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 not, “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.

 

A PRIVILEGED LIFE [R, 1-15-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Personal Reminiscences of an Old God Botherer in Winter—A PRIVILEGED LIFE [R, 1-15-26]

 

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: Now this column is only the personal reminiscences of the author. If you get anything worthwhile, it is either by accident, or because you have a special ability to discern wheat in chaff.

As I enter this year, I think how richly I am blessed. I got to live in the last 63 years of the 20^th century, and, so far, the first 25 of the 21^st century—the best time to be alive, ever…

…at least, for a tall, straight, intelligent, English-speaking, decent-looking white man, with a deep voice and good genes.

For a man like that, the America of the modern era has been a land of hope, of promise, of the dream.

For colored folks, or gay or female folks, or people with learning disabilities, or brain or body problems…not so much so.

Is it wrong for me to give thanks for my privileged life, to count my blessings? Are we not supposed to enjoy all the good life brings to us? After all, I did not choose the givens of my life—race and gender and intelligence and such—anymore than anyone else did.

In a Call the Midwife episode, Nonnatus House nurse, Jenny Lee, is upset when a baby is taken away from a sixteen-year-old, exploited, “feeble minded” girl, and given to adoptive parents. Jenny protests to the priest who runs the adoption agency. He explains to her that the girl has no prospects, no family, no one to support her, no job, no education, no place to live, a low level of intelligence even to care for herself, no way to care for her baby. Furthermore, even though she does not want to give up the baby, she is underage. She has no rights in 1950s London.

Jenny has herself lived a privileged and sheltered life before coming to Poplar, London’s poverty-stricken east end. She says to the priest, “You must think me extremely naive.”

He says, “I think you fortunate. There is no need to apologize for that.”

Okay. I’ve lived a privileged life. I won’t apologize for it.

The problem with inherited privilege is when we who are privileged think that such advantage makes us better than others, rather than just different. Jesus constantly excoriated the rich and privileged not because they had more, but because they considered it as a birthright rather than a gift, because they thought it made them more a child of God than any of their brothers and sisters.

A privileged life takes you in one of two ways. Either you think that you are privileged because you deserve it, and that others do not deserve privilege…or you realize that privilege is just a fortunate accident.

If you know privilege is just an accident of birth—race, gender, intelligence, culture, etc—then you can give thanks and use your privilege in service to all.

I have lived a privileged life, and I’m thankful for it.

John Robert McFarland

“My experience has taught me that the future does end up better, even if it seems a bit delayed.” Lauren Jackson, the host of “Believing,” writing in “The NY Times.”

 

 

PERFECTION [T, 1-13-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Musings of An Old Man in the Winter of His Years—PERFECTION [T, 1-13-26]

 

STANDARD DISCLAIMER: This column is no longer “reflections on faith and life.” It’s reasonable that you might get something worthwhile for your own life from such “reflections.” That is no longer a reasonable assumption. Now this column is only the personal reminiscences of the author. If you get anything worthwhile, it is either by accident, or because you have a special ability to discern wheat in chaff.

 

 From my first memory on, all I really wanted was to be a good person. In my time and place, that translated into wanting to be a good Christian, which mostly meant to be a good follower of Jesus.

I didn’t feel much need for Christ.

I understood that Jesus and Christ were one and the same, that he/they were the disclosure of God. But I felt entirely comfortable with going directly to God. No need for an intercessor, even Christ.

I didn’t always know what God wanted of me, though, but I could look at Jesus and say, “Oh, that’s the God way. That’s the way to be the good person I want to be.”

Basically that meant always being respectful—of God and God’s world, especially other people, but all of God’s creation, including myself. You never intended to be mean or inflict pain. You were always kind.

Except when you weren’t. Then you asked for forgiveness and tried to do better.

John Wesley’s theory of “Christian perfection,” perfection in love, found a ready adherent in me. If you were always a good person, you’d be perfect.

Actually, I wanted to be more than perfect in love. I wanted to be perfect in everything. Still do. Perfection in everything has not worked out very well, though.

