WHAT WAS YOUR GRANDFATHER LIKE? [Sa, 5-2-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Personal Identity of An Elderly Grandson—WHAT WAS YOUR GRANDFATHER LIKE? [Sa, 5-2-26]

 

Michelle Obama said I was doing it wrong.

Starting in high school, I was pleased with, yes, even proud of, my ability to remember names. This hit its zenith in my campus ministry years.

College kids went to church in those days. Every September, I’d have a thousand new names to learn. I just happened into the plan I used to remember them. I asked their name, asked their major, and asked their home town. And at each answer, I pointed out something we had in common: “Oh, my grandmother’s name is Margaret, too… Jim Kiefer is a special ed major, too. You’d probably like to meet him…” [If the student were a guy, it would be “Ann Wierman is a special ed major…”] You’re from Illiopolis… so Gary Ford is your pastor?” By that time, I was associating their name not just with their face but a standard background important to understanding a student—a major and a hometown.

There is a difference, of course, between just trying to remember a person’s name and trying to get to know them, to know their story. Yes, their name is a short form of their story, and remembering it is a good place to start, but knowing a name and knowing a story are not the same thing.

Michelle Obama, in the film about the tour for her book, Becoming, talking to a group of students, said, “The way you get to know someone is not the surface things, like where they’re from. Ask what their grandfather was like…”

I’m inclined to say, “Well, I’d eventually get around to their grandfather, later, after I got through trying to remember 999 other students…” The truth, though, is that I don’t think I ever asked anyone what their grandfather was like.

If someone wanted to know me, grandmothers would be a better place to start, but asking about my grandfathers would be intriguing, in part because my mother’s father, Elmer Arthur Pond, was dead when I was born, killed in a coal mine cave-in a decade before. I wish I knew more about what he was like.

The strange thing is, he’s been a major part of my life, because I have spent so much time wondering about him, what he was like…and because of three things I do know…

First, my father said that Grandpa Pond was always interested in what other people thought. He would listen carefully as you talked.

Second, my mother was the outlier among his eight children, the “sensitive” one, the one who needed extra attention. He gave her the extra attention she needed.

Third, he was killed because he knew the mine was unsafe, but the owner insisted the miners go in anyway. Grandpa told the other miners to stand back, that he would go in first.

So, yes, you might learn about me by asking me about the grandfather I never knew, because I wanted to be like him.

John Robert McFarland

The photo is generic; not of my grandfather.

 

 

SECRETARIES [R, 4-30-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Personal Reminiscences of An Old Boss—SECRETARIES [R, 4-30-26]

 

Susan looked up as I came into the office. She was smiling, as much as she ever did. “Okay,” she said. “You can fire me now.”

“Good,” I said, “You’re fired.” She picked up her coat off the filing cabinet, where she had thrown it, haphazardly, the way she did everything, and walked out. I never saw her again.

I had tried to fire her about six weeks earlier. She was just atrociously poor as a secretary. I should never have hired her, but when the former secretary quit without notice, I needed someone in a hurry, and there were only two applicants. One was a fantastic young woman. She would have been a perfect church secretary. But she told me upfront that she could be in the job for only six months. She was getting married in six months and would be moving to the city of her husband’s new job.

So, I took Susan. I didn’t want to go through the hiring process again in six months. I mean, how bad could Susan be? Well, the worst! To make it worse than worst, she thought she was the best! She often told me, “I’m nineteen years old. I don’t need you telling me how to spell stuff.” It was true; “stuff” was the one word she could spell. Then she would misspell every other word.

Why did I put up with her? Well, I just wasn’t very good at dealing with “employees.” I didn’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. And I didn’t want people to be mad at me. It was just easier to work around the mistakes of a secretary or the negligence of a janitor…

…until the congregation begins to complain that the board minutes are incomprehensible again, or that there is no toilet paper in the women’s rest room.

Everybody who ever came to the office complained about Susan. That’s why I tried to fire her the first time. Bit she said, “No, that’s not convenient for me right now. I’ll let you know when it’s okay to fire me.”

Now, any other boss, any other minister, even, would not have put up with that. But I figured it was easier to go along.

I’ve had 14 different secretaries over the years. Most were adequately competent. Two were atrociously bad. Five were great. To my credit, the five great ones were all my hires. I’m not sure, though, that Anne and Jeanne and Mary and Rose and Frances, all together, can compensate for hiring Susan.

And even one of those good ones was on the job because I was a namby-pamby boss.

