[Some
folks have asked to receive Christ in
Winter by email. If you’re not one of those, I don’t mean to be intruding
in your In box. I’m just sending to
you this way because I think you may be interested in the subject or the places
or people mentioned and I didn’t want you to miss it in case you don’t check
the blog site today. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/]
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith
For the Years of Winter…
Arcola, IL friend Jane Jenkins sent Helen a link to watch,
“How the rover got to mars.” Below is Helen’s reply. I asked her if I could
share it more widely, and she agreed. It seems very appropriate
as winter comes
on.
Thank you, Jane. I enjoyed this. As I watched it, I
marveled at how the spaceship was designed to eject some of its parts
periodically as their task was finished. It hit me that that is similar to
people at our age. Many of the parts of my life have served their purpose and I
have ejected them (physically, my gall bladder and uterus are examples, though
I guess I could still use the gall bladder, but I don’t miss it). In other
areas, I find myself constantly working to edit my possessions, interests, and activities.
I just don’t have the energy to do everything I once did, so I must make
choices and set priorities. I once read an article about moving into a small
retirement apartment. The author, talking about what furniture to keep, said,
“Keep the best pieces and the best memories.” I thought that was pretty good
advice.
I’m paring down my clothes and getting rid of the
“mistakes” I’ve bought and kept for years without wearing. Sometimes I look
around the room I’m in and think about what furniture, pictures, etc. I would
keep if we were moving to smaller quarters. This morning I’ve been potting up a
few plants from the deck to bring in for the winter (parsley and chives),
throwing away some that are spent, and setting out a few new, cool weather
things that will stay there through the snow of winter (mums and flowering
kale). I call them my “winter garden.” The deck looks so much nicer in winter
with snow-covered plants than with everything cleared off. Even there, I guess
I’m keeping the best pieces and the best memories.
Love and good memories to you,
Helen
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.)
[Some
folks have asked to receive Christ in
Winter by email. If you’re not one of those, I don’t mean to be intruding
in your IN box. I’m just sending to
you this way because I think you may be interested in the subject or the places
or people mentioned and I didn’t want you to miss it in case you don’t check
the blog site today. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/ I especially apologize if you’re
too young to think about winter.]
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith
from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
STRUTTIN’ WITH SOME BREAD AND WINE
I
wrote this with jazz worship services especially in mind.
To
the tune of STRUTTIN’ WITH SOME BARBECUE, by Lil Hardin Armstrong [1898-1971],
Louis Armstrong’s piano player and 2nd wife.
Barbecue
in hipster jive was a good looking woman, so when Louis was “struttin’ with
some barbecue,” he was struttin’ with the song’s composer.
It
may seem strange to think of Jesus struttin’, but the word barbeque comes from
a Native American word meaning “sacred.”
Remember
John 10:10, where Jesus says, “I’m here; let’s party,” which means that the
point of life is to have a good time, to go struttin’, not to show off, but to
show up, on the side of those whose life is not abundant. A truly good time is
a time of joy, not just pleasure. Joy comes in wholeness, when everyone has a
chance to march in the struttin’ parade. The point is not to get to heaven but
that God’s kingdom might come on earth. [Matthew 6:10]
The
“meek,” who shall “inherit the earth,” [Matthew 5:5] are not the weak, as that
word has come to imply, but the humble, those who are not proud in the ways of
the world, not those who are proud of worldly wealth and power and success, but
the humble who know that “It is God who has made us, and not we ourselves.”
[Psalm 100:3]
Struttin’
with some bread and wine
With
Jesus and his friends we’ll dine
Feeding
on the word divine
Struttin’
with some bread and wine
Struttin’
with the low and meek
It’s
our inheritance we seek
Into
heaven we’ll just peek
Struttin’
with the low and meek
Struttin’
with those left behind
Struttin’
with the man born blind [John 9:1-41]
It’s
our inheritance we’ll find
Struttin’
with those left behind
Struttin’
toward those pearly gates
Hurry,
friend, let’s don’t be late
Leave
behind those earthly hates
Struttin’
toward those pearly gates
Struttin’
in my heavenly shoes
Singin’
loud the Jesus blues
‘cause
I’ve paid earth’s union dues
Struttin’
in my heavenly shoes
Struttin’
with some bread and wine
With
Jesus and his friends we’ll dine
Feeding
on the word divine
Struttin’
with some bread and wine
©
John Robert McFarland, 2012
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
folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin, or make it
into a movie or TV series.
