CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
It’s very early on Sunday morning, and I am trying to write a poem about what C. S. Lewis called “the daytime demons that strike at dawn.” [1] Now it’s dawn, which is later than it used to be because of DST, and I looked out the front windows. That was a mistake. The demons were there. After several days of melting, revealing several large areas of real earth, we have snow again. So it’s not just the dawn-striiking demons after me. It looks like the noonday demon, acedia, [2] has arrived early, so I’ll work on that poem another time. Right now, though, I’m turning to John Tagliabue for inspiration to get me going again.
March Blizzard [3]
A thin and crippled and sweet and humorous
very old man, dying on his winter bed,
in an oxygen tent, very very thin, Irish,
such a good Yankee craftsman, ascetic,
bachelor, dreamy philosophic, a few weeks ago
he climbed a thin ladder to take some snow
some ice off the roof, boyish up there he worked,
clear, now in the painted hospital he tries
to breathe, the whole day is dim
with heavy snow, it is still snowing, a dying
whale in the vast sea comes up several times
for air, what angels are ready?
And then
fooling all the predictions of doctors and charts
and tremulous fears of his brother and sisters
they adore him, and one had a permanent-wave
just to be ready in case]—and then he came out
of the hospital, went down to the grocery store
to see some friends, and recently
he’s been on
the roof again!
***
1] I may not have that phrase quite right, so if Bill White [The Rev. Dr. William Luther White, who wrote The Image of Man in C.S. Lewis, which is available in a new edition] or some other Lewis scholar can correct me, I’d appreciate it. Helen and I once had the joy of eating lunch with Bill and Ann at The Eagle and Child in Oxford, where Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkein used to lunch and chat about what they were writing. Bill ate there often while doing his Lewis research. We insiders call the place The Bird and Baby. {Yes, you call yourself an insider after one occasion if you don’t embarrass easily.}
2] Latin for absence of caring. The noonday demon has the noon to three shift, corresponding with the darkness over the earth during the crucifixion of Jesus.
3] Page 323, Good Poems, Selected and Introduced by Garrison Keillor [Penguin Books, 2002]
JRMcF
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
Iron Mountain ski jump
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Crossing the Bridge
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
My old friend, Paul Unger [1], likes to make fun of those who quote themselves. “As I was sayin’ to Martha today, Martha, it’s a hot day.” You have to hear him to get the full effect, but you know people like that, self-quoters. Well, today, Paul can make fun of me.
Another old friend, Bob Parsons [2], is on vacation. Why a school bus driver would need a break, I don’t understand, but he’s left Austin temporarily for parts of the South farther east.
On Facebook he posted a picture of the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, AL, where on March 7, 1965, black people tried to march for civil rights, to protest voting violations, and where they were savagely attacked by AL police. [3] Two weeks later, 3500 marched across the bridge on their way to state capitol Montgomery, where they rallied and listened to MLK. The crowd was very large by the time it got to Montgomery. I was a part of that crowd, because the Alabama MSM (Methodist Student Movement) had asked the Indiana MSM to come down to march with them. [4] Wesley Foundation student president Bob Mullins, Sociology Professor Andre’ Hammonds, and I represented Indiana State U and Rose Polytechnic Institute.
Now I’ll quote what I wrote in response to Bob’s Facebook post: Power never voluntarily gives up a bridge to those who are left on the wrong side. Somebody has to have the courage to start walking across to the other side.
I think that is as true today as it has ever been. There are those in government and elsewhere who want to turn back the clock, start denying hard-won rights, trying to push people back over to the powerless side of the bridge.
The 1960s was a time of marching across the bridge to greater freedom for all. People marched so that black folks could vote, so that young men who were sent off to die in foreign wars had the right to vote, too. Students led the way in demanding those rights. People in power pushed back against the students. As a campus minister, I found that of all adults, it was old people who were most sympathetic to the cause. The youngest and the oldest marched together across the bridge to freedom. Old people had nothing to gain, and perhaps they were free to cross the bridge because they had nothing to lose, either, but they knew what was right.
I’m often embarrassed to admit that I’m old, [4] because today’s old people are often so selfish. “Do whatever you want to anybody else; just don’t touch my Social Security and my Medicare and my discounts. Oh, and the early bird special.” It’s time for old people to get on that bridge again.
Power never voluntarily gives up a bridge to those who are left on the wrong side. Somebody has to have the courage to start walking across to the other side.
JRMcF
1] Paul is younger than I, but I call him an old friend because we have known each other since 1959.
