MY REAL HEIGHT [R, 1-29-26]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Confessions of An Old Man—MY REAL HEIGHT [R, 1-29-26]

 

Indiana winters, especially those in the southern part of the state, aren’t all that bad as a rule. This winter, though…whee! Cold! I mean sub-zero, for weeks at a time. And snow! Measured in feet instead of inches.

The snow and cold are bad enough, but even worse, a bad winter makes you face your lies, because you’re stuck inside, with nobody else to lie to.

So, I have finally faced my long-time lie. I have said, since I was 14, that I am 6 feet and 1 inch tall. I am actually only 6 feet and 5/8 inches tall.

 

When it started, I did not intend to live a lie. I was 14. I was on the basketball team. I measured 6 feet and ½ inch. Coach Alva Cato said, “We’ll list you as 6’1. You’ll get taller.” He was assuming and hoping that I would get a lot taller. Basketball is a tall game, and 14 is rather young to stop growing, especially if you’ve grown 6 inches the year before. It was reasonable to assume that I would grow at least another half inch. I didn’t grow anymore, though. But I did keep saying I was 6’1. Eventually I forgot that I was really much shorter.

 

Six-foot-one people are not better than six-foot people. Indeed, I do not think that taller people are better than shorter people. I’m proud to be a McFarland, and McFarlands, at least our branch of the clan, are not tall. My father was the tallest of 7 children. He was 5’7. [Or was he?] My late brother and I were the tallest in later generations, because of my mother’s genes. Jim was 6’3. [Or was he?]

Our culture does think of taller as better, though. Surveys show it. It’s not just a practical matter, being able to reach higher shelves or see over others at a parade. Taller people receive more promotions, make higher salaries, get more dates, receive more votes.

On the popular Big Bang Theory sitcom, height is a major concern. Characters are often put down and ridiculed for being short. Sheldon Cooper is the tallest of the characters, and the others sometimes refer to him in tall terms—giant, big bird, etc. Jim Parsons, who plays Sheldon Cooper, is actually only 6 feet and 1 inch [or is he?] but looks gigantic by comparison to the other actors.

My friend, Dave Shogren, told a story about Ole and Lena, who lived in southern MN. The surveyors told Ole, “We’re sorry, but there was a mapping mistake. Your farm is actually in Iowa.” Ole replied, “Thank goodness. Just this morning I was telling Lena I didn’t think I could take another Minnesota winter.”

When we lived in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, I hoped for a surveying mistake that showed Iron Mountain was actually in WI, on the other side of the Menominee River, because I didn’t think I could take another winter in the Upper Peninsula.

The point, though, is that I’m still the same person, regardless of my height. And regardless of my lies.

We lie for one of two reasons, either to get out of trouble, or to make ourselves look better than we really are.

Old people need to make peace with our real selves. We have to accept who we really are. We can’t lie about it any longer.

Okay, then. I lied up above. I’m not really 6 and 5/8, either. I’ve been getting shorter. That’s what a lot of bad winters do to you. Now I’m only 6 feet and 2/8 inch. I’m breaking myself in slowly to the truth about my real self.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER [T, 1-27-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter… WHEN HELL FREEZES OVER [T, 1-27-26]

 

[This is a replay of a column of several years ago, when we lived in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula  [UP], where 16 below zero for days at a time, even weeks, is normal. Ten years ago, we moved 600 miles south, to Bloomington, to get away from that sort of extended cold period. And now here it is again, right where we are. Here’s that old column…]

It was 15.4 degrees below zero when I got UP this morning. That’s minus 26.333 in Canada, which sounds even worse. Technically winter started on Dec. 21, but real winter starts UP here today. Our predicted HIGH for the WEEK will be three BELOW zero [F]. All the schools in the UP are closed today. Old people are still going to go out and warm up their cars and drive to church to play pickle ball, though. There are some natural instincts even the cold cannot stifle.