After the Susan fiasco, I thought I would go back to my Hoopeston, IL plan. There, I hired two women to share one job. Rose took mornings and Frances took afternoons. Each did whatever came up. They filled in for each other. They barely knew each other when I hired them, but they became best friends with each other, and with Helen and our daughters, too.

So I decided I would do the morning-afternoon split when I started the post-Susan hiring process. If one of them turned out to be a Susan, at least I would have a Rose or Frances the rest of the day.

There were quite a few applicants this time. Jeanne was inexperienced but was clearly a quick learner, and she had the right personality for a church office. I told her that she could have either morning or afternoon. “That won’t work for me,” she said. “I need to work fulltime. I’ll just take both morning and afternoon.”

Having learned nothing from the Susan fiasco, I shrugged my shoulders and said, “Okay.”

After me, Jeanne stayed on the job through six more preachers. They all thanked me for hiring her. “It’s one of my better skills,” I said.

If you need to hire a secretary, I’m available as a consultant.

John Robert McFarland

I meant to post this column on April 22, National Secretary Day, but now it’s called National Professional Administrators’ Day, so I missed it. I apologize to all the Professional Administrators, except Susan.

 

 

 

THE PROXY IN THE STORY [T, 4-28-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Theology of An Old Reader—THE PROXY IN THE STORY [T, 4-28-26]

 

In every story, there is a character who is the proxy for the reader. The reader may not know it. Even the author may not know who it is. It may not be some character with whom the reader identifies. Indeed, the reader may not even like that character. But the proxy character brings the reader into the story and walks through it with them, often more in spirit than in action.

Jesus is the proxy for the reader in the story God is writing.

We don’t see the author of a story. That worthy individual is hidden behind words and pages. Indeed, it’s usually a shock when we see the author’s photo in the back flyleaf of the book. He doesn’t look like the author of The Dainty Diaries. She doesn’t look like someone who would write The Corn Flakes Killer. [Cereal killer; get it?]

[Note to author: it’s not funny if you have to explain it.]

But you can get some hints about who the author is, and how she thinks. Maybe even where he lives, or where she shops, or what flowers he likes. That’s true of God, too. We get hints about who God is and what God wants by paying attention to how God writes the universal story.

[Reminds me of the kid who was coloring in Sunday School. “What are you doing, Billy?” the teacher asked. “Making a picture of God,” he said. “But no one knows what God looks like,” she protested. “They will now,” he said.]

We understand the story best, though--not only understand it but get into it ourselves--through the proxy character. In the Gospel story, that is Jesus. He is the go-between, between the author and the reader.

Our omnivorous reader friend, Dow Cooksey, used to say, when he gave up on a book half-way through, “There just wasn’t any character in the story that I could care about.”

The good thing about Jesus is that he is easy to care about. Even if you are a Muslim, you respect Jesus as an important prophet. Even if you are an atheist, you respect Jesus as a teacher of ethics. Even if you are a drunk, you respect Jesus for turning water into wine.

That’s why Jesus is the Christ.

Christ is not Jesus’ surname. It’s a job title. It means he’s the proxy in the Story. Not just the Christian story. Not just the Bible story. God’s story.

I heard of an African who read the New Testament for the first time. When asked what she thought, she said, “That man, Jesus? He is good medicine.”

John Robert McFarland

“The limits of my language are the limits of my mind. All I know is what I have words for.” Ludwig Wittgenstein. [Wittgenstein is one of my favorite philosophers because he helped me get an A in a graduate statistics course. I knew nothing of the math of stats, but I gave an incomprehensible oral report on Wittgenstein, so the prof and other students assumed I was smart.]

 

THE WORLD’S GREATEST COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP [Su, 4-26-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Reminiscences of An Old College Student—THE WORLD’S GREATEST COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP [Su, 4-26-26]

 

Yesterday was the 75^th running of The Little 500 bicycle race at Indiana University. It is called The World’s Greatest College Weekend. It mimics the Indianapolis 500 auto race, which takes place just 50 miles up the road. Even if you live outside of Indiana, you’ve probably seen or heard about The Little 500, through Steve Tesich’s film, Breaking Away, which delightfully tells the story of the unlikely Cutters, a team of mis-fit local kids, winning the whole thing.

I heard the film actress, Tan Kheng Hua, known for her role in Crazy Rich Asians, tell of how she came to study at IU. She said, “I was a Chinese girl in Singapore who spoke no English. I wasn’t interested in going to college or going to America. The only place I wanted to go was the mall. But at the cinema at the mall, I saw a film called Breaking Away, and I wanted to go swim in a quarry with Dennis Quaid...”

