COMMUNITY IN WINTER [T, 9-30-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Communities of An Old Man—COMMUNITY IN WINTER [T, 9-30-25]

 

I went to the dentist last week. I do that whenever we have too much money in our bank account and I need to get rid of a bunch. I had a new hygienist, the delightful young Erin. I told her that Claudia Byers had been my hygienist for such a long time—in the office of Alejandra Haddad, before both Dr. Haddad and Claudia decided to retire—that it was strange seeing dark hair hovering over me, instead of white.

“Oh, Claudia,” Erin said. “She’s a legend in the dental hygiene community. I met her recently and told her, ‘I feel like I already know you, because I’ve heard so much about you.’”

 

Isn’t that interesting? It never occurred to me that there is a ‘dental hygiene community,’ but, of course, every job and activity category has an automatic community. It may be unorganized, but it exists, because people need community, and the quickest and most comfortable community is with folks who do the same things we do.

I think I felt that most keenly in my cancer support group. Automatic community. Every person there was an old-timer, from the moment they walked through the door, because it was a community of emotions as well as activities. We shared the same fears and hopes and anxieties. That’s deep community.

One of the things I like best about being a preacher, even now, when I no longer “share the practice,” [1] is simply being a part of “the goodly fellowship of the prophets.”

My home church never had an ordained, educated preacher. We just had a lay preacher who showed up on Sunday morning—sometimes Gene Matthews, a factory worker from Evansville, or Kenwood Bryant, a school teacher from Evansville, or Paul Burns, the local post master. They were good people, and I learned from them some useful lessons in what makes a sermon helpful, but I never saw anyone dealing with all the other stuff that comes up in a pastor’s week

So, throughout my career, even now, I watch other preacher/pastors carefully. I still want to learn from them. That community is still important to my identity.

Community can be an elusive thing for folks in their winter years, especially those who are so old that they are beyond winter. When we are young [under 85] and out in the world, going to a job or church or gym or book club, there are automatic communities. When we are “puny and feeble,” stuck at home most of the time, community is more elusive, so we need to work a little harder at taking care of cultivating possible communities.

Helen and I have a community of young men who come to do our quarterly pest control. We’ve seen them long enough and talked with them as they go about their duties that we know their names and know all about their children and dogs and frustrations.

And we have a community at the dentist’s office. This week my dentist had a couple of students shadowing him, so—after asking, “Why? Were all the places in Janitorial School already taken?”-- I took the opportunity to instruct them in dental practice from the patient’s point of view. Hygienists and assistants came from all the other rooms to listen.

Up front, after cooling off my credit card, I grabbed a couple of pens from the reception desk, and Emme said, “Oh, yes, take those. I know Helen loves them.” That’s good community.

As I went out the door, I could hear them talking about the community there that we help create. One said, “He’s so…” I couldn’t hear the rest of it.

John Robert McFarland

 

1] “Excellence in Ministry Through Sharing the Practice,” was the motto of The Academy of Parish Clergy, of which I was a Fellow and past-president.

THE BIG STORY [Sat, 9-27-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Reminiscing of An Old Man—THE BIG STORY [Sat, 9-27-25]

 

[Another personal reminiscence story, 765 words instead of my usual 500, so do something else if you’re pressed for time.]

Helen and I have coffee and muffins and talk for an hour or two at mid-morning. Recently she asked me how I knew so early that I wanted to be a newspaper man. This is what I told her…

It was because of newspapers themselves, and WWII, and Ernie Pyle, and the radio, and my big sister, Mary V.

 

NEWSPAPERS IN THE CITY

            We moved to Indianapolis when I was four. The Times was an evening paper and delivered to our front porch by an impressive grown-up of thirteen or fourteen years of age. That was my first inkling that I wanted to be a newspaper man. I wanted to be a grown-up and deliver the paper, because…

            …I knew the newspaper was important, because as soon as it hit the front porch, everyone wanted to see it. Including me, when I learned that there were comic pages. You didn’t even have to be able to read to enjoy them.

            More importantly, it was the source of news about my beloved uncles, who were fighting the fascists and dictators around the world. Most of the time, we weren’t even sure where they were, which meant we needed news from every front in the war.

            In my quest to be a news boy, I made a deal, when I was about eight, with the news girl—a real rarity then—who delivered The Times on East Oakland Ave. In the winter, it was dark by the time she got to our street, the last one on her route. I would meet her at the New York Street end and take the requisite number of papers for my side of the street. I knew every house that got a Times. She delivered on the other side. When we got to Washington Street, if she had an extra, she would give it to me. I would go across Washington St. to where the day shift was leaving the Mallory plant and sell my paper to the Mallory’s office lady in the red coat, for a nickel. Journalism was obviously the way to get rich!

           

NEWSPAPERS IN THE COUNTRY

            When I was ten, we moved to a primitive farm three miles outside Oakland City. No newspaper delivery there. I think it was The Courier that we got, the day after publication, brought in the mail by the rural route carrier. Yes, it was a day late, sometimes two, but so what? It was news to us, and the source of baseball statistics that allowed me to argue with the Cardinals and Cubs fans on the school bus.

            More importantly, it was contact with the outside world. I desperately wanted a life that was more than hoeing weeds and gathering eggs and chopping kindling. Yes, I still wanted news of The Phantom in the comic section, but I wanted to be part of that world the newspaper told about.

 

ERNIE PYLE

            Ernie was from Indiana. We were proud of him. We were told that he wrote the truth about the real soldiers, the ones fighting every day, like my uncles. I wanted to be a war correspondent who told the truth about men like my uncles. I wanted to be Ernie Pyle.

 

THE BIG STORY

            A radio program from 1947-55, each week it dramatized how some newspaper reporter had gotten his [always “his” in those days] big story. It was so heroic and romantic. I knew I’d never get to the major leagues [too slow] or med school [too squeamish] but I could write. I wanted to be the guy who got the big story.

