Poem-Advice on Dying

“Rage, rage against the dying of the light,”

ranted Dylan Thomas to his father

Like all else in his Self-addicted

haze, he spoke only to himself

But father knows best

or at least better

Enough to know not

to take advice on dying

from a child

 John Robert McFarland

MISDIAGNOSIS

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter For the Years of Winter…

MISDIAGNOSIS

Dave called. He had heard from Charlie Bob that Bob had been diagnosed with terminal cancer and had six to eight weeks to live. Bob was selling his motorcycle and the rest of his stuff and arranging for hospice car. I’ve learned not to tarry when I get that sort of news. I quickly wrote Bob a sappy letter about all we had shared and hope for the future and such like stuff. That was almost two years ago. 

I waited. I watched the obits in the hometown newspaper. No news of Bob. I called Mike and John from time to time. They hadn’t heard anything. I talked to Dave. He didn’t know anything. We assumed we had missed Bob’s obit. I was disappointed. I thought maybe the obit writer would say something nice about the sappy letters that had comforted him in his death throes.

Then Bob’s mother’s obit appeared in the newspaper. Ninety-nine years old. Survived by her son in Florida, it said. How could that be?

So Dave called Charlie Bob again. No, Bob wasn’t dead. Quite the opposite. After he got rid of all his stuff, he began to feel better. He went back to the doctor. “We must have misdiagnosed you,” was the new diagnosis. Charlie Bob couldn’t give Dave Bob’s telephone number right then because he was in the basement, doing laundry, since Daphne can’t do stairs anymore.

This has put us into an embarrassing situation. How do you call up an old friend and say, “I’m sorry I haven’t been in touch, but I thought you were dead?”

Every once in a while you get a misdiagnosis. Not just from doctors, but from others who look at your life and think you’re diseased when you’re only dealing with a problem that can’t be seen by others. They tell you there is no reason to have faith, that that there is no reason to hope. Or they give you sappy bromides when you just need to get rid of some stuff.

At our 55 year class reunion, Bob said to me: “Do you remember that summer when the District Superintendent would send you around to various churches on Sunday mornings to fill in while the pastor was on vacation or in rehab or something, and Dave and Donald Gene and I would go along? You’d preach, and we would sing as a quartet. I always said the best preacher I ever heard was an eighteen-year-old kid.” I pointed out to our classmates that this showed Bob had not been to church much in the past 55 years. He protested that that was not true, that he had gone to church a lot, but how much can you trust a guy who won’t even die when he’s supposed to?

This is very embarrassing. If Charlie Bob ever gets up from the basement so we can get that telephone number, I have to call Bob and take back all those sappy things I said about him.

John Robert McFarland

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 folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin, or make it into a movie or TV series or Broadway musical.

{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/}

I tweet, occasionally, as yooper1721.

I have nothing to do with those double under-linings Blogger puts into the body of these posts, randomly, it seems, to lead you to advertisements, and I wish they would stop that.

Committee Meeting--a poem

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter

COMMITTEE MEETING

He died this week

Did not send apologies

Or a report for his sub-committee

He simply left

The chairman said

we should take a moment

“To remember how he touched our lives”
then gave us seven seconds for the task

Someday I shall die, report undone

and in some damp basement

on ancient, metal folding chairs

eight weary souls will remember me

in seven seconds—fifty-six in aggregate

It is fitting, and it is enough

John Robert McFarland

[I found this today, hand-written on a yellow sheet, November 10, 1983]

I STAY IN MY HOUSE

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter…

Winter makes hermits of us all.

I think of Thoreau beside the pond called Walden. I should get that book out and read it again. I read it first in college, in the spring time of my life. I knew it was a classic. I knew thus that I should appreciate it. I suppose I did, but I cannot remember. I just wanted credit for the class. And a good grade.

Now I am past the point of needing credit, of any kind.

I do not need a good grade, either. I do not need others to tell me that my life is worth living. Either it is or it is not, regardless of what others think. I do not need their grade.