2] Bob Parsons, Paul Unger, and I were friends together as undergrads at The Wesley Foundation (Methodist campus ministry) at Indiana U. Bob and I started seminary together at Perkins School of Theology at SMU. After I got thrown out there, I finished up with Paul at Garrett Theological Seminary at Northwestern U. Actually, it was Dallas that threw me out, not Perkins, for racially integrating the community center Helen and I directed.
3] An old high school friend, Bob Wallace, was an AL state trooper and head of Gov. Wallace’s bodyguard.
4] I was the Wesley Foundation minister to Indiana State U and Rose Polytechnic Institute in Terre Haute at that time. You can read more about this episode in my book, THE STRANGE CALLING, Pages 110-116.
5] You might be saying that I have no choice but to admit that I am old, but I have looked like I’m 70 ever since I was 40, so…
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
My old friend, Paul Unger [1], likes to make fun of those who quote themselves. “As I was sayin’ to Martha today, Martha, it’s a hot day.” You have to hear him to get the full effect, but you know people like that, self-quoters. Well, today, Paul can make fun of me.
Another old friend, Bob Parsons [2], is on vacation. Why a school bus driver would need a break, I don’t understand, but he’s left Austin temporarily for parts of the South farther east.
On Facebook he posted a picture of the Edmund Pettus bridge in Selma, AL, where on March 7, 1965, black people tried to march for civil rights, to protest voting violations, and where they were savagely attacked by AL police. [3] Two weeks later, 3500 marched across the bridge on their way to state capitol Montgomery, where they rallied and listened to MLK. The crowd was very large by the time it got to Montgomery. I was a part of that crowd, because the Alabama MSM (Methodist Student Movement) had asked the Indiana MSM to come down to march with them. [4] Wesley Foundation student president Bob Mullins, Sociology Professor Andre’ Hammonds, and I represented Indiana State U and Rose Polytechnic Institute.
Now I’ll quote what I wrote in response to Bob’s Facebook post: Power never voluntarily gives up a bridge to those who are left on the wrong side. Somebody has to have the courage to start walking across to the other side.
I think that is as true today as it has ever been. There are those in government and elsewhere who want to turn back the clock, start denying hard-won rights, trying to push people back over to the powerless side of the bridge.
The 1960s was a time of marching across the bridge to greater freedom for all. People marched so that black folks could vote, so that young men who were sent off to die in foreign wars had the right to vote, too. Students led the way in demanding those rights. People in power pushed back against the students. As a campus minister, I found that of all adults, it was old people who were most sympathetic to the cause. The youngest and the oldest marched together across the bridge to freedom. Old people had nothing to gain, and perhaps they were free to cross the bridge because they had nothing to lose, either, but they knew what was right.
I’m often embarrassed to admit that I’m old, [4] because today’s old people are often so selfish. “Do whatever you want to anybody else; just don’t touch my Social Security and my Medicare and my discounts. Oh, and the early bird special.” It’s time for old people to get on that bridge again.
Power never voluntarily gives up a bridge to those who are left on the wrong side. Somebody has to have the courage to start walking across to the other side.
JRMcF
1] Paul is younger than I, but I call him an old friend because we have known each other since 1959.
2] Bob Parsons, Paul Unger, and I were friends together as undergrads at The Wesley Foundation (Methodist campus ministry) at Indiana U. Bob and I started seminary together at Perkins School of Theology at SMU. After I got thrown out there, I finished up with Paul at Garrett Theological Seminary at Northwestern U. Actually, it was Dallas that threw me out, not Perkins, for racially integrating the community center Helen and I directed.
3] An old high school friend, Bob Wallace, was an AL state trooper and head of Gov. Wallace’s bodyguard.
4] I was the Wesley Foundation minister to Indiana State U and Rose Polytechnic Institute in Terre Haute at that time. You can read more about this episode in my book, THE STRANGE CALLING, Pages 110-116.
5] You might be saying that I have no choice but to admit that I am old, but I have looked like I’m 70 ever since I was 40, so…
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
Sunday, March 13, 2011
I Believe
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
I listen to music as I walk. One of my favorite walking genres is 1950s pop songs. The songs that used to have “a good beat for dancing” now have a good beat for walking.
One that pops up from time to time is "I Believe," sung by Frankie Laine.
I believe for every drop of rain that falls/ a flower grows/ I believe that somewhere in the darkest night/ A candle glows/ I believe for everyone who goes astray/ Someone will come to show the way/ I believe, I believe.
I believe above the storm the smallest prayer/ Will still be heard/ I believe that someone in the great somewhere/ Hears every word/ Every time I hear a newborn baby cry, Or touch a leaf, or see the sky, Then I know why, I believe.
It was the perfect faith song for the years of Eisenhower, who famously said, “I don’t care what you believe as long as you believe something.” It was an era of faith in faith, belief in belief.
