CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
Barbara followed me into the kitchen. She was almost in tears. “I hate your wife,” she blurted out.
We were hosting a pot-luck in our parsonage in Hoopeston, IL for the other ministers and their wives. It was a good fellowship. We were a wide range theologically, conservative and liberal and everything in between, but only one minister in town boycotted the Hoopeston Area Ministerial Association. Everybody in the HAMA came to our potlucks.
Barbara was the wife of Dirk, the Lutheran pastor. She looked like a super model, and Dirk was a George Clooney type, except younger and good looking. I figured Helen and I had more reason to hate them than the other way around.
We didn’t hate them, though. In fact, when their church building burned, we invited them to share ours.
We had enough empty classrooms that we could accommodate their Sunday School at the same time as ours, and we worshipped at the same time, too, with Lutherans in the fellowship hall while Methodists were in the sanctuary. It was quite unusual for Missouri Synod Lutherans.
We loved it. There were so many people in the building, so much activity. The way you know your church is a going concern is whether you have to stand in line for the rest room. We felt bereft when their building was rebuilt and they moved out.
I couldn’t believe that Barbara hated Helen. There were people in the churches and towns where I pastored who hated me, but everyone always loved Helen.
Barbara blew who super-model nose into the napkin from the plate she was placing on the counter and said, “She makes being a preacher’s wife look so easy, and it’s not.”
“That’s because she doesn’t try to be a preacher’s wife,” I told Barbara. “She is just herself. That’s a lot easier.”
I don’t know if Barbara ever got to be herself. The Lutherans moved out of our building, and the bishop moved us to Charleston. No more HAMA potlucks at our house. But it’s Sunday morning, and I always pray for my preacher friends on Sunday morning, including all the wives who hated Helen for making it look easy.
JRMcF
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{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, October 9, 2011
Sunday, September 25, 2011
After the Game Is Over
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
There were other folks involved, of course, but since baseball poetry traditionally deals with male intergenerational bonding…
AFTER THE GAME IS OVER
It was the major leagues, almost
The Pirates and the Cubs
But names that fit them best at most
Were the 1.75rates and the Flubs [1]
Hot dogs were twenty smackers
Ice cream was even more
When they saw the price of young Jack’s Crackers
Every chin dropped to the floor.
Each player made a million each
For working half a day
But every ball was out of reach
No one dared to shout “Say hey!” [2]
Every bat let out a sigh
When they saw who came to hit
None of their kind would have to die
Since every pitch was missed
Every pitch was wild as sin
The managers prayed for rain
Home plate doesn’t have to take you in [3]
There was no Spahn or Sain [4]
But for a boy up in the bleachers
With a grandpa old as Never
Watching on the field those wretched creatures
It was the best day in Forever.
JRMcF
1] 1.75 is half of pi, if we accept pi as 3.14 without the “to infinity,” making half-rate Pirates 1.75rates. You can say “half-rates” in that line if the meter offends you.
2] The signature exultation of Willie Mays, for whom no ball was ever out of reach.
3] Poet Robert Frost said that “home is where they have to take you in.” Home plate is where they try to keep you out.
4] The battle cry of the 1948 National League Boston Braves, who became the Milwaukee Braves and later, and currently, the Atlanta Braves, was “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain,” reflecting the abilities of Hall of Fame lefthander Warren Spahn and his pitching rotation partner, Johnny Sain, compared to the rest of the rotation, who pitched best if rained out. Based on a poem by Boston Post sports editor Gerald Hern: “First we’ll use Spahn, and then we’ll use Sain, then an off day, followed by rain. Back will come Spahn, followed by Sain, and followed we hope by two days of rain.”
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{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.)
There were other folks involved, of course, but since baseball poetry traditionally deals with male intergenerational bonding…
AFTER THE GAME IS OVER
It was the major leagues, almost
The Pirates and the Cubs
But names that fit them best at most
Were the 1.75rates and the Flubs [1]
Hot dogs were twenty smackers
Ice cream was even more
When they saw the price of young Jack’s Crackers
Every chin dropped to the floor.