Thoreau was a hermit by his choice. I am a hermit by winter’s choice. Winter’s choice has, however, become my choice. I stay in my house.

The winter is outside, in the snow, in the tracks of the deer, in the disappearing tail of the rabbit, in the quick flash of the fox, in the slow snore of the bear, in the bare space in the cold air where the hummingbird used to hover. The winter is in here, too, in my house.

There is the cold air of absence here, but there are also the tracks of memory, the disappearing tale, the quick flash of understanding, the slow snore of acceptance, the question about spring, about when it will come, if it will be early or late, if the bushes will still flower, or if the deer, in the empty gnawing of their winter, will have killed them with desire, desire for one more meal before the boom of the hunter’s gun.

I stay in my house. I look out the window at winter, and I wonder about the spring.

John Robert McFarland

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 folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin, or make it into a movie or TV series or Broadway musical.

{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/}

I tweet, occasionally, as yooper1721.

I have nothing to do with those double under-linings Blogger puts into the body of these posts, randomly, it seems, to lead you to advertisements, and I wish they would stop that.

You SHOOT the Ball!

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter For the Years of Winter…

You SHOOT the Ball!

This has been a winter of discontent for an Indiana University basketball fan. Our young team is unpredictable, beating a juggernaut like Wisconsin on a T and losing to a bunch of biochemistry majors like Northwestern the following Saturday. I did have some good moments watching the NW game, though, because Chris Collins is in his first year as the NW coach. The TV cameras often went to his father, Doug, watching from the stands. It made me remember Doug’s first game at IL State U, when I was the Methodist campus minister there.

In 1969, Dr. Jim Collie announced his retirement as the ILSU basketball coach. I had just read an article in SI about Will Robinson, the great Detroit high school basketball coach. His ambition had been to coach at a university, but he was black. No one would hire him. He was getting close to the end of his career. It looked like his dream would go unfulfilled.

I went to Milt Weisbecker, the ILSU athletics director, and said: Why not hire Will Robinson? He’s won a million state titles and sent a thousand players on to the pros so he’s obviously an excellent coach. He really wants this, so he’ll be cheaper than most. He’s close to the end of his career, so if it doesn’t work out, he can retire. You’ll help a man achieve his dream. And, the clincher in my mind, think of the recruiting advantages the only black coach in the nation, at a non-black college, will have in recruiting!

Milt was polite. Wrote me a note to thank me, and explain why it wasn’t going to happen. He was not about to hire a high school coach with no college experience to replace a man with a real doctorate and a hundred years of experience. It sort of sounded like, “What if it does NOT work out? I’m not going to take the heat for being the first AD in the country to hire a black coach.”

I suspected that Milt was more open-minded than that, though. So I organized a letter writing campaign to persuade him. It wasn’t much of a campaign. Many were called but few [letters] were written. Only two that I know of.

Something worked, though. Will Robinson was hired.

Some worried that the best basketball recruit ILSU ever had, Doug Collins, would transfer. When he signed on, he thought Jim Collie would be his coach. But he stayed. I was there for his first game and Coach Robinson’s first game. Early in the game, Collins went for a steal and missed. Out of position as he was, the player he was guarding scored an easy basket. The black coach stood and pointed at the white player. The arena went quiet as a church during a request for volunteers to work on the stewardship drive. Robinson stamped his foot as he pointed at Collins. “You…SHOOT the ball!” he said.

Collins never forgot that lesson. He shot the ball every time it touched his hands during a distinguished college and Olympic and pro career. It’s fun to watch his son point to a Northwestern player and say, “You SHOOT the ball.”

Not everybody on the team is supposed to shoot the ball. Paul of Tarsus reminds us in I Corinthians, 12^th chapter, that some are called to pass, others to rebound, still others to take a charge. The point is: you do what the coach tells you to.