Words and music were by Ervin Drake, Jimmy Shirl, Al Stillman, and Irvin Graham. I’m not sure which ones wrote the lyrics, but if it were me, I’d be claiming I wrote the music.
That song spoke to me, though. I knew I believed something, but I wasn’t sure what it was. It was fun to sing in church, “If you trust and never doubt, He will surely bring you out,” but I had some doubts as well as some faith. I was not sure I could sing the church songs with honesty. Those “I Believe” words about generic faith, along with the sort of mushy generic music we listened to in the dance room [1] at lunchtime, were part of my adolescent world. I could believe that way with honesty.
Through ten years of higher education, I became very sophisticated theologically and musically, at least if you equate cynicism and sarcasm with sophistication. In theology classes we made great fun of popular religious music. “I Come to the Garden Alone,” was called “Andy,” as in “Andy walks with me, Andy talks with me, Andy tells me I am his own.” We also sang, “Buddha loves me, this I know, for the Sutras tell me so,” and, continuing our Buddhist hymnary, “He’s the Lotus of the Valley,” in place of “He’s the Lily of the Valley.” We ridiculed the triumphalism of Earl Marlatt’s “Are Ye Able,” even though it wasn’t technically triumphalist. And, of course, “I Believe” was the worst of all. For us elite types, “simple” was definitely out. I reveled in my ability to say “Buxtehude.”
These days I think that Drake, Shirl, Stillman, and Graham may have been onto something beyond a chance to make a few bucks off of some schlock. I still think they ought to be embarrassed to have their names on those lyrics, but I believe. I believe in mystery. There’s a hell of a lot of stuff I don’t understand. There’s also a heaven of a lot of stuff I don’t understand. When I stand at the pearly gates, St. Peter isn’t going to say, thank God, “Did you pass your theology qualifying exam?” or even, in deference to my status as a sometime blond, “Do you know which book of the Bible comes after I Kings?” When St. Peter starts off with, “Did you believe in…” I’m just going to break in and say, “Yes.”
JRMcF
1] The “dance room” was totally mislabeled, since none of us boys who stood, awkwardly, on our side of the room had the courage or dexterity to walk across to the vastly mysterious other side of the room to ask a girl to dance.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
I listen to music as I walk. One of my favorite walking genres is 1950s pop songs. The songs that used to have “a good beat for dancing” now have a good beat for walking.
One that pops up from time to time is "I Believe," sung by Frankie Laine.
I believe for every drop of rain that falls/ a flower grows/ I believe that somewhere in the darkest night/ A candle glows/ I believe for everyone who goes astray/ Someone will come to show the way/ I believe, I believe.
I believe above the storm the smallest prayer/ Will still be heard/ I believe that someone in the great somewhere/ Hears every word/ Every time I hear a newborn baby cry, Or touch a leaf, or see the sky, Then I know why, I believe.
It was the perfect faith song for the years of Eisenhower, who famously said, “I don’t care what you believe as long as you believe something.” It was an era of faith in faith, belief in belief.
Words and music were by Ervin Drake, Jimmy Shirl, Al Stillman, and Irvin Graham. I’m not sure which ones wrote the lyrics, but if it were me, I’d be claiming I wrote the music.
That song spoke to me, though. I knew I believed something, but I wasn’t sure what it was. It was fun to sing in church, “If you trust and never doubt, He will surely bring you out,” but I had some doubts as well as some faith. I was not sure I could sing the church songs with honesty. Those “I Believe” words about generic faith, along with the sort of mushy generic music we listened to in the dance room [1] at lunchtime, were part of my adolescent world. I could believe that way with honesty.
Through ten years of higher education, I became very sophisticated theologically and musically, at least if you equate cynicism and sarcasm with sophistication. In theology classes we made great fun of popular religious music. “I Come to the Garden Alone,” was called “Andy,” as in “Andy walks with me, Andy talks with me, Andy tells me I am his own.” We also sang, “Buddha loves me, this I know, for the Sutras tell me so,” and, continuing our Buddhist hymnary, “He’s the Lotus of the Valley,” in place of “He’s the Lily of the Valley.” We ridiculed the triumphalism of Earl Marlatt’s “Are Ye Able,” even though it wasn’t technically triumphalist. And, of course, “I Believe” was the worst of all. For us elite types, “simple” was definitely out. I reveled in my ability to say “Buxtehude.”