 

MARY V

            My sister, four and a half years older than I, was the most important person in my world. In a family that was chaotic at best, she was an oasis of calm. Anything she did, I wanted to do, and she was on the staff of the high school newspaper, Oak Barks.

Since high school in Oakland City started with 8^th grade, and since I was a mid-year kid [starting in January instead of September because of my birthday] I got to share one semester with Mary V before she graduated. When Alva Cato and Grace Robb, our class sponsors, asked if anyone wanted to be the 8^th grade reporter for Oak Barks, my hand was up first [and probably alone]. 

I think I would have been a good reporter, and I would have gotten retired, just barely, before newspapers became extinct. Yes, I got sidetracked into being a preacher, but I still got to tell The Big Story.

John Robert McFarland

“If I had to choose between newspapers and government, I’d take newspapers.” Thomas Jefferson

 

 

AN EISENHOWER EDUCATION [W, 9-24-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Out-of-date Reflections of An Old Man—AN EISENHOWER EDUCATION [W, 9-24-25]

 

[Continuing my reflections on the 70^th anniversary of my college matriculation… Remember that you read at your own peril since I am now so old I just write for myself instead of trying to be inspirational or efficacious…that’s why I now use the sub-title of “Beyond winter…”]

I had the good fortune to go to college when a college education was primarily to help you be an educated person, not as a path to a particular job.

Yes, there were courses of study that were designed for certain professions—business, music, theater, pre-med, pre-law, etc--but a bachelor’s degree was designed first to give everyone the same “liberal” [general, broad] education.

To that end, there were a lot of required courses that were designed not to fit you for a particular job but to help you be a person who could think well, and be a good citizen, regardless of what vocation you pursued.

Majors and minors at Indiana University required remarkably few credit hours, in part, I think, because there were so many required courses that took up a lot of hours. A major was only 25 hours, and a minor, I think, only 12. So I had a history major with minimum courses in the History Dept, because I also took courses in Folklore and Religion [History of Christian Thought] that counted toward a history major.

As a freshman, I was a journalism major, but frosh didn’t take courses in their major back then. Freshmen were all in “The Junior Division,” which was a bit confusing, since “junior” was also used for students in their third year.

That Junior Division year was dedicated entirely to required, basic, and “intro” courses, such as basic psych, English comp, “Intro to Lit,” etc. and a foreign language [almost always French or German]. The foreign language courses were hours heavy—five per semester—and didn’t count toward a major.

As sophomores, we started working on “majors.” In the summer between my frosh and sophomore years, I had decided that I had to honor my deal with God--to be a preacher if “He” would save my sister’s life--so I was no longer a journalism major, as I had expected to be. I was either a pre-theology major [like pre-med or pre-law] or a religion major, except that IU, being a “Godless state university,” had neither. It didn’t even have a Religion Dept. So I had to do majors and minors that were available, and still do what the seminaries said in their catalogs was necessary for a good pre-theological education, a little bit of everything—philosophy, history, psychology, sociology, foreign language, composition, literature, music, art, speech, science… thankfully, math was never mentioned.

I got an English minor because, in addition to required courses in English, in my pursuit of a religion major, I took courses like The Bible as Literature. It didn’t take many courses to add up to 12 hours.

Even though I had 15 hours of French, I don’t think that was considered a minor.

IU had no religion dept. It did, however, have the Indiana School of Religion, a separate institution that offered courses in religion at IU. They counted as regular IU courses. But the ISR had its own board, building, professors, and budget, so IU could legitimately say it was not spending any tax money on religion. The Director of the ISR, D.J. Bowden, became my de facto mentor and major advisor.

Between his time as Supreme Commander of Allied Forces in WWII, and his time as President of The United States, Dwight Eisenhower was the President of Columbia University. As he took that university presidency, he said, “The principal purpose of education is to prepare the student for effective personal and social life in a free society. From the school at the crossroads to a university as great as Columbia, general education for citizenship must be the common and first purpose of them all.”

That was at the start of his university presidency. At the end of his political presidency, he said, “We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, either sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.”

His words are prophetic now. Universities have traded their ideals for money, given up their role in education-for-citizenship to be vocational schools, “training” workers for the military-industrial complex, doing away with general education, especially history, lest anyone be reminded of the words of Eisenhower.

Yes, I’m disillusioned by the current state of education, but I know there are teachers and professors, and maybe even a few administrators, who are trying to keep the flame of liberal education alive. I applaud them. And I’m reminded of what a privilege it was to be a student in the Eisenhower years. Yes, we were “The Quiet Generation,” but we were quiet because we didn’t have to shout at people to remind them that they should be good citizens instead of cogs in the military-industrial machine.

John Robert McFarland

Just after I finished writing this, I received an email, sent to all alums, from The Executive Dean of my university, touting a new undergrad educational experience, not only new to IU but the first in the nation. The first word he used to describe it is “career-focused.”

 

 

 

WHY I PRAY FOR OTHERS [Sunday, 9-21-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Hopeful Praying of An Old Man—WHY I PRAY FOR OTHERS [Sunday, 9-21-25]

 

Because I refuse to admit that I am helpless, even in the most hopeless circumstances, that’s why I pray. One of them, anyway. The main reason in my old age.

God has given me a brain and a will. If I can’t use my legs or my hands, I can still use my prayers. If you’re in trouble, I’m going to pray for you, dagnabit! As long as I have breath, even if I’ve got nothing else, I’m not giving up. On life… On God… On you…

Okay, that’s the first reason I pray for others: I refuse to give up.

Now, there are a lot of other reasons for intercessory prayer. For one, it works! That’s the second reason.

Yes, not always, but as Larry Dossey, MD, says, in Healing Words, “Surgery doesn’t always work, but we keep using it. Chemo doesn’t always work, but we don’t give up on it. Why should we give up on prayer just because it doesn’t always work?” He is so convinced of the efficacy of prayer that he said, “I would be guilty of malpractice if I did not pray for my patients.”

All the research into the usefulness of intercessory prayer—yes, double-blind research that accounts for all the variables—says that such prayer makes a difference.

