LEARNING TO EXERCISE

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

Helen went to a seminar at the YMCA to learn how to exercise. I didn’t think it was that hard: Put left foot forward, put right foot forward, repeat. The Y thinks it is more complicated.

She did learn, though, at last, how to bend over and to sit down. You don’t use your knees. You stick your behind out instead. Try it, especially if someone else is around; it’s fun to watch.

She also learned that you should not combine exercising for 30 minutes and spending the rest of the day on the sofa. Apparently I have to stop exercising for 30 minutes.

The reason we have trouble getting up and down, she learned, is that connective tissue thickens with age. You have to keep using those connections, like standing up and sitting down, to keep them flexible.

It sounds backwards to me. Thick means strong. Wouldn’t it be a good thing to have stronger connections? But strong and flexible aren’t exactly the same. I learned that as a long-distance runner, especially on uneven terrain. When a runner with strong ankles turned one of those ankles, there was an injury. My ankles were weak, flexible, so they turned without injury.

We need flexibility, and aging works against that, in thinking and relationships as well as in the body. We need to keep exercising those relational connective tissues, too, in other bodies. If the tissues of the family body, or the Body of Christ, or the body of humanity, become too thick, there are tears when there are turns.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I started this blog several years ago, when we followed the grandchildren to the “place of winter,” Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP]. I put that in the sub-title, Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter, where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.] The grandchildren, though, are grown up, so in May, 2015 we moved “home,” to Bloomington, IN, where we met and married. It’s not a “place of winter,” but we are still in winter years of the life cycle, so I am still trying to understand what it means to be a follower of Christ in winter…

I tweet as yooper1721.

They called them heroes. They said, “Thank you for your service.” Then forgot about them. Joe Kirk lost a leg. Lonnie Blifield lost his eyes. Victoria Roundtree lost her skin. “Zan” Zander lost his mind. Four homeless and hopeless Iraqistan VETS who accidentally end up living together on an old school bus. With nowhere to go, and nothing else to do, they lurch from one VAMC to another, getting no help because, like the thousands of other Iraqistan VETS who are homeless, unemployed, and suicidal, they do not trust the system and refuse to “come inside.” After another fruitless stop, at the VAMC in Iron Mountain, Michigan, a doctor is found dead, and the VETS are accused of his murder. Distrustful, strangers to America, to each other, and even to themselves, they must become a unit to learn who really murdered the doctor, so that they can be free. In doing so, they uncover far more, about themselves and about their country, than they dared even to imagine. Available from your local independent book store, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BOKO, Books-A-Million, Black Opal Books, and almost any place else that sells books. $12.99 for paperback, and $3.99 for ebook. Free if you can get your library to buy one.

GETTING READY TO DIE

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

My new year’s resolution is to get ready to die. I have no reason to expect that event is soon, but it’s getting closer, so it’s time to get ready.

Paul Tournier, the Swiss physician, said: “You are never too young or too old to give your life to Christ. After that, what else is there to do to prepare to die?” Well, there is one other thing, choosing the music for your funeral.

I have heard some unusual music at funerals, but some of the songs I would like at my funeral are not really appropriate for a church service, and even if they were, there would not be enough mourners to sing them, or nearly enough time to sing or play them all.

But if there could be singing at the church for my funeral, I would choose: Spirit, Spirit of Gentleness [By my friend, Jim Manley, #2221 in The Faith We Sing]. For All the Saints. When We All Get to Heaven. I’ll Fly Away. I Love To Tell the Story. Are Ye Able. We Shall Overcome. He Keeps Me Singing [There’s Within My Heart a Melody]. The Holy City. Turn Your Eyes Upon Jesus. I Shall Not Be Moved. Oh Freedom. Let Us Break Bread Together. [My family should not try to sing this, since they crack up every time they hear it, remembering the time during family devotions that I intoned, “When I fall on my face with my knees to the rising sun…”] Lord of the Dance.

