CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter For the Years of Winter…
Roger Imhoff was cool. He was a good-looking version of Tommy Lee Jones. He wore blue blazers and khaki pants and penny loafers. He drank beer and smoked cigarettes. He was married more than once. He was a Lutheran pastor.
Roger was one of the first persons I met when I attended an annual conference of The Academy of Parish Clergy [APC], almost 40 years ago now. He confused me. He looked like a Baptist, dressed like a Presbyterian, and drank like a Catholic. Until I met Roger I had never used the words “cool” and “Lutheran pastor” in the same sentence.
From then on, though, whenever I attended an APC event, I hung out with Roger, hoping people would think that I, too, by association, was cool.
In the APC, I always referred to Roger as I Imhoff, to distinguish him from II Imhoff, his brother, David, the current President of APC.
I always wanted to be cool like Roger, but it was a stretch. Instead of being the good-looking version of Tommy Lee Jones, I’m sort of the less-blue version of Papa Smurf, or the more-blue version, according to how cold it is UP here at the moment. Despite the best efforts of my wife and daughters, I dress like a fugitive from Goodwill. I smoke bacon and drink the Kool-Aid. I’ve been married to the same woman for 53 years.
Roger was very much in the world. He was willing to eat meat sacrificed to idols.
But he was also cognizant of the consciences of his weaker brothers, and sisters. [I Corinthians 10:23-33.]
He was in the world, but not of it. He was a II Corinthians 5:19 kind of cool.
The Rev. Roger G. Imhoff, Jr., APC, entered the church triumphant at 11 pm on, fittingly, a Sunday, Jan. 29. Today I feel more at ease about transferring to the church triumphant when my time comes, because I know it is now a cooler place.
JRMcF
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
Iron Mountain ski jump
Monday, January 30, 2012
Thursday, January 26, 2012
The Still Point
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
Today my grandson, Joseph, is thirteen years old. Eleven years ago there were only a few of us who thought he would have even a 2nd birthday.
Kathy Roberts says that the word for Joe is “centered.” She used to run a mental health circus and so knows well what “centered” is, because she saw so much of its opposite. I think maybe Joe got through his liver cancer because he was already centered, even at 15 months of age. If not, when he had gone through three surgeries and a year of chemotherapy, that left him 2 pounds lighter on his 2nd birthday than he was on his 1st, the cancer experience had centered him. He survived because he had found “the still point in the turning world.” [1]
As I took Joe and Brigid home from school Tuesday, she said she’d had an assignment to write on someone she admired, and she had chosen Joe. Brigid herself is highly admirable. As a 16 year old sophomore she is a straight A student, a 99 percentiler on the PSAT, on her high school’s Quiz Bowl team, the Lay Leader of our church, and a HS Ambassador and Marketing Intern for hercampus.com magazine. She’s also an older sister. Older sisters think that any little brother is annoying. [I have an older sister I still go out of my way to annoy.] For an older sister to admire a little brother, he must be truly admirable.
The emotional task of old age is what Erik Erikson calls Final Integrity v. Despair. If you can say, “I accept my life, just as it was, joys and sorrows alike,” that’s integrity. If you can’t, that’s despair.
We reach Final Integrity by working back through the other stages we all have lived, through memory and life review. We review the middle years of Generativity v. Stagnation, the young adult years of Intimacy v. Isolation, the teen years of Identity v. Identity Diffusion [no center], the tween years of Industry v. Inferiority, the childhood years of Initiative v. Guilt and Autonomy v. Shame and Doubt, and the infant times of Trust v. Mistrust.
So far, I’ve done Generativity/Stagnation successfully by saying, “What’s wrong with stagnation?” I’ve also done Intimacy/Isolation by opting for Isolation as a good thing, since there are no committee meetings in Isolation. Of course, UP here, it’s Iceolation.
Now I have to learn to accept my adolescence, just as it was, joys and sorrows alike, so I can go on toward Final Integrity. Now I’m ready for Identity/Diffusion. So is Joe. His task is to learn who he is as a young man. My task is to learn who I am as an old man.