Not only intercessory prayer, but also prayer in itself. Research shows that the patients who do best with cancer are those whose first reaction, upon hearing their diagnosis, is to pray.

And there are other reasons to pray…like the third one: it’s good for the one who prays, good for our spiritual and mental health. I suspect that is true because it does what I said at the top…it shows the whole durn world that we are not helpless, that we are not giving up. It’s important for your health to have control of your own life. Praying may be the last bit of control you have, but it’s still control.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember about prayer, the fourth reason for doing it, is community. Its main purpose is not results, but presence.

Intercessory prayer builds community. We kiss the booboo not so much to take away the pain but to take away the loneliness. [I think I got that from Rachel Naomi Remen.]

People are almost always helped by knowing that someone is praying for them.

There are exceptions. When I was in college, the Inter-Varsity Christian Fellowship decided to pray for me because I was not “saved.” I’d be walking across campus with friends and some IV kid would yell at me, “We’re praying for you, John.” That did not make me feel better.

But if you know an honest person is honestly praying for you, without judgment, only with concern, that is a great uplift. That is great community.

Well, yes, there are other reasons for prayer, but I’m at my word limit, so I’ll just be satisfied for now with: I pray because 1] I’m not giving up. I want the universe to know I’m still here. 2] It works. Not always the way we want, but it works. 3] It’s good for the one who prays. 4] It’s good for those prayed for. 5] It builds community.

John Robert McFarland

“Intercessory prayer is the purifying bath into which the individual and the community must enter every day.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer

THE TIE THAT BINDS [R, 9-18-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Experiences of An Old Man—THE TIE THAT BINDS [R, 9-18-25]

 

Two experiences converged for me this week. I no longer remembered how to tie a tie, and former IL Gov. Jim Edgar died, at age 79. Ties tie the two together. So does church.

John Huff has been our pastor only a little over two months, so he does not know how decrepit I am. So he asked me to give the pastoral prayer at worship last Sunday. I had told him when he came that, even though “puny and feeble,” [1] I could probably fill in for him in an emergency. I’m not sure a pastoral prayer is an emergency. Anyone can do it. As an old woman once told a struggling young preacher, “It ain’t hard. Just call him Father, ask him for something, and sit down.” [2]

Anyway, I did it, and enjoyed it, but it was almost prayed by a tieless preacher. Yes, most preachers these days wear jeans and “Grateful Dead” t-shirts as they preach, but I’m old school. I wear a tie or clerical collar when I lead worship. Since Helen and I have been puny and feeble ever since covid19, we have livestreamed worship for five years. I wear shorts and a Cincinnati Reds t-shirt for worship. I had forgotten how to tie a tie. Took five tries, because I couldn’t remember how Jim Edgar did it.

I’m sure Jim Edgar never forgot how to tie a tie. Probably wore one on his death bed. He was that kind of guy. But he did have to change one at a party at the home of the Eastern IL U president, and it wasn’t my fault. In fact, he was the one who got me into trouble.

It was one of those stand around and talk parties. I was the new pastor at Wesley UMC in Charleston, IL, Jim’s home church. He was a state legislator who had just been promoted to be the executive assistant to IL Governor “Big Jim” Thompson. Jim and I were chatting in the dining room. We did not realize everyone else had gone into the living room and were being informally addressed by the EIU president. Apparently our conversation was too loud, so Brenda, Jim’s wife, came in to tell us to shut up. She didn’t do it that way. She was invariably classy. But it startled Jim. He was holding a plate of party food. He spilled some on his tie.

Unlike my Sunday morning tie experience, this one became an emergency, for we were all going to some performance at the EIU auditorium after the party [I think it was a concert by Andy Williams] and Jim felt that the new exec assistant to the governor could not be seen in public with a stained tie. [3] He was about to melt down when Brenda said, calmly, “I put another tie in the car. I’ll go get it for you.”

So I watched Jim Edgar tie his tie, but last Sunday Morning, I couldn’t remember how he did it.

John Robert McFarland

1] “Puny and feeble” is what folks wrote in the membership book beside the names of old folks in the Solsberry, IN Methodist Church when I was their nineteen-year-old college student preacher, to let me know who I should call on since they could not come to church.

2] No, although I was once a struggling young preacher, I’m not the one in that episode. It’s just an old preacher story.]

3] Jim could have just done like Richard Leonard, a Methodist preacher who was a PhD history professor at IL Wesleyan U when we lived in Normal, IL. It was said that he kept his ties in the refrigerator because they had so much food on them.

Here is the link to Jim Edgar’s obit in his hometown Charleston, IL newspaper. https://www.legacy.com/us/obituaries/jg-tc/name/jim-edgar-obituary?pid=209834305

 

 

 

SEPTEMBER JOYS [T, 9-16-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—SEPTEMBER JOYS [T, 9-16-25]

 

As I walked this morning, I watched the leaves rustle restlessly in the trees. They know something is coming. For them, it means death. I’m sorry for them, but for me, it means life.

This morning there was more yellow in the leaves, less green.

I think moving to Oakland City when I was ten was what gave me my love of baseball and of school. And why I’m happy when I see the leaves turn from summer to autumn. They mean the World Series, the fulfillment of the baseball season, and school, the end of a long hot boring summer. The chance, at last, to see my friends.

Until age ten I had been a city boy in the near-east inner-city of Indianapolis, running from bullies, walking to the store to do errands for Mother or Mrs. Dickerson, who lived next door, the only black person for blocks around, and riding the street car downtown to Cadle Tabernacle with my sister to see some “uplifting” drama or concert.

Then we moved to a farm with no indoor plumbing but with a whole lot of chores that my parents thought were perfect for a ten-year-old boy…

…mowing, milking, hoeing, feeding [chickens, pigs, etc], chopping [wood, weeds], chasing [horse, cows, pigs, chickens—anything that got where it shouldn’t be], throwing [hay-up onto the wagon, or down from the loft], plowing, picking [vegetables, berries, fruit], gathering [eggs], carrying [water in, used water out], shucking [corn], harnessing [horse to plow or wagon], plucking [feathers off the chicken so it could be fried], digging [potatoes, beets, graves for anything that died]…

Is it any wonder that I decided I’d rather play baseball or go to school? Or that I went into a profession that is all about relating to people rather than to animals or tools or nature?