I haven’t checked the Siberian reading for this morning, but I imagine it’s even worse there. I remember reading Ken Follett’s THE MAN FROM ST. PETERSBURG. Said man is a political prisoner who has escaped and is riding a train hobo style through Siberia. Frigid to the bone, he vows that he will never be cold again. A lot of bad things happened just because he wanted to be warm.

A lot of bad things happen when people are cold, but too much heat is not a good thing either. Hell, for instance.

Once, on the first day of Vacation Bible School in June, in Arcola, IL, we had a record crowd of kids, parents all over town suddenly realizing what it was like to have the little darlings home all day. Sharon Bickel, our highly efficient VBS leader, had anticipated this and bought extra craft kits. It still wasn’t enough. Whenever Sharon started toward me with that look on her face, it usually did not bode well for me, but this time she just wanted me to drive like a bat out of the hot place the necessary 20 miles to the Bible book store to get more kits. I drove as instructed. I ran in and grabbed the requisite number of kits. I got in line to pay. That’s when things stalled.

The line wasn’t long. Just one woman in front of me. But she was arguing with the couple who ran the store about how hot it would be in hell. They had all read III Esdras, but interpreted it differently. The woman thought it would be only 40 thousand degrees in hell while the couple though it would be 400 thousand degrees. I wanted to yell, “What the hell difference does it make? You’re going to be toast either way.” I didn’t, though. They knew who I was and already thought Methodists did not pay enough attention to the important parts of the Bible. They were willing to take Methodist money, though.

I worry more about people who are too cold in the here-and-now than those who will be too hot in the hereafter. Through the years I have done little things to try to help people who are cold in winter. I worked homeless shelters. I contributed money to the organizations who help folks with heating bills. I even paid a few myself. And I would sneak over to the church building after dark and unlock the street-side doors so that some drunk stumbling around in the dark and unable to find his way home, or some teen who had run away to escape abuse, could get in out of the cold.

Still, though, I don’t think I ever did enough. I was like the man from St. Petersburg, who wanted to go to the other St. Petersburg to get warm, regardless of what happened to others who were cold. It wasn’t my body that was too cold, though, it was my heart. As Hank Williams wrote and warbled, “Why can’t I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold, cold heart?”

We know that a cold heart is worse than a cold body. A cold heart here and now is likely to lead to way too much heat in the hereafter, regardless of how many degrees it is.

I hope hell is in Canada, though. I think Celsius degrees won’t sound as bad.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

 

 

PERSON COMES FIRST [Sun, 1-25-26]

CHRIST IN WINER: Reflections on Life and Faith for the Years of Winter—PERSON COMES FIRST [Sun, 1-25-26]

 

As this winter blast covers so much of the country with ice and snow and bitter cold, I have been worrying about people who have no shelter. We are regular donors to organizations that work to help homeless people, but… no, wait. One small thing I can do to help them is to call them something that puts their humanity first…

A man I know was recently bereaved. Family came from near and far to spend time with him. After about a day, he called a friend and said, “You’ve got to get me out of here. These people are being too helpful!”

That’s a dilemma for old people. We often need help, but those who give it don’t know when to stop. Sometimes the helping makes things worse…

 

…like when folks help me get into my coat. I know where the arm holes are! It just takes me a while to find them. And it’s good for my back to twist my shoulders like that. Keeps me limber. You’re holding it too high! Why are we in such a hurry, anyway? Yes, CVS has threatened to throw my curmudgeonlenol prescription away if I don’t pick it up soon, but they’ll just send some more “reminder” texts. Chill out! [Do people still say that?]

Well, okay, we do need help sometimes, and good people want to do good things for us. Why is that so hard to work out?

Because any amount of help, regardless of how much it is needed or how well-intentioned it is, reminds us that we are no longer people. Yes, yes, I know; we’re still people, just “differently abled” people now. Big deal! We used to be better abled than you are, you young do-gooders, with your nimble younger-than-eighty bodies!

To those of us who are really old, we aren’t a “people” unless we can do everything we used to do. We don’t want to be reminded that we are now puny and feeble…even when we can’t get our coats on right on a winter day.