I can’t identify myself any longer by what I do, because I no longer do anything. I can no longer be a human doing. I must learn who I am as a human being. Someone asked me recently how old I am. “75 going on 13,” I said. [2] Joe and I will work on identity as human beings together.
Joe became my hero when he was just fifteen months old. Now at thirteen years he will be my guide. I shall watch as he wades through the snows of adolescence, centered on that “still point in the turning world,” and I shall place my feet carefully in the steps in the snow that he has made to guide me.
JRMcF
1] You can read more about Joe’s cancer experience in the new edition of “Now That I Have Cancer I Am Whole: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them.” It’s also available in Japanese.
2] Today is also the birthday of Ed Tucker, the famous “Friar Tuck,” the church cartoonist. He’s also 75 going on 13. Happy Birthday, Ed.
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
Today my grandson, Joseph, is thirteen years old. Eleven years ago there were only a few of us who thought he would have even a 2nd birthday.
Kathy Roberts says that the word for Joe is “centered.” She used to run a mental health circus and so knows well what “centered” is, because she saw so much of its opposite. I think maybe Joe got through his liver cancer because he was already centered, even at 15 months of age. If not, when he had gone through three surgeries and a year of chemotherapy, that left him 2 pounds lighter on his 2nd birthday than he was on his 1st, the cancer experience had centered him. He survived because he had found “the still point in the turning world.” [1]
As I took Joe and Brigid home from school Tuesday, she said she’d had an assignment to write on someone she admired, and she had chosen Joe. Brigid herself is highly admirable. As a 16 year old sophomore she is a straight A student, a 99 percentiler on the PSAT, on her high school’s Quiz Bowl team, the Lay Leader of our church, and a HS Ambassador and Marketing Intern for hercampus.com magazine. She’s also an older sister. Older sisters think that any little brother is annoying. [I have an older sister I still go out of my way to annoy.] For an older sister to admire a little brother, he must be truly admirable.
The emotional task of old age is what Erik Erikson calls Final Integrity v. Despair. If you can say, “I accept my life, just as it was, joys and sorrows alike,” that’s integrity. If you can’t, that’s despair.
We reach Final Integrity by working back through the other stages we all have lived, through memory and life review. We review the middle years of Generativity v. Stagnation, the young adult years of Intimacy v. Isolation, the teen years of Identity v. Identity Diffusion [no center], the tween years of Industry v. Inferiority, the childhood years of Initiative v. Guilt and Autonomy v. Shame and Doubt, and the infant times of Trust v. Mistrust.
So far, I’ve done Generativity/Stagnation successfully by saying, “What’s wrong with stagnation?” I’ve also done Intimacy/Isolation by opting for Isolation as a good thing, since there are no committee meetings in Isolation. Of course, UP here, it’s Iceolation.
Now I have to learn to accept my adolescence, just as it was, joys and sorrows alike, so I can go on toward Final Integrity. Now I’m ready for Identity/Diffusion. So is Joe. His task is to learn who he is as a young man. My task is to learn who I am as an old man.
I can’t identify myself any longer by what I do, because I no longer do anything. I can no longer be a human doing. I must learn who I am as a human being. Someone asked me recently how old I am. “75 going on 13,” I said. [2] Joe and I will work on identity as human beings together.
Joe became my hero when he was just fifteen months old. Now at thirteen years he will be my guide. I shall watch as he wades through the snows of adolescence, centered on that “still point in the turning world,” and I shall place my feet carefully in the steps in the snow that he has made to guide me.
JRMcF
1] You can read more about Joe’s cancer experience in the new edition of “Now That I Have Cancer I Am Whole: Reflections on Life and Healing for Cancer Patients and Those Who Love Them.” It’s also available in Japanese.
2] Today is also the birthday of Ed Tucker, the famous “Friar Tuck,” the church cartoonist. He’s also 75 going on 13. Happy Birthday, Ed.
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
Sunday, January 22, 2012
The Tidal Bore
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
Helen talked about seeing it so much and so often that we began to call her The Tidal Bore.
The Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia has the highest tidal range in the world. Sometimes the tide is so low that row boats simply hang from pier poles, suspended several feet above the mud. Then the tide comes back. At Truro you can watch it travel up the Shubenacadie River, It’s called “the tidal bore.”
I was still rather depleted from surgery and a year of chemo. I was within the “one to two” year range that I understood from my first oncologist was my life expectancy. I didn’t know if I had any adventures left in me, but I wanted Helen to be able to see that unusual natural phenomenon that fascinated her so much. I wanted us to have an adventure together.
We flew to Boston and rented a car and drove up to Truro, to the mouth of the Shubenacadie, and we sat on the shore and waited.
I had assumed it was a wild gush of water that would come roaring up the river. I was hoping I could get back from the shore in time to keep from drowning. But that was not the way the bore came. It was slow and deliberate, and it took every hanging boat and raised it back up until it floated on the surface once again.
Sometimes there is a moment, no bigger than a baby’s toe, maybe even smaller, a piece of dandelion fluff in the breeze perhaps, but that toe fluff moment is so full, so round, so whole, that in it bubbles all the joy that I have ever known, or will ever know, and then it is gone forever, yet it floats on the breeze and smiles at every other moment, as they pass by.
That’s the way our tidal bore moment came. Sometimes that’s the way God’s grace comes.
JRMcF
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
Saturday, January 7, 2012
The Last Mile
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
THE LAST MILE
Although I occasionally write poems, I am not a poet. That title is reserved for people who know what they’re doing, like Elaine Palencia or Billy Collins. Nor am I a song writer, although I occasionally write a song. That title should be reserved for folks like Jim Manley or Tom Paxton.
Poems and songs are not the same thing. Occasionally a poem can be set directly to music, as John Baptiste Caulkin did with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” Most of the time, though, lyrics and poems are different animals. One is written to be read, one to be sung. The flow of a poem doesn’t automatically fit the flow of music.
So, which is “I’ll Walk the Last Mile with You?” I think of it as a song, because I have a tune in my head to which I sing it. If you don’t have a tune you can use to hum it, you’re welcome to read it as a poem.
I used the phrase “ride the last mile with you” in a letter. Helen saw it and said, “You should do something with that.” So I did.
I’LL WALK THE LAST MILE WITH YOU
On the bright white floral morning
When we could see forever
And the path was paved with blossoms for our feet
We clasped our hands together
And this is what I whispered
I’ll walk the last mile with you
I’ll walk the last mile with you
Wherever this road takes us
In sunshine or in rain
In gladness or in pain
I’ll walk the last mile with you
On those chill still rainy mid-days
When storm clouds gathered o’er us
And the way was only mud beneath our feet
We linked our arms together
And this is what I stammered
I’ll walk the last mile with you
I’ll walk the last mile with you
Wherever this road takes us
In sunshine or in rain
In gladness or in pain
I’ll walk the last mile with you
On this low slow lingering evening
When the light is growing dimmer
And the road is long behind our weary feet
We shall press our lips together
And with our fading breath say
I’ll walk the last mile with you.
I’ll walk the last mile with you
Wherever this road takes us
In sunshine or in rain
In gladness or in pain
I’ll walk the last mile with you
JRMcF
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
THE LAST MILE
Although I occasionally write poems, I am not a poet. That title is reserved for people who know what they’re doing, like Elaine Palencia or Billy Collins. Nor am I a song writer, although I occasionally write a song. That title should be reserved for folks like Jim Manley or Tom Paxton.
Poems and songs are not the same thing. Occasionally a poem can be set directly to music, as John Baptiste Caulkin did with Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day.” Most of the time, though, lyrics and poems are different animals. One is written to be read, one to be sung. The flow of a poem doesn’t automatically fit the flow of music.
So, which is “I’ll Walk the Last Mile with You?” I think of it as a song, because I have a tune in my head to which I sing it. If you don’t have a tune you can use to hum it, you’re welcome to read it as a poem.
I used the phrase “ride the last mile with you” in a letter. Helen saw it and said, “You should do something with that.” So I did.