Singing all those would take about a week. The next week, I’d like for everyone to gather outdoors, maybe at the old, restored Crosley Field, and sing the songs that, along with the church songs, make up my soundtrack:

Red River Pirates [A song grandson Joseph and I created to the tune of Red River Valley]. The IU Alma Mater [Come and join in song together…] and Fight Song [Indiana, our Indiana…]. Take Me Out to The Ball Game. The Powdermilk Biscuit Song or the Prairie Home Companion theme song [Oh, hear that old piano…]. Moments to Remember. Halls of Ivy. Love Letters in the Sand. Back Home Again in Indiana. Elgar’s Pomp & Circumstance. The Entertainer. The Great Pretender. Deep Purple [Inexplicably, the song I was listening to when God spoke out of the burning phonograph and said, “No more excuses; you’re going to be a damn preacher!”] 500 Miles Away from Home. Pachabel’s Canon. Stand By Me. Stardust. Try To Remember.

So, when you hear that my funeral is on, hum a bar or two of one of those, will you? That will make it a great funeral.

Okay, now I’m ready.

 John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.

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WHISPERS OF LOVE=a repeat

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

It’s my cancer anniversary, the day my first oncologist said I’d be dead “in a year or two.” That was 26 years ago. I’m a little reluctant to mention this, because not everyone gets so many bonus years. I’m thankful, though, for my bonus years, and so I share again what I posted on this date 4 years ago. I have updated “22” to “26.”

From I Kings 19:11-13, “…after the fire, a still small voice.”

Some people thought Becky and I were having an affair. It made sense. There were plenty of signs. We spent a lot of time together. She was pretty and I was needy. We acted silly in each other’s presence. When she touched me I trembled.

It’s hard, though, to have an affair with someone who makes you throw up every time you see her.

I trembled when she touched me because she always had an IV needle in her hand.

Becky was the head nurse in the chemo room, before the better anti-nausea meds were developed. When Helen did chemo a dozen years after mine, she sat there with the chemo dripping in and ate lunch. When I did chemo, I lost lunch. Chemo can still cause nausea, even with the modern meds, but in 1990, you “called Ralph on the big white phone” EVERY time. So whenever I walked into the chemo room and saw Becky, I had to run to the rest room and throw up. It’s called “anticipatory nausea.” I knew that when that pretty woman in the white dress touched me, I’d be tossing my cookies, so I just went ahead and got it over with.

The main reason people thought Becky and I had something going on was that we whispered to each other a lot.

Becky and I had a lot to whisper about because I was the cancer center’s hitman. Whenever a patient didn’t cooperate, a doctor or nurse would give me a contract on him or her. They couldn’t do it directly. That would probably be unethical. But they could say in my presence, “Brock hasn’t showed up for his treatments. I wonder where he is…” Or, “There’s an empty chair beside that woman over there. She looks like she needs to talk…” Or “That mother seems to be having a harder time with her son’s cancer than he is…” They knew that sometimes a fellow patient can get through to a cancer person in a way that medical staff can’t. 

All this started 26 years ago today, when the pale oncologist showed up and told me I had “it.” A couple of days before they had taken me into the operating room at midnight and cut me open from Los Angeles to Boston, looking for the source of the pain. Cancer never occurred to me. Nobody in my large extended family had ever had cancer. I ate right. I ran long distances, including 26 miles 385 yards at one time. I was a preacher, for God’s sake! We don’t get sick; we minister to other people who get sick. But cancer it was. My pale oncologist gave me to understand that I would be dead “in a year or two.” That was 26 years ago today, the day after my birthday. Under the circumstances, I feel pretty good.

When Becky asked me to officiate at her wedding, I said, “Don’t wear a white dress.”

After the wedding, we hugged, and cried a little. She thanked me for doing the service. I thanked her for keeping me alive. People were watching, so we whispered.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmajil.com

I wrote more extensively about this in NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them, published in two editions by AndrewsMcMeel, with audio by HarperAudio and in Czech and Japanese translations.

CELEBRATING A DIFFERENT BIRTH DAY

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

It seems a bit odd to celebrate a day

that signifies only that you started,

not what you did.

Perhaps better to celebrate

the day you felt the absence

of a hand upon the two-wheeled

hope, and knew that you were free,

and did not come close even,

perhaps a little,

to the man carrying the watermelon.