Each player made a million each
For working half a day
But every ball was out of reach
No one dared to shout “Say hey!” [2]
Every bat let out a sigh
When they saw who came to hit
None of their kind would have to die
Since every pitch was missed
Every pitch was wild as sin
The managers prayed for rain
Home plate doesn’t have to take you in [3]
There was no Spahn or Sain [4]
But for a boy up in the bleachers
With a grandpa old as Never
Watching on the field those wretched creatures
It was the best day in Forever.
JRMcF
1] 1.75 is half of pi, if we accept pi as 3.14 without the “to infinity,” making half-rate Pirates 1.75rates. You can say “half-rates” in that line if the meter offends you.
2] The signature exultation of Willie Mays, for whom no ball was ever out of reach.
3] Poet Robert Frost said that “home is where they have to take you in.” Home plate is where they try to keep you out.
4] The battle cry of the 1948 National League Boston Braves, who became the Milwaukee Braves and later, and currently, the Atlanta Braves, was “Spahn and Sain and pray for rain,” reflecting the abilities of Hall of Fame lefthander Warren Spahn and his pitching rotation partner, Johnny Sain, compared to the rest of the rotation, who pitched best if rained out. Based on a poem by Boston Post sports editor Gerald Hern: “First we’ll use Spahn, and then we’ll use Sain, then an off day, followed by rain. Back will come Spahn, followed by Sain, and followed we hope by two days of rain.”
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{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, September 14, 2011
THE 5TH STAGE
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
Schools in general, and colleges in particular, used to start classes after harvest season. So it was in this week on the calendar of 1955 that I matriculated at Indiana University.
During Orientation Week of that freshman year, men’s and women’s dorms were paired up for mixers. The point of the mixer was to hook up with a girl, hook up in those days being a benign term that simply meant finding a date, and then going to the campus-wide dance in Alumni Hall in the Union Building, the largest student union building in the world, we are always proud to say. Normally Linden Hall would have been paired with Pine Hall, since the Pine Hall girls, known as Pine Swine for no reason other than the rhyme, were on The Residence Scholarship Plan [for poor but motivated students], as were the boys of Linden Hall-East, boys and girls being what we called boys and girls in those days, instead of men and women, as college boys and girls are called now. For some reason, though, probably because the Pine Hall girls rejected the idea, Linden Hall was paired with Oak Hall instead.
All the Ahaywehs, as the denizens of Linden East were later called, referring to Dante’s abandon hope, all ye who enter here, dutifully trooped over to Oak and began to mix. Somehow I ended up with a slender brunette.
I don’t remember much about that night. We walked to the Union, and I suppose I tried to dance, although it is more likely that I made many trips to the punch bowl to avoid dancing, and then we walked back to Oak Hall. I must have made a better impression than I thought, because as soon as we got inside the door to Oak Hall, she grabbed me in a passionate embrace and began to kiss me like my face was sweet corn and she had missed supper.
I have no idea why she did that. We had known each other for about three hours. I was skinny and awkward and about as average-looking as they came. Maybe it was because she didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of her friends, since all of them were doing the same thing, and she didn’t want to admit she had hooked one that should have been thrown back. Maybe she was just curious to see how a farm boy would react and knew she had nothing to lose, since the Head Resident would soon blow her whistle to indicate visiting hours were over and all of the frustrated lotharios had to go home. I never saw her again after that night, except at a distance in the Arbutus Dining Hall, where all the people who lived in Trees ate. [1]
The fifth of the eight stages of psycho-social adjustment, as outlined by Erik Erikson, is Intimacy vs. Isolation, coinciding with the late teens and early twenties. The eighth stage, in the final years of life, is Integrity vs. Despair, which asks the question: Did my life through the other stages have meaning? Did I negotiate those stages successfully and grow into a mature person?
