ARE YE ABLE [W, 6-18-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of an Old Man--ARE YE ABLE [W, 6-18-25]

 

Lorraine Brugh died recently, much too young, at age 72. I have written about her before. In fact, I’m going to repeat my column of 9-2-10…

Lorraine Brugh teaches organ at Valparaiso University. She has doctorates in both organ and theology. She did the theology doctorate just because she felt she had to know the theology behind the worship music to be able to interpret and teach the music adequately. That’s real devotion.

She led one of the weekends at the Grace Institute, a two-year Lutheran program for learning about and becoming more spiritual. I was one of the few non-Lutherans, and the only Methodist, in the program.

At meals and free times, a group of young women Lutheran pastors, four to six, according to the occasion, coalesced around me. I suspect it was because I treated them as colleagues when older male Lutheran pastors were less receptive to them. Or maybe it was just my animal magnetism.

One lunch period, Lorraine and I were eating together. When the meal was over, my group of young Lutheran women pastors came and joined us.

One of them asked us about Methodist theology. Lorraine has always been a Lutheran, but she got her theology doctorate at Garrett, a United Methodist school, at Northwestern U, while she was doing her organ degrees at Northwestern.

“I’ve always thought Methodism was primarily active theologically, rather than just intellectual,” she said. “You try to do the right thing first, and only then you think about it. It’s a very heroic faith. Your hymn is ‘Are Ye Able.’”

That surprised me for a moment. I would have said our hymn was “O For a Thousand Tongues.” It’s a Wesley hymn, after all. But I think Lorraine was right. For American Methodism of the 20^th century, Earl Marlatt’s “Are Ye Able” was our hymn. [1]

Then Lorraine started to sing it. But being non-Methodist, she began to falter on the words. So I joined in and we sang it together.

Are ye able, said the master, to be crucified with me

Yea, the sturdy dreamers answered, to the death we follow thee.

Lord, we are able, our spirits are thine

Remold them, make us, like thee, divine

Thy guiding radiance a beacon shall be

A beacon to God, to love, and loyalty.

 

Are ye able to remember when a thief lifts up his eyes

That his pardoned soul is worthy of a place in paradise?

Lord, we are able, our spirits are thine

Remold them, make us, like thee, divine

Thy guiding radiance a beacon shall be

A beacon to God, to love, and loyalty.

 

Are ye able when the shadows close around you with the sod

To believe that spirit triumphs, to commend your soul to God?

Lord, we are able, our spirits are thine

Remold them, make us, like thee, divine

Thy guiding radiance a beacon shall be

A beacon to God, to love, and loyalty.

 

Are ye able? Still the Master whisper down eternity,

And heroic spirits answer, now as then in Galilee.

Lord, we are able, our spirits are thine

Remold them, make us, like thee, divine

Thy guiding radiance a beacon shall be

A beacon to God, to love, and loyalty.

 

Heroic, indeed, perhaps unrealistically so. That hymn still stirs me, though. It’s a sung response to Jesus’ call to forsake everything to follow him.

The young Lutheran pastors looked a bit astonished as we sang.

When we finished, they had tears running down their unwrinkled cheeks. The tears were probably the audacity of my scratchy bass intruding on Lorraine’s clear soprano, but I prefer to think it was because, even though Lutheran, they are able.

John Robert McFarland

[1] It’s # 530 in the Methodist hymnal. Marlatt wrote it in 1926. Henry S. Mason wrote the music in 1924. It was my mother-in-law’s favorite hymn when Helen was growing up, even though she was a Baptist.

 

 

 

 

THE WITNESS OF RAYDEAN [M, 6-16-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—THE WITNESS OF RAYDEAN [M, 6-16-25]

 

Annual Conferences are just wrapping up in the UMC, and it brings to mind a very important AC, when Raydean Davis engineered something everyone else gave up on…

Raydean Davis was a St. Louis Browns fan, even long after the Browns ceased their futile attempts at playing baseball. That may be all you need to know to understand Raydean. He was an off-the-wall, over-the-line kind of guy.

Raydean followed me--once-removed, after thirteen years by Tom and Sharon Neufer-Emswiler [1] --as the Director of The Wesley Foundation at Illinois State University. Anne Paxton, the long-time secretary at the WF, said to me after Raydean’s death, “Working with you was a joy. Working with Tom and Sharon was a pleasure. Working with Raydean was a challenge.” [2]

She didn’t mean that Raydean was not creative and beloved as a campus minister. He may have been the best ever. He was so open, so inclusive. Even in his sixties, he understood and loved college students, and they understood and loved him. He provided them so many opportunities to grow in grace and self. But being off-the-wall and over-the-line means you don’t sweat the small stuff. There is, though, always small stuff that somebody has to sweat, and that meant the gracious but long-suffering Anne. Fortunately, her abilities at small stuff were just as great as Raydean’s liabilities.

Raydean and I met first as table tennis majors at Garrett Theological Seminary, often partnering to suffer ignominious defeat at the backhand of James Cone, who became the famous theologian of Black Power, and his partner, Australian Malcolm MacArthur, of the power forehand. Raydean was younger, in his first year at Garrett when I was in my last, but we continued our table tennis inclinations for the rest of his life, whenever we were together in the presence of a Ping-Pong table.

