READING THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES [T, 12-31-24]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—READING THE SIGNS OF THE TIMES [T, 12-31-24]

 

2024 is very old today. Apparently I am, too. Helen says that I’m becoming a real old man, because I explained to her meaning of the red car in Janey’s driveway.

Janey is a recent widow, in her 90s, walks with a cane. The red car is often in her driveway when I walk by, or pulling out with Janey in the passenger seat. The man who comes with the car is the right age to be her son.

So I explained to Helen that when the car is in the drive and the garage door is up, he won’t be long. Probably getting Janey to take her some place. But if the door is down, he will be there for a while.

Helen seems to think that is old-man nosiness, the sort of thing old men do because they have nothing else to think about. But I’m just trying to pay attention to the teachings of Jesus. “You hypocrites. You can read the signs of the weather, but not the signs of this present time.” [Mt. 16:3 and Luke 12: 56]

The problem is this: the signs of the weather are pretty consistent. Red skies in the morning, sailor take warning. Red skies at night, sailor’s delight. [1] The signs of the times are hard to read because they are always changing. As Adam said to Eve as they left the Garden, “My dear, I think we are entering a period of transition.” We’ve been transitioning ever since.

I read the signs of the times in our neighborhood as I walk. We have a lot of widowed folks who live alone. When I see newspapers piled up [2] or packages that have been sitting there for too long, [3] I know to contact the HOA office to have them call the folks who live there, because they either have left town and forgot to tell the newspaper delivery people [4] or they are lying on their floor, unable to move.

The key to reading neighborhood signs is regularity. If something is out of place, or different, it might be a sign that there is trouble.

As I expand my neighborhood to take in “the world as my parish,” I read lots of signs of trouble. Time to call the HOA office…

John Robert McFarland

I hope you have received blessings as well as disappointments in 2024, and I pray that 2025 will be a better year for you, and for the world.

1] Yes, the weather is changing, but in a way consistent with reading it.

2]Yes, we still have a newspaper, and yes, there are people who have hard copies delivered

3] One of the greatest hazards of walking our neighborhood is dodging the ubiquitous large delivery trucks on our narrow streets. Also, we have neighborhood ducks, so I hate Amazon delivery trucks. When I hear quacking, I don’t know if it’s the ducks or an Amazon truck backing up.

4] That’s why we get the electronic version of the local newspaper. Never have to contact anyone about delivery.

GOOD NEWS: THE EYES OF JESUS ARE UPON YOU [12-29-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings & Memories of An Old Man—GOOD NEWS: THE EYES OF JESUS ARE UPON YOU [12-29-24]

 

I watched a two-part PBS TV documentary a few years ago, interviewing Indiana’s well-known Hamilton brothers, Dick and Lee.

The late Dick was one of Indiana Methodism’s leading clergy persons for the last half of the 20^th century—liked, loved, respected, and appreciated by all who knew him, as a leader in the church and as a person.

He had the added distinction of being the pastor who officiated at our wedding, at St. Mark’s in Bloomington, a brand-new church at the time, of which he was the first pastor, and where we attend now, having returned to Bloomington in our final retirement years. [We are called Bloomarangs.]

His younger brother, Lee, became a lawyer, probably because their father, Frank, was a distinguished pastor in Indiana, and now his brother was carving out a leading role in that profession, too. You don’t really want to be the third wheel on a scooter.

Besides, all the way through college, Lee’s only interest was basketball. His family moved to Evansville from TN when he was about ten for his father to accept a pastoral appointment in Methodism’s Indiana Conference. He discovered basketball! He grew tall, he had some natural talent, he loved it. It was his only interest, so much so that he won the 1948 Trester Award for Mental Attitude, which carried some weight in Indiana that it might not anywhere else.

In fact, it may have been more impressive back then than the Mr. Basketball award for the state’s best player. Mr. Basketball can be fairly easily established by which kid scores the most points and wins the most games. Mental attitude is not quantifiable, and a whole lot of people have to take note of a whole lot of mental attitudes before they can declare that yours is better than everybody else’s.

It probably helped him a whole lot when he discovered, as a partner in a firm in Columbus, that practicing law is really boring, and so decided to run for Congress from Indiana’s 9^th District, which might well be the most conservative district in a most conservative state. Being a basketball star undoubtedly helped him win his first election, and every other election for the next 34 years, even though he was a liberal Democrat. His mental attitude, for which he was already known, helped him earn the respect not only of the 9^th District voters but of all his colleagues and the other folks he had to deal with as a congressman, such as reporters and academics. He earned that respect because he gave respect, to everyone. He never assumed anyone was unworthy of respect, or even of likeability, regardless of their politics. The School of Global & International Studies at Indiana University is named for him and long-time distinguished Indiana Republican senator, Richard Lugar.

He learned about respect as a PK, preacher’s kid, and also as a PB, preacher’s brother. He watched the way his parents and older brother treated people from the time he was little.

When the interviewer asked him about the problems that might come from being a PK as a youth, his father being the pastor of a large church, so that there were many people watching him to see if he lived up to the standards expected of a parsonage family, he said that he never thought it was a bad thing to have all those people watching him. Instead, it gave him a feeling of security, that there were so many folks watching and wanting him to do well, to be good.

