Notes from my Knapsack 2-27-2025
Jeff Gill
A few recurring thoughts about education
___
Regarding education, public and otherwise, there is a small set of observations I have made in this space before, even more than once, but in hunting through back numbers it appears I haven't made these points here for more years than I'd have thought.
Seeing and hearing some of the comments online and in television punditry around this subject leads me to want to put three baseline realities out in front of y'all.
Point one: how much time does the average child spend in school, from birth to age 18? I'll save you some math and make my point in a single digit. 9 percent. Children spend 9% of their childhood in school.
Yes, I know, folks will say "wait, you're cheating here." Right, I'm counting it all. Before starting school, sleeping, vacations. Can you see why? If a child comes to school utterly unprepared in kindergarten or first grade, or if a high schooler comes to the morning bell without rest, if any kid is walking in the schoolhouse door hungry and fearful . . . see my point?
Teachers have access to less than ten percent of their students' lives. If the other 90+% is chaos, then you will have challenges in making good use of your 9%.
Point two: Ohio's current graduation rate is 84%; Granville's is 98.7%. What people don't understand is that grad rates have steadily climbed since the 1950s. Yes, increased. But many are certain our grad rates are in free fall. They are incorrect.
My grandfather was a school district superintendent. He retired in 1969, honored for successfully graduating . . . 50% of all the students who began first grade with his district for his last decade.
My mother had the blessing and misfortune to have him as her algebra teacher, her high school principal, and knew of his challenges in a rural Illinois setting, but she reacted strongly ten years ago hearing me make this point. "Oh no, all my classmates graduated."
Well, he kept yearbooks most of his years as principal and superintendent, and we went to them. In the early 1950s, there were about 75 kids per grade level in elementary; after eighth grade (which held a graduation ceremony; my grandmother sent me a card and gift when I finished eighth grade in the mid-1970s and I was at the time, baffled) the class head count went to about 45, and the graduating classes ran 22 to 25 in all her years of high school.
Mom was still certain the graduation rate in her days was closer to 100% than 50%. The yearbooks show it was more like 30%; her father deserved credit for bringing that up to 50% once he was in charge.
Point three: we haven't always educated everyone. This is related to the second point. In fact, Licking County (thanks to Eleanor Weiant) has a proud, long tradition of educating all children, even those with disabilities. That only became the law nationwide in the 1970s, and in many places wasn't fully deployed until the 1980s. I'm not even getting into legal discrimination by race nationwide.
The reality is since the mid-1980s we are educating many, many kids our schools didn't even formerly try to teach, or have in their buildings. Some of those situations incur costs which would stun you, but are now legal mandates (for the entity which only has them 9% of their lives).
Please consider these three points as we debate how education should operate in the challenging years ahead.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he was also the attendance officer for Granville Schools for sixteen years (long story). Tell him how you remember education at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Tuesday, February 18, 2025
Monday, February 17, 2025
Faith Works 2-21-2025
Faith Works 2-21-2025
Jeff Gill
Looking for the presence of God
___
One more time, we can hope one last time, our local "emergency warming center" operation swung into action this past week.
We will, by dawn Friday morning, have been in operation 18 nights this winter, which is two or three nights more than any winter since Jan. 2019 when this community volunteer-based operation got going. 18 times four shifts is 72 shifts (not counting the post-activation "shift" of laundering 50 or 60 heavy wool blankets & folding and returning them to our location, so technically 77 shifts this winter).
In general we need four volunteers per shift, not counting the food delivery & transport assistance from the hospital & county transit board, so volunteer-wise we've needed 288 "volunteer shifts" in total, 298 counting five laundry run duos. Obviously some people work multiple shifts, but it comes to at least 150 people "showing up" at some point over the winter. Bless them all.
It has been a rough winter, to be sure. Practically speaking, and spiritually. But in the Old & New Testaments I'm most familiar with, there are some guideposts as to where we should look for God's presence. For starters:
Deuteronomy 15:7-8 (Moses here): "If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be."
I Samuel 2:8 (Hannah speaking): "He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them he has set the world."
Psalm 9:18: "For the needy shall not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the poor perish forever."
Proverbs 14:31: "Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but those who are kind to the needy honor him."
Proverbs 16:19: "It is better to be of a lowly spirit among the poor than to divide the spoil with the proud."
Proverbs 19:17: "Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord and will be repaid in full."
Luke 4:18 (Jesus citing Isaiah 61 in Nazareth): "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor…"
Luke 6:20-21 (Jesus preaching again): "Then he looked up at his disciples and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh."
II Corinthians 8:9 (Paul here): "For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich."
Galatians 2:10 (at the Jerusalem conference with Peter, James, & John, where Paul & Barnabas were being instructed): "They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do."
James 1:27: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world."
Remember the poor, look for God's blessings at work in the midst of those who are without, and always be mindful of Matthew 19:30 (not the only place he says this), where Jesus notes "But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first."
Sit with those who are distressed and cast aside, and you will encounter God. There are few clearer promises in Scripture.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; tell him where you meet the Living God at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads & Bluesky.
Jeff Gill
Looking for the presence of God
___
One more time, we can hope one last time, our local "emergency warming center" operation swung into action this past week.
We will, by dawn Friday morning, have been in operation 18 nights this winter, which is two or three nights more than any winter since Jan. 2019 when this community volunteer-based operation got going. 18 times four shifts is 72 shifts (not counting the post-activation "shift" of laundering 50 or 60 heavy wool blankets & folding and returning them to our location, so technically 77 shifts this winter).
In general we need four volunteers per shift, not counting the food delivery & transport assistance from the hospital & county transit board, so volunteer-wise we've needed 288 "volunteer shifts" in total, 298 counting five laundry run duos. Obviously some people work multiple shifts, but it comes to at least 150 people "showing up" at some point over the winter. Bless them all.
It has been a rough winter, to be sure. Practically speaking, and spiritually. But in the Old & New Testaments I'm most familiar with, there are some guideposts as to where we should look for God's presence. For starters:
Deuteronomy 15:7-8 (Moses here): "If there is among you anyone in need, a member of your community in any of your towns within the land that the Lord your God is giving you, do not be hard-hearted or tight-fisted toward your needy neighbor. You should rather open your hand, willingly lending enough to meet the need, whatever it may be."
I Samuel 2:8 (Hannah speaking): "He raises up the poor from the dust; he lifts the needy from the ash heap to make them sit with princes and inherit a seat of honor. For the pillars of the earth are the Lord's, and on them he has set the world."
Psalm 9:18: "For the needy shall not always be forgotten, nor the hope of the poor perish forever."
Proverbs 14:31: "Those who oppress the poor insult their Maker, but those who are kind to the needy honor him."
Proverbs 16:19: "It is better to be of a lowly spirit among the poor than to divide the spoil with the proud."
Proverbs 19:17: "Whoever is kind to the poor lends to the Lord and will be repaid in full."
Luke 4:18 (Jesus citing Isaiah 61 in Nazareth): "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor…"
Luke 6:20-21 (Jesus preaching again): "Then he looked up at his disciples and said: "Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you will be filled. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh."
II Corinthians 8:9 (Paul here): "For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich."
Galatians 2:10 (at the Jerusalem conference with Peter, James, & John, where Paul & Barnabas were being instructed): "They asked only one thing, that we remember the poor, which was actually what I was eager to do."
James 1:27: "Religion that is pure and undefiled before God the Father is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself unstained by the world."
Remember the poor, look for God's blessings at work in the midst of those who are without, and always be mindful of Matthew 19:30 (not the only place he says this), where Jesus notes "But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first."
Sit with those who are distressed and cast aside, and you will encounter God. There are few clearer promises in Scripture.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; tell him where you meet the Living God at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads & Bluesky.
Monday, February 10, 2025
Faith Works 2-14-2025
Faith Works 2-14-2025
Jeff Gill
Is faith a romance?
___
Valentine's Day falls on the publication date of this column, and it's a hard conjunction to ignore, so of course I will not.
As a faith and religion columnist, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention it began as Saint Valentine's Day, a saint's feast day transmogrified by time and the seasons into an occasion for selling cards and candy and dinner reservations and other (ahem) romantic accoutrements.
Good St. Valentine was associated with Rome, but the bad old Roman empire Rome of martyrs and evil emperors. Tradition tells us he was a bishop, committed to evangelism and executed on this date for refusing to renounce his faith in Jesus as Lord. This all happened in the third century, with later tradition adding in miracles associated with courting couples and other reasons to see the poor man tied to red velvet hearts and cable network films where the lucky duo kiss finally in the last minute before the credits.
Give credit to St. Valentine, whose love for God led him to the ultimate sacrifice, before you move on to choosing between milk and dark chocolate. Where I did find myself stuck, though, was in that word "romance." Does it relate to St. Valentine's death in Rome?
I took enough Latin in school to know about the Romance languages, which are the various tongues descended from Latin, and I must suppose, out of Rome. Spanish and Italian, French and Portuguese, Catalan (around Barcelona) and Romanian the lesser known two along with a few smaller dialects around southern Europe. These are in contrast to northern Europe's Germanic languages, obviously related to German, and also Danish, Swedish, Norwegian, Dutch, Icelandic, as well as English.
English has a huge amount of Romance content, though, thanks to William the Conquerer (1066 and all that); enough that if you had a paragraph of Spanish or French in front of you, versus a few lines in Dutch or Swedish, you'd have more luck puzzling out a few words from the Romantic than the Germanic.
None of which explains the core of romance, the romantic atmosphere, around love but with a word referring to a city in Italy. Granted, there's a "La Dolce Vita" vibe of supposed romance around Rome, but in our culture that's stronger for Paris. What does romance point back to Rome?
The closest thing to a trail I could find is the idea of romance as a genre, like a novel but further back, more poetic, and "in the Roman style." There's something about love, even platonic love (let's not get started on Plato), and two star-crossed lovers, that seems to trace back to a Roman ideal of some sort about hearts coming together.
For Western Christianity, there's a trail leading back to Rome that's not simply a Catholic narrative. It comes from Jerusalem with Paul and Simon Peter, whose stories ultimately come to rest in Rome, from which the Christian message expands. There's an Eastern Orthodox story which wends through Constantinople, now Istanbul, but in the West, Catholic or Protestant, our stories of faith tend to come down through Rome.
In the Roman style, where tales of devotion and sacrifice arrive at a consummation whether happy or (at least for a moment) sad, there's a kind of story which is rooted in faith, even if it has a more emotionally romantic expression today in those seasonal cable movies (you know which channel I mean). A belief in something better, something greater, something love and endurance can achieve.
So may we nod at least to St. Valentine, and the church he witnessed for in love as a leader, even as we put his name to more mundane romance on his festal day. May love abound!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's not always good at remembering Valentines since he stopped decorating shoe boxes in school. Tell him how you mark the day at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Monday, February 03, 2025
Faith Works 2-7-2025
Faith Works 2-7-2025
Jeff Gill
What is a moment of silence
___
In a variety of settings, asking for "a moment of silence" is a frequent response to a recent tragedy, or an occasion of loss.
These can be quite meaningful, especially in a public forum like a football stadium or hockey arena, or even a press conference briefing room, when the usual background noise and turmoil all pause, and in the stillness, a time for reflection.
Obviously one big reason for the popularity of "a moment of silence" is that it crosses ecumenical and even interfaith boundaries very easily. To say simply "let us pray" infers a level of personal belief not always shared in a room, let alone an auditorium, and the elements of bowed heads or uplifting hands, eyes open or closed, all are variations which can leave some out while including others in.
Just a personal observation: there's a "civil religion" set of norms I see at work in how people generally respond to "let us have a moment of silence." Heads bend, but rarely bow; eyes may or may not close while hands are usually folded or at least kept still.
The challenge for any person in charge of leading "a moment of silence" is . . . how long. What's the proper duration of a moment, when silent? I've heard them where the pause barely was an intake of breath before a concluding "thank you" (the more common ending than "Amen," in keeping with the nonsectarian aim). Seconds long seems too short; you can have a moment of silence go too long as well, or so I'd suggest. Thirty seconds is fairly lengthy, actually, and anyone asking for a minute of silence might well be surprised by how long a minute feels in a room full of people trying to stay still and not make noise by rustling paper or creaking their chair.
You could say it's a bit of an empty gesture, but honestly I think moments of silence can be quite effective, especially if the stage is set — you don't just spring it on people without warning — and the duration is long enough for emphasis. They allow those who believe in prayer to compose themselves, their thoughts, even the words silently shared in prayer to God, however understood. For those who claim no religious orientation, they are an offering of respect without forcing a particular means of showing it.
In a world with so much motion, so much activity, and the dear Lord knows so much meaningless sound and fury signifying nothing, to stop the background music loop, to ask people to stand still just a moment, and to allow the silence to last long enough to become real: that is a form of respect which we can all recognize.
My Catholic friends might say a "Hail Mary" during a moment of silence; the Lord's Prayer isn't short enough to fit into most silent tributes, but the Jesus Prayer is. "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner." Other faiths have short prayers of their own which fill the space. Some might offer up a silent visualization of the person or people lost, or of the situation in question.
Where I've heard concerns about moments of silence has been when people express their own personal frustration that they can't or don't keep focused on the reason why there's a silence. As a pastor, I like to find ways to work some periods of silence into worship, but I've learned that this isn't always popular (or exciting — see last week's column).
