THE SOBER ONE AT THE PARTY [T, 1-31-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter: THE SOBER ONE AT THE PARTY  [T, 1-31-23]

 

I started seminary at Perkins School of Theology at SMU in great part because of Schubert Ogden. He was very young at the time, barely over 30, and Perkins had hired him as a professor of theology even before his PhD dissertation was finished.

Joseph Quillian, the dean, and the 33^rd Methodist minister in the Quillian family, was building a theological juggernaut at Perkins. He was luring established and much-lauded scholars like Albert Outler, and successful and experienced preachers like Grady Hardin, and mixing them with young groundbreakers like Ogden and Van Harvey.

Dean Quillian wanted Perkins students taught by the best, and that was Schubert Ogden in theology. His dissertation, Christ Without Myth, was a reaction to Rudolf Bultmann’s existentialist, demythologizing theology, with was the cutting edge of theology in the 1950s. Ogden neither embraced nor rejected Bultmann, but went beyond him.

As former students reflected upon Professor Ogden at the time of his death, the most-oft heard phrase was, “He taught me to think.” That is a wonderful epitaph. The most important thing a teacher at any level can do it teach a student to think.

I say the following not with pride but with gratitude: I already knew how to think when I went to seminary. I’d had good teachers in my family and in school, from elementary on through university. I was an experienced theological thinker from age fourteen, when I was sure that God had worked a miracle to save my sister’s life. But most of all, I’d had narrative.

Early in my career, I heard some professor say that a sermon could be either a string of beads or a handful of confetti. He obviously thought string of beads was right. So I worked at that.

I could do beads preaching, because I loved stories. They started with “Once upon a time…” and ended with “…happily ever after.” You could count on that. But I came to understand that bead-string preaching was not helpful to some of my listeners. Neither their brains nor their lives were set up to do a string of beads. So, I tried to tell the story of God in such a way that both beads people and confetti people could see themselves in it.

It was because Joe Quillian was hiring people like Ogden that my bishop, Richard Raines, said that if he were going to seminary now [1960], he would go to Perkins. That was theology’s leading edge. So that’s where I went…and enjoyed it, until Helen and I were fired from the community center where we worked for admitting black children. Being unable to stay in seminary without a job, we returned to Indiana. Bishop Raines gave me an appointment at Cedar Lake, IN, just south of Gary, and I finished seminary at Garrett, in Evanston, IL.

It was probably a mistake to go to Dallas. It would have been far simpler to “stay home” and go to Garrett from the start. But we made good friends, and I was taught by good thinkers, like Schubert Ogden. I’ve always told young preachers that before you can preach well, you have to think well.

These days, I’m not sure that it’s a good idea to teach people to think. If you can think well in today’s society, you’re always like the only sober person at a drunken party. I’ve been that one sober person, and it’s quite boring.

John Robert McFarland

 

ONE DAY WHEN I WAS LOST… [Sat, 1-28-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter. ONE DAY WHEN I WAS LOST… [Sat, 1-28-23]

 

Helen has a friend with memory problems. I’ll call her Frances, although that is not her name. They have met for coffee, alternating houses, each Tuesday morning at 10:30 for several years. But even though Helen calls Frances the day before, and the morning of, Frances rarely shows up at the right place on the right day. Then the tracking-down commences. Helen goes looking for her friend. When they finally get together, they have good conversations. It’s a lot of work for Helen, but she does it, because Frances is lonely and needs the fellowship.

“Well,” I say to Helen, “you have always said that when we got old, you wanted to be able to help our old friends through their final years, because that’s what old friends are for.” Frances is not an “old friend,” but she is an “old” friend. We don’t live where our old friends do, so we can’t help take care of them. But we have new “old” friends, and we can walk toward that “door at the end of the hall” with them.

Loneliness, and needing a friend who will come looking for you when you have forgotten to show up, are not confined to the elderly years, of course. So, I’ll tell again one of my favorite stories from our own family…

When our daughters were teens, we took a vacation trip out west. We spent a night in the Custer State Park, in South Dakota. Katie and I were long-distance runners, so after supper we went out for a training run. At the time, we lived on the flat prairies of central Illinois. My old legs weren’t used to the hills of the Badlands. After a few miles, I dropped out and went back to our cabin. But Katie was tough. She was the only girl on a 22 member high school cross country team, the only girl ever to win a letter in a boys’ sport in her high school. She kept running.

That was a problem, because of sunset. On the Illinois prairies, the sunset lingers on the horizon for a long time in summer. In the Badlands, when the sun sets, it’s just gone. There one moment, gone the next.

So, Katie got lost. When she was not back at the cabin at the time she said she would be, I got in our car and started driving those winding park roads much too fast, an urgent fear in my heart.

We finally got her back to the cabin, and I tried to be sympathetic to what she must have felt out there in the dark, all by herself, the night sounds coming down from the hills and closer and closer to the road she was running. “It must have been scary out there,” I said.

“Yes,” she answered, “it was, but I wasn’t really worried, because I knew you would come looking for me.”

