HERE’S YOUR NEW JOB Sa, 2-11-17

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

So this week I got an email from Dave Johnson. I know Dave Johnson, several of them in fact, so I opened it. It was, indeed, addressed directly to me, “Dear John,” and all. Dave said he had an opening he thought might interest me. It’s a 20 hour per week position at St. Mary’s Hospital in Rhinelander, WI. As a phlebotomist.

For many years I thought that a phlebotomist was a proctologist for fleas, a very delicate and not highly desirable vocation. But I learned during chemotherapy that a phlebotomist is the jolly person who dresses up as Count Dracula for the hospital Halloween party and does scary things to you as you look the other way. [Well, that last part pretty much describes everyone in the hospital, including the food service people.]

Okay, I understand that there are people who think I have too much time on my hands, that I post too much on Facebook and write this column too often. I did not think, however, that someone would go to the trouble to try to keep me busy by getting me a job in Rhinelander… I mean, the commute alone… who would…

Wait. I remember now how I used to walk past the location of a new restaurant in the mall in Sterling, IL in the morning. Lots of other old people walked then, too. The restaurant had a big sign on the window that said they were hiring. Every old couple that walked by, I heard the wife say to the husband, “Look, you could get a job there.” As I have heard many women say, “I married him for better or for worse, but not for lunch.”

The final paragraph of Dave Johnson’s email says that if I think this is a position more suitable for someone else, to pass it along, so here’s your chance...

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.

LISTENING TO THE BIRDS F, 2-10-17

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

It’s been remarkably warm here recently. The birds sound like they think it’s spring. I listen to the birds sing, because I like the idea of spring, but mostly I listen to them in my father’s honor.

In his last years, in his third nursing home, Dad schemed constantly to stage a “breakout,” as he had done in his previous nursing homes, and get his own apartment again. He was blind, and almost deaf, and he could barely move. He had asked us to get him into the nursing home. But he wanted out.

On his final day, he was so weak he was unable even to eat the sausage gravy, his favorite food, that my wife was trying to spoon into his mouth. But he was able to whisper to her, “I’m going to get out of here and get my own apartment.”

He always said it was so that he could “sit in the sunshine and listen to the birds sing.” There was a very nice courtyard at the nursing home, with sunshine and birdsong. We often offered to take him out to sit on it, but he never accepted the offer. Because it wasn’t really about hearing the birds sing.

“I want to listen to the birds sing” was his mantra and metaphor. It expressed all he had lost and all that he longed for. He was independent and a man of the outdoors. Bird song was a good symbol for him.

I’m not sure what the metaphor for my life is. Perhaps when I’m scheming for my breakout, I’ll frustrate my children with: “I just want to sit in a coffee shop and read a book.” Or: “I just want to sit behind third base and hear the crack of the bat.” Or: “I just want to hold a baby and hear it laugh.”

Whatever it is, I know I had better enjoy it now, while I can, so that when I can no longer see the letters on the page or climb the stairs to the cheap seats or hold the baby close enough to keep it from falling, I can close my eyes and taste the tang of the coffee and hear the roar of the crowd and feel the smooth skin of the baby. In my heart.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper          1721.

SALTY CHRISTIANS: The Pastoral Prayer for 2-5-17. Posted R, 2-9-17.

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

Our pastors at St. Mark’s UMC, in Bloomington, IN, where we were the first couple married 58 years ago, asked me to give the pastoral prayer at worship on 2-5-17. The Gospel for the day was Matthew 5:13-18, where Jesus says that we are the salt of the earth and talks about how communities can be transformed.

As we prepared to pray, I led the congregation in singing, a capella: Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. [Helen H. Lemmel]

Here is the prayer:

We give you thanks, O Loving God, for the gift of Jesus, the Christ, for that face that is so dim in the eyes of the world, but so clear in the eyes of the spirit, the one in whose countenance is life and light.

We give you thanks, Almighty God, for this day that you have made, and allow us to share.

We thank you, merciful God, for those who are the salt of the earth, who give life its flavor. We thank you for those who cast salt on icy streets and icy souls so that we will not slip and fall.

We thank you, sort of, O God, for designating us to be the salt of the world, but salt is just so common. It’s so easy to lose our saltiness, but it’s not really our fault. Salt is so mundane. Who notices salt, really?

