SHRINKS & STORIES [F, 2-6-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Psychology of An Old Man—SHRINKS & STORIES [F, 2-6-26]

 

My therapist, Sharon, told me she was exhausted by the end of each of our sessions. “I have to work harder with you than with all my other patients combined,” she said. I mistook that as a compliment.

Just as I had mistaken Helen’s statement for a compliment when she said, “You have often mystified me, sometimes worried me, and occasionally terrified me, but never bored me.” I didn’t realize that she was really saying, “I like boredom. Please don’t mystify, worry, and terrify me.”

Neither did I understand that Sharon was not complimenting me on my verbal nimbleness in avoiding how I felt about dying, by saying that I was better at hiding than all her other patients combined, but really saying, “WTH? How come I have to work so hard with you? Get with the program. You’re here to deal with stuff, not avoid it.”

Actually, she did say that. She wasn’t as polite as Helen. She got tired of being so tired with me, and so grabbed my feet and dragged them to the fire.

My first oncologist said I’d be dead in a year or two. At least, that’s what I heard. [1] Quite a few people, including the bishop, informed me that our insurance would pay for me to go to a shrink as part of the treatment for cancer. [2] There seemed to be a whole lot of people who wanted me to go to a shrink. They didn’t say it, but there was an implied “at last.”

The problem was that to get ready to die, I had to look at my life, and I didn’t want to do that. Plato said that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” But what did he know? Little Jack Horner did no self-examination. He sat in a corner all by himself, and he got a plum in his pie. Eating pie is a lot better than examining your life. Sharon didn’t understand that.

 

During the years that I was both surviving cancer and still pastoring a church, I became, by default, a shrink for children, not just children in our church, but in the whole town. I had no training as a child therapist, but people knew I liked kids, and my fee was zero. At one time I was seeing kids in every grade from third through tenth. Oh, and a preschooler when his grandfather was dying.

Pastors are supposed to be counselors of a sort--speaking personal words of encouragement and comfort--and we get enough education in what is called “pastoral care” to be truly dangerous. I wasn’t particularly dangerous, though, because I was so bad at it. If someone said, “My wife doesn’t understand me,” I was inclined to say things like, “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard. What’s to understand? Get over yourself. Stop examining your life and eat some pie.”

It was different with children. They didn’t say stupid things. They told stories to me--stories of monsters and magic plants, by little kids, stories of yearning and anxiety by bigger kids--and I told stories to them. Then we took the stories we had told each other and wrote new stories together.

My first oncologist was wrong about the “one to two years.” I’m now a 36 year cancer survivor. Plato is dead. So is my first oncologist. Sharon has retired, exhausted. And I’m eating pie and telling stories.

That’s what Sharon really did for me; she listened to my stories, and helped me write new ones. It’s only the untold story and the uneaten pie that aren’t worth living.

John Robert McFarland

1] You can read more about this in my NOW THAT I HAVE CANCER I AM WHOLE.

2] Technically I think “shrink” is reserved for psychiatrists, and Sharon was a psychologist. And I was just a story-teller.

 

 

 

 

SHORT LIFE—GOOD ATTITUDE [2-4-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Aging from an Aged Man—SHORT LIFE—GOOD ATTITUDE [2-4-26]

 

It’s well known now, at least among psychologists, that old people are not any wiser or smarter than younger people; we’re just aware that we have less time to live. When you know your days are limited, you make better choices about how to live them.

Psychological researchers like Laura Carstensen have done many studies that show this: your attitude toward life depends almost entirely on how long you think you’re going to live.

If you think you’re going to live for quite a while, you are interested in future achievement, expanding life, making new friends. If you think you will die in a relatively short time, regardless of how young or old you are, you are primarily interested in enjoying the present, drawing your circle close, with the family and friends you already have.

I did not know about Carstensen’s work when I got sick one night, and had surgery at midnight on my 53^rd birthday, and was told the next morning I would die. [That is not the exact time line, but that’s how it felt at the time, and still does.]

Within a matter of minutes, I stopped thinking about where the bishop might appoint me next, and if I could get a novel published, and where Helen and I might go on vacation. Instead I was thinking about whether I could afford to retire early so that I could spend all my time with my family and close friends, especially my grandchildren. Bigger churches? More book sales? Acclaim and applause? Not interested at all.

 

It’s not morbid to say that you’ll die soon, as I often do, not because I’m sick, but just because of the realities of age. As a society, we don’t deal well with that. We seem to think that if we don’t anticipate death, it won’t happen. Younger people, who are still in their futuring years, keep saying to me, “You’re much healthier than other people your age. Oh, you’re so healthy, you’ll live to be ninety!” Yeah, but what are you going to say when I’m 89? Yes, that’s today, so it’s okay to say, “Hey, you’d better start making good choices about how to spend the rest of your short life.”

John Robert McFarland

 

WEALTHY IN MY FRIENDS [M, 2-2-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—WEALTHY IN MY FRIENDS [M, 2-2-26]

 

When our granddaughter was about three, our daughter was driving her to nursery school one morning when she said, “Don’t worry, Mommy, if I don’t say goodbye when I get out of the car. I need to go see my friends.”

That’s the age when we begin to recognize the possibility of friends. If we’re fortunate, all the rest of our lives, we’ll have friends we are eager to see.

In my senior year in high school, for the motto under my photo in the yearbook, I chose: I am wealthy in my friends.