Blaise Pascal some centuries ago said "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." Our ability to stay focused through a moment of silence might be a corollary to that observation.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he likes going on a silent retreat every year. Tell him you don't believe it at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Jeff Gill
What is a moment of silence
___
In a variety of settings, asking for "a moment of silence" is a frequent response to a recent tragedy, or an occasion of loss.
These can be quite meaningful, especially in a public forum like a football stadium or hockey arena, or even a press conference briefing room, when the usual background noise and turmoil all pause, and in the stillness, a time for reflection.
Obviously one big reason for the popularity of "a moment of silence" is that it crosses ecumenical and even interfaith boundaries very easily. To say simply "let us pray" infers a level of personal belief not always shared in a room, let alone an auditorium, and the elements of bowed heads or uplifting hands, eyes open or closed, all are variations which can leave some out while including others in.
Just a personal observation: there's a "civil religion" set of norms I see at work in how people generally respond to "let us have a moment of silence." Heads bend, but rarely bow; eyes may or may not close while hands are usually folded or at least kept still.
The challenge for any person in charge of leading "a moment of silence" is . . . how long. What's the proper duration of a moment, when silent? I've heard them where the pause barely was an intake of breath before a concluding "thank you" (the more common ending than "Amen," in keeping with the nonsectarian aim). Seconds long seems too short; you can have a moment of silence go too long as well, or so I'd suggest. Thirty seconds is fairly lengthy, actually, and anyone asking for a minute of silence might well be surprised by how long a minute feels in a room full of people trying to stay still and not make noise by rustling paper or creaking their chair.
You could say it's a bit of an empty gesture, but honestly I think moments of silence can be quite effective, especially if the stage is set — you don't just spring it on people without warning — and the duration is long enough for emphasis. They allow those who believe in prayer to compose themselves, their thoughts, even the words silently shared in prayer to God, however understood. For those who claim no religious orientation, they are an offering of respect without forcing a particular means of showing it.
In a world with so much motion, so much activity, and the dear Lord knows so much meaningless sound and fury signifying nothing, to stop the background music loop, to ask people to stand still just a moment, and to allow the silence to last long enough to become real: that is a form of respect which we can all recognize.
My Catholic friends might say a "Hail Mary" during a moment of silence; the Lord's Prayer isn't short enough to fit into most silent tributes, but the Jesus Prayer is. "Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner." Other faiths have short prayers of their own which fill the space. Some might offer up a silent visualization of the person or people lost, or of the situation in question.
Where I've heard concerns about moments of silence has been when people express their own personal frustration that they can't or don't keep focused on the reason why there's a silence. As a pastor, I like to find ways to work some periods of silence into worship, but I've learned that this isn't always popular (or exciting — see last week's column).
Blaise Pascal some centuries ago said "All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone." Our ability to stay focused through a moment of silence might be a corollary to that observation.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he likes going on a silent retreat every year. Tell him you don't believe it at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Tuesday, January 28, 2025
Notes from my Knapsack 2-6-25
Notes from my Knapsack 2-6-25
Jeff Gill
Arcades from Paris to Ohio, a pedestrian tour
___
When the Newark Arcade has a grand re-opening on Feb. 7, it is perhaps ironic that this forerunner of shopping malls is finding new life even as those downtown destroying behemoths are themselves going onto life support.
A covered passage between buildings, opening up a variety of shopping outlets and business offerings to a short stroll, the Newark Arcade was built in 1909, becoming one of the earliest such "shopping arcades" in Ohio. Eugene Barney had built a grand one in Dayton just a few years before; you'll find his family name on a Denison campus building. The Cleveland Arcade was first in the state, and has already had a couple of renovations and repurposing over the years.
Providence, Rhode Island and Watertown, New York caught the arcade fever from Europe, and especially France; while this country's first two were built by 1850, in that year Paris had over a hundred. Usually glass covered to allow plenty of light to street level, you could stroll along in all weathers to see shop windows within the arcade's corridors. The construction of these interior block arcades, taking mercantile activity off of the busy streets, arose along with increasing freedom and mobility for women in the middle classes of French society.
You can easily connect the implied dots between arcades of the late 1800s and early 1900s to pedestrian shopping malls that began to spring up after World War II, with the mothers of the Baby Boom wanting a shopping experience where with their baby carriages they could safely and comfortably go out and shop for their household. Open shopping centers on town edges soon became enclosed shopping malls out in the suburbs, and as the downtowns changed in function and purpose, the arcades often were the first to decline, and often end up demolished.
The arcades of Paris have dwindled down to just a couple dozen, and are more of an upscale retail experience. They have an antique charm all their own; during COVID, I spent some time at home on my computer using a common map and street view program to "walk" most of the remaining 25 arcades in Paris.
My interest in arcades came from our own local landmark, and the work of Walter Benjamin, a cultural critic and philosopher who died in the opening days of World War II, having spent over a decade and a half on his magnum opus "The Arcades Project," which came out in English translation in 1999.
Benjamin is best known for his essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" which invites the reader into a meditation on authenticity, between a real original and copies. If you work with museum exhibits and cultural resource interpretation, it's an interesting subject.
"The Arcades Project," which I'm not suggesting everyone run out and read (it's over 1000 pages with footnotes) anticipates both the coming of shopping malls, and their demise, as we seek authenticity in objects, and do not find it. How we shop, what material culture means to us, and what is real: you can find your first steps into this sort of reflection by visiting our own original Arcade in Newark. Maybe even dip into the book if you want to go farther.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's walked through the Arcade many times before and since the renovation. Tell him about how you find meaning in objects at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Jeff Gill
Arcades from Paris to Ohio, a pedestrian tour
___
When the Newark Arcade has a grand re-opening on Feb. 7, it is perhaps ironic that this forerunner of shopping malls is finding new life even as those downtown destroying behemoths are themselves going onto life support.
A covered passage between buildings, opening up a variety of shopping outlets and business offerings to a short stroll, the Newark Arcade was built in 1909, becoming one of the earliest such "shopping arcades" in Ohio. Eugene Barney had built a grand one in Dayton just a few years before; you'll find his family name on a Denison campus building. The Cleveland Arcade was first in the state, and has already had a couple of renovations and repurposing over the years.
Providence, Rhode Island and Watertown, New York caught the arcade fever from Europe, and especially France; while this country's first two were built by 1850, in that year Paris had over a hundred. Usually glass covered to allow plenty of light to street level, you could stroll along in all weathers to see shop windows within the arcade's corridors. The construction of these interior block arcades, taking mercantile activity off of the busy streets, arose along with increasing freedom and mobility for women in the middle classes of French society.
You can easily connect the implied dots between arcades of the late 1800s and early 1900s to pedestrian shopping malls that began to spring up after World War II, with the mothers of the Baby Boom wanting a shopping experience where with their baby carriages they could safely and comfortably go out and shop for their household. Open shopping centers on town edges soon became enclosed shopping malls out in the suburbs, and as the downtowns changed in function and purpose, the arcades often were the first to decline, and often end up demolished.
The arcades of Paris have dwindled down to just a couple dozen, and are more of an upscale retail experience. They have an antique charm all their own; during COVID, I spent some time at home on my computer using a common map and street view program to "walk" most of the remaining 25 arcades in Paris.
My interest in arcades came from our own local landmark, and the work of Walter Benjamin, a cultural critic and philosopher who died in the opening days of World War II, having spent over a decade and a half on his magnum opus "The Arcades Project," which came out in English translation in 1999.
Benjamin is best known for his essay "The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction" which invites the reader into a meditation on authenticity, between a real original and copies. If you work with museum exhibits and cultural resource interpretation, it's an interesting subject.
"The Arcades Project," which I'm not suggesting everyone run out and read (it's over 1000 pages with footnotes) anticipates both the coming of shopping malls, and their demise, as we seek authenticity in objects, and do not find it. How we shop, what material culture means to us, and what is real: you can find your first steps into this sort of reflection by visiting our own original Arcade in Newark. Maybe even dip into the book if you want to go farther.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's walked through the Arcade many times before and since the renovation. Tell him about how you find meaning in objects at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Monday, January 27, 2025
Faith Works 1-30-25
Faith Works 1-30-25
Jeff Gill
Mercy as the gentle rain from heaven
___
An online etymology dictionary says of "Mercy (n.): [the origin of the word dates to the ] late 12th century, "God's forgiveness of his creatures' offenses," from Old French mercit, merci (9th C.) "reward, gift; kindness, grace, pity,"… in Vulgar Latin "favor, pity;" … in Church Latin (6th C.) it was given a specific application to the heavenly reward earned by those who show kindness to the helpless and those from whom no requital can be expected."
An online etymology dictionary says of "Mercy (n.): [the origin of the word dates to the ] late 12th century, "God's forgiveness of his creatures' offenses," from Old French mercit, merci (9th C.) "reward, gift; kindness, grace, pity,"… in Vulgar Latin "favor, pity;" … in Church Latin (6th C.) it was given a specific application to the heavenly reward earned by those who show kindness to the helpless and those from whom no requital can be expected."
There's been an ongoing reaction to a preacher asking a president to have "mercy." Yet she did "ask," and there was little if any specific insistence on what that mercy would be. To ask of a sovereign "mercy" is a request that still acknowledges their power, but asks of them a use that might not be the full exercise of what they could do. What they should do is still up to them. Nothing rude or overbearing about that. Just a simple plea from the pulpit: "have mercy."
Where I specifically don't agree with Pres. Trump's reaction is in his initial retort to a reporter asking him about the service. His reply on the West Wing colonnade was "Not very exciting. Did you think it was exciting?" Of course there was more pointed criticism later on social media, calling the Bishop "nasty" (his go-to insult for women in any role, it seems), but he went on to reassert "the service was a boring and uninspiring one." So I'd like to focus on his initial response. "Not very exciting." This is a challenge many clergy face, and when leaders press the "make it exciting" button in such a public setting it's going to trigger a surge of similar criticisms for local ministers, well beyond any policy oriented preaching or political overtones.
Worship is not always exciting. Or as Rick Warren said in his best-selling "The Purpose Driven Life": "It's not about you." There's a question of spiritual formation here around what people have been taught to expect of an occasion for spiritual assembly. If "is it exciting?" becomes the primary measure of a quality service, then exciting worship becomes the expected norm. And I can hear the objections already: why shouldn't it be exciting? Why can't each service be exciting, moving, uplifting & transforming? Isn't that what you preachers & worship leaders are supposed to be crafting & delivering, a compelling service of sermon & song & excitement?
Routine & ritual & regular rhythms of the Christian year, quiet devotion & corporate thanksgiving, all that might be set aside in the pursuit of excitement. Psalmody, unison prayer, even silence might all get tossed onto the ash-heap of history in favor of jarring percussion, driving chords, startling graphics, and yes, fog machines.
When I'm preaching, my walk up song isn't "Crazy Train," it's more likely to be "Surely the Presence" or even the "Gloria Patri." I think good worship even includes sometimes choosing the live musician that isn't so good, versus the recorded track that slaps.
I know, many of my clerical friends are concerned about other aspects of the aftermath of that "Service of Prayer for the Nation" [link to outline below if you want it ~ ed.]. But I'm haunted in parallel with that reflexive "Not very exciting." It's a tendency that doesn't need encouragement. Quite the opposite.
Let William Shakespeare have the last word, from Portia's speech in "The Merchant of Venice":
The quality of mercy is not strain'd.
The quality of mercy is not strain'd.
It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven
Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest:
It blesseth him that gives and him that takes.
'Tis mightiest in the mightiest; it becomes
The thronèd monarch better than his crown.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's preached a few unexciting sermons in his time. Tell him where you think mercy could be a gentle rain at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
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Thursday, January 23, 2025
Letter to the Editor 1.26.2025
Newark Advocate 1.26.2025
Jeff Gill
Letter to the Editor
There's a scene in "A Christmas Carol" from 1843 in London, that seems familiar to Charles Dickens in his telling.
Two visitors come to Scrooge & Marley's accounting offices. They are seeking contributions to assist the poor, and old Ebenezer famously asks if "the Union workhouses" (a form of public assistance in that time and place) or other forms of welfare were still available. When assured that they were, he ironically replies "Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course."
When asked to offer further help, Scrooge says "they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there."
You know the response: "Many can't go there; and many would rather die."
And then: ""If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.""
If you don't know the book, though, you may not be aware the conversation continues in Dickens's telling. Scrooge continues, saying "Besides — excuse me — I don't know that."
"But you might know it," says the visitor, but Scrooge replies "It's not my business." He continues to press his rejection of being informed of the needs around him by saying "It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's."
This is all foreshadowing of what is to come, after Scrooge's deceased partner Jacob Marley comes to tell another side of the story. The first ghost of Christmas would retort to Scrooge's indifference:
"Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business."
We've just concluded in Licking County a six night opening of an Emergency Warming Center, the longest run of nights in a row we've seen since this effort began in January of 2019. An all volunteer effort of churches and community agencies working together to keep people from freezing who can't access, or for whatever reasons don't go to our emergency shelters, which are full in any case this winter, like so many in the past few years.
I keep hearing two things that frustrate me. One is that these are all people who are coming here from "somewhere else." It's ironic that friends and colleagues in Zanesville, Mount Vernon, Albuquerque, New Mexico and Valparaiso, Indiana all tell me they hear the same community concern: "the homeless are from somewhere else." Yet in conversation, my experience is that our guests are mostly from right here in Licking County. Not all, but most.
