RELEVANCE & IRRELEVANCE 12-8-16

On Facebook, one of Helen’s friends was giving her friends a questionnaire about their bucket list, or something like that. One question was about zip lining.

Helen thought about it for quite a while, ran through a mental list of all her coats, and concluded that the answer was “Yes.” But she began to wonder. The other questions had to do with piercings and tattoos and belly dancing. Oh, zip lining wasn’t about whether she’d ever had a coat with a zip-out lining, after all.

Old people live in a different world. It no longer exists. Nobody cares what we think or do. We are irrelevant, and that’s okay.

A tottering old man in one of my churches, I’ll call him Hank, then the age I am now, used to complain bitterly, and divisively, about how the younger people in the church did not respect him since they did not ask his advice. They did not disrespect him. They just didn’t notice him. He was irrelevant. Unfortunately, Hank did not understand that it was okay to be irrelevant.

There is a time to be relevant and a time to be irrelevant. The surest way to be irrelevant tomorrow is to be too relevant today. Hank thought relevance was his reason for existence.

Relevance and irrelevance are relative. Relevant or irrelevant, you are a child of God. Neither relevance nor irrelevance separates us from the love of God.

Nobody cares about what I think or do. I’m old. I’m irrelevant. That’s okay, because I’m a child of God.

How will people learn that it is okay to be irrelevant unless old people show them by living irrelevantly? Oh, I guess that makes us relevant, doesn't it?

JRMcF

HOLDING ON-A poem 12-6-16

From time to time

I catch a glimpse…

as from a gun-slit

in a long-embattled fort

…of myself, riding by

on my last horse

slumped weary in the saddle

dusty from the road

brim pulled low against the sun

holding on…

JRMcF

TREES IN WINTER, a poem 12-5-16

I love your trees, Creator God

In springtime when leaves

Are buds, and bright

In summer when leaves

Are full, and green

In autumn when leaves

Are complete, and gold

But most of all in winter

When leaves are gone

And limbs branch out brave

In all their blackened glory

JRMcF

John Robert McFarland

HOPING FOR TRUMP TO SUCCEED 12-3-16

[I posted this on Facebook, but there might be someone from Twitter or at random who does not see my occasional FB posts, so…]

I want Donald Trump to succeed as President of the USA. I want him to be a good president. I pray for him. I am distressed by folks who say “He is not my president,” or “We shall resist him at every point.” That is what many did to Barack Obama. The results were disastrous, not because Obama did not try to be a good president, or did not have the skills to be a good president, but because his opponents determined ahead of time to resist everything he did and said, regardless of whether it would be good for America.

I want Trump to be the best president we have ever had, just as I wanted Obama to be the best president we ever had. Obama had what it took to be a great president, but his opponents determined ahead of time that they would resist everything he said and did, even if it were something they favored. That is the classic example of “cutting off your nose to spite your face.” It was stupid and destructive and disastrous.

I will resist Trump every time he does or says something that is un-American. I will not determine ahead of time that that includes everything he says and does. I hope he’ll do good things for America and the world. If he does, I’ll cheer. If he does not, I’ll resist. If everyone had tried to help President Obama succeed instead of trying to make him fail, the world would be much better off. I don’t want to repeat that with President Trump.

JRMcF

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN RICH AND POOR 12-3-16

There are two major advantages to channel surfing. The first is obvious: it keeps my fingers nimble so that I can continue to feed myself. The second is coming across snippets of commercials or shows or interviews that are enlightening.

So it was with a man named Bernie being interviewed by a woman named Oprah. He said, “I was so poor for so long, and nobody gave me anything. Now that I’m rich and have everything, people want to give me all kinds of stuff.”

JRMcF

THE WAY A POEM STARTS-A poem [not surprisingly] 12-2-16

[No, I’m not writing again. This is another “picked-up piece” from back in the computer, prepared some time ago.]

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith for the Years of Winter… ©

Robert Frost said it was a lump

in the throat, for Billy

Collins, a wry-full smile.

Gerard saw foil shook out

to shine. William Stafford

looks beside the road.

Wendell Berry walks

Kentucky fields.

Elaine Palencia pulls a string

that dangles from her heart.

Brother Antoninus felt grace

poured out into an open wound

and I listen for

the Word of God that issues

forth from the dark roast grind

in the burbling pot

JRMcF

johnrobertmcfarland@gmail.com

The problem with writing a blog for old people, CHRIST IN WINTER, is an ever-diminishing population, of people who cannot remember to go to the blog site.

I tweet as yooper1721, because when I started, I thought you were supposed to have a “handle,” like CB radio, instead of a name. I was a Yooper, resident of MI’s UP [Upper Peninsula], and my phone ended in 1721, so…

Here I come to save the day! No, not Mighty Mouse. Yuri Strelnikov, the boy genius of Katie McFarland Kennedy’s delightful Learning to Swear in America. Buy it or borrow it, but read this book! [What do you mean, you’re not old enough to remember Mighty Mouse?”

I became disturbed by the huge number of military suicides, both veterans and active duty, so I wrote VETS, about four handicapped and homeless Iraqistan veterans accused of murdering a VA doctor. It’s a darn good tootin’ adventure mystery story. My royalties go to helping prevent veteran suicides. You can buy it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, etc.

***

My youthful ambition was to be a journalist, and write a column for a newspaper. So I think of this blog as an online column. I started it several years ago, when we followed the grandchildren to the “place of winter,” Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula [The UP]. I put that in the sub-title, ”Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!” [This phrase is explained in the post for March 20, 2014.] We no longer live in “the place of winter.” The grandchildren grew up, so in May, 2015 we moved “home,” to Bloomington, IN, where we met and married. It’s not a “place of winter,” but we are still in winter years of the life cycle, so I continue to work at understanding what it means to be a follower of Christ in winter…

ODE TO A TWO-FOOT K-MART CHRISTMAS TREE 12-1-16

Helen is an excellent and enthusiastic seasonal decorator. Christmas has always been her favorite time for decorating, but when we moved from a large house to a small condo 18 months ago, she bravely gave up our big Christmas tree and a lot of decorations.

Still, I had to hang as many shelves as possible on the walls of our narrow one-car condo garage to accommodate the remaining decorations. Yesterday I took down 16 boxes—some large, some not quite as large--and a wreath.

16 is actually a smaller number than last year. We learned in our first condo Christmas that some things were not necessary. We did add one thing last year, though, and Helen has been very brave about accepting it, in part because last year and this year, we did not host Christmas, for the first times, but instead go to daughter Katie’s house. She has a really big tree.

Anyway, I thought it wise to write a poem about our new condo Christmas tree, in honor of Helen’s gracious acceptance of a smaller Christmas. It’s not long, but you can sing it…

ODE TO A TWO-FOOT K-MART CHRISTMAS TREE

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree

How shortened are your branches.

You stand upon a table round

You’re much too short to be on the ground

Your ornaments do not make a sound

Gifts beneath you cannot be found

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree

How shortened are your branches

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree

Forever short your stature.

But your tiny lights bring large delight

We smile when you are in our sight

O Christmas tree, O Christmas tree

Size is no measure of pleasure

John Robert McFarland