September is a season for joy, and I hope you feel September joys, even if, incomprehensibly, you don’t like baseball or school.

John Robert McFarland

“If I were a bird, I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns.” George Eliot

IN THE DAYS OF LINDEN HALL [Sat, 9-13-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man—IN THE DAYS OF LINDEN HALL [Sat, 9-13-25]

 

Today is the 70^th anniversary of my first day at Indiana University, the start of orientation week in 1955. The 13^th was a Monday that year.

As we get really old, and are less able to do things that make memories, we depend upon memories we’ve already stored up, especially the memories of the hinge times in our lives—a wedding, the birth of a child or grandchild, taking a courageous stand, the moment we felt called to a vocation, the first day of college…

There are very few people left for whom the song below will make sense, but some of my best memories are from the first week, orientation week, of my freshman year at IU, Sept 1955, especially working in the dining room at Rogers Center, where grad students lived, and even more especially “…walking back to good old Linden Hall.”

There are some new dorms named for trees now, even a Linden, but the old Trees Center--hurriedly-built officer training barracks left over from WWII--has been long since demolished. The Education Building stands there now.

Linden and Pine were the dorms for kids on The Residence Scholarship Plan, smart kids who wanted to go to college but didn’t have the money to do so. Unlike kids in the other dorms, we furnished our own sheets and pillows and such, and did our own maid and janitorial work, and worked at least ten hours per week, and maintained a B grade average. [Jon, am I right about that grade average?]

After working breakfast or lunch, we denizens of The Residence Scholarship Program who worked at the Rogers Center dining cafeteria, would walk “home” together: Mary Winstead, Phyllis Brown [I officiated at her wedding to Henry Oakes], Susie [Sara] Hayes, Bill Ridge, Jon Stroble.

The girls had donned their yellow uniform dresses before going over to work. The boys slipped on short white jackets once we got there.

This is to the tune of Love Letters in the Sand.

IN THE DAYS OF LINDEN HALL

On a day like today, when skies were never gray

Walking back to good old Linden Hall

The girls were dressed in yellow

Our hearts were young and mellow

Walking back to good old linden hall

 

The air was full of hopes and dreams that fall

As we walked, we always had a ball

Now that I can barely stand

Wouldn’t it be grand

To be walking back to good old Linden Hall

 

The days were always fair, there was romance in the air

Walking back to good old Linden Hall

Only the sky was blue

There was nothing we couldn’t do

Walking back to good old Linden Hall

 

Our hearts back then were always young and free

We gave no thought to what might come to be

Now as I live in memory

It is so sweet to be

Walking back to good old Linden Hall

 

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

 

 

BEST & WORST OF TIMES [R, 9-11-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Times of An Old Man—BEST & WORST OF TIMES [R, 9-11-25]

 

“It was the best of times; it was the worst of times.” That’s the famous opening line of Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities.

It has taken me more than two cities, more like eighteen, but I live in the best of times and in the worst of times. The 1950s is the best of times. The 1960s is the worst of times. I live in them both. Nothing since then makes much sense to me.

That doesn’t mean that good things didn’t happen for me in other decades. In the 1970s and ‘80s I got to wear leisure suits and a mint-green tuxedo. [1] In the ‘90s my daughters got married and my grandchildren were born. In the 21^st century, I’ve gotten to live in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where the winters are 13 months long, thus preserving us old people with cold, the way hamburger spoils less rapidly in the refrigerator or at room temperature.

It’s easy to see why anyone would want to live in the best of times. But the 1960s, the worst of times?

Okay, I probably don’t have to go back to the ‘60s to live in the worst of times. It’s quite possible that right now is the worst of times, at least for America. Democracy is under siege and almost gone. Culture is vulgar. Hate is patriotic. Education is propaganda. The world is heating at an unsustainable rate. Yes, one could make a very good case for right now being the worst of times…

…but all these current bad times had their seeds in the 1960s. To make it even worse, we were warned about them, right then, by folks as disparate as Rachel Carson and Dwight Eisenhower, and we paid no attention.

Failing to pay attention to the warning signs always produces the worst of times.

The 1960s gave us the Viet Nam War, which in turn gave us drugs and an abiding mistrust of government and public institutions. The 1960s gave us new insight into the deep roots of racism and the perils of global warming. The assassinations of JFK and RFK and MLK showed us where a gun culture would lead. The 1960s gave us Barry Goldwater and the anti-communist domino theory, and the corruptions of Richard Nixon. The 1960s gave us Ronald Reagan and the “trickle down” economic theory and the start of the great wealth divide. [2]

In each new generation, each of these problems has gotten worse.

I live in the present age, but the present age doesn’t live in me.

On my good days, I live in the 1950s, with the joy of “Oh, What A Beautiful Morning” and the innocence of “I Believe.”

On my bad days, I live in the 1960s, with the sarcasm of “Don’t Think Twice, It’s Alright,” and the warning of “Blowin’ in the Wind.”

Yes, here I should provide a note of optimism, but I have outlived optimism. The best I can offer is… well, it’s from the ‘60s…

Keep the faith, baby.

John Robert McFarland

1]I didn’t choose the mint green tux with the ruffled shirt. I had to fill in as a groomsman at the last minute when my associate pastor, Bob Morgan, married Nina Cogswell--thus becoming the Morwells--and the tuxedo was part of the position.

 2] Yes, Reagan was not president in the 1960s, but he was honing his war on the middle class then as governor of California.

ON BEING OPEN [T, 9-9-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Man—ON BEING OPEN [T, 9-9-25]

 

Recently, on two successive days, with two different groups of friends, I was asked, “How did you handle telling other people about it when you had cancer?”

