ALL THE DAYS OF MY LIFE

[Well, it happened again. For some reason Blogger decides to disappear what I'm working on and I have to start over.]

 

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…

 
Sunday’s worship focus was the 23^rd Psalm. It reminded me of an old preacher story about a little boy in the Sunday School class of a rather stern maiden-lady, Miss Murphy. One night his parents heard him praying Psalm 23: Surely good Miss Murphy will follow me all the days of my life.
 
My Sunday School teacher has followed me all the days of my life. East Park Church in Indianapolis doesn’t exist anymore, but Mrs. Darringer does.
 
Mrs. Darringer was a formidable woman. Like Miss Murphy, I don’t think she had a first name. Even her husband referred to her as Mrs. Darringer.
 
As our pastor, Paul Mallory, preached very helpfully on Psalm 23 last Sunday, comparing it to a run-away truck ramp, an opportunity to slow down beside still waters, as I approach closer to that valley of the shadow myself, I was renewed by the knowledge that I’m in Psalm 23, because I’m in the Bible story. Because of Mrs. Darringer.
 
The Bible is not God’s book of theology or philosophy. It’s not God’s book of helpful hints for healthy living. It is not God’s science book. Theology and philosophy and helpful hints are all a part of it, but not in and for themselves. They are there only as a part of God’s story. The Bible is God’s STORY book. The great good news is that we, you and I, we are a part of God’s story.
 
Salvation is neither through beliefs nor works. We are saved when we stop trying to write our own story and become a part of God’s story.
 
When I was nine years old, Mrs. Darringer gave me my first Bible. In it she wrote “For Johnny McFarland.” Underneath she wrote, “From Mrs. Darringer.”
 
The one person I knew who had the authority to put my name in the story had done so, and just to be sure everyone understood, she added hers as well. My name is still in there. I’m sure Mrs. Darringer is no longer in that formidable body, but her name is still in that book, along with mine.
 
With you in the story,
Johnny & Mrs. Darringer

 

 
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 or Broadway musical.
 
{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/}
 
I tweet, occasionally, as yooper1721.
 
I have nothing to do with those double under-linings Blogger puts into the body of these posts, randomly, it seems, to lead you to advertisements, and I wish they would stop that.
 

 

 

FUNERAL WORDS

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…

 

{Once more I must apologize for the length, twice what it should be. If you’re pressed for time, skip to the last three paragraphs.}
 
I was willing to accept the $10 the county would pay for the graveside service for the “homeless bum” who died, without identification, while passing through town, but I was attracted more by the honor.
 
I arrived at the cemetery at the appointed time. The funeral director and the sheriff were chatting beside the hearse. I walked up to them. “Oh, he’s over there,” the funeral director said, motioning in the direction of a very plain coffin suspended over a grave. He went on talking with the sheriff. I wandered over to the grave. I opened up my Book of Worship and read the entire funeral ritual, aloud. I was the only speaker.
 
Pastoring in a retirement community, Suzanne Schaefer-Coates has done a lot of funerals over the years. Sometime back she conducted a discussion group on Facebook about whether it’s appropriate to have an “open” period in the funeral/memorial service for people to share their memories of the deceased.
 
Those of us in the winter years have a vested interest in this discussion, since our own funerals are not that far away. We hope that there will be more folks at our funeral than a marginal pastor who inserts “homeless bum” in the funeral ritual whenever the decedent is to be named.
 
Any of us who have opened up a funeral service to the congregation, or been to one where that was done, know there are a lot of potential pitfalls. There are people who want to talk, whether or not they have anything to say. They use acquaintance with the deceased to talk about themselves.
 
In most of the years of my ministry, open sharing wasn’t even an option. The minister conducted the funeral, period. He [and it was almost always a “he” in those days] was the only one who talked.
 
In fact, in seminary we were encouraged not to talk about the deceased at all! The reasoning of our seminary professors was that a funeral is a worship service and it is about God and eternal life and such and not about the person who died. That sounded right, but it didn’t feel right, so I didn’t buy into it, not very far. I’m sorry, though, that in my early years I too often gave scant mention to the life of the person we were memorializing.
 
At some point I read, in one of those very helpful preacher periodicals that don’t exist anymore, a simple little funeral formula: Say a word about God, a word about Christ, and a word about the deceased. That worked for me.
 