The way we successfully negotiate Integrity vs. Despair is by going back through the earlier stages, reviewing them so that we can accept them as necessary parts of who we are. I hope as that Oak Hall girl reviews her fifth stage, she doesn’t feel she never made it through Intimacy vs. Isolation because of that awkward boy in that mixer in her freshman year, for I still remember her name, after fifty-six years.
JRMcF
1] Trees Center had 8 wooden two-story dorms that had been built as temporary housing for military personnel during WWII. All were named for trees. I recall Laurel and Hickory as well as those named above. We were “men in trees” long before the TV show of that name.
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{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.)
Schools in general, and colleges in particular, used to start classes after harvest season. So it was in this week on the calendar of 1955 that I matriculated at Indiana University.
During Orientation Week of that freshman year, men’s and women’s dorms were paired up for mixers. The point of the mixer was to hook up with a girl, hook up in those days being a benign term that simply meant finding a date, and then going to the campus-wide dance in Alumni Hall in the Union Building, the largest student union building in the world, we are always proud to say. Normally Linden Hall would have been paired with Pine Hall, since the Pine Hall girls, known as Pine Swine for no reason other than the rhyme, were on The Residence Scholarship Plan [for poor but motivated students], as were the boys of Linden Hall-East, boys and girls being what we called boys and girls in those days, instead of men and women, as college boys and girls are called now. For some reason, though, probably because the Pine Hall girls rejected the idea, Linden Hall was paired with Oak Hall instead.
All the Ahaywehs, as the denizens of Linden East were later called, referring to Dante’s abandon hope, all ye who enter here, dutifully trooped over to Oak and began to mix. Somehow I ended up with a slender brunette.
I don’t remember much about that night. We walked to the Union, and I suppose I tried to dance, although it is more likely that I made many trips to the punch bowl to avoid dancing, and then we walked back to Oak Hall. I must have made a better impression than I thought, because as soon as we got inside the door to Oak Hall, she grabbed me in a passionate embrace and began to kiss me like my face was sweet corn and she had missed supper.
I have no idea why she did that. We had known each other for about three hours. I was skinny and awkward and about as average-looking as they came. Maybe it was because she didn’t want to be embarrassed in front of her friends, since all of them were doing the same thing, and she didn’t want to admit she had hooked one that should have been thrown back. Maybe she was just curious to see how a farm boy would react and knew she had nothing to lose, since the Head Resident would soon blow her whistle to indicate visiting hours were over and all of the frustrated lotharios had to go home. I never saw her again after that night, except at a distance in the Arbutus Dining Hall, where all the people who lived in Trees ate. [1]
The fifth of the eight stages of psycho-social adjustment, as outlined by Erik Erikson, is Intimacy vs. Isolation, coinciding with the late teens and early twenties. The eighth stage, in the final years of life, is Integrity vs. Despair, which asks the question: Did my life through the other stages have meaning? Did I negotiate those stages successfully and grow into a mature person?
The way we successfully negotiate Integrity vs. Despair is by going back through the earlier stages, reviewing them so that we can accept them as necessary parts of who we are. I hope as that Oak Hall girl reviews her fifth stage, she doesn’t feel she never made it through Intimacy vs. Isolation because of that awkward boy in that mixer in her freshman year, for I still remember her name, after fifty-six years.
JRMcF
1] Trees Center had 8 wooden two-story dorms that had been built as temporary housing for military personnel during WWII. All were named for trees. I recall Laurel and Hickory as well as those named above. We were “men in trees” long before the TV show of that name.
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{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, July 26, 2011
Norway & The Will of God
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
I have been struggling with the most recent mass murder, the one in Norway. Trying to understand. Trying to pray. Trying to re-channel my own rage into something constructive.
As usual, I am not being very successful.
I’m not helped by an abcessed tooth. There is this dull, constant, throbbing pain in my head. It beats in disharmony with the dull, constant, throbbing pain in my soul. Why is there so much evil in the world? Why are we so evil?
