AVOIDING SELF-HARM [Sat, 7-11-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—AVOIDING SELF-HARM [Sat, 7-11-26]

 

Our bodies are designed to help us avoid hurting ourselves.

Dr. Kalanithi [1] had a patient who went into a coma upon hearing a bad diagnosis. This is not uncommon. I have often seen lesser forms of it, where people go “blank” for a while. I’ve done it at least once myself. The news is incomprehensible, so you stop trying to understand it. That’s one way our bodies protect us, letting us just hang around for a while until we’re more able to deal with bad news.

But Dr K knew he couldn’t let his patient take too long to “come back.” He had to help him snap out of it. So he took the patient’s limp arm, held it up over his face, and let it go. The man stopped his arm from coming down and hitting himself in the face. Even in a semi-comatose state, our bodies protect us from harming ourselves.

My friend, Paul, when we were both about 15 years into our pastoral careers, told me of a man in his church whom he was counseling. I’ll call him Ed. Ed had a nice wife, and good children, and a successful career. He also had a mistress, twenty years younger. Ed knew he needed help.

Paul walked Ed through his life. He especially asked him two questions: What do you want your life to be a year from now? What do you want your life to be twenty years from now? Ed talked it through with Paul. He realized that the answer to both those questions was clear: he wanted to have a happy home with his wife.

I had a number of marriage counseling situations at the time and I was fascinated with Paul’s approach. “Man, that’s brilliant,” I said.

All you had to do was help the counselee see into their future, see what they really wanted. I started asking those questions of all my counselees.

The next time I saw Paul, I asked him about Ed.

“He left my office after he’d answered those questions, went straight to his mistress. Now he’s divorced and the mistress has left him, too. I’m not so brilliant after all.”

I so much wish I had known about Dr. Kalanithi’s method, instead of Paul’s method, during my pastoral career. Instead of asking a counselee what they wanted their life to be in 20 years, I would have taken their hand and held it up over their face and dropped it, to show them they did not have to hurt themselves. That’s immediate. I’d say, “See, you don’t have to make that stupid mistake. You can stop it right now.”

Try it. Next time you’re about to do something stupid, hold your hand up over your face and let it drop.

I tried it myself. I ate the cookie anyway.

Wm. James famously said that “When the will and the imagination are in conflict, the imagination always wins.” Or, in biblical terms, “The spirit is willing, but the cookie is chocolate chip.”

John Robert McFarland

1] Paul Kalinathi, When Breath Becomes Air

WALKNG ON WATER [R, 7-9-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—WALKNG ON WATER [R, 7-9-26]

 

This story comes from the Baptist preacher at Cedar Lake, Indiana, back in 1962. Baptist preachers have usually kept their distance from me—except for Fred Skaggs and Kim Egolf-Fox and Bill Tuck and Gary Reif, colleagues in The Academy of Parish Clergy—but there were only two preachers in Cedar Lake back then, and the poor Baptist guy had to hang around with somebody. Besides, he seemed to like challenges. He went from Cedar Lake to be the Baptist pastor in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Baptists have a baptistry in their church, a dunk tank for submerging people, even big people, during baptism, which symbolizes the dying and rising again in Christ. It’s hard to persuade people to get baptized and join the church in winter, because in winter time, that water can get quite cold.

So, Baptists must have a way to heat their water. The Cedar Lake Baptist building was new and small, and they couldn’t afford a regular water heating system, so they had an electric rod they stuck down into the water. Worked well, except it electrified the water, so someone had to be sure the rod was pulled out before the preacher got in to receive those presenting themselves for baptism.

Well, of course, one winter Sunday night, the rod-puller forgot, and my friend started down the steps into the baptistry. “It was,” he said, “only the second time in recorded history that someone walked on the water. I just skimmed that water all across that baptistry from one side to the other.”

A bit of hyperbole perhaps, as much as the last time I told this story, but a point well taken: unless you are Jesus, you don’t walk on water unless you have to.

Helen pointed that out yesterday at our coffee time. When our fifteen-month-old grandson was diagnosed with liver cancer, his parents and grandparents went into water-walking mode for him and for his three-year-old sister. We didn’t touch down for two years.

When reading about how Jesus walked on the water [Mt 14, Mark 6, John 6], it looks he did it just to get from one place to another, which is why most of us do any walking at all. It’s usually told as a story of faith. When Peter started to walk on the water, too, to go meet Jesus, he was fine until he realized what he was doing. Then he sank. When you need to walk on water, you can’t stop to think about it.

It’s a good thing to have faith, but it’s even more important to be without other options. You can walk on water if you have no choice.