John Robert McFarland

I’m often a bit confused during the Big Ten [B1G according to their logo] basketball season. Helen and I are IU grads. So is daughter Katie. With any luck, and some scholarships, granddaughter Brigid will join our ranks in four and one-half years. I now live in the home town of Tom Izzo, the MSU coach. Thad Matta, the OSU coach, was a little boy in my church in Hoopeston, IL, and I baptized his little sister. I went to theology school at NW [Garrett-Evangelical]. I did my doctoral work at Iowa, and grandson Joe was treated for his cancer there. My good friend and one-time roommate, Walt Wagener, is a WI fan. Our children have four IL graduate degrees among them. I’m always for IU, but when two of the others clash, I’m not sure where my loyalties should be. 

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 folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin, or make it into a movie or TV series or Broadway musical.

{I also write, not very often, 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/}

I tweet, occasionally, as yooper1721.

I have nothing to do with those double under-linings Blogger puts into the body of these posts, randomly, it seems, to lead you to advertisements, and I wish they would stop that.

 
CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith From a Place of Winter for the Years of Winter…
 
IT MEANS MORE TO GOD…
 
In my college days, students were allowed to have a car on campus only if needed for work. I pastored three little churches 16 to 35 miles away from Bloomington, so I got to have a car. This meant I also got other things to do, like picking up a couple of students at Depauw U in Greencastle, IN, 45 miles away, to bring them to IU for a student conference. One was a cute girl. I thought she should ride up front with me, but she ensconced herself in the back seat and read all the way. The other was a nice enough guy, a pre-ministerial student like myself. He sat up front, and we talked the whole way about pre-theological studies and where we might go to seminary.
 
That night there was a mixer for the conference, maybe 40 or 50 students. I saw my new friend across the room and went over to say hello to him. I did. He didn’t respond. I said a few other things to which he did not respond, until finally he said, “Who ARE you?” I was considerably taken aback. We had spent an hour talking with each other earlier in the day. Was I that unmemorable? I told him my name. He looked blank. I explained that I was the guy who had given him a ride earlier, and reminded him what we had talked about. He said, “Oh,” and walked away.
 
Later I did what I have always done when perplexed. I consulted an older and wiser head, in this case, D.J. Bowden, my first religion professor. [1] After I had whined to him about the ungrateful and insensitive jerk, Dr. Bowden said, “Apparently the relationship just meant more to you than to him. That’s why you’ll be a good pastor. Relationships mean more to you.”
 
Looking at the universe, the universe doesn’t give a damn about its relationship to me. It just shrugs and walks away. But looking at Jesus, I can see that my relationship with God means more to God than it does to me.
 
That’s the Christmas message, I think, the message that comes in Jesus, the Christ, the Word of God: even if I shrug and walk away, God stays in the relationship. It just means more to God.
 
JRMcF [John Robert McFarland]
 
1] It is getting harder to find heads older than mine now, so I have to ask younger and wiser heads, but I don’t get perplexed as easily, so it sort of evens out.
 
When Father Rode the Mail and Other Stories of Christmas is available from lulu.com for $10. ISBN = 978-1-300-38566-0. For many years I wrote a story to use as a Christmas eve sermon. Most are auto-biographical, but with happier endings. Providing happier endings is the great thing about being a story-teller.
 
I have faithfully kept an index for CIW so that I would not repeat myself. But that’s a lot of work, and I trust that if I forget I’ve already used something, you will forget it, too. Nonetheless, I do apologize if this is a story I’ve told here before.
 
{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.)

 

 

 

OVERHAIRING THE GOSPEL

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a Place of Winter For the Years of Winter

There are a lot of old men with bald heads and white beards. Whenever I see one, I remark on how handsome he is. Everyone who knows what I look like knows why I do this, but younger people also look a bit askance. I mean, just how good looking can an old bald man be, even with a white beard?

 
What they don’t understand is that we were once the young rebels, alpha males with a full head of hair, if a crew-cut can be considered full, and ready to take on the smooth-chinned establishment in the war against hair.
 