I usually write a little narrative obit when a friend dies, and I fear I have neglected Raydean. It has been eleven years now since he died, fittingly—if that does not sound too bizarre—from a bicycle accident head injury, at the age of 72. It is time to acknowledge and appreciate his friendship and life.

After Garrett, we did not see each other much. He was in the South IL Conference. I started in the Northwest Indiana Conference, and then was in the Central IL Conference. The latter was when we began to make contact again, because the Central and South IL Conferences were part of the same Area, presided over by the same bishop.

The Central IL Conference was about twice the size of South. As the UMC suffered declines from the 1960s on, the South IL Conference became too small to be viable, and our bishop tried to get the two conferences to merge into one. Central was doing pretty well, though. A lot of Central folks thought merging with South would be a drag on the pension and hospitalization plans. South IL voted to merge, but Central did not.

I joined Central in voting against merger, not because of pensions and health plans, but because The South IL Conference had a history of rejecting ministry candidates, and folks in general, if they were not white enough and masculine enough. A lot of southern IL would have fit nicely in Mississippi.

In fact, Raydean had spoken to that at the South IL Conference a few years earlier, when yet another group of outcasts knocked at the door of the church. He said, “When we had a black preacher who wanted to join the conference, we said no. Eventually we had to let him in, and we are a better conference because of it. Then Mike and Roy Katayama wanted to be pastors here, and we said no, because they were of Japanese descent. But eventually we were forced to let them in, and we are a better conference because of it. Then women wanted to be preachers, and we said no, but we were finally forced to let them in, and we are a better conference because of it. Now…]

By the time of the merger vote, Raydean had left the South IL Conference to be Director of The WF at ILSU. He knew both conferences well. He worked for a second vote, trying to get us to merge.

At Annual Conference that year, he sat down with Helen and me one morning as we had breakfast. He asked me to vote in favor of merger. I told him I would.

When he left, Helen said, “Why did you tell him that? I thought you were against merger.”

“Raydean,” I said. “There is a time when you need to trust your friends. He’s the only guy I know who can see past the small stuff to the result. If he thinks it will work, it will.”

There are still folks who think Raydean earned a place in hell for managing that merger, but everyone knows that he was the only one who was over the line far enough to see its possibilities.

John Robert McFarland

1] I used to say that it took Tom and Sharon 13 years together to accomplish all I did at ILSU in six years, until Sharon began to say that it took the two of them together 13 years to undo all that I did in six.

2] Often, the best things I did in ministry were the hires I made. That includes Anne as secretary [Head Honcho, really] of The ILSU Wesley Foundation.

GOING TO SEE THE WOMAN IN THE WOODS [Sat, 6-14-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Befuddlements of An Old Man—GOING TO SEE THE WOMAN IN THE WOODS [Sat, 6-14-25]

 

The Late Show with Stephen Colbert should be named The Too Late Show, for that is what it is for us. Probably for most old people. But we tape it and watch some of it the next night during supper. I say “some of it,” because we rarely watch the “musical” guests, not just because we don’t know who they are, but because we like melodies and lyrics that are meaningful, as they were in our day, like “Mairzy Doats and Dozy Doats,” or “R-A-G-G, M-O-P-P, RAGG-MOPP!”

We usually do watch the “actor” segment, though, when some actor who needs to plug a new movie or show, is the guest. That’s how we became aware of Dutch actress Katje Herbers, of whom we had never heard, who is in a TV series called Evil, Westworld, Manhattan, The Leftovers, none of which, of course, we have ever seen. We don’t intend to watch their new series, especially if it has a title like Evil, but we like to keep current about “popular culture,” in case we are ever on Jeopardy.

 

Ms. Herbers is older [31] than she appears. She is attractive and bubbly. If you don’t know a person, “bubbly” can be either creative or superficial. I’m still not sure about her. I do know, though, that she is now free of the ghosts who were giving her headaches.

First she told Colbert that she is “not spiritual,” but then she said she had suffered such terrible headaches that she couldn’t function. A friend told her she needed “to see the woman in the woods.” Well, you can imagine the reaction of a non-spiritual person to that! But she was so desperate, she went. The woman in the woods said, “You have 35 ghosts living in you. I’ll have to convince them to leave.” So, she did. She spoke to each one by name. “Dawn, you have to go,” etc. A couple of them refused and she had to be stern, but she eventually got the job done.

“My headaches disappeared,” Ms. Herbers said, “and I’ve not had any since.”

Colbert, who is openly Catholic, didn’t say it in words, but his expression said it all. “You went through that and still claim you aren’t spiritual?!”

Now, of course, there are explanations for that experience that can be called psychological instead of spiritual. But I’m beginning to think that the bubbliness of Ms. Herbers may be more superficial than creative.

You don’t have to be current to be relevant. My grandmother did not know who Buddy Holly or Bruce Springsteen were, but she was the most relevant woman I ever knew.