I’LL WALK THE LAST MILE WITH YOU
On the bright white floral morning
When we could see forever
And the path was paved with blossoms for our feet
We clasped our hands together
And this is what I whispered
I’ll walk the last mile with you
I’ll walk the last mile with you
Wherever this road takes us
In sunshine or in rain
In gladness or in pain
I’ll walk the last mile with you
On those chill still rainy mid-days
When storm clouds gathered o’er us
And the way was only mud beneath our feet
We linked our arms together
And this is what I stammered
I’ll walk the last mile with you
I’ll walk the last mile with you
Wherever this road takes us
In sunshine or in rain
In gladness or in pain
I’ll walk the last mile with you
On this low slow lingering evening
When the light is growing dimmer
And the road is long behind our weary feet
We shall press our lips together
And with our fading breath say
I’ll walk the last mile with you.
I’ll walk the last mile with you
Wherever this road takes us
In sunshine or in rain
In gladness or in pain
I’ll walk the last mile with you
JRMcF
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
Tuesday, January 3, 2012
The Opportunity of Winter
[Some folks have asked to receive Christ in Winter by email. If you’re not one of those, I don’t mean to be intruding in your IN box. I’m just sending to you this way because I think you may be interested in the subject or the places or people mentioned and I didn’t want you to miss it in case you don’t check the blog site today. http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/]
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of winter For the Years of Winter…
Now that the unseasonably warm December has gone the way of the rest of 2011, and 2012 is here, and with it the reality of true cold [minus 5 F when I got UP this morning], here is Ron Wetzell’s response to my musings about long underwear on 12-6-11. Ron is a long-time MN resident and thus is a prominent philosopher of the frigid. [1] Ron is a wonderful combination of the physical and the philosophical.
Here’s Ron, with his permission:
... and so, winter comes our way again. When it is part of what we have known, part of our regularity, we manage it the same way we always have, i.e. we regulate it. Buck up, boy. You just have to get used to it.
When it is something other than what we have known, it challenges us. It becomes the other. When we have at least half a tank, when the glass is half full, we can more easily let go. When we have less than half a tank, we tend to contract, to attach to what we have always known and always done. It is easy to be noble when we have it going our way; it is another thing to be noble when things go south on us. I have known persons who have been noble when they have been on fumes. I can only aspire and hope to be able to do the same.
What I know is that the Winter of 2010-11 handed me my backside: the third snowiest year in Minnesota, just under 90 inches. It was like Bill Murray's Groundhog Day, i.e. go to sleep, get up and shovel; go to sleep, get up and shovel. I now realize that my past attempts to embrace winter may have just been a variation of the Stockholm Syndrome.
I met an old guy (about my age) walking around the lake yesterday when the temperature was in the teens and the teeth of the wind had a bite to it. He said, "It's a nice day", to which I replied that "yes, it was nice to see the sun , but the wind did have a bite to it." To which the old guy said, "Well, you just have to get used to it." I bid the gentleman a good day, but my thoughts were saying, "Get used to it? I have known cold hands since I was 5 y/o, I don't like them anymore today than I liked them then. Why would I want to get used to it?"
It is true, though, that when we can change the way we look at things, we can change the things we look at. Here's hoping that I can emerge from the Post Traumatic Syndrome of the Winter of 2010-11 and be grateful for another opportunity to meet the challenge of winter - whether it is similar to what I have known or different.
Ron
1] Ron was a sophomore at IL State U when I went to Normal to be the minister at The Wesley Foundation, the Methodist campus ministry. He was one of a wonderful group of kids from Whiteside County, Ron from Tampico, Denny Heller from Prophetstown, Arlette Cocking from Erie, Linda Miller from Morrison. Little did I know then that in retirement I would live in Whiteside County [Sterling] and pastor Ron’s home church. At the Wesley Foundation he became the first of what are now known as “peer ministers.” He earned a MSW from U of MN and was until retirement the director of child protection services for Hennepin County. He now runs his own kettle bell studio. When he learned we were moving UP here, he made a special trip to Sterling to explain how to survive, and he sent me a Filson vest and a wool blanket! He keeps on his desk the motto, “The only way out is through.”