This arose because each group was concerned about someone who has significant health problems but is secretive about it. “Isn’t that bad for their health?” they asked.

The answer is “Yes.” We have a better chance of getting well if we are open about our difficulties. But…

…there are problems with being open, especially for women, who are often accused of being hypochondriacs if they are open about their symptoms, and accused of being hysterical if they are open about their feelings.

When I was going through cancer, I was totally open about my disease and treatments, and about my feelings. I think it was an important part of my healing. Some folks, though, thought I was too open, and I probably was. I undoubtedly talked too much about throwing up, but that was a regular part of chemotherapy in those days, before the great new anti-nausea drugs were developed, and I felt I needed to be honest about it.

Also, I tried for humor in my openness, because a laugh, or even a smile, makes folks more comfortable, and “puking” or “calling Ralph on the big white phone” or “tossing cookies” is in the humor division, at least the groaning sub-division.

As I contemplated what my first oncologist indicated, that I’d be dead in “a year or two,” I read that cancer patients who kept a journal of their feelings had a 50% better chance of getting well. I read someplace else that patients who went to support group had a 50% better chance of getting well. I’m no dummy; that’s 100%! So I kept a feelings journal and went to support group.

You can be open automatically in a support group, because everyone else has the same problems. No judgment, just understanding.

I had no intention of writing a book about my experience, being that open, with the whole world, but as I wrote in my journal each day, it began to read like a book. I thought, “Okay, this is a way I can be open and be helpful to others, and help with my own healing, too.” [1]

Yes, I think people need to be open about their maladies and feelings. But sometimes that is dangerous. One of the great things about keeping a feelings journal, or just a daily journal, is that you can be totally open, because nobody else sees that openness. Actually writing, on a page or a screen, “I feel like crap,” does something for you that just thinking it does not.

[My great, late friend, Bob Butts, once said to our mutual physician, Dr. Raluca Vucescu, “I feel like crap.” She said, “Bob, you’ve got to give me a symptom I can work with.”]

I was once asked to be the program for a group of old people in my church. I went through Erik Erikson’s 8 stages of psycho-social growth with them.

Erikson points out that each time we enter a new stage, such as moving from intimacy vs isolation to generativity vs stagnation, we have the opportunity to rework all the previous stages. Anything we did not get done at industry vs inferiority, for instance, we have a chance to go back and get right when we start final integrity vs despair, the last stage, the old people stage.

A dignified and intellectual woman approached me after the program. “When I was three,” she said, “my infant brother died. No one talked to me about it. I just knew that I had a little brother, and then I didn’t. I think I’ve carried that as a secret weight in my soul for 77 years. I need to be honest with myself about that. I need, finally, to grieve his loss…”

Old people have some particular problems in trying to be open. Writing, either with a pen or keyboard, might be difficult because of recalcitrant eyes and arthritic fingers. But I recommend trying it. Just do the best you can. Old age is not a disease, but it is our final chance to be open, to ourselves, about who we are.

John Robert McFarland

1] Now That I Have Cancer I Am Whole: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them [AndrewsMcMeel]

 

HOW SHALL THEY HEAR? [Sun, 9-7-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Preacher—HOW SHALL THEY HEAR? [Sun, 9-7-25]

 

As I write this, it is early Sunday morning, and I am thinking about what I’ll preach, even though there is no chance to do so. Because preaching is important. As the Apostle, Paul, said, “How shall they hear without a preacher?” How will folks hear the Good News of Christ, and have the chance to respond to it, unless someone can present it in a helpful fashion?

Unfortunately, preaching is at a low ebb.

My theological alma mater sent all alums an invitation to mentor current students. I was intrigued. I once wanted to teach preaching in a seminary. I thought this mentoring was something I could do even in my old-age decrepitude.

The invitation listed all the areas that might be included in pastoral work and asked us to mark the ones where we could mentor. I ran through categories such as Faith & Culture, Educational Leadership, Pastoral Care, Public Ministry, LGBTQ Studies, Peace Studies, Chaplaincy and Spiritual Care, Ecological Regeneration, Evangelism & Church Planting, Social Organizing…looking for Preaching. It wasn’t there.

Not surprising, really. Very few students at my old alma mater want a career as a parish pastor, and if they do, their interest is in pastoral counseling or church administration, not in preaching.

The assumption seems to be that everyone already knows the Gospel and so, there is no need for preaching. Now we just need ways to apply the Gospel to the world.

 I don’t think that is true.

For sure, traditional forms of preaching are outmoded. One person standing up in front of others for 20 minutes, to educate and inspire… that is totally foreign to the way we do communication now. Yes, even with video clips on the now ubiquitous sanctuary screens, who can take that seriously?

Frankly, I think that the church, and the world, is ready, even yearning, for a renewal of preaching. Yes, I mean one person standing up in front of others and speaking the Word in words.

It’s actually a novel concept in this world of little screens and big screens and all screens in between. I mean, a real person? Just talking? Right to us? No filters? Telling stories? No explosions or dances or flashing lights? How intriguing!

It’s too bad that no one understands what an exciting job that can be.

John Robert McFarland

“How shall they hear without a preacher?” Romans 10:14.

RIP, MARK COX [F, 9-5-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Poignant Griefs of An Old Man—RIP, MARK COX [F, 9-5-25]

 

I don’t have any sons, boys who bear my genes or whom I raised, so I can’t really say what losing a son would be like, but I think it would be a little like losing Mark Cox, who died August 29, 2025.

It was about eight years ago that this tall [6’4”], handsome man, dressed in a three-piece suit, white shirt and silk tie, slipped into our row at church just as the prelude ended, and sat down beside Helen. He crossed his legs. Helen nudged me and nodded at his socks. They were reticulated, pictures of giraffes, his legs so long that they displayed the whole animal. Then we started singing the first hymn. He had a beautiful baritone voice and sang with gusto. Helen had him adopted even before exchanging names after the service.