I have lived a long time, and I am supposed to be wise because of it, but I have no answers, no wisdom. Indeed, one of the worst things about living in the years of winter is the accumulation of evil. When I was twenty, an evil act of destruction was new in my experience. I thought I could do something about it. Now I have observed countless acts of destruction, singular and mass, and I have not been able to do anything about them.
So why not curse God and die? That was the advice Job’s wife gave him. [Job 2:9]
At the end of her life, Isabella Beecher Hooker, the social activist among the thirteen remarkable children of Lyman and Roxana (& Harriet) Beecher [1], was bemoaning the state of the world. “Well, at least you have the satisfaction of knowing you did all you could about the world’s evil during your lifetime,” said her granddaughter. “That’s the problem,” said Isabella. “When I was young, I could do something about it. Now I can’t do anything.”
When Steve and Tony, the 18 and 19 year old sons of my older sister were killed in a car crash, I said at their funeral that this was NOT the will of God. “God does not will that beautiful young men should be cut down before they’ve even really started growing. It is the law of physics that when a small car and a large truck collide, the people in the small car will get hurt, but God does not pull strings to cause these things to happen. This was NOT the will of God.” I must have said it ten times in one way or another.
That night, as Dick, their father, and I sat in his darkened study in masculine silence, the president of the sports booster club came by. [Tony was quarterback on the football team.] “Well, as you said earlier,” he said to me, “it was the will of God.”
I was astonished. I know I’m not the world’s best preacher, but I’m a pretty accurate communicator. How could he turn my words around to say the exact opposite of what I had preached? Then it came to me: he wasn’t saying God caused this. He was just saying that in the midst of the tragedy, God was still in charge, that the everlasting arms are still upholding, even in the midst of evil, perhaps especially there, God is the only reason, the only hope, the only cause worth serving.
JRMcF
1] Lyman had 9 children with Roxana Foote. When she died, he married Harriet Porter and had four more. Harriet was Isabella’s mother. The most famous of the children were Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Arthur is my favorite. The first month he was the Presbyterian pastor in Elmira, NY, he was thrown out of the ministerial association for heresy. For the next 37 years he never missed a meeting of the association, although he was never readmitted to membership. Think about that—he got free coffee every month but never had to pay dues or be an officer or serve on a committee!
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{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 have been struggling with the most recent mass murder, the one in Norway. Trying to understand. Trying to pray. Trying to re-channel my own rage into something constructive.
As usual, I am not being very successful.
I’m not helped by an abcessed tooth. There is this dull, constant, throbbing pain in my head. It beats in disharmony with the dull, constant, throbbing pain in my soul. Why is there so much evil in the world? Why are we so evil?
I have lived a long time, and I am supposed to be wise because of it, but I have no answers, no wisdom. Indeed, one of the worst things about living in the years of winter is the accumulation of evil. When I was twenty, an evil act of destruction was new in my experience. I thought I could do something about it. Now I have observed countless acts of destruction, singular and mass, and I have not been able to do anything about them.
So why not curse God and die? That was the advice Job’s wife gave him. [Job 2:9]
At the end of her life, Isabella Beecher Hooker, the social activist among the thirteen remarkable children of Lyman and Roxana (& Harriet) Beecher [1], was bemoaning the state of the world. “Well, at least you have the satisfaction of knowing you did all you could about the world’s evil during your lifetime,” said her granddaughter. “That’s the problem,” said Isabella. “When I was young, I could do something about it. Now I can’t do anything.”
When Steve and Tony, the 18 and 19 year old sons of my older sister were killed in a car crash, I said at their funeral that this was NOT the will of God. “God does not will that beautiful young men should be cut down before they’ve even really started growing. It is the law of physics that when a small car and a large truck collide, the people in the small car will get hurt, but God does not pull strings to cause these things to happen. This was NOT the will of God.” I must have said it ten times in one way or another.