JRMcF
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of winter For the Years of Winter…
Now that the unseasonably warm December has gone the way of the rest of 2011, and 2012 is here, and with it the reality of true cold [minus 5 F when I got UP this morning], here is Ron Wetzell’s response to my musings about long underwear on 12-6-11. Ron is a long-time MN resident and thus is a prominent philosopher of the frigid. [1] Ron is a wonderful combination of the physical and the philosophical.
Here’s Ron, with his permission:
... and so, winter comes our way again. When it is part of what we have known, part of our regularity, we manage it the same way we always have, i.e. we regulate it. Buck up, boy. You just have to get used to it.
When it is something other than what we have known, it challenges us. It becomes the other. When we have at least half a tank, when the glass is half full, we can more easily let go. When we have less than half a tank, we tend to contract, to attach to what we have always known and always done. It is easy to be noble when we have it going our way; it is another thing to be noble when things go south on us. I have known persons who have been noble when they have been on fumes. I can only aspire and hope to be able to do the same.
What I know is that the Winter of 2010-11 handed me my backside: the third snowiest year in Minnesota, just under 90 inches. It was like Bill Murray's Groundhog Day, i.e. go to sleep, get up and shovel; go to sleep, get up and shovel. I now realize that my past attempts to embrace winter may have just been a variation of the Stockholm Syndrome.
I met an old guy (about my age) walking around the lake yesterday when the temperature was in the teens and the teeth of the wind had a bite to it. He said, "It's a nice day", to which I replied that "yes, it was nice to see the sun , but the wind did have a bite to it." To which the old guy said, "Well, you just have to get used to it." I bid the gentleman a good day, but my thoughts were saying, "Get used to it? I have known cold hands since I was 5 y/o, I don't like them anymore today than I liked them then. Why would I want to get used to it?"
It is true, though, that when we can change the way we look at things, we can change the things we look at. Here's hoping that I can emerge from the Post Traumatic Syndrome of the Winter of 2010-11 and be grateful for another opportunity to meet the challenge of winter - whether it is similar to what I have known or different.
Ron
1] Ron was a sophomore at IL State U when I went to Normal to be the minister at The Wesley Foundation, the Methodist campus ministry. He was one of a wonderful group of kids from Whiteside County, Ron from Tampico, Denny Heller from Prophetstown, Arlette Cocking from Erie, Linda Miller from Morrison. Little did I know then that in retirement I would live in Whiteside County [Sterling] and pastor Ron’s home church. At the Wesley Foundation he became the first of what are now known as “peer ministers.” He earned a MSW from U of MN and was until retirement the director of child protection services for Hennepin County. He now runs his own kettle bell studio. When he learned we were moving UP here, he made a special trip to Sterling to explain how to survive, and he sent me a Filson vest and a wool blanket! He keeps on his desk the motto, “The only way out is through.”
JRMcF
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
Monday, December 12, 2011
The Borlaug Polka
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter For the Years of Winter…
I woke up two hours past midnight and had to face that question that sooner or later all old people must answer: Did my life have meaning if there is no Finnish polka named for me?
The musical guests for The Second Sunday Folk Dance/Concert [1] last night was Kaivama, [2] composed of fiddler Sara Pajunen, from Hibbing, MN, [3] and guitarist and harmonium player Jonathan Rundman, from Ishpeming, MI. [4] They bill themselves as “Finnish-American Excavators,” meaning they dig up old Finnish and Finnish-American tunes to play, as well as create new ones. [5] One of their new ones is the Norman Borlaug Polka. [Polska in Finnish]
Borlaug was an Iowa farm boy who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize and is often called The Father of the Green Revolution. It is said that his third-world agricultural innovations have saved a billion lives.
Jonathan Rundman had never heard of Borlaug until he saw his obituary in 2009. “Why haven’t I heard of this man?” he thought. “Why hasn’t everybody? He deserves to be known.” He did the logical thing; he composed a polka in Borlaug’s honor. Now every Finnish polka aficionado will know about the unassuming but amazing Borlaug.
