THE 20 YEAR RULE [7-21-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Lufe for the Years of Winter—THE 20 YEAR RULE [7-21-26]

 

I knew a plumber who said, “The first seventeen years, I thought I had the best job in the world. I didn’t mind the yucky parts of plumbing because I enjoyed so much diagnosing problems and fixing them. But then there were no new problems, only old ones, ones I’d seen before. It wasn’t satisfying anymore.”

He had run up against the 20 year rule…just a bit early.

I was once chatting with a middle-aged, second-career Episcopal priest. When he was being ordained, he told his bishop that his only regret was that he spent so many years as a business man before going to seminary and becoming a priest. “How many years will you be a priest before retirement?” the bishop asked him. “Only twenty.” “My God, man, that’s plenty!”

Social research has concluded that the Episcopal bishop was right. Twenty years is plenty for any job. Actually, these days, if you can get twenty in before technology or culture eliminates your job, you are doing pretty well.

I have a pastor friend who just retired. He’s earned it. He is 70 but looks 80. He put in 44 years all together, so that’s twice enough.

Rapid cultural change causes many problems, because the basic needs of humans remain the same, even though the means of fulfilling them change. One of those basic needs is satisfying work, work that at least comes close to being a vocation, a calling.

When I felt the call to preach, the ministry was referred to as “the high calling.” I think the title was called high so that we wouldn’t notice that the pay was low.

Calling, though--the feeling that you are doing what you are supposed to do--does not necessarily go with job title. The job might be called high, but if you don’t fit in it, your life is low. I have known homemakers and teachers and farmers and bus drivers and cooks and gardeners and carpenters and so many others who experienced their lives as a calling, even if they didn’t use that language. They fit their job.

Even then, though, you probably need some sort of renewal. And these days, that twenty-year rule seems to apply. So how do you get renewal?

Well, you’re right. What can someone my age know about this? I haven’t worked in a long time. Even more, since this column is for old people, why bother? We don’t have jobs to get tired of.

I had the same job for a long time. As I look back on it, I see that although my job didn’t change every 20 years, my life, my calling, did.

You don’t have a calling unless someone calls you. Looking back, I realize that each time I hit the end of my calling, I went back to God and asked for another one. To others, it might have looked like I was still doing the same stuff, but it was renewal to me.

I don’t really like to give advice or “helpful hints for happy living.” I’d rather just tell my little stories and let God speak from within them. But I’ll actually give advice this time: If you find yourself getting close to the end of your 20 years, it would be better to ask God for another call, instead of asking the world for a different job.

John Robert McFarland

 

 

THE DEMISE OF THE 1950 CHURCH [7-19-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Irrelevant Musings of an Old Man—THE DEMISE OF THE 1950 CHURCH [7-19-26]

 

When I was in seminary, our homiletics professor, Merrill Abbey, had us listen to a sermon by J. Wallace Hamilton, the preacher at Pasadena Community Methodist Church [PCMC] in St. Petersburg, FL. The sermon was on a long-play vinyl record, the best available technology at that time. I was so impressed that I bought a copy of that record for myself. I wanted to be a good preacher, and I wondered, “How did he get to be such a good preacher?”

Prof. Abbey said that Hamilton’s church was a new, struggling start in 1929, only four years old, when Hamilton was appointed there. He had just been ordained as a probationer. He wasn’t fully ordained until two years later.

Some of the lay people recognized that he had a special gift for preaching. “We have a chance to grow here. You concentrate on preaching. We’ll do the rest of the work the preacher usually does so that you’ll have time for it. You preach, and we’ll bring the people in to hear you.”

By the time I was in seminary in the 1960s, PCMC had become one of the first megachurches, over seven thousand people on some Sundays, even though the sanctuary, built during Hamilton’s tenure, seated “only” two thousand. Others listened to speakers in their cars in the parking lot, drive-in movie style.

 

PCMC had three different pastors in its first four years. That was fairly standard for Methodist churches in those days. Many appointments were for only one year, especially for a small church like PCMC. Preachers were eager to “move up the ladder” to bigger churches with bigger salaries. What was definitely not standard was for a Methodist preacher to stay in his first appointment for his entire lifetime, for 39 years, from the time when he wasn’t even fully ordained yet, until his death. J. Wallace Hamilton did that. [1]

 

He was a preacher in The 1950 Church.