We just passed the birthday of our late friend, Joe Frazier, the baritone in the wonderful Chad Mitchell Trio of the 1960s. After the trio days, he became an Episcopal priest. I can still hear his voice in the trio, in one of their early recordings: “One day when I was lost, they nailed him to the cross, they nailed him to the cross just for me…”

That’s the main reason, I think, that we call the story of the Christ “good news.” There is no better news than this: because of the Resurrection, Christ—God incarnate, Love incarnate—is always available, any time, any place. Always ready to come looking. Any day when you are lost, in Christ, God comes looking for you.

John Robert McFarland

 

INSIDE [W, 1-25-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—INSIDE [W, 1-25-23]

 

Today there is a blizzard at my house. Not as cold as the Christmas blizzard, but lots of snow.

I stay in my house. Winter—where winter is real, not those make-believe winters in southern climes-- makes hermits of us all.

I think of Thoreau beside the pond called Walden. I should get that book out and read it again. I still have it, even though I have given away hundreds of books now. I read it first in college, in the spring time of my life. I knew it was a classic. I knew thus that I should appreciate it. I suppose I did, but I cannot remember. I just wanted credit for the class. And a good grade,

Now I am past the point of needing credit, of any kind. 

I do not need a good grade, either. I do not need others to tell me that my life is worth living. Either it is or it is not, regardless of what others think. I do not need their grade.

Thoreau was a hermit by his choice. I am a hermit by winter’s choice. Winter’s choice has, however, become my choice. I stay in my house. 

The winter is outside, in the snow, in the tracks of the deer, in the disappearing tail of the rabbit, in the quick flash of the fox, in the slow snore of the bear, in the bare space in the cold air where the hummingbird used to hover.

The winter is in here, too, in my house. There is the cold air of absence here, but there are also the tracks of memory, the disappearing tale, the quick flash of understanding, the slow snore of acceptance, the question about spring, about when it will come, if it will be early or late, if the bushes will still flower, or if the deer, in the empty gnawing of their winter, will have killed them with desire, desire for one more meal before the boom of the hunter’s gun. 

I stay in my house. I look out the window at winter, and I wonder about the spring.

John Robert McFarland

The photo is the Beck Chapel on the Indiana University campus.

WHY OLD PEOPLE TALK TO THEMSELVES [1-22-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—WHY OLD PEOPLE TALK TO THEMSELVES [1-22-23]

 

Helen and I are old and have pre-existing conditions, like decrepitude, so we must be careful to avoid the covid virus, especially this most recent strain that is so contagious. So, we don’t go out much, especially to restaurants.

Unless somebody else offers to pay

Thus, we had lunch with Bob and Julie Hammel, paid for actually by their children, via Christmas gift cards. Bob is the great newspaper writer, primarily sports, and his wife shows up in his columns as “Sweet Julie.” They’re fun.

Bob’s writing skills are legendary. Even more so his memory, a reputation I share with him, to a lesser degree. It must be hilarious to watch two old men renowned for words and memory try to tell each other stories. I think that because Helen and Julie laughed a lot, and I don’t think it was “with” us.

Bob told us of talking with a retired writer friend shortly before he himself retired. “Tell me what I’m going to miss,” Bob said. “He thought a long time and then said, “Not much, but sometimes something happens that I really want to comment on, but I no longer have any way to do it.”

I think that’s one of the major reasons I write CIW. Often, I think that I should quit just because I really have no more stories. Then, however, something happens…especially the death of a friend…and it reminds me of some other occasion… and I really feel the need to say something about it.

You are in an elite group, dear reader. You don’t have many peers. Not many fellow readers of this column. But you give me a chance to continue telling my stories, and remembering past times and gone friends. That’s how I know that I am alive.

I write primarily to communicate with myself, to learn what I’m thinking, who I am now. But it’s necessary to have readers other than myself, to have the reason to communicate with myself.

That is a real problem for old people. It’s not just that no one wants to listen to us, although that is probably true. But it’s also that most folks don’t have a chance to listen to us, because we don’t have an outlet. If we did, folks would be fascinated, and ask us to comment on everything, all the time. So maybe it’s best this way. I do, though, want to thank you for reading. It’s a great gift, just listening, just reading.

John Robert McFarland

 

Tell Him “Thanks” [R, 1-19-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter. Tell Him “Thanks” [R, 1-19-23]

 

When our granddaughter was a student at MI State U, she stood in line to get the autograph of John Lewis on his memoir. As he signed, she told him, “My grandfather was on the march into Montgomery.” He looked up and said, “Tell him I said ‘thanks.”

That is one of my most precious memories, and I wasn’t even there!

The truth is, though, that I should have sent her there to tell him that I said “thanks.” For without John Lewis, I would never have gotten the chance to add “the stubborn ounces of my weight” [1] to the struggle for equal justice, that day, March 25, 1965. [I wrote about that in the last column, on MLK JR Day, 1-16-23]

There have been very few times that I have initiated an episode, even a conversation, on inclusion, on black rights or women’s rights or gay rights. My actions have almost always been simple affirmations of the courage that others have displayed. They were the first actors, the ones who made the first move.