And certainly perfection “only” in love is a lot easier in belief than in practice. I often wanted to practice unkindness. I wanted to lash out in anger. Oh, I never wanted to hit or shoot or lynch anyone, but I wanted to be unkind with words. I wanted to say nasty things to people I thought deserved it. Often I did, but not where anyone but me could hear those words.

So, yes, I guess I was a hypocrite. But a fairly harmless one.

And, I didn’t “think more highly of myself than I ought to think.” I didn’t lie about who I was. I always admitted that I was a flawed and imperfect Christian, a rather poor follower and emulator of Jesus.

I saw Jesus as the embodiment, the incarnation, of God, even though I did not know those words early on, so I knew that to be friendly with God, I needed to follow the examples of Jesus.

I didn’t want to get in good with God to avoid hell or go to heaven. That was the standard reason when I was growing up. No, I just couldn’t figure any reason to be alive in this world without God. God was the alpha and the omega. Again, not words or concepts I knew early, but I knew that God was the only way to meaning, to a meaningful life.

For a long time I was able to confuse being a good person with being a good parson. I was pretty good at being a preacher, so thought that meant I was being pretty good at being a Christian. Old age, when I can no longer be a preacher at all, good or otherwise, has revealed a rather fatal flaw in that idea. You can be great at preaching about the light and still live in darkness.

I still want to be a good person. Now, though, I have to try walking the straight and narrow with no robe or stole or sermon notes.

Sixty-two years ago, I answered “Yes,” to the traditional Wesleyan ordination question, “Do you expect to be made perfect in love in this life?” It was an honest answer, but I really need to get busy.

John Robert McFarland

So far, I have been perfect in 2026. I haven't written 2025 even once!

 

THE REASON FOR PULPIT ROBES [Sun, 1-11-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—THE REASON FOR PULPIT ROBES [Sun, 1-11-26]

 

It’s Sunday, and I’m not wearing either of my pulpit robes. Not the black one with the doctoral stripes. Not the white one, either. So, why do I still have them?

Recently I gave my clergy cap to a colleague, Pastor Teresa. It’s a black baseball cap with a white clerical collar tab just above the brim. Now everyone in the softball game at the church picnic will know who the preacher is. I enjoyed that cap but got to wear it only a few times, because I got it just as I retired. I’m glad Teresa has it. She’ll get a lot more good out of it than I ever could.

One of the problems of old people is that nobody wants our stuff. And there aren’t many people we can force it onto, especially if it’s niche stuff. You can require your children to take a few things, because they are family heirlooms. These days, though, adult children don’t want good china and silverware. They eat from take-out boxes. Not even The Salvation Army wants your classy stuff.

But what can you do with your pulpit robes if your kids aren’t clergy and the up-and-coming younger preachers are five-foot women instead of six-foot men? Giving away the black robe is even trickier, because it has doctoral stripes. Yes, a non-doctored clergy person could remove the stripes, but there would be blacker doctoral-stripe chevrons left on the sleeves.

When I started seminary, I was appointed to a church that was used to seeing its pastor on Sunday morning in a pulpit robe, but I didn’t have one.

I had been preaching in little churches for three years. People wore “good clothes” to church in those days in little churches—dresses and hats for women, suits and white shirts and ties for men. Yes, it was okay if a woman wore a “house” dress, or a man came in overalls, but those were rare. I had only one suit, that I had worn every Sunday for a long time, but that was okay; that was all I needed to look good enough for a little country church. But Cedar Lake expected a robe.

We could not afford to buy one, of course, so Helen made one. Plain black. Nothing fancy. I wore it for fifteen years, until I got that doctoral robe. Then Helen began to use my old robe for the preachers at the mock weddings in her high school “adult living” classes. One of their assignments was to plan a wedding so that they would learn how expensive those things can be.

That was the robe I was wearing when high-school friend Phyllis Graham grabbed my robe lapels after worship one morning, when I was a new campus minister and she was a new math professor, and said, “You don’t know it yet, but when you’re in that pulpit, you’re something special. People will believe what you say just because of the way you say it. So you make damn sure that what you say is true.”

I’ve always felt that those robes were reminders to me. When I was wearing one, I had to make damn sure that what I was saying was true. Nobody wants my robes. There are not many folks these days who want that reminder.

John Robert McFarland