If you’ve been to seminary, you don’t have much problem saying a word about God or one about Christ. It’s sometimes hard, though, to say a word about the deceased. Pastors don’t often get homeless folks no one knows, but we often have to conduct funerals for people we barely know. Twice in my career I had to do funerals for long-time members within the first 3 days after I had moved into town.  I’ve done funerals for children whose families never brought them to church.
 
Mourners usually want to talk, share their memories with the pastor prior to the funeral. I have always done my best to contact everyone I could who knew the deceased, to listen privately to their memories, to learn where the contradictions were [so that I didn’t extol someone in a way that half of the family would think inaccurate] and to learn what the themes of that person’s life were. Then I tried to pull those memories together in a coherent way in the service.
 
I have no problems with sharing the service with others who are designated beforehand, some family members or friends who are selected by the chief mourners, but I do think it’s best not just to open the service up to anyone who decides on the spur of the moment that they would like to say something. I’ve been to “open mike” funerals where words were spoken that hurt good grieving instead of helping it.
 
Helen and I happened to be back in Sterling, Illinois, taking our granddaughter to see a friend, when we saw Eunice Snider’s obit in the online edition of the Charleston newspaper. We drove down to LaSalle from Sterling, even though we had no funeral clothes with us. [1] When we walked into the church, Art asked me if I would be a “sharer” in the service, as their former pastor, who had done their son’s funeral, along with Max Chapman, as a long-time friend, and Susie Hay, who had shared a career with Eunice. That strikes me as a good approach, a few people selected ahead of time who can speak to different aspects of the person’s life.  
 
The main person who should speak at a funeral, though, is you. At George Paterson’s memorial service, which featured a lot of jazz, the kind of worship for which George was so well-known, Pastor Barry Tritle read a message George had left for us. “Don’t burden yourselves unnecessarily about my passing.” George lived his life as hospital chaplain, and as a chaplain to everyone who knew him. Even in death, he was still teaching us how to grieve well.
 
I’m not saying everyone should leave a message, but in case you’re wondering, it’s okay. Write your own obit if you wish; that’s okay, too. Old friends Pat and Lyndon Dean recently asked me if they could print my poem, “I’ll Walk the Last Mile with You,” on their funeral bulletins, because they were going to talk details with their pastor. Talking with your pastor and your family ahead of time is an excellent idea. Tell your pastor who you want to speak at your service, and if there’s someone you want to be sure does NOT speak, tell him/her that, too.
 
So, here is the list of those I want to speak at my funeral… oh, wait, I’ll probably outlive them all… so if there’s ANYBODY who wants to say something… even a marginal pastor to homeless bums…
 
John Robert McFarland
 
1] I’m not exactly sure what “funeral clothes” are anymore. I’ve been to funerals in recent times when I was the only person wearing a shirt with a collar, and where at least one pallbearer wore shorts so low that he must have been training to be a plumber.
 
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 or Broadway musical.
 
{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/}

 

I tweet, occasionally, as yooper1721.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A COUNSELING GENIUS

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…

Karen [1] came to see me first. Her husband, Dan, came a few days later. I had married them a couple of years before. Apparently my pre-wedding counseling hadn’t been very effective. Neither had my warranty checks.
 
I usually started pre-marriage counseling by asking, “What do you like most about him/her?” One prospective bride answered, “He doesn’t hit me.” I did a lot of counseling, but I don’t think I ever felt sadder in a counseling session than I did right then.
 
That wasn’t the case with Karen and Dan, though. They were bright and happy and in love. Each had a whole long list of things s/he liked about the other. They didn’t have to get married. They weren’t trying to get away from something else. It was a good match.
 
In pre-marriage counseling I always talked with the couple about seven areas of problem potential:
 
1] Money: What is one person’s luxury may be the other’s necessity. Make sure you understand the differences and work them out before you get married.
 
2] Sex: What strengthens love is good; what weakens it is not good. Neither use nor abuse is love.
 
3] In-laws: You aren’t marrying just each other. You are getting new families and new traditions. But remember where your primary commitment is.
 
4] Religion: What does the other believe/practice that is different from your beliefs and practices? Can you live with those? If not, what are you going to do about it?
 
5] Children: How many? When? How and by whom will they be raised?
 