John Robert McFarland

DEPARTMENTAL GIRLS [T, 7-7-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Delusions of An Old Man—DEPARTMENTAL GIRLS [T, 7-7-26]

[Time for another reminiscence with no redeeming social value.]

 

Middle School in Oakland City was called “The Departmental,” meaning we graduated from being in one room all day, with one teacher, to going between Departments [classrooms] for English and social studies and arithmetic, etc.

We moved to OC on May 21, 1947. At least, Daddy and I did, via Uncle Johnny and his lumber business truck. Uncle Bob and Aunt Rosemary--who was probably still Fiancé Rosemary then--brought Mother and Mary V and Margey and Jimmy a couple of days later, after Daddy and I had time to put beds and stoves together, etc.

Shortly thereafter, I rode Jimmy Bigham’s totally dilapidated school bus to OC Grade School. Bus drivers owned their own buses, and apparently there were few standards. Most of the windows were stuck open or closed, in all weather. As the new kid, I had to sit over the hole in the floor. 

I was in May Mason’s 5A class, meaning we had started first grade in January. The 5B kids had started in September. As the new kid, I got to sit between Ernest Bilderback and Jim Brown. Both looked to be about 15. They were never unkind to me, and I felt sorry for them, especially since Mrs. Mason was not very nice to them. I didn’t think they had chosen to be, in the word of that time, dumb.

[I was into free will at an early age. I later expressed that by saying that I have great sympathy with people who are stupid by nature but none for those who are stupid by choice.]

In 6^th grade, we went to The Departmental. It was only 6^th and 7^th grades, since 8^th grade was in the new high school building. Mr. Ronald Nelson [Social Studies] and Mr. Claude Gladish [English] and Mr. Cecil Grubb [more English?] and Mr. Carl Fowler [Arithmetic] stayed in their own rooms, and we students did the traveling between them. It felt very grown up.

Each student in The Departmental had our own desk in the assembly room. There was a cloak room for “wraps” and galoshes. Our desks served as lockers. We kept our books and personal stuff and lunches in the desk, and we sat at them to eat our lunch.

The assembly room was quite long, with a stage at the front end. The stage had a piano and a flag and a desk, for whoever was watching us during homeroom [study hall] and lunch. Occasionally the stage would be the site for a musical program or address from the principal. Five long rows of desks. The back desks were highly prized, since they were less visible to the homeroom teacher. The desks had ink wells, from back when my father went to school there, no longer necessary in those modern days of fountain pens and the burgeoning “ball points.”

There were windows behind the stage and up and down the left side of the room, with a pencil sharpener under the windows. You could get up to go to the pencil sharpener whenever you needed to—one of the few activities available without permission.

One day, Shirley Black, about 10 desks ahead of me, got up and went over to the sharpener. She was short, with curly hair, and bounced when she walked, sort of like Tigger, except I did not know about Tigger then.

I thought, “She’s pretty.” Then I thought, “Where did that come from?” I mean, girls were yucky and had cooties. You needed to avoid them as much as possible.

Actually, I never believed the yucky and cooties stuff. I respected older girls, because my older sister demanded it. And I thought little girls were cute, because my little sister adored her big brother, since she could manipulate me into playing with her.

But I knew girls in between respect and cute were mysterious. I didn’t think I was supposed to be noticing girls as pretty. I mean, if you start thinking about girls as pretty, where will it go?

The Departmental was a long time ago, but Shirley is still pretty, I’m sure, even though I haven’t seen her for a long time. I’ve forgotten a lot, but I’m still able to remember pretty. That hasn’t gone anywhere yet.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

DESIRE PATHS [Sun, 7-5-26]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Mutterings of An Old Man—DESIRE PATHS [Sun, 7-5-26]

 

I read an article by Melissa Kirsch, in the NY Times online, about “desire paths.” They are the routes people take even though they are not prescribed or intended.

Kirsch uses the example of crossing in the middle of the block, instead of at the corner, which is the proper way, the legal way, because it is the safest way. We all know that we should cross at the corner, but it’s so much easier just to go ahead right here… so, a desire path.  

I learned about that kind of desire path when I was a campus minister. The campus had a nice network of concrete sidewalks. If there were snow, or if it were raining, students stuck to the concrete walkways. But any sunny day, they would wear a path into the grass if it saved a few steps, or saved even one step. Since several thousand students used that desire path every day, the grass was soon dead.

This happened to the lawn at Wesley United Methodist Church on the campus of the U of Illinois. Instead of using the sidewalks that made a square around the church lawn, students were wearing out the grass on a diagonal line across the lawn. The trustees put up signs, Don’t Walk on the Grass. Didn’t work. They tried Stay Off the Grass. Didn’t work. Then someone suggested Let It Live. The students went back to the sidewalk.