Being a writer, you’d think I would have noticed sooner that what we put first says more than what comes after. So now, like others who are ahead of me in sensitivity, I don’t refer to colored people or stupid people or homeless people. That says that their differentiating qualifier is what identifies them, not their membership in the whole, common human race. If you say people of color, or people of stupidity, or people without shelter, you are putting people first, you are emphasizing their common humanness, not their difference.

It’s awkward, but I’m getting used to it, slowly, and trying to find better ways to do it. Of course, it’s not nearly as important to say people who are hungry rather than hungry people, as it is to give them something to eat, but it’s a helpful little reminder. Person always comes first.

I am a person of many years, or a person of the wisdom years, or a person in the years of winter, not an old person. Person always comes first. Remember that as you hold my coat sleeve a little lower…

John Robert McFarland

 

 

OLD AGE SIN [F, 1-23-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—OLD AGE SIN [F, 1-23-26]

 

One of my favorite books is Philip Yancey’s The Jesus I Never Knew. It stakes out a thoughtful middle ground between evangelicals and liberals, just as Yancey has in person, in all his writing and teaching, throughout his 76 years.

Neither I, nor his wife, nor anyone else, thought that he would start an eight-year affair with a married woman when he was 68 years old. I mean, shouldn’t you be over that by then? No, not over being sexual. You’re not too old at 68 to be sexual, but you’re too old to be hurtful… and hypocritical…and duplicitous…and just plain stupid! Aren’t you?

Well, I say to myself, Yancey is almost a whole generation younger than you are, and you’re still stupid, so why should you expect him to be smart when he’s still so young and immature?

Well, because I need to know that there are people who are NOT as stupid as I am! Otherwise, there is no way I can get up each morning and say, “Today I’m going to get it right! Today I’m using my smart brain! Today I’m going to be like Philip Yancey! He always knows the right thing to say. He always knows what God wants. He always walks in Godly ways.” Well, maybe not…

Actually, I’ve never said that about Yancey, or maybe anyone else specifically, but when I get up each morning, determined finally to be perfect in every way, I have a whole host of people I admire who are a cloud of witnesses in my brain and spirit, showing me the way to go. I know I can’t get through the day on my own. I need help.

Here would be a good place to talk about forgiveness, but that’s really for Yancey and his wife and the “other woman” and her husband and… I can’t claim to be hurt, that I need to forgive him. I can certainly pray for him, and for his wife, and the others, pray for them to be able to find the forgivenesses that they need to extend and accept, and I do that.

But, my job now is to listen to Yancey as, in his sin and stupidity, he still guides me, still witnesses, reminding me that none of us is perfect, that we are all subject to sin, and maybe the best way is not to get up each morning saying, “Today I’m going to be perfect,” but to say, “Today I’m going to let God lead me.”

John Robert McFarland

“Sin will take you farther than you want to go, keep you longer than you want to stay, and cost you more than you want to pay.” [Ravi Zacharias.]

 

MUSTARD’S LAST STAND [W, 1-21-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—MUSTARD’S LAST STAND [W, 1-21-26]

He’s getting’ too old, he’s done got too old,

He’s too old to cut the mustard any more…

 

Red Foley and Ernest Tubb had a big hit record with that song in 1951, when I had just begun to play cymbals in the marching band. I really wanted to be in the marching band as well as the orchestra, because it got to go places, but I was a bassoonist, and our band director, Mr. Adams, did not want to expose the school’s very expensive bassoon to the elements a marching band has to endure. So, he handed me the cymbals and said, “Nothing loud.” Apparently he had not read Psalm 150.

It was football season, and the band was preparing for the half-time show at the homecoming game. For me, that meant mostly standing in formation while the others squinted in the hot, slanting Autumn sun to make sense of the tiny black dots on the little music cards perched precariously on the wavery wire lyres screwed to the tops of their flutes and trumpets. Mr. Adams was still trying to figure out songs appropriate for homecoming. “What’s a song we could play for Mr. Disler?” he asked us.