That’s what sociologists call it, The 1950 Church, because it hit its zenith in the 1950s. It continued, though, while declining almost imperceptibly, for most of the 20^th century. It was pulpit centered and denominationally identified and growth oriented. It was perfect for J. Wallace Hamilton.

It was perfect for me, too, starting in 1956, since I thought the main job of a minister was preaching. But The 1950 Church was already starting its decline in the 1950s. That’s how we name things, according to my sociology professor friend, Paul J. Baker. “If you cut down all the shady oaks in building a sub-division, you name it Shady Oaks.” It’s called The 1950 Church because that’s when it began to decline.

That decline wasn’t statistical. Church membership and attendance kept going up until 1964. In some ways, 1950 is an arbitrary date. But the culture had started to change in subtle ways then, especially the advent of television, that was going to have effects we could hardly imagine.

So, don’t be too sorry for The 1950 Church. It had a good 70 years after it started to die. That’s better than most of us.

John Robert McFarland

1] Another who did it was Ralph Washington Sockman, generally considered to be the best Protestant preacher in the country from about 1940 to 1960, when he was the regular preacher on The Protestant Hour radio show as well as the pastor at Christ Church Methodist in NYC. His first appointment was to Madison Ave. Methodist Episcopal Church, which became Christ Church Methodist, which was second in Protestant fame only to Harry Emerson Fosdick’s Riverside Church. [Interdenominational]. One of his colleagues said, “Poor Ralph. The only preacher in Methodism who never got a promotion.”

 

 

PUBERTY FUN [F, 7-17-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Reminiscences of An Old Man—PUBERTY FUN [F, 7-17-26]

 

This may sound strange, but I really enjoyed puberty. 75 years ago, puberty didn’t mean you were starting a life of lust and angst. It meant you were grown up and could stay out until the root beer stand closed, at ten o’clock.

75 years ago, puberty didn’t mean that you were starting a dangerous life of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, and 15 years of living in your parents’ basement because your degree in AI was just obviated by the new AJ system. No, it meant that you were grown up. You could learn to type, and that was all you needed to get a good job.

For me, it meant I was suddenly a foot taller than everybody else—except for Don Falls. When I hit puberty, it seemed that I was just the right height—tall enough to see the parade, but not so tall that I was the first target for pooping birds. Most doors, I could get through without ducking. [1]

Oh, sure, there was worry, wondering if Jeanette would think I was a nerd, or afraid I would turn red if Carolyn’s arm brushed against mine when we passed in the hall, but all the other guys were just as yearnful as I. Puberty was a whole new life, and exciting. And I had the blood on my face to prove it, because…

…shaving was the most noticable rite of passage for puberty. The double-bladed Gilettes of the day were designed to test both dexterity and courage. There was certainly no choice about using razors; no one was allowed a beard! Or hairy legs, if you were required to wear a skirt!

Of course, it would be considered gauche [had we known that word] to tell people you had started shaving, so you counted on the gashes on your face to let that news be known. If a guy wasn’t sure he was getting the information across, he would come to school with little pieces of bloody toilet paper stuck to his face. Also, if a girl had little pieces of toilet paper stuck to her legs…well, you knew she was grown up, too.

I feel sorry for kids these days. Puberty is all about the worries without any of the fun. Yes, fun. In our era, the awful days of puberty were fun, because the great restrictions we lived with gave us a chance to enjoy puberty, not just agonize our way through it and spend the rest of our life in therapy.

I’m not being judgy. Kids today haven’t chosen this onerous form of puberty. It’s been thrust upon them by a society that is intent on treating things as people and people as things, where being grown up only means meaningless sex and credit card debt.

Kids, if you get disgusted with how the oppressive money economy wants to use you today, come around and I’ll tell you how exciting it was to sit at the sofa fountain and dream of getting to hold hands.

 

And don’t bother to tell me that I’m only remembering the good stuff. I know.