That night, as Dick, their father, and I sat in his darkened study in masculine silence, the president of the sports booster club came by. [Tony was quarterback on the football team.] “Well, as you said earlier,” he said to me, “it was the will of God.”
I was astonished. I know I’m not the world’s best preacher, but I’m a pretty accurate communicator. How could he turn my words around to say the exact opposite of what I had preached? Then it came to me: he wasn’t saying God caused this. He was just saying that in the midst of the tragedy, God was still in charge, that the everlasting arms are still upholding, even in the midst of evil, perhaps especially there, God is the only reason, the only hope, the only cause worth serving.
JRMcF
1] Lyman had 9 children with Roxana Foote. When she died, he married Harriet Porter and had four more. Harriet was Isabella’s mother. The most famous of the children were Henry Ward Beecher and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Arthur is my favorite. The first month he was the Presbyterian pastor in Elmira, NY, he was thrown out of the ministerial association for heresy. For the next 37 years he never missed a meeting of the association, although he was never readmitted to membership. Think about that—he got free coffee every month but never had to pay dues or be an officer or serve on a committee!
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{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, July 16, 2011
Blowin' In the Wind
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
Recently I have followed an online discussion about the different recorded versions of Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ In the Wind. The discussion was sparked by the publication of Milt Okun’s memoir Along the Cherry Lane. [1]
Okun was the musical director for both The Chad Mitchell Trio [CMT] and Peter, Paul, and Mary. [PPM] The song was originally offered to CMT, but their record company at the time--Okun had not yet established his own record company--said no one would listen to a song that contained a reference to death and so turned it down. Okun then took it to PPM, which had a huge hit with it. Strangely, CMT--having changed companies--actually recorded it first, on an album with the title, “Blowin’ in the Wind,” but it was already associated so strongly with PPM that most people have always thought it was only a PPM recording.
You can hear both versions on YouTube. They are quite different, but most folk music aficionados refuse to compare them, saying that each is perfect in its own way.
Why so different, when Okun was musical director for both groups? Because Okun was a musical genius. He tailored each arrangement to the musical strengths of each group. The PPM version is wistful, yearning, hoping that there is an answer, and if we listen to the wind, perhaps we can find it. The CMT version is urgent, forceful, proclaiming that there IS an answer, and that it is important to listen to that wind, now. [2]
For Christians, I think the two versions complement each other to make a whole.
The PPM version represents Hope. The wind of the Spirit will continue to blow. [3] The answer will always be there, and whenever you have “ears to hear,” [4] as Jesus put it, you can hear those answers. The CMT version represents “realized eschatology,” [5] the faith that the Kingdom of God—the place where God rather than the greed-of-self reigns—is right here, right now.
The wind in winter can blow very cold, but there is still an answer there, if one has ears to hear. Regardless of age, the place is always here, the time is always now. For hope. For salvation, from fragmentation into wholeness. The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind, yearningly, urgently.
JRMcF
1] Cherry Lane was the name of Okun’s record production company, because when it started, he lived next to the Cherry Lane Theater. He was the musical director for PPM, but he says it’s just an accident that Leonard Lipton’s and Peter Yarrow’s “Puff, the Magic Dragon” contains the line, “Puff no longer went to play along the cherry lane.”
2] Paul Prestopino plays backup on both recordings. It is interesting to hear how he plays the same song differently according to the way Okun has arranged for each group.
3] In both biblical languages of Greek and Hebrew, the words for wind and spirit are the same word, ruach in Hebrew and pneuma in Greek.
4] I haven’t counted the times Jesus used this phrase, but one site I consulted says he used it 7 times. I know it is in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Mark.
5] The term “realized eschatology” is most closely associated with British biblical scholar C.H. Dodd.
***
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{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.)