That’s how far The Little 500 is known, because of that film.

 

The IU Student Foundation started the race as a way of making money for scholarships for poor kids who had to work their way through college. I can’t remember exactly how they did the metrics, but the student who had the combination of the best grades and the most hours worked got the first scholarship each year, and also got their photo in the publicity for subsequent races. 70 years ago, I was that student.

We got even more publicity than usual that year, because of the runner-up. At the awards ceremony, we sat in order of achievement. I was in the first chair, so the runner-up was seated beside me. We had a good time getting acquainted, and the press thought it was hilarious, and took lots of photos of us, for the winner was a preacher, and the runner-up was a bar tender. We both worked a lot of hours to cancel out the other’s work. Or so the idea went.

That would hardly cause a ripple these days. Folks would say, “What’s strange about that?” After all, the preacher at our church does a weekly study session called “Pub Theology” that, yes, meets at a pub, where the preacher drinks what the bar tender serves, while they talk about how to be followers of Christ. [Lest there be a misunderstanding, not our current preacher.]

But 70 years ago, if you were talking preachers and bartenders, “…never the twain shall meet.”

I never saw my runner-up friend again, since he didn’t go to my church, and I didn’t go to his bar, but I hope he got as much out of that scholarship as I did.

John Robert McFarland

 

WHEN LIFE BEGINS [F, 4-24-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Observations of a Not Dead Husband—WHEN LIFE BEGINS [F, 4-24-26]

 

Helen and I were chatting with Barbara after church. Well, it was mostly Helen and Barbara chatting, with me standing there.

“Life doesn’t really begin until your husband dies,” Barbara said.

Then she remembered that a husband was standing right there. She was slightly flustered, but not really embarrassed. After all, she was telling the truth.

Barbara was born at the end of the 19^th century. She spent most of her life assisting her husband’s life. That’s what women did then. [That’s what a lot of them do now.]

As Helen has famously said, “Most men enter assisted living the day they get married.”

When Barbara’s husband died, she got a chance to live her own life. Barbara wasn’t glad her husband’s life was over. She was glad hers had started.

I saw a sign recently [online] that said, “The beginning is near.” It’s a neat reversal of the sign that usually shows up in comic strips, with some robed and sandaled guru-type proclaiming, “The end is near.”

The end-is-near signs are telling us: you’d better prepare for the end of life. The beginning-is-near sign says that we need to prepare for life to get started.

Reminds me of the story of the young man who returned from military service and was inquiring about folks in his old neighborhood… “Is Old Man Brown alive yet?” “No, not yet.”

I’m not going to say, “You’d better enjoy today because you don’t know what tomorrow will bring.” We already know that. But whatever tomorrow brings, it won’t be just a loss, just an ending. It will also be a beginning.

It might not be the beginning we want, but it will be the one we have.

Mourn the losses. They are real. They deserve grief. But live the new life, too. The beginning is near…

John Robert McFarland

REBRANDING [W, 4-22-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of A Street Corner Philosopher—REBRANDING [W, 4-22-26]

 

We get a good bit of identity from our group loyalties. Reds or Cubs? Coke or Pepsi? Hoosiers or Boilermakers? Bud or Busch? Ford or Chevy? John Deere or International Harvester? You can’t get by generically, saying that you like baseball, or cola, or beer, or cars… You’ve got to choose a brand.

Yes, even tractors. One of my preacher friends tells of going to a county fair where the chair of his church trustees was in charge of the tractor pull. He was a loyal John Deere man, but the guy who was driving the John Deere that day wasn’t as good as the International Harvester driver, so John Deere lost. The church trustee disgustedly said, “Get that piece of green excrement out of here!” [Not the exact words.] My friend said it was the only time he ever heard the usually kind and gentle man use a bad word. His identity was threatened, because his brand lost.

The 20^th century was a time of brand loyalty. Business folks realized they could sell more stuff if they could get people to choose a brand and stick with it. That’s what advertising is all about, and 20^th century advertisers—newspaper, radio, TV, billboards—were masters at it.

Brand loyalty is profit for the business but also peace of mind for the consumer. If Hellmann’s mayonnaise has done your sandwich right, you don’t have to hesitate at the grocery store, wondering if you should consider Miracle Whip. Or, if your Mother always insisted on Hellmann’s, you might use Miracle Whip for other reasons. [I’m not saying how I know this.]