 

It's a great gift to have folks watch you, to expect and encourage you to be a good person. Those are the eyes of Christ.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

Benny Bailey, Pudding and Pie, Chased the Girls And… [F, 12-27-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man--Benny Bailey, Pudding and Pie, Chased the Girls And… [F, 12-27-24]

 

In a way, I was glad that Ben was chasing the girls all around the parking lot of the gas station. It was good fun. The girls enjoyed it. They liked Ben. Everybody liked Ben. He was a jolly fat boy who would not have known what to do with a girl had he caught her.

There were some problems, though. The gas station was in Mississippi. It was 1967. The girls were white. Ben was black.

I was glad that the kids thought it was natural to act the same way with each other in Wenona, Mississippi as they did in Normal, IL, the site of IL State U, where they were part of my campus ministry unit, The Wesley Foundation. That was the way life should be.

But it was not.

Not in Mississippi, in 1967.

So I was glad but also horrified that Ben was chasing the girls, in front of a passel of scowling hillbillies [1] where we were putting gas in the nine passenger Plymouth station wagon that I had rented for the trip. [2]

It was an end-of-Christmas-break trip. We were going to Holly Springs, MS, the site of Rust College. Rust was one of fourteen black colleges the Methodists had started in the South a long time before. The denomination had recently rediscovered them, realized that they needed new life for a new era after the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights act of 1965. The colleges were underfunded. We of The Methodist Student Movement were tasked with getting college students in the North familiar with our HBUC [3] schools in the South, so that they could go out to churches and tell their story, and raise money for them.

It was a successful trip. My kids were rightfully chagrined at the primitive conditions of Rust College, and rightfully impressed at the courage and commitment of the faculty and staff and students. They were glad to go back to Illinois to raise money to support their fellow students, to scatter out to churches large and small, with a slide projector, and their own stories to tell.

It was also successful because Ben never caught any of the girls, and so I didn’t have to explain to the scowling locals about how it was okay for young people of all races to act like regular kids now.

Several of those girls liked going to talk at churches about Rust College so much that they became preachers. Time after time they were the first woman preacher their church ever had. It was no problem to them, though. Thanks to Ben Bailey, they had learned how to be chased without getting caught.

John Robert McFarland

1] I use that term affectionately. I gladly refer to myself as a Hoosier hillbilly.

2] I was amazed at the cutting-edge technology of that new, dark blue Plymouth. The turn signals went off on their own when you straightened up after a turn. I had never seen anything like it. I thought, “They’ve gone about as fur as they can go!”

3] HBUC = Historically Black Universities and Colleges

I assume you figured out why, in the column for 12-23, I referred in the title to the Xmas program and changed it to Christmas program in the column.

WHEN FATHER RODE THE MAIL [W, 12-25-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Stories of An Old Man—WHEN FATHER RODE THE MAIL [W, 12-25-24]

For many years I wrote a new Christmas story each year, to use as a Christmas Eve sermon. This is the most well-known, and most-often published, and oft-repeated in this column. 800 words. Merry Christmas!

 

WHEN FATHER RODE THE MAIL--1926

Before the green hills had become the spoil banks of the strip mines, when United States highways were graveled ribbons and mules still pulled the plows, where the Wabash meets the Ohio, my father "rode the mail." 

 

            It was not a regular job.  The people in the hills read slowly and wrote only when they had something important to say.  A postage penny was a lot of money.

 

            Once each week or two, however, the letters and circulars for the folks in the hills mounded up until they filled a leather mail-pouch.  When the papers peeked over the bag top, my father unhitched the mules with which he had been grading the roads since he was twelve, saddled up his horse, and clucked a "giddyap" out toward the cabins where no roads dared to go. 

 

            The trackless hills, where the woods are deep, are cool and pleasant in the haze of summer. When the autumn comes, though, the heavy rains dump the soggy maple leaves down upon your head.  The water sneaks in between your hat and the collar of your coat. Then the hills hunker down and close in and say, "Beware."

 

            It was on such a day that Father lost his way.  So when he crossed a clearing and saw a cabin, it was both relief and fear that ran with the rain down along his backbone.  From underneath his dripping hat he hailed the gray, unpainted shack. 

 

            "Helloooo, the cabin," he called.

 

            No answer.  The owner must be in on such a day, he thought, or else the cabin was deserted.

 

            His right foot had left the stirrup and was half-way over the horse's rump when he saw the shotgun.  Only one barrel, but it was big, and it looked straight out at him from where the door had cracked open.  Off the saddle, he waited.

 

            "What do y' want?" a thin voice from behind the shotgun demanded.

 

            Father thought fast. 

 

            "I'v brot your mail," he called.

 

            "And I need a place to git dry," he added.

 

            The shotgun held its place, and so did Father.  Finally, however, the muzzle lowered toward the rough boards of the porch, and Father lowered himself to the ground.

 

            "Come," the cabin called, and Father went.

 

            Inside the door he met the oldest, frailest-looking woman he had ever seen.  A hound dog that must have shared her birthday lay in front of the fireplace.  A table, a ladder-back chair, a bed, the shotgun, a shaker chest, and a stool were the cabin's only other occupants.

 

            The woman was still wary. 

 

            "I don't git no mail," she said.