The other challenge is "if you people didn't offer these services, there wouldn't be people who are homeless on our streets." You can see how the complaints fit together, and fall apart if either is false. Both are incorrect.
What I'm sure of is this: more people would die if we didn't open on frigid, bitter nights. And I believe there is no such thing as surplus population. No, not one.
Jeff Gill
Letter to the Editor
There's a scene in "A Christmas Carol" from 1843 in London, that seems familiar to Charles Dickens in his telling.
Two visitors come to Scrooge & Marley's accounting offices. They are seeking contributions to assist the poor, and old Ebenezer famously asks if "the Union workhouses" (a form of public assistance in that time and place) or other forms of welfare were still available. When assured that they were, he ironically replies "Oh! I was afraid, from what you said at first, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course."
When asked to offer further help, Scrooge says "they cost enough; and those who are badly off must go there."
You know the response: "Many can't go there; and many would rather die."
And then: ""If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.""
If you don't know the book, though, you may not be aware the conversation continues in Dickens's telling. Scrooge continues, saying "Besides — excuse me — I don't know that."
"But you might know it," says the visitor, but Scrooge replies "It's not my business." He continues to press his rejection of being informed of the needs around him by saying "It's enough for a man to understand his own business, and not to interfere with other people's."
This is all foreshadowing of what is to come, after Scrooge's deceased partner Jacob Marley comes to tell another side of the story. The first ghost of Christmas would retort to Scrooge's indifference:
"Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, benevolence, were all my business."
We've just concluded in Licking County a six night opening of an Emergency Warming Center, the longest run of nights in a row we've seen since this effort began in January of 2019. An all volunteer effort of churches and community agencies working together to keep people from freezing who can't access, or for whatever reasons don't go to our emergency shelters, which are full in any case this winter, like so many in the past few years.
I keep hearing two things that frustrate me. One is that these are all people who are coming here from "somewhere else." It's ironic that friends and colleagues in Zanesville, Mount Vernon, Albuquerque, New Mexico and Valparaiso, Indiana all tell me they hear the same community concern: "the homeless are from somewhere else." Yet in conversation, my experience is that our guests are mostly from right here in Licking County. Not all, but most.
The other challenge is "if you people didn't offer these services, there wouldn't be people who are homeless on our streets." You can see how the complaints fit together, and fall apart if either is false. Both are incorrect.
What I'm sure of is this: more people would die if we didn't open on frigid, bitter nights. And I believe there is no such thing as surplus population. No, not one.
Tuesday, January 21, 2025
Faith Works 1-24-25
Faith Works 1-24-25
Jeff Gill
Evidence of absence or absence of evidence
___
In my shuttling back and forth between Ohio and Indiana these last few years, there's a spot alongside I-70 that keeps me wondering.
It's right around the 78 mile marker, if you know the road as well as I do, north of London, Ohio and west of the Little Darby Creek but looking west across the Deer Creek drainage.
There are some twenty oaks and catalpas in a grove, set around plot with a barn towards the back of it, to the east of the road and cluster of tall trees.
Clearly there was a farm house, a pretty substantial one at that, in the middle of those tall trees. It had to still be standing there in Madison County in 1960, maybe even 1970, since the interstate gently bends around that parcel adjoining the right of way. Not much, but enough to suggest the original designers avoided the extra cost of purchasing and demolishing a private home by going just south of it.
Yet the land shows no marks today, other than the outline of the trees and the presence of the outbuilding which would have been well behind the home. It's been gone a while. Perhaps some local historical society or old maps could tell me more, but I haven't gone that far yet. Once I did take an exit, and drove around by way of a small town that would have been a few miles south of the farm house I imagine, up to the gate, and I walked back just for a quick loop around under the trees, which were even taller than I'd imagined in my mile-a-minute passage past them.
Why do I keep idly wondering about this distant, somewhat isolated spot? Other than passing it often enough to keep the curiosity fresh? Matters of loss and absence have obviously been on my mind in recent years; there's also an echo of a book and film which color in some imagined details here, "A Thousand Acres," by Jane Smiley. If you know the work, my mullings may well make more sense to you than for others. It's a story that's not my own, to be sure, but issues of how memory loss and dementia can mark and bend a family are front and center in this modern retelling of "King Lear" set in Iowa or Illinois (the latter where the movie was filmed, on land I know somewhat).
In that story, a spoiler alert, but at the end there is a grand old farmhouse that is ultimately torn down, and the land merged into a corporate mega farm. Only a few old tall trees remain to mark a home for generations of farmers.
So I wonder about the generations who lived there by what would become an interstate highway. Possibly a widow found she no longer wanted to live in a house with traffic day and night a few hundred yards away, and the children had no interest in farming. That's a simple story, but reality has a way of being much more complex. There is a story there, and I don't know it, I just sense the presence of a complex story as I pass that clump of trees.
Homes are torn down, churches close, businesses end their run, and the locations change in function and purpose, each with different marks left behind which few can read clearly. Hebrews 13:8 says "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" with a promise that goodness endures, while evil passes away and is dissolved. It's a promise we need to hear, and hold onto. Bad news seems to leave all the permanent marks, while love and goodness appear to wash away all too quickly.
I John 5 says there is a record in heaven, a truth that endures. May it be so.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's thinking about what endures. Tell him your lasting memories at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Jeff Gill
Evidence of absence or absence of evidence
___
In my shuttling back and forth between Ohio and Indiana these last few years, there's a spot alongside I-70 that keeps me wondering.
It's right around the 78 mile marker, if you know the road as well as I do, north of London, Ohio and west of the Little Darby Creek but looking west across the Deer Creek drainage.
There are some twenty oaks and catalpas in a grove, set around plot with a barn towards the back of it, to the east of the road and cluster of tall trees.
Clearly there was a farm house, a pretty substantial one at that, in the middle of those tall trees. It had to still be standing there in Madison County in 1960, maybe even 1970, since the interstate gently bends around that parcel adjoining the right of way. Not much, but enough to suggest the original designers avoided the extra cost of purchasing and demolishing a private home by going just south of it.
Yet the land shows no marks today, other than the outline of the trees and the presence of the outbuilding which would have been well behind the home. It's been gone a while. Perhaps some local historical society or old maps could tell me more, but I haven't gone that far yet. Once I did take an exit, and drove around by way of a small town that would have been a few miles south of the farm house I imagine, up to the gate, and I walked back just for a quick loop around under the trees, which were even taller than I'd imagined in my mile-a-minute passage past them.
Why do I keep idly wondering about this distant, somewhat isolated spot? Other than passing it often enough to keep the curiosity fresh? Matters of loss and absence have obviously been on my mind in recent years; there's also an echo of a book and film which color in some imagined details here, "A Thousand Acres," by Jane Smiley. If you know the work, my mullings may well make more sense to you than for others. It's a story that's not my own, to be sure, but issues of how memory loss and dementia can mark and bend a family are front and center in this modern retelling of "King Lear" set in Iowa or Illinois (the latter where the movie was filmed, on land I know somewhat).
In that story, a spoiler alert, but at the end there is a grand old farmhouse that is ultimately torn down, and the land merged into a corporate mega farm. Only a few old tall trees remain to mark a home for generations of farmers.
So I wonder about the generations who lived there by what would become an interstate highway. Possibly a widow found she no longer wanted to live in a house with traffic day and night a few hundred yards away, and the children had no interest in farming. That's a simple story, but reality has a way of being much more complex. There is a story there, and I don't know it, I just sense the presence of a complex story as I pass that clump of trees.
Homes are torn down, churches close, businesses end their run, and the locations change in function and purpose, each with different marks left behind which few can read clearly. Hebrews 13:8 says "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever" with a promise that goodness endures, while evil passes away and is dissolved. It's a promise we need to hear, and hold onto. Bad news seems to leave all the permanent marks, while love and goodness appear to wash away all too quickly.
I John 5 says there is a record in heaven, a truth that endures. May it be so.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's thinking about what endures. Tell him your lasting memories at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Sunday, January 12, 2025
Notes from my Knapsack 1-23-25
Notes from my Knapsack 1-23-25
Jeff Gill
You, and only you, can manage your local brush
___
You may have noticed that Smokey Bear has changed his tagline.
In fact, it's been different for years now, but with current news stories it catches the ear differently.
Many of us grew up with Smokey saying "Remember, only you can prevent forest fires." In recent years it has been said in Sam Elliott's rumbling tones, and in 2024 Brian Tyree Henry became the voice of the U.S. Forest Service mascot. But what they have been saying is "Remember, only you can prevent wildfires." Fires burning wild are the problem, not all fires in the forest.
After the Yellowstone fires of 1988, the entire approach of wilderness management began to change. It had been from "The Big Burn" of 1910 when the U.S.F.S. model was "put those fires out," and Pulaski tools and smokejumpers all became part of the standard assumption of what a fire in the woods meant: a problem, to be extinguished.
Then the problem became one of our having done things too well. We put fires out all across the West, quickly and completely, which ended up allowing brush to build up in the understory of mature forests. Brush, aka kindling. Fuel. Fire accelerant.
Add in the simple biological fact that there are a number of trees and plants which actually benefit from the aftermath of fires, and we've come to the realization that controlled burns in some places, and yes, allowing forest fires to burn in others, means less total fire damage and ecosystem harm in general. Putting out every forest fire isn't the ideal outcome, hence "Remember, only you can prevent wildfires" from our pal Smokey.
Now we see in Southern California some of the challenges in this same thinking in urban wildernesses and undeveloped lands. Brush cleared aggressively can look "unnatural" and jagged ended to a certain perspective, but it's either clearing brush now, or feeding fires later in the dry season.
Before you think this is a western problem alone, I'll note that we have the advantage of not seeing an annual "Dry Season" in Ohio, but brush and undergrowth and fuel loads can create challenges here, too, especially when there's a drought running. Granville Township Fire Department has a Tanker 201 and a Grass 201 vehicle, and they're not just for show. Brush fires may be more common in grasslands during our summers, but if it's dry enough and the wind is blowing, they can spread. We have our own Fire Weather Watches or Red Flag Warnings.
It's worth noting that directly across from Ross IGA, on the other side of Main St., was Beaver Field, the local baseball diamond. Yes, the woodlot south of the old Denison power plant. Frederick P. Beaver, a trustee of the college, would later donate a dorm built in his wife's honor in 1925, but first he built a ball field. Now? You'd never guess. But that was an open field seventy years ago. That's how fast second growth and scrub can shoot up.
We don't have California's problems in Our Fayre Village, but it's worth learning from them before we have our own.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been on a few fire lines swinging a Pulaski. Tell him how you keep your brush clear at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Jeff Gill
You, and only you, can manage your local brush
___
You may have noticed that Smokey Bear has changed his tagline.
In fact, it's been different for years now, but with current news stories it catches the ear differently.
Many of us grew up with Smokey saying "Remember, only you can prevent forest fires." In recent years it has been said in Sam Elliott's rumbling tones, and in 2024 Brian Tyree Henry became the voice of the U.S. Forest Service mascot. But what they have been saying is "Remember, only you can prevent wildfires." Fires burning wild are the problem, not all fires in the forest.
After the Yellowstone fires of 1988, the entire approach of wilderness management began to change. It had been from "The Big Burn" of 1910 when the U.S.F.S. model was "put those fires out," and Pulaski tools and smokejumpers all became part of the standard assumption of what a fire in the woods meant: a problem, to be extinguished.
Then the problem became one of our having done things too well. We put fires out all across the West, quickly and completely, which ended up allowing brush to build up in the understory of mature forests. Brush, aka kindling. Fuel. Fire accelerant.
Add in the simple biological fact that there are a number of trees and plants which actually benefit from the aftermath of fires, and we've come to the realization that controlled burns in some places, and yes, allowing forest fires to burn in others, means less total fire damage and ecosystem harm in general. Putting out every forest fire isn't the ideal outcome, hence "Remember, only you can prevent wildfires" from our pal Smokey.
Now we see in Southern California some of the challenges in this same thinking in urban wildernesses and undeveloped lands. Brush cleared aggressively can look "unnatural" and jagged ended to a certain perspective, but it's either clearing brush now, or feeding fires later in the dry season.
Before you think this is a western problem alone, I'll note that we have the advantage of not seeing an annual "Dry Season" in Ohio, but brush and undergrowth and fuel loads can create challenges here, too, especially when there's a drought running. Granville Township Fire Department has a Tanker 201 and a Grass 201 vehicle, and they're not just for show. Brush fires may be more common in grasslands during our summers, but if it's dry enough and the wind is blowing, they can spread. We have our own Fire Weather Watches or Red Flag Warnings.
It's worth noting that directly across from Ross IGA, on the other side of Main St., was Beaver Field, the local baseball diamond. Yes, the woodlot south of the old Denison power plant. Frederick P. Beaver, a trustee of the college, would later donate a dorm built in his wife's honor in 1925, but first he built a ball field. Now? You'd never guess. But that was an open field seventy years ago. That's how fast second growth and scrub can shoot up.
We don't have California's problems in Our Fayre Village, but it's worth learning from them before we have our own.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been on a few fire lines swinging a Pulaski. Tell him how you keep your brush clear at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Faith Works 1-17-25
Faith Works 1-17-25
Jeff Gill
Limits of understanding and extensions of faith
___
One of the most rewarding things about caring for elderly parents is to have opportunities to learn about the past, even when the present is rather complicated.