We desire the easy way, the short way. Hence, desire paths. But we also desire community, and that requires respect for others, even if it’s just respect for grass.

As a society, we seem to be in a desire path frenzy. Everyone, from the president on down, wants to take the short cut, the easy way, instead of using the sidewalk, the community way, the respectful way.

From its earliest days, Christian faith has been called The Way. That’s not in order to leave non-Christians out. It’s to remind Christians that the path we take is not up for debate, not available as a shortcut, not subject to our desire. It’s not a desire path. It’s the Christ path.

It’s strange these days, that the people proclaiming most loudly their devotion to The Way, so easily slide off into desire paths. But that’s the nature of a desire path, isn’t it? Taking the easy way.

There is a reverse Catch 22 here: The longer you stick to the Christ path, which does not appear to be an easy way, the more it becomes a desire path.

I think it’s time to put up a sign: 

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

PATRIOTISM OR NATIONALISM? [F, 7-3-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—PATRIOTISM OR NATIONALISM? [F, 7-3-26]

 

Through much of my ministry, the church year, the appointment year, started on July 1. That meant that my first Sunday in a new appointment was on the July 4 weekend. People were expecting a sermon, and scripture, and hymns, about America. Usually what a great country we live in, how we’ve been blessed by God, how the blessings show that we are favored by God.

For some preachers, that was no problem. They just equated faith in God with faith in America. In worship, they sang all the patriotic songs, used patriotic slogans and liturgies, paraded with the American flag, had military veterans stand to be honored, preached that we live in the world’s most wonderful country—natural resources, beauty, freedom, military might, financial freedom, that God has blessed us and given us the responsibility of running the world.

That gave me problems. It was my first sermon in this new place. In many ways, it would determine the course of my entire ministry in that place. And I could not preach “American exceptionalism.” I had to make the distinction between patriotism and nationalism, and a lot of people can’t make that distinction, or at least don’t want to.

I’ve written before, I’m sure, about walking down a street in Moline, IL about 40 years ago. It was early July.  I passed a bakery. In the window was a white cake, formed to look like an open Bible, edged with red frosting. On it, in blue frosting, were the words God so loved the USA.

No, that’s not what John 3:16 says. God does love the USA. More importantly, God loves the world. We might have the biggest economy and the biggest army but God doesn’t love us any more than any other country.

 

We see it in bold letters these days, but it has always been with us, this struggle between patriotism and nationalism. Patriotism is being proud of your country and being a good citizen of it. Nationalism is saying your country is the only one that counts, that it is special so it should get to do whatever it wants. Patriotism is respectful. Nationalism is arrogant.

It’s the struggle between original sin and prevenient grace [original empathy], writ large. It’s been going on for 250 years now in our country.

Many of the early statesmen of this country believed that there should be no political parties, that they would end up dividing the country into warring camps.

In some ways, it worked in reverse. The country divided into warring camps, quite literally, over an issue, slavery, and political parties took sides over that issue. In that, we see the beginning of our current political chasms, patriotism vs nationalism.

I think about worship services and concerts and other events when we’ve had military veterans stand to be honored. It always gives me a shiver down my spine. I respect those men and women so much. But almost always, some announcer says something like, “These are the defenders of democracy and freedom.” Not so. Military folks are defenders of the nation. It’s up to all citizens to be defenders of democracy and freedom. That is what patriots do.

John Robert McFarland

 

CONFRONTING THE HIDDEN DANGERS [W, 7-1-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—CONFRONTING THE HIDDEN DANGERS [W, 7-1-26]

 

When I was a new young pastor and husband and father, one of my church members was worried about me, because I did not seem worried enough—about the dangers of Communism. [This was 1961.] He brought to me a book that outlined all the ways the commies were trying to subvert us. Being a recent history major at Indiana University, I took exception to some of the facts in the book. My church member was dumbfounded. “Well,” he said, “if it wasn’t true, they wouldn’t put it in a book!”

He was not a stupid man. He had a good job and a nice family. He read the newspapers. He was a faithful church-attender. But… I mean, what can you say to that?

He wasn’t through. He thought maybe I would be more agreeable to his ideas if I were approached by a colleague, namely the local Lutheran pastor. Apparently my church member and that pastor were in the same local anti-communism group. My Lutheran colleague explained to me that he knew for a fact that the commies had already infiltrated the country so completely that they had secret control of the totality of Chicago Land. We lived in Indiana, but well within Chicago Land. “They could take over at any moment,” he said, “and when they do, they already have detention centers ready for all the clergy.”

