really old, we aren’t a “people” unless we can do everything we used to do. We don’t want to be reminded that we are now puny and feeble…even when we can’t get our coats on right on a winter day.

Being a writer, you’d think I would have noticed sooner that what we put first says more than what comes after. So now, like others who are ahead of me in sensitivity, I don’t refer to colored people or stupid people or homeless people. That says that their differentiating qualifier is what identifies them, not their membership in the whole, common human race. If you say people of color, or people of stupidity, or people without shelter, you are putting people first, you are emphasizing their common humanness, not their difference.

It’s awkward, but I’m getting used to it, slowly, and trying to find better ways to do it. Of course, it’s not nearly as important to say people who are hungry rather than hungry people, as it is to give them something to eat, but it’s a helpful little reminder. Person always comes first.

I am a person of many years, or a person of the wisdom years, or a person in the years of winter, not an old person. Person always comes first. Remember that as you hold my coat sleeve a little lower…

John Robert McFarland

 

 

OLD AGE SIN [F, 1-23-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—OLD AGE SIN [F, 1-23-26]

 

One of my favorite books is Philip Yancey’s The Jesus I Never Knew. It stakes out a thoughtful middle ground between evangelicals and liberals, just as Yancey has in person, in all his writing and teaching, throughout his 76 years.

Neither I, nor his wife, nor anyone else, thought that he would start an eight-year affair with a married woman when he was 68 years old. I mean, shouldn’t you be over that by then? No, not over being sexual. You’re not too old at 68 to be sexual, but you’re too old to be hurtful… and hypocritical…and duplicitous…and just plain stupid! Aren’t you?

Well, I say to myself, Yancey is almost a whole generation younger than you are, and you’re still stupid, so why should you expect him to be smart when he’s still so young and immature?

Well, because I need to know that there are people who are NOT as stupid as I am! Otherwise, there is no way I can get up each morning and say, “Today I’m going to get it right! Today I’m using my smart brain! Today I’m going to be like Philip Yancey! He always knows the right thing to say. He always knows what God wants. He always walks in Godly ways.” Well, maybe not…

Actually, I’ve never said that about Yancey, or maybe anyone else specifically, but when I get up each morning, determined finally to be perfect in every way, I have a whole host of people I admire who are a cloud of witnesses in my brain and spirit, showing me the way to go. I know I can’t get through the day on my own. I need help.

Here would be a good place to talk about forgiveness, but that’s really for Yancey and his wife and the “other woman” and her husband and… I can’t claim to be hurt, that I need to forgive him. I can certainly pray for him, and for his wife, and the others, pray for them to be able to find the forgivenesses that they need to extend and accept, and I do that.

But, my job now is to listen to Yancey as, in his sin and stupidity, he still guides me, still witnesses, reminding me that none of us is perfect, that we are all subject to sin, and maybe the best way is not to get up each morning saying, “Today I’m going to be perfect,” but to say, “Today I’m going to let God lead me.”

John Robert McFarland

“Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.” [Ravi Zacharias.]

 

MUSTARD’S LAST STAND [W, 1-21-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—MUSTARD’S LAST STAND [W, 1-21-26]

He’s getting’ too old, he’s done got too old,

He’s too old to cut the mustard any more…

 

Red Foley and Ernest Tubb had a big hit record with that song in 1951, when I had just begun to play cymbals in the marching band. I really wanted to be in the marching band as well as the orchestra, because it got to go places, but I was a bassoonist, and our band director, Mr. Adams, did not want to expose the school’s very expensive bassoon to the elements a marching band has to endure. So, he handed me the cymbals and said, “Nothing loud.” Apparently he had not read Psalm 150.

It was football season, and the band was preparing for the half-time show at the homecoming game. For me, that meant mostly standing in formation while the others squinted in the hot, slanting Autumn sun to make sense of the tiny black dots on the little music cards perched precariously on the wavery wire lyres screwed to the tops of their flutes and trumpets. Mr. Adams was still trying to figure out songs appropriate for homecoming. “What’s a song we could play for Mr. Disler?” he asked us.

Delbert Disler was the football coach and history teacher and probably almost 40 years old. Sweet little fourteen-year-old flautist, Carol Hardy, called out, “Too Old to Cut the Mustard.” It got a hearty hardy laugh, even from Mr. Adams. He decided against it, even though he was only 25.

