THE WORD FROM OLD PULPITS [Su, 10-30-22]

 

It is acceptable
allowable
even agreeable
for old preachers
on Sunday mornings
to stand again
in long abandoned pulpits
looking out at faces
yearning for good words
There are few
perhaps only one
the old preachers say
You must decide
if that one word
is enough
or will simply
have to do

John Robert McFarland

THE GIFT & PLEASURE OF NOT FITTING IN [R, 10-28-22]

I’ve written before about how Dick Street gave me a whole new outlook on ministry, and on life.

It was a couple of months after I had been appointed to the UMC in Orion, IL. Dick and I were having coffee. Dick was a tall, rugged man, a contractor. You didn’t look at him and say, “There’s a thoughtful man.” But you did think, “There’s a guy who won’t blab about his conversations.”

So, I said, “Dick, I just don’t seem to fit in here.”

“That’s why you’re going to do us so much good,” Dick said. “The other preachers we’ve had here fit in too well.”

For the next 45 years of full-time and interim ministry, I worked with the assumption that NOT fitting in was one of my gifts to the congregation. I was a good preacher, a good pastor… and I was good at not fitting in.

Not fitting is a complaint I hear often from old people. In fact, I hear it from myself. “I don’t fit in this present world.” Yes, true. But that doesn’t mean I’m irrelevant, or have nothing to offer. Being a square peg on a board of round holes might make a more interesting picture.

Old folks need to be careful not to assume that we are better because we don’t fit it, that we’re different, because we’re older, because we’ve seen things younger people can only guess at. At the same time, we need to understand that NOT fitting into this present age may be a gift that we can bring to it.

John Robert McFarland

ONE MORE FALL IN INDIANA

 

ONE MORE FALL IN INDIANA 

That has been my yearning

ever since the cancer came

and tried to take me in the spring

so long ago

This autumn now

may be the one

for which I yearned

The leaves of red and gold

So spectacular in nonchalance

Every voice here says the same

   This is the best one ever!

Who needs another now?

John Robert McFarland

NO PIC; JUST AN ENTRY FROM MY JOURNAL

 

THE FINISH LINE

They think they are so fast

The toddler on his trike

The mother pushing the stroller

The old woman on the walker

Just because they pass

me with such ease

But I have a secret

 I am the finish line

JRMcF

THE IMPORTANCE OF NOT KNOWING WHO YOU ARE [T, 10-25-22]

 

On a “Finding Your Roots” TV show recently, a woman said about her 7^th or 8^th great-grandfather, who had died very young, “It’s sad, because he never got the chance to find out who he really was.”

Really? That’s the point of your sadness? “Finding out who you really are” strikes me as very much a first world, 21^st century problem. Most of the people of the past, and most of the people of the present, don’t have the luxury of worrying about who they really are.

Who am I? I’m the person who is trying to get by and survive. Beyond that, it’s all irrelevant.

Still, “being fully known” seems to be a big deal these days. Comedian Stephen Colbert parodies this by giving guests on “The Late Show” the Colbert Questionnaire, in which he asks questions like “What is the best sandwich?” and “Apples or oranges?” and proclaims at the end, “Now you are fully known!”

In every TV or movie drama there seems to be somebody who shouts, “You can't talk to me. You don’t know me!”

So, nobody ever gets to talk to anybody?

What arrogance. You think we’ve got the time to worry about getting to know you? You think getting to know you should be some sort of goal for others? Get a life.

Besides, isn’t being unknown the point? If people know who I really am, they’re going to run fast in the other direction. Most of us spend a lot of time and energy to keep people from fully knowing us.

If you do find out who you really are, for heaven’s sake, don’t tell the rest of us. It’s sort of like when Karen Armstrong was a nun. She told the mother superior, “You know, most of what we believe is nonsense.” The mother superior replied, “I know, but don’t tell the others.”

Even if you try to know someone, does it work? I’ve been married to the same woman for 63 years. Almost every day she says something that makes me think, “Who is this woman? Have I met her before?” And, no, it’s not just old age forgetfulness. This has been going on the full 63 years.

[I say “Married to the same woman for 63 years” rather than just “Married for 63 years” because there is a difference. At a class reunion, everyone was saying things like “This is my husband, we’ve been married 20 years.” “This is my wife, we’ve been married 19 years.” Kenny said, “I’ve been married 15 years, but none of them are here.”’

Does it make any difference to anyone, even to you, if you know who you are?

There is another way to see this, though. In the words of Charles Albert Tinley’s great hymn, Stand By Me: “In the midst of faults and failures, stand by me. In the midst of faults and failures, stand by me. When I’ve done the best I can, and my friends misunderstand, Thou who knowest all about me, stand by me.”

It really doesn’t matter if I know who I am, or if you know who I am, because God knows all about me… and accepts me, anyway.

