FAKING IT {R, 2-26-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Confessions of An Old Faker—FAKING IT {R, 2-26-26]

 

Len’s son had been murdered. He blamed himself. Joel’s mother, Len’s ex-wife, had asked for an extra day on her weekend to have Joel. Len thought about all the weekends when Julie had custody, how she never granted him even an extra minute. He wanted to repay her in kind. But he knew that Joel loved his mother, so he agreed to the extra day. It was on that day Joel had been murdered. Ten years old.

“I should not have let her keep him that extra day,” Len said to me. “No, you should not have,” I replied. “Oh, thank you! Everyone else keeps saying it’s not my fault. But he’s not my son unless I own this.”

What I did, more by the grace of God than by having a plan, I faked it. I faked wisdom. I faked honesty. I faked competence.

That’s important, in a time of chaos or confusion, to have someone who can fake it. That gives everyone else time to catch up, and once we are all together, we can muddle forward, and that’s when a solution appears. If not a solution, an acceptance.

 

Rabbi Ed Friedman calls that “…being a non-anxious presemce.” If there is one person in the midst of the chaos, one person whose presence is non-anxious, that gives others an oasis in which they can calm down and gather their wits. [1]

When I did not know how to deal with a situation, I faked it. When Joel was murdered, I was distraught. Len was like a son to us. In some ways, Joel was our first grandchild. I was overwhelmed with sadness and grief. My presence was plenty anxious on the inside, but I knew that for Len and everyone else who loved Joel, I needed to be that non-anxious presence.

I blame my fakery on God. It was God who called me to be a preacher, and one of the main roles of a preacher is faking it.

Occasionally I would be silent. Silence is often mistaken for wisdom. Usually, though, if I were silent, it was because the moment was beyond all words. I was not silent because I thought it was best. I was silent because I had nothing to say. Most folks considered that wisdom.

Silence did not come naturally to me, though, even in moments of great stress, when it might have been best. In those situations when I was the parson, which means the “person,” I tried to live up to that expectation. But all I knew to say was the truth, as best I could find it. I faked wisdom.

Okay, I’m not playing quite fair with the word “fake.” I was never duplicitous. I did not lie. I did not tell falsehoods. I did not tell a dying person, “Oh, you’ll be okay.” I did not do the shallow “God is good all the time” routine.

I acted like I knew something when I did not. It was not intentional fakery. I was not trying to claim knowlege when I had none. I faked wisdom, not knowledge. Wisdom and knowledge are not at all the same.

[Are you confused yet?]

I was sure, though, that with the grace of God, we could make it through. I was sure that “underneath are the everlasting arms.” That’s hard to convey in words, though. Sometimes the only way to do it is to act like you know what you’re doing when you don’t.

John Robert McFarland

1] Rabbi Friedman was a working rabbi. That is, he was the leader of a synagogue. He was also a noted family systems therapist, and applied his knowledge of family systems to the family of a church or synagogue. All that is in his book, Generation to Generation. It’s an important read for anyone who is or ever has been a member of a family. [Among other things, you’ll find out why your family did not celebrate your birthday correctly]

When I was president of The Academy of Parish Clergy, I arranged for Ed to be the plenary speaker at our annual conference. In our publicity, I referred to Generation to Generation as “The most important book for preachers since the Bible.” When he came to the APC Conference, the publicist for his publisher came with him. That worthy individual asked me what farmous individual had called Ed’s book the most important since the Bible. When I told him I was quoting myself, he went away sorrowful. I’m sure he had been hoping that it was a quote from Marcus Borg or N.T. Wright that he could use in his own publicity.

SEEING THE STORY [T, 2-24-26]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Storyteller—SEEING THE STORY [T, 2-24-26]

 

In his book, Ward 402, Ronald Glasser tells the story of four-year-old Kerry. Kerry was hysterically blind, meaning that there was nothing wrong with his eyes, but he couldn’t see. He wouldn’t see.

The doctors and nurses had done so many painful things to him that he had to close his eyes to them. Literally.

The painful things were done for good reasons, of course, but a child doesn’t understand that. All a child experiences is pain and discomfort.

Kerry ate with his eyes closed. He played with his eyes closed. He fumbled around on his bed for a toy or a piece of candy, just like a blind child. He simply would not open his eyes.

I have personal experience with this. Our grandson, Joe, was diagnosed with liver cancer when he was 15 months old. His first day at the doctor’s office, the nurse did something painful to him, so when she left the room, he pushed one of those little child-sized chairs up against the door, so that she could not get back in. That didn’t work.

So Joe shut his eyes to everything but story books. When a bad procedure was coming up, and he had to go without food and water for hours, his mother would read picture books to him, one book after another. I’d sit beside her and have the next book open to the first page and shove it into her hands before she read the last word of the current book. Not a moment for him to be in the world of the hospital. When she became too hoarse to read, I’d take over. Joe lived in a world of stories where pain could not come.

