NURSE OLVIA AND THE PURPOSE OF LIFE [M, 3-28-22]

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

Helen went to the doc, follow-up to her fall. Doc said she was very lucky to have such a mild concussion from such a major fall. That’s good.

She gave her exercises to do to deal with the dizziness. That’s not so good. One problem with our doc is that she is very big on giving you work to do to solve your problems, rather than just taking care of them for you. Did some lab tests, too, because all doctors love those.

So, nurse Olivia called with test results. Helen was in the shower, so Olivia figured that she could trust me--even though, as I shall explain later, she should know better--and told me that Helen is not anemic but her blood sugar was low, so they thought she might be fasting. I assured her that it’s been a long time since anyone around this house did any fasting, including the tiny black ants that have shown up along with the daffodils and forsythia [1] and weeping cherry trees, so she said to have Helen call them when she got clean, and asked if I had any more questions.

 

She’s fairly new, but she should already know better--from that incident when I told her I was Dr. V’s “favorite” patient, when I meant to say that Dr. V called me her “perfect” patient, because I always tell her my symptom history in the proper order, because I am a narrativist, and then Olivia told me later that I really was Dr. V’s favorite patient, because she had asked her, which was very embarrassing—Olivia asked if I had any questions. So, I asked her what the purpose of life is.

Then I found out that I had unconsciously been underestimating Olivia, probably because she is young and pretty and perky. She smartly turned it around. “You’d be better at that than I. You should tell me. What do you think is the purpose of life?”

 

She was pleased when I told her that the purpose of life is to have a good time. I would have gone on to quote John 10:10 to her, but she giggled, and giggles always make me lose my focus.

John Robert McFarland

[1] Friend and colleague and former student, Cindy Jones, said that she has always loved forsythia, for when she was little, she always heard forsythia as For Cynthia.

 

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

THE DEATH OF AN OLD FRIEND-The APC [Sa, 3-26-22]

 

“Well done, good and faithful servant.” I’m saying that today to The Academy of Parish Clergy. I’m wearing my APC Past-President pin as I do so. I’m mourning the loss of an old friend, a faithful colleague for 50 years.

I’m not quite sure how to grieve the death of a beloved organization. It’s sort of the same as a beloved person, but…

I joined the APC when I was appointed to a congregation after ten years in universities, as a campus minister and PhD student. Those ten years were basically the 1960s, the years of Civil Rights and Viet Nam. Congregations had changed a lot in that decade. I knew I needed help to understand how to do a good job as a pastor in that new church.

Being a better pastor was the whole point of APC. We didn’t talk society or theology. We only talked pastoring and pastoral leadership. How can I do it better?

It worked so well because APC was ecumenical. Methodists of the time—and I suspect still—all read the same books and went to the same lectures. But Baptists and Lutherans and Moravians and Jews Congregationalists and Unitarians and Presbyterians and Disciples and Catholics and Mennonites read different books, and went to different lectures. We learned so much from one another, beyond our usual limits.

That was the basis of APC: The real experts in parish ministry were those who practiced it, and we could get better by “sharing the practice,” which was our method, and also the name of our quarterly journal.

APC was founded by psychology of religion professor Granger Westberg. Granger worked in medical schools and saw there how physicians were required to do continuing education to keep their licenses. He knew that preachers, other than an occasional lecture or retreat, did no continuing education after seminary, except for reading books. He realized that preachers needed a professional organization like the American Medical Association or American Bar Association, one that would insist on the highest standards of competency and ethics… and continuing education.

It was, everyone said, “an idea whose time had come.” Except it was an idea that had a very short time. It failed. For a number of reasons.

First, neither denominations nor congregations gave ministers “points” for being ecumenical. Or for continuing education. APC was often seen as an interloper that was taking time away from the denomination or congregation.

And we didn’t really believe our own motto. We did an excellent job of sharing the practice with one another in small groups, but we never invited pastors to lead our international conferences. Those leaders were professors and authors and social workers and sociologists and editors and street walkers. Anybody but a preacher. Preachers are so humble.

 

Also, as ministers started joining APC, theological schools realized that preachers really wanted continuing education, and they realized they could make a lot of money by letting preachers add another year to the three they had already put in, so that they could have DMin [Doctor of Ministry] after their name. Preachers are so gullible when it comes to degrees and titles. APC was not a degree-granter, so could not compete with the allure of another seminary degree, although those of us who went through the APC Fellow process got to put FAPC behind our names.