6] Housework:  Who does what?
 
7] Communication. When you have disagreements, how will you resolve them?
 
The idea, of course, was to work out each of these areas BEFORE the marriage. Through the years I learned that that wasn’t very effective, because they didn’t pay attention. They were so eager to get married that they would say anything they thought I wanted to hear and assumed their love [or need] was so great that they could handle anything that came up. That hardly ever worked.
 
So I began to do warranty checks: thirty days, 6 months, one year. I would go to their home and we would run through the list again. Every time I heard some variation of: “We thought we had this worked through, but it turns out that…” The unresolved problem that came up most often in warranty checks was money.
 
Karen’s and Dan’s warranty checks had gone well, so I was surprised when Karen came to see me. I was pleased, though, because it gave me a chance to play with their one-year-old.
 
“The problem is, Dan wants another baby. I know he does. And we just can’t afford one now.” “Have you talked with him about this, the way we did in communication practice?” “I don’t have to; I can tell.”
 
Then Dan came. “I know Karen wants another baby,” he said, “but we just can’t afford one now.” “How do you know?” “I just know.”
 
“Tell you what,” I said. “Simply talk to each other the way I taught you. Trust me, it will work.”
 
Another thing I learned about counseling over the years, unfortunately late in my career, is that I’m really bad at it, for three reasons: 1] I’m gullible. I believe anything anyone tells me, but a counselor needs to be able to smell it when something is B.S. 2] I want people to like me, but a counselor can’t worry about that. In fact, if folks like you, it probably means you’re letting them skate by without really dealing with the problem. 3] From the time I was a child, whenever anyone told me of a problem, I thought it was MY responsibility to fix it, but a counselor needs to help people fix things for themselves, not do it for them.
 
Karen and Dan didn’t see any of my counseling deficiencies, though. They talked to each other, as I told them to. They told everyone that I was a marriage counseling genius.
 
John Robert McFarland
 
1] Karen & Dan are not their real names.
 
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 or Broadway musical.
 
{I also write the fictional and infrequent “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/}

 

 

 

THE PHATES OF EASTER

 
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith For the Years of Winter…

 We’re going to church this morning. I’m dreading it. It’s not the sermon or the music or the liturgy; they are always good. It’s the people. Oh, they are very nice, but they say things like “Hello” and “How are you?” and I don’t know how to respond.
 
I’m not much good at small talk in general, but I’m especially bad at “phatic” communication, the “Hello. How are you?” type of interchange. Phatic communication doesn’t impart information; it just acknowledges presence. You’re not supposed to say how you really are. You’re supposed to respond with “Fine. How are you?”
 
For some reason, though, I’ve always felt that anything I said, even a reply to “How are you?” has to be entertaining or interesting or both.
 
Even in the subject line of my emails, which is electronic phatic communication, I try for at least “cute.” Some of my emailing friends don’t put anything at all in the subject line. Others use a minimal “hello” or “thinking of you.” I try to compress the Nicene Creed into six words. [Three-twenty-five. Trinity not Arius.]
 
When someone asks me at coffee time at church, or even standing around before the Second Sunday folk music concert, how I am, I reply something like, “Better than I deserve.” They look, understandably, blank. They weren’t expecting that. So I continue with, “But that is the nature of grace. If we got what we deserved, we’d be in big trouble.” They blink, nod, perhaps murmur something that sounds like affirmation, and run off to chat with someone who knows the proper way to phate. [I’m not sure this was previously the proper verb form of “doing phatic communication,” but it is now.]
 
I walk blocks out of my way to avoid meeting people so that I don’t have to phate with them. Others do the same to avoid me. There is a set of little old lady twins who actually take a side path or hide behind a tree when they see me coming toward them on a path in the woods of City Park. This may be because they witnessed me meeting a pair of young women on a path when I yelled, “I’m going to kiss one of you women.” Daughter Katie’s friend, Christine, looked rather shocked. She was even more miffed when Katie ran forward to get the kiss before she could.
 
I want to phate the right way, but I get confused. I get anxious. My mind races ahead. I anticipate what the other person will say and get my response ready. But people surprise you. I figure she’s going to say, “Thanks for shoveling my driveway,” and when she says “It’s a nice day,” I blurt out “You’re welcome,” as though I had some influence on the weather. If they say “What’s up?” I say “Fine” before I realize they changed the script. If they say “It’s been wet lately,” I might say “Thank you.” If in parting they say “Goodbye” or “Have a nice day,” I might well say “So’s your old man.”
 