Delbert Disler was the football coach and history teacher and probably almost 40 years old. Sweet little fourteen-year-old flautist, Carol Hardy, called out, “Too Old to Cut the Mustard.” It got a hearty hardy laugh, even from Mr. Adams. He decided against it, even though he was only 25.

I thought about that yesterday when we had our annual review with our financial advisor. He wanted us to move some money into an account that would pay us more. “We have to do it soon, though,” he said, “because 88 is the upper age limit, and you’ve got a birthday coming up soon.”

What? I’ve gotten so old people won’t even take my money!?!

The first time I encountered ageism personally I was 26. I was looking at the job ads in The Chicago Sun-Times. One of them said, “No one over 25 need apply.” What? Was “over 25” senile? These days, of course, you are not allowed to put anything ageist or sexist or racist into an ad like that. I’m not sure that’s a good idea. If they aren’t going to hire a woman or an old person or some other undesirable, why make them go through the process only to waste their time? They should probably be required to say something like, “We are small-minded racists and sexists, so you probably wouldn’t want to work here, anyway.”

At 26, I was too old to get a job. Now I’m too old to invest the money I made from my job. Age, and our reaction to it, is a funny thing.

I’ve dealt with that often as a pastor, at the time of death, when it seemed that someone had died too young or too old. Especially too young, like Joel, who was murdered when he was only ten.

I knew Joel. In some ways, he was our first grandchild. When his parents separated, his father would bring Joel to our house on the weekends he had custody. He was just a little boy then. He’d sit beside me on the sofa as we read books together. He’d bake cookies in the kitchen with Helen.

But I knew Joel in a wider context, too. I had seen him with his mother and stepmother and grandparents. So at his funeral, I said, “A life is not measured best by years. It is measured best by love. Joel loved, and he was loved. That is a full life.”

That is so wrong. Joel was so smart and so sweet. He would have contributed so much to the world. It was wrong that his years were so few. Could that possibly be a full life?

Yet, it is so right. You might be too old or too young for certain jobs. Too old or too young to invest your money. Too old to cut the mustard. But love is ageless. If you love and are loved, your life is full.

John Robert McFarland

“I hold it true, what ere befall, I feel it when I sorrow most. Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.” Tennyson

HOW WILL I BE REMEMBERED? [M, 1-19-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—HOW WILL I BE REMEMBERED? [M, 1-19-26]

It has become quite regular in obits to say, “He died surrounded by his loving family.” When you get to my age, you are surrounded by missing family members and friends.

The story is told of the little boy who was taken, quite reluctantly, to kindergarten. Later in the day, he was upset. His teacher thought it would help him if he could talk to his mother, so she called her. When the mother answered, the teacher handed the phone to the boy. “Who is this?” the mother asked. “This is your son; have you forgotten me already?” he wailed.

No one is remembered for long, unless you are a shaker or mover. We understand that, but we want to be remembered by those who know us, in whose lives we have played a part. In winter, we look at the snow that covers up the reminders of spring and summer and autumn, and we wonder. Who will remember me? Especially, how will they remember me?

Bob and Lois Teague were our neighbors when our girls and theirs were little. We moved onto Fairchild Avenue, next door to each other, at the same time, the first houses either of us had ever bought. We lived side by side for six years. Bob and I did not have a lot in common, except we were both trying to raise little girls, and provide for our families, and fight dandelions, but we were good neighbors.

Years later, when we were in our mid-fifties, he called up and said something that shocked me. “I always admired you and wanted to be like you,” he said. I had no idea that he had ever felt that way.

Then he said, “But I have taken it too far. I’ve gotten cancer, too, just like you.”

Months later, when Bob was dying, he and Lois asked me to officiate at his funeral service. I made a trip to spend some last time with him. I asked him how he wanted to be remembered. “I was faithful,” he said.

Now it was my turn to admire and emulate. As I listened to Bob, I realized that I wanted to be like him. I wanted to be remembered as one who was faithful.