 

After an exciting beginning, APC began to decline. Even when I was president 25 years ago. Last month, the board voted to end the decline by ending the organization. Appropriately enough, by Zoom.

Four paragraphs up, I said APC failed, but it didn’t. It was enormously successful. We members really did become better pastors by sharing the practice with one another, ecumenically. It kept preachers like me going. My congregations got such much better leadership because of what I learned from my colleagues in APC. Most of my best friends through the years I never would have met without APC. [1]

So I grieve the passing of this old friend, but I rejoice that it served God and the church so well… in its time. Isn’t that the way of grief when any friend passes on—mourning for loss but  gratitude for presence?

John Robert McFarland, FAPC

1] Even though most of them are no longer sharing the practice in this life, I want to acknowledge the friendship of my APC colleagues: Joe Dooley. Granger Westberg. Fred Skaggs. Suzanne Schaefer-Coates. Perry Biddle. Dean Lueking. Kim Egolf-Fox. Bill Tuck. Jerry O’Bee. Roger and David Imhoff. Earl Davis. Roger Perks. Don Shilling. Fred Harper. Jim Dietz. Paul McFarland. John Freed. Gary Reiff. Randy Saxon. Thor Bogren. Milt Mann. Darryl Zoller. Joann Dold. Dave Nash. Mark Petersen. Clyde Frye. Oletha Williams. Bob Stauffer. Barbara Zontek. Willard Roth. Bob Cornwall. Mel Henrichs. Roland Langford. Scott White. And all the others who, even if their names are forgotten by me, are known to God…

QUOTES ON GETTING BY WHILE GETTING OLD [R, 3-24-22]

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

[Okay, these aren’t all about getting old, but I’ve collected them and don’t want them to go to waste…]

“Comfort is the enemy of progress.” So… progress is overrated.

I see the world with the same clear vision with which I have always viewed it, but the world looks back at me with the misty, wrinkled eyes of irrelevance. JRMcF

Life is like a helicopter. I don’t know how to operate a helicopter, either.

I thought getting old would take longer.

“Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories.” Madeline L’Engle, quoting an anonymous friend. P. 54, Walking on Water

“…you had but one job…” as the joke goes. At my age, I have but one job, to get ready to die, by discarding all the unnecessary stuff--from my spirit, from my body, from my relationships, from my possessions.

            Actually, that’s the one job at any age. I sort of wish I had understood that better, earlier.

“Unexplained pain may sometimes direct our attention to something unacknowledged, something we are afraid to know or feel.” Rachel Remen

“The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their suffering might be like his.” George MacDonald

“Those who believe they believe in God but without passion in the heart, without anguish of mind, without uncertainty, without doubt, and even at times without despair, believe only in the idea of God, not in God himself.” Unamuno

“I am tired of having the front of my mind tickled.” Leslie Tizzard, on superficial preaching.

‘Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible, but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” Reinhold Niebuhr

“Christ saves many who do not think they know him.” CS Lewis

“A grumbler may finally become a grumble.” CS Lewis

“If you want to teach children to love God, teach them to love nature.” Anne Lamott

I am often nostalgic for times that never were. JRMcF

“I was born to reject rejection.” Hal David

“The pre-Easter Jesus is St. Francis with an exclamation point.” Marcus Borg

The surest way to be irrelevant tomorrow is to be too relevant today.

“Until I tell God what I want, I have no way of knowing if I truly want it.” Madeline L’Engle

“The holy scriptures were not given to us to enclose them in books but to engrave them on our hearts.” St. John Chrysostom

“We cannot easily give our hearts to something that our minds reject.” Marcus Borg

“Evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where to find food.” D.T. Niles

“When old men become irrelevant, young men become irresponsible.”

“God contains everything and nothing contains God.” Irenaeus

“Sometimes all that is needed is the sense of possibility.” Rachel Remen, MD

“People are zealous for a cause when they’re not quite positive it is true.” Madeline L’Engle

“Moving into the unknown is often where we find the healing.” Dean Ornish

“Only in poetry is a word that means only one thing dysfunctional.” Billy Collins

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

 

 

 

SHEPHERDS AND SHEEP DOGS [T, 3-22-22]

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

When I started as a clergyperson, we were called preachers, even if we were in church leadership positions that did not include preaching. That’s what the bishop asked, what the Board of Ministry asked, what Aunt Nora asked, “Are you called by God to preach?”