Recently I have followed an online discussion about the different recorded versions of Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ In the Wind. The discussion was sparked by the publication of Milt Okun’s memoir Along the Cherry Lane. [1]
Okun was the musical director for both The Chad Mitchell Trio [CMT] and Peter, Paul, and Mary. [PPM] The song was originally offered to CMT, but their record company at the time--Okun had not yet established his own record company--said no one would listen to a song that contained a reference to death and so turned it down. Okun then took it to PPM, which had a huge hit with it. Strangely, CMT--having changed companies--actually recorded it first, on an album with the title, “Blowin’ in the Wind,” but it was already associated so strongly with PPM that most people have always thought it was only a PPM recording.
You can hear both versions on YouTube. They are quite different, but most folk music aficionados refuse to compare them, saying that each is perfect in its own way.
Why so different, when Okun was musical director for both groups? Because Okun was a musical genius. He tailored each arrangement to the musical strengths of each group. The PPM version is wistful, yearning, hoping that there is an answer, and if we listen to the wind, perhaps we can find it. The CMT version is urgent, forceful, proclaiming that there IS an answer, and that it is important to listen to that wind, now. [2]
For Christians, I think the two versions complement each other to make a whole.
The PPM version represents Hope. The wind of the Spirit will continue to blow. [3] The answer will always be there, and whenever you have “ears to hear,” [4] as Jesus put it, you can hear those answers. The CMT version represents “realized eschatology,” [5] the faith that the Kingdom of God—the place where God rather than the greed-of-self reigns—is right here, right now.
The wind in winter can blow very cold, but there is still an answer there, if one has ears to hear. Regardless of age, the place is always here, the time is always now. For hope. For salvation, from fragmentation into wholeness. The answer, my friend, is blowin’ in the wind, yearningly, urgently.
JRMcF
1] Cherry Lane was the name of Okun’s record production company, because when it started, he lived next to the Cherry Lane Theater. He was the musical director for PPM, but he says it’s just an accident that Leonard Lipton’s and Peter Yarrow’s “Puff, the Magic Dragon” contains the line, “Puff no longer went to play along the cherry lane.”
2] Paul Prestopino plays backup on both recordings. It is interesting to hear how he plays the same song differently according to the way Okun has arranged for each group.
3] In both biblical languages of Greek and Hebrew, the words for wind and spirit are the same word, ruach in Hebrew and pneuma in Greek.
4] I haven’t counted the times Jesus used this phrase, but one site I consulted says he used it 7 times. I know it is in the fourth chapter of the Gospel of Mark.
5] The term “realized eschatology” is most closely associated with British biblical scholar C.H. Dodd.
***
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{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, June 30, 2011
Hey, Rose...
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
I’m always reluctant to share dreams. People who know more about them than I do are likely to say, “If you dream about that, it means you’re crazy as a loon.” I don’t need to know that from dreams; I have people to tell me that. Occasionally, though, a dream seems right on the mark…
Last night I dreamt that I had become so lost that I could not find my way home. I was in that dream town, familiar, the town where I live, but only in my dreams. It’s a small town, but it has a lot of large church and college buildings. Many of them are neglected or abandoned. My wife had taken my father to the hospital, and I was trying to go there, but I had walked in from the country, and I was a long way from the hospital. I kept seeing familiar sights and sites, but I kept taking wrong turns. To make matters worse, I tried to call Helen to come get me, but I couldn’t remember her phone number. [Anyone familiar with my life can make a LOT out of all that!]
Old people worry a lot about losing memory. I suspect that one reason for my dream at this time is that I had several conversations this week with other old people about how we can’t remember where we put our glasses or parked our cars. [BTW, a good reason to have a landline as well as a cell phone, or at least two cell phones, is so you can find the phone you’ve lost by calling it. I know that for a fact.]
Men rely on wives for memory. Earl Davis, the grand mentor of The Academy of Parish Clergy, used to say, “I have a perfect memory system. It’s called, ‘Martha, where is that?’” I love the story about the old man who was trying to tell a friend about a new restaurant but couldn’t think of its name. “What’s that flower with the nice smell and thorns?” he said. “A rose? Oh, was the restaurant called The Rose?” “No. Hey, Rose, what was the name of that restaurant we went to?”