I am getting confused, and I’m not certain how to finish this. I’m not certain even why I started it. Something about there’s more to life than what we can understand…

Please be patient while I go see the woman in the woods.

 

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

WRESTLING WITH ANGELS [R, 6-12-25]

 BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Complaints of An Old Man—WRESTLING WITH ANGELS [R, 6-12-25]

 

As a follow-up, sort of, to the column of 6-10…

The pain in my hip would not go away, so they sent me to Machaela. Well, they sent me to x-ray, but it was the congenial Machaela who did the work. I complained that I had done nothing to cause the pain in my hip—no fall, no slip, no nothing. It seemed unfair to me. She commiserated, but said that she is at age where she can hurt herself in her sleep, which she did. Went to bed feeling fine and woke up hurting. And she is only 47.

I considered asking her if she had been wrestling with an angel, but I thought she might misunderstand, especially if she had not read the 32^nd chapter of Genesis recently. That’s the chapter that has the story of Jacob and that angel. Like Machaela, Jacob got hurt in his sleep, wrestling with the angel. He limped rest of his life, as a reminder of that encounter.

Which makes me think that we need to do some work coordinating Bible stories about Jacob. We are climbing Jacob’s ladder… Not if you have a bad hip!

 

Okay, the ladder is a different story. That’s chapter 28. But I wanted to complain, about something, because my hip hurt. I couldn’t even walk without pain, let alone climb a ladder. It’s especially hard to climb a ladder if you’re using a cane.

And I did not want a reminder of whatever had caused the pain, the way Jacob’s limp reminded him of the angel, who probably got his wrestling training at the U of Iowa. [The Hawkeyes have 24 national championships in wrestling.]

 

As a wrestler, Jacob was a grinder. He couldn’t pin the angel, but the angel couldn’t pin him, either. Jacob just hung on. He wouldn’t let go. He kept at it all night, until the angel agreed to give him a blessing, which included the new name of Israel, which in part means “he has overcome.”

When Megan, my FNP, saw the x-rays Machaela had taken, she sent me to physical therapy, much to my disgust. PT is a lot of work. I wanted her to give me a pill or a shot and have it over with. No, I had to go wrestle twice a week with Nicholas, who was very nice but definitely not angelic in the way he treated my hip.

So, call me Israel, for I have overcome. My hip doesn’t hurt anymore. I’m not limping. I don’t need the cane. So I guess I can go back to climbing that ladder to heaven.

All together now: Every rung goes higher, higher…

 

John Robert McFarland

 

DOUBLING DOWN [T, 6-10-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Singling Down of An Old Man—DOUBLING DOWN [T, 6-10-25]

 

I walked this morning. It was a pleasant day. Pretty clouds. Fully green trees. Fragrant flowers. Friendly dogs. I walked with no pain. Made me really mad.

I haven’t been able to walk the pleasant streets of our neighborhood for three months, because of the pain in my hip. Joint pains and problems are de rigueur for old people, yes, but this was unfair. I did nothing to cause the pain—no falls or slips. It just started on its own.

So, I made my peace with not getting to walk the green streets of my neighborhood anymore. I had done so for ten years. Surely that was enough for one of my age.

I went to the NP [Nurse Practitioner], of course, for the pain. I assumed she would give me a pill or an injection. Instead, she ordered me to the physical therapist. I was sure that would not work, even though my wife and daughters all assured me that their physical therapy had been beneficial. But they had been young women at the times when fit and youthful people pulled at their limbs. I was now an old man of elderly abilities and curmudgeonly virtues.

Moreover, I’d had PT previously, after rotator cuff surgery. It was one of the worst experiences of my life. Pretty little blonds with bouncy ponytails and cutesy names, like Polly and Penny, would take my arm down the hall to work on it while leaving me writhing on the torture table.

 

I dragged myself, on a cane, to PT. This time, there were no cute blonds, only competent-looking men, Chris, the manager of the torture chamber, and Nicolas, my personal PTist. I was grateful. They were not nearly as painful as Penny and Polly. But they didn’t help. Ha! I was right. This wasn’t working. 

People love being right, even when we’re wrong.

Until about the 4^th session. As usual, I had hobbled into their lair on a cane. But as I left, I didn’t need the cane. No pain all the way to the car. Well, that wasn’t very far, but it was a warning: this is going to work, and you’ll have to admit that the NP was right and you were wrong.

We hate being wrong, especially if we really are wrong.

 

Politicians hate it so much that “doubling down” is the current buzz word. You never admit that you are wrong, about anything. If you claim that 2 + 2 is 5, and some pointy-headed mathematician with a PhD says you are wrong, you double down: You claim that the mathematician must be a pedophile, or a Canadian. You claim that you are using new and alternative and better math. You claim that you never said any such thing, even though everyone on earth has seen the videotape of you saying it. You claim that 2 + 2 = 5 would be right if others hadn’t made this into an unchristian nation.

Well, I’m above that sort of thing. I’m not going to claim that the NP was wrong, and that I was right about the PT being the wrong therapy for my hip pain, that all I needed was a shot or a pill.