I thought about that yesterday when we had our annual review with our financial advisor. He wanted us to move some money into an account that would pay us more. “We have to do it soon, though,” he said, “because 88 is the upper age limit, and you’ve got a birthday coming up soon.”

What? I’ve gotten so old people won’t even take my money!?!

The first time I encountered ageism personally I was 26. I was looking at the job ads in The Chicago Sun-Times. One of them said, “No one over 25 need apply.” What? Was “over 25” senile? These days, of course, you are not allowed to put anything ageist or sexist or racist into an ad like that. I’m not sure that’s a good idea. If they aren’t going to hire a woman or an old person or some other undesirable, why make them go through the process only to waste their time? They should probably be required to say something like, “We are small-minded racists and sexists, so you probably wouldn’t want to work here, anyway.”

At 26, I was too old to get a job. Now I’m too old to invest the money I made from my job. Age, and our reaction to it, is a funny thing.

I’ve dealt with that often as a pastor, at the time of death, when it seemed that someone had died too young or too old. Especially too young, like Joel, who was murdered when he was only ten.

I knew Joel. In some ways, he was our first grandchild. When his parents separated, his father would bring Joel to our house on the weekends he had custody. He was just a little boy then. He’d sit beside me on the sofa as we read books together. He’d bake cookies in the kitchen with Helen.

But I knew Joel in a wider context, too. I had seen him with his mother and stepmother and grandparents. So at his funeral, I said, “A life is not measured best by years. It is measured best by love. Joel loved, and he was loved. That is a full life.”

That is so wrong. Joel was so smart and so sweet. He would have contributed so much to the world. It was wrong that his years were so few. Could that possibly be a full life?

Yet, it is so right. You might be too old or too young for certain jobs. Too old or too young to invest your money. Too old to cut the mustard. But love is ageless. If you love and are loved, your life is full.

John Robert McFarland

“I hold it true, what ere befall, I feel it when I sorrow most. Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Tennyson

HOW WILL I BE REMEMBERED? [M, 1-19-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—HOW WILL I BE REMEMBERED? [M, 1-19-26]

It has become quite regular in obits to say, “He died surrounded by his loving family.” When you get to my age, you are surrounded by missing family members and friends.

The story is told of the little boy who was taken, quite reluctantly, to kindergarten. Later in the day, he was upset. His teacher thought it would help him if he could talk to his mother, so she called her. When the mother answered, the teacher handed the phone to the boy. “Who is this?” the mother asked. “This is your son; have you forgotten me already?” he wailed.

No one is remembered for long, unless you are a shaker or mover. We understand that, but we want to be remembered by those who know us, in whose lives we have played a part. In winter, we look at the snow that covers up the reminders of spring and summer and autumn, and we wonder. Who will remember me? Especially, how will they remember me?

Bob and Lois Teague were our neighbors when our girls and theirs were little. We moved onto Fairchild Avenue, next door to each other, at the same time, the first houses either of us had ever bought. We lived side by side for six years. Bob and I did not have a lot in common, except we were both trying to raise little girls, and provide for our families, and fight dandelions, but we were good neighbors.

Years later, when we were in our mid-fifties, he called up and said something that shocked me. “I always admired you and wanted to be like you,” he said. I had no idea that he had ever felt that way.

Then he said, “But I have taken it too far. I’ve gotten cancer, too, just like you.”

Months later, when Bob was dying, he and Lois asked me to officiate at his funeral service. I made a trip to spend some last time with him. I asked him how he wanted to be remembered. “I was faithful,” he said.

Now it was my turn to admire and emulate. As I listened to Bob, I realized that I wanted to be like him. I wanted to be remembered as one who was faithful.

John Robert McFarland

BOB HAMMEL: A DEATH TOO SOON [Sat, 1-17-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Personal Reminiscences of An Old Man—BOB HAMMEL: A DEATH TOO SOON [Sat, 1-17-26]

 

The Indiana House just voted, unanimously, to name a section of IN 45 as the Bob Knight Memorial Highway. It’s appropriate. Bob certainly created a lot of traffic on that road, for three decades, as folks came to fill up Indiana University’s Assembly Hall every time one of his teams ran out onto the hardwood.

But it’s another thing Bob Hammel should get to celebrate, and he won’t. He died too soon.

Hammel was 88 when he died. That’s hardly a tragic death. It would be tragic at 8 or 28, and regrettable at 58 or 68, but hardly unexpected at 88, the age of double infinity. [The sign for infinity is a horizontal 8.] But it was too soon, to witness what he had a right to see.