Pat Meyerholtz says that all of us who went to high school together have good memories; it’s just that we remember the same things in different ways. I like that. It shows how unique we are.
My wife is especially helpful when I worry about losing memory, because she says, “I’ve know you since you were twenty, and you’ve always been this way.” At least, I think that’s helpful.
Of course, forgetting your glasses or the third thing she told you to get at the grocery is just a frustration. Forgetting where home is, that’s tragedy.
After my friend from age ten, Darrel Guimond, was in a car accident that left him brain-damaged, he was able to remember one thing. He told his wife, Linda, “I know you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
I understand why we worry about losing memory. We lose our history, and thus our identity. I suspect we worry too much about it, though. Loss is the way of this world, isn’t it? When we are dead, none of us will be remembered for very long, not in the grand scheme of things. My identity and history are limited and declining, just like my memory.
I heard a story about a young adult group where each person was invited to pick a card from the deck to say who s/he was. One picked a Jack, another a deuce, another a King. One young man picked up the whole deck, turned it over, and said, “It doesn’t matter which card I am. What matters is whose hand I’m in.”
The good news is this: God doesn’t forget. God knew Darrel even when Darrel didn’t know himself. God remembers even the sparrow that falls to the ground. God knows me, my identity, my history. Even the hairs of my head are numbered. Granted, that’s easier in my case, but still…
JRMcF
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much.
{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’m always reluctant to share dreams. People who know more about them than I do are likely to say, “If you dream about that, it means you’re crazy as a loon.” I don’t need to know that from dreams; I have people to tell me that. Occasionally, though, a dream seems right on the mark…
Last night I dreamt that I had become so lost that I could not find my way home. I was in that dream town, familiar, the town where I live, but only in my dreams. It’s a small town, but it has a lot of large church and college buildings. Many of them are neglected or abandoned. My wife had taken my father to the hospital, and I was trying to go there, but I had walked in from the country, and I was a long way from the hospital. I kept seeing familiar sights and sites, but I kept taking wrong turns. To make matters worse, I tried to call Helen to come get me, but I couldn’t remember her phone number. [Anyone familiar with my life can make a LOT out of all that!]
Old people worry a lot about losing memory. I suspect that one reason for my dream at this time is that I had several conversations this week with other old people about how we can’t remember where we put our glasses or parked our cars. [BTW, a good reason to have a landline as well as a cell phone, or at least two cell phones, is so you can find the phone you’ve lost by calling it. I know that for a fact.]
Men rely on wives for memory. Earl Davis, the grand mentor of The Academy of Parish Clergy, used to say, “I have a perfect memory system. It’s called, ‘Martha, where is that?’” I love the story about the old man who was trying to tell a friend about a new restaurant but couldn’t think of its name. “What’s that flower with the nice smell and thorns?” he said. “A rose? Oh, was the restaurant called The Rose?” “No. Hey, Rose, what was the name of that restaurant we went to?”
Pat Meyerholtz says that all of us who went to high school together have good memories; it’s just that we remember the same things in different ways. I like that. It shows how unique we are.
My wife is especially helpful when I worry about losing memory, because she says, “I’ve know you since you were twenty, and you’ve always been this way.” At least, I think that’s helpful.
Of course, forgetting your glasses or the third thing she told you to get at the grocery is just a frustration. Forgetting where home is, that’s tragedy.
After my friend from age ten, Darrel Guimond, was in a car accident that left him brain-damaged, he was able to remember one thing. He told his wife, Linda, “I know you. You’re the best thing that ever happened to me.”
I understand why we worry about losing memory. We lose our history, and thus our identity. I suspect we worry too much about it, though. Loss is the way of this world, isn’t it? When we are dead, none of us will be remembered for very long, not in the grand scheme of things. My identity and history are limited and declining, just like my memory.
I heard a story about a young adult group where each person was invited to pick a card from the deck to say who s/he was. One picked a Jack, another a deuce, another a King. One young man picked up the whole deck, turned it over, and said, “It doesn’t matter which card I am. What matters is whose hand I’m in.”