{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/}
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from
a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
Bob
Butts and I share a common culture. He grew up in MS, and I grew up in “the
pocket,” the SW corner of IN, what I call “the MS of the North.” In that
culture, you can say anything about a person if you preface it with, “Bless her
heart, she’s doing the best she can, but…”
I
used to say it about our pastor at Wesley UMC in Mason City, IA, Bill Poland. “Bless
his heart, he’s doing the best he can, but he’s just making so many changes…”
In fact, I said it about him once when he made the mistake of leaving town and
asked me to fill the pulpit that Sunday.
Bill
went to too many conferences at places like Willow Hill. There he got ideas,
and he came home and put them into practice.
He
shut down the organ and got a clavicle, or clavidingdong, or clavisomething… it
was sort of a piano, and it sat out where it got in the way when we knelt at the
communion rails.
So
he took out the rails and made us shuffle up the center aisle to get communion,
like prisoners in the cafeteria in The Shawshank Redemption, where somebody
gave us a little piece of bread and somebody else put a little cup into our hands
and said, “God loves you, and keep moving,” both of which are good sentiments,
but you had to chew and gulp fast or you’d miss the little basket to deposit
the cups and run into the claviwhatsit.
The
clavithing didn’t know any hymns, so we sang praise songs, for which we had no
music, since they weren’t in hymnals, and there wasn’t room on the wall for a
screen, so we sang them from words in the increasingly lengthy and hard to
handle bulletin. The absence of music was especially noticeable because the praise
songs didn’t have recognizable tunes, or any tune at all in some cases. They did,
however, have questionable to objectionable theology, so I sang only the words
I could sing with integrity. Sometimes that was only “Jesus” and “the.” Helen
said that standing beside me as we sang was like driving along when the radio
went out every time the car drove through an underpass.
And
“standing” beside me she did. We stood for everything. We stood so long I grew
stalactites. [Winters are cold in Mason City.] If there had been any place to
store them, I think he would have taken out the pews, too.
The
problem was that every time Bill changed something, attendance went up. It wasn’t
because of the changes, though. It was because we loved Bill, because we knew
he loved us. He was kind and gracious and generous. We not only liked him, we
respected him. He could have handled snakes while doing Gregorian chants and
attendance would have gone up. We kept coming back and bringing our friends
because worship with Bill was a special occasion. But he was humble, so it didn’t
occur to him that attendance kept going up because of him; he thought it
was the changes.
Bill
was a perfect pastor. [So naturally the powers what am made him into a District
Superintendent.]
So,
as I explained in that sermon when he was out of town, I complained to God. “God,
our pastor keeps making all these changes, and I don’t like them. They don’t
make any difference, anyway. Attendance goes up just because of Bill.” And God
said, “Bless your heart. You’re doing the best you can.”
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
folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin, or make it
into a movie or TV series.
{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/}
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith
from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
I
was sorry when 2011 came to an end, for it meant my 1994 calendar of Indiana
nature pictures in the basement would no longer be accurate. The whole of 2011,
whenever I walked by it, I knew that the 1994 days coincided with the 2011
days. A Saturday was a Saturday in either year.
Then,
oh joy, I discovered that my 1995 vintage baseball calendar’s days are the same
as 2012 days. I can still know what day it is, even in the basement. [Spending
money for a current calendar for the basement is not an option.]
I
keep a lot of old calendars on the walls, even the ones that don’t fit the
current year. When a new month starts, I turn to it on all those calendars. The
pictures don’t go out of date.
As
I turned the Indiana nature calendar from Jan. to Feb, the calendar fell off
the wall. The hole on the Feb page had torn out. No problem. I had the solution
in the second drawer of my desk. The solution has been there in a little box
for over 50 years now. The solution is called, simply, “Reinforcements.”
Ace
is the brand. The box says there were 100 # 2 size gummed reinforcements in it
originally. There is a picture on the back that shows a 3 ring notebook with
pages tearing out around the rings, with a little note that “A Reinforcement
Will Prevent This,” and arrows pointing at the tears.
They
don’t work as well as when they were new. They are yellowing and curling up.
The gum doesn’t stick very well.
As the calendar pages turn, there are
tears in my life. Sometimes I don’t even know what day it is. Through the
years, whenever one of the pages in my life story began to tear, there was a
reinforcement to paste it back into place.
Fortunately I had a box of 100
reinforcements. Well, there aren’t that many now. Some have been used up
through the years. Some of them don’t stick to their task as well as they used
to. They’re curling up and discolored.
I
keep a lot of reinforcements in the little box of my memories. They’re called
friends. I keep them around because the pictures don’t go out of date.