 

            Father fished into the pouch and hooked an old circular.  He pushed it out across the gap between them.  A thin, veined hand took it and held it close to two slow eyes.  The eyes were satisfied.  The hand pointed to the chair. 

 

            "Sit," she said. 

 

            Father sat.  He wondered a little at how the old woman had read the circular while holding it upside down.

 

            She brewed some tea. They sipped and sat before the fire until the silence of the roof reported that the rain had gone. They did not talk--just sat and sipped together--the very young man who was only beginning, the very old woman whose life was ending. 

 

            Father said, "I'll be goin' now.  I thank you for the shelter and the tea." 

 

            The frail old hands picked up the circular as he left.

 

            From then on when Father rode the mail, he put into the pouch an old sale bill, or a circular, and he took it to the little cabin in the clearing in the woods.  Each time the young man and the old woman sat and sipped in silence.  Each time Father noted that the "mail" of his last trip had been tacked up on the wall.

 

            When the winter comes, the rains stop, but the sky is gray as slate sometimes, and the wind sneaks past the button sentries.  In those cold days, Father was especially glad for the cabin and the fire and the tea and the silence.

 

            A week before Christmas, Father put an old catalog into his pouch, along with all the cards for others on the way, and set out to ride the mail.  He took the catalog to the cabin.  There they sat, the silent young man and the quiet old woman.  As Father rose to leave, the old woman spoke into the silence.

 

            "It was good of y' to leave your own family and come out to see me on Christmas day," she said.

 

            Father looked at the walls around him.  There was no calendar, only the circulars and sale bills winking back at him in the firelight.

 

            Father did not ever talk very much, but many, many years later, when he told this story to his children and grandchildren, he said, "I guess she never did know it wasn't really Christmas day."

 

            Perhaps he never knew it really was.

 

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE XMAS PROGRAM [M, 12-23-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of an Old Man—THE XMAS PROGRAM [M, 12-23-24]

 

I have often though I should write one of those funny church books, like Good News from North Haven, by Michael L. Lindvall, which features an hilarious Christmas pageant, or at least do just the Christmas pageant, like the one in John Irving’s A Prayer for Owen Meany.

But I never had a disastrous Christmas pageant, in part because such disasters always start with some young women in the church wanting to do something different from the pageant old Mrs. Staid always directs, and my churches never had some old lady who always directed the Christmas program. In fact, anyone who did so vowed she would never do it again. Not because any disasters occurred, like misplacing the baby Jesus or sheep getting loose in the sanctuary. But a Christmas program is a lot of work, especially if you’re trying to think one up for a book, and it always reminds you of the one when you were ten years old, when you were so embarrassed and humiliated and ashamed.

It was my first Christmas at the little open-country Forsythe Methodist. Mary Louise Hopkins taught an all-boy class. We were called The Willing Workers, although I’m not sure we were ever willing to work. All the classes exchanged names for gifts to be given out by Santa at the Christmas program. When Santa was finished, I was the only kid in our class who didn’t have a gift. Whoever had drawn my name got a gift but didn’t give one.

It seems strange now that I was so embarrassed and ashamed. First off, I don’t think anyone else even noticed. More importantly, I had not done anything wrong, and anyone who did notice I had no gift would understand that.

Yes, I’m sure part of my chagrin was anger at the injustice. I always hated injustice. But righteous anger was not my primary reaction. Basically, I was embarrassed. I was the one who was different, who held nothing but air in his hands. It meant somehow that I was not worth as much as everyone else. It was sad. It was shameful.

As years went by, I became the favored son of that congregation, and they became my plumbline for evaluating the worth of a church.

So when I wrote about that incident as fiction in my book of Christmas stories. I made it come out quite nicely, with the boy’s mother explaining to him that Christmas is like a mirror. You see in Christmas what is in your heart, so it is important that you stock up your heart with forgiveness and love. Then you’ll have a happy Christmas regardless.

I really like that story now. However, the Willing Workers are all close to 90 now, unable to run very fast, and if I ever find out who didn’t get me a gift…

John Robert McFarland

EVERYBODY’S HOMETOWN [Sa, 12-21-24]

 BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Theology of An Old Man—EVERYBODY’S HOMETOWN [Sa, 12-21-24]

 

When our daughters were in high school and college, and asked where they were from, they replied: “The Central Illinois Conference of The United Methodist Church.”

In my 40 years as a Methodist preacher before retirement, my longest appointment was 8 years. Most of my appointments were 2 or 3 years. That was standard in those years. Our hometown was wherever we lived.

Most of us, though, have a place where we grew up that we designate as a home town. For me, that is Oakland City, Indiana. We lived on a farm, three miles outside of town, but I went to school in OC, fifth grade through high school. It was the place where I first made friends, some of whom lasted for a whole lifetime.

I was accepted there. I was even loved, especially in Forsythe Church, in the open country outside of Oakland City. Your hometown is where you belong because you are loved. OC is my hometown, but it is not yours.

We do have a common hometown, though, because Bethlehem is everybody’s home town.

Bethlehem was Joseph’s hometown, so that’s where he and Mary had to go to get counted for the taxation census. When Jesus was born there, it became everybody’s hometown.

Bethlehem is the hometown of Christmas, the celebration of the presence of God with us. It is the most important town in history, at least for Christians. It is our hometown.