 

Hammel was the long-time sports editor of the Bloomington, IN “Herald-Times,” and Knight’s best friend and staunch supporter. He was accused, especially by other sports writers, of being blind to Knight’s flaws, but he wasn’t. He just wasn’t vocal about the shortcomings of his friends. Or anyone else, for that matter.

He deplored some things that Knight did, like swear. I don’t think even a tinker’s damn ever crossed Hammel’s lips. But friendship to Hammel was a matter of constant, loving, Christian support, regardless of how badly his friends behaved, or how sick they got. His friendship did not waver. As another of his friends, I had reason to appreciate that.

 

So he would have delighted in driving on the Knight Memorial Highway. But, he died too soon.

The worst thing, though, about Hammel dying too soon, is missing out on the Indiana University football team of these last two years. He wrote columns and essays and books about IU athletics for 40 years, and only once did he get to write about a good football team, the one that lost the 1968 Rose Bowl game to OJ Simpson [USC]. Oh, how he would have delighted in and written about Coach Cignetti and the current football Hoosiers in a way no one else could.

Current IU Athletic Director, Scott Dolson, knows how much IU sports meant to Hammel, and how much Hammel meant to IU sports. He saw it up close and personal, from the time he was just an undergrad student, when he was a student manager for Knight’s teams. One of the first things Dolson did when he hired Darien DeVries as the new IU basketball coach was take him out to Gentry Park Retirement Village to meet Bob Hammel. Bob had been retired for almost 30 years, but Scott knew whose unofficial imprimatur DeVries needed.

Hammel greatly appreciated that visit. He told me about it during one of our regular Thursday morning coffee times in the Gentry Park dining room, when we got together to talk sports, yes, but more so, faith and family, memories and hopes.

I enjoyed and appreciated Bob Hammel’s friendship so much, but I was always surprised by it. When we started hanging out together, often with our wives, he was a legend, known to all. I was a small town preacher, who got his notice because I wrote him a letter about one of his columns.  

When the best sports writers of the 20^th century were named, he was always on the list, along with folks like Frank Deford of Sports Illustrated and Jim Murray of the LA Times. Hammel was on a first-name basis with sports stars like Michael Jordan. He was welcome in the news room of any newspaper. But next to Bob Knight, he said I was his best friend.

I think it was because his true identity was not as a great sports writer but as an honest-to-God Christian. He was a totally dedicated member of his congregation and denomination, but that was only a minor part of this Christian identity. His Christian identity meant that he was a constant advocate for those who were left out. He lived the gospel of personal holiness--he didn’t drink or smoke or swear, etc. But also he lived the gospel of social holiness--promoting civil rights and economic rights for “the least of these.” He was a Matthew 25 Christian.

We were almost the same age, so had grown up in Indiana at the same time. I think he saw in me a fellow spirit, a guy who loved sports, especially IU sports, but a fellow traveler on “the Way.”

I guess everyone dies too soon. No one gets to see everything in life that would have brought them satisfaction. But come Monday night, when the worst team in the history of college football does the unthinkable and wins the national title, I shall be reading Bob Hammel’s report of it in the Herald-Times of my brain.

John Robert McFarland

Bob Knight used to say, “Basketball is a simple game that is difficult to play.” I’d add that life is the same way.

 

A PRIVILEGED LIFE [R, 1-15-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Personal Reminiscences of an Old God Botherer in Winter—A PRIVILEGED LIFE [R, 1-15-26]

 

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Now this column is only the personal reminiscences of the author. If you get anything worthwhile, it is either by accident, or because you have a special ability to discern wheat in chaff.

As I enter this year, I think how richly I am blessed. I got to live in the last 63 years of the 20^th century, and, so far, the first 25 of the 21^st century—the best time to be alive, ever…

…at least, for a tall, straight, intelligent, English-speaking, decent-looking white man, with a deep voice and good genes.

For a man like that, the America of the modern era has been a land of hope, of promise, of the dream.

For colored folks, or gay or female folks, or people with learning disabilities, or brain or body problems…not so much so.

Is it wrong for me to give thanks for my privileged life, to count my blessings? Are we not supposed to enjoy all the good life brings to us? After all, I did not choose the givens of my life—race and gender and intelligence and such—anymore than anyone else did.