Michael was with him that day. He, too, was handsome, but dressed more like a special ed teacher than the manager of a men’s clothing store. They hadn’t been together long, and were church shopping, not an easy thing to do for a gay couple. But they had come to the right church. St. Mark’s UMC accepts everyone. As Mark himself complained a few years later, “We’ll accept anyone, as long as they’re not Christian. What’s the point of being included if all you get out of it is good coffee?”

Mark was that rare Christian, gay and born again. As he said to me in an email not long ago, “It’s important to me to acknowledge that Jesus Christ is my savior.”

The church tried to keep Mark out, but he would not go, because he knew Christ was his savior. Mark understood that you can’t separate Christ and Church, because Church is the post-resurrection Body of Christ.

Not just the earthly institution/organization that we call church, although the organization is a part of Christ’s Body. So even if the institutional church treats you badly, and tries to keep you out, if you are a follower of Christ, you can’t give up on it.

Mark never gave up on the church, even though so many of its ways, and so many of its congregations, told him that he was not only a sinner but an “abomination.” They tried to keep him out, and he would not have it, because he knew that he was saved through Christ. With that salvation came membership in the Church, even if the church didn’t like it.

Mark and Michael got married at St. Mark’s. I was pleased, but a little worried. I knew that Michael didn’t share Mark’s emphasis on Christ as Savior. To him, the church was primarily a place to do good for others. He participated in all the many helping activities of our congregation, what Methodists call “social holiness.” Mark was into the moral and spiritual aspects of faith, “personal holiness.” I think that was what split them apart in the end.

We were close to both of them, emotionally and socially. Before covid isolation, when Helen and I were still able to get around, we often ate together, at our house, or theirs, or some restaurant. They came to us for a listening ear when they were down, or struggling with some personal or medical problem. When Covid 19 isolated us, they brought groceries to us. It was that kind of relationship, the kind you’d have with sons.

Indeed, one day after worship, a man there for the first time encountered Mark in the aisle and started chatting. He noticed Helen standing there and asked, “Is this your mother?” Mark just said, “Yes.”

At a Quarryland Chorus concert, where Mark was singing, Michael brought one of his teacher friends. We chatted. After we went back to our seats, another friend overheard the teacher say, "Who are those people?" Michael said, "They think they're our parents." Well...

As they were getting ready to leave Bloomington, to move to North Carolina, the late Dan Hughes, one of our Lay Leaders, said, “We’re going to miss Mark so much. He’s a beacon.”

That he was. In the words of one of those old hymns he loved so much, Let the lower lights be burning. Send a gleam across the wave. Some poor fainting, struggling saman, you may rescue, you may save. Mark was that kind of beacon, especially for other gay folks who had been hurt so badly by the church that they were frightened to keep trying. But when they saw him, towering above the crowd, singing out, they knew they had a home.

The beacon has gone out. It’s way too much like losing a son. But I trust that his salvation, in Christ, is sure.

John Robert McFarland

Mark and I talked frequently of what hymns we wanted to sing in church. We most often longed for: “He lives! He lives! Christ Jesus lives today. He walks with me, and talks with me, along life’s narrow way. He lives! He lives! Salvation to impart. You ask me how I know he lives? He lives, within, my heart!” He wanted to lead it, making the congregation draw out that last “He lives” forever and ever…

 

THE IDEAL PATIENT [W, 9-3-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Adventures of An Old Man—THE IDEAL PATIENT [W, 9-3-25]

 

The main social life of old people is medical appointments, so I went to see our doctor last week. She’s smart, insightful, diligent, and pleasant. She’s managed to stick it out with me for ten years. I thanked her for that.

As I thanked her, I admitted that I am not the ideal patient, because I am not cooperative. I have sometimes rejected tests that she wanted me to take, not because I think I am smarter than she is, or even that I know my body better, but because I do know best what I want out of life. That is more likely to include drinking coffee and watching ballgames than colonoscopies and heart monitors. After all, I’m a busy guy.

What any doctor wants is to help people have better health. Sometimes, though, that is not what we patients want.

That’s especially true with old people. If we want to zip line or parasail, why not? Yes, it would be embarrassing to die from a fall on a mountain, when we are supposed to die from a fall on the doorway rug, but, cremation costs the same, either way.

Even though I am not her ideal patient, our doctor did once say that I am “the perfect patient,” because I tell her my problems in the correct order of symptoms, and stick to the order without distractions. She says she doesn’t even have to take notes.

That’s not surprising; I was a narrative preacher for almost 70 years, and a narrative person for almost 89. I know where to start a story, and where to end it.

So, she was probably expecting one, or more, of those narratives when, after I told her my hip was now better, she asked what else was wrong.

“I’ve got a lot of stuff wrong,” I said, “but I’m not going to tell you about it, because you’ll want to do something about it. Medical people and wives, you dare not tell them anything, unless you want to go through all the annoying bother and pain they’ll put you through to fix it.”

I told her about my encounter with the physical therapist for my hip. I was getting along fine, when one day he had me start all kinds of really exhausting exercises that didn’t seem to have anything to do with my hip. “Why are you making me do this?” I moaned. “I’m dying.”

“Well, you said you wanted better balance.”

“No, I didn’t,” I protested. “I said I have bad balance. I didn’t say I wanted better balance.”

He thought about it and said, “You’re right. You only said you have bad balance. I just assumed that meant you wanted better balance.”

My doctor listened to that, nodded, and said, “Yes. Sometimes we do not listen well. So, we’ll negotiate, you and I. What tests are you willing to do today?”

A breakthrough. She has always just handed a note to the nurse and told her to take me to the lab and have them do the tests on the note. She started reading the stuff on her list. I agreed to some of it. She marked off the rest of it.

 

I was happy that I agreed to some testing, because I got to spend time in the lab waiting room. I had a good time there being pastoral with a young woman who was waiting for a scary test. When the lab woman told me I could go, I said, “No, I want to talk some more.” I didn’t want to leave the young woman in that small room by herself.