“Love came down at Christmas.” In your home town. You don’t have to go back there to be at home. Wherever you are, that is Bethlehem.

The hopes and fear of all the years are met…in your hometown.

 

John Robert McFarland

Today we go to the deepest darkness of the year. Tomorrow, we turn the corner on darkness. The day will have just a little more light. I take that as a good sign.

 

THE COMATOSE WARD [R, 12-19-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Christmas Stories of An Old Preacher—THE COMATOSE WARD [R, 12-19-24]

 

Rachel Remen says that when she was a young doctor, she was always assigned to work in the hospital on Christmas because she was single and childless and Jewish. She understood. She was glad for others to get to celebrate with their families. But it was like she didn’t count. It made her feel bad. But then it didn’t. She found lonely people in the hospital on Christmas. They told her their stories. She began to realize that she had received a Christmas gift, to get to spend that day with those people.

I felt the same way as a pastor. I almost always spent part of Christmas Eve day and part of Christmas day visiting my church members in hospitals. As I did, I would include the folks who had no other visitors. It was probably the best pastoral calling I did all year.

So, that’s how I came to write The Comatose Ward, imagining what it might be like if I myself were in the hospital on Christmas day…

Warning: It’s a repeat, and it’s long. Almost 3,000 words. I could tighten it up…well, maybe next year.

THE COMATOSE WARD

            He had never seen Jesus like this before. There he was, standing beside the bed, looking very unlike the pictures in the Sunday School papers.

            The Rev. Dr. Jackson Peter Taylor lay flat on his back in what he thought of as “the comatose ward.” It did not surprise him that Jesus had appeared there. Ever since he came across the theory of “the messianic secret” in the Gospel of Mark, during theological school, he realized that Jesus had a fondness for showing up in unexpected places. Jesus especially liked to reveal himself to people who would keep their mouths shut about it. The comatose ward was perfect. Of course, Christmas eve was the perfect time to pull something like this; hardly anyone was around.

            The Rev. Taylor liked being in the ward. When the stroke first hit, they put him in a private room. That was a joke. The last person who needed privacy was a paralyzed comatose stroke victim. He assumed it was really to give his family privacy to mourn his approaching demise. But J. P. Taylor knew he was not going to die yet. He still owed God, and he was sure God would make him drop his coins in the turnstile before allowing him into the big-top. That was something most Christians, with their “cheap grace” ideas, would never understand. This Jesus, who was standing beside his bed now, had said it: “Of the one to whom much is given, is much expected.” Jack Taylor wished to high heaven that Jesus had never said it. He preferred to go ahead and die and get this over with, but he knew that he had been given far more than he had yet paid the expectations on.

            Once the people in the white coats had realized he was not going to “check out” right away, and the people in the suits had found out that the insurance policy his church had provided him was not as comprehensive as the salesman—a member of the congregation—had claimed, he was moved to the ward. There were six beds, each with a breathing lump of flesh like himself. J.P. thought it was a great arrangement. It was shared privacy, which was better than lonely privacy or forced fellowship. He hoped his ward-mates were getting a good look at Jesus standing beside his bed. It would be a great event for them not to talk about with one another.

            The Rev. Dr. Taylor was sure that it was wonderful irony that the congregation that had stroked him so little in all the years he served it had finally given him a stroke to last a lifetime, just three months before retirement. The Christmas Eve services were to be his last, and then it was four months off around the world, with just Molly. The trip was a present from their sons and daughters-in-law. Well, now he would make a trip around the universe, assuming that God would ever let him get at it, and Molly would make the trip around the world with her sister.

            In one of those unknowingly prescient moments that seem to come more frequently with age, he had told her that if anything happened to him, he wanted her to take her sister and go ahead and make the trip. “OK,” she had replied, with a shrug. He remembered that shrug now with such pride that his shrinking chest expanded until his sheets quivered. That was their type of love—made of steel. It could take whatever came and go right on without missing a beat. He knew it was the gift of that love that put him into debt to God, even now.

            Good grief! Maybe Jesus had come to collect. It has never before occurred to the Rev. Dr. Taylor that Jesus might be God’s bag man. What else would he be doing here? But how could Jesus insist that the beleaguered minister continue to answer the call here in the comatose ward?

            “Oh, no,” groaned the parson, silently, of course. “Don’t tell me I have to be a good example. That’s too much to ask of anybody.”

            The Rev. Taylor was always good at doing, but the thought of doing by being is enough to strike terror even in those in whose brain waves “the rough places are made smooth.”

            Seeing Jesus in the flesh, as it were, was a very different experience for the preacher. He had often spoken to others, in pulpit and out, of how God had become in-car-nate, “in the flesh,” in the person of Jesus. He had never really thought, however, that it was supposed to happen more than once. Yet, no doubt about it, here was Jesus, beside his bed. What a fantastic illustration for his Christmas Eve sermon…and then he realized…he was not going to get to preach about this at all. He was in the comatose ward.

            “Damn,” he thought. “Every time you get a good illustration, there’s some reason you can’t use it.”