The time it takes to do caregiving, and the pace of a life with limitations, means you might get into conversations which wouldn't come up in the usual round of coming and going and doing.
There are stories you will hear many, many times (oh so many times, never brushed aside by "yes, you've told me that"), and you generally won't get to hear the ones you go fishing for. If there's a gap in the family narrative you'd like to fill in, I can almost guarantee you in advance you'll not get what you're looking for.
But if you have the patience, and are willing to go unexpected places, you can find yourself in unexplored territory, and realize you always wanted to hear more about something you'd never even wondered about.
My father-in-law had his cycle of Army stories in Germany during the Korean War years, but when an opening appeared about his youth in Indianapolis during World War II, I did my best to paddle with the current, and found out a great deal about operating a Kroger grocery, albeit one with three employees plus a teenager, operating out of a city corner building. A superstore it wasn't.
My mother recently told a story about events in 1960, not long before my birth, which I'd never heard before. My paternal grandfather died, and my father immediately drove home across Iowa in their one car while Mom was teaching third grade; my mother told her father, who unexpectedly (to her) drove across Illinois, as a school superintendent schmoozed her boss, the elementary school principal, into covering her classes so he could drive her on to the funeral, which he stayed for, then drove home across most of Iowa and Illinois leaving Mom to return home with Dad.
It's a lovely story, one in keeping of what little I remember of him (he died when I was nine, over fifty years ago), and it fits what facts I knew around those events. All of which is key, because in general, Mom's stories these days can't be trusted. She tells us her father is coming to visit (which sounds portentous, but she's been saying that for many months now, so it doesn't have the same ominous impact it originally did); she tells hairdressers she's still teaching and driving, neither of which have been the case for years. Events in one place like her hometown get mashed up with events in where she raised her family in another state, and are tangled with the here and now.
We just moved Mom to a memory care unit, where her greatest concern is that her car is going to be towed. Where she thinks she is right now is not clear. All of which makes taking literally any new story she tells a risky proposition. I've dealt with situations as a parish minister where an elderly parent with increasing dementia starts to tell stories which leave their adult children more than a little worried that the tale might actually be true, but how would they know?
I have been thinking about all of this as I watch the news and social media boil over with competing theories about California wildfire origins and obstacles, which echo some of the battling narratives around vaccines and public health we've been dealing with since COVID. I'm not saying our society has dementia . . . not exactly. But the challenges for sorting out truth from fiction from falsehood: they're not dissimilar at all.
Faith, authority, understanding, and choices . . . choices we have to make about what to believe, and who.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's often confused, but always curious. Tell him how you discern the truth at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Jeff Gill
Limits of understanding and extensions of faith
___
One of the most rewarding things about caring for elderly parents is to have opportunities to learn about the past, even when the present is rather complicated.
The time it takes to do caregiving, and the pace of a life with limitations, means you might get into conversations which wouldn't come up in the usual round of coming and going and doing.
There are stories you will hear many, many times (oh so many times, never brushed aside by "yes, you've told me that"), and you generally won't get to hear the ones you go fishing for. If there's a gap in the family narrative you'd like to fill in, I can almost guarantee you in advance you'll not get what you're looking for.
But if you have the patience, and are willing to go unexpected places, you can find yourself in unexplored territory, and realize you always wanted to hear more about something you'd never even wondered about.
My father-in-law had his cycle of Army stories in Germany during the Korean War years, but when an opening appeared about his youth in Indianapolis during World War II, I did my best to paddle with the current, and found out a great deal about operating a Kroger grocery, albeit one with three employees plus a teenager, operating out of a city corner building. A superstore it wasn't.
My mother recently told a story about events in 1960, not long before my birth, which I'd never heard before. My paternal grandfather died, and my father immediately drove home across Iowa in their one car while Mom was teaching third grade; my mother told her father, who unexpectedly (to her) drove across Illinois, as a school superintendent schmoozed her boss, the elementary school principal, into covering her classes so he could drive her on to the funeral, which he stayed for, then drove home across most of Iowa and Illinois leaving Mom to return home with Dad.
It's a lovely story, one in keeping of what little I remember of him (he died when I was nine, over fifty years ago), and it fits what facts I knew around those events. All of which is key, because in general, Mom's stories these days can't be trusted. She tells us her father is coming to visit (which sounds portentous, but she's been saying that for many months now, so it doesn't have the same ominous impact it originally did); she tells hairdressers she's still teaching and driving, neither of which have been the case for years. Events in one place like her hometown get mashed up with events in where she raised her family in another state, and are tangled with the here and now.
We just moved Mom to a memory care unit, where her greatest concern is that her car is going to be towed. Where she thinks she is right now is not clear. All of which makes taking literally any new story she tells a risky proposition. I've dealt with situations as a parish minister where an elderly parent with increasing dementia starts to tell stories which leave their adult children more than a little worried that the tale might actually be true, but how would they know?
I have been thinking about all of this as I watch the news and social media boil over with competing theories about California wildfire origins and obstacles, which echo some of the battling narratives around vaccines and public health we've been dealing with since COVID. I'm not saying our society has dementia . . . not exactly. But the challenges for sorting out truth from fiction from falsehood: they're not dissimilar at all.
Faith, authority, understanding, and choices . . . choices we have to make about what to believe, and who.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's often confused, but always curious. Tell him how you discern the truth at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Monday, January 06, 2025
Faith Works 1-10-25
Faith Works 1-10-25
Jeff Gill
Two decades in newsprint, actual and virtual
___
This is an anniversary of sorts. Jan. 8, 2005 was my first "Faith Works" column for the Newark Advocate. You're reading what's just past the 1040th entry I've had the privilege of adding to these pages.
My first column here was written in the aftermath of the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, devastating coastal areas of Sri Lanka, Indian, Myanmar, Thailand, and Indonesia along with other countries from Africa to the south Pacific. Over a quarter of a million people were killed that day, and millions of survivors displaced along those distant shores, yet already in less than two weeks a number of church organization and faith-based agencies had started offering direct assistance in the areas affected, and I listed a few of them who had ties to local faith communities.
Those are the sorts of stories I've tended to hunt up and tell here in this column: how "faith works," the ways in which our beliefs held individually and in common have had practical import in our community, and farther afield. Just as our area is known for the expansive earthworks built by Native Americans two thousand years ago, our local works of faith have built some interesting connections worth talking about.
Truth be told, my personal intentions twenty-some years ago were to write a book or two in my spare time. There were and are a few things I wanted to say to a wider audience than a sermon on a Sunday, of which I've preached quite a few, but writing for publication is slightly different thing. I still have some chapters and rough outlines in mind on the subjects I have interests in, and that dream is not entirely behind me.
Still, I've spent my time preaching, and writing columns, and have never gotten a book written, which feels like the thing I really ought to get done. But a friend in publishing some years back pointed out some things he thought I should keep in mind.
First, how many books come out each year, let alone are there in total? Major publishers put out 10,000 new titles annually; niche or academic titles included bring the number of new published books per year up to a few hundred thousand, and with self-published volumes added in you can find annual totals around 2.2 million new books (an exhausting number to contemplate, cf. Ecclesiastes 12:12). The folks with the ISBN system (International Standard Book Number) said at the end of 2023 there were roughly 158,464,880 unique books in the world, so add another 2.2 million to that.
But of those new books, their sales come to an average of 1,000 copies a year apiece (Publisher's Weekly said 500, and they oughta know); only 10 books sold more than a million copies last year (nine that aren't called "The Bible"), and fewer than 500 sold more than 100,000.
The average traditionally published book will sell about 3,000 copies over its entire print lifetime, and who knows how many of those go to the remainder bin, unread and unloved? Today there are ebooks, but what data we have suggest half of those buying them never complete them, which may have been true with print books, to be perfectly honest.
Here's the thing: looking at novels and non-fiction works in general, the average length of them is 75,000 words. I've submitted and seen into print about 730,000 words in twenty years of "Faith Works," which adds up to almost ten books.
That's not all: I have been writing another column since this same week in 2002, starting in the old "Community Booster" which was merged into the "Granville Sentinel" weekly, a shorter piece running about every other week. Those columns add up to date to about 330,000 words, or another four books.
So I can say I haven't gotten around to writing a book yet, or I could say I've written fourteen, and the readership of what I've published is possibly three times the average book audience. Thank you for reading this far, and I plan to keep on adding chapters here for some time to come.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's just a writin' fool. Tell him what you think he should be writing about at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Blue Sky.
Jeff Gill
Two decades in newsprint, actual and virtual
___
This is an anniversary of sorts. Jan. 8, 2005 was my first "Faith Works" column for the Newark Advocate. You're reading what's just past the 1040th entry I've had the privilege of adding to these pages.
My first column here was written in the aftermath of the December 26, 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami, devastating coastal areas of Sri Lanka, Indian, Myanmar, Thailand, and Indonesia along with other countries from Africa to the south Pacific. Over a quarter of a million people were killed that day, and millions of survivors displaced along those distant shores, yet already in less than two weeks a number of church organization and faith-based agencies had started offering direct assistance in the areas affected, and I listed a few of them who had ties to local faith communities.
Those are the sorts of stories I've tended to hunt up and tell here in this column: how "faith works," the ways in which our beliefs held individually and in common have had practical import in our community, and farther afield. Just as our area is known for the expansive earthworks built by Native Americans two thousand years ago, our local works of faith have built some interesting connections worth talking about.
Truth be told, my personal intentions twenty-some years ago were to write a book or two in my spare time. There were and are a few things I wanted to say to a wider audience than a sermon on a Sunday, of which I've preached quite a few, but writing for publication is slightly different thing. I still have some chapters and rough outlines in mind on the subjects I have interests in, and that dream is not entirely behind me.
Still, I've spent my time preaching, and writing columns, and have never gotten a book written, which feels like the thing I really ought to get done. But a friend in publishing some years back pointed out some things he thought I should keep in mind.
First, how many books come out each year, let alone are there in total? Major publishers put out 10,000 new titles annually; niche or academic titles included bring the number of new published books per year up to a few hundred thousand, and with self-published volumes added in you can find annual totals around 2.2 million new books (an exhausting number to contemplate, cf. Ecclesiastes 12:12). The folks with the ISBN system (International Standard Book Number) said at the end of 2023 there were roughly 158,464,880 unique books in the world, so add another 2.2 million to that.
But of those new books, their sales come to an average of 1,000 copies a year apiece (Publisher's Weekly said 500, and they oughta know); only 10 books sold more than a million copies last year (nine that aren't called "The Bible"), and fewer than 500 sold more than 100,000.
The average traditionally published book will sell about 3,000 copies over its entire print lifetime, and who knows how many of those go to the remainder bin, unread and unloved? Today there are ebooks, but what data we have suggest half of those buying them never complete them, which may have been true with print books, to be perfectly honest.
Here's the thing: looking at novels and non-fiction works in general, the average length of them is 75,000 words. I've submitted and seen into print about 730,000 words in twenty years of "Faith Works," which adds up to almost ten books.
That's not all: I have been writing another column since this same week in 2002, starting in the old "Community Booster" which was merged into the "Granville Sentinel" weekly, a shorter piece running about every other week. Those columns add up to date to about 330,000 words, or another four books.
So I can say I haven't gotten around to writing a book yet, or I could say I've written fourteen, and the readership of what I've published is possibly three times the average book audience. Thank you for reading this far, and I plan to keep on adding chapters here for some time to come.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's just a writin' fool. Tell him what you think he should be writing about at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Blue Sky.
Monday, December 30, 2024
Notes from my Knapsack 1-9-25
Notes from my Knapsack 1-9-25
Jeff Gill
Jimmy & Rosalynn were a matched pair
___
As the nation says farewell to Jimmy Carter, and we in faith celebrate his reunion with his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, this story sticks with me.
I never had the pleasure or privilege of speaking to our former president, but his spouse… about twenty years ago, Rosalynn Carter came to Denison University, and I had the chance to help with setting up a reception for her and the program she was coming to promote, so I was early to the campus building where it was happening, moving tables and setting up chairs and such in what was then Cleveland Hall (now the Bryant Art Center).
She and her two Secret Service men also showed up early, and the faculty in charge of the event talked to her, and I faded back into the rear of the room, which opened onto a balcony. The people coming to the reception started flowing up the interior stairs, and suddenly the profs pivoted to something else, and Mrs. Carter retreated back towards where I was waiting. To be perfectly honest, I had made a point of putting a Habitat lapel pin on the jacket I was wearing. It worked.
She turned, saw my pin, walked right over and introduced herself (ha!); I explained my involvement with Habitat and more with a transitional housing program. Her immediate question was about how we dealt with mental health issues. She knew her stuff, and I told her what our problems were in navigating that interface, with Medicaid billing a big complication.
The crowd grew, but between the refreshments and the punch, they all talked to each other while lining up for nosh, and Mrs. Carter and I stepped back onto the balcony. One Secret Service agent had stayed near the interior stairs and entrance; the one with her handed us both cups of punch he'd grabbed, smiled at us and said "I'll stand here in the doorway so you two can talk."
We chatted about Habitat and how builds went and what "Jimmy" liked to do (framing), whom she referred to often, but not cloyingly so. Clearly a partnership, and a loving relationship, which everyone knows, but it was sweet to hear by inference. She said they both worried that when they showed up they were more distraction than help, but they tried to make up for it with working the best they could "and not just for the cameras!" She was smiling when she said that, but you could hear a tinge of irritation -- and you'd never get her to say who she might have been talking about.