I assume that I have some psychological imbalance, that I am needy of both attention and acceptance and think I can get it only by being entertaining, at all times, even in the most mundane times. Actually, I don’t just assume that; I’ve been told. But those who told me weren’t nearly as interesting and entertaining as I am, so who cares?
 
I take comfort in that God doesn’t seem to be a phater. God doesn’t work the room before getting around to the important stuff, as in Hey, ladies and germs, howyoualldoing? Anybody here from Nineveh? Seen any Acts of God lately? Hey, I don’t care who you are; that was funny. No, God just says This is my son; listen to him. Jesus said “Let your yes be yes and your no be no,” not “Whadayaknow?
I just got in from walking on the water and boy, are my feet wet. Rim shot, please.”
 
The most important thing in relating to others is to be kind, so I am kind by avoiding people as much as possible so that they don’t have to deal with my phatic fallacy. But Easter is coming. That’s a non-phater’s best time of year. You don’t bother with “How are you?” You just start out by saying “Christ is Risen!”
 
Hello.
 
JRMcF [John Robert McFarland]
 
{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.)

 

 

Who's Your Hoosier? [Not quite CIW]

Not quite a Christ In Winter, but watching basketball is what we do UP here in winter…

 
With the Indiana Hoosiers atop the college basketball world again, broadcast interlude talk often turns to the derivation of the word “Hoosier.” Some think it was because early settlers in Indiana, using their pioneer patois, would call out “Who’s there?” when someone approached their cabin, but in the pioneer patois, it sounded like “Hoosier?” Others think it was because early Indiana pioneers were brawlers and the next morning after a bar fight, when the pub keeper was cleaning up, he would look at the littered floor and ask, “Who’s ear?” which, again, in the Indiana accent, sounded like “Hoosier?”
 
One of the most plausible but hardly ever mentioned derivations of Hoosier is that Indiana folk were called after the first and most famous African American Methodist circuit rider, Harry “Black Harry” Hoosier, 1750-1810.
 
Hoosier was born a slave in NC but obtained his freedom, converted to Methodism, and in 1781 became a preacher. He was a close friend of Francis Asbury, “The Father of American Methodism.” They often traveled together to preach. Asbury noted that he drew big crowds, but that Hoosier’s crowds were even bigger. Dr. Benjamin Rush, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, said that Hoosier was “the greatest orator in America,” even though he was illiterate.
 
Hoosier preached a famous sermon, “The Barren Fig Tree,” which was the first ever recorded by an African American Methodist preacher.
 
People everywhere thronged to hear Hoosier. Except in the South. Methodists were, with some notable exceptions, strongly outspoken in their anti-slavery sentiments. Southern folks like Virginia Baptists used the word “Hoosier” as a term or derision, denoting a northern Methodist, anti-slavery socially and Arminian [Wesleyan, free will] theologically. Because of the circuit riders on what was then the frontier, Methodism was strong throughout the Midwest, including Indiana.
 
So, were Hoosiers named for Black Harry? Probably so. After all, the present-day basketball Hoosiers draw Harry Hoosier-sized crowds to hear the Good News of basketball salvation.
 
JRMcF

 

 
  

CAPE COD CAPERS-Theological Division

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of WintER

I think Helen still has not forgiven me. Not for taking her to Cape Cod; she liked that. But we got there because I was the “outside” theologian at a New England theological gathering of the United Church of Christ. [UCC], “outside” meaning I was Methodist, Midwestern, and theologically “narrative” rather than “systematic.” There have always been story-tellers in Christianity, starting with Jesus, but as a theological approach, narrative was in the 1970s new, exotic, and of questionable repute. [It wasn’t “rigorous,” and you didn’t need a Harvard doctorate to do it.]

 
[The UCC was formed in 1957 by the merger of The Evangelical and Reformed & Congregational Christian denominations.]
 
I had a pretty good time. We were in a long-time UCC campground, with nice cottages and a big tabernacle and a spacious eating hall. I got to walk around the beautiful grounds and drink coffee and teach a workshop and bop into the tabernacle once in a while to “address” the plenary assembly.
 