            It was like the other day when his associate pastor had come to serve him communion. That had always been The Rev. Dr. Jackson P. Turner’s job in the past—to take Advent communion to all the patients and shut-ins. He loved doing it, even more than he loved preaching, and he loved preaching almost as much as chocolate-covered graham crackers. He would sit and chat, letting the other person steer the conversation, listening to their fears, coaxing forth their joys, just being there as the representative of the Body of Christ. In the course of their conversation, he pulled the packet of wafers and the flask of wine and the little glasses from his pockets. He worked the words of the communion liturgy naturally into their conversation as they went along, talking of old times and the problems of children and hopes for the church. Then he broke the wafers and poured the wine. They shared as three friends having lunch together—the person, the parson, and the Christ.

            Now here was this nincompoop, Charles Compton, who had apparently learned absolutely nothing in nine years as his associate. He bustled into the room, The Rev. Mr. Efficiency, himself. He did not even remove his overcoat, a black cape, with a fuzzy yellow cross on each lapel. He carried a fitted valise, which he plopped onto the end of the bed, snapped it open, and then proceeded to pull out the most godawful assortment of religious bric-a-brac that Jack Taylor had seen in forty years of ministry.

            There was a plastic cross. Charles snapped it together and set it on the rolling tray table. There was a purple stole, with gold scroll work, which he draped around his neck. There was a tray for the wafers and a flagon for the wine and a three-footed stand on which to put them. There were two candles with electric switches on their bases. Jack Taylor was sure that Charles Compton even had spare batteries for them. There was a purple banner, with a misspelling of “Hallelujah” worked into it in gold, which The Rev. Compton hung on the IV pole. There was a bell, which The Rev. Mr. Ridiculous—as Jack Taylor was now calling him in a rage under his totally bland exterior—actually rang before he broke the wafers.

            Charley Compton grabbed his leather-bound, India-paper ritual book from an inside pocket of his cloak, raced through the communion service, grabbed a wafer, ate it, and drank the wine.

            “Hey, where’s mine?” yelled Jack Taylor, but of course the offensive right pastor didn’t hear a thing, did not even realize that J.P. Taylor, who had talked to him every day for nine years was trying to say a thing to him now.

            “Come on, Charley, you idiot. Give me the bread and wine. You can’t do communion by yourself. We wouldn’t call it communion if you could. We’d call it ecclesiastical solitaire. You’re doing it all wrong. Pour some of the blood of Christ down me so I can choke and get the hell out of here.”

            The Rev. Mr. Compton, of course, simply left. Watching him, J.P. Taylor remembered why he had always insisted on taking communion to the sick himself. He did feel a pang of sympathy for his long-time associate, though. Charley was trying to do the work of two pastors in a church that should have had four anyway. Naturally he was in a hurry. He knew that he was next in line for the bed his old mentor held down now. In Charley’s case, it would be a heart attack, of that his senior pastor was sure. No wonder that Charley did not even want to look at him. It was too much like peering into the mirror of the future.

            Well, that was Charley’s problem. Now Jackson P. Turner had to deal with his own problem, which happened to be standing beside his bed. He wondered briefly if Jesus had simply come to get him, swinging low to swoop up a favorite son and take him on home. That would be nice. It was so nice it was highly unlikely. That only happened to lay people. Ministers were subject to law, not grace. When they answered “the call,” they forfeited all claims to grace, even to salvation, of that J.P. Taylor had been sure for years. Lay people rode to heaven on the backs of ministers who themselves were not allowed through the pearly gates; they were just sent back for another load.

            “And good Lord—pardon the expression, Jesus—they have been coming in here looking for a ride even when my back has been sticking out of this heathen hospital gown. If I can’t go to heaven, can’t you at least send me to hell and get me out of the comatose ward? It’s almost Christmas. Can’t I have just this one little present? I can’t go around the world with Molly, I know, but can’t I at least get out of here? People come in here, and they think I can’t hear a thing, because I can’t say a thing, and they babble on so.”

            “So what do they say?”

            J.P. Taylor was answering before he realized there was something a bit unusual about Jesus standing beside his bed and asking questions like that.

            “Well, like the time Charley Compton was trying to comfort Molly. He said, I don’t know what to say. Molly knows Charley well enough that she doesn’t have to be reminded of how stupid he is. And the other day, this cleaning lady was in, and she looked at me said, I understands you used to be a preacher. I wanted to be a preacher once, but they said girls couldn’t do that. Then big tears began to run down her face, and she wiped them on my sheet. Sam Mason, the chairman of the trustees at church, was in. He ought to be chairman of the trusties at jail. You know what he did? He stood right there, where you are now, and he whispered, Jack, you’re the only person I can tell this to. I’ve been embezzling at the bank. I had to do it to pay the bills for my mistress. She’s twenty-three years younger than I am, and nobody knows about her. Isn’t that a fine howdy-doo?

            “What did you tell him?”

            “Well, nothing! You know I can’t say anything. I’ve had a stroke, for Pete’s sake…no offense to St. Peter, of course. I’ve been to his church in Rome, and all…”

            J.P. Taylor knew he was babbling and getting in deeper all the time, but Jesus did not seem all that interested in his peccadilloes, not nearly like the people in church who claimed they were following Jesus all the time. That struck the Rev. Mr. Taylor as being not a little strange.

            “What did Sam Mason do then?” asked Jesus.