A saltiness app would be nice, to remind us of who we are, or you could let us be something a little more palatable, like the cookies of the world, so that people would like us better, the ice cream of the world, that would be nice, at least some flavoring a little less common, more exotic, more cool and current, like the cardamom of the world, or the turmeric of the world. We’d seem more interesting and exciting cool and dope.

But if we must be salt, may it be that when the hard rains come, we may be those who still pour, pour out wisdom and love upon our community.

We pray, O God, for those for whom life has no flavor, those trapped in the boredom of sin, in the dull routine of addiction, in the drab pursuit of greed and lust, in the tedious grasp for power.

We pray for those in pain, whose lives are a constant struggle for just a bit of peace, who fear each coming moment, who pray for surcease of agony.

We pray for those who live in worlds of delusion and lies and the false paradise of selfishness.

We pray for children, whose lives so often are laced with fears they cannot understand, and forces they cannot control.

We pray for those who are always on the outside, always left out, who have no community of hope and love.

There seem to be so many these days, O God, in high places and low, who want to rub salt into the wounds of your people instead of binding up those wounds with the oil of healing, who scatter salt on the fields of our common life so that those fields cannot produce the daily bread we need and pray for. Help us to repent of the misuse of our saltiness and to commit ourselves anew to being salt and light, flavor and hope.

We give you thanks for the communities you have given us—family and friends and church and nation and world. Help us to be good salty citizens of these communities.

We pray for Jimmy Moore and Mary Beth Morgan and Trina Mescher and Andy Cron, the leaders of our church [1], for Michael McRobbie, the president of our university, for John Hamilton, the mayor of our city, for Trey Hollingsworth and Joe Donnelly and Todd Young, the congresspersons of our state, for Donald Trump, the President of our nation, and for all of the other servant-leaders of our various communities. Endue them, each and every, with wisdom and kindness and all other virtues necessary to lead, so that everything they do may be pleasing in your sight, and all our communities may be transformed into fellowships of salt and light. [This was followed by silent prayer and The Lord’s Prayer]

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721, because I was a Yooper when I started and didn’t know any better.

1] Moore and Morgan are pastors. Mescher and Cron are Lay Leaders.

PRAYING FOR CHILDREN, YOUNG & OLD W, 2-8-17

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Life and Faith for the Years of Winter

I recently picked up a new child for my prayer list. That’s a fairly common occurrence. I have a long list of children I pray for, from babies to kids in their fifties. I pray for a lot of people, including children, just in general, but this particular group is for kids with specific problems, from cancer to adolescent angst to addictions to lost mates and lost jobs to joint replacements.

Yes, joint replacements. Those kids in their fifties are still children. We knew their parents before they were born. They are mature, competent adults now, but they are still children to us, and so when they are hurting, even as parents or grandparents themselves, I feel that it is a responsibility and a privilege to pray for them as children.

I have no idea how intercessory prayer works. I’m very sure that neither I nor others, probably not even all of us together, change God’s mind to do something merciful that God would not otherwise will. But there is more going on in the spiritual world than any of us understands. Sometimes we encounter “thin” places [1] where presences and powers get through. I think praying for others helps to create and use those thin places.

And as the wonderful Rachel Naomi Remen says, “Kissing the booboo isn’t intended to take away the pain. It takes away the loneliness.” I want any child, regardless of age, to know that at least one person is with them in their pains, through prayer.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.

1] “Thin places” is not original with me. I have read CS Lewis and heard Madeline L’Engle speak of thin places.

Praise for Old Truth-a poem T, 2-7-17

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

The old ladies at the next table

telling of the trips they will take

to go to distant points to see

the grands, of family and of temples…

“You were telling me about Rome,”

she said, when her friend forgot

the thread,

…look good “for their age.”

They have not spilled their chai

…they have not misused the subjunctive

or fallen off the high stools

these places use to separate the nimble

from the stiff…

“You must be this tall to ride.”

…So we must celebrate them in song

and psalm, perhaps a parade

to demean their lives

with a banner that says they are

worthwhile only so long as they do not

act as old as they are

Please, if we are worthy of praise

it is for more than acting young

when we are old.

There is no merit just in piling up

the years.

Yes, I can remember my name. Thank you

for noticing.

But if I am worthy of praise

let it be for remembering the truth.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.