Or why not each year celebrate

the first day you rocked the holy

grandchild and decided

it was worth it to raise

those freedom-stealing children

after all.

Maybe you should fete the half-moon

sky that night when your eyes searched

beyond the billion stars

and you felt so little,

and so much at home.

So on this my natal day,

I think I’ll drink my low-fat toast

To “Watermelon Missing

Grandchild Rocking

Half-Moon Day.”

Although the sun is bright,

with hours to go until I see again

into the night-time sky,

I’ll look up far beyond

the billionth star,

and turn my face

toward home.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I started this blog several years ago, when we followed the grandchildren to the “place of winter,” Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP]. I put that in the sub-title, Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter, where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.] The grandchildren, though, are grown up, so in May, 2015 we moved “home,” to Bloomington, IN, where we met and married. It’s not a “place of winter,” but we are still in winter years of the life cycle, so I am still trying to understand what it means to be a follower of Christ in winter…

I tweet as yooper1721.

My new novel is VETS, about four homeless Iraqistan veterans accused of murdering a VA doctor, is available from your local independent book store, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BOKO, Books-A-Million, Black Opal Books, and almost any place else that sells books. $12.99 for paperback, and $3.99 for ebook. Free if you can get your library to buy one.

RISKY LOVE

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

I called on an older lady, a bit older than I am now, when I arrived at a new church. It’s important to get to know all your members as soon as possible, and older folks are easier to find, so they are usually the ones we get to know first. She was a recent widow and told me of how helpful her daughter, her only child, had been to her in her newly-widowed period. “But you never know how a child will finally turn out,” she said, shaking her head a bit.

I later learned that the daughter was 53 years old and a professor of English! But her mother wasn’t sure how she would turn out. [I understand that better now that my children are approaching that age.]

God does not practice safe love.

Jesus says, “Be perfect, even as your heavenly father is perfect.” [Mt 5:48] God is not perfect as measured against some outside standard of moral or intellectual perfection. God IS the standard by which perfection is measured. Whatever God is, that is perfection. God is perfect because God is always true to the divine identity.

Perfection is a matter of being true to one’s own identity. We are human beings. We are perfect when we are totally true to that identity. When we are imperfect is when we act like animals, or parasites, or posts [“dumb as a post”], or when we act like God, trying to play God for others or the world or ourselves. As Luther said, “Let God be God.”

Parenthood is risky. God has been raising us up for billions of years, and is not sure how we’ll turn out. God could have taken the safe route, not “wasted” those billions of years of nurturing, of bringing us along, but that’s not true to the divine identity. Risk-taking love is true to the nature of the divine identity.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.

I & THOU

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

“While you were busy concentrating on Kylie Jenner turning 18 and getting a tattoo, Malala Yousafzai turned 18 and opened a school for girls.”

That was a post on Facebook not long ago.

How demeaning it is to the wonderful Malala to mention her second. Her inspirational life and her good works stand alone. But it seems that people these days are so negative, so hostile, that they cannot even celebrate something good except by first comparing it to something bad.

Another post I saw not long ago was a picture of Jackie Kennedy with the notation, “This is how a classy first lady looks, Moochelle.” It would be easy to address this first by declaring that Michelle Obama is very classy in her own right, and that calling her a name tells us more about the name-caller than about Mrs. Obama. Also importantly, though, is the terrible insult it is to the equally classy Mrs. Kennedy, to use her as a springboard to insult another first lady, or anyone else.

If you think you are so superior to the Kardashian Jenners and people who follow their exploits, say so. If you think Mrs. Obama is not classy, say so. But do not insult amazing girls like Malala and classy women like Jackie by using them to insult others. That is mean, cowardly, and stupid.

Hostility and anger now are so general and unfocused. We are mad at everybody about everything. That unfocused anger is summed up in the “you” in the statement above. The poster assumes that everyone, no one excluded, was concentrating on Kylie Jenner turning 18. I don’t even know who Kylie Jenner is. I am not part of the “you.”

That unfocused anger is why we fall for any political candidate whose anger is just as unfocused and general as ours is. All he or she has to do is tell us all our problems are because of “them” and we fall for it.