Also my first theological mentor, D.J. Bowden, my professor of The History of Christian Thought at IU, was a Congregational Christian from the Northeast who got his PhD at Yale. I could well imagine him as a boy singing camp songs in the tabernacle, or later being a presenter himself at such a conference. It was quite inspiring to think that I was following in his footsteps.

 Since Helen was a “participant” instead of a presenter, she was required to be a member of a theology work group. She was assigned to the bunch that was writing a new faith statement for the UCC. It was composed mostly of academic theologians and preachers, who argued endlessly about whether “of” should go before or after “parousia.” Or maybe it was “from” instead of “of.” She wasn’t keen on the details. Her participation was mostly rolling her eyes, making snoring sounds, voting “No” on everything, and hitting me on the head, hard, when we were alone.

 
Sometimes the presenters hung out together, but I didn’t hang if I knew Dr. Austere would be there. [That wasn’t his real name, although it should have been.]  I stayed as far away from him as I could, for several reasons. For one thing, he was a professor of systematic theology in a UCC seminary, and I was running the Gospel through Marshall McLuhan and Hans Frei instead of Thomas Aquinas and John Calvin. For a second, I had a wife who was doing her best to sabotage the entire belief system of the UCC.
 
More importantly, before my plenary presentation each day, he gave a theology lecture, austerely, with footnotes and bibliography. Next to him, Friedrich Schleiermacher and Soren Kierkegaard looked like simpletons. His lectures were like the marching band in a parade, every line in step, each instrument playing its own part, only its part, and playing in tune. My presentation was like the clown in the parade, sitting in the back of a pickup throwing candies by the handful and hoping someone caught a peppermint, hoping a root barrel didn’t take out somebody’s eye. During my presentation, Dr. Austere would stand--never sit--in back, with his arms folded over his chest, looking stern. I was intimidated and embarrassed. He was so scholastic, and I was so… well, just a story-teller.
 
One night, though, the director of this theological institute took the presenters and their wives out to a seafood place. I was trying to avoid both Helen and Dr. Austere, so naturally the director seated me between them, where she could reach across me and tell him what she thought of UCC theology, and he could reach across me and tell her what he thought of MY theology.
 
I had a mouth-full of crab when he turned to me and said, “How do you DO that?”
 
“Do what?” I mumbled, thinking that now I had further embarrassed myself by eating crab like a Hoosier hillbilly gnawing a pork-chop.
 
“Tell those stories,” he said. “I work and work to try to get people to understand, and then you just tell a story that pulls the veil off all my words and makes people see what I was trying to say. I’d love to be able to do that.”
 
All I could think to do was grab his hand and put it into Helen’s and say, “You two should talk.”
 
JRMcF [John Robert McFarland]
 
It’s tempting to pull a “moral” out of this story, such as “Don’t assume you know what a person with crossed arms is thinking,” but grandson Joe says the problem with kid lit stories that win prizes is that “…they have morals. Kids just want good stories.” As Jesus said, “If you want to enter the Kingdom, be like a kid who just wants a good story.”
 
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/}

 

WE DON'T SAY "NO" TO DONNA

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…

 

 
The package contained ELEVEN tubes of toothpaste. With a note that said, “Donna will call you and explain.”
 
There were supposed to be only FIVE. And that was only because we overpaid last time. I am old. I don’t even buy green bananas. How am I doing to use up eleven tubes of toothpaste before I die? [1]
 
Donna was my high school classmate. She is a distributor for Forever Bright™ toothpaste. We buy from her because a long time ago she asked us to. We don’t say “no” to Donna.
 
She did call to explain. She owed us five tubes from our previous overpayment and tried to get the company to send them directly to us. She doesn’t have much time for boxing up out-of-town orders. Her mother is well over a hundred years and in a nursing home. Donna slept on a mattress on the floor of her room until her back got so bad she had to have surgery. Now she sleeps at home but spends most of her daytime hours at the nursing home. So why not get headquarters to send directly to us? But apparently eleven is the minimum to mail to a separate address. Who knows why? If 13 is a baker’s dozen, perhaps 11 is a dentist’s dozen.
 