The good news is this: God doesn’t forget. God knew Darrel even when Darrel didn’t know himself. God remembers even the sparrow that falls to the ground. God knows me, my identity, my history. Even the hairs of my head are numbered. Granted, that’s easier in my case, but still…
JRMcF
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much.
{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, June 23, 2011
Sam's Funeral
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
SAM’S FUNERAL
I’m trying to figure out how to say everything at Sam’s funeral that needs to be said without crying as I say it.
I pass the peace with Sam’s daughter at church each Sunday, but I’ve never met Sam. I don’t do funerals anymore. Or weddings, or anything else I did for 50 years as a pastor. I’m retired. But Pastor Thomas has already moved to her new appointment, and Pastor Mallory isn’t here yet, so when Sam died, Sue had the funeral home call me.
I’m glad to help. The problem is that I can’t read the service in the Book of Worship or think about what I’m going to say about Sam without crying.
I used to cry at the sad times of life. I still do. There is nothing sad, though, about the death of a man of 95, full of years and memories. In the winter of my years, however, I cry whenever I experience fullness, wholeness, beauty. Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, I think on these things [Philippians 4:8], and I am filled to the brim with joy, so that my cup overflows, and the overflow comes out through my eyes.
That’s okay. I’m glad to be filled with the wholeness of life, so much so that I can’t find words to express what joy that is, and so all I can do is weep. That’s not a very good way to do a funeral, though.
So I sit here and try to figure out ways I can say what needs to be said without those trigger words that cause me to overflow. Maybe I’ll think about stuff that makes me mad. I don’t cry at stuff that makes me mad, like the Reds’ starting pitchers. Maybe that’s why old people are grumpy so much of the time; we’re trying to keep from crying. I hope Sam will forgive me for doing the funeral with a mental image of him on the mound in a Reds uniform, giving up home runs…
JRMcF
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
Dave Nash says that the links to my blogs and my email, which I post below, do not work. I apologize for any inconvenience. I have redone them, and so now I hope they work. If they don’t, you can type them in yourself as they are, because they are accurate, even if not workable.
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{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.)
SAM’S FUNERAL
I’m trying to figure out how to say everything at Sam’s funeral that needs to be said without crying as I say it.
I pass the peace with Sam’s daughter at church each Sunday, but I’ve never met Sam. I don’t do funerals anymore. Or weddings, or anything else I did for 50 years as a pastor. I’m retired. But Pastor Thomas has already moved to her new appointment, and Pastor Mallory isn’t here yet, so when Sam died, Sue had the funeral home call me.
I’m glad to help. The problem is that I can’t read the service in the Book of Worship or think about what I’m going to say about Sam without crying.
I used to cry at the sad times of life. I still do. There is nothing sad, though, about the death of a man of 95, full of years and memories. In the winter of my years, however, I cry whenever I experience fullness, wholeness, beauty. Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, I think on these things [Philippians 4:8], and I am filled to the brim with joy, so that my cup overflows, and the overflow comes out through my eyes.
That’s okay. I’m glad to be filled with the wholeness of life, so much so that I can’t find words to express what joy that is, and so all I can do is weep. That’s not a very good way to do a funeral, though.
So I sit here and try to figure out ways I can say what needs to be said without those trigger words that cause me to overflow. Maybe I’ll think about stuff that makes me mad. I don’t cry at stuff that makes me mad, like the Reds’ starting pitchers. Maybe that’s why old people are grumpy so much of the time; we’re trying to keep from crying. I hope Sam will forgive me for doing the funeral with a mental image of him on the mound in a Reds uniform, giving up home runs…
JRMcF
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
Dave Nash says that the links to my blogs and my email, which I post below, do not work. I apologize for any inconvenience. I have redone them, and so now I hope they work. If they don’t, you can type them in yourself as they are, because they are accurate, even if not workable.
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{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.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)