These days I think that Drake, Shirl, Stillman, and Graham may have been onto something beyond a chance to make a few bucks off of some schlock. I still think they ought to be embarrassed to have their names on those lyrics, but I believe. I believe in mystery. There’s a hell of a lot of stuff I don’t understand. There’s also a heaven of a lot of stuff I don’t understand. When I stand at the pearly gates, St. Peter isn’t going to say, thank God, “Did you pass your theology qualifying exam?” or even, in deference to my status as a sometime blond, “Do you know which book of the Bible comes after I Kings?” When St. Peter starts off with, “Did you believe in…” I’m just going to break in and say, “Yes.”
JRMcF
1] The “dance room” was totally mislabeled, since none of us boys who stood, awkwardly, on our side of the room had the courage or dexterity to walk across to the vastly mysterious other side of the room to ask a girl to dance.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
From 500 Miles to Come Along Home Now
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
Helen and I sat up late last night, at least what is late for winter time and winter years, to watch again John Sebastian’s Folk Music Rewind on PBS. We watch primarily to see The Chad Mitchell Trio [1], of course, but we love the other groups, too, and especially enjoyed hearing The Brothers Four sing Hedy West’s 500 Miles Away from Home [2]
I was the Methodist campus minister at Illinois State University when I first heard the Peter, Paul & Mary recording of 500 Miles, and in it I heard the voice of the prodigal son in Jesus’ story about the prodigal father. [The father was prodigal in his love for his children.] I was scheduled to preach on that story at the student [middle] worship service at First Methodist Church on Homecoming Weekend, so I asked Duncan Miller, the director of our Wesley Foundation student choir, to have the choir sing it that day.
It seems silly now to think that would cause any trouble, but anyone over sixty can recall how controversial something like that would be. You used only CHURCH music in church. After some initial hesitation, though, Duncan agreed. The senior pastor of the church decided it was okay as long as I took the heat, which was his bottom line on most things.
The choir sang right after the scripture story was read. Duncan had done a beautiful a cappella arrangement, and the 500 people were struck totally dumb by 500 Miles. I have never stepped into a pulpit in a quieter church. A sermon was totally unnecessary. Needless to say, I preached anyway.
Students, of course, were welcome at any of the three Sunday morning services at First Methodist, and town folk were welcome at the middle service. My preaching style was different from what folks were used to, so in addition to the students, some of whom had never been in church before but were assigned to listen to me by speech professors, we had a lot of curious Normal [3] people and alumni back for homecoming. I think it was one of my most successful worship services ever, because of Hedy West and Duncan Miller.
All those folks who were at that service, even the college kids, are in their winter years now. They’ve put in their 500 miles. It’s time to come home. That’s what this last stage of life is all about. It’s folk music time now. Back then we just sang folk music. Now we’re living it.
As the prodigal son learned by going 500 miles away from home, there is great freedom in coming home.
Helen says she wants The Chad Mitchell Trio to sing Tom Paxton’s, Come Along Home Now at her [not imminent] funeral. “Last night I heard a sweet voice calling, come along, won’t you come along home…”
At one level, it’s just a song about the end of the day. But for those of us in the years of winter, it is something more. Episcopal priest and baritone in The Chad Mitchell Trio, Joe Frazier, says: “My whole understanding of that song has changed as I got older. Now it is indeed about ‘that room at the end of the hall,’ as my friend, Art Podell, has described in a recent song.”
“Come along, won’t you come along home now, Night is falling and the path is steep. Come along, won’t you come along home now, Water’s running and the river is deep.”
JRMcF
1] The Chad Mitchell Trio will be cruising again in 2012, dates and destinations to be determined. You can keep up with it at http://travelingtroubadour.com/. Traveling Troubadours has a Steps of Paul cruise November 3-15 this year that looks interesting, too.
2] The Brothers Four recorded 500 Miles, but Peter, Paul, & Mary and Bobby Bare did the best known recordings in the 1960s. Mary Chapin Carpenter sang the late Mary Travers’ part on it for the Peter Yarrow Sing-Along Special on PBS.
3] Originally ISU was the Illinois State Normal College, Normal meaning it trained teachers. It had been situated in the country a few miles north of Bloomington. As a town grew up around it, naturally it was just called Normal. Needless to say, that created many jokes about normal and abnormal people, Bloomington being just a little below Normal, etc.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
Helen and I sat up late last night, at least what is late for winter time and winter years, to watch again John Sebastian’s Folk Music Rewind on PBS. We watch primarily to see The Chad Mitchell Trio [1], of course, but we love the other groups, too, and especially enjoyed hearing The Brothers Four sing Hedy West’s 500 Miles Away from Home [2]
I was the Methodist campus minister at Illinois State University when I first heard the Peter, Paul & Mary recording of 500 Miles, and in it I heard the voice of the prodigal son in Jesus’ story about the prodigal father. [The father was prodigal in his love for his children.] I was scheduled to preach on that story at the student [middle] worship service at First Methodist Church on Homecoming Weekend, so I asked Duncan Miller, the director of our Wesley Foundation student choir, to have the choir sing it that day.