Most of us won’t have polkas composed in our honor, because we didn’t save the lives of a billion people. About the only thing I have done in the billions is eat cookies, a billion and five if you count last night at the concert. I’m not sure that’s even worth a shanty. Maybe a country song: “He ate a billion cookies and saved a billion Keebler elves…” Or maybe not.
Maybe none of us gets meaning for life finally from what we do here on earth. Maybe meaning is just in what we are, children of God. I believe that.
I’m a Methodist, though, a follower of John Wesley, the great advocate of free will. We believe that what you do matters, too. [6] What Norman Borlaug did was a matter of life and death to a billion people. That’s important. It’s also important that Jonathan and Sara and Dean and Bette made us laugh and dance and sing last night. It’s important that we broke cookies together. Not all of us can do what Norman Borlaug did. But we can add to the storehouse of the world’s love by sharing our music and our cookies.
That’s what Christmas is about, I think. Our lives have meaning because they are the gifts of God. God shares us with the world, gives us as gifts, just as God gives to the world the gift of Christ. So we don’t have to give meaning to our own lives. That’s already God’s gift. That frees me to share my meaning, my songs and my cookies, with the world, even if I don’t have a personal polka. [7]
Merry Christmas.
JRMcF
1] Second Sunday is hosted and fronted [opening set] by White Water (Dean and Bette Premo), with Susan, Emma, and Carrie Dlutkowski.
2] www.kaivama.com
3] There was a Zimmermann boy from Hibbing who used to play and sing a little. I wonder what became of him…
4] Second Sunday is held at Fortune Lake Lutheran Camp, where Jonathan learned to play guitar while a lifeguard at summer camp, so this was a homecoming for him. Summer camp lifeguarding in the UP means wading through the snow with a brandy flask around your neck to chop a hole in the ice…
5] Kaivama also means they both grew in open pit iron ore mining areas. Kaivama comes from the Finnish kaivaa, meaning to delve or dig.
6] I don’t mean that Methodists are the only folk who believe that what we do matters. I’m admitting to my Methodist leanings simply in the interest of full disclosure. And while on that subject, I admit that I made up that last bit about lifeguarding.
7] Hint to Jonathan: A Christ In Winter Polka would be nice, though.
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
I woke up two hours past midnight and had to face that question that sooner or later all old people must answer: Did my life have meaning if there is no Finnish polka named for me?
The musical guests for The Second Sunday Folk Dance/Concert [1] last night was Kaivama, [2] composed of fiddler Sara Pajunen, from Hibbing, MN, [3] and guitarist and harmonium player Jonathan Rundman, from Ishpeming, MI. [4] They bill themselves as “Finnish-American Excavators,” meaning they dig up old Finnish and Finnish-American tunes to play, as well as create new ones. [5] One of their new ones is the Norman Borlaug Polka. [Polska in Finnish]
Borlaug was an Iowa farm boy who went on to win the Nobel Peace Prize and is often called The Father of the Green Revolution. It is said that his third-world agricultural innovations have saved a billion lives.
Jonathan Rundman had never heard of Borlaug until he saw his obituary in 2009. “Why haven’t I heard of this man?” he thought. “Why hasn’t everybody? He deserves to be known.” He did the logical thing; he composed a polka in Borlaug’s honor. Now every Finnish polka aficionado will know about the unassuming but amazing Borlaug.
Most of us won’t have polkas composed in our honor, because we didn’t save the lives of a billion people. About the only thing I have done in the billions is eat cookies, a billion and five if you count last night at the concert. I’m not sure that’s even worth a shanty. Maybe a country song: “He ate a billion cookies and saved a billion Keebler elves…” Or maybe not.
Maybe none of us gets meaning for life finally from what we do here on earth. Maybe meaning is just in what we are, children of God. I believe that.
I’m a Methodist, though, a follower of John Wesley, the great advocate of free will. We believe that what you do matters, too. [6] What Norman Borlaug did was a matter of life and death to a billion people. That’s important. It’s also important that Jonathan and Sara and Dean and Bette made us laugh and dance and sing last night. It’s important that we broke cookies together. Not all of us can do what Norman Borlaug did. But we can add to the storehouse of the world’s love by sharing our music and our cookies.