            “Well, he got down beside the bed on his knees. Began to cry and beg my forgiveness. Darndest thing I’ve ever seen. Then he stood up, and he dried his eyes on my sheet, and he took my hand and said he knew he’d done wrong, and he was going to repent and fly right. Walked out of here like a new man. I wish Charley Compton was an embezzler. Might get a new start for him, too. Well, I don’t mean I really want Charley to sin, you know…”

            This talking with Jesus was tricky business, thought Jack Taylor, but he seems to sort out the wheat from the chaff pretty well…but Jesus was continuing…

            “You still owe, you know,” said Jesus.

            “Well, yes, I was thinking about that when I first saw you standing there. It’s because of Molly, isn’t it??

            “Yes, no man deserves love like hers, or like mine, either. Besides, you’re a minister. You have to pay thrice for all your sins.”

            The Rev. Dr. Taylor was almost sure that Jesus was hiding a smirk in his beard, but what if he was not? What if he were serious? This pay-back for both blessings and sins was double jeopardy.

            “So you’ve come to collect, huh?”

            “You’ve got it. However, the collection is that I’m not collecting. You have to stay a while longer.”

            “Oh, no,” groaned the weary pastor. “Can’t we work out a deal or something? You know, like when I was little, and I told you I would never do it again, whatever it was?”   

            “By your definition of little, you were little up to the age of sixty-three, since that was the most recent time you made that promise.”

            The Rev. Mr. Taylor knew he’d been had.

            “Okay, give it to me straight. I’m not going to die, right?”

            “Right, but it’s only for a little while. You can die soon, but not quite yet. There are too many people who need you yet.”

            “Need me? Unless you intend to work a miracle, and I’m not saying you can’t, of course, I’m not going to be any good to anyone. I’m stuck here in so much white I feel like I’m in one of those little glass Christmas houses that you shake up and there’s snow all over the place.”

            “Don’t you see, Jack? That’s the point. Would Sam Mason have confessed to you if you could talk back? He’s been embezzling and womanizing for years while you’ve been his pastor, and he never said anything to you before. Would that cleaning lady have shared her broken dream with you if you’d been bustling down the hall like the elder version of that ass, my servant, Charles Compton?”

            Ouch! That hurt, thought the increasingly less Reverend Jackson Peter Taylor.

            “And what about Charley himself? He doesn’t say anything because he has nothing to say. But he’ll eventually figure out what he should say, because, for the first time in nine years, you won’t be supplying him with better lines than he can think up on his own. With you silent, maybe he’ll be able to think up what he needs to say, in his own words.”

            “But I was called to preach, not to lie here in the comatose ward!”

            “I was born to preach, not to die on a cross. When I was born in that stable, Jack, was that for crucifixion? I didn’t want the cross anymore than you want this bed, but it came with the territory. Do you think you can follow me, Jack, and only have the shepherds and the wise men, and gold and frankincense and myrrh, which really is a Lutheran hot dish, and not the cross, too? Sometimes the best preaching is done by listening, Jack. Sometimes the best giving is done just by being quiet and taking.”

            The words were gentle but they reached deep.

            “Okay, boss,” breathed J.P. Taylor. “You’ve got me as long as you want me. Whenever you want to change the deal, you know where to find me.”

            “Right,” said Jesus. “Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do. Merry Christmas, Reverend Dr. Taylor, and get back to work.”

            Jesus was already gone when the nurse flung the door open and marched in to do bed check on the six residents of the comatose ward. She came to Jack Taylor’s bed last.

            “What in the world? Who’s been in here, anyway? Some ninny nurse took your arms and stretched them straight out and forgot to put them back. Well, Christmas eve, and you can’t get decent help, I can tell you that!”

            “Go ahead, tell me,” sighed Pastor Taylor, as the nurse pulled up a chair.

John Robert McFarland

 

SOUL WORK WITH CHILDREN [T, 12-17-24]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Memories of An Old Preacher—SOUL WORK WITH CHILDREN [T, 12-17-24]

At coffee time of my first Sunday as pastor at the Arcola, IL UMC, a four-year-old walked up to me, announced, “I’m Wobbiebigs,” and held out his arms. I grasped his wrists. He started to run around me. I got the idea and twirled him in a circle. He smiled and went on his way. That happened every Sunday until his legs got too long and my arms got too short. I learned that my predecessor, Glen Bocox, had started that ritual with him. Wobbiebigs assumed that was part of the job of the preacher, whoever had that position at the time.

 

At the all-church birthday party, when we sat at the table of our birth month, regardless of age or family, four-year-old Wobbiebigs and 84-year-old Art Harry would carry on long and involved conversations that the rest of us at the table did not understand. It was fascinating to watch the two of them listen so intently to each other.

I doubt that Dr. Robert Biggs. M.D. remembers Glen Bocox or Art Harry. He remembers me a little, because he was 12 when I retired. I suspect, however, that even if he does not remember how he was treated by Glen or Art or me, his soul remembers how he was treated in that church. He could expect to get a twirl from the preacher just by holding out his arms, he could expect that an old curmudgeon would pay attention to him when he talked. That’s good soul work with a child.

 

I have long felt that the main reason that old people exist is for doing soul work with children.

Well, not just old people, but all Christians and churches.

I remember once at a continuing ed conference for preachers--when there were not many women pastors yet, and clergy women felt like that had to justify their calling--a young woman said that it was good to have women in the ministry because they were more sensitive to children. “I know the names of all the children in my church,” she announced proudly.