I have a bit of a reputation in the doctor place. Once, a nurse stuck her head into the lab waiting room and said, “The word is out that you are in the building.” They have an early warning system, apparently.

As I checked out this time, and made my next appointment, the computer lady asked if I wanted a summary of my visit. I said, “No, I just told her jokes.”

“Oh, tell them to us, too,” she said.

“No,” I replied. “They were all bad jokes. Old men always think they are funny, but they aren’t.”

“Actually,” she said, “you sort of are.”

John Robert McFarland

“Everybody you meet will be either better off or worse off because they spent time with you, even just a moment. Help them be better.” Bill Lennon to his daughters, The Lennon Sisters.

STAYING HUMBLE-WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR [M, 9-1-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Memories of An Old Man--STAYING HUMBLE-WHAT FRIENDS ARE FOR [M, 9-1-25]

 

It’s Labor Day. School starts tomorrow. Well, school has been in session for close to a month now, but back in my day, we started the day after Labor Day, like it says to in the Bible.

I was class president for three years. I was principal bassoonist in the band and orchestra and “loud, clanging cymbalist” in marching band. I was editor of the school newspaper. I was a cleanup-hitting first baseman. I set the all-time record on comprehensive exams [1]. I set the all-time record on the entrance exam at the Potter & Brumfield factory. [2]

What my classmates remember, though, was that I once tried to catch a run-away typewriter carriage. That is ALL that they have ever remembered!

It was our freshman year, in typing class, with Mr. Manford Morrow. I had never experienced a typewriter before. These were manual Royals, with a strong reflex. The first time I hit the “return” button, the carriage raced from left to right with great alacrity, so fast that it was clear that it was going to come right off the machine. I dove for it, ending up on the floor out in the aisle between desks, and I definitely was not just trying to get a better look at Linda Luttrull’s legs, although that was the view I had once down there.

Despite my best effort, I did not catch the carriage, since it, of course, had not come off. How was a farm boy, unused to advanced technology, who even plowed with horses instead of a tractor [3], to know about such things? In my world, if something flew fast from left to right, it came off.

Whenever the class of 1955 has gathered--the class Miss Grace Robb said was more closely involved with one another emotionally than any she ever saw in her many years of teaching--that is the story they have told, with great jocularity, of the skinny farm boy and the run-away typewriter.

They have kept me humble all these years. Whenever I have been tempted to think of myself “more highly than I ought to think,” I remember the laughter of Mike and Bob and the other three Bobs and Shirley and Hovey and Linda and Jack and Kenny and Bill and Donna and Jim and Nancy and Jarvis and Phyllis and Wally and “Rowdy Russ,” who, of course, was not rowdy at all, and the rest of my 61 classmates. And that run-away typewriter.

John Robert McFarland

1] Until James Burch turned his test in 30 minutes later.

Comprehensive exams took a whole day, covering the material of all four years of high school.

2] Until James Burch took the exam the next day. I missed one question. James, of course, got a perfect score.

I love James Burch. He was always willing to take the “smartness” pressure off me. We called him “Wally,” after the Mr. Peepers character of Wally Cox.

When we went to the Dog ‘N Suds in Ft. Branch, he tried to pick up girls by saying things like, “Hey, baby, want to hear me spell parsimonious? No? How’s about antidisestablishmentarianism?”

3] We later had a tractor, an orange Case. I kept a model of it on my book case, until I gave it to my grandson. It’s time to do things like that.

JESUS & JUSTICE [Sat, 8-30-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Activities of An Old Man--JESUS & JUSTICE [Sat, 8-30-25]

 

[Following up on the recent column about my attempts to work for fairness… and to increase the use of ellipses…]

In this old age, my ability to work for fairness is diminished to the point of nothingness. I am reduced to voting, donating, and sending ignored letters, and signing useless petitions. Voting and donating are important, but not very satisfying to one who has devoted his life to action to achieve fairness.

Now that may sound strange for a preacher. After all, was not my life supposed to be devoted to building up the church and getting people saved? Yes, which is why I had to work for justice.

We got people saved [a very bad phrase theologically] so they could go to heaven. But they couldn’t go to heaven if they didn’t work for justice on earth. Don’t blame me; that’s what Jesus said. [Mt. 25:31-46; Mt. 6:10.]

 

Anyway, looking back on my life, as old folks must do when we don’t have any life to live in the now, I am asking: Did I work for justice? The answer is affirmative. I wasn’t always effective, but I did try. I was never a ground-breaker. Other folks started justice movements, and I joined at some point. But followers are important, too. A movement doesn’t move without followers.

I think back to the movements I joined and am pleased that I got to be part of them… Integration and Civil Rights… voting rights… Vietnam… abortion rights… equal rights for women… women in the ministry… Central America… cancer… gender equality… veterans… the environment… democracy…

None of these movements has been completely successful. Well, I suppose ending the war in Vietnam… it did end. But we are still dealing with the damage it did to people and families and trust. The other movements…they will be necessary forever, because there are always counter movements by those who do not want justice, who want unfair advantages for themselves and those like them.

One of the great problems we have in achieving fairness is that folks who are working for unfair advantage often don’t know that is what they are doing. It is true that “…if you’ve always had advantage, fairness makes you think that you are a victim.”

I know that I have no reason for pride in my actions. I joined those movements, not from a position of understanding from the inside, what those forms of injustice do to people, but from a position of privilege. It’s true that I grew up in poverty, but that’s only a minor inconvenience if you are a tall, white, straight, bass-voiced, intelligent, good-looking male. [Well, some of that may be questionable; I’m not as tall as I used to be.]

No, I am not proud of my participation in those justice movements. I’m just grateful that I got to be a part of them.

John Robert McFarland

“Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” Amos 5:24

 

SURPRISED BY COURAGE [R, 8-28-25

BEYOND WINTER: The Surprised Revelations of An Old Man--SURPRISED BY COURAGE [R, 8-28-25

 

Daughter Katie Kennedy, the author [1], recently told of how impressed—if that is the right word—her pastor was when she learned that I had started preaching at 19, and went on until I was 87. Pastor Dani had the good sense to wait until she had graduated seminary, and had grown up a little, before she started to preach.

