FRAGILE IN THE TRANSITIONS [T, 11-5-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—FRAGILE IN THE TRANSITIONS [T, 11-5-24]

 

I started to get up off the sofa and thought, “This would be a good time to go do something stupid.”

My ability range for doing stupid stuff is rather narrow anymore. It’s mostly, “This would be a good time to go eat something bad for me.” When I was younger, though, I had a wide range of stupidity possibilities. “This would be a good time to tell the bishop what’s wrong with him,” followed by “This would be a good time to apply for a PhD program…” Once you start stupid stuff, it gains momentum.

I hardly ever considered the stupidity possibilities, though, except when I was in transition, from one place to another, from one activity to another, from one…

Helen had a yoga instructor who said, “We are fragile in the transitions.” She meant when moving from one yoga position to another, of course, but I find that it is true emotionally and spiritually, too. My brain and body are always ready to do stupid stuff, but the urge to stupidity is greatest in the transitions.

I don’t understand that. I can be perfectly happy, staid in place, writing a mundane poem or an irrelevant column, with no hint of stupidity rising, but then…yes, it’s usually my bladder that requires me to get up, and I think, “Well, as long as I’m up anyway, what stupid thing can I do?”

It’s never, “Well, as long as I’m up, I could take out the garbage.” No, it’s “As long as I’m up, I could go look at new cars and surprise Helen with a Morris Minor or 2025 Bel Air that looks like the 1956 model.” [1]

I think that we have learned from Trump’s Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol that even as a nation, we are fragile in the transitions. As long as I’m up here, what stupid thing can I do?

Actually, for me, at least, I think it comes from trying to follow Jesus. Have you ever noticed that it was in the transitions that the disciples did stupid stuff? They would be doing fine, taking the roof off somebody’s house so they could lower a sick person down to Jesus to heal them, but when they got out on the road, that’s when the stupidity came out. “Hey, Jesus, can I get a special place in your Kingdom, even though I’m no more deserving than anybody else?” Then, of course, “You don’t deserve a special place; you’re stupid.” “No, you are!” That’s the surest way not to get what you want.

Well, I guess the point is: Be careful in the transitions. What I do in the transitions, when that stupidity urge comes, I think about going out to the road beside our house, where Jesus is passing by, and I get in behind. The way is straight and narrow, so there are no transitions.

John Robert McFarland

1] Blame this on old friend, Jim Bortell.

ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT…ALMOST? [Sun, 11-3-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of an Old Man—ADVISOR TO THE PRESIDENT…ALMOST? [Sun, 11-3-24]

 

I had totally forgotten about the time I decided to become an advisor to Bobby Kennedy in his run for the presidency in 1968, until the strange life of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. has appeared to remind me of a memory placed long ago in the back of my non-worm-eaten brain—the time I decided to be the Protestant/youth advisor to the middle-aged Catholic running for president, Robert F. Kennedy, Sr.

I never intended to be part of the Civil Rights movement, or any other movement. I just wanted to get an education and a pretty wife and have people think I was a good preacher. And be a decent Christian.

The movements of history, though, like time and tide, “wait for no man.” When you are confronted with a moral issue, you have to take a stance. I became a part of the Civil Rights movement just one decision at a time, trying to be a decent Christian, trying to do the right thing at that particular moment. 

The same thing happened with my opposition to the Viet Nam war. I was a campus minister in the days of Viet Nam. My kids were going off to war. I first supported the war, and then learned that our own government was lying to us, that the war was unwinnable, that we were sending young men off to die because, as both Johnson and Nixon said, “I don’t intend to be the first president to lose a war.” It was madness.

There were challengers, though, who said we could do better. When presidential aspirant Eugene McCarthy was asked if he could end the war if he were president, he replied, “Anyone who is president can end the war.” I liked “Clean Gene,” but I thought Bobby Kennedy had a better chance of winning the presidency, and thus of ending the war. I decided to back him.

Not just back him. Work for him. Not just as a volunteer. On his staff.

I thought he needed someone on staff who could advise the Boston Catholic how to deal with Midwest Protestants. Moreover, he needed someone who knew how to communicate with young people. Who better than a Methodist campus minister?