It seems silly now to think that would cause any trouble, but anyone over sixty can recall how controversial something like that would be. You used only CHURCH music in church. After some initial hesitation, though, Duncan agreed. The senior pastor of the church decided it was okay as long as I took the heat, which was his bottom line on most things.
The choir sang right after the scripture story was read. Duncan had done a beautiful a cappella arrangement, and the 500 people were struck totally dumb by 500 Miles. I have never stepped into a pulpit in a quieter church. A sermon was totally unnecessary. Needless to say, I preached anyway.
Students, of course, were welcome at any of the three Sunday morning services at First Methodist, and town folk were welcome at the middle service. My preaching style was different from what folks were used to, so in addition to the students, some of whom had never been in church before but were assigned to listen to me by speech professors, we had a lot of curious Normal [3] people and alumni back for homecoming. I think it was one of my most successful worship services ever, because of Hedy West and Duncan Miller.
All those folks who were at that service, even the college kids, are in their winter years now. They’ve put in their 500 miles. It’s time to come home. That’s what this last stage of life is all about. It’s folk music time now. Back then we just sang folk music. Now we’re living it.
As the prodigal son learned by going 500 miles away from home, there is great freedom in coming home.
Helen says she wants The Chad Mitchell Trio to sing Tom Paxton’s, Come Along Home Now at her [not imminent] funeral. “Last night I heard a sweet voice calling, come along, won’t you come along home…”
At one level, it’s just a song about the end of the day. But for those of us in the years of winter, it is something more. Episcopal priest and baritone in The Chad Mitchell Trio, Joe Frazier, says: “My whole understanding of that song has changed as I got older. Now it is indeed about ‘that room at the end of the hall,’ as my friend, Art Podell, has described in a recent song.”
“Come along, won’t you come along home now, Night is falling and the path is steep. Come along, won’t you come along home now, Water’s running and the river is deep.”
JRMcF
1] The Chad Mitchell Trio will be cruising again in 2012, dates and destinations to be determined. You can keep up with it at http://travelingtroubadour.com/. Traveling Troubadours has a Steps of Paul cruise November 3-15 this year that looks interesting, too.
2] The Brothers Four recorded 500 Miles, but Peter, Paul, & Mary and Bobby Bare did the best known recordings in the 1960s. Mary Chapin Carpenter sang the late Mary Travers’ part on it for the Peter Yarrow Sing-Along Special on PBS.
3] Originally ISU was the Illinois State Normal College, Normal meaning it trained teachers. It had been situated in the country a few miles north of Bloomington. As a town grew up around it, naturally it was just called Normal. Needless to say, that created many jokes about normal and abnormal people, Bloomington being just a little below Normal, etc.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Taking Care of Our Own
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
Taking Care Of Our Own…
First, I need to apologize to Ron Marsh for misspelling his name in the 3-2-11 CIW about Jesus as judge. You’d think someone my age would know how to spell “Ron.” [Actually, it was Marsh that gave me problems.]
In that same CIW, I confused some folks by referring to the Baptist Church in the town where I was the Methodist pastor as “our.” I was never a Baptist, but in a small town, everything is “ours”—our bank, our store, our mechanic, our Baptist or Catholic or Presbyterian Church—even if it’s not “ours.”
When I started on chemotherapy while we lived in that town, my nurse, Kim Wagler, [1] told me, “Stay away from crowds and sick people, because your immune system will be suppressed.” I said, “Half my job is crowds and the other half is sick people.”
But we tried. I did crowds and sick people only if they were part of my job. So we never did anything fun, and we got bored. Helen went to “our” store to rent a DVD, although I think it was probably a tape back then. Our daughters had told us “Pretty Woman” was a cute show. Helen plucked it off the shelf. Aunt Frances was working. When she saw the tape, she took Helen by the arm and led her back to the shelves. “Oh, my,” she said, “you’re the preacher’s wife, and this is a risqué film. You can’t be seen with something like that. I’ll pick out one for you that’s okay.”
Most people, especially those who have never lived in a small town, are horrified at that story. Not to worry. Helen is a woman of total self-confidence and total kindness. She said, “You can either think of a small town event like that as people intruding into your life, or people taking care of you. She was taking care of me.”
Later, when the teen girl was working, Helen rented “Pretty Woman.” Of course, we had to get someone else to take it back for us in case Aunt Frances was checking stuff back in! [We were taking care of her.]