John Robert McFarland

THOUGHTS ON GETTING BY WHILE GETTING OLD [Sa 10-22-22]

 

Some By Me and Some by Others

Election day is coming up. I have received emails from several different organizations urging me to vote. One such organization claims its purpose is “…to get young people to vote, because we can make a difference.” Well, a bit late in my case, but I appreciate the reminder.

“Comfort is the enemy of progress.” So… progress is overrated.

I see the world with the same clear vision with which I have always viewed it, but the world looks back at me with the misty, wrinkled eyes of irrelevance.

“Life is like a helicopter. I don’t know how to operate a helicopter, either.”

“Time may be a great healer, but it’s a lousy beautician.” Dorothy Parker

I thought getting old would take longer

“The older we get, the fewer things seem worth standing in line for.” Will Rogers

I am often nostalgic for times that never were.

“Jesus was not a theologian. He was God who told stories.” Madeline L’Engle, quoting an anonymous friend. P. 54, Walking on Water

“…you had but one job…” as the joke goes. At my age, I have but one job, to get ready to die, by discarding all the unnecessary stuff--from my spirit, from my body, from my relationships, from my possessions.

            Actually, that’s the one job at any age. I sort of wish I had understood that better, earlier.

“Wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age. Sometimes age just shows up all by itself.”

“Unexplained pain may sometimes direct our attention to something unacknowledged, something we are afraid to know or feel.” Rachel Remen

The surest way to be irrelevant tomorrow is to be too relevant today.

“Evangelism is one beggar telling another beggar where to find food.” D.T. Niles

“When old men become irrelevant, young men become irresponsible.”

The Wesley Foundation building in Terre Haute, IN is now the United Campus Ministries building, Wesley Foundation being only one of the cooperating denominational ministries. It was built during the time I was campus minister there. It was recently placed on the National Register of Historic Places. Really? I do have a sweat shirt that says I am on the Register of Historic Persons, but that’s just because my daughters thought it would be a funny birthday gift. Am I really old enough that a building built when I was already out of seminary is now “historic?”

At least it’s still standing. Not so with the hospital where I was born, my grade school and high school, every commercial building in my home town, my university dorm, our first parsonage, and seven of the church buildings where I preached.

“Don’t count the days; make the days count.”

“To grow old is to pass from passion to compassion.” Albert Camus

John Robert McFarland

 

WHERE THE BUFFALO ROAM [W, 10-19022]

Have I told you about the buffalo and the bread truck?

I’m thinking about that because my friend, Phil, can’t drive for a while, so I’m taking him to Needmore Coffee this morning. Needmore Coffee is a great name for a coffee shop. I mean, who doesn’t need more coffee?

That’s not the reason for the name, though. The owner lives in the nearby hamlet of Needmore. The shop isn’t in Needmore, though. It’s here in Bloomington.

It’s my favorite coffee shop, because of my time in Nicaragua. The owner goes to Central America herself and buys her coffee beans directly from the farmers, so that they get all the profit. That’s real “Fair Trade.”

 

So, back to the buffalo and the bread truck, because that encounter took place in Needmore.

Several years ago I heard a folk singer, whom I’ll call Archie, tell the story of when he was living in a hippie compound in Needmore in the 1980s. He was in charge of the little general store and had to open earlier than most of the other hippies got up. The bread guy was there making a delivery. He and Archie were chatting in the store when they saw a big male buffalo coming down the road, stopping along the way from time to time to munch the roadside weeds.

The hippies had decided they should raise buffalo, even though it did make roller skating harder. [1] They were not very good at fence-building, though, and so everyone in Needmore was living “where the buffalo roam.”

Archie called the hippie who was in charge of the buffalo. After a while, he came ambling down the road, barefoot, shirtless, in overalls. The buffalo was farther along the road, closer to the grocery.

Archie and the bread guy watched. Too late, the bread guy realized the buffalo had accepted the challenge of the bread truck.

The bread guy had left the truck motor running. Why so many delivery people do that, I don’t know. Surely not every delivery truck has a bad battery or starter.

This time it was clearly a mistake, for that engine was making the low rumbling sound that said to the buffalo, “I’m tougher than you.” With its near-sighted eyes, the buffalo saw the big brute of a truck hulking, waiting, rumbling, and challenging, The buffalo charged the truck. With its horns under the front bumper, it lifted the truck into the air and then let if fall with a crash. The truck gave up. Satisfied, the buffalo ambled back up the road with the barefoot hippie.

I wrote this just because I love the story, but if you want a “point…”

Not everything that rumbles is a challenge. Not every challenge needs a response.

John Robert McFarland

1] I think Roger Miller was one of the best philosophers of the 20^th century. “You can’t roller skate in a buffalo herd, but you can be happy if you’ve a mind to.”