John Robert McFarland

BOB HAMMEL: A DEATH TOO SOON [Sat, 1-17-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Personal Reminiscences of An Old Man—BOB HAMMEL: A DEATH TOO SOON [Sat, 1-17-26]

 

The Indiana House just voted, unanimously, to name a section of IN 45 as the Bob Knight Memorial Highway. It’s appropriate. Bob certainly created a lot of traffic on that road, for three decades, as folks came to fill up Indiana University’s Assembly Hall every time one of his teams ran out onto the hardwood.

But it’s another thing Bob Hammel should get to celebrate, and he won’t. He died too soon.

Hammel was 88 when he died. That’s hardly a tragic death. It would be tragic at 8 or 28, and regrettable at 58 or 68, but hardly unexpected at 88, the age of double infinity. [The sign for infinity is a horizontal 8.] But it was too soon, to witness what he had a right to see.

 

Hammel was the long-time sports editor of the Bloomington, IN “Herald-Times,” and Knight’s best friend and staunch supporter. He was accused, especially by other sports writers, of being blind to Knight’s flaws, but he wasn’t. He just wasn’t vocal about the shortcomings of his friends. Or anyone else, for that matter.

He deplored some things that Knight did, like swear. I don’t think even a tinker’s damn ever crossed Hammel’s lips. But friendship to Hammel was a matter of constant, loving, Christian support, regardless of how badly his friends behaved, or how sick they got. His friendship did not waver. As another of his friends, I had reason to appreciate that.

 

So he would have delighted in driving on the Knight Memorial Highway. But, he died too soon.

The worst thing, though, about Hammel dying too soon, is missing out on the Indiana University football team of these last two years. He wrote columns and essays and books about IU athletics for 40 years, and only once did he get to write about a good football team, the one that lost the 1968 Rose Bowl game to OJ Simpson [USC]. Oh, how he would have delighted in and written about Coach Cignetti and the current football Hoosiers in a way no one else could.

Current IU Athletic Director, Scott Dolson, knows how much IU sports meant to Hammel, and how much Hammel meant to IU sports. He saw it up close and personal, from the time he was just an undergrad student, when he was a student manager for Knight’s teams. One of the first things Dolson did when he hired Darien DeVries as the new IU basketball coach was take him out to Gentry Park Retirement Village to meet Bob Hammel. Bob had been retired for almost 30 years, but Scott knew whose unofficial imprimatur DeVries needed.

Hammel greatly appreciated that visit. He told me about it during one of our regular Thursday morning coffee times in the Gentry Park dining room, when we got together to talk sports, yes, but more so, faith and family, memories and hopes.

I enjoyed and appreciated Bob Hammel’s friendship so much, but I was always surprised by it. When we started hanging out together, often with our wives, he was a legend, known to all. I was a small town preacher, who got his notice because I wrote him a letter about one of his columns.  

When the best sports writers of the 20^th century were named, he was always on the list, along with folks like Frank Deford of Sports Illustrated and Jim Murray of the LA Times. Hammel was on a first-name basis with sports stars like Michael Jordan. He was welcome in the news room of any newspaper. But next to Bob Knight, he said I was his best friend.

I think it was because his true identity was not as a great sports writer but as an honest-to-God Christian. He was a totally dedicated member of his congregation and denomination, but that was only a minor part of this Christian identity. His Christian identity meant that he was a constant advocate for those who were left out. He lived the gospel of personal holiness--he didn’t drink or smoke or swear, etc. But also he lived the gospel of social holiness--promoting civil rights and economic rights for “the least of these.” He was a Matthew 25 Christian.

We were almost the same age, so had grown up in Indiana at the same time. I think he saw in me a fellow spirit, a guy who loved sports, especially IU sports, but a fellow traveler on “the Way.”

I guess everyone dies too soon. No one gets to see everything in life that would have brought them satisfaction. But come Monday night, when the worst team in the history of college football does the unthinkable and wins the national title, I shall be reading Bob Hammel’s report of it in the Herald-Times of my brain.

John Robert McFarland

Bob Knight used to say, “Basketball is a simple game that is difficult to play.” I’d add that life is the same way.