I did not have friends until I was ten years old, when we moved from the bustling inner city of Indianapolis to an isolated farm. That sounds backward, but having a lot of people around does not guarantee friendship.

In Indianapolis, there was a boy across the street. His mother thought it would be good if we played together. We were playmates, not friends.

There were kids in my class at school. We learned stuff together. We were classmates, not friends.

The only other boys in our neighborhood were older and constantly threatened to beat up on me, just because they enjoyed scaring people. We were redskins and palefaces, not friends.

My older sister cut through the alley to walk to school with girls her age. They certainly did not want me tagging along, so I walked to school by myself. I ate lunch at home because Mother had two little babies to contend with and needed me to do mid-day chores, like put more coal in the furnace.

For my first ten years, I just didn’t have a chance at friends.

When we moved to the country, however, I walked a long half-mile, on a muddy gravel road, to get on Jimmy Bigham’s school bus, which had been new about 40 years before. Surely there would be one or two boys my age… Yes, there were. Darrel and Donald Gene. Day by day on that bus, they became real friends. Later, Don moved onto that bus route. And other boys on the bus who were not friends, but they weren’t hostile, either, even when arguing the merits of the Reds vs the Cardinals.

When I got off the school bus that first day, I was met by Mr. Green, the grade school principal. He led me through the school building to Mrs. Mason’s fifth grade classroom. On the way, we ran into Jarvis, the quintessential jolly fat kid. He was also in Mrs. Mason’s class. “A new kid!” Jarvis acted like it was the best thing in the world. He led me into the classroom and introduced me all around, just like a celebrity.

 

At noon, I pulled a cold chicken leg and piece of bread from my paper sack and ate lunch in a room with all the other kids who brought their lunch. Talking was allowed but difficult. We sat at desks in parallel rows. But we could chat with whoever was across the aisle, tap the person in the row ahead to make an observation, twist around to the person behind to hear a joke. Friendship stuff.

Because we had to declare bankruptcy, and lost our house in Indianapolis, and had to move to the country, I had to ride the bus, and eat lunch at school. Suddenly, I had friends. It was the second-best thing that ever happened to me.

I feel a little bad about that, remembering how happy I was to have friends. My parents paid a high price for that move that brought me friends. My father had lost his sight in an industrial accident and thus lost his job. We had no money. A primitive farm with no indoor plumbing or central heating, and almost no electricity, that was the only place we could afford to live.

But at the same time that my family became poverty-stricken, I became rich, wealthy in my friends.

Friends save us from isolation. They help us learn who we are. They make us better than we are. They are little Christs to us. “No longer do I call you servants, but friends,” said Jesus. [John 15:15]

That’s a problem, though, in old age, isn’t it? Friends die. Darrel and Donald Gene and Don and Jarvis are all dead. So is a whole host of others.

Yes, friends die, but they don’t disappear. That school bus, that fifth grade class, they are still a part of me. I continue to be wealthy in my friends.

John Robert McFarland

Here is an actual pic of my grade school at Oakland City.

 

 

 

 

ORIGINAL BLAME [SAT, 1-31-26]

 

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—ORIGINAL BLAME [SAT, 1-31-26]

 

I noticed about 20 years ago that I got angry when I dropped something. Not because it broke, or hit my toe, or had to be mopped up--although all those were real once in a while--but because I had to bend over to pick it up, and it was beginning to get difficult to bend over.

Or was that the real reason? Maybe the aging that made bending over difficult was just the way my real reason was revealed: I was angry when I dropped something because I couldn’t blame someone else for it. It was clearly I who had made the drop.

Whenever I have made a mistake, my first impulse was to blame someone else for it. I think I learned that from my mother. One of her favorite phrases was, “Look what you made me do.”

 

Or, maybe it was just part of original blame.

I wasn’t the only one who dropped stuff. Sometimes other people dropped things in our house, Helen or the grandchildren. But if Helen did it and left it there, it was just because she had not noticed it, like something dropping out the back of the clothes basket as she took it from the dryer to the bedroom. The grandkids just didn’t notice things they dropped, or they were so intent on getting on with their activities they didn’t stop to pick up.

In those cases, I didn’t really blame Helen or the grands, but I was pleased that I did not have to blame myself. I really like to blame someone else. That inclination to blame others, I call original blame, as a part of original sin.

 

Actually, we blame, because we need blame. The great thing about blame is: it resolves the tension.

That’s why the substitutionary atonement of the death of Jesus [Jesus took the blame for us] has been such an enduring notion: stuff happens, folks get mad, somebody gets blamed, the tension is resolved.

It’s called justification. Auto mechanics used to talk about justifying an engine, when they got all the parts of the engine to work together correctly.

The original English translators of the Bible didn’t have a word for the concept of the death of Christ making things right with God, putting things into wholeness, so they translated the Greek as at-one-ment, which became atonement. [1]

Jesus, of course, is not blamed for our sin. He himself is sinless, according to the theology. But he takes the blame for our sin—our separation from God and others and nature and our own true selves—and takes the punishment, death, that is rightly ours.

 

There. All the tension about God and salvation and the whole holy schmear settled, because someone got blamed. And it wasn’t me!

John Robert McFarland

Yes, I know that grammatically that last sentence should be “And it wasn’t I” instead of “It wasn’t me,” but somebody else made I do it

1] There is a bit of controversy about that. Was it really Bible translators, or just regular English speakers in the early 1500s, who used the word atonement, which then was picked up by Bible translators?

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