In a Call the Midwife episode, Nonnatus House nurse, Jenny Lee, is upset when a baby is taken away from a sixteen-year-old, exploited, “feeble minded” girl, and given to adoptive parents. Jenny protests to the priest who runs the adoption agency. He explains to her that the girl has no prospects, no family, no one to support her, no job, no education, no place to live, a low level of intelligence even to care for herself, no way to care for her baby. Furthermore, even though she does not want to give up the baby, she is underage. She has no rights in 1950s London.

Jenny has herself lived a privileged and sheltered life before coming to Poplar, London’s poverty-stricken east end. She says to the priest, “You must think me extremely naive.”

He says, “I think you fortunate. There is no need to apologize for that.”

Okay. I’ve lived a privileged life. I won’t apologize for it.

The problem with inherited privilege is when we who are privileged think that such advantage makes us better than others, rather than just different. Jesus constantly excoriated the rich and privileged not because they had more, but because they considered it as a birthright rather than a gift, because they thought it made them more a child of God than any of their brothers and sisters.

A privileged life takes you in one of two ways. Either you think that you are privileged because you deserve it, and that others do not deserve privilege…or you realize that privilege is just a fortunate accident.

If you know privilege is just an accident of birth—race, gender, intelligence, culture, etc—then you can give thanks and use your privilege in service to all.

I have lived a privileged life, and I’m thankful for it.

John Robert McFarland

“My experience has taught me that the future does end up better, even if it seems a bit delayed.” Lauren Jackson, the host of “Believing,” writing in “The NY Times.”

 

 

PERFECTION [T, 1-13-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Musings of An Old Man in the Winter of His Years—PERFECTION [T, 1-13-26]

 

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This column is no longer “reflections on faith and life.” It’s reasonable that you might get something worthwhile for your own life from such “reflections.” That is no longer a reasonable assumption. Now this column is only the personal reminiscences of the author. If you get anything worthwhile, it is either by accident, or because you have a special ability to discern wheat in chaff.

 

 From my first memory on, all I really wanted was to be a good person. In my time and place, that translated into wanting to be a good Christian, which mostly meant to be a good follower of Jesus.

I didn’t feel much need for Christ.

I understood that Jesus and Christ were one and the same, that he/they were the disclosure of God. But I felt entirely comfortable with going directly to God. No need for an intercessor, even Christ.

I didn’t always know what God wanted of me, though, but I could look at Jesus and say, “Oh, that’s the God way. That’s the way to be the good person I want to be.”

Basically that meant always being respectful—of God and God’s world, especially other people, but all of God’s creation, including myself. You never intended to be mean or inflict pain. You were always kind.

Except when you weren’t. Then you asked for forgiveness and tried to do better.

John Wesley’s theory of “Christian perfection,” perfection in love, found a ready adherent in me. If you were always a good person, you’d be perfect.

Actually, I wanted to be more than perfect in love. I wanted to be perfect in everything. Still do. Perfection in everything has not worked out very well, though.

And certainly perfection “only” in love is a lot easier in belief than in practice. I often wanted to practice unkindness. I wanted to lash out in anger. Oh, I never wanted to hit or shoot or lynch anyone, but I wanted to be unkind with words. I wanted to say nasty things to people I thought deserved it. Often I did, but not where anyone but me could hear those words.

So, yes, I guess I was a hypocrite. But a fairly harmless one.

And, I didn’t “think more highly of myself than I ought to think.” I didn’t lie about who I was. I always admitted that I was a flawed and imperfect Christian, a rather poor follower and emulator of Jesus.

I saw Jesus as the embodiment, the incarnation, of God, even though I did not know those words early on, so I knew that to be friendly with God, I needed to follow the examples of Jesus.

I didn’t want to get in good with God to avoid hell or go to heaven. That was the standard reason when I was growing up. No, I just couldn’t figure any reason to be alive in this world without God. God was the alpha and the omega. Again, not words or concepts I knew early, but I knew that God was the only way to meaning, to a meaningful life.

For a long time I was able to confuse being a good person with being a good parson. I was pretty good at being a preacher, so thought that meant I was being pretty good at being a Christian. Old age, when I can no longer be a preacher at all, good or otherwise, has revealed a rather fatal flaw in that idea. You can be great at preaching about the light and still live in darkness.

I still want to be a good person. Now, though, I have to try walking the straight and narrow with no robe or stole or sermon notes.