I will, however, have to get a new NP.

John Robert McFarland

POTLUCK AT THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA [Sun, 6-8-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Theological Complaints of An Old Man—POTLUCK AT THE COUNCIL OF NICAEA [Sun, 6-8-25]

 

I’ve written this before, but it’s one of my favorite stories…

When daughter Katie started dating Patrick, the man who became her husband, he was totally ignorant of Protestantism. It wasn’t willful ignorance. It was just that he’d lived in a totally Roman Catholic environment—family, friends, church, school. But suddenly he was dealing with not only a Protestant, but the daughter of a Methodist preacher.

He asked her, “What do you have to do to be a Methodist?” She replied, “You have to believe in God, and have a 9x13 pan.” [1]

That sums up Christian faith perfectly. Except for the theologians… They just can’t help messing with perfection.

Blame it on Augustine. The doctrine of the Trinity, that is. He just couldn’t leave well enough alone.

There is God for creation. There is Christ for salvation. There is the continuing [resurrected] presence of Christ [Holy Ghost] for guidance.

 

Who cares how they relate to each other? That’s a family matter. It’s none of your business. God is the Alpha and the Omega. Isn’t that enough? Just sing “He Lives” and get with it. But, no…

 

The doctrine of the Trinity caused so much confusion and furor among bishops and the like that Emperor Constantine had to call a conference to try to iron it all out. By that time he was probably saying to himself, “Why did I say it was okay to be a Christian back in 313? These idiots can’t even agree on what it means to be a Christian.”

He called everybody together at Nicaea, in 325, exactly 1700 years ago, and told them to come up with a creed everyone would agree on. It was a very successful conference. It produced that creed. And we’re still arguing about the same stuff 1700 years later.

The Trinity is okay for theologians to argue about, but has anyone ever been saved by winning a theological argument?

Is God three Persons or one? What’s a Person? Are God and Christ compacted together in hypostatic union? Is the Trinity like 3 in 1 oil? Is you is or is you ain’t filioque? [feel lee okay] [Try it; it’s fun to sing.] [2]

 

Who cares? What difference does it make? People need God, not overly parsed thoughts about God. “God is not found at the end of an argument.” Indeed, I maintain that too much talk about God takes us further from God. And I have a doctorate in talking about God!

I should not be too hard on Augustine, though. He wasn’t the only Trinitarian, just the most prolific writer.

And he also said, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in Thee.” That, I think, is true. It’s just that we don’t find that rest by arguing about the nature of God.

Nicaea would have been a lot better if it had been a potluck instead of a theological conference.

So what now? Trust God, and put something into your 9x13 pan to share with others.

 

John Robert McFarland

1] For those of you too young to recall the days of constant church potlucks, 9x13 is the size of a potluck pan—meat, vegetable, dessert, they all require a 9x13 pan.

2] Filioque means “…and the son…” and is part of the Nicene Creed, added to get everybody on the same page about the Trinity. But we continued to argue about it for 724 years. We couldn’t agree on three little words, and so that in 1054, those three little words caused The Great Schism, between Western [Roman] and Eastern [Orthodox] Churches.

 

AUDACITY OF AGE [6-6-25]

BEYOND WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—AUDACITY OF AGE [6-6-25]

 

I have gotten back onto an every-other-day posting, rather than the every-third-day regimen I was trying. I just have so much to say about what it’s like to be old, so old that I am no longer even in “the winter of our years” but actually “beyond winter.”

Isn’t that the most audacious thing you’ve ever heard? I mean, why in the world would anyone think that folks would want to hear about stuff that happened so long ago?

This came to mind as Helen and I reviewed our first 66 years of marriage, to see if we could make improvements for the next 66. I thought about folks celebrating their 66^th anniversary on the day we got married in 1959. They were wed in 1893!

Young people in 1959 thought that people who got married in 1893 were hopelessly out of it. I mean, that was in “the gay 90s,” before “the turn of the century,” way before “the roaring ‘20s.” Before all the WWs, not to mention Korea and Vietnam and Desert Storm and… Way before The Great Depression.

That was stuff you study in history class, not stuff anybody actually lived through. Photos in black and white, made not by a cell phone but by a camera on a tripod with a photographer draped in a black cover. Henry Ford’s first Model T didn’t sell until 1908. Folks married 66 years before us left for their honeymoon in a buggy pulled by a horse. Those brides couldn’t even vote until they’d been married 26 years,

To those of us married in 1959, 1893 young married couples lived only in history books. [Not even in film strips, the hot new technology of our day.] To young people now, folks married in 1959 live only in history books, not in real life.

That’s why it’s audacious for an old person to write about “back then.” Even old people now don’t believe in stereographs and mimeographs and graph paper. We forget so easily. We think that cars always had seat belts, that you could always control the TV from across the room, that you didn’t need cash to pay for your Pepsi.

There is an audacity of age that is unlike any other.

In my final sermon, I told of my early years on a farm, with 13 families on one telephone line, and growing up without a car, and milking a cow by hand. Some friends heard a young teen boy sitting ahead of them say to his parents, “Is any of this true?”