I was stunned. I knew the names of all the children in my church, and my church had five times more kids than hers did. It never occurred to me that any pastor, male or female, would not know the names of all the children. That was only the start of doing soul work with them, but it was a necessary start.

Most churches don’t have many children anymore. There are more kids in Sunday morning traveling bowling leagues than there are in church. You don’t get much soul work done in a bowling alley.

Basically, nobody in society is doing soul work with children. And it shows.

Yes, food pantries do stomach work, and teachers do brain work, but someone needs to do soul work with kids.

So, when that kid comes to visit you in Shady Pines, as part of the Gerontology class in the Home Ec Department [1], remember they there are there so that you can do soul work with them. First, ask their name…

 

John Robert McFarland

1] I refuse to call Home Economics by its new name of Domestic & Consumer Sciences. Not everything has to be a science, nor be “run like a business.” You don’t do soul work that way.

 

 

 

WING-WALKING TOWARD CHRISTMAS [Sun, 12-15-24]

BEYOND WINTER: The Christmas Stories of An Old Man--WING-WALKING TOWARD CHRISTMAS [Sun, 12-15-24]

Warning: This column is very long, almost 2000 words, because I wrote it originally as a story rather than as a column. It is part of my Years of Christmas collection. I don’t think I have posted it here before.

 

WING-WALKING TOWARD CHRISTMAS--1921

            Some days make you think. That was the kind of day it was, a thinker's kind of day, a philosopher's kind of day.

            Farmers tend to be philosophers, anyway, and Walter Reinhardt was a farmer. Walter understood about philosophy, that farmers were philosophers. Sometimes he philsophized about that. 

            "Maybe it's the daily closeness to life and death, of plants and animals, and sometimes humans," thought Walter.

            Then his special eye clicked into place, as it almost always did when he began to think. He could actually see philosophy, a tall woman with long legs, in a feed-sack dress, striding through his fields, dropping seeds and pushing them in deep.

            That was the kind of early December day it was, a thinking kind of day, a seeing kind of day, as Walter rode on the wagon seat, his wife, Elna, beside him, their children bouncing in the wagon-bed behind, Prince and Fanny calmly clopping ahead on the hard dirt road.

            He didn't know why his thoughts turned to the day itself, but a warm, sunny day in early December is unusual enough to pull all the attention it can get. It seemed to Walter that it was the sort of day pilgrims would use to make their way to a shrine, singing as they went.  

            Walter lifted up his special eye to the low, pleasant hills around him. He could see himself as a pilgrim, on his way to some unique destination.

            "Keep on toiling up that hill, pilgrim," Walter said to himself. "Once in your life you ought to make it into the holy city, regardless of where you live the rest of the time. Soon or late, you need to do something that is out of the ordinary, that you're not going to do every day or every week, that isn't practice or rehearsal for something else, but just needs to be done for its own sake, something for which once is good enough."

             It seemed like that kind of day.

            "Walter, for heaven's sake, wake up. You're gonna run over somebody."

            Elna's voice flipped down the shade on his special eye.

            "You've been day-dreamin' agin, haven't you? I don't know what to do. It's like havin' another child."

            Walter kept looking right where he had been staring, into the middle of the road, but his eyes were different now. The special eye was closed. Instead of seeing his fellow pilgrims toiling up the slopes toward the holy city, he saw his fellow citizens rolling down the streets of Bloomington. It wasn't quite the same.

            "I guess I'm never going to go any place special, not for real," sighed Walter to himself.

            There was a peculiar quality about the day, though, even in Bloomington. It was a Saturday, and everyone came to town on Saturday. It was warm and sunny even though it was early December. The Christmas decorations were on the streets and in the windows of the stores. Any of those by itself would have given the day a quality of expectation.

            Today, though, the barnstormers were coming to town.

            Normally the flying barnstormers ended their Midwest season long before December. The autumn had stayed warm for so long. though, that they were hanging on until the cold weather blew in from the high plains and they were forced to fly south, along with the geese.

            They had flown their little open cockpit bi-planes into Dunn Meadow, and that was where Walter Reinhardt was heading first. How many chances did a person have to see a real airplane, anyway? Even Elna was excited about that.

            The pilots had planned to do some acrobatics, cause the clod-hoppers to pop their eyes, then make some money by taking people up for rides. Their plans hit some snags, though. Actually, their planes hit some trees. The first pilot lost power and crashed into the woods. A second pilot lost a truss and crashed into a corn field.          

Neither one was hurt. They both came walking back to Dunn Meadow. There were more pilots and more planes, but the enthusiasm of the locals for flying wasn't in much better shape than the first two planes. They started back down Kirkwood Avenue to the square, to do some shopping.

            That was when Earl Flynn, one of the foremost barn-stormers of the era, grabbed the megaphone.

            Earl was known as "Fly-Boy Flynn." He didn't barn-storm for the money. He didn't need it. He was the heir to a brewery fortune in Cincinnati. He flew just for the love of flying and for the love of people. He was sure and certain that airplanes would bring peace to earth. That was why he had persuaded the other pilots to do this late-autumn fly-through of the Midwest, to do a Christmas tour to honor "The Prince of Peace."