In a small town, we take care of “ours.” Jesus said that the whole world is a small town.
JRMcF
1] I later officiated at Kim’s wedding when she added Ziner to the Wagler. I also officiated at the wedding of Becky Elliott, the head nurse in the cancer center. Helen said I was going to set a record for a cancer patient who does weddings for his nurses, but the others were already married.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
Taking Care Of Our Own…
First, I need to apologize to Ron Marsh for misspelling his name in the 3-2-11 CIW about Jesus as judge. You’d think someone my age would know how to spell “Ron.” [Actually, it was Marsh that gave me problems.]
In that same CIW, I confused some folks by referring to the Baptist Church in the town where I was the Methodist pastor as “our.” I was never a Baptist, but in a small town, everything is “ours”—our bank, our store, our mechanic, our Baptist or Catholic or Presbyterian Church—even if it’s not “ours.”
When I started on chemotherapy while we lived in that town, my nurse, Kim Wagler, [1] told me, “Stay away from crowds and sick people, because your immune system will be suppressed.” I said, “Half my job is crowds and the other half is sick people.”
But we tried. I did crowds and sick people only if they were part of my job. So we never did anything fun, and we got bored. Helen went to “our” store to rent a DVD, although I think it was probably a tape back then. Our daughters had told us “Pretty Woman” was a cute show. Helen plucked it off the shelf. Aunt Frances was working. When she saw the tape, she took Helen by the arm and led her back to the shelves. “Oh, my,” she said, “you’re the preacher’s wife, and this is a risqué film. You can’t be seen with something like that. I’ll pick out one for you that’s okay.”
Most people, especially those who have never lived in a small town, are horrified at that story. Not to worry. Helen is a woman of total self-confidence and total kindness. She said, “You can either think of a small town event like that as people intruding into your life, or people taking care of you. She was taking care of me.”
Later, when the teen girl was working, Helen rented “Pretty Woman.” Of course, we had to get someone else to take it back for us in case Aunt Frances was checking stuff back in! [We were taking care of her.]
In a small town, we take care of “ours.” Jesus said that the whole world is a small town.
JRMcF
1] I later officiated at Kim’s wedding when she added Ziner to the Wagler. I also officiated at the wedding of Becky Elliott, the head nurse in the cancer center. Helen said I was going to set a record for a cancer patient who does weddings for his nurses, but the others were already married.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
See You Over There
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
At the 40th anniversary of my seminary class we were each asked to sum up our careers. I said, “I was in campus ministry in the ‘60s, flunked out of graduate school, served a series of small churches, and retired.” It didn’t sound very impressive, but I didn’t have time to list all the friends I made in those small towns.
One of those friends was a Baptist pastor. He had been retired for several years, lived in another town and was part-time with our little Baptist church. He wasn’t in town very often, but we became friends. He had been there only a year or so when his wife was diagnosed with a terminal illness. I ran into him on the street downtown one day. He looked morose. “Last night in bed,” he said, “I could tell she was awake. I asked her what she was thinking about. ‘I’m thinking about what it will be like to be dead,’ she said. I’ve been telling people about heaven for a lifetime, but I didn’t have anything to say to her.”
Like old friend and Quincy, Illinois pastor Bob Morwell, I don’t spend much time thinking about heaven. [1]
Well, at least I didn’t. Then I got old. “I can see an angel peeping through the broken window pane. “ [2]
Rhode Island’s Ron March is a chiropractor by day and a singer-guitarist-composer-philosopher the rest of the time. He sent me a link containing strangely stilted animation and dialog, but remarkably provocative and astute theology. [3]
It is about John 14:6, where Jesus is reported as saying, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.” That is generally interpreted by Christians as saying that you can’t get into heaven unless you are a Christian. The speaker in the animated clip claims to be a literalist. He says that isn’t at all what Jesus is saying, that instead he is saying that he, Jesus, and he alone, gets to choose who gets into heaven.
That’s tremendously good news for us all sinners, and bad news for the self-righteous who want to keep out of heaven all those who are not like them. Judged by anybody else, friends, I ain’t gonna make it in. But if I’m judged by Jesus, I’ve got a good chance, because he consorted with sinners all the time, and since he commanded us to forgive others, I suspect he’s going to forgive even “a sinner such as I.”
Good news, not just for Christians, but for everybody: Jesus is Lord and Savior. He’s also the judge, the only one.
JRMcF
1] Bob’s commentary, “Who Gets IN?” is at http://www.forministry.com/USILUMETCUUMCU/Commentary.dsp
2] “Ain’t Gonna Need This House No Longer.” Stuart Hamblen.