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/
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith
from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
MY
HALL OF FAME
Walt
Wagener called a month or so ago. He does that every once in a while, when
there is some special baseball achievement to discuss. Since we were on the
subject of achievements anyway, we talked about our careers, what we had
achieved and not achieved. Old people do that, trying to assure ourselves that
our lives mattered.
Walt
and I were roommates at Garrett Theological Seminary [at Northwestern U]. Not
for very long, but we were the only Garrett roommates either of us ever had. In
fact, I was the only roommate Walt ever had. He lived at home to attend U of WI
at Milwaukee, and then was married during Garrett years.
He
graduated Garrett in 1962, and was appointed part-time as campus minister at
the Wesley Foundation at Whitewater State and part-time as pastor of the
Methodist Church in Milford, WI, which meant he had two full-time jobs.
However, he was one course short at the 1962 commencement and had to return for
a four-week summer session to make his diploma stick to the wall. I normally
commuted, four to six hours a day, from Cedar Lake, IN, 30 miles south of Gary,
to Evanston. That worked alright for courses that were a whole semester long.
But I was a transfer from Perkins School of Theology at SMU, and so there were
courses I needed at Garrett that I could get only in the summer. With a four-week
summer course, there wasn’t time to study at all if I commuted daily, so I
stayed at Garrett during the week.
Walt
and I, being the two oddballs who were in the dorm for only one summer course,
were assigned to the same room in Loder Hall. We actually were in residence
together only about 15 days, since we both went home for extended weekends, but
from that chance assignment to the same room came a life-long friendship. We
have visited in each other’s homes in at least five states. Most recently I got
to visit with his son, another John Robert, while he was becoming a fellow
colon cancer survivor.
So
Walt and I talked baseball and careers for an hour or so, and I felt better
about my life, as I always do when I’ve talked to Walt. But when the phone rang
the very next day, and Walt’s name appeared on the caller ID, I feared that
something bad had happened. But, no, it was just Walt reminding me of something
I omitted when we had talked of our career achievements. “I got to thinking
about it,” he said. “You didn’t mention
that you wrote books. Good books!”
Being
baseball friends, Walt and I watched the Hall of Fame inductions this weekend,
of course. In a snippet from his induction speech in 1999, George Brett said,
“We live with our friends, not with our achievements.”
You
know you’ve had a good life when you don’t even need to keep track of your
achievements because you have friends who do it for you.
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
folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin, or make it
into a movie or TV series.
{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/}
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith
from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
I
am considerably ill at ease about this, but I am enormously jealous of Anne
Lamott.
Before
she became a Christian, and sometimes after, it seems, she got to live a
dissolute life of drugs, affairs with married men, booze, abortion, more
affairs, single motherhood, more booze… It’s what’s called in conservative
Christian circles “building a testimony.” After you’re converted, when you’re
too old for dissolution anymore, you get to tell about all the cocaine and
affairs and booze and how Jesus has saved you from all that, and people say,
“Isn’t that dramatic?” and they buy the books in which you give your testimony,
and give you more money to come give it in person.
I
would have built a testimony, but I never got the chance. At age 14, I traded
my life for my sister’s. She was desperately ill, and I told God I’d be a
preacher if “He” would keep her alive. It was mostly selfishness; I just didn’t
want to do without her. God came through, despite my motive. [1] Mary V is
still alive, notoriously healthy, and works fulltime, even though she’s still
four years older than I. How can you build a testimony when you have to start
living like a preacher when you’re only 14? Oh, sure, some churches think it’s
neat to have preachers who build a testimony on Saturday night and preach about
it on Sunday morning, but Methodists are picky about that sort of thing.
To
be fair to Anne Lamott, she lived in CA, I lived in IN. That may explain it
all.
She
was the state tennis champion in her age group. I never even saw a tennis ball
except the one we used to throw through a hoop on a barn side when a pig ran
off with the basketball.
I
desperately wanted to be a cocaine-crazed, booze-swilling, sexually
promiscuous, unwed parent, self-loathing former sports star, but I had no
choice. I had to live the life of a coffee-sipping, tee-totaling, totally
married husband, doting father and grandfather, personally sensitive, hillbilly
liberal. Who wants to pay to read or hear a story like that?
I
can’t even say, “Yeah, but I’ve had a better life, because health is better
than illness, and faithfulness is better than promiscuity, and wholeness is
better than brokenness,” because that would sound self-righteous and
holier-than-thou and mean-spirited and small-minded and intolerant and judgmental
and unforgiving. It would make me sound like the elder brother, or the workers
who spent the whole long damn hot day detasseling corn at Princeton Farms and
only got the same pay as the slug-a-beds who didn’t show up until the last
hour. Everybody knows those are the worst kind.