“If they are already that well organized, and have that much power,” I said, “why don’t they just go ahead and do it? They want to take over, right? And they are ready. So what are they waiting for?”

He had no answer for that.

But I had already learned a lesson the year before, one that I forgot too often through the years. A Sunday School teacher came to me and begged to be allowed to quit. She was just too tired. She couldn’t do it anymore. So I found someone to replace her. Then she told others in the church how much she loved her class and how I had pushed her out against her will.

That was when I learned to look behind what was behind what was behind. People are multi-layered. If you deal only with the layer they present, you don’t understand what is really driving them.

People who are frightened by hidden conspiracies are not just being phobic. Hidden conspiracies actually exist for them. But they are not external, like Communists or gays or Muslims. The hidden conspiracies are within themselves. And they don’t want to admit it. They have to externalize their internal fears onto other political parties or religions or races or genders, any group beyond the pale. They know well the power of personal hidden conspiracies, hidden dangers.

They are often addicts—alcohol, sex, gambling, greed, drugs, lust, gluttony…all the biggies, some physical, some psychological.

Very few folks do not have something hidden within that is frightening to us. We really need to do something with it, so that it does not overwhelm us. So we project the personal danger within onto a supposed public danger without.

That’s why we go to church, to be reminded—and, once again, every 7 days is for most of us not often enough—that all that is hidden, why, God already knows about that. What’s the point in trying to cover up something that is known where it counts most, in the heart of God?

Go to church. Tell God about all the stuff you’re afraid of, including all that stuff inside of you. Then that stuff will lose its power.

John Robert McFarland

I’ve heard a rumor that it is July already. That can’t be true!

 CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Reminiscences of An Old Preacher—WELL, BLESS YOUR HEART [6-29-26]

 

In Methodist churches, the appointment year for pastors starts July 1. That’s when the transition to a new pastor starts, as it did for Wesley UMC in Mason City, Iowa, when we lived there.

We lived in retirement in Mason City because the grandkids were there, I was the occasional unpaid assistant pastor at Wesley UMC. Whenever Dave Shogren, had to be gone, he’d have me preach. Then the bishop appointed Dave to be a District Superintendent, and Bill Poland came to be our pastor.

Bill began to make changes. Church people don’t much like changes, but everyone liked Bill, so we were in a conundrum.

One change Bill didn’t make was asking me to preach whenever he was gone. So, one Sunday, I thought it good to take on that matter of the changes he was making. Here is the abbreviated form of that sermon…

I call where I come from, in southern Indiana, “The Mississippi of the North,” for how we deal with race, and for the humidity in the summer, and for the way we talk. In either Mississippi, you can say anything you want about a person if you follow it with, “Bless her heart; she’s doing the best she can.”

“That meatloaf she brought to the church picnic could choke a giraffe. But bless her heart, she’s doing the best she can.”

“He’s the poster boy for lead paint, but bless his heart, he’s doing the best he can.”

Our pastor, Bill Poland, is gone today, so we can say anything about him that we want to, as long as we bless his heart.

Bill keeps making all these changes, and every time he makes one, attendance goes up. Bill thinks it’s because we like the changes. But we don’t like change. We like Bill. We don’t just like him, we love him, because we know he loves us. So we keep coming to church, and inviting others to do so, not because of the changes, but in spite of them.

Bill doesn’t understand that. He keeps going to these conferences about church growth, and they suggest some change, and he comes back and does it, and then he thinks, “Hey, it worked. I did that change Willow Creek told us to do and now the attendance is up.”

He went to a conference and they told him he should take out the communion rails. You see any communion rails? Nope, they’re gone. Instead of kneeling at the rails, they told him, we should get in line and shuffle along like convicts in the prison cafeteria, and when we got up to the front someone would give us a tiny piece of bread and one swig of grape juice and say, “God loves you, and keep moving.” That’s both good information and good advice, but… well, bless his heart; he’s doing the best he can.

He went to another conference and they said that instead of an organ to accompany the hymns, we should have a clavicorn…or clavicle…or…whatever that instrument there is. But, bless his heart, he’s doing the best he can. We got one of those clavimachines, and attendance went up.

And hymns? We don’t even sing hymns anymore. He went to yet another conference, and they said we should sing “praise songs” instead of hymns. Praise hymns are a grocery list of all the known words for God or Jesus. Praise hymns are “count-down” music—5 words sung 4 times to 3 chords from 2 screens to… bless his heart. He’s doing the best he can. Now we’re singing praise songs, and attendance is up.

But church people don’t like change. We love Bill, but we’re so tired of all these changes. So I went to God and prayed about it, and God said… “Bless your heart. You’re doing the best you can.”

Joh Robert McFarland