And indeed there was a war against hair in the 1960s, the days of Civil Rights and desegregation and Viet Nam. Classical violinists could get away with slightly long hair, but only in back, sort of a mullet-in-the-making, as long as it never actually made. If you did not get a weekly trim, people would ask you, not kindly, “Where’s your violin?” Students who advocated for desegregation or against the war in Viet Nam were told, “Get a haircut.” Middle-aged people seemed to think that the weight of long hair pulled a young man’s brain cells out. Just get a haircut and you’ll understand why black people shouldn’t vote and you should go die in Viet Nam.
 
Beards were even worse. Only a Communist would wear a beard. Many a past president or general or bishop wore a beard, but the past was past. Now it was possible to judge a man’s patriotism by the number of hairs on his face.
 
It was in the midst of the war on hair that I began to go bald. I was only in my mid-thirties. Not-enough hair was considered to be almost as bad as too much hair. I did not want to be bald. So I decided to let my hair grow out long enough that I could comb it over the bald spot.
 
I knew, though, that when people saw I was growing my hair out, it would call attention to my bald spot. My friends would make fun of me and my enemies would accuse me of long-haired perfidy. I also knew that if I grew a beard at the same time, people would fixate on the bottom of my face and not even notice what was taking place on the top of my head.
 
It worked perfectly. With one exception. I had to spend a lot of time in front of the mirror. A crew-cut requires only a swipe of the hand—no mirror time necessary. A smooth chin requires only a quick run with an electric razor, not much mirror time. Now, though, I had to comb and trim just so—a lot of mirror time. I did not like what I saw.
 
One day Helen was passing by the open bathroom door as I was peering into the mirror. I said, “You know, I am really NOT very good-looking.”
 
“That’s right,” she said, as she went her merry way.
 
I realized that I had made my remark in order to get an entirely different reaction from her.
 
“Hey, wait a minute,” I yelled. “You’re my wife. You’re not supposed to agree with that.”
 
“Well,” she said, sticking her head back around the door frame, “you’re not very good-looking when you’re only looking at yourself, but you’re very good-looking when you’re looking at me.”
 
I knew that I had overheard the Gospel.
 
Helen has always been the best theologian in the family.
 
John Robert McFarland
 
“For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face. “ The Apostle, Paul of Tarsus, in I Corinthians 13:12, ASV.
 
As a student at Garrett Theological Seminary, I took a seminar in Soren Kierkegaard and Friederich Schleiermacher, from Prof. Paul Hessert, along with David Buttrick and Ron Goetz and several other students. I’m not sure I ever understood SK’s theology, but I remember, as well as I remember anything these days, his story of being in a cemetery and overhearing through a hedge a grandfather talking to his grandson about the death of the man who was son to one and father to the other. SK said he “overheard the Gospel.” Fred Craddock turned that into a very helpful book on preaching.
 
In the spirit of Neil Diamond, who never once said, “I apologize to those of you who have heard Sweet Caroline before, but I’m going to sing it again,” I do not apologize to you who have heard me tell this story before, in the pulpit or in The Strange Calling or in Now That I Have Cancer I Am Whole.
 
Some of you have wondered how Helen came out in the grape-stomping competition at Iron Mountain’s Italian Fest. Alas, a combination of fasciitis and an out-of-state funeral eliminated her appearance. Next year in the grape pit…
 
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 folks you know or to print it in a church newsletter or bulletin, or make it into a movie or TV series or Broadway musical.
 
{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/}
 
I tweet, occasionally, as yooper1721.
 
I have nothing to do with those double under-linings Blogger puts into the body of these posts, randomly, it seems, to lead you to advertisements, on the web site, http://christinwinter.blogspot.com/ and I wish they would stop that.
 
I have noticed, when folks reply, the mail programs of some of you leave out much of my punctuation, especially quote marks, apostrophes, and ellipses. I want you to know that I DO know how to punctuate, mostly…