I was afraid to tell anyone. I knew they would ridicule me for thinking I could get onto RFK’s staff, even make contact with him. But I was determined. We needed to end that war. Bobby could do it. I could help him.

So I laid out my plan. I made lists. I collected resources. I put them in folders. I looked over his current staff. I started writing my pitch, why he needed me. I had no idea how to make the necessarily deep connection, but I was sure I could figure it out. I was committed. We had to end that war! Now, how would I explain this to my wife?

Then…RFK was assassinated. It made no difference to me personally. My life would go on as it had been. But…what about Bob? His family? The nation? All those boys—American and Vietnamese--yet to die in the tunnels and ride paddies?

I still have all those ideas I was going to use to help RFK. It’s a different kind of war now, but the nation is just as divided as it was then. I wonder if my ideas could be adjusted to work for a Baptist instead of a Catholic? I wonder how I’m going to explain this to my wife

John Robert McFarland

 

STUPID VOTING [F, 11-1-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Sort Of Relevant Musings of An Old Man—STUPID VOTING [F, 11-1-24]

 

When I learned that the Potter & Brumfield electric relays factory in the county seat was hiring, I went immediately. I really needed a job. There were only two requirements: you had to be 18, and you had to pass the entrance exam.

I had not graduated high school, but they didn’t care about that; I was 18. And I aced the exam. I was hired on the spot.

The quality engineer who gave the exams was impressed by my score. That pleased me, but surprised me, because the exam seemed quite easy. No dates to remember, no equations to prove, no predicate nominatives to place or match case.

Mr. Pohl explained that the exam wasn’t about such things. “We are trying to see if you can think,” he said. “More than half of those who take the exam fail it. They can’t think.”

In civics class, our teachers extolled the high voter turnout we had in our county. But as I heard Mr. Pohl, I realized that more than half of those voters couldn’t think well enough to do a job on a factory line. But there is no test for voting. Those folks have been voting for 70 years. Those still alive will vote again in November. All without being able to think.

My friend and former pastor, Paul Mallory, used to remind me that half of all voters are below average. They are highly motivated to vote, because they want to show the above-average people that their below-average stupidity is just as good as above-average intelligence.

There was a TV commercial a few years ago featuring the founding fathers working on the Constitution, replete with powdered wigs and knee stockings. I can’t remember what product they were touting, but I do remember that as Jefferson argued for the right of all citizens to vote, one of the others incredulously said, “You mean even the stupid ones?”

Well, yes. But if you are not stupid, be sure to vote, for the founding fathers had you in mind…way back then.

John Robert McFarland

THE NECESSITY OF A DOCTORAL DEGREE [W, 10-30-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—THE NECESSITY OF A DOCTORAL DEGREE [W, 10-30-24]

 

I am showing appreciation to pastors at the close of Pastor Appreciation Month [Can you believe October is almost gone already?] by bestowing a doctoral degree on anyone who has a three-year seminary [school of theology] degree. I am doing this by the authority invested in me by Common Sense.

Ministers are the only professionals who do not receive a doctorate upon completion of three years of specialized graduate work. Scholars get Doctor of Philosophy degrees. Physicians get Doctor of Medicine degrees. Dentists get Doctor of Dental Surgery degrees. Veterinarians receive Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degrees. Lawyers get Doctor of Jurisprudence degrees. Physical therapists get DPT degrees.

Ministers just get Master of Divinity degrees. [1] Anybody else gets a master’s degree for one year of work. If you want a DMin, Doctor of Ministry, you have to do a fourth year.

In my day, we didn’t even get Master’s degrees. I have a BD, Bachelor of Divinity. Four years at university and three years in seminary and two bachelor degrees. Later, when someone pointed out the disparity with other professions, my seminary said that for $20 they would send me a post-it note for my diploma that said they meant for it to be a Master’s. I didn’t have $20, because the job they prepared me for didn’t pay minimum wage, so I still have only two bachelor’s degrees. [Well, also a doctorate from a Godless state university that I did another three years for.]

And they are, of course, right. Preachers should not have doctoral degrees. Seven years of education to be a preacher? Seven days is probably six days too much.