John Robert McFarland

1] When I started preaching, I learned that recent [1950] research showed that I was exactly the right dimensions for a preacher. Congregations, we learned, wanted a preacher who was tall enough to command attention, but not so tall as to be intimidating. Deep voiced enough to be masculine, but not enough to star in a horror film. And goodlooking enough to avoid scaring little children, but not so handsome that men had to worry about their wives. No wonder God called me to be a preacher.

 

 

 

LIVING IN YOUR OWN STORY [W, 7-15-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings of An Old Story Guy—LIVING IN YOUR OWN STORY [W, 7-15-26]

 

There is a street sign I pass regularly that proclaims “Arden.” Makes me think of Eve Arden. Makes me think of “Anatomy of a Murder,” in which Eve was defense attorney Jimmy Stewart’s secretary. Makes me think that I am there in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where Jimmy defended Lee Remick’s boyfriend, contemporaries with Jimmy and Eve. Except they were 51 then, and I was 51 almost 40 years ago.

When you’re my age, there aren’t many stories where you can imagine being part of the adventures and banter. I mean, the folks in Friends and The Big Bang Theory don’t want to hang around with someone like me, and the lesser TV shows that pollute the airways now, I don’t want to hang around with them.

When I was young, I often imagined myself as a character in a story. Usually as observer but sometimes as a participant.

It was because of radio, specifically The Lone Ranger. Listening to a radio drama, you have to supply the pictures from your own brain. As the masked hero and his faithful friend rode out of the radio speaker in our living room, it was not a long reach to start riding along with them.

As a kid, you also make up your own hero stories. You are the one who makes the winning shot in the NCAA playoffs in your own driveway. Or you stand in the back of the auditorium and see yourself singing on stage.

As a teen, my participation in the fictional stories of others became greater. I was the reporter who got “The Big Story.” I was one of the college students who joined in singing about “The Halls of Ivy.”

With Bible stories, I was just a listener, instead of an imaginary participant, until I made a deal with God to be a preacher. As I read the Gospels, I wondered what it was like to follow Jesus around. That, of course, was encouraged by songs like “Were You There?”

I really got into the Jonah story when I was trying to escape that deal with God. I was Jonah, trying to escape God’s call to preach in Ninevah, and ending up in the belly of a big old whale.

 I especially like the worm that God appointed. I was Jonah, sitting under a nice big leafy vine, mad at God, because when Jonah got out of the whale, and did what God said, and told the people to repent, they did so, and it made Jonah look rather foolish, since he had promised God’s wrath rather than God’s mercy.

And then, the Bible story says, God “appointed” a worm to cut down the vine over Jonah’s head, so he couldn’t hide and mope anymore. As one who was appointed every year, by a bishop who claimed to be God, I had great sympathy for that worm.

But then I got so busy living in my own story that I did not imagine being in others. But I did write short stories and novels which had at least some of my story in them

In more recent years I’ve had less story of my own and so have started being in other stories again

In particular, I sometimes sit in the corner of The Drovers Arms and observed the characters in “All Creatures Great and Small.” I have pastored the Methodist chapel in East London in “Call the Midwife,” where I have made friends with the Nonnatus House nuns. It’s not a difficult imagining, because London’s Poplar in the 1950s is very similar to Chicago’s Pilsen, where I was a social worker and preacher in 1958.

Now I’m at an age where there are no stories for me to pretend I’m in. Folks who write for TV and movies, and even books, are in their 30s and 40s. They imagine that old people are either horny or foolish, which reflects the writers more than the old people about whom they write

It is okay to be in other stories. That’s what dreams and ambitions are, kids in the driveway shooting the winning basket, or standing in the back of the music hall and imagining being on stage. But those dream stories need to be within the context of our own stories.

Now that I am old, I have to live within my own story. It’s surprisingly interesting!

John Robert McFarland

From my poetry journal of [F, 7-10-16]

HUMANS

Sometimes I am overcome

with the joy of being human

In the company

so many others, humans all

with hopes and faults

trying to get by

Such fullness

 

SPIRITUAL OR RELIGIOUS? [M, 7-13-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter—SPIRITUAL OR RELIGIOUS? [M, 7-13-26]

 

According to a Pew research study, about 10% of Americans are religious but not spiritual. They like religious stuff, but not God stuff. They like chanting liturgies and sprinkling water on babies. They like wearing yarmulkas and crosses and hijabs and turbans. They enjoy religious music. They like kneeling in the right way at the right times.