I loved the preacher jokes, especially the one about the preacher who was getting wound up on the social sins. “If you cheat, you’ll go to hell,” he yelled. An old man in the front row yelled back, “Tell it preacher!” “If you drink whiskey you’ll go to hell!” “Tell it, preacher!” “If you chew tobacco you’ll go to hell!” “Now you’re quit preachin’ and gone to meddlin’.” 

During my career, people switched over to calling us pastors. I guess they didn’t want us to “get preachy” or “go to meddlin’.”

It’s the job of a preacher to get people “under conviction,” to convince them of the error of their ways, so that they will accept God’s grace and straighten up and get “justified.” Nobody likes a person who “convicts them of sin,” who tells them they have to change.

[Justification means to get all your parts in harmony. Old time auto mechanics used to talk of their job as “justifying” a motor, getting all the parts to work together the way they are supposed to.”]

 

Pastor is a much less dangerous and intrusive designation than preacher. It means “shepherd.” Shepherds don’t challenge those in their flock to be better sheep, they just take care of them, lead them to green pastures and still waters [sheep don’t like to drink out of running waters, like streams]. Shepherds fight off coyotes and jackals and other sheep-stealers.

 

I think pastor as shepherd is a mis-designation, for there is only one shepherd for the Christian flock, The Great Shepherd. The so-called pastor is more like the sheep dog that assists the shepherd—running in circles trying to keep the flock together and headed in the correct direction, nipping at the heels of the stragglers, barking out instructions that the sheep ignore in favor of just going the way all the others are, staying up all night to watch for predators…

 

It’s too late now to change my title, since I no longer have a flock, but I should have eschewed “The Rev. Dr. McFarland” for “The Rev. K9 McFarland.”

 

I miss nipping at heels.

The Rev. K9 John Robert McFarland, Retired

“Retired” for a sheep dog means on the last ride to the vet’s. Hmm, I’ll bet I could make a country song out of that…

ODDS & ENDS: Ukraine Relief; Brain Health; Modern Farewells; Shorts Confusion [Su, 3-20-22]

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

UKRAINE RELIEF

One of the very best places to donate to help Ukraine folks who are injured and hungry and displaced by Putin’s invasion is UMCOR, which has an A+ rating from the charitable oversight organizations. https://umcmission.org/umcor/

If you designate Advance 982450, 100% of your donation goes directly to Ukraine relief. [Otherwise, it’s 97%, which is still so much higher than any other way of giving. Only 3% for administration.]

MENTAL HEALTH HAZARD

Brain researcher Andrew Newberg says that “…fear-based religions can be hazardous to your health. It’s too bad the Surgeon General can’t place a warning sign on certain passages from the Bible or Koran, especially those that encourage violence toward people who hold different beliefs.” Andrew Newberg, MD, and Mark Robert Waldman, How God Changes Your Brain, p. 62.

MODERN FAREWELLS

Friend of CIW, Nina, says that “good-byes” these days are different. They are not exactly good-bye. She recently had to say “good-bye” to the associate pastor at her church, which included “see you on Facebook.” There are many things I don’t like about FB, and being old and curmudgeonly, I try to avoid it as much as possible, but it really does make staying in touch much easier.

SHORTS CONFUSION

This is a confusing time of year for me. Yes, because of Daylight Savings Time, true, but mostly because of short pants. Congress is fixing to fix the twice-yearly time change confusion by making DST the year-around standard, but I’m not sure they can do anything about my shorts dilemma.

I love to walk in shorts. It’s much easier than long underwear under flannel-lined cargo pants under a parka, the kind of warmth an old man needs in winter. Walking in shorts in winter is my way of sneering at the cold. I love it when I can sneak in a shorts day in winter.

So I walked in shorts to start Feb. Yes, it was almost 60, and sunny, on Feb. 1, in Bloomington. And, yes, the next day it was almost 60 below, and blizzardy. So that day I did not walk in shorts.

In Indiana, it’s hard to know if it is a shorts day. It might be in the morning, but not the afternoon, or vice versa.

That’s okay. My schedule requires only one day per month walking in shorts. More if the weather is okay, but one is enough to make me think I am still a young guy, a shorts kind of guy.

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

Welcome, Spring!