All that education is not necessary for church leadership. Anybody can get up out of the pew and lead a worship service or a funeral. [2] Or ordain, or serve communion, or baptize—according to the denomination. Education for ministry is unnecessary. Superfluous. Maybe even counter-productive.

You really don’t want anybody getting up from the pew and giving you a colonoscopy, or drilling on your teeth, or arguing your case. The people who do that stuff need all that advanced education. But anybody can say, “Let’s all pray together: Our Father…”

So, for Pastor Appreciation Month, if you have a three-year seminary degree, so that you can be called “Doctor” like everybody else, here is your DSK—Doctor of Superfluous Knowledge.

John Robert McFarland

1] A Doctor of Divinity is someone who heals white fudge.

2] You need a chair and a whip for a wedding, but those don’t come with a seminary degree, anyway,

 

 

 

 

 

THOSE WHO TAKE US IN, AND TAKE US THERE [Sun, 10-27-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of an Old Man—THOSE WHO TAKE US IN, AND TAKE US THERE [Sun, 10-27-24]

 

Most of us who are part of a church get there because someone took us when we were young. But that doesn’t mean it was someone in our family.

Kamala Harris’ father is ethnically Afro-Jamaican. Her mother is Tamil Indian. That makes the first US female vice-president both Afro-American and Asian-American. So, naturally, she is not only Christian, but Black Baptist.

Well, not exactly “naturally.” She is married to a Jew. Her mother took her to a Hindu temple. But when she and her sister were little, a neighbor took them to a neighborhood Black Baptist church. She says that the 23^rd Avenue Church of God in Oakland was where she learned that love is a verb. Religiously, she-self identifies as a Black Baptist. Her home church now is 3^rd Baptist in San Francisco.

Oh, what those helpful neighbors do!

 

The late Nic Christoff was one of my doctoral studies classmates. He was a Missouri Synod Lutheran pastor. In case you don’t know, the Missouri Synod is German in provenance and extremely conservative. They don’t even associate with other Lutherans, yet alone the likes of Methodists or Black Baptists.

But Nic had olive skin, and big brown eyes, and jet-black hair. A very handsome man, in a gentle way. We said, “How did you get into the Missouri Synod?”

“My parents immigrated from Greece. Like all Greek immigrants, they started a restaurant. My mother died when I was little. My father had to spend all his time running the restaurant. The family next door basically raised me. They were German Lutherans. They took me to church. Missouri Synod Lutheranism is the only faith I know.”

Accidental churchmanship doesn’t always come from neighbors, though. Sometimes it’s desperation.

Anne Lamott got into a black Presbyterian church because she heard singing one “Sunday morning, coming down.” At first, she couldn’t go in. She was strung-out. She sat outside the door and listened to the singing, and to the woman who was preaching. She eventually got up the courage to go inside. It was a very small congregation. They all stared at her. Then they took her in.

 

Lamott was a relatively successful novelist. She had been a state champion tennis player when she was young. But her life had spiraled into drugs and all that goes with that. Now she is a major voice for practical Christian faith. An accidental Christian.

She says that the three essential prayers are: Help, Thanks, and Wow!

All those apply to the folks who take us to church, and to those who take us in when we’re not even sure where we are.

John Robert McFarland

SNOW ON THE MOUNTAIN [F, 10-25-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of an Old Man--SNOW ON THE MOUNTAIN [F, 10-25-24]

 

Granddaughter Brigid called. She does that while she walks. We’re always glad when she has to go to the post office.

She is a Renaissance woman. Among other things, she is semiologist, a specialist in Irish independence propaganda films, an executive for a national academic consortium, a gourmet cook, a quilter, a game player, a friend who is in lots of weddings, and a camper.

She wanted to go camping last weekend, but didn’t have enough time, so just went up Table Mountain [1], since she had never climbed it. She got tired and it got late, so she decided to cut the climb short. Later, she was disgusted when she learned that she had quit when she was only 500 feet from the summit. It was around a curve; she hadn’t been able to see how close she was to the top.

I said I was sorry that I am not still preaching.

She said, “Yes, it does appear to be a life lesson. [She sees right through me. She knew I wanted to use her story as a sermon illustration.] “But it was beginning to snow, and if I had waited, I’d have to go down the mountain in the snow. I got home okay, so maybe the life lesson is to quit when there is snow on the mountain.”