Well, no. It’s just stuff old people make up so that we’ll sound more interesting. We always had cell phones and electric cars and computers. One thing different, though. We didn’t have AI. Our intelligence had to be real.

 

John Robert McFarland

COUNTING HAIRS [W, 6-4-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—COUNTING HAIRS [W, 6-4-25]

 

I have a woman friend who has a rare and mysterious skin illness. The doctors say no one knows what causes it or how to treat it. One result of it is that she is losing her hair.

That’s more traumatic for a woman than a man. Men in general don’t prefer baldness, but it’s no big deal if we have no hair on our heads. Some guys even shave their heads, choosing the bald look. I did not choose it, but I’ve been bald and white-bearded since I was 45, so the comment I get most often is, “You haven’t changed a bit.”

If a woman loses her hair, though, it’s more than just a bit of a change. The change to her sense of self is even greater than to her physical being. [Yes, I checked this insight with some women.]

Jesus says that even the hairs of our heads are numbered [Luke 12:7.] That’s how carefully God pays attention to us. “His eye is on the sparrow, and I know he watches me.”

I’m not sure I want that much attention from God. I do lots of things I’d rather God not know about. On the other hand, God should cut me some slack, because I’m not nearly as much work when it comes time for God to count the hairs of our heads.

Hair has always been important to people as we try to present ourselves to the world, more so now, I think, than ever before. Men now not only sport the bald look but some have long, flowing locks. Women color their hair in hues that are not even in the Crayola 120 box. God must be more intrigued than ever before while counting our head hairs. Is this what I had in mind when I created these people and realized I had to count the hairs of their heads?

Hair is especially important to cancer patients. Not much of a problem to me; I was already bald when I got cancer. The chemo thinned out my beard some, and my right leg went bald, but that was all.

Helen, though, lost her hair entirely. He beautician cried when it got so thin and scraggly that she had to cut it all off, so that Helen could start wearing a wig. When her chemo was over, Helen burned that wig. [It was already half-way there, since she forgot she was wearing it while pulling cookies out of the oven and got her bangs singed.] Through the years she has sewn many beautiful head-foofies as hair substitutes for women on chemo.

It's nice to quote Luke 12:7, about God counting head hairs, but with all the world’s problems, shouldn’t God be working on more important stuff than counting head hairs? Well, if you are like my friend with the strange skin disease, no. She takes comfort in knowing God is still counting, even though the count takes less time now for her.

I think Jesus is simply saying that God deals with each of us individually. What you need from God is different from what I need. What God wants from you is different from that God wants from me.

Each of us has a different hair count—some many, some few. But all our heads get counted, every hair.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

 

THE LOST PAINTING [M, 6-2-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Searchings of An Old Man—THE LOST PAINTING [M, 6-2-25]

 

We could not find that framed picture. Anywhere.

It was Kathy’s fault, really. She was the one who swapped out our T.C.Steele  winterscape over my sofa for the similar summer painting.

Kathy makes the 45 minute drive to our house from the woods of Brown County with delightful and frequent irregularity, bringing not only her gentle enthusiasm, but food. Enough that we can feast together but have some left over for a second meal. This time it was chicken legs and potato salad and kohl slaw, as befits the advent of a summer painting.

Although she did not know that we would be changing that painting when she came. But, yes, it was she who did the actual swapping of the paintings. She is still young and nimble [under 80] and able to climb ladders and sofas.

After she left--planning to stop at two stores on her way home, since she refuses to leave the woods unless she has three places to go, to justify the gasoline and time—Helen said that it was too bad we did not have more paintings, since it would be nice to get a change of scenery more often. [Since her sofa is across the room from mine, she is the one who might get bored with the same painting over my sofa for too long.]

The problem, she noted, is that we don’t have other framed paintings. Well, I said, what about that red barn painting I bought for you? She had no memory of it, until I gave the details of its provenance, as I am wont to do.

When we lived in Sterling, IL, I frequented a coffee shop that was formerly a funeral home, in a big old house. It doubled as an art gallery, paintings for sale by local artists. Helen had a birthday coming up, and I was much taken with a painting of an old red barn in snow. It reminded me of the barn I grew up with—although ours had never known paint, red or otherwise—and, besides, it was just quite pretty.

Helen loved it. It became a favorite for our wall, not just in Sterling, but also for our eight years in Iron Mountain. Then we became Bloomerangs. Ten years ago.

She finally remembered it. “That’s my favorite,” she said. “We need to have it out.”

So we looked. For two days. Behind all the furniture pieces large enough to store an out-of-season painting. In the garage, since I display all my baseball pictures there. In all the closets. Under the beds. No red barn.

Until one morning, as I reclined on my sofa, underneath the painting that is not changed often enough, my laptop computer appropriately enough on my lap, when I heard Helen giggling in the kitchen. “Come here,” she said.

There, on the wall, was the red barn painting, where it has been for ten years, because we like it so much that we wanted it to be in a place where we could see it every day.

It is so easy to let the things—and people—that we love become so familiar that we forget them. But it’s good news, any time we can say, it once was lost but now is found. 