The doctors in Ward 402 did everything they could think of to get Kerry to open his eyes. They even considered prying them open. The resident, though, cautioned against that, for it they did that, then Kerry might be not be able to see with his eyes open.

He brought in a kitten. Without a word, he placed it on Kerry’s bed. The kitten mewed and rolled around. Kerry felt around for it, found it, felt the soft fur. The kitten bit at his fingers. Kerry laughed. At last, it was too much. He just had to open his eyes to see that kitten! His blindness was over.

Yes, I’ve told this story before, and I hope you remember, because it’s a great story. I hope I have told it in a way that allows you to see it, not because of the way I tell it, but because of the way you see it.

Good story telling is not flamboyant. It doesn’t call attention to the teller. If there is drama, or excitement, or pathos, or empathy, it’s not because of the teller, but because of the story.

A good story teller doesn’t tell you what to believe, or how to believe, but tells you the story you need to see, at that point in your life, the story that allows you to find out for yourself not just what you do believe but what you should believe.

That’s why we tell the Christ story. Over and over…

John Robert McFarland

“Tell all the truth, but tell it slant.” Emily Dickinson

 

 

THE PRESENCE [Sun, 2-22-26-]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of an Old Man—THE PRESENCE [Sun, 2-22-26-]

 

I was aware of the presence of God even as a child. It wasn’t eerie, or scary. I was also aware of the presence of the devil; that was the scary one.

With God, it was like someone in the room with me, a little behind and to the side, just out of sight, but looking out the window together.

The window changed from time to time, and so did the scenes outside, but God’s non-anxious presence remained.

There were plenty of times I forgot about it, didn’t notice it. Indeed, that was most of the time. I stared out the window alone. But I always knew the presence was present.

That’s the point, I think—knowledge. I did not feel the presence, experience it; I knew it. Not just in a brain way, but a life way, the way people say “I knew it in my bones.”

God’s presence was always there, not as an emotion, but just as… well, presence. Knowledge. That’s why Jesus said we should love God with all our mind as well as all our strength and heart and soul. [Mark 12:30-31.] None of those categories of loving—mind, strength, heard, soul-- are belief; they are being.

That’s why “upheld by the everlasting arms” has always been a powerful image and phrase for me. [Deuteronomy 33:27]

That’s why I never thought of Jesus or Christ, or certainly the BVM or saints, to be necessary mediums to God. If God is just there, here, well, you don’t have to cross some bridge to get to God.

I am not telling you this to suggest that it is the “proper” way to understand and relate to God. Or as some “proof” of God. Or anything else. It’s just my experience.

It’s why I never felt much need for theology, which is a strange thing to say for a man who went to the trouble to earn a doctorate in theology. I did so much study of theology just because I felt it was not legitimate to ignore all the thinking and speaking about God that came before I knew the Presence.

So I never really preached theology, beliefs or doctrines about religion. I never believed in what Marcus Borg called “salvation by syllables.” I tried to explain beliefs from time to time. But mostly I just told the story of how God is present, standing there, looking out the window over our shoulder, seeing the world and its needs, watching Christ at work in that world.

I guess I never did do theology. I just experienced God’s presence and told stories.

It this revisionist history? Well, of course, but if you’ve lived as long as I have, you have a right to understand life from the end. That’s the point of the Resurrection; we understand life only from beyond it. Oops… did I just do theology?

John Robert McFarland

“It is a mistake to assume that God is only, or even chiefly, concerned with religion.” Wm. Temple

 

WALKING THE POWERS ROAD [F, 2-20-26]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man--WALKING THE POWERS ROAD [F, 2-20-26]

 

This is Lent, which means spring, which means gardening…also, remember that I no longer write for edification, just for the fun of memory…

Any gardener, farm or town, would have laughed at this joke 75 years ago, when Mrs. Powers [Esther] told it to me, because they would have understood it without explanation. Perhaps you are old enough that you need no explanation, but…

In 1876, W. Atlee Burpee, at age 18, persuaded his mother to loan him $1,000 in “seed money” to start his business, in the agricultural center of Philadelphia.

An old lady got on the street car in Philadelphia. There was only one seat left, beside a distinguished looking man. She sat down. He tipped his hat and said, “Good morning. I’m Burpee.” She replied, “Oh, that’s okay. I’m that way sometimes myself.”

 

No explanation needed, 75 years ago, even about street cars, or who Burpee was, or where his seed company was located, because every gardener, vegetable or flower, sent to Philadelphia each spring for their seeds.

And 75 years ago, anything having to do with gas emissions was naughtily funny, especially to a ten-year-old who had walked a mile over dirt roads [dirt, not gravel] to get a cookie. Because Mrs. Powers always had cookies.