But they don’t care about prayer and heaven and hell and eternal life and that soul stuff. They don’t need a relationship with God to enjoy talk and activities about God. They are in the religion, but not of the religion. Who needs a “higher power?” [Well, alcoholics, but that’s different.]

This, of course, is the opposite of the tiresome, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” which is mostly what people use to excuse their absence from church or synagogue or temple. Until they want said venues for a wedding or funeral. Free, of course.

Despite my snarkiness, I understand why people want to be spiritual without being religious, and also why they want to be religious without being spiritual. I suspect most people live in one or the other of those categories a lot of the time, often without knowing it.

I see this especially in my retired clergy colleagues. Some drop out of the church altogether. They’ve handled holy things too long. They’ve learned that most Christians aren’t. They wonder why they ever bothered.

Others, often of the conservative or evangelical variety, become Episcopalians, or even Catholics. They’ve trusted in feelings, getting worked up, but those feelings wane with overuse. Now they’re tired. Now they feel more comfortable if they hold a prayer book that is responsible for producing the prayers and words and auras.

Psychologists tell us that as we age, we become more like ourselves. Which is why old people are often described as “set in our ways.” As I age, I find myself being the same as I have always been spiritually, but less religious. By that, I mean that I have always known the Presence of God in the same way that I do now.

I’m a bit reluctant to say “the same way that I do now,” because it reminds me of the old man giving his testimony in church and saying, “When I was just a boy, the Lord filled my cup to the brim, and He hasn’t taken a drop out or put a drop in since then.” Some kid in the pews said, “It must have wiggletails in it by now, then.” [I’m assuming you’re old enough to understand about wiggletails.]

But I have become less religious, meaning I don’t use the tokens of religion as much as I used to. I still like them—the stoles and books and candles—but I feel no loss without them. They are a help in coming into the Presence, but the Presence does not depend on them.

I suspect that the right blend for old age is both—being religious without being spiritual, and being spiritual without being religious. When I get old, I suppose I’ll find out for sure.

John Robert McFarland

 

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

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

 

Our bodies are designed to help us avoid hurting ourselves.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I tried it myself. I ate the cookie anyway.

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

John Robert McFarland

1] Paul Kalinathi, When Breath Becomes Air

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Robert McFarland

DEPARTMENTAL GIRLS [T, 7-7-26]

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Robert McFarland

 

 

DESIRE PATHS [Sun, 7-5-26]

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think it’s time to put up a sign: 

John Robert McFarland

 

 

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

John Robert McFarland

 

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

He had no answer for that.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Robert McFarland

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Joh Robert McFarland

 

 

JOHNNA ROBERTA [SAT, 6-27-26]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Reminiscences of An Old Preacher—JOHNNA ROBERTA [SAT, 6-27-26]

 

It was late afternoon when Lucy* showed up at my office, with a problem. I had never met her, but that was not surprising. I had a reputation as a good counselor. Well, maybe it was more that I had a reputation as a free counselor.

Lucy had grown up in a family that never went to church, any church. Her sister, though, had recently started coming to the church I pastored, and she had recommended that Lucy come to see me about her problem.

Lucy was an educated and competent professional woman.  She was also a new wife. She was used to spending money like a single professional woman, not as part of a marriage. She had spent a lot of money on a sick cat.

Women in general are willing to spend a lot of money on sick cats. Men in general think that money is misspent. Lucy knew that. Only after, though, had it occurred to her that perhaps she should have talked with her new husband first.

I was sympathetic. Helen and I had been married only six months when I showed up one day with a new car. In my defense, I had gone to the car lot just to look at the new models. In those days, every car make was different every year, from every other make and model, and different from the year before. Now all cars look alike, all the time. Back then, though, it was reasonable for a man to go look at the new models just for the looking. If suddenly a sales guy made you a trade offer too good to refuse, what could you do? Well, talk it over with your wife, that’s what you could do, but I had been financially independent since my childhood. I was used to making money decisions on my own.

I learned rather quickly, via that new car and my new wife, that monetary independence was not acceptable in marriage. So, I sympathized with Lucy, and I knew that she was in trouble.