John Robert McFarland

THE BREATH RESET [Sat, 5-31-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Schemes of An Old Man--THE BREATH RESET [Sat, 5-31-25]

 

I am not very good at breathing. I mean, I don’t do it; it just happens.

It’s like the time our state trooper friend stopped a woman for speeding. She was not happy and would not stop haranguing him long enough for him to talk. There was a man in the passenger seat, looking straight ahead. Len said to him, “Sir, if you have any control of this situation, you need to use it now.” The man kept looking straight ahead and said, “I deal with this every day; you’re on your own.”

Well, when it comes to dealing with the breathing situation, my lungs are on their own.

Some people have control of their breathing. They take deep breaths to calm themselves. They take rhythmic breaths to remind themselves to stay in the moment. They do short pants until their breathing is in sync with the universe. They do chants as they breathe, like Joy in, anxiety out. Joy in, anxiety out. Joy in…

I admire them, but…

…I just let my lungs do whatever they want.

That doesn’t always work well. There was a time I was going to a deep-muscle therapist. She could get her fingers into my muscles so far they came out the other side. She kept saying to me, “Breathe! Breathe! Every time I go deep you stop breathing.” Well, what did she expect? Her argument was with my lungs, not with me.

I’m getting a little short of breath now, though, in my old age. My lungs let me know if we are walking uphill, or if I’m on the third rep of my leg swings for my physical therapy exercises.

So, I am going to try a suggestion of Dr. Andrw Weil, from his Healthy Aging book. He says I can reset my life direction by taking a deep breath. It’s good advice, because I need to reset my direction often these days. I get started down the path of anger at politicians and billionaires, and worry about children and other people that the politicians and billionaires are exploiting and damaging, and anger at the church for not being spiritual, and anger at myself for not being perfect, and… well, I can reset, Dr. Weil says, by taking a long, deep breath…

 

Nope. Doesn’t help a bit. I guess my lungs are just going to have to continue getting by on their own while I figure out what to do about this messy world.

John Robert McFarland

“Life is actually pretty easy. Breathe in. Breathe out. Repeat.”

Happy 66^th wedding anniversary to the world’s best wife.

 

 

THE DESIRE FOR A DIFFERENT PLACE [R, 5-29-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Confusing Theology of An Old Man—THE DESIRE FOR A DIFFERENT PLACE [R, 5-29-25]

 

Daughter Katie Kennedy, the author [1], passed along this one told by her pastor, Dani Musselman: A ship was going by a deserted island. They saw smoke and stopped to investigate. They were met by a man who had been marooned there by himself for five years. “If you’re here alone,” said the captain, “why are there three huts?” “Well, one is where I live. One is where I go to church. And the other is where I used to go to church.”

This is Ascension Day, when Jesus ascended to heaven, forty days after Easter. In those forty days, he appeared to disciples and others in various ways and places. Apparently, that wasn’t working all that well, so he decided to go to a better place.

I understand Jesus wanting to ascend to heaven. There is always a tendency to think if we could just be some place else, that would solve our problems.

In the last years of his life, my father moved almost daily it seemed, from a nursing home to an apartment to a different nursing home to a different apartment… It was actually a few months in between each move, but it seemed like daily to Helen and me because we were the ones who had to do the work. He’d inform us that he had moved, and then we would get his utilities hooked or unhooked, get his furniture put some place else, change his mailing address with Social Security, etc. He was convinced, against all the evidence, that if he just changed his location, he would no longer be old and blind.

It wasn’t that I was unappreciative of that idea. As a young pastor I always thought getting to a different church would cure my problems. Sometimes it cured a particular problem, or person, but there were problem people wherever I went.

I didn’t mind people with problems, since there are no people without problems. But problem people are different from people with problems. You might be able to help a person with their problems. Problem people, though, are beyond help, because they don’t want help. It is their problem-making that gives them an identity.

That’s why heaven is so appealing. If we go to that celestial someplace else, our problems are over. “Just a few more weary days and then, I’ll fly away. To a place where joys will never end, I’ll fly away.” [2]

Didn’t work for Jesus, though, which is why I find Ascension sort of confusing. I mean, Jesus ascended to heaven, but resurrection means that Christ is no longer confined to the human body of Jesus, but is now available to everyone, any place, at any time, through the Spirit.

Poor Jesus. He thought he’d get to go to heaven, and take it easy, but he was resurrected, and now has to be everyplace all the time, going through everybody’s problems with them.

I like singing “I’ll Fly Away.” But I think that until I have ascended, I’m better off singing “What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear…” [3]

John Robert McFarland

1] Her most recent book, Did You Hear What Happened in Salem? will be published in September and is available for pre-order now.

2] “I’ll Fly Away.” Albert E. Brumley

3] “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” Joseph M. Scriven

 

 

 

 

THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNIE [T, 5-27-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING ERNIE [T, 5-27-25]

 

Yesterday was Memorial Day, and I am thinking about my childhood hero, who was killed in WWII, Ernie Pyle.

His writing as a WWII correspondent endures, much better than that of Ernest Hemmingway. Ernie’s column on The Death of Captain Waskow may be the single most famous piece of war writing ever.