Sixty-two years ago, I answered “Yes,” to the traditional Wesleyan ordination question, “Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life?” It was an honest answer, but I really need to get busy.

John Robert McFarland

So far, I have been perfect in 2026. I haven't written 2025 even once!

 

THE REASON FOR PULPIT ROBES [Sun, 1-11-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—THE REASON FOR PULPIT ROBES [Sun, 1-11-26]

 

It’s Sunday, and I’m not wearing either of my pulpit robes. Not the black one with the doctoral stripes. Not the white one, either. So, why do I still have them?

Recently I gave my clergy cap to a colleague, Pastor Teresa. It’s a black baseball cap with a white clerical collar tab just above the brim. Now everyone in the softball game at the church picnic will know who the preacher is. I enjoyed that cap but got to wear it only a few times, because I got it just as I retired. I’m glad Teresa has it. She’ll get a lot more good out of it than I ever could.

One of the problems of old people is that nobody wants our stuff. And there aren’t many people we can force it onto, especially if it’s niche stuff. You can require your children to take a few things, because they are family heirlooms. These days, though, adult children don’t want good china and silverware. They eat from take-out boxes. Not even The Salvation Army wants your classy stuff.

But what can you do with your pulpit robes if your kids aren’t clergy and the up-and-coming younger preachers are five-foot women instead of six-foot men? Giving away the black robe is even trickier, because it has doctoral stripes. Yes, a non-doctored clergy person could remove the stripes, but there would be blacker doctoral-stripe chevrons left on the sleeves.

When I started seminary, I was appointed to a church that was used to seeing its pastor on Sunday morning in a pulpit robe, but I didn’t have one.

I had been preaching in little churches for three years. People wore “good clothes” to church in those days in little churches—dresses and hats for women, suits and white shirts and ties for men. Yes, it was okay if a woman wore a “house” dress, or a man came in overalls, but those were rare. I had only one suit, that I had worn every Sunday for a long time, but that was okay; that was all I needed to look good enough for a little country church. But Cedar Lake expected a robe.

We could not afford to buy one, of course, so Helen made one. Plain black. Nothing fancy. I wore it for fifteen years, until I got that doctoral robe. Then Helen began to use my old robe for the preachers at the mock weddings in her high school “adult living” classes. One of their assignments was to plan a wedding so that they would learn how expensive those things can be.

That was the robe I was wearing when high-school friend Phyllis Graham grabbed my robe lapels after worship one morning, when I was a new campus minister and she was a new math professor, and said, “You don’t know it yet, but when you’re in that pulpit, you’re something special. People will believe what you say just because of the way you say it. So you make damn sure that what you say is true.”

I’ve always felt that those robes were reminders to me. When I was wearing one, I had to make damn sure that what I was saying was true. Nobody wants my robes. There are not many folks these days who want that reminder.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

FOLLOWING THE KIDS’ TIME STAR [F, 1-9-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—FOLLOWING THE KIDS’ TIME STAR [F, 1-9-26]

 

It’s Epiphany season, and well, we understand the mother who said, “If three strangers showed up with spices and said that my child is tender and mild, I’d be worried.” Even more, I’m sure, if the strangers were trying to smoke a rubber cigar.

But I digress…Epiphany is in great part about that star. And kids time in worship. [Yes, there’s a connection. Look at the last paragraph.] To do kids’ time in worship well, you don’t follow an outline; you follow the star.

Not long ago, I was in a group of people who have discovered livestream worship, not just in their own local churches, but all over the nation, even the world. Some of them “go” to worship in several different places each week. Not surprisingly, they do a lot of “compare and contrast.”

The subject of our conversation turned to the now-mandatory kids’ time in those worship services, and the way different preachers/leaders do it.

The main complaint I hear, about the people who lead kids’ time, is this: they are too well prepared.

That sounds counter-intuitive, but I understand. Some of the best times I had with children’s time in worship was when I was appointed to a new church and inherited the “what’s in the bag” method.

Each Sunday a different child would take home the cloth bag we used for kids’ time. They would bring it back the next Sunday with some object in it. I had no idea what it was until the kids were seated around me and I was handed the bag. Then I did a children’s homily based on whatever was in the bag—a thermometer or light bulb or salt shaker or toilet paper… [Yes, there are attempts to create chaos for the preacher, which I suspect the adults of a household are involved in. That’s a good thing, kids and adults at home thinking about church together.]