Twentieth century churches were also very much into brand loyalty. You knew what you were getting with the brand…Catholic, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist, Pentecostal, Presbyterian, Unitarian…

Theology was fading in importance. No one much cared anymore whether they were Arminian or Calvinist or Trinitarian, but the denominational brand was still important for identity, especially if you belonged to an ethnic congregation. Catholics all heard the mass in Latin, but Italian parishes and German parishes were a long way from being the same brand.

Interestingly, the main denominational brand loyalty these days is non-denominational.

I was recently talking to a group of young people. They go to different churches, all with names containing words like Cornerstone and Harvest and Start. Those congregations have no connection with one another, but all of those young people said, proudly, “We go to churches that are non-denominational” as though non-denominational is a denomination. It’s a new brand. And they’re loyal to it.

Branding now is much more local. Non-denominational churches are preferred by many because the name brand of the denomination is no longer meaningful. In fact, to call yourself Methodist or Presbyterian is to identify yourself as “out of it.”

Brand loyalty is still important, but current branding is different. The brands are different and the type of loyalty is different. Churches need to understand that and deal with it

The congregation I belong to is spending a lot of money to “rebrand,” which means creating a web site that will “compel them to come in.” [Luke 14:23] Frankly, I think it’s irrelevant. Yes, you should have a good website, one that communicates clearly, but that goes only so far.

What I do think can go far these days is using social media, like Facebook and Instagram and Tic Toc, to spread the Word and make your brand appealing. Today’s highways and byways are on Facebook and Instagram.

I think I’ll just rebrand myself: I’m NDC—Non-Denominational Curmudgeon. We’re actually a pretty good-sized bunch.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

 

 

IS THE POPE CATHOLIC? [M, 4-20-26

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Mutterings of An Old Man—IS THE POPE CATHOLIC? [M, 4-20-26]

 

It’s an old joke, to identify a “duh” moment: “Is the pope Catholic?” Well, maybe not.

Not long ago, when Helen and I were still able to attend church in person, we unknowingly went to a church the morning they had a traveling Gospel singer. He wasn’t bad, and it was a pretty good service, but as he was introducing his music, he talked about different ways of understanding the Gospel. He used a political analogy. As he pointed, he said, “It’s like if this side of the sanctuary is for Democrats and this other side for Republicans.”

A middle-aged woman a couple of rows ahead of us immediately got up and literally moved to the other side. She muttered, rather loudly, “I just can’t stand the thought of being on that side.”

It was only an example, about something else. The Gospel music was going to sound the same on either side of the sanctuary. But the political identity was so important to her emotionally that she had to get up and move to her side.

Many people in the last few days have said, “Trump has finally gone too far. He’s taken on the Pope. Catholics won’t stand for that.”

Those people don’t understand the current world. Yes, American Catholics respect and honor the Pope. After all, he’s an American, too. but Leo is only the religion pope. Donald Trump is their real pope, the pope who matters. Leo may be American and Catholic, but to American Catholics, Trump is the real Pope.

The word pope is derived from the Greek pappas, meaning father. It started as a designation for any priest, then became a word to describe bishops, and finally only the Bishop of Rome, The Father. Literally, standing in, on earth, for God, the Father, infallible, as God is infallible.

Donald Trump is the Big Daddy for America.

There have been several articles recently about how young men are becoming more religious, meaning attending church more often, which is the most obvious way to measure religiousness. This is especially true of the Roman Catholic church. Young men are attracted to the Catholic Church, we’re told.

I’m not totally convinced. Usually, a “trend” among young people is when the child of a prominent TV personality begins to do something. They assume if their kid is doing it, it must be the current thing.

Even with that caveat, though, I assume that there is some truth to it, and I’m not surprised.

Young men in America are taught that everything is a competition. “Winning isn’t the most important thing; it’s the only thing.” As the coach of my own revered IU football team, Curt Cignetti, says, “You can’t just beat your opponent. You have to break your opponent. Break his will. Make him know he has no chance of winning.”

Young men want to be on the winning side, and right now, the American pope, not the Roman pope, is the winner, the one who is intent not on just beating his opposition but breaking it.

Everything in America is identified by which side you’re on politically. And you’re not allowed to be in the middle. There are now only two people in the US who identify as independent, and since one lives in New Hampshire and the other one in Iowa, those are the bell weather states for seeing how any election will go. 

I think I’ll go listen to some Gospel music. It really does sound the same, regardless of which side you’re on. “Precious Lord, take my hand…”

John Robert McFarland