 

I wanted to be a writer like Ernie, because he wrote about my beloved uncles.

Bob and Randall and Mike McFarland were in the Army. Jesse Pond was in the Navy Air Force. Johnny Pond was a Marine. All the folks I knew—in person and on air—said that Ernie Pyle told the truth as he wrote about the common soldier. To me, common soldiers meant my uncles. My first memories were of wanting to be Ernie Pyle. I was too young to be a solider, but I figured I could write about them. I could tell the stories of men like my uncles.

My close relationship with my uncles was born out of The Great Depression. Until I was four, we lived with the McFarland uncles most of the time, because my father couldn’t get a job. Actually, we lived with Grandpa and Grandma Mac, in a big old farm house on the edge of Oxford, OH, that my mother named Cedar Crest, but Bob and Randall and Mike still lived there, too. They could not marry or move out on their own because they could not get jobs, either. Their room was a side porch. I thought it was wonderful. They were great playmates. Uncle Randall, especially, was my main companion and care giver.

We moved to Indianapolis when I was four, because my father found a job there. When Uncle Randall and his brand-new bride, Gertrude Robbins, came through Indianapolis on their honeymoon, headed for California, where he was to report for South Pacific duty, on a train crowded with so many soldiers than nobody had a sleeping berth and some even slept in the aisles, I took Uncle Randall to school with me [1], in his lieutenant’s uniform, to show him off.

 

World War II was the war of my childhood, the context for everything I understood about life—turning off all the lights for air raid drills, knowing the meaning of the color of the star flags in the windows of the houses on the streets I walked, growing a “victory garden,” saving tin cans and grease to help “the war effort,” buying Victory Bonds [Grandma Mac bought one for me that I later cashed in to get a used clarinet so I could be in the band], going without because “the boys overseas” needed stuff more than I did, singing rude songs and telling rude jokes about the Krauts and Japs, singing the stirring songs of every branch of the military, learning that America was always right, but also learning to hate injustice and racism and war, especially in a country that prided itself on being the beacon and model of freedom for the world, and, most importantly, we were one people, united in the defense of democracy and the defeat of Nazism and fascism.

To make my career and personal goal even better, Ernie and I were both Hoosiers. He had even been the first editor of the Indiana University [IU] school newspaper, The Indiana Daily Student. Naturally, I worked up to being editor of my high school paper, Oak Barks, and went on to enroll as a journalism student at IU, in the Ernie Pyle School of Journalism, in its eponymous building, with the idea of replicating Ernie’s career. [2]

 

I attended, with my wife and daughters, the dedication of Ernie’s childhood home in Dana, IN, when it was designated as a State Historic Site in 1976.

 

My dream, of being Ernie, was not fulfilled, since I got sidetracked into preaching. But I never lost that feeling that Ernie and I somehow belonged together, maybe because I also got to tell truth, to tell the same kinds of stories in the pulpit that Ernie wrote in his columns. A different war, but we both told the stories.

John Robert McFarland

1] Lucretia Mott Public School # 3, on Rural Street.

 

2] When I went to IU, The Ernie Pyle School of Journalism had its own building. Journalism has now been subsumed into The Media School, which resides in Franklin Hall, which was the main library in my day. Ernie Pyle Hall, because of its location in the center of campus, beside the Memorial Union building, has been turned into the IU Welcome Center. A statue of Ernie, sitting at his typewriter, now stands near the entrance of Franklin Hall.

 

THE GIFT OF BIG BILL [Sun, 5-25-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—THE GIFT OF BIG BILL [Sun, 5-25-25]

 

We called him Big Bill, mostly because there was another kid in town, a couple of years younger, with the same last name. He, of course, became Little Bill.

Big Bill really was big, from about 8^th grade on. A little over six feet, and heavy. Not fat, except in places. Primarily, he was bumpy. His body was pear-shaped, and lumpy. So was his head, which tapered upward to a lumpy point, a bit like a worn-down mountain range, with tufts of hair, like a burned over forest. And his teeth and nose and eyes and ears all had different ideas about what direction Bill should take.

His social skills were much like his body—bumpy, lumpy, uneven.

As we went through high school years, though, I learned that inside that bunch of lumps, he was a pretty smart guy, and as normal in his hopes and desires as any of the rest of us. So I was not as surprised as other folks when Bill tested well enough to get into the engineering program at a prestigious private university.

He didn’t last long, though. He missed home. He came back to the old home town and stayed, using his interest in engineering to become an auto mechanic.

Big Bill and I were never close, running around together, but we were friendly. When I was class president, I tried to be sure he was always inv involved in class activities, including encouraging him to come to class reunions after graduation. Sometimes I even threatened to kidnap him and take him if he didn't come on his own. That worked. So, through the years, he would call me from time to time.

He never married, although he had a girlfriend for many years. She matched him in size and lumpiness. He called me when she dumped him. “She just used me,” he sighed. “When I got diabetes, I had to stop cooking all the fried meats and sweet treats she liked.”