I can’t remember what I told Lucy. It was probably along the lines of…Talk with Keith. Explain that you are used to making financial decisions on your own and that you won’t do it anymore. I’m sure he’ll understand. I had not yet met Keith, because he had never gone to church, either, so I wasn’t really sure he would understand, but I was hopeful.

It worked out. Lucy and Keith became regulars at church. They thought I was great, because I gave such good advice. They consulted me often. We became good friends. When their daughter was about to be born, they were deciding what to name her. I said that since they owed their marriage to my great counseling, they should name her Johnna Roberta. They said they would think about it.

Much to my dismay, they gave her some lesser name. We remained close anyway, through the rest of my pastorate there. I, however, secretly called that little girl Johnna Roberta, especially as I sat with her parents and prayed for her as she went through a lot of painful physical problems.

I stopped seeing Lucy and Keith when my pastorate there ended. It is necessary always to do that with every pastoral relationship, to allow the new preacher really to become the pastor. But they were special to me. I had been the only pastor they’d ever had, the one who walked through the valley with them. I kept them dear in my memories and hopes and prayers.

I ran into them a couple of years later, in the court house. I was delighted to see them, but they barely said “Hello” as they went by me. They had other things on their mind. They were involved in an imbroglio in small claims court.

I was disappointed. I wanted them to tell me again how wonderful I was, how I helped their marriage, how I introduced them to church. I wanted to see how they were doing, especially if Johnna Roberta were okay. But I understood…

Not every relationship is meant to be forever. Indeed, no relationship can be forever. If nothing else, death will end all relationships.

The message of God through Christ, though, is that the end of a relationship does not mean the end of love. Love is always, be it short or long.

I still pray for Lucy and Keith. And, especially, for Johnna Roberta.

John Robert McFarland

*Not their real names.

 

ARE YOU GOING ON TO PERFECTION? [R, 6-25-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Musings About Perfection by An Old Man Who Is Still Going On—ARE YOU GOING ON TO PERFECTION? [R, 6-25-26]

 

When I was still a young preacher, I heard a basketball referee say that in his profession, you were expected to start out perfect and then get better. I immediately applied that to the ministry.

 

I should not have been surprised at the need for perfection as the minimal standard. I had learned as a child that perfection would save me from punishment but not gain me any praise. Perfection was the necessary minimum.

For instance, I learned to be quiet about pain. Never say “Ouch.” If I got hurt, my mother would hit me. Not for saying “Ouch,” but for getting hurt. It meant I did something wrong. If I had paid attention, I wouldn’t have gotten hurt. To this day, pain doesn’t make me hurt as much as it makes me angry, at myself: Durn, I messed up again.

Perfection as the minimum standard was right in my wheelhouse, as a Methodist minister. After all, it was the organizer of Methodism, John Wesley, the great theological exponent of free will, who espoused the doctrine of Christian Perfection. Along with the others in my ordination class, I answered Yes when asked, “Do you expect to be made perfect in this life?” I’m sure that all of us crossed our fingers behind our backs, and, more importantly, immediately began defining perfection in various non-perfect ways.

 

When John Wesley declared that perfection should be the goal of Methodists, it is usually added that he meant perfection in love. No one can be perfect in intelligence or athletic performance and such, even in kindness, but love is entirely different. With love, you can start over at any time.

 

Gabrielle Zevin says that her book, Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow “…is about work. And it’s about love.” It certainly is, but it’s also about perfection. Because it’s about video games.

The book title, of course, comes from Macbeth’s famous soliloquy in his eponymous play by Shakespeare…

 Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow creeps in this petty pace from day to day. To the last syllable of recorded time; And all our yesterdays have lighted fools to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player, that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing. [1]

Zevin is an excellent writer and story teller, but I’m sure I missed a lot of the nuances of the book because I haven’t played a video game since Pacman. Tomorrow3 is about young people who play and create video games. That involves work, and love, and the possibility of perfection.

There is no standard by which you can judge that a game is perfect when you are creating it. You can work and work and get it better, but how can you possibly know if ever does reach perfection?