I’m sure the errand that took me to the home of Ray and Esther that day was not specifically for the cooky, but the cooky was my reason for going, regardless of what my mother or father had sent me there to do, which was usually a borrowing exchange, to pick up or return a tool or kitchen utensil.

Our closest neighbors were Homer and Hazel Heathman, about a quarter mile south, up the gravel road we lived on. The gravel ran out at our house, but the road continued north, through “Punch” Knowles’ woods, to where it deadened into the famous Seedtick Road. [Famous for its name. The one in IN, not TN or NC.]

A quarter mile north of our house, an unnamed dirt road took off to the east to IN highway 57. I always called that dirt road, from the woods to the highway, the Powers Road, because that was where it took me, after a quarter mile north on the road in front of our house, and a half-mile of dirt to “the hard road,” Hyw 57, then a quarter-mile south, negotiating the non-existent shoulder of Hwy. 57, to come to Ray & Esther’s house.

That was one of the most important roads of my childhood, because it took me to the Powers place. Where Mrs. Powers gave me cookies, including some to take home. And old magazines, those wonderful sources of stories.

Late in his life, my father told me that when Ray and Esther were first married, Ray had trouble finding a job. My grandpa Mac, Harry [Arthur Harrison McFarland] got him a job at the mine [Enos, I believe] where Grandpa was the stationery engineer, and picked him up each day to take him to work, because he didn’t have a car. Many years later, when Grandpa’s son and grandchildren moved in beyond those dirt roads, Ray was eager to help us because Grandpa had helped him.

I’m sure that was true. I think mostly, though, Ray and Esther helped us just because that is what good people do. I’ve spent my life paying them back by trying to help others. That’s how neighbor debt works.

John Robert McFarland

I’m a little non-plussed by my memory, or its distortions, because I always thought the Burpee company was in Nashville, TN, and I remember Mrs. Powers telling the joke that way, but Google has Burpee’s location as Philadelphia, and we all know, if you want the truth, as Coach Curt Cignetti famously said, “Google me.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

REMEMBING THE TIMES I SPENT WITH GOD [W, 2-18-26]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Lyrics of An Old Preacher/Song Writer—REMEMBING THE TIMES I SPENT WITH GOD [W, 2-18-26]

 

Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, so, here’s a song…

REMEMBERING THE TIMES I SPENT WITH GOD

[To the tune of “Standing on the Promises” by Russell Kelso Carter]

VERSE 1

My brain is full of sawdust

And my eyes are failing fast

My ears are full of noises

And I know my strength can’t last

But I can sing this song of joy

To face the Lenten fast

Remembering the times I spent with God

 CHORUS

Remembering, Remembering

Seeing scenes of happiness

Along the days now gone

Remembering, Remembering

Remembering the times I spent with God

 VERSE 2

I did my best to walk the Way

That Jesus walked before

I studied hard so I could know

The Bible’s ancient lore

I went rejoicing with my friends

Through Church’s open door

Now I’m remembering the times I spent with God

 CHORUS

Remembering, Remembering

Seeing scenes of happiness

Along the days now gone

Remembering, Remembering

Remembering the times I spent with God

 VERSE 3

I’ve heard the voice of angels

When children sang on Christmas eve

I have felt the arms of comfort

When a loved one turned to leave

As I face eternal dawn

There’s no need to grieve

For I’m remembering the times I spent with God

 CHORUS

Remembering, Remembering

Seeing scenes of happiness

Along the days now gone

Remembering, Remembering

Remembering the times I spent with God

 John Robert McFarland

 This meditation/song also appears in the Lenten Devotional booklet [print and electronic] of St. Mark’s United Methodist Church of Bloomington, IN. My apologies to those who see it twice, and to those too young for a brain of sawdust, and who still look forward, instead of spending all their time remembering.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

WHATEVER STATE I’M IN [Philippians 4:11] {M, 2-16-26}

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Hoosier-- WHATEVER STATE I’M IN  [Philippians 4:11] {M, 2-16-26}

 

I’m going to talk about Indiana, but I’m talking about your state, too. Yes, I know you’ll say that you live in a state of confusion, or a state of dismay. Go ahead. I’ll laugh; it’s the kind of thing I would do if I were just a reader instead of the author, too.

But I am talking about the geographical state you live in. the one you want to live in. In the era you choose.

I do not know where all my readers live. I do know that this column has readers in AZ, CT, TX, IA, IL, VA, RI, WI, MN, WA, and NC. Probably MI and OH. Maybe CA and GA and OR and some others as well. There are some in IN, but surprisingly few. Maybe because the current Indiana is not the one in which I live.

I do not live in the Indiana that is driving gynecologists out of state because it wants to put them in jail for trying to do their job with the patient’s best interest rather than the legislature’s main interest. Or put women in jail for asking those doctors to serve their needs instead of the legislature’s.