I guess it was the necessity of diet change that caused him to get into strange medicines, which led to conspiracy theories. He called me each time he had learned some new theory about the rays the government was using to control us, or about some new concoction you could eat or drink that would cure all your ills.

That, though, led to a new possibility. One of the off-beat doctors he consulted lived a hundred miles away, near my father’s nursing home. I asked Big Bill if he would visit Daddy when he was in the area to see the doctor. He did so. My father was so pleased. Here was somebody who knew all about Oakland City, and the curative values of drinking vinegar, something my father had gotten into.

Unfortunately, that relationship did not last long. Bill’s diabetes, or something, caught up to him. Although he was my age, he died before my father did.

His lumpiness and awkwardness were part of him. I guess the strange medicines and conspiracy theories were, too. I remember Big Bill with affection, not despite those qualities, but because of them. He trusted me to deal honestly with him as he was, and that is a great gift.

John Robert McFarland

“Watch to see where God is working and join him.” Henry Blackaby

 

QUIET GRACE AND SILENT MERCIES [F, 5-23-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Campus Minister—QUIET GRACE AND SILENT MERCIES [F, 5-23-25]

 

Going through old files and boxes, as old people should, to discard what is no longer meaningful, and spare others that task, I came across a letter in a small pink envelope. The return address noted that it was from Connie Sullivan. I am too proud of my ability to remember names, and so I was chagrined. I did not recognize that name at all!

There was a good reason for that. I had never met Miss Sullivan.

It was written in the last week of my campus ministry at The Wesley Foundation at IL State U. Connie acknowledged in her letter that we had never met. She felt like she knew me, though, for she had been coming to our Wednesday night communion service throughout her campus years. Now, as I was leaving, she wanted to thank me for that service.

Each Wednesday night, at 9:00, intending to be finished by 9:30, we had a simple communion service in the sanctuary at First Methodist Church. One of our students stood at the doors and handed a single sheet of paper to each person as they entered. The paper gave instructions on how we did the communion, and noted that all were welcome, regardless of religious affiliation. The lights were low, but light enough to read the paper.

A student organist played softly as folks gathered. The sanctuary was large. No one had to sit near anyone else. When the organist finished, we lowered the lights still more, so that it was basically only the chancel that had any light.

Although the light over the pulpit was dimmed, I was able to read a contemporary religious poem as an introduction, then a short scripture, and then I told a little story. Sometimes I wrote a parable. [1] Then I read the simple form of the communion liturgy

I reminded them that all were welcome and invited them to come to the communion rail, kneel, receive the elements, stay at the rail as long at they wished, then leave, or return to their seat for more meditation time.

Our publicity was almost entirely word of mouth. My first year we averaged 34 per service. My 6^th and last year there, we averaged 106.

If you’re averaging 106, that means some services are a lot more, and serving the elements kept me on the move. There was no order. Some stayed at the rail a long time. Some just took the elements and immediately left. They filled in wherever there was space.

I had to be alert to see who needed to be served, and what. I did not serve both elements at the same time. First I gave the bread, and went on down the line, waiting until the communicant had adequate time with the bread before returning and offering the juice. It was quietly hectic, but I loved going up and down behind that rail, with a tray of bread cubes in one hand, and a tray of little juice glasses in the other, watching each expectant face, remembering who needed what.

There were plenty of kids at that service that I never met. They did not come to any other Wesley Foundation programs, so I did not know their names, but I recognized them from seeing them on their knees before me, week after week.

Apparently one of those was Connie Sullivan. So, dear Connie, wherever you are, I pray for you, an old lady now, perhaps with bad knees, unable to kneel for communion, but, still, in spirit and memory, may it be, receiving quiet grace and silent mercies.

John Robert McFarland

1] I had a reputation for parables in those days, when “contemporary worship” was a new and exciting—and controversial—thing. Some of my parables were printed in collections of materials for “contemporary worship.”

WHERE ARE YOU IF YOU ARE NOT HERE? [W, 5-21-23]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Befuddlements of An Old Man—WHERE ARE YOU IF YOU ARE NOT HERE? [W, 5-21-23]

 

I sort of like having folks text their ETA. Especially those who are going to do work in the house. Plumbers and their ilk let you know that you need to get out of your pajamas. 15 minutes out, they text.

One of us especially wants to know when the cleaning lady will arrive, so that she can have the house sparkling before the cleaner gets here with her rags and mops. Don’t want her to think we are dirty people. Well, what other kind of people need her?

So, last week the cleaning lady texted Be there in 10. I quickly picked up all my underwear from the floor. Ten minutes later she texted, I’m here. That meant we should open the garage door for her. Helen looked out the window. Didn’t see anybody. No person. No car. No bucket of cleaning supplies.

She’s been here many times, so we assumed she knew where here is. Not so.

She thought she was here, but she wasn’t. We had no idea where she was, so it was hard to give her directions to get to here.

Often, I have thought I was here when I was not. Many times, I have been anyplace but here. It’s hard to get any cleaning done if you aren’t here.

 

John Robert McFarland

“Housework, if you do it right, will kill you.” Erma Bombeck