Jesus said so.
[Even
for a hillbilly liberal Christian, some words of Jesus are hard to hear and
bear. I prefer Matt. 5:18.]
I
wish there were something I could say to ameliorate my jealousy, like Anne’s
testimony makes me laugh and cry at the same time, and that I read her
sentences over and over just for the sheer joy of it, and that any day you get
to walk toward God with Jesus at your side is a better day than any other, and
that we’re not so different, really, because we both try to walk that walk
every day, and we both write little essays, stories, really, about faith and
life, but that would remind me that the only thing that separates us is that
she’s the best writer in the world and that I write a blog with 20
underappreciated followers, which would make me even more jealous.
Tony
Bennett said of Faith Hill that “She is the Sinatra of female vocalists, always
just a little better than everyone else.”
Okay,
so in addition to having a better testimony, Anne Lamott is the Sinatra of writers.
But I forgive her.
JRMcF
Anne
Lamott’s reflections on faith are in TRAVELING MERCIES and PLAN B. Her book on the
art and craft of writing is BIRD BY BIRD.
1]
There is a bit more to this story. You can read about it in THE STRANGE
CALLING.
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
folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin, or make it
into a movie or TV series.
{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/}
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from
a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
We
were on our back deck yesterday morning, July 4, Independence Day, watching the
tiny triplet fawns and squirrels and rabbits use our back yard to go from our
south woods patch to the north woods patch. It’s almost like living in the
woods, since we can’t see the other houses. But yesterday morning we could hear
them. At 6:00 am, on a holiday, very loud and sustained talking and laughing
from down the street. It wasn’t very good neighboring. It was almost like
living in a fancy neighborhood again.
It
was by accident, really, that we once lived in a fancy neighborhood. It wasn’t
nearly as fancy as it thought it was, but it was definitely fancy. It was the
worst neighborhood we ever lived in, and that includes the slums of Dallas.
There
were lots of rules. You couldn’t have a garden or a clothesline. You couldn’t
park a car overnight on a street. You couldn’t park a truck overnight even in
your own driveway, even if it was your truck. There were lots of committees,
including one that had to approve the color before you could repaint your front
door. You got a nasty phone call if you didn’t pay to have the same half-class
lighted Christmas candy canes installed along your sidewalk, the way everyone
else did, so that no one would mistake us for an un-fancy neighborhood.
Despite
all the rules, there was lots of noise. People who had swimming pools would
leave town at night, but not take their teenage children with them. Said
children would then have swimming parties into the wee hours. It wasn’t very
good neighboring.
It
wasn’t just teenagers, though. One night about 2 am, there was so much ruckus
at the house one door down and across the side street that we called the cops
to investigate. They reported back. “That’s the governor of the state of Illinois
down there.” He was visiting his brother. Since this happened to be in the
state of IL, they seemed reluctant to tell anybody to shut up. Except us.
The
governor’s brother’s wife had been a cheerleader at the local college. She went
by the name of Kitty. [Not really, but it was sort of like Kitty, so I’ll use
that name for this story.] About forty years after she had led cheers, I was
speaking to a group of several hundred cancer survivors in Hartford, CT. My
introduction included my place of residence, the city of the fancy neighborhood.
After the talk, a fairly large man approached me. “I went to college there,
where you live,” he said. “Played football. There was a cheerleader by the name
of Kitty. I think she stayed in town there. Do you know her?”
I
admitted that I knew her. His sixtyish countenance took on a look of rapture. “She
was so hot,” he said. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that although she was
as loud as when she led cheers, her temperature had cooled off quite a bit, simply
because that’s what age does to folks, we cool down.
Which
is a segue to the point of this meander… as old people, we often end up living
in places that are strange to us. We are sent to “the home,” overlooking the
IGA parking lot, or to the Ancient Arms retirement center, or some place closer
to the children, who have not the good sense to live anyplace we’d like to live.
They might be fancy, but they’re not where we want to be.
I
advise that if you don’t like “the home” or Ancient Arms or where the kids
live, just live where you want to, as I do. I live in Bloomington, IN, in 1957.
That’s where I met Helen, my personal Lake Itasca [1], from which all the rest
of my life has flowed. It’s not fancy,
but it’s quiet. There, the girls are all 102 degrees, and they are all
fascinated by a skinny crew-cut guy “doing his tall silent thing.”
JRMcF
1]
The little lake in MN that is the start of the MS River.
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
folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin, or make it
into a movie or TV series.
{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/}