I don’t live in the Indiana where the legislature wants to put university professors in jail for not teaching what the legislature wants,

Or put demonstrators in jail for supporting people from whom the trustees don’t get any big donations.  

I don’t live in the Indiana that wants to do away with public schools and use the public-school money for funding private schools that will teach only what the legislators want

I don’t live in the Indiana that wants to put librarians in jail for having the wrong books on the shelves.

I don’t live in the Indiana that would rather builds jails instead of schools.

I do not live in the fearful Indiana of segregation and KKK, either, that horrible hostile era of the state the prides itself on Hoosier Hospitality.

I don’t live in the Indiana in which a former Republican governor and university president, of all people, has to decry the current state of the state, going backward because of one-party rule. [Mitch Daniels]

So, whatever state we live in, I think we should get to choose the era.

 

I live in the days of real Hoosier Hospitality, the days of a newspaper in every town, the days of one-class basketball, the days of free public school for all, the days of Herman B Wells and academic independence, the days when any kid could aspire to great things.

That’s not denial. That is hope. Jesus did not say that we should try to make this world better, but that we should live in a different world, one that already exists, but is “unrevealed until its season,” in the words of Natalie Sleeth’s Hymn of Promise. The Kingdom of Heaven, the kingdom in which God’s will is done, is here, now. We have a choice, whether to live in the real and eternal world of God’s reign, or the false and fleeting world of kakistocracy.

“As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”  Joshua 24:15.

John Robert McFarland

THE MEDIUM IS THE CONFLICT [Sat. 2-14-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Communicator—THE MEDIUM IS THE CONFLICT [Sat. 2-14-26]

 

[Remember that this column now makes no attempt to be informative or inspirational. It is only my reminiscences. Besides, I think I’ve written about Paul before. No, not the apostle Paul; the other one…]

I walked into the room to defend my dissertation, and there sat Paul! I had not thought of Paul for several years. But if I had thought about him, and someone asked, “Who’s the person you’d least like to have present when you defend your dissertation?” I would have immediately said, “Paul!”

He was close to finishing his doctorate when I started mine, at the U of Iowa, more than 50 years ago, but we overlapped for a year. We were in a couple of seminars together, and we chatted in the grad student’s lounge. Paul was firm in his opinions, and willing to express them.

Paul was good at doing theology in the time-honored academic way. You read every theologian from Irenaeus and Augustine through Schleiermacher and Kierkegaard on to Rahner and Barth and Tillich. You compare and contrast their approaches to epistemology and soteriology and all the other oligies. Then you declare which one you think best.

But I had been a campus minister for the past decade. I was well aware that the traditional method of doing theology didn’t connect with young people at all. They didn’t care at all about Kant’s “categorical imperative.” They read communications scholars like Marshall McLuhan and futurists like Alvin Toffler. In fact, they weren’t doing much “reading” at all. The electronic revolution was starting. People listened to tapes and looked at videos. It was a multi-media age.

So I wanted to do my dissertation on the interface between theological methodology and communication theory. What does it mean for experiencing God if “the medium is the message?” Well, one thing it meant was that I should do my dissertation electronically, as a movie, not as a printed tome.

That intrigued a couple of my professors, and most of my fellow students. It shocked and flummoxed most of the faculty, and one student in particular. Paul was outspoken about everything, and he was quite clear that such an heretical type of dissertation should not even be allowed in a respectable university.

It wasn’t that Paul was a bad person. It was just that we had diametrically opposed ways of doing theology. His was irrelevant, to anyone who was not a theologian, but nobody in the theological or university communities knew that yet. His method was tried and tested and approved. Mine was none of those.

And here he was, sitting there with my dissertation committee. “Paul is here for a semester,” the Dean said, “filling in for a prof who’s on sabbatical. You don’t mind if he sits in today, do you?”

Well, of course I minded, but I didn’t say so. I really never learned to say “No,” at least not in personal matters. I’ve just always gone along. If someone said “Go split some kindling,” or “Go preach at those churches,” or “Play the bassoon,” or “Let’s get married,” I just shrugged my shoulders and said, “Okay.”

Fortunately for my defense, my dissertation had not taken movie form after all. That turned out to be too complicated. But it was close. I had written a theology of narrative, by way of a collection of short stories. I was taking a narrative approach to theology rather than didactic. At least, it was print instead of electronic,which made it more palatable to respectable academics. I think something non-print might have been too much for poor Paul.

To his credit, he remained silent, save for one question: “Why?” I said, “You know why.” The other folks on the committee looked puzzled, but it seemed to satisfy Paul. He knew that, for me, the medium is the Gospel.

John Robert McFarland

Happy Valentine's Day!❤