It’s a lot of fun and much easier than it sounds. You don’t “preach” about the spoon or Pokémon card or dog biscuit. It’s just the starting point for a mental and spiritual journey. All such journeys lead to God. Everybody in the congregation enjoys seeing how the preacher finally gets to God from that unexpected starting place.

The main point: the preacher has to improvise. No idea ahead of time what the starting place will be, and only the star in the East to lead the way.

Most preachers are prepared for children’s time, on the same theme that is later being laid on “the big kids.” A kids time should never have more than one point, but preachers feel naked with only one point. So they have lots of points, that have to be in correct succession, so the preachers have to ignore or put off questions that get the points out of sequence. They use a bunch of words that kids don’t understand, and then end with a lame joke that is really directed at the adults present.

The preacher interacts primarily with his/her subject and its correct presentation, and with the adults, but not with the children. Regardless of how squirrely they get, how many raised hands are not acknowledged, the preacher plows on to the finish, because that is what she/he is prepared to do.

If you’re not prepared, you have to pay attention to the kids, and how they are responding. You go where the kids lead you, and you end not because you are finished with what you prepared, but because the kids are through listening.

When those kids came up for children’s time with Jesus [Matthew 19:14], the ushers tried to keep them back because they knew Jesus hadn’t prepared for kids’ time. But Jesus said, “Let them come.” A good preacher is always prepared to pay attention to the children, especially when not prepared.

 

We don’t enter the kingdom of heaven except as little children, Jesus said. [Mt. 18:3] Children are not prepared; they follow the star.

John Robert McFarland

ASHES TO ASHES [1-7-25]

CHRIST IN WINTER: A Final Reflection on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—ASHES TO ASHES [1-7-25]

 

My sister-in-law has begun to scatter the cremains of my late brother, Jim, in the places important to him. That will include here in Bloomington, Indiana, when she comes for a memorial service for him. That has started me to thinking about where my ashes will go.

Yes, cremains is a good word, but I prefer ashes. You know, “ashes to ashes and dust to dust.” When I was a boy, I shook down the ashes in our Franklin Stove and carried them out back and scattered them on our garden. Yes, I prefer to think of my cremains as ashes.

That’s the main point of ashes-scattering, I think. Not what is actually done with them. That won’t matter to me then. But I think the deceased should get to enjoy thinking about where their ashes will go when they are dead.

Helen and I have asked our daughters to hold onto us until both of us are ashes, then mingle our ashes together for scattering. They have agreed.

Our original idea was that they would scatter us in the old woods on the Indiana University campus. That’s where we met and married. That’s where we bloomaranged to live out our years.

However, in addition to being illegal, I think--and I don’t want to think about my daughters spending time in jail--that’s not very practical. IU has the largest number of alums of any university, anywhere. If we all got scattered on campus, pretty soon the students would be walking to class ankle-deep in ashes.

I am, however, going to scatter us in those woods now. It’s pleasant to think about being there forever, about new students walking through the woods, hearing a whisper out of the ashes in the rustling leaves, “Go, Hoosiers…”

And I’ll scatter us in the woods behind Bob and Kathy’s house on Thunder Ridge, in Brown County. That was our spiritual home.

And some at Campground Cemetery, on Paradise Lake, near Mattoon, IL, where we once had a little weekend cottage.

And some more at Forsythe Church cemetery, down at Oakland City, on the graves of my parents.

There may be some left, so… there is a cemetery in Bloomington, IL. I don’t know its name, but I had a funeral there once. It was during the 6 years we lived in Normal-Bloomington, when I was campus minister at IL State U. Being a campus minister, I had a lot of weddings, but only one funeral. It was for an anonymous bum.

He was homeless, unknown, no identity, a traveling vagrant. Just happened to be in Bloomington when he died. Since he had no name, no family, no people, no church, the sheriff called the least reputable preacher he could think of to do the code-required, cheapest funeral possible.

I don’t remember what I was expecting, but not what I found. It was a sunny day. Pleasant. I was dressed in my dark suit and white shirt and tie, carrying my Book of Worship. The only other people there were the sheriff, in his uniform, and the undertaker, in his regular suit. The sheriff waved at a newly dug grave and said, “He’s over there.” He went back to his conversation with the undertaker. I wandered over to the grave of the unknown bum, by myself. I opened up my Book of Worship and read the entire liturgy.