Rosalynn Carter had opinions about how Medicaid and mental health was working, and certainly in 2005 was talking in terms of a federal single payer health care program as the only logical, practical solution she could see; she was curious about how we handled incoming persons who didn't have Medicaid and were reluctant to sign up for it. I'll admit the challenge as the crowd grew and the hubbub increased around us was that she was very soft voiced, and approximately half my height (or so it seemed), so I increasingly hunched over to bring my ears a little closer.
To my everlasting frustration, we had just started talking about how she wished churches had taken more of an interest in mental health treatment & recovery, when the event leader came up to our doorway, and said to the Secret Service agent "We need Mrs. Carter to help us get started." She asked if I was coming to the big evening event, and I said yes, and she said "Maybe we'll get to talk more then; you take care."
I did see her in Swasey Chapel that night. She waved at me across the crowd at one point as people were settling in; afterwards, there was an event with students planned, and I went home because I had an early morning meeting the next day, so we did not talk again. But I remember that wave, and her smile. Godspeed, ma'am. Tell Jimmy I said hi.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; I suspect there are other Jimmy Carter stories out there! Feel free to share them with him at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Blue Sky.
Jeff Gill
Jimmy & Rosalynn were a matched pair
___
As the nation says farewell to Jimmy Carter, and we in faith celebrate his reunion with his wife of 77 years, Rosalynn, this story sticks with me.
I never had the pleasure or privilege of speaking to our former president, but his spouse… about twenty years ago, Rosalynn Carter came to Denison University, and I had the chance to help with setting up a reception for her and the program she was coming to promote, so I was early to the campus building where it was happening, moving tables and setting up chairs and such in what was then Cleveland Hall (now the Bryant Art Center).
She and her two Secret Service men also showed up early, and the faculty in charge of the event talked to her, and I faded back into the rear of the room, which opened onto a balcony. The people coming to the reception started flowing up the interior stairs, and suddenly the profs pivoted to something else, and Mrs. Carter retreated back towards where I was waiting. To be perfectly honest, I had made a point of putting a Habitat lapel pin on the jacket I was wearing. It worked.
She turned, saw my pin, walked right over and introduced herself (ha!); I explained my involvement with Habitat and more with a transitional housing program. Her immediate question was about how we dealt with mental health issues. She knew her stuff, and I told her what our problems were in navigating that interface, with Medicaid billing a big complication.
The crowd grew, but between the refreshments and the punch, they all talked to each other while lining up for nosh, and Mrs. Carter and I stepped back onto the balcony. One Secret Service agent had stayed near the interior stairs and entrance; the one with her handed us both cups of punch he'd grabbed, smiled at us and said "I'll stand here in the doorway so you two can talk."
We chatted about Habitat and how builds went and what "Jimmy" liked to do (framing), whom she referred to often, but not cloyingly so. Clearly a partnership, and a loving relationship, which everyone knows, but it was sweet to hear by inference. She said they both worried that when they showed up they were more distraction than help, but they tried to make up for it with working the best they could "and not just for the cameras!" She was smiling when she said that, but you could hear a tinge of irritation -- and you'd never get her to say who she might have been talking about.
Rosalynn Carter had opinions about how Medicaid and mental health was working, and certainly in 2005 was talking in terms of a federal single payer health care program as the only logical, practical solution she could see; she was curious about how we handled incoming persons who didn't have Medicaid and were reluctant to sign up for it. I'll admit the challenge as the crowd grew and the hubbub increased around us was that she was very soft voiced, and approximately half my height (or so it seemed), so I increasingly hunched over to bring my ears a little closer.
To my everlasting frustration, we had just started talking about how she wished churches had taken more of an interest in mental health treatment & recovery, when the event leader came up to our doorway, and said to the Secret Service agent "We need Mrs. Carter to help us get started." She asked if I was coming to the big evening event, and I said yes, and she said "Maybe we'll get to talk more then; you take care."
I did see her in Swasey Chapel that night. She waved at me across the crowd at one point as people were settling in; afterwards, there was an event with students planned, and I went home because I had an early morning meeting the next day, so we did not talk again. But I remember that wave, and her smile. Godspeed, ma'am. Tell Jimmy I said hi.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; I suspect there are other Jimmy Carter stories out there! Feel free to share them with him at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Blue Sky.
Faith Works 1-3-25
Faith Works 1-3-25
Jeff Gill
Warming places in cold times
___
Since January of 2019, an assortment of volunteers, churches, and organizations in Licking County have worked together to ensure we have some kind of "emergency warming center" for nights and sometimes through days when the winter temperatures are dangerously cold.
We've been in a half-dozen church locations; this winter we are at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church on W. Main St., midway between the Courthouse and Licking Memorial Hospital.
Since that first ad-hoc winter, we've organized as the "Licking County Emergency Warming Center Task Force," with support from the Licking County Foundation for our nuts and bolts structure, and amazing help coming from both Licking Memorial Health Systems and the Licking County Transit folks. Notification goes out when we have an activation through the Licking County Health Department, and Pathways 211 has our information for those who call the crisis hotline along with the social media notices, and of course word of mouth.
When do we activate? This winter, like the last couple, the threshold is set at 10 degrees or lower overnight. We watch other weather conditions, and the leadership group has activated our service for guests under other circumstances, but that's the basic measure.
We've been asked "why not 32 degrees?" Sure, that would be better, but the truth is we started at 0 degrees, bumped it up higher, and found we were open more nights than we could reliably get volunteer staffing to cover. So right now, 10 degrees it is, with a stretch of cold weather likely in the near future.
In early December, we opened for two nights with an Alberta Clipper forecast. Volunteers came in from Hanover and Heath, Utica and Granville, and of course Newark; our guests included some who had been unsheltered for extended periods, but we continue to see increasing numbers of seniors and young families who are "caught outside" living in cars and such while working across a gap from one rental to another. They have a plan for next month or so, but are stuck without housing until that comes open, sleeping in cars or elsewhere until that lodging is available . . . and then the cold comes.
Your neighbors need help, and we're trying to extend that help. If you would like to be a volunteer with the Warming Center effort, the United Way of Licking County is helping us with volunteer coordination. You can go to their website, on the "Get Involved" tab: https://www.unitedwaylc.org/get-involved/
Scroll down to the "Licking County Emergency Warming Center" section, and you can click a "Sign Up" button to enter your contact information for the volunteer coordinators.
You can choose what works as to shifts: there's Intake from 4:30-8:30 pm which needs a couple of helpers; food preparation from 4:30-8:30 pm as well, which is mostly done for us, but we need help serving and cleaning up. There's the late shift to be present and offering assistance from 8:30 pm-12:30 am, and the overnight shift from 12:30-5:30 am, each needing four people to help our guests.
Then at 5:30 to 8:30 am our closer/cleanup crew arrives to help get breakfast served and direct guests onto transport when appropriate; a number of those staying with us each night have jobs to get to in the morning. When we wrap up from an activation, there's a stack of gear to launder and prepare for the next time we open up.
That totals up to fifteen or sixteen volunteers needed each night; if there's a three night activation it comes to about fifty total for us to operate to everyone's benefit. And signing up doesn't obligate you, it simply means you'll be contacted when conditions have us planning for a possible activation.
Please consider registering as a volunteer; there's a whole bunch of winter ahead as we begin 2025!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been a volunteer with the warming center effort and would love to see you come join us! Tell him what you like to volunteer with at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Blue Sky.
Jeff Gill
Warming places in cold times
___
Since January of 2019, an assortment of volunteers, churches, and organizations in Licking County have worked together to ensure we have some kind of "emergency warming center" for nights and sometimes through days when the winter temperatures are dangerously cold.
We've been in a half-dozen church locations; this winter we are at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church on W. Main St., midway between the Courthouse and Licking Memorial Hospital.
Since that first ad-hoc winter, we've organized as the "Licking County Emergency Warming Center Task Force," with support from the Licking County Foundation for our nuts and bolts structure, and amazing help coming from both Licking Memorial Health Systems and the Licking County Transit folks. Notification goes out when we have an activation through the Licking County Health Department, and Pathways 211 has our information for those who call the crisis hotline along with the social media notices, and of course word of mouth.
When do we activate? This winter, like the last couple, the threshold is set at 10 degrees or lower overnight. We watch other weather conditions, and the leadership group has activated our service for guests under other circumstances, but that's the basic measure.
We've been asked "why not 32 degrees?" Sure, that would be better, but the truth is we started at 0 degrees, bumped it up higher, and found we were open more nights than we could reliably get volunteer staffing to cover. So right now, 10 degrees it is, with a stretch of cold weather likely in the near future.
In early December, we opened for two nights with an Alberta Clipper forecast. Volunteers came in from Hanover and Heath, Utica and Granville, and of course Newark; our guests included some who had been unsheltered for extended periods, but we continue to see increasing numbers of seniors and young families who are "caught outside" living in cars and such while working across a gap from one rental to another. They have a plan for next month or so, but are stuck without housing until that comes open, sleeping in cars or elsewhere until that lodging is available . . . and then the cold comes.
Your neighbors need help, and we're trying to extend that help. If you would like to be a volunteer with the Warming Center effort, the United Way of Licking County is helping us with volunteer coordination. You can go to their website, on the "Get Involved" tab: https://www.unitedwaylc.org/get-involved/
Scroll down to the "Licking County Emergency Warming Center" section, and you can click a "Sign Up" button to enter your contact information for the volunteer coordinators.
You can choose what works as to shifts: there's Intake from 4:30-8:30 pm which needs a couple of helpers; food preparation from 4:30-8:30 pm as well, which is mostly done for us, but we need help serving and cleaning up. There's the late shift to be present and offering assistance from 8:30 pm-12:30 am, and the overnight shift from 12:30-5:30 am, each needing four people to help our guests.
Then at 5:30 to 8:30 am our closer/cleanup crew arrives to help get breakfast served and direct guests onto transport when appropriate; a number of those staying with us each night have jobs to get to in the morning. When we wrap up from an activation, there's a stack of gear to launder and prepare for the next time we open up.
That totals up to fifteen or sixteen volunteers needed each night; if there's a three night activation it comes to about fifty total for us to operate to everyone's benefit. And signing up doesn't obligate you, it simply means you'll be contacted when conditions have us planning for a possible activation.
Please consider registering as a volunteer; there's a whole bunch of winter ahead as we begin 2025!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been a volunteer with the warming center effort and would love to see you come join us! Tell him what you like to volunteer with at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Blue Sky.
Tuesday, December 17, 2024
Notes from my Knapsack 12-26-24
Notes from my Knapsack 12-26-24
Jeff Gill
The days after Christmas are a journey
___
Every birth is a miracle of sorts.
Christmas celebrations often lift up this everyday reality. Any birth, all births, are a miracle we do not fully understand.
We may know something about fertilization and gestation and labor and delivery, but to go from a hope, a dream, a desire, but no person, to the sudden arrival (even with nine months to anticipate, sudden) of a person who is now very emphatically here: it's a miracle.
There was a hidden, water-borne existence as the potential came to pass, there's much myth and legend let alone reality around the experience of coming into this world, for women and men (men mostly imaginatively, standing to one side), but once the birth has happened, there's now a child, audible as well as fully visible, calling on us to respond in love and care.
Every birth is a miracle, whether that of Jesus or your own child; you, too, were born, and if you'll pardon my making this point with emphasis, that means you are a miracle.
All this I try to hold onto for the joy of Christmastime. I also have to admit that the last five years, and in many ways for even longer, the season has had a close association with death. Which is, if you'll forgive the drastic comparison, a miracle of sorts, though we rarely use that word. You wait, and watch; at one moment there is breath and life, and then there is not, and something, someone, is gone.
My first funeral as a minister was one where the family met with me on Christmas Eve, their widower father having passed the day before, and we planned a service for Dec. 28th. When in our conversation I mentioned it was the "Feast of the Holy Innocents," one of the adult children said to me "I didn't know there were sad events connected to Christmas." It almost made her feel a bit better, certainly a little less alone.
Over the years, I've gotten used to the peculiarities of funerals around "the holidays." Not comfortable with them, but it's something you get used to. People die in June, and they die in late December, too; the rituals and forms and comforts of grief should work in any season, and they do. I was just at a memorial service for a family friend who passed a couple of months back, but we all came together with an Advent wreath in the front of the church, and someone had wisely brought her Christmas stocking, with a piano sewn onto it as her life's great joy.
Sorrow, smiles; grief, laughter. Christmas, and Christmas miracles, around entering this life, and leaving it.
We have memories aplenty this time of year, and oh what a miracle memory is, especially when it fades or turns traitor. You start to appreciate the wonder of a memory caught and held differently when you watch them slip away wholesale for another.
Christmas is a time of miracles: that God was born into this life in a way that tells us we are miracles in a strangely similar way, and that leaving this life leaves traces which can be forgotten, but never wholly erased. Time itself is slippery during the Christmas season, and it will take us into the new year to get our bearings for what is next to come, having just been so deeply into the past.
You are a miracle, reader. Blessings on your 2025.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's not sure he's ready for a new year, but you know. Tell him your memories of 2024 at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Jeff Gill
The days after Christmas are a journey
___
Every birth is a miracle of sorts.
Christmas celebrations often lift up this everyday reality. Any birth, all births, are a miracle we do not fully understand.