For Christians, this is a Jesus issue. For Christ, each person is a “thou” and only a “thou,” never a “them.” [1] Jesus said, “Let your yes be yes and your no be no.” [Matthew 5:37] If we hide behind someone else to sling our barbs, we are not being Christ-ians.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

1] English has lost a lot by amalgamating personal pronouns, including the impact of Martin Buber’s great, I AND THOU.

I started this blog several years ago, when we followed the grandchildren to the “place of winter,” Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP]. I put that in the sub-title, Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter, where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.] The grandchildren, though, are grown up, so in May, 2015 we moved “home,” to Bloomington, IN, where we met and married. It’s not a “place of winter,” but we are still in winter years of the life cycle, so I am still trying to understand what it means to be a follower of Christ in winter…

I tweet as yooper1721.

BEING THERE

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

Helen gave me a book of Carrie Newcomer poems for Christmas. This morning I read one called “Being There.” It reminded me of Rob and Susan. [Not their real names.]

A few years ago Rob approached me after an event where I had spoken. We no longer lived in the same town. I had not seen him for several years.

He and his wife had joined our church as young parents in their late 20s then. Neither had previous church experience, but they entered fully into the life of the congregation. As often happens, without the preacher’s knowledge, a problem at home had driven them to the church.

When Rob left Susan, he was the one who told me about it, as he asked me to care for his wife and children emotionally. I think that, unconsciously, he had joined the church to build a support system for them because, unconsciously or not, he knew he would leave. He had done it before.

It’s hard to know why men do the things they do. There was another woman involved, of course. Despite what people tell you, there is always another woman, in the mind if not in the flesh. I remember one couple where the man told his wife he was leaving because he was in love with another woman, whom he named. When the wife confronted “the other woman,” she was genuinely surprised. The husband had made no overtures toward her, and she made it clear that she had no intention of responding to his interest. Sex makes fools of us all sooner or later, men and women alike.

Rob was willing to come back for counseling sessions with Susan. For several difficult, despairing weeks, I listened to Susan cry and watched Rob shrug his shoulders. Then he stopped coming, but Susan did, so I kept on watching her cry.

I was always a poor counselor. I don’t listen well. I see quickly what I think is a good solution and I want others to get to the bottom line solution as quickly as I do. That works well if you’re an army general; not well if you’re a church pastor. With Rob and Susan I was about as ineffective as I’ve ever been.

Then he decided to return. Despite my total lack of helpfulness before, she said, “You’re going to have to counsel us some more. He can’t just waltz back in here like nothing happened, the way he did the first time.” He understood that. We worked on it together for a while, but they quickly dropped me out of those discussions.

They continued to come to church and to be active. They were very pleasant, even affectionate toward me. They seemed to be happy, but who knows? They had seemed happy before, too.

Now, after a lot of years, Rob and Susan came up to greet me after my speech. After she had gone off on some errand, he said, “I just want to tell you that things in our family are great, the best they’ve ever been, and it’s all because of you.”

I’ve been around long enough that I’m not surprised by anything. I’m occasionally shocked, but never surprised. Still, I was surprised. I hadn’t done anything for them except keep them company as they tried to work out their relationship and their identities and what they wanted out of life. I told him so.

“I didn’t do anything. It was you and Susan who made it work,” I said. “Or perhaps you just grew up.”

“Maybe so,” he replied, “but you were there.”

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I started this blog several years ago, when we followed the grandchildren to the “place of winter,” Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP]. I put that in the sub-title, Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter, where life is defined by winter even in the summer! [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.] The grandchildren, though, are grown up, so in May, 2015 we moved “home,” to Bloomington, IN, where we met and married. It’s not a “place of winter,” but we are still in winter years of the life cycle, so I am still trying to understand what it means to be a follower of Christ in winter…

I tweet as yooper1721.

My new novel is VETS, about four homeless Iraqistan veterans accused of murdering a VA doctor, is available from your local independent book store, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, BOKO, Books-A-Million, Black Opal Books, and almost any place else that sells books. $12.99 for paperback, and $3.99 for ebook. Free if you can get your library to buy one.