Love and playing video games, though, you can start over at any time. You don’t even have to play to the end of the game. Any time you make a mistake, you can start over.

You have learned how to play better next time. You have moved closer to perfection.  When you feel that life is a tale told by an idiot, signifying nothing, you can start over.

In Christian terms, starting over is called repentance. Its original meaning is simply to turn around and go the other way. If you have trouble with the others who are trying to create and play the game, you can start over at any time. That’s called forgiveness,

You don’t go on to perfection by being perfect. When you make a mistake playing the game, you just start over.

You don’t have to wait for tomorrow… or tomorrow… or tomorrow…

John Robert McFarland

1] My college roommate, Tom Cone, once had a dog named Brief Candle, so that when necessary, he could order the dog out of the house in Shakespearean terms: Out, out Brief Candle!

 

FORGIVE & REMEMBER [T, 6-23-26-

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Reminiscences of An Old Preacher—FORGIVE & REMEMBER [T, 6-23-26-

 

I think all the annual conferences of The United Methodist Church have finished their confabs for this year now. The purpose of this annual assembly, of clergy and lay members from each congregation, is to make plans for next year, and to get a retrospective of the year past.

In our winter years, we get a retrospective of the events of all our years past.

In my first appointment after seminary, I was standing around at a break in some ministerial meeting, chatting with my colleagues. One was the pastor of a large and prestigious church. He was less than a year from retirement and so prone to looking backward rather than forward. He gave some advice to those of us who were young and looking forward.

“You young fellas need to trust the bishop and the cabinet,” he said. “They’ll do right by you. They always gave me better appointments than I deserved.” [1]

I pointed out that obviously we could not trust the bishop and cabinet, because if they gave him better appointments than he deserved, they gave some of his colleagues lesser appointments than they deserved. You couldn’t be all that pleased or trusting if you were in the latter category.

He was totally befuddled. He didn’t understand at all what I was saying. That, of course, was because he didn’t mean what he said.

In addition to the false modesty to which all men, and women, of “the cloth” are prone, he was just saying, “I accept my past.” His was not a rational, truth-in-a-scientific-way statement. He wasn’t doing arithmetic; he was doing forgiveness. He was forgiving the bishop and the cabinet and his congregations and himself for all that was past.

Rather than the usual mantra of “forgive and forget,” I suggest that it is better to forgive and remember. Remember the facts of your past, or your past loses meaning. But forgive the reality. Accept the gift. We need to remember the facts. Those are reality. But reality, when it is applied to memory, is overrated.

In my winter years, I have learned that rationality is not usually helpful in understanding things that are primarily emotional.

Paul Tillich said, “Forgiveness doesn’t change the facts, but it does change the meaning of the facts.”

Forgive the facts. Forgive the past. Accept that which is better than you deserve.

John Robert McFarland

1] The system is changing, but traditionally in Methodism, ministers are not hired by the congregation. They are appointed by the bishop and the cabinet, which is the District Superintendents glommed together. We can’t request a particular appointment, and we have to go where we are sent, although we can sometimes weasel out of it. From the beginning of American Methodism through the first half of my career, there was no negotiation of any kind. The bishop told you where you were going, usually through the DS, and that was all there was to it. Sometimes you weren’t even told; sometimes you didn’t know until the appointments were read on the last day of the annual conference where you would move the next week.

 

 

 

TOOLS [Sun, 6-21-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Reminiscences of An Old Man—TOOLS [Sun, 6-21-26]

 

Today is Father’s Day, so I’m thinking about tools.

A hardware store flyer came in the mail yesterday. I looked through it carefully. I don’t need or want anything from a hardware store, but I do it to honor and remember my father. Also in honor of my late brother, Jim, who inherited our father’s tool ability.

My father loved tools, and so he loved hardware stores. In his last years, when he had given away all his tools because he had to go to a senior citizen apartment, or was living in a nursing home room, he would have me take him to a hardware store, ostensibly to buy a light bulb or a cleaning cloth. Really it was so he could browse the shelves, to see what was new. The only eyesight he had left was about ten percent in one eye, but he would get that eye right up against the shelf, and comment unfavorably on the price.