We may know something about fertilization and gestation and labor and delivery, but to go from a hope, a dream, a desire, but no person, to the sudden arrival (even with nine months to anticipate, sudden) of a person who is now very emphatically here: it's a miracle.
There was a hidden, water-borne existence as the potential came to pass, there's much myth and legend let alone reality around the experience of coming into this world, for women and men (men mostly imaginatively, standing to one side), but once the birth has happened, there's now a child, audible as well as fully visible, calling on us to respond in love and care.
Every birth is a miracle, whether that of Jesus or your own child; you, too, were born, and if you'll pardon my making this point with emphasis, that means you are a miracle.
All this I try to hold onto for the joy of Christmastime. I also have to admit that the last five years, and in many ways for even longer, the season has had a close association with death. Which is, if you'll forgive the drastic comparison, a miracle of sorts, though we rarely use that word. You wait, and watch; at one moment there is breath and life, and then there is not, and something, someone, is gone.
My first funeral as a minister was one where the family met with me on Christmas Eve, their widower father having passed the day before, and we planned a service for Dec. 28th. When in our conversation I mentioned it was the "Feast of the Holy Innocents," one of the adult children said to me "I didn't know there were sad events connected to Christmas." It almost made her feel a bit better, certainly a little less alone.
Over the years, I've gotten used to the peculiarities of funerals around "the holidays." Not comfortable with them, but it's something you get used to. People die in June, and they die in late December, too; the rituals and forms and comforts of grief should work in any season, and they do. I was just at a memorial service for a family friend who passed a couple of months back, but we all came together with an Advent wreath in the front of the church, and someone had wisely brought her Christmas stocking, with a piano sewn onto it as her life's great joy.
Sorrow, smiles; grief, laughter. Christmas, and Christmas miracles, around entering this life, and leaving it.
We have memories aplenty this time of year, and oh what a miracle memory is, especially when it fades or turns traitor. You start to appreciate the wonder of a memory caught and held differently when you watch them slip away wholesale for another.
Christmas is a time of miracles: that God was born into this life in a way that tells us we are miracles in a strangely similar way, and that leaving this life leaves traces which can be forgotten, but never wholly erased. Time itself is slippery during the Christmas season, and it will take us into the new year to get our bearings for what is next to come, having just been so deeply into the past.
You are a miracle, reader. Blessings on your 2025.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's not sure he's ready for a new year, but you know. Tell him your memories of 2024 at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Monday, December 02, 2024
Notes from my Knapsack 12-11-24
Notes from my Knapsack 12-11-24
Jeff Gill
Walking tours gone by, and why that's okay (because it has to be)
___
Joyce and I first came to Granville in December of 1989. We'd been told "you have to see the Christmas Candlelight Walking Tour."
They were right.
We fell in love, frankly, with the whole thing. The weather was perfect, cold with occasional flurries. We ended up by default going into the late lamented "Granville Life-Style Museum" of Hubert & Oese Robinson's house next door to the United Church of Granville, and I met Gloria Hoover for the first time. A few steps south was my first visit to the Old Academy Building and the rich history that's taken place inside those walls.
We heard a choir sing in what was then the First Baptist Church and I met Rev. George Williamson; we heard woodwinds play at St. Luke's Episcopal Church where I got to talking to Rev. Harry Sherman on the porch, leading to the most incredible long lunch of my life a few months later with him and his old friend Rev. Robert Farrar Capon, which is a story for another day.
We ate yum-yums at Aladdin's, shook hands with the new president of Denison University, Michele Tolela Myers, at Monomoy Place (with no idea Joyce would be working directly for the next president, Dale Knobel, fifteen years later, let alone retiring from Denison twenty years after that!), and we wandered amazed through the Avery-Downer House where I got to know Paul Goudy, and we agreed to meet later to discuss historical matters.
Up and down Broadway we strolled, music continuing at Centenary United Methodist, and handbells at First Presbyterian, where Joyce would be directing that group a year later. Gazing up at Swasey Chapel's spire, then just 65 years old (as opposed to its centennial this year!), we wondered about the Denison campus, which we were to come to know so well.
These were the days of Victoria's Parlour and Hare Hollow and Taylor Drug in the middle of the block where Village Coffee now does brisk business. There's more I wished I remembered that I've forgotten, but the overall sense of wonder and delight still is with me.
Obviously, much has changed. The house where Oese's kitchen and bedroom set were left undisturbed, clearly her hope and intention, is now a private residence and her collection and some funds (not enough to keep a stand-alone quirky museum running) resident with the Granville Historical Society, probably the best outcome for all concerned. I got to speak at Gloria's memorial celebration at the College Town House a few years ago, and we all talked about the many things that have changed in the village.
Today, the restaurant options range more widely than I think any of us might have imagined that night in 1989. The shopping is a bit different, and you might say the range is both more limited, and wider. There's stuff at CVS we didn't used to have, and there are curios and knick-knacks you can't find; The James Store I still hear women missing, though I regret never going inside myself.
For me, the marvels of the Granville Times Book Cellar will continue to be part of my subconscious. It's hard for me to walk into the 1828 Kussmaul Gallery building and not make a beeline for the stairs into the basement. So many finds still on my shelves, and conversations alongside the heavy-laden shelves.
All those layers of past uses and practices, helping to support the vivid reality of what we have now in downtown Granville: they're out of sight, but in no way out of mind.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's delighted to have preached in most of the churches mentioned in this reminiscence! Tell him what you recall that's now no more at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Jeff Gill
Walking tours gone by, and why that's okay (because it has to be)
___
Joyce and I first came to Granville in December of 1989. We'd been told "you have to see the Christmas Candlelight Walking Tour."
They were right.
We fell in love, frankly, with the whole thing. The weather was perfect, cold with occasional flurries. We ended up by default going into the late lamented "Granville Life-Style Museum" of Hubert & Oese Robinson's house next door to the United Church of Granville, and I met Gloria Hoover for the first time. A few steps south was my first visit to the Old Academy Building and the rich history that's taken place inside those walls.
We heard a choir sing in what was then the First Baptist Church and I met Rev. George Williamson; we heard woodwinds play at St. Luke's Episcopal Church where I got to talking to Rev. Harry Sherman on the porch, leading to the most incredible long lunch of my life a few months later with him and his old friend Rev. Robert Farrar Capon, which is a story for another day.
We ate yum-yums at Aladdin's, shook hands with the new president of Denison University, Michele Tolela Myers, at Monomoy Place (with no idea Joyce would be working directly for the next president, Dale Knobel, fifteen years later, let alone retiring from Denison twenty years after that!), and we wandered amazed through the Avery-Downer House where I got to know Paul Goudy, and we agreed to meet later to discuss historical matters.
Up and down Broadway we strolled, music continuing at Centenary United Methodist, and handbells at First Presbyterian, where Joyce would be directing that group a year later. Gazing up at Swasey Chapel's spire, then just 65 years old (as opposed to its centennial this year!), we wondered about the Denison campus, which we were to come to know so well.
These were the days of Victoria's Parlour and Hare Hollow and Taylor Drug in the middle of the block where Village Coffee now does brisk business. There's more I wished I remembered that I've forgotten, but the overall sense of wonder and delight still is with me.
Obviously, much has changed. The house where Oese's kitchen and bedroom set were left undisturbed, clearly her hope and intention, is now a private residence and her collection and some funds (not enough to keep a stand-alone quirky museum running) resident with the Granville Historical Society, probably the best outcome for all concerned. I got to speak at Gloria's memorial celebration at the College Town House a few years ago, and we all talked about the many things that have changed in the village.
Today, the restaurant options range more widely than I think any of us might have imagined that night in 1989. The shopping is a bit different, and you might say the range is both more limited, and wider. There's stuff at CVS we didn't used to have, and there are curios and knick-knacks you can't find; The James Store I still hear women missing, though I regret never going inside myself.
For me, the marvels of the Granville Times Book Cellar will continue to be part of my subconscious. It's hard for me to walk into the 1828 Kussmaul Gallery building and not make a beeline for the stairs into the basement. So many finds still on my shelves, and conversations alongside the heavy-laden shelves.
All those layers of past uses and practices, helping to support the vivid reality of what we have now in downtown Granville: they're out of sight, but in no way out of mind.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's delighted to have preached in most of the churches mentioned in this reminiscence! Tell him what you recall that's now no more at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Sunday, December 01, 2024
Pre-submitted for the rest of the month...
…and I can keep submitting each week in turn, if that helps, but here's the whole "set" from next week 13-24, & 20-24, as well as the year-ending 27-24 coda.
Let me know what helps or reduces confusion the most as we head into holiday season!
Pax, Jeff
===
Faith Works 12-13-24
Jeff Gill
Getting off of the naughty list, part 2
___
"I'm in the regret reduction business."
That's what the lady in the long coat told Rodney, the clerk at the ZipMart, as she stirred her midnight cup of hot chocolate. She'd come in after a long quiet stretch, and as he pointed out where the parts of a hot chocolate were on the coffee stand, they ended up talking.
He asked, thinking it wouldn't seem too creepy at this point in their conversation, what had her out so late. Her explanation about "regret reduction" made Rodney look something more than puzzled.
She laughed at her own joke, then added "I'm a hospice chaplain. But that doesn't mean much to most people."
Actually, Rodney had been two places in the hospital, the emergency department and the hospice floor. He told the chaplain about his grandmother, and how much he thought the hospice program had helped her in those last few days up there. "But regret reduction?"
"Oh, it's a stupid joke, I admit," she replied, "but the sixth floor used to have a big sign as you got off the elevator showing how to get to the risk reduction department. When hospice expanded up there, they moved, but the idea stuck with me."
"How is hospice a . . . regret reduction thing?"
She tried to explain: most of what made hospice different from regular medical care, when a person was dying, was that you didn't want to do things with the precious time you had left that later you would, well, regret. Hospice, she reminded Rodney, wasn't about stopping treatment, it was a different kind of treatment. You might risk taking meds or chemo that made you sick for weeks if it would give you months or years in return, but if you only had weeks in any case, those sorts of interventions . . .
"You might regret later," Rodney completed.
"Exactly," the chaplain said. "Plus, we sometimes can encourage people to say things, or do things, that they might regret not doing later, even if it's hard now. We see the timetable a little more clearly, sometimes."
"Except we all can run out of time," Rodney said.
She looked back at him quizzically over the edge of her cup of hot chocolate. But didn't say anything.
After a long pause, Rodney added "I feel that way, sometimes, waiting here."
"Waiting here for what?"
"For when I can figure out what I'm supposed to do."
She sipped a bit more of her drink, then asked "What is it you're supposed to do?"
Rodney thought a while. The lady seemed patient, like his grandmother, but healthier. He looked at her, and looked away as she continued to gaze at him calmly. Looking out the big windows of the front of the store, he said "I'd just like to get off the naughty list. It's Christmas time, you know? I just feel like I'm stuck on the wrong side of Santa's book."
The chaplain sat her drink down next to the register, and leaned against it, looking out the same direction Rodney was, at mostly their reflections against the darkness outside.
"Well, that's a dilemma. You don't want to regret missing a chance to get off the naughty list. But here you are, doing a good job, keeping this place open, and clean, and helping customers like me. Are you sure you're on that list?"
"Oh yeah," said Rodney. "I've done enough stupid stuff to fill up a dumpster."
"So are we talking about Santa, God, or your family and friends here?"
"Pretty much all three know I'm on the naughty list."
"Well, I can't speak for Santa, or your family, but maybe we should talk about God."
(end of part two of three)
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's telling another multi-part story this December. You can tell him where the story should end at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
===
Faith Works 12-20-24
Jeff Gill
Getting off of the naughty list, part 3
___
"Why are you so sure you're on the naughty list?" asked the hospice chaplain at the ZipMart.
Rodney had been helping her get hot chocolate as midnight passed, and other customers were few and far between during these single digit hours of the night. They got to talking about her work with the dying and those who loved them, and about his work here in the convenience store.
He explained how he'd made a fair number of mistakes in his life (she interrupted him gently to point out that he wasn't all that old, not to her, anyhow), and it was hard to see how he would ever make things right.
"So one night, there's this lady with a couple of kids, who comes in for just basics sometimes when she can't get to the store where it's cheaper, milk or cereal and stuff. And you can tell she's counting her change and times are tough for her."
The chaplain nodded.
"I had been thinking I'd help out some time, and the next time she walked in about 9 pm, went to the cooler, I pulled out some of my cash and figured I'd offer to cover it for her, you know, Merry Christmas and all that. Then she comes back to the register about when another guy rolls in, comes up right ahead of her, buys a pack of smokes and a bunch of scratch-offs, then says 'and put her groceries on my tab for good luck, okay?' He laughs and she laughs and I put my money away."
"So you didn't get your chance."
"Right. But then a few nights later, another older guy comes in, all flustered, because his battery died. He needed a jump. My heap is right over by the side of the building, so I shut down the register, run out, move my car, go to get his car started, and it won't turn over at all. Then another guy comes up, looks in, doesn't say a word but reverses how I'd connected the clamps, and it started right up. He snorts at me and walks off."
"Okay, that stung. But you helped the man?"
"Maybe, but he didn't act like it, and when I went back in? Two punks had snuck in and were running out with two bottles of pop and and armful of bags of chips. I was so ticked I didn't even try running after them, with my leg and all. I just added it up and paid for it to make the totals work."