Like those college students who sat in at Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, NC. Like John Lewis, leading the Selma march for civil rights. Like Rosa Parks refusing to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery.

Even MLK Jr. was first a respondent, an affirmer, of what Rosa Parks did, or what John Lewis did. He became a leader, but he might not have even had that chance without the courage of an old woman with tired feet, of a young man with courageous feet.

That’s the message of the resurrection. There was somebody else who initiated the reality of eternal life. The rest of us are responders, affirmers. Thanks givers, for the gift of eternal life, eternal love, whatever else there is beyond these physical bodies.

Tell him I said thanks.

John Robert McFarland

1] Bonaro Overstreet

 

WE SHALL OVERCOME [M, 1-16-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter. WE SHALL OVERCOME [M, 1-16-23]

 

Tornadoes tore through the South a couple of days ago, leveling homes, killing nine people. One of the towns they hit was Selma, Alabama. It seemed a strange way to call attention to Martin Luther King, Jr. Day.

I saw a David Letterman interview with John Lewis as they walked across the Selma bridge. “There were just a few as we started here in Selma. When we finally marched into Montgomery,” Lewis said, “there were twenty thousand of us.”

Twenty thousand was so many to be there that day. Twenty thousand was so few to be there that day. It seems strange to me now that I was one of those twenty thousand, so many and so few. I wonder how many of us are still alive. After all, if you were in your 20s then, you’re in your 80s now.

John Lewis is dead. So is MLK, Jr. So is Andre’ Hammonds. 

Andre’ was the first black man to get a PhD at the University of Tennessee, and the first black professor at Indiana State University in Terre Haute. He was a wonderful friend to me for almost 50 years. We marched into Montgomery together.

The Alabama Methodist Student Movement called the Indiana Methodist Student Movement, and said, “We want you to march with us. We want each college and university in Indiana to send their campus minister, a student, and a professor.” From Indiana State, the student was Bob Mullins, from Hammond. The professor was Andre’.

I have tried to find Bob, without results, to see if he is still alive. Andre’ died several years ago. I think I am the only one of the campus ministers who is still alive.

My campus ministry years were the 1960s, years of great turmoil on campus and in the country. Civil Rights. Voting Rights. Vietnam. Women’s Rights. Selma was not the only time I had to march.

As I look back now, one of the few left alive to remember what those marches felt like, what I remember is simply that I participated. I did what I could. Is the race problem settled? No. Will the end of the Vietnam war bring back the boys who died in it? No. Was Vietnam the end of stupid wars? No. Do women have full rights over their own bodies? No. Are non-hetero people fully accepted? No.

Then did I make a difference? Yes, along with thousands of other small contributors, my contribution made a difference. We moved society in the right direction. As I look back, the main thing I did for those causes… well, I showed up.

Helen says that when she’s had physical therapy, each day was a drag. It seemed like she was getting nowhere. That muscle still wouldn’t work. That back was still painful. But, then, suddenly, at the end, after all those grinding days of nothing happening, it happened. It worked!

That’s the way it usually is with social progress. A lot of little steps. A long march. Others joining along the way. And suddenly, you’re in Montgomery, twenty thousand strong, listening to MLK Jr. talk about the urgency of now.

John Robert McFarland

TIS BETTER TO HAVE LOVED… [Sa, 1-14-23]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter: TIS BETTER TO HAVE LOVED… [Sa, 1-14-23]

 

“’Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.”

I came across these words from Alfred Lord Tennyson at exctly the right time. I was eighteen, and Susie, my first college girlfriend, had just dumped me, for being “too conservative.”  [1]

Oh, there is no sorrow more bitter than unrequited love! There is no one so disconsolate--internally only, of course, because I am a guy—as a jilted college freshman.

I don’t know how or where I discovered those eternal words of Tennyson, but I wrote them, with a blue ink fountain pen, on a leaf from a 4x6 pad and propped it on my desk where I would be constantly reminded of my loss and its poignancy.

I have told others of the depth of my despair, even written about it, I think, but the only person who had to live through it was my roommate, Tom Cone. He was sympathetic, but only so far. He bought me a new shirt--which was no small thing since we were both quite poor and a new shirt expanded my wardrobe exponentially. He seemed to think that a new shirt would help me to get a new girlfriend. It was an obvious attempt to get me to shut up about how I was never going to love again because the loss of love was so painful.

Now as I recite that to myself—Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all—it is Tom, himself, that I have in mind. You may know already about his recent death. I wrote a eulogy for him in this column on 12-15-22. Good friends, close friends, for a little over 67 years. I didn’t see him much over the last 2 or 3 years. Covid lockdown and old age and geography came between us. That does not diminish the poignancy of losing him.

But he and I have been through this before, together. He helped me to learn that love is eternal, that it really is true…better to have loved and lost, because love is never lost.

John Robert McFarland

1] Later, this was somewhat confusing when my next girlfriend dumped me for being “too liberal.”

The photo is Tom at the top of his law career.