3] Ron has given me permission to forward his email, so if you want the link, let me know and I’ll send it to you. It’s way to long to copy, and it won’t cut and paste from my email program.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
At the 40th anniversary of my seminary class we were each asked to sum up our careers. I said, “I was in campus ministry in the ‘60s, flunked out of graduate school, served a series of small churches, and retired.” It didn’t sound very impressive, but I didn’t have time to list all the friends I made in those small towns.
One of those friends was a Baptist pastor. He had been retired for several years, lived in another town and was part-time with our little Baptist church. He wasn’t in town very often, but we became friends. He had been there only a year or so when his wife was diagnosed with a terminal illness. I ran into him on the street downtown one day. He looked morose. “Last night in bed,” he said, “I could tell she was awake. I asked her what she was thinking about. ‘I’m thinking about what it will be like to be dead,’ she said. I’ve been telling people about heaven for a lifetime, but I didn’t have anything to say to her.”
Like old friend and Quincy, Illinois pastor Bob Morwell, I don’t spend much time thinking about heaven. [1]
Well, at least I didn’t. Then I got old. “I can see an angel peeping through the broken window pane. “ [2]
Rhode Island’s Ron March is a chiropractor by day and a singer-guitarist-composer-philosopher the rest of the time. He sent me a link containing strangely stilted animation and dialog, but remarkably provocative and astute theology. [3]
It is about John 14:6, where Jesus is reported as saying, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but by me.” That is generally interpreted by Christians as saying that you can’t get into heaven unless you are a Christian. The speaker in the animated clip claims to be a literalist. He says that isn’t at all what Jesus is saying, that instead he is saying that he, Jesus, and he alone, gets to choose who gets into heaven.
That’s tremendously good news for us all sinners, and bad news for the self-righteous who want to keep out of heaven all those who are not like them. Judged by anybody else, friends, I ain’t gonna make it in. But if I’m judged by Jesus, I’ve got a good chance, because he consorted with sinners all the time, and since he commanded us to forgive others, I suspect he’s going to forgive even “a sinner such as I.”
Good news, not just for Christians, but for everybody: Jesus is Lord and Savior. He’s also the judge, the only one.
JRMcF
1] Bob’s commentary, “Who Gets IN?” is at http://www.forministry.com/USILUMETCUUMCU/Commentary.dsp
2] “Ain’t Gonna Need This House No Longer.” Stuart Hamblen.
3] Ron has given me permission to forward his email, so if you want the link, let me know and I’ll send it to you. It’s way to long to copy, and it won’t cut and paste from my email program.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
Saturday, February 26, 2011
Responses to Enough Good Memories
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
Occasionally folks make responses to a post, or some other item comes across the screen that ought to be shared, so here is some catching up along those lines, especially from Enough Good Memories of 2-19:
Lutheran author and pastor Rebecca Ninke said that she enjoyed appearing in Christ In Winter because it made her think she had accomplished something for the day. So if you’re having a bad day when you feel like you’re not accomplishing anything, let me know and I’ll find some way to mention you.
Kaye Young and I once talked of making a video of some sort to provide good examples for young people. Kaye said he could be the star of a whole series on what NOT to do. That’s one of the things old people do best—telling young people to avoid certain activities because we did them and they didn’t work out. Makes you wonder why WE did them when our older relatives and friends told US not to do them, too. [1]
Bill Linneman says that he sometimes remembers by picking a year. He writes a column for THE NORMALITE newspaper in Normal, IL and recently wrote 3 columns on 1939. I like that idea. I think I’ll start with 1957, because that’s when I met Helen. Appropriately for a retired IL State U English prof, Bill quotes Lord Byron: “All times are good when old.” {He also said, “All tragedies are ended by a death; all comedies by a marriage.” Byron, not Bill.} [2]
Author Elaine Palencia remembered fried Spam sandwiches, with mayonnaise and white bread. I think that is especially appealing as a memory because nobody would dare eat such a concoction in old age. [3]
Retired UM pastor Howard Daughenbaugh says that the word “epizootic” created fond memories for him of a special person, an aunt who was a surgical nurse in New Orleans and who stayed with him during a tricky appendectomy, and who felt that anything that didn’t measure up to being an epizootic was just a passing discomfort.
Of course, there are things we don’t want to remember, too. Epizootic is a wonderful word, but I don’t use it much, because I don’t want to remember the symptoms of an epizootic.