"What you're saying," the chaplain said, "is your efforts to get off the naughty list never seem to work."
"Not even close."
"Well, has it occurred to you that you're going about it all wrong?"
"I must be. So what's a better way?"
"First, can I tell you something about God? God isn't Santa. Not even close. You're worried about a naughty list, and maybe Santa has one, maybe he doesn't, but I've got a book here in my purse that says God doesn't make lists that way."
"Yeah, yeah, you're gonna tell me God is love. I know."
"Do you?"
She looked evenly at him, standing behind the register. He had the higher position by a step, but it was as if she was looking at him eye to eye. "If God is love, and God so loved the world that we get to celebrate Christmas as a gift from God, then maybe you don't have to earn that love. Maybe you can't earn it. It's just something that's given us. You're trying to work off your regrets with good deeds, and God says every Christmas and most days in between you don't have to do it that way."
They talked for a long time after that, and agreed that they'd talk again. Probably after Christmas, right there at the ZipMart.
(end of part three of three)
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he appreciates your having read this year's December tale. Tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
===
Faith Works 12-27-24
Jeff Gill
Getting off the naughty list, coda
___
"Take down all the Christmas stuff."
That was on the manager's whiteboard on the cooler door at the ZipMart; Rodney knew to check it every shift. Corporate might send emails and texts, there may be memos under glass on the counter, but the whiteboard was the law. Do that first, and all will be well.
Rodney had the overnight shift, the one he preferred. It had a rhythm and pace he was used to, busy at first, then slowly tapering off through midnight, then the long night hours but the interesting people and questions you got at 3 am.
Plus, the manager knew to ask him to take care of stuff the day shifts couldn't get to as well, and he'd take care of it. Like taking all the Christmas decorations and seasonal displays down. They had gas and hot dogs and bottles of pop every few minutes, but the night shift was full of long stretches where he could step out and work around the store, or pause with a customer and answer their questions.
Or sometimes, to ask them. A few weeks back, Rodney had helped a customer, just after midnight, dressed a little better than he was used to seeing, and looking for hot chocolate. She was a hospice chaplain coming back from a home where someone had died, and after a long night, she wanted something hot more than just going home and staying awake anyhow. Or so she said.
They got to talking about regret, and dying, and hope, and the future, and Rodney found himself talking about his regret, his worry, his fear even, that he was on the naughty list for good and all, and there was no way of getting off of it. He'd tried to do some good things, and they never seemed to work out the way he'd hoped, and in the end, he never felt better.
The chaplain suggested he was confused not about himself, but about God. He might have made some mistakes (or many, as Rodney corrected her), but she argued God's love wasn't limited to those who had a winning scratch-off ticket for it that you bought with your good deeds.
They talked a long time that night about churches, and her faith, and his history with a couple of different congregations. She didn't tell him he had to go to church, or where, just that she thought he might be ready to be around some other people wondering about the same things, and wrote down a few places she thought he might find a welcome ear.
Reaching high to unloop the lights, he began to reel the strand onto the spool. It was funny, but there were so many things he'd been doing all along that now seemed like they were, well, little blessings he'd missed because he was trying so hard to check them off as good works. Blessings for himself, and blessings for others. Just doing your work well, with intention; simple acts of kindness, done for themselves and not for what you might receive for doing them.
The world and the year ahead looked different now. He hoped the chaplain would stop by again so he could tell her about it. He was off the naughty list.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he hopes your year ahead is already filled with anticipated blessings. Tell him how you've been blessed at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Let me know what helps or reduces confusion the most as we head into holiday season!
Pax, Jeff
===
Faith Works 12-13-24
Jeff Gill
Getting off of the naughty list, part 2
___
"I'm in the regret reduction business."
That's what the lady in the long coat told Rodney, the clerk at the ZipMart, as she stirred her midnight cup of hot chocolate. She'd come in after a long quiet stretch, and as he pointed out where the parts of a hot chocolate were on the coffee stand, they ended up talking.
He asked, thinking it wouldn't seem too creepy at this point in their conversation, what had her out so late. Her explanation about "regret reduction" made Rodney look something more than puzzled.
She laughed at her own joke, then added "I'm a hospice chaplain. But that doesn't mean much to most people."
Actually, Rodney had been two places in the hospital, the emergency department and the hospice floor. He told the chaplain about his grandmother, and how much he thought the hospice program had helped her in those last few days up there. "But regret reduction?"
"Oh, it's a stupid joke, I admit," she replied, "but the sixth floor used to have a big sign as you got off the elevator showing how to get to the risk reduction department. When hospice expanded up there, they moved, but the idea stuck with me."
"How is hospice a . . . regret reduction thing?"
She tried to explain: most of what made hospice different from regular medical care, when a person was dying, was that you didn't want to do things with the precious time you had left that later you would, well, regret. Hospice, she reminded Rodney, wasn't about stopping treatment, it was a different kind of treatment. You might risk taking meds or chemo that made you sick for weeks if it would give you months or years in return, but if you only had weeks in any case, those sorts of interventions . . .
"You might regret later," Rodney completed.
"Exactly," the chaplain said. "Plus, we sometimes can encourage people to say things, or do things, that they might regret not doing later, even if it's hard now. We see the timetable a little more clearly, sometimes."
"Except we all can run out of time," Rodney said.
She looked back at him quizzically over the edge of her cup of hot chocolate. But didn't say anything.
After a long pause, Rodney added "I feel that way, sometimes, waiting here."
"Waiting here for what?"
"For when I can figure out what I'm supposed to do."
She sipped a bit more of her drink, then asked "What is it you're supposed to do?"
Rodney thought a while. The lady seemed patient, like his grandmother, but healthier. He looked at her, and looked away as she continued to gaze at him calmly. Looking out the big windows of the front of the store, he said "I'd just like to get off the naughty list. It's Christmas time, you know? I just feel like I'm stuck on the wrong side of Santa's book."
The chaplain sat her drink down next to the register, and leaned against it, looking out the same direction Rodney was, at mostly their reflections against the darkness outside.
"Well, that's a dilemma. You don't want to regret missing a chance to get off the naughty list. But here you are, doing a good job, keeping this place open, and clean, and helping customers like me. Are you sure you're on that list?"
"Oh yeah," said Rodney. "I've done enough stupid stuff to fill up a dumpster."
"So are we talking about Santa, God, or your family and friends here?"
"Pretty much all three know I'm on the naughty list."
"Well, I can't speak for Santa, or your family, but maybe we should talk about God."
(end of part two of three)
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's telling another multi-part story this December. You can tell him where the story should end at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
===
Faith Works 12-20-24
Jeff Gill
Getting off of the naughty list, part 3
___
"Why are you so sure you're on the naughty list?" asked the hospice chaplain at the ZipMart.
Rodney had been helping her get hot chocolate as midnight passed, and other customers were few and far between during these single digit hours of the night. They got to talking about her work with the dying and those who loved them, and about his work here in the convenience store.
He explained how he'd made a fair number of mistakes in his life (she interrupted him gently to point out that he wasn't all that old, not to her, anyhow), and it was hard to see how he would ever make things right.
"So one night, there's this lady with a couple of kids, who comes in for just basics sometimes when she can't get to the store where it's cheaper, milk or cereal and stuff. And you can tell she's counting her change and times are tough for her."
The chaplain nodded.
"I had been thinking I'd help out some time, and the next time she walked in about 9 pm, went to the cooler, I pulled out some of my cash and figured I'd offer to cover it for her, you know, Merry Christmas and all that. Then she comes back to the register about when another guy rolls in, comes up right ahead of her, buys a pack of smokes and a bunch of scratch-offs, then says 'and put her groceries on my tab for good luck, okay?' He laughs and she laughs and I put my money away."
"So you didn't get your chance."
"Right. But then a few nights later, another older guy comes in, all flustered, because his battery died. He needed a jump. My heap is right over by the side of the building, so I shut down the register, run out, move my car, go to get his car started, and it won't turn over at all. Then another guy comes up, looks in, doesn't say a word but reverses how I'd connected the clamps, and it started right up. He snorts at me and walks off."
"Okay, that stung. But you helped the man?"
"Maybe, but he didn't act like it, and when I went back in? Two punks had snuck in and were running out with two bottles of pop and and armful of bags of chips. I was so ticked I didn't even try running after them, with my leg and all. I just added it up and paid for it to make the totals work."
"What you're saying," the chaplain said, "is your efforts to get off the naughty list never seem to work."
"Not even close."
"Well, has it occurred to you that you're going about it all wrong?"
"I must be. So what's a better way?"
"First, can I tell you something about God? God isn't Santa. Not even close. You're worried about a naughty list, and maybe Santa has one, maybe he doesn't, but I've got a book here in my purse that says God doesn't make lists that way."
"Yeah, yeah, you're gonna tell me God is love. I know."
"Do you?"
She looked evenly at him, standing behind the register. He had the higher position by a step, but it was as if she was looking at him eye to eye. "If God is love, and God so loved the world that we get to celebrate Christmas as a gift from God, then maybe you don't have to earn that love. Maybe you can't earn it. It's just something that's given us. You're trying to work off your regrets with good deeds, and God says every Christmas and most days in between you don't have to do it that way."
They talked for a long time after that, and agreed that they'd talk again. Probably after Christmas, right there at the ZipMart.
(end of part three of three)
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he appreciates your having read this year's December tale. Tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
===
Faith Works 12-27-24
Jeff Gill
Getting off the naughty list, coda
___
"Take down all the Christmas stuff."
That was on the manager's whiteboard on the cooler door at the ZipMart; Rodney knew to check it every shift. Corporate might send emails and texts, there may be memos under glass on the counter, but the whiteboard was the law. Do that first, and all will be well.
Rodney had the overnight shift, the one he preferred. It had a rhythm and pace he was used to, busy at first, then slowly tapering off through midnight, then the long night hours but the interesting people and questions you got at 3 am.
Plus, the manager knew to ask him to take care of stuff the day shifts couldn't get to as well, and he'd take care of it. Like taking all the Christmas decorations and seasonal displays down. They had gas and hot dogs and bottles of pop every few minutes, but the night shift was full of long stretches where he could step out and work around the store, or pause with a customer and answer their questions.
Or sometimes, to ask them. A few weeks back, Rodney had helped a customer, just after midnight, dressed a little better than he was used to seeing, and looking for hot chocolate. She was a hospice chaplain coming back from a home where someone had died, and after a long night, she wanted something hot more than just going home and staying awake anyhow. Or so she said.
They got to talking about regret, and dying, and hope, and the future, and Rodney found himself talking about his regret, his worry, his fear even, that he was on the naughty list for good and all, and there was no way of getting off of it. He'd tried to do some good things, and they never seemed to work out the way he'd hoped, and in the end, he never felt better.
The chaplain suggested he was confused not about himself, but about God. He might have made some mistakes (or many, as Rodney corrected her), but she argued God's love wasn't limited to those who had a winning scratch-off ticket for it that you bought with your good deeds.
They talked a long time that night about churches, and her faith, and his history with a couple of different congregations. She didn't tell him he had to go to church, or where, just that she thought he might be ready to be around some other people wondering about the same things, and wrote down a few places she thought he might find a welcome ear.
Reaching high to unloop the lights, he began to reel the strand onto the spool. It was funny, but there were so many things he'd been doing all along that now seemed like they were, well, little blessings he'd missed because he was trying so hard to check them off as good works. Blessings for himself, and blessings for others. Just doing your work well, with intention; simple acts of kindness, done for themselves and not for what you might receive for doing them.
The world and the year ahead looked different now. He hoped the chaplain would stop by again so he could tell her about it. He was off the naughty list.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he hopes your year ahead is already filled with anticipated blessings. Tell him how you've been blessed at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Faith Works 12-6-24
Faith Works 12-6-24
Jeff Gill
Getting off of the naughty list, part 1
___
"Get everything ready for Christmas!"
The scrawled red statement on the whiteboard was not meant to be festive, Rodney knew. The manager wrote it there to remind people to check the stock list for the seasonal items that might be missed in the regular routine.
ZipMart had a standard process on a laminated card taped to the cooler next to the whiteboard, but everyone knew to check what the manager wrote first. She'd been there virtually since the mini-market was built, and had a good sense of the rhythms of the business. Sunday night before deer gun season she'd have a note up about doubling the breakfast sandwiches in the heater before 3 am, and not because she was a hunter.
Rodney had been hunting once, twice maybe, and wasn't any good as a hunter. Or hadn't been around anyone wanting to teach him, more like it. He was not at ease around guns, which was funny because he'd had a couple of stick-ups in the years since he started taking night shifts at ZipMart, and had a letter somewhere in a bin from corporate congratulating him on how calmly he'd handled himself in a difficult situation.
Actually, he was pretty sure the second stick-up guy hadn't had a gun, but no way was he going to find out the hard way. He opened up the register like he'd been trained and stepped back.
That night, after the robber had left and Rodney called the police, he went over and wiped down the coffee counter and started a new pot, since he knew they'd be interested in a fresh, hot cup around the middle of their shift. In fact he'd ended up making two more while answering their questions before morning came and both he and the police went home.
Home for Rodney was an apartment over a garage, a little cold even with a small furnace dedicated to his unit in the corner downstairs; it was a three bay garage for a contractor he had worked for briefly until he'd hurt his leg. Disability didn't go through, even with a bad limp, but the owner felt bad for him and recommended him for the ZipMart job along with making him a deal for the apartment. Everyone said it was a good alternative to working with a crew, since he would "just stand in one place," which he now knew meant they'd never worked in a convenience store. Rodney figured he walked more a shift there than he had on an average day at a job site, but it was work, even some benefits.