I think I’ll just dump the rest of my ashes there.

John Robert McFarland

This seems to be a good column to finish up “reflections on faith and life.” I’m out of stories and ideas on which to reflect. But I need to keep on writing, for my own sanity. And you need to keep on reading, something, but probably not this column, for it will no longer be “reflections on faith and life.” It’s reasonable that you might get something worthwhile for your own life from “reflections.” That will no longer be a reasonable assumption. Now this column will be only the personal reminiscences of the author. [Yes, I know, that's pretty much true already.] I’d be delighted to have you read my reminiscences, but if you get anything worthwhile, it will be by accident, or because you have a special ability to discern wheat in chaff. So I’ll keep on posting, every third day or so. If you’ve decided you’ve had enough, thank you for reading.

 

IT IS WINTER; I STAY IN MY HOUSE [Sat 1-4-26]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Reflections of An Old Man—IT IS WINTER; I STAY IN MY HOUSE [Sat 1-4-26]

 

It is winter. I stay in my house.

Winter makes hermits of us all.

I think of Thoreau beside the pond called Walden. I should get that book out and read it again. I read it first in college, in the spring time of my life. I knew it was a classic. I knew thus that I should appreciate it. I suppose I did, but I cannot remember. I just wanted credit for the class. And a good grade.

Now I am past the point of needing credit, of any kind. 

I do not need a good grade, either. I do not need others to tell me that my life is worth living. Either it is or it is not, regardless of what others think. I do not need their grade. 

Thoreau was a hermit by his choice. I am a hermit by winter’s choice. Winter’s choice has, however, become my choice. I stay in my house.

The winter is outside, in the snow, in the tracks of the deer, in the disappearing tail of the rabbit, in the quick flash of the fox, in the slow snore of the bear, in the bare space in the cold air where the hummingbird used to hover. The winter is in here, too, in my house.

There is the cold air of absence here, but there are also the tracks of memory, the disappearing tale, the quick flash of understanding, the slow snore of acceptance, the question about spring, about when it will come, if it will be early or late, if the bushes will still flower, or if the deer, in the empty gnawing of their winter, will have killed them with desire, desire for one more meal before the boom of the hunter’s gun. 

I stay in my house. I look out the window at winter, and I wonder about the spring.

John Robert McFarland

IN SYNCH WITH THE UNIVERSE [R, 1-1-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—IN SYNCH WITH THE UNIVERSE  [R, 1-1-26]

 

I recently came across a column that I started for New Year’s Day 12 years ago. I did not finish it, however, so I did not post it. I was only 77 then, so I thought the mentioned Quaker was old. Here is the 2014 column:

I know of a man, a Quaker, 90 years old, who, when he awakes in the morning, lies in bed a while “getting in sync with the universe.” I would like to do that, but when I awake in the morning, I need to get in sync with the bathroom, without waiting for the universe to come around. Maybe that’s the difference between Quakers and Methodists.

I’m not very often in sync with the universe, and it’s usually my body, or some part of my body, that is the cause of my dis-synchronicity.

It is the first morning of the new year, 2014, as I write this. I grew up with the understanding that what happens the first day of the year will be the agenda for the rest of the year. Grandma Pond always served cabbage on New Year’s Day, for that meant one would have money the rest of the year. If gas is money, then she was right; otherwise, not so much.

What I most need to do in this new year of my winter season is to get rid of stuff I don’t need for the future. [And perhaps work on making my sentences less convoluted and obfuscatory.] Maybe that is how one who cannot lie in bed in the morning gets in sync with the universe, by getting rid of stuff the universe doesn’t need.

Since the Salvation Army and the recycling center are not open today to receive my excess t-shirts and newspapers, I am looking through file folders, the kind that hold papers, those things that only old people remember, those thin sheets of stuff on which we wrote great ideas in the days of yore, with a thing called a pen, and putting into the “office paper only” basket those paper sheets on which are written literally thousands of wonderful ideas for stories and books and poems and sermons that will never come to screen, and which now do not look nearly as insightful or necessary to share as they did at the time I wrote them down.

That’s where the 2014 column ended. I recall that I felt slightly sad and nostalgic about discarding all those writing ideas. Now I can only wonder why I hung onto them for so long.

Anyway, now that they’re gone, I’m looking forward to getting into synch with the universe.

John Robert McFarland

“It’s not too late unless you don’t start now.” Barbara Sher