Well, fiddle; there goes a good sermon. Or maybe I have two, now!

Either way, it got me to thinking about staying in the moment, which is the life lesson we hear about all the time anymore. You gotta stay in the moment!

Well, yes. That’s good advice. When coaching the Chicago Bulls, Phil Jackson said, “Trust the moment.” I like that. Trust the moment, because it has everything you need.

Gunther Bornkamm said that was what Jesus did. The folks of his day were either fixated on the past—the glories of King David, etc—or anticipating the future—the Messiah will restore the Kingdom of Israel. Nobody got to live in the present. Except Jesus. He lived in the moment. [Which is why it is strange that his followers got fixated on a future so far away that it’s after death.]

I’m inclined to spend a lot of time regretting the past—Why did I tell that police officer the one about the cop who went into the bar with Thomas Aquinas?—or awfulizing about the future—I wonder how many years you can get for a bad joke? I need to spend more time in the present moment.

But some people stay in the moment so completely that it’s a toxic moment. Their moment is informed neither by the past nor the present. They don’t learn any life lessons from the past, and they don’t consider the results or the consequences of what they do in the moment. We see that often these days as people choose how they will vote for president—no lessons from past performance and no awareness of what their choice will mean in the future.

So, what is it? How do we live successfully in the moment, but not have it become useless because the moment has no life lesson from the past nor any awareness of the future? I think Phil Jackson had the right idea, but he left out a word: Trust God in the moment.

God will tell you when to leave the mountain.

John Robert McFarland

1] The one near Seattle.

SAYING WORDS IN PUBLIC {W, 10-23-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of an Old Man—SAYING WORDS IN PUBLIC {W, 10-23-24]

 

When I was a young man, there was a well-known public speaker by the name of John McFarland. I recall that maybe he was a college president, too, but he was known primarily for being a public speaker, what today we call a motivational speaker. I never heard him. I didn’t want to. I knew there was more than one of us John McFarlands. After all, my own father was one. But the public speaker guy was so well known. People would often mention him to me. It felt to me like he was stealing my identity.

Maybe it was because of him that I once aspired to be a public speaker myself. Perhaps it was just because all preachers assume that since they are public speakers already, albeit a rather specific slice of the public, that they can switch the pulpit for a lectern and have the fame and fortune that accompanies secular public speakers. Well, being a public speaker wasn’t actually an ambition for me. It was more like an assumption—I could outdo that other John McFarland and win back my name.

So when Jack Newsome was on the program committee of his service club [Lions? Kiwanis?] and asked me to speak at a noon meeting, I gladly accepted, both because it was Jack asking, and I was glad to do a friend a favor, but also because I was finally going to be a public speaker.

Oh, I’d done “public” speaking before, mostly when I was in campus ministry, but they were less formal occasions--chatting with students in dorm lounges, talking to a town council meeting abut liquor laws, welcoming a group of foreign students, etc. Or occasions that were just other forms of preaching, like at community race relations events.

Jack and I were in our early forties. So were most of the members of his service club, all of us in some stage of midlife crisis. It was to this group of distracted men, as they ate plates of unhealthy food and wondered about what they had to do that afternoon, that I was called on to motivate with some secular gospel.

It was okay. I told funny stories. They laughed. I explained theories of humor, and why we laughed at jokes. They looked mildly interested. We ended by singing, not well, some patriotic songs. All in all, a totally… unnecessary time.

Oh, I know. Service clubs do actual service. That’s good. They also make it possible to identify potential drinking buddies. Not quite so good. Friendship? Good, but pretty shallow. Like church groups without much religion. 

Don’t misunderstand. They really do good work. One good work was Jack’s group convincing me that I didn’t want to be a public speaker. That was good. For me, and for the public.

My college roommate, Tom Cone, Indiana’s foremost criminal attorney, was a faithful friend to me all his life. He had trouble speaking after a stroke. When we had lunch together, he mostly listened while his wife, Sally, and Helen and I did the talking. Afterward, though, he tried hard to say something to me. He finally got out, “Do you still…say the words?”

Preachers and public speakers both say words. But Tom knew that I never could say only words. I had to say the words.

John Robert McFarland