I knew Donna in school, of course, but not well. We had a class of only 62, and I was class president for 3 years. But we didn’t run in the same social circles. I was high in the work circle of the class and school—class president, Student Council officer, newspaper editor, orchestra bassoonist—but I was not high in the power structure, which was based mostly on money and family, or the social structure, which was based mostly on looks and clothes. [1] Donna was high in the social structure; she was Homecoming Queen.
 
We expected a high society life for her after school, of course. It didn’t turn out that way. Her first husband divorced her, her second committed suicide. Her two sons died in their twenties, one of cancer and the other in a motorcycle accident. Her only grandchild, Jada, either committed suicide or was murdered in Donna’s house, at the age of 19. Her only family now is her mother and two sisters, one deep into Alzheimer’s, and the other living in a different state and unable to walk. Donna takes care of her mother and sells toothpaste.
 
Except, Donna makes a life out of nothing. She knows everybody and she knows their stories. Helen says one of the best times she ever had was when we went to lunch with Donna when we were back in Oakland City for our 55 year reunion. She introduced us to everyone in the restaurant, including the pig farmer who was, thankfully, getting take-out and whose clothes were splattered with what Helen devoutly hoped was mud. Young or old or in-between, Donna knew them all, and later she explained why each one needed her special attention, although she didn’t put it that way, because of the difficulties of their lives. We’ve been with her several times through the years at nursing homes. She goes in like a swarm of laughing bees on a summer day, landing on every worker and every patient with a hug and a smile and a “How are you, Sweetie?” And besides, who can’t love a woman in her 70s who is a backup dancer/singer for an Elvis impersonator?
 
She’s still in the social circle, but she’s in the work circle now, too. She was telling us about how some sorority she belongs to was doing a benefit for some burned-out family or good cause or… I’m not quite sure because it’s hard to stay up with Donna. They were trying to get 25 people to sponsor it at $100 each so they could pay the band and then all the money they raised would go to the good cause. Turns out sponsors got 4 free tickets. Donna found some young married folks who wanted to go but couldn’t afford it and told them, “Pick up tickets at the window. Just tell them you are named McFarland.” We don’t say “no” to Donna.
 
We decided a long time ago to stop going back for class reunions. 700 miles is just too far away. But through the years we’ve become a talisman for Donna. When it came time for our 50 year reunion, she called and asked us to come. “Everyone will tell about how long they’ve been married, and about their children and grandchildren, and I won’t have anything to say. But I think I can make it through if I can sit between you and Helen.” When it was 55 years, she called and said, “I’ve got to have back surgery the Monday after. I think I can make it through if I can see you first.” We don’t say “no” to Donna.
 
Helen wrote the following on Jan. 13: So last night I was lying awake in bed, and this morning when I first awoke, I was feeling kind of sorry for myself. Nothing specific—just mid-winter blahs. Seemed like there are so many wrong with the world, and in the lives of people I care about, and in my own diminishing abilities to think and work and affect my world. Just feeling kind of down. I prayed about it, asking God for guidance and direction And what does he do?? Before I finished breakfast, he tapped Donna on the shoulder and said, “Call McFarlands—and be sure you talk to Helen, not just John.” {After Donna and I had talked, she said, “Does Helen have anything she wants to say to me?} Donna!! Of all the people I’ve ever known, Donna is probably the one who makes the most of what she’s been given, stays upbeat when her world is falling apart [which it has several times] and does the most good for the most people. God could have sent any number of reasonably cheerful people into my life today and it would have helped me on my way, but NO—He has to call out Donna—the BIG GUN! After we had talked and I was cheered and inspired as I always am by her, I smiled and said, “God, you really know how to send a message.”
 
So, we don’t say “no” to Donna, but… do you need some toothpaste?
 
John Robert McFarland
 
1] I guess I could put the toothpaste in my will. Daughter Katie looked up McFarland wills in the county courthouse in Xenia, OH. One of my ancestors, Greene Clay McFarland, I think it was, had willed a three-legged stool to the daughter “with a bad eye,” and “the bucket without the hole” to another, etc. Eleven tubes of toothpaste might look pretty good.
 
2] I experienced the difference of work, power, and social circles primarily in the church, but most groups of humans, and primates generally, are like high school. {Shudder!} There is some overlap between the circles, but also some clear distinctions.
 
 
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/}