It is true that I had not intended to start preaching at 19, with a regular, every-Sunday, appointment. It is true that when I told the District Superintendent that I was thinking about being a preacher, that he said, “Good. You can start next Sunday.” It is true that I started preaching just because I did not know how to say “No.”

As I have thought about it these 70 years later, though, I realize that by 19 I had learned that I was competent. Growing up on the farm, and the affirmations of my Oakland City schoolmates, had shown me that even though I was too young to know how to do something, that I could learn how. I could learn by doing, and from those who were with me in the doing. [2]

I said this to Katie when she told me about Pastor Dani’s look of shock, upon learning how young I was when I started, and she said something that surprised me: “Yes, you knew you could learn, and also you did it because of your natural courage.”

Natural courage? I have never been a courageous person. I have been afraid most of my life—afraid of pain, of embarrassment, of failure, of judgment, of being rejected, of hurting someone’s feelings...

I have been courageous on only one front: unfairness.

I don’t mean equality. People who want to be unfair always accuse us fairness people of wanting equality. “Equality is not possible,” they say. “People are born with differing amounts of brain power, and physical power, etc.” Of course. Everybody knows that.

But despite different personal inborn speeds and different spots on the starting line, everyone can be given a fair chance to run the race. Fairness is always possible, even though equality is not.

I started early in my war on unfairness. I was barely four. We were living with my grandparents, because of The Great Depression. My four-years-older sister, Mary V, was allowed to eat white bread, because she was a mature eight-year-old and did what she wanted anyway, but my mother required me to eat brown bread, because, she claimed, it was healthier for a growing boy.

That was unfair. If Mary V got to eat less healthy bread, I should, too. I decided to protest, to demonstrate. I pushed my head into a niche of a wall, since that was the obvious way to protest brown bread. It got stuck.

I learned that protesting had a price. But I also learned that there are those who will join you if you protest. My five-foot grandmother pulled at the wall, content to tear the house down to save her favorite [only, at that time] grandson.

That disgust with unfairness never left me.

When I was growing up, racial prejudice was the great unfairness. I did not think that all black folks and all white folks were equal. Goodness, those big black ball players and sprinters were way more than equal to us skinny white boys. And it was manifestly unfair to say that they should not be allowed to play and race because they were “inferior.” Clearly, they were not.

Equality of opportunity, and treatment--by the law and the school and the church and every other public institution--are matters of fairness.

Racial unfairness is still with us. So is economic unfairness, and gender unfairness, and tax unfairness, and…

Unfairness still rankles me. Always has. I guess it brought out courage in me. Still does. But I like brown bread now.

John Robert McFarland

1] Katie’s most recent book, Did You Hear What Happened in Salem? will be out in about a week. Workman Press, so available wherever books are sold. All her other books are still in print, of course.

2] I have often said that I learned more about ministry from Catherine Adams in 3 months on the Chrisney Circuit than I did in seminary in 3 years. 

UNCLE LOVE [T, 8-26-25]

BEYOND WINTER: The Irrelevant Family Musings of An Old Man—UNCLE LOVE [T, 8-26-25]

[Continuing my musings about having a brother…]

 

I think I wanted a brother so much because I had seen the way my father and his brothers lived together…quite literally.

Dad had five brothers…and one sister, Helen. When I married Helen Karr, Aunt Helen [Bell] told her, “I enjoyed being Helen McFarland. I hope you will, too.”

Aunt Helen was second in birth order, Glenn was first, and my father, John, was third. After him came David, Bob, Randall, and Mike.

In addition, they had a sister, Bob’s age, who was actually a cousin. Genevieve was four when her mother died and her father married a woman who did not want her. I doubt that Grandma Mac even blinked when her brother asked her to take Genevieve; she just sent her husband, Harry, to fetch her, with my six-year-old father along for the ride in the Model T. My father said she was wearing a pair of overalls, and that was all she brought with her.

That family survived the Great Depression by living with Grandma and Grandpa Mac in a big old farm house on the edge of Oxford, OH. My mother named it Cedar Crest. The younger boys—Robert, Randall, and Mike—could not get jobs, so they couldn’t marry, and thus were still at home. So was Genevieve.

In addition, Glenn and Mable, and their daughters, Joan [Joann] and Patty; and Helen and Harvey Bell, and their daughter, Elizabeth; and John and Mildred, with Mary V and John Robert; all lived at Cedar Crest whenever they were out of a job, which was most of the time.

No, David, and his wife, Ella Mae, were never in that group. He always had a job.

I think that is why my father never liked David much. He liked all his other brothers, and his sister, but not Dave. [My father was the only person, in family or out, who called him Dave instead of David.] I don’t think Uncle David lorded it over his brothers, that he always had a job and could be independent when they could not, but my father was always aware of it. Daddy was the hardest working man in the history of the world.

To him, hard work and supporting your family was the essence of being a man. It seemed wrong to him that an effete office-work kind of guy--whose wife was always so “frail” that she could not participate in family activity--should be able to support his family while he could not.

Don’t worry. I loved my father, and I respected him. But he was human, and so he had flaws. Some were products of his time, like thinking black folks “should stay in their place.” Another was resenting people he felt had an easy time during the Great Depression.

I never saw my father interact with Dave, since Uncle David never lived at Cedar Crest, or later, since he went off to live in Arizona, for Ella Mae’s health. I did see the way he and Glenn and Bob and Randall and Mike talked together, worked together, puffed their pipes together. There was something comforting, something whole, about that.

So, I always wanted a brother.

John Robert McFarland

I am named John not for my father, but for my mother’s youngest brother, and Robert for my father’s brother, Bob. Uncle Randall felt I should be named for him, since he was my primary care-giver at Cedar Crest, and I would have been fine with that. I did honor him by using his name for the hero in my novel, An Ordinary Man.