That’s what Christmas is about, I think. Our lives have meaning because they are the gifts of God. God shares us with the world, gives us as gifts, just as God gives to the world the gift of Christ. So we don’t have to give meaning to our own lives. That’s already God’s gift. That frees me to share my meaning, my songs and my cookies, with the world, even if I don’t have a personal polka. [7]
Merry Christmas.
JRMcF
1] Second Sunday is hosted and fronted [opening set] by White Water (Dean and Bette Premo), with Susan, Emma, and Carrie Dlutkowski.
2] www.kaivama.com
3] There was a Zimmermann boy from Hibbing who used to play and sing a little. I wonder what became of him…
4] Second Sunday is held at Fortune Lake Lutheran Camp, where Jonathan learned to play guitar while a lifeguard at summer camp, so this was a homecoming for him. Summer camp lifeguarding in the UP means wading through the snow with a brandy flask around your neck to chop a hole in the ice…
5] Kaivama also means they both grew in open pit iron ore mining areas. Kaivama comes from the Finnish kaivaa, meaning to delve or dig.
6] I don’t mean that Methodists are the only folk who believe that what we do matters. I’m admitting to my Methodist leanings simply in the interest of full disclosure. And while on that subject, I admit that I made up that last bit about lifeguarding.
7] Hint to Jonathan: A Christ In Winter Polka would be nice, though.
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
Tuesday, December 6, 2011
Long Underwear of the Spirit
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…
Helen and I took off our long underwear yesterday. Actually we did it last April 2. It just seems like yesterday. Now it’s time to put it on again.
Perhaps I shouldn’t say “we took it off” then. Better would be: We “stopped wearing” long underwear April 2. Saying we took it off then indicates that we had not taken it off at all since we put it on last Dec. Helen would be mortified to have people think we did not change underwear all winter, because she did.
Long underwear is supposed to be donned on Dec. 1 and doffed on April 1. We did not change on April 1 because we had a big snowfall that day. We put it on last Dec. 2 because we did not have a big snowfall Dec. 1.
Helen’s father, Tank Karr, always said that spring starts March 1. In the UP there is no such thing as spring; we simply think in terms of short underwear season.
Sometimes the weather fools the underwear. We had to put our long underwear back on last April. In addition to our big April Fool’s snow, we had another 7 inches April 9 and another two on April 11. UP here, April can be not only the cruelest month but the snowiest.
We learned about long underwear season from Arch Davidson of the Stanwood, IA Presbyterian Church, which I pastored while a doctoral student at U of IA. It was the first Sunday in December, which meant communion. It also, that year, meant a record high temperature of around eighty degrees. Arch was dressed in his gray three-piece church suit. As we sang the final hymn, he wavered and began to pass out. He was too hot. Under his church suit was his union suit. Arch was a man of conviction and predestination. It was Dec. 1, and by hokies, that meant long underwear.
Cold is a particular concern of old people. As a pastor, I have visited in the homes of many old people in the winter. I did not wear long underwear then, but I had winter-weight stuff on. I often had to cut the visit short and get out because the thermostat was cranked up to eighty degrees. I never felt the need to go to Florida in the winter; I could just go to Maple Adams’ house.
Many old people go in the wintertime to where the air is hot. I think long underwear is a better solution, for when you are old, you have less tolerance for hot air as well as less tolerance for cold air.
The cold does not seem to affect young people as much. I cannot remember being young myself, but I observe young people. Our granddaughter, Brigid, goes around in short sleeves and bare feet during long underwear season.
There is also an emotional coldness that comes with age. Neither cranking up the thermostat or fleeing to Florida helps that much. I recall talking with a man whose wife had died suddenly. “I just feel cold,” he said. His emotional long underwear had been removed.
That happens each time someone we love is taken from us. That person who kept us warm with love and laughter, who held us close when we shivered at the ways of the world, is gone. We are without the long underwear on which we counted.