 

 

 

 

 

 

ADMINISTERING OLD AGE [F, 3-18-22]

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

This column starts out like it’s irrelevant to anyone but professional pastors, but be patient. After the first two paragraphs, it’s relevant to everybody…

Our son-in-law, Bill, is a Roman Catholic eucharistic deacon. He says that priests these days are so busy with administrative duties that they have little time for actual pastoral work. Recently, he saw a priest defy the tyranny of administration. People were chatting and drinking coffee in the parish hall when a man went up to the priest and asked him if he had time to hear his confession. The priest said, “Of course,” and took the man off to the side of the room for an impromptu confessional. Bill was pleased for the priest. “He got to do what he was called to do by God, instead of all the administrative stuff he has to do.”

I understand that priest. As a pastor, I was never able to put administration ahead of a personal need. That is one reason that denominational administrators didn’t trust me. It wasn’t that I thought administrative stuff was unimportant. Cars don’t run well if the oil isn’t changed once in a while. But an oil change can be put off. A crying child or a hurting person needs attention right now.

Even in old age, we are still faced with the person/administration dilemma.

I have the good fortune to be married to a home management [administration] specialist. She has two degrees in the subject, has taught it in universities and high schools, and has practiced it for 63 years. She was practicing the principles of Attila the Hun, such as charging with extra horses to make the army look bigger, long before his principles were enshrined in current business management books. She knows how to maintain what I call personal infrastructure—finances, records, storage, appliances, deliveries, groceries, clothing, etc.

I still have problems with personal infrastructure, though. I just don’t like to have an infrastructure need hanging around in the back of my brain. I’m uneasy all day on Wednesday, until it’s time to put the garbage can out on the curb for the early Thursday morning pickup.

So, if Helen asks what I want for supper, I always say “spaghetti,” because I don’t have to think about it. But that is unfair to her. Cooking is her creative outlet. She wants to talk about new stuff to eat, like baked emu. I need to learn to put the personal needs ahead of the infrastructure needs, because they’re just more important.

Administration of our personal lives is a necessary reality. We need to get food and wash clothes and use the remote control for the TV. First, though, we need to listen to those who want us to hear their confession, however they say it.

Even in old age, when, yes, it takes a lot of time and energy just to get our shoes tied, the personal still comes first.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

DEATH IN WINTER: Bob & Andy [W, 3-16-22]

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

 

This week I read the death notices of two long-time friends. I’ll call them Bob and Andy. Bob’s wife sent me the notice of his death and the details for his memorial service. She knew I would be interested. Although older and more experienced than I, and a writer himself, he was always one of my biggest fans, keeping a file of all my articles published in religious journals. That certainly cements a friendship. We have kept up with each other through all these years, by telephone calls and letters and emails, especially when their daughter died in her 50s.

No one sent me the notice about Andy’s death. I came across it by searching for him on the web. I wanted to see if I could find him, to renew a meaningful friendship, meaningful at least to me. I was too late.

I lost touch with Andy about 20 years ago. His address changed. So did his telephone number and email. He didn’t inform us. We found out when they no longer worked. I asked mutual friends about him. They reported the same problems.

I’ve missed him all this time. Wondered about him. Prayed for him.

We met in college. I liked Andy. He was an interesting guy. His intelligence was a bit intimidating, though. He was the smartest guy anywhere, and he knew it.

He dated, and later married, the second-smartest girl in college. I was interested in dating her myself, but she knew that she was not the right girl for me, and she knew that her roommate was, so she “facilitated” our meeting. I’ll always be grateful.

After college, Andy went to the most prestigious theological school in the country, while his wife went to the most prestigious professional school in her field. Then he got a PhD, and she got another professional doctorate.

They were on the fast track on the high road…but it didn’t go anywhere. Rather than teaching in a seminary, he got a few jobs in small liberal arts colleges, none of which lasted long. She was not able to get a decent job in either of her professional fields. They became increasingly bitter.

I think they were embarrassed, too. They never said--back when we were starting out, or along the way-- that they were going to succeed far beyond the limits set upon the rest of us, their average friends, but they expected to, and we expected them to. When they didn’t, they didn’t want to face us. They didn’t want us to see them in their failures. They just dropped out of all their old friendships.

 

That’s sad. When you’re old, long-time friends are important, friends who share your memories.

We are old. We don’t care now about worldly success. If they had stuck with us, we would have just reminisced together about old times, when dreams were fresh. And we would have comforted one another about the dreams that didn’t turn out, because we all have some of those.

So sad. For them. For us.

 

John Robert McFarland