Congrats to “Shammy” [Eugene] and Doris Shambarger, married 55 years Feb. 25. [4]
I received an email from Sandra Escondrias of AUTUMN SAINTS, which describes its mission as developing resources for later life spirituality. I know nothing about them, but their web site looks promising. You can check them out at http://autumnsaints.org/
JRMcF
[1] I met Kaye Young of Mason City, IA because I was in a play he directed, LATER LIFE, by A.R. Gurney. David Aaron Baker—IL State U graduate and stage, TV, and movie actor, currently in “Merchant of Venice” with Robert DiNiro in NYC—calls Gurney “Jack.” That must mean that the “A” and “R” are Archibald and Roscoe. [I’m relatively sure that there are no Archibalds or Roscoes who read this blog, but if there are, I apologize.]
[2] I have to be careful with Bill’s name because my sphelczhek always wants to change Linneman to Lineman. Speaking of THE NORMALITE…. Normal, IL is near the town of Oblong. THE NORMALITE’S most famous headline was, “Normal Man Marries Oblong Woman.”
[3] I suppose the best known Champaign-Urbana author is Richard Powers, but I think the best one is Elaine. Try BRIER COUNTRY or SMALL CAUCASIAN WOMAN.
[4] Shammy was our happily and totally reliable auto mechanic in Arcola, IL. Once when daughter Katie was a graduate student house-sitting for us, some UI friends called and wanted her to come up for a party. She explained that she couldn’t because her car was on the fritz and “the mechanic is out of town.” They were flabbergasted. “There’s only ONE in the whole town?” Well, yes, that’s the way it was.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
Occasionally folks make responses to a post, or some other item comes across the screen that ought to be shared, so here is some catching up along those lines, especially from Enough Good Memories of 2-19:
Lutheran author and pastor Rebecca Ninke said that she enjoyed appearing in Christ In Winter because it made her think she had accomplished something for the day. So if you’re having a bad day when you feel like you’re not accomplishing anything, let me know and I’ll find some way to mention you.
Kaye Young and I once talked of making a video of some sort to provide good examples for young people. Kaye said he could be the star of a whole series on what NOT to do. That’s one of the things old people do best—telling young people to avoid certain activities because we did them and they didn’t work out. Makes you wonder why WE did them when our older relatives and friends told US not to do them, too. [1]
Bill Linneman says that he sometimes remembers by picking a year. He writes a column for THE NORMALITE newspaper in Normal, IL and recently wrote 3 columns on 1939. I like that idea. I think I’ll start with 1957, because that’s when I met Helen. Appropriately for a retired IL State U English prof, Bill quotes Lord Byron: “All times are good when old.” {He also said, “All tragedies are ended by a death; all comedies by a marriage.” Byron, not Bill.} [2]
Author Elaine Palencia remembered fried Spam sandwiches, with mayonnaise and white bread. I think that is especially appealing as a memory because nobody would dare eat such a concoction in old age. [3]
Retired UM pastor Howard Daughenbaugh says that the word “epizootic” created fond memories for him of a special person, an aunt who was a surgical nurse in New Orleans and who stayed with him during a tricky appendectomy, and who felt that anything that didn’t measure up to being an epizootic was just a passing discomfort.
Of course, there are things we don’t want to remember, too. Epizootic is a wonderful word, but I don’t use it much, because I don’t want to remember the symptoms of an epizootic.
Congrats to “Shammy” [Eugene] and Doris Shambarger, married 55 years Feb. 25. [4]
I received an email from Sandra Escondrias of AUTUMN SAINTS, which describes its mission as developing resources for later life spirituality. I know nothing about them, but their web site looks promising. You can check them out at http://autumnsaints.org/
JRMcF
[1] I met Kaye Young of Mason City, IA because I was in a play he directed, LATER LIFE, by A.R. Gurney. David Aaron Baker—IL State U graduate and stage, TV, and movie actor, currently in “Merchant of Venice” with Robert DiNiro in NYC—calls Gurney “Jack.” That must mean that the “A” and “R” are Archibald and Roscoe. [I’m relatively sure that there are no Archibalds or Roscoes who read this blog, but if there are, I apologize.]
[2] I have to be careful with Bill’s name because my sphelczhek always wants to change Linneman to Lineman. Speaking of THE NORMALITE…. Normal, IL is near the town of Oblong. THE NORMALITE’S most famous headline was, “Normal Man Marries Oblong Woman.”
[3] I suppose the best known Champaign-Urbana author is Richard Powers, but I think the best one is Elaine. Try BRIER COUNTRY or SMALL CAUCASIAN WOMAN.
[4] Shammy was our happily and totally reliable auto mechanic in Arcola, IL. Once when daughter Katie was a graduate student house-sitting for us, some UI friends called and wanted her to come up for a party. She explained that she couldn’t because her car was on the fritz and “the mechanic is out of town.” They were flabbergasted. “There’s only ONE in the whole town?” Well, yes, that’s the way it was.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
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