I had no interest in tools myself, not his kind of tools. He lost his eyesight in an industrial accident when I was five. Shortly thereafter, I entered into the fourth of the eight stages of psychological-social growth, as outlined by Erik Erikson, industry vs inferiority. It’s basically when you learn to use tools, or fail to learn how to use them.

Tools, of course, are not just the hardware kind. There were many household tools that women had to learn to use. Doctors have to learn to use scalpels. Scientist have to learn to use telescopes and microscopes. But to me, tools meant the kind my father used.

Dad organized his tools so that he could still find them and use them, even with his minimal eyesight.

I, of course, was fascinated by his tools, so I would sometimes get one out to “use,” which meant to play with. I would sometimes leave it in the yard, where he couldn’t find it. In my psyche I heard him say, “You can’t use tools.” I think he probably said some variant of “You can’t use MY tools,” for good reason. I, however, internalized the idea that I could not use any kind of tool. I still can’t use his kind of tools. I settled for inferiority over industry.

Sort of.

I did play the bassoon, which requires as much manual dexterity as most workbench tools.

Also, I took up another kind of tool, language.

I wanted to be a journalist. That’s the trade of one who uses words as tools. I loved stories and wanted to tell them. Just as importantly, I wanted to tell them honestly. Everyone said that Ernie Pyle told the story of WW II the way it really was. I wanted to be an Ernie Pyle.

There is, of course, a different way to use the tools of words, just as there is a wrong way to use my father’s kind of tools, to make the instruments of war rather than to build a cradle for a little child. Many users of words use them to misinform, to propagandize, to lie.

Mastering a tool isn’t the only task. The tool user must also be mastered.

John Robert McFarland

“The aim of literature is to discover and illuminate truth, whether biography or history or fiction.” Rachel Carson

 

 

ALL OLD MEN LOOK ALIKE [F, 6-10-26]

CHRIST IN WINTER: The Irrelevant Escapades of An Old Pizza Eater—ALL OLD MEN LOOK ALIKE [F, 6-10-26]

 

I was pretty well caught up on meditating, but Helen sent me to the pizza joint, anyway, to get a pizza, which is the other reason to go there. [See the column for 5-28-26 if you don’t understand this.]

Just as I left home, though, I got a text from the CVS drug store, a little farther down the street, saying they had a script ready for me. It was the fourth text they had sent me in the previous 24 hours. They even promised that they would send more texts. The only way to stop CVS from texting is to go get the durn prescription, even though you already have enough to last a lifetime, especially if your lifetime probably isn’t going to be a lot longer.

It takes about 15 minutes for a large pepperoni to bake, so I decided I’d go to CVS while the pizza was baking. I explained to the tattooed lady at the pizza joint that I would be right back and that she should not give my pizza to some other old man who came in and claimed that was really his pizza.

“Oh, yes,” she said. “that’s a problem, since all old men look alike.”

Wait a minute! That’s my line, that all old men look alike. Oh, maybe I’ve been to that pizza joint before.

But wait another minute! All old men look alike? No way! I was wearing a faded blue shirt and an IU ball cap and cargo shorts…oh, wait. That is what all old men wear. They all have white beards, too.

Turned out that CVS kept me for more than 15 minutes it takes for a pepperoni to get ready. They had no record of my prescription, even though they had texted me all those times to say it was ready.

[CVS likes to overdo things. Every time I go there, I regret not having invested in receipt paper. On a recent “Law & Order,” one of the cops said about an arrestee, “He has a rap sheet as long as a CVS receipt.”]

Despite the blunders of the CVS computer, the people who actually do the work at the South Walnut CVS are always kind and competent. The nice young pharmacist said she’d fix up my prescription right then, if I could wait ten minutes.

“Wait ten minutes? You’ve got to be kidding me. That woman at the pizza joint will give my pizza to some other old man if I don’t get back there in time.”

To her credit, the pharmacist understood. I mean, what’s the point of taking medicine to make you live longer if somebody else gets your za in the meantime?

When I got to the pizza joint, the tattooed lady was sitting there with my pizza on her lap. “I’ve been guarding it,” she said, “so somebody else can’t get it, but how do I know you’re not some other old man?”

That’s always the question.

John Robert McFarland

“The young man knows the rules, but the old man knows the exceptions.” Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.