I am told that the last test for soldiers in training for arctic duty is to be dropped alone into the arctic wilderness, in regular fatigues, clutching their arctic pack. They will not survive unless they strip completely naked, in brutal temperatures, and don the survival pack.
We do not survive in this cold world without the right long underwear. I am tempted from time to time to try to get along without it. Then some layer of my long underwear is taken away, and I realize how cold I am without it. I give thanks for Filson and L.L. Bean. I save my greatest thanks, however, for those who wrap me in the warmth of love, even though now that warmth comes, from many of them, not in presence, but in memory and in hope.
JRMcF
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
Helen and I took off our long underwear yesterday. Actually we did it last April 2. It just seems like yesterday. Now it’s time to put it on again.
Perhaps I shouldn’t say “we took it off” then. Better would be: We “stopped wearing” long underwear April 2. Saying we took it off then indicates that we had not taken it off at all since we put it on last Dec. Helen would be mortified to have people think we did not change underwear all winter, because she did.
Long underwear is supposed to be donned on Dec. 1 and doffed on April 1. We did not change on April 1 because we had a big snowfall that day. We put it on last Dec. 2 because we did not have a big snowfall Dec. 1.
Helen’s father, Tank Karr, always said that spring starts March 1. In the UP there is no such thing as spring; we simply think in terms of short underwear season.
Sometimes the weather fools the underwear. We had to put our long underwear back on last April. In addition to our big April Fool’s snow, we had another 7 inches April 9 and another two on April 11. UP here, April can be not only the cruelest month but the snowiest.
We learned about long underwear season from Arch Davidson of the Stanwood, IA Presbyterian Church, which I pastored while a doctoral student at U of IA. It was the first Sunday in December, which meant communion. It also, that year, meant a record high temperature of around eighty degrees. Arch was dressed in his gray three-piece church suit. As we sang the final hymn, he wavered and began to pass out. He was too hot. Under his church suit was his union suit. Arch was a man of conviction and predestination. It was Dec. 1, and by hokies, that meant long underwear.
Cold is a particular concern of old people. As a pastor, I have visited in the homes of many old people in the winter. I did not wear long underwear then, but I had winter-weight stuff on. I often had to cut the visit short and get out because the thermostat was cranked up to eighty degrees. I never felt the need to go to Florida in the winter; I could just go to Maple Adams’ house.
Many old people go in the wintertime to where the air is hot. I think long underwear is a better solution, for when you are old, you have less tolerance for hot air as well as less tolerance for cold air.
The cold does not seem to affect young people as much. I cannot remember being young myself, but I observe young people. Our granddaughter, Brigid, goes around in short sleeves and bare feet during long underwear season.
There is also an emotional coldness that comes with age. Neither cranking up the thermostat or fleeing to Florida helps that much. I recall talking with a man whose wife had died suddenly. “I just feel cold,” he said. His emotional long underwear had been removed.
That happens each time someone we love is taken from us. That person who kept us warm with love and laughter, who held us close when we shivered at the ways of the world, is gone. We are without the long underwear on which we counted.
I am told that the last test for soldiers in training for arctic duty is to be dropped alone into the arctic wilderness, in regular fatigues, clutching their arctic pack. They will not survive unless they strip completely naked, in brutal temperatures, and don the survival pack.
We do not survive in this cold world without the right long underwear. I am tempted from time to time to try to get along without it. Then some layer of my long underwear is taken away, and I realize how cold I am without it. I give thanks for Filson and L.L. Bean. I save my greatest thanks, however, for those who wrap me in the warmth of love, even though now that warmth comes, from many of them, not in presence, but in memory and in hope.
JRMcF
The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!
You are always welcome to Forward or Repost or Reprint. It’s okay to acknowledge the source, unless it embarrasses you too much. It is okay to refer the link to older folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin.
{I also write the fictional “Periwinkle Chronicles” blog. One needs a rather strange sense of humor to enjoy it, but occasionally it is slightly funny. It is at http://periwinklechronicles.blogspot.com/}
(If you would prefer to receive either “Christ In Winter” or “Periwinkle Chronicles” via email, just let me know at jmcfarland1721@charter.net, and I’ll put you on the email list.)
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