THE PROBLEM WITH BEING HUMAN [M. 3-2-26]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—THE PROBLEM WITH BEING HUMAN [M. 3-2-26]

 

There are 3 problems with this column: It is too long. It’s mostly personal history. It has no solution to the problem of human nature. So, read at your own risk.

When I was a young preacher, a couple came to me for marriage counseling. I’ll call them Don and Nan. I had known both of them casually when we were college students, before they married. We weren’t close friends during college, just acquaintances, really, but I was fairly well known in certain circles, because I was the only full-time [1] preacher in the ranks of adolescent college students.

So, after college, when they were married, and living in a town close to where I was preaching while going to seminary, they decided I should be their marriage counselor.

Actually, it was Nan who decided it. Because Don wasn’t being exactly faithful. In fact, he was failing rather spectacularly. Except he didn’t he didn’t see it as a failure.

I had learned in pastoral counseling class to begin marriage counseling with individual appointments, so Don felt comfortable, too much so, in explaining why he was unfaithful in marriage. “These women reach out to me with their eyes. They are so needy. I am simply trying to fulfill their needs.” In his mind, he was the messiah of sex.

Yes, I know that the eyes are the windows to the soul [Mt 6:22-24], but I’ve always been amazed at what some folks think they get from eyes. Don was definitely no George Clooney. Maybe Rainn Wilson [“The Office”]. It was hard to believe that all those girls [2] were beseeching him for sexual sustenance with their eyes. I have always suspected that we see in the eyes of others what is actually in our own eyes.

I told Nan that she didn’t have a marriage problem. She had a human nature problem, because Don was a delusional, egotistical, narcissistic, lustful nymphomaniac. [In seminary, you learn a lot of new words and want to use them.]

 

It’s time to use a basketball reference, because it’s “March Madness” month. [And you probably thought it’s Lent.] When Coach K [I dare not try to spell Krzyzewski] of Duke basketball retired, he said that his greatest opponent was always human nature. Basketball players are human. They want to take the easy way. They want to do all the scoring instead of doing what’s best for the team. They want the rewards without the work.

Human nature is always the biggest problem for a counselor, too. You can help folks understand the origins of their problems, and all sorts of good stuff, but you can’t change human nature.

I think it was Grok, the cave man, who often appears in “The Far Side,” who first said, “Human nature? I think we were better off as Neanderthals. This human nature is a bitch.” [Don’t blame me; I’m just quoting.]

 

Come to think of it, human nature isn’t just the biggest problem for basketball coaches and counselors. It’s the biggest problem for you and for me. So, if you want to do anything about it, take it up with the creator of human nature…

John Robert McFarland

1] “Full-time” is relative. I preached in one or more of my 3 churches every Sunday morning and evening, but I was a full-time college student throughout the week. I was, however, the only pastor those churches had. Whenever there was some pastoral need, I had to fulfill it. They weren’t frequent, but I did weddings and funerals, and special services, like Christmas Eve and Easter sunrise, and I made hospital visits and calls on shut-ins and newcomers.

2] Yes, we were still girls and boys, not yet men and women. We were married, and college grads, and definitely thought that we were all grown-up, but we were under 25, the age when the frontal lobe decision-making part of the brain is fully developed. If we made good decisions, it was only by luck.

THE POWER OF OUR IMAGES:THERE IS ENOUGH [Sat, 2-28-26]

 

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—THE POWER OF OUR IMAGES:THERE IS ENOUGH [Sat, 2-28-26]

 

Tomorrow is the first Sunday of the month. That means communion for lots of churches, so…

Two different neighbors told us two different bird stories. The first neighbor said he had seen a baby robin fall from a nest. It wasn’t a hatchling, but it wasn’t able to fly yet. He saw the shadow of a larger bird come toward it and was relieved that the mother robin was coming. But it was not the mother robin. It was a blue jay. Our neighbor said, “That blue jay swooped down and pecked that little robin to death. I mean, it was so fast, before I could do anything. And then it flew away. That little robin hadn’t done anything to it. It wasn’t any threat…”

“That’s where you’re wrong,” I said. “The jay was protecting its food supply. That robin would grow up and compete for food. It was a primitive sort of intelligence, encoded into its little bird brain—there isn’t enough food to go around, so I have to eliminate the competition, even before it’s competition.”

Then Paul and Gerri Shook told us another bird story. “We’ve been watching a nest. We don’t know which birds made the nest, but we saw a cowbird lay eggs in it. Cowbirds are famous for laying their eggs in the nests of other birds so they won’t have to raise the little ones themselves. But when those eggs hatched, the nest birds abandoned them. Then this little sparrow came along and began to feed them. This morning, she went up to this bright red male cardinal and just gave him the dickens. He tried to ignore her, but she wouldn’t leave him alone. Finally he flew off. But then he came back with a worm and gave it to the little birds in the nest. Apparently she had shamed him into helping her feed those birds. Darndest thing we ever saw a bird do.”

The blue jay believed there was not enough for everyone. The sparrow thought there was, but it took some work from unlikely partners.

The real struggle among humans is those who believe there is enough and those who believe there is not.

Our primitive bird brain compulsion is to be sure we have enough. We do that by making sure we have MORE than enough, regardless of what happens to anyone else.

Humans have supposedly evolved to the point that we don’t have primitive bird brains any more. We have rational human brains. We can make decisions based on facts and compassion.

We leave people out when we are afraid there won’t be enough to go around. People who want to exclude others use Garrett Hardin’s image of the earth as a lifeboat. If you’re in the lifeboat, and there are folks out there in the water, even if they’re about to drown, you can’t pull them in or the boat will sink and all will perish instead of just a few.

I have heard many people reference that image as though it is a given, that the world is a lifeboat. The world is NOT a lifeboat; that is an image!

 

The images we use are powerful, aren’t they? Consider if you use a different image, that of a castle on the hill. [Not original with me, but I can’t remember where I heard this.] When folks outside the castle are in danger, they come in for refuge. After they are refreshed, they are sent back out to find food and to find others in need, to bring them in. It’s not a perfect image, but neither is the lifeboat.

The image we use isn’t given by God or by nature. We choose which image we’ll use. That choice is powerful.

The image for Christians is that of Jesus feeding the multitude, often called the miracle of the loaves and fishes. It is an image that says that if we share, there is enough for everyone.

You take what you have, give thanks for what you do have instead of fretting over what you don’t have, share what you have, and there is not only enough to go around, but some left over. [Mt 14:21-31]

Every time we take communion, we are reminded that there is enough.

John Robert McFarland

“The greatest of evils and the worst of crimes is poverty.” George Bernard Shaw

 

 

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.