The benefits were important, because he'd agreed to provide them for his kid. Rodney didn't see him often, but he wished he could more. Night shift made that tough. His ex had offered to stop by a few times, but it was just never good timing with a little kid, late at night or early in the morning.
Other times? He knew he didn't make good use of the time he had. It was something he felt bad about, like a lot of things. That's what he had ended up talking about tonight to the lady who came through about midnight. Rodney asked her what had her out at that hour, as she stirred up her hot chocolate at the coffee stand, and he remembered what she first said.
"I'm in the regret reduction business."
(end of part one of three)
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been telling multi-part pieces of semi-fiction in December for some time. Tell him where the story seems to be going at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Jeff Gill
Getting off of the naughty list, part 1
___
"Get everything ready for Christmas!"
The scrawled red statement on the whiteboard was not meant to be festive, Rodney knew. The manager wrote it there to remind people to check the stock list for the seasonal items that might be missed in the regular routine.
ZipMart had a standard process on a laminated card taped to the cooler next to the whiteboard, but everyone knew to check what the manager wrote first. She'd been there virtually since the mini-market was built, and had a good sense of the rhythms of the business. Sunday night before deer gun season she'd have a note up about doubling the breakfast sandwiches in the heater before 3 am, and not because she was a hunter.
Rodney had been hunting once, twice maybe, and wasn't any good as a hunter. Or hadn't been around anyone wanting to teach him, more like it. He was not at ease around guns, which was funny because he'd had a couple of stick-ups in the years since he started taking night shifts at ZipMart, and had a letter somewhere in a bin from corporate congratulating him on how calmly he'd handled himself in a difficult situation.
Actually, he was pretty sure the second stick-up guy hadn't had a gun, but no way was he going to find out the hard way. He opened up the register like he'd been trained and stepped back.
That night, after the robber had left and Rodney called the police, he went over and wiped down the coffee counter and started a new pot, since he knew they'd be interested in a fresh, hot cup around the middle of their shift. In fact he'd ended up making two more while answering their questions before morning came and both he and the police went home.
Home for Rodney was an apartment over a garage, a little cold even with a small furnace dedicated to his unit in the corner downstairs; it was a three bay garage for a contractor he had worked for briefly until he'd hurt his leg. Disability didn't go through, even with a bad limp, but the owner felt bad for him and recommended him for the ZipMart job along with making him a deal for the apartment. Everyone said it was a good alternative to working with a crew, since he would "just stand in one place," which he now knew meant they'd never worked in a convenience store. Rodney figured he walked more a shift there than he had on an average day at a job site, but it was work, even some benefits.
The benefits were important, because he'd agreed to provide them for his kid. Rodney didn't see him often, but he wished he could more. Night shift made that tough. His ex had offered to stop by a few times, but it was just never good timing with a little kid, late at night or early in the morning.
Other times? He knew he didn't make good use of the time he had. It was something he felt bad about, like a lot of things. That's what he had ended up talking about tonight to the lady who came through about midnight. Rodney asked her what had her out at that hour, as she stirred up her hot chocolate at the coffee stand, and he remembered what she first said.
"I'm in the regret reduction business."
(end of part one of three)
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been telling multi-part pieces of semi-fiction in December for some time. Tell him where the story seems to be going at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Wednesday, November 27, 2024
Re: Architect questions
Well, in 1881:
"The original plan was to put up a building that should cost twenty-five thousand dollars, half to be raised at home, while they hoped to raise the rest among the generous people of the state who loved Granville. These donors stipulated that "they would pay the sums opposite their names, provided that the church should raise twelve thousand dollars, and that the whole amount raised should reach $25000."
"The original plan was to put up a building that should cost twenty-five thousand dollars, half to be raised at home, while they hoped to raise the rest among the generous people of the state who loved Granville. These donors stipulated that "they would pay the sums opposite their names, provided that the church should raise twelve thousand dollars, and that the whole amount raised should reach $25000."
As always happens, however, in the end it cost more, indeed twice as much, the contract, as before stated, being for thirty-three thousand dollars, while the furnishing and finishings brought it up to a fraction less than fifty thousand dollars."
[So...]
"The building committee consisted of Deacon Shepardson, Mr. E.M. Downer, and Professor A. U. Thresher. The Architect was Mr. L. B. Vaulk, of New York City, and the contractors Messrs. Gerber and Vance, of Newark. If crowded, the building
will seat about twelve hundred."[Dedication in November 1883]
Now, Levi Scofield was architect of both the Ohio Reformatory in Mansfield, and the Athens Asylum complex (beloved of Ohio University alumni and their parents who attended all the home games for the marching band, overlooking Peden Stadium as it does). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levi_Scofield
The history volume for Granville Baptists is in error at least in spelling: the architect was Lawrence B. Valk (no U), and HE has some interesting credits:
L. B. Valk was an architect who designed many churches and residences in the United States between 1859 and 1924.
Born in Florida in 1838, Valk was listed in New York City directories as an architect as early as 1859. His son Arthur was his junior partner in the firm from 1885 on.
Valk's work included the First Presbyterian Church in Lincoln, Nebraska (1884-1885) and the Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal) in New Orleans (1886-1887).
Firm: Valk's firm, L. B. Valk and Son, was based in Brooklyn, New York. During the decades when they were based in New York, Lawrence and Arthur Valk completed commissions for many churches in New York and other states east of the Mississippi River. After moving to Los Angeles in the late 1890s, they spent the remainder of their careers designing Craftsman bungalows along with a smaller number of known churches. In addition, Arthur Valk is credited with designing some of California's early movie theaters.
L. B. Valk was an architect who designed many churches and residences in the United States between 1859 and 1924.
Born in Florida in 1838, Valk was listed in New York City directories as an architect as early as 1859. His son Arthur was his junior partner in the firm from 1885 on.
Valk's work included the First Presbyterian Church in Lincoln, Nebraska (1884-1885) and the Christ Church Cathedral (Episcopal) in New Orleans (1886-1887).
Firm: Valk's firm, L. B. Valk and Son, was based in Brooklyn, New York. During the decades when they were based in New York, Lawrence and Arthur Valk completed commissions for many churches in New York and other states east of the Mississippi River. After moving to Los Angeles in the late 1890s, they spent the remainder of their careers designing Craftsman bungalows along with a smaller number of known churches. In addition, Arthur Valk is credited with designing some of California's early movie theaters.
A list of some of his buildings:
And a much longer list -- which doesn't include Granville! But clearly he's the architect here.
https://noveltytheater.net/person/lawrence-b-valk
https://noveltytheater.net/person/lawrence-b-valk
I hope you have as much fun skimming those links as I did finding them!
Pax,
Jeff Gill
http://knapsack.blogspot.com
http://twitter.com/Knapsack
"Live your faith, share your life"
Jeff Gill
http://knapsack.blogspot.com
http://twitter.com/Knapsack
"Live your faith, share your life"
On Tue, Nov 26, 2024 at 9:08 PM David Ball <dball@rosenbergball.com> wrote:
Hi Jeff,Kim and I were watching the Shawshank redemption a day or two ago and it certainly looked like the stonework of the original building of the Ohio reformatory was very very similar to the stonework of the United Church of Granville. Our Internet research suggests that the architect of the Ohio reformatory was Eric Scofield. I have to think that the architect of our church was the same man. Curious if you have any information about this?Best, DaveDavid T. Ball ¤ Partner
Rosenberg & Ball Co., LPA
205 South Prospect Street
Granville, Ohio 43023
t (614) 316-8222
dball@rosenbergball.com ¤ www.rosenbergball.com
Top Lawyers 2024, Columbus CEO magazine; 2010 American Bar Association Outstanding Young Nonprofit Attorney; Certified Arbitrator, American Arbitration Association ; Co-Host of the "Two Balls, One Court" podcast
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Tuesday, November 19, 2024
Notes from my Knapsack 11-28-24
Notes from my Knapsack 11-28-24
Jeff Gill
Thankful for what is no more
___
Thanksgiving season is obviously a time to work on feeling thankful.
The usual drill is to try and be more mindful of the blessings and advantages and gifts you have that you may well be taking for granted. And there's nothing wrong with working on that one!
What I have in mind this year, though, is more obscure, but I hope is something that might help me in that increased awareness of immediate reasons to be thankful.
If you've followed the saga of the 1900 Avalon Building in Newark, on social media a large number of people turn out to have had personal stories which wound through the apartments above and shops below over the previous century. Obviously there was sentiment to save it yet again, but old buildings are not like cats, and are lucky if they have two lives, three at most. The water from extinguishing the fire across the roof of the Avalon sealed its fate. And the hard reality about historic preservation is: you can't save 'em all.
So while I never lived in, shopped at, or even entered the Avalon, its demise has me thinking about other buildings now gone that are part of my life, if only now in memory and imagination.
For six years I had a desk in the 1886 county Children's Home on E. Main St. with the juvenile court. Torn down in 2013, while there were voices calling to preserve it, the structure was, like the Avalon, too compromised for preservation. It was a fascinating building, though, with a great deal of history taking place within it over a century and a quarter, and it pops up in my dreams at odd intervals still.
When I first visited Newark in 1989, the Auditorium Theatre was still standing, and had more going on inside of it than the then shuttered Midland across Second St. Built in 1894 as the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall, it was an echo of my hometown of Valparaiso, Indiana, which also had the unique feature of a Memorial Opera House built instead of a towering monument to Civil War veterans. There was a practical spirit linking the two places which pleased me; why spend a pile of money on a monument when you could memorialize the soldiers and sailors with something everyone could use?
At that time, fires and decay had taken away the building's classical facade and sculptures, some of which you can still see at VFW Post 1060 on Forry Avenue; the pinnacle statuary group is on private property elsewhere in the county but survives as well. I saw performances and concerts in the old Auditorium, and think of it still when I walk past the Licking County Foundation's offices now on that site.
Recently I got to attend a friend's production of a play at the Eisner Center on the Denison University campus; it was in the Hylbert Family Studio Theatre, and well staged there. But I kept thinking back to the Ace Morgan Theatre, the knotty pine lobby, its history back with Morgan's friend Hal Holbrook, and later student stars in the making like John Davidson, Michael Eisner (whose center now occupies the location), Steve Carell, and Jennifer Garner.
Along with long-lost family homes and places where in years past I've enjoyed Thanksgiving dinners, there are so many buildings that I find myself thankful for which are no more. What lost locations helped shape you, and what do you recall of them?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; if he got going on lost church buildings this column would be a multi-volume book. Tell him about places that are gone but not for you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Jeff Gill
Thankful for what is no more
___
Thanksgiving season is obviously a time to work on feeling thankful.
The usual drill is to try and be more mindful of the blessings and advantages and gifts you have that you may well be taking for granted. And there's nothing wrong with working on that one!
What I have in mind this year, though, is more obscure, but I hope is something that might help me in that increased awareness of immediate reasons to be thankful.
If you've followed the saga of the 1900 Avalon Building in Newark, on social media a large number of people turn out to have had personal stories which wound through the apartments above and shops below over the previous century. Obviously there was sentiment to save it yet again, but old buildings are not like cats, and are lucky if they have two lives, three at most. The water from extinguishing the fire across the roof of the Avalon sealed its fate. And the hard reality about historic preservation is: you can't save 'em all.
So while I never lived in, shopped at, or even entered the Avalon, its demise has me thinking about other buildings now gone that are part of my life, if only now in memory and imagination.
For six years I had a desk in the 1886 county Children's Home on E. Main St. with the juvenile court. Torn down in 2013, while there were voices calling to preserve it, the structure was, like the Avalon, too compromised for preservation. It was a fascinating building, though, with a great deal of history taking place within it over a century and a quarter, and it pops up in my dreams at odd intervals still.
When I first visited Newark in 1989, the Auditorium Theatre was still standing, and had more going on inside of it than the then shuttered Midland across Second St. Built in 1894 as the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall, it was an echo of my hometown of Valparaiso, Indiana, which also had the unique feature of a Memorial Opera House built instead of a towering monument to Civil War veterans. There was a practical spirit linking the two places which pleased me; why spend a pile of money on a monument when you could memorialize the soldiers and sailors with something everyone could use?
At that time, fires and decay had taken away the building's classical facade and sculptures, some of which you can still see at VFW Post 1060 on Forry Avenue; the pinnacle statuary group is on private property elsewhere in the county but survives as well. I saw performances and concerts in the old Auditorium, and think of it still when I walk past the Licking County Foundation's offices now on that site.
Recently I got to attend a friend's production of a play at the Eisner Center on the Denison University campus; it was in the Hylbert Family Studio Theatre, and well staged there. But I kept thinking back to the Ace Morgan Theatre, the knotty pine lobby, its history back with Morgan's friend Hal Holbrook, and later student stars in the making like John Davidson, Michael Eisner (whose center now occupies the location), Steve Carell, and Jennifer Garner.
Along with long-lost family homes and places where in years past I've enjoyed Thanksgiving dinners, there are so many buildings that I find myself thankful for which are no more. What lost locations helped shape you, and what do you recall of them?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; if he got going on lost church buildings this column would be a multi-volume book. Tell him about places that are gone but not for you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
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