            "Just think," he used to say to his father, who thought Earl ought to give up this fly-boy nonsense and stick to his kreusening, "think how the flying machine will bring people closer. We'll be able to fly over barriers. We'll get help to people so much more quickly in times of natural disaster. We'll be able to visit people in other lands, and we'll learn that they're just people, too. As we understand one another better, there will no longer be a need for war."

            "Earl," his father replied, "the only way to prevent wars is to keep people drunk enough that they can't shoot straight. That's the mission of this brewery. Just think of the rent riots five years ago. Why, those squatters were gonna kill the land-lords, and the police, too. If I hadn't sent those three wagons of free beer down there and gotten them all soused, the streets would have run red with blood. As it was, they just frothed a little around the gutters."

            Fly-Boy Flynn never knew how to answer his father's reasoning, because it was so reasonable and so unreasonable at the same time. He had no trouble talking about flying when he had a megaphone in his hand, though.

            "Ladies and gentlemen," he shouted. "Don't go now! The pilots were just demonstrating how safe flying is even when you crash. But I realize you might have misunderstood their intentions. Consequently, I am prepared to put up $100 of my own money to anyone who will stand on the top wing of my plane, hold onto this wing-walker's bar, and go up with me for just five minutes. Why, you'll see there's nothing to it."

            One hundred dollars! One hundred dollars was a lot of money. You could work three months for that much cash.

            Nobody ran forward to grab those greenbacks Fly-Boy Flynn was holding high above his leather helmet, though. They knew malarky when they heard it. Those other pilots were not demonstrating safety; they were demonstrating stupidity.

            It looked like no one was going to take up Flynn's offer, not until Walter Reinhardt muttered, "I always wanted ta ride on one of them wings."

            Mrs. Reinhardt could not believe what she heard.

            "Walter," she cried, "You can't do that. You'll git killed. That Fly-Boy fella is crazy. He don't haff ta worry. His father owns a big brewery. No one depends on him. But you, Walter, you got responsibilities. Who'd work the fields? What would become of me and the children? And Christmas almost here. I always knew that silly day-dreaming of yours would get us in trouble sooner or later. That hundred dollars ain't worth it!"

            "The Lord knows we could use a hundred dollars, especially with Christmas comin' on," said Walter, "but that ain't why I'm gonna do it. I just gotta stand up and ride on one of them things."

            His children looked at him in amazement. They had never seen their father any higher than the seat of the farm wagon. It never occurred to them that he could get any higher than that. Now he was the only man in the whole crowd who would even think about going up in the air with Fly-Boy Flynn.

            The people nearby overheard Mrs. Reinhardt. They began to pass the word through the crowd.

            "Reinhardt's gonna do it. Crazy Reinhardt's gonna go up on that wing with that fella wearin' a white scarf 'round his neck."

            No one had ever referred to Walter Reinhardt as "Crazy" Reinhardt before. His neighbors knew nothing of Walter's special eye. From what they could see of him, he was as sober and plodding as Prince and Fanny, his one-horse, one-mule team. But even the thought of doing something like going up on that wing was enough to give him a nickname that you can still see today on a gravestone in the Methodist cemetery.

            Mrs. Reinhardt wrung her hands and jumped from one foot to the other.

            "I know you always wanted ta be a balloon man when you was growin' up, Walter, but this is crazy. You're too old ta be changin' jobs and doin' somethin' different. You can't become a pilot or some crazy wing-walker now."

            "I ain't figurin' on doin' this but once, Elna," said the man now known forever as "Crazy." "Sometimes, though, a person's gotta do somethin' even if it's the only time in his whole life he does it."

            With that, Walter Reinhardt walked up to Fly-Boy Flynn and said, "Show me how ta hang onta this thing."

            As they mounted up into the bright December sky, Walter sang a little song, a song for pilgrims who are going up the slopes to a special place. No one heard it, not even Fly-Boy, because of the sounds of the wind and the plane's motor.

            "The Lord is your guardian. As you mount up toward the sun, it is God who is your shade on your right hand. You can soar up into the sky and God won't let the sun get you. You can fly by night and the moon won't get you. The Lord will guard your goings out and your comings in, your take-offs and your landings, from this time forth and for evermore," he sang.

            Walter wasn't getting the words exactly, the way he'd heard them in church. As he sang, though, it seemed that he was getting the words right for the first time in his life.

            They flew over the square and around the court house, over the university and clear out to the edge of town. Walter could see it all, and he loved it, even in the sun-bright bleakness of the leafless winter.

            "So this is why You did it!" the philosopher shouted, where no one below could hear.

            Walter looked down. With his special eye, he could see God striding up the hill toward the city, cradling the baby in the everlasting arms, going to meet Mary and Joseph at the barn on the edge of town. In the wind on the wing, Walter had a special ear, too. He heard God singing, the same song Walter himself had just sung.

            "Keep on toiling up that hill, pilgrim," Walter shouted. "Once in your life you ought to make it into the holy city, regardless of where you live the rest of the time. Soon or late, you need to do something that's out of the ordinary, that you're not going to do every day or every week, that isn't practice or rehearsal for something else but just needs to be done for its own sake, something for which once is good enough."

            God looked up at Walter and winked.

            Walter threw back his head and laughed.

            "That crazy God," he muttered.

John Robert McFarland