AFRAID OF CHANGING-NOT M, 2-6-17

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Life and Faith for the Years of Winter

I tried to keep my 80^th birthday a secret. I wasn’t ashamed of being 80. I just didn’t know how to deal with it. What does it mean, to be that old?

I knew it could not be a total secret, of course. There are people who know the date. But I wanted to keep it low-key. That turned out to be impossible, because one of the persons who knows that date is Helen. She decided, while ostensibly going along with my idea of no party and gifts primarily of donations to The Interfaith Winter Shelter, that I should receive greetings of some sort—card, letter, Facebook, email—from everyone I have ever known, and some I have never even met.  She also put my favorite yellow roses on the altar at church, with a note in the bulletin about whose birthday those roses honored and which birthday it was.

I was not chagrined that my plans went awry. Most of my plans go awry or away. Instead, it was wonderful, to hear from so many friends, to share so many good memories. Perhaps the best gift of all is to have a wife who knows what you need better than you know yourself. I was still befuddled by that number, 80, though. What does it mean, to be that old?

After listening to the sermon of our pastor, Jimmy Moore, yesterday, I began to realize why I resisted dealing with my 80^th birthday. I was unconsciously afraid not of change, but of NOT changing.

Granted, old people have good reasons to be reluctant about change. Most of the changes that happen to us are not good. We slow down, forget stuff, can’t find stuff, break stuff, drop stuff. After a stroke, my friend, Tom, can’t read the way he has always enjoyed so much. Because of a creeping nerve disease, my friend, Jack, can’t walk, and he always so much enjoyed getting around and doing. I don’t look forward to decreasing limits. It takes me five minutes longer to walk a mile than it took ten years ago. I don’t celebrate that.

I have seen friends take these changes and deal with them, though. There is strength available, at any age, to overcome changes for the worst. As we age, we have to live within changing limits, but we don’t have to be limited by them.

I have always looked forward to what came next, though. That’s why I’ve never particularly been afraid of death.

I have always looked forward to new places, new friends, new activities, new cars, new shoes. Our car is new enough, and our miles few enough, that we’ll probably never have another car. What’s the point of another plaid shirt when I don’t have room in our condo for all those I have already? What if there is nothing new after 80?

I think unconsciously I feared that 80 was some kind of turning point when there was nothing new to look forward to. But in church Sunday morning, Rev. Jimmy Moore claimed that is not true. He said that change is inevitable, and since it is, why not change for the better… or something like that.

Of course, he’s only 61, so what does he know? Wait ‘til you’re 80, Jimmy. Then you’ll…. well, you’ll be befuddled.

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.

SITTING IN LYNN'S CHAIR 2-5-17

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

“I want to be sitting in Lynn’s chair,” I said, “telling her story.”

It was the summer of 1990. Helen and I were enrolled in a class at Iliff Theological Seminary, in Denver, on “Empowering the Cancer Patient.” It was five months after my surgery and four months into my twelve months of chemotherapy. I was still under the sentence of my first oncologist, “…a year or two.”

Most of the class members were Iliff students who were learning how to pastor cancer patients. A few class members were survivors, but I was the only one who was still a patient. The class coordinator was John Anduri, a cancer survivor himself, and the main teachers, both in knowledge and inspiration, were Lynn Ringer and Paul K. Hamilton, Jr.

Twenty years before Paul had been Lynn’s oncologist. She was barely into her twenties when she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, at a time when the survival rate for that cancer was 1 [one] %. Before they had any idea that she would be in that 1%, Paul was so impressed with the poise and determination of his tall and beautiful and composed young patient that he began what was then a brand new idea, using patients to help other patients. When Lynn would walk into a hospital room, her first line was, “I’m a patient, too.” It became the title of a book. [1] Together Paul and Lynn founded CanSurmount, the patient to patient support program of The ACS.

In class one day, John Anduri asked each of us to answer this question: Where do you want to be in twenty years?

I said, “I want to be in Lynn’s chair, telling her story.”

It’s been 27 years today since my emergency surgery started me on the cancer journey. Surviving twenty years was more than I could even imagine then. I’m sitting in Lynn’s chair, saying that any day you survive is a gift.

John Robert McFarland

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

I tweet as yooper1721.

If you want to read more about my journey… NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them. Published by AndrewsMcMeel.