Notes from my Knapsack 8-6-20

Notes from my Knapsack 8-6-20

Jeff Gill

 

It's really just not fair

___

Normally, he said, starting a paragraph the way too many are beginning these days, I would be preparing to help open the Hartford Fair with an ecumenical worship service Sunday morning, as the sun rises over the Natural Resources pavilion, and with sheep and goats singing out nearby.

 

Nope. Not this year! The least of many losses. More significantly, I won't be eating a corn dog or pulled pork sandwich or fair ice cream barn cone this year. Oh, and I'm resigning my job as a parish minister that Sunday.

 

Yeah, it's been a weird year in many ways. No, I am NOT old enough to retire, and I hope that's not actually what I'm doing . . . though if this all goes on long enough, that's what it will turn out to have been. But my wife and I have roots here in Granville, but each a parent in Indiana, both of whom are quite intent on staying there (hey, it's a nice state in many ways, we're both from there) but each of whom has needs. As people who are moving into the upper end of elderly, their needs require a certain amount of direct support, and I'm going to become a more active part of that plan.

 

We aren't moving, but we do need to be very careful about our social contacts with the general public as we are primary social contacts with our parents. To be blunt, we don't want to transmit coronavirus to them. So going to the fair, or leading a crowd of relative strangers in song, then driving to Indianapolis to help tend to business with a 91 year old who's fine, just fine, thank you very much, and when are you coming next? Nope, that's not going to work.

 

And my resignation is less to do with the complications of church life as it does with the needs and expectations of ministry, which takes me regularly into settings where, even as the congregation itself couldn't be more flexible and careful, I end up in the middle of groups of . . . well, relative strangers who in many cases are not interested in either masks or social distancing. It's not fair, either to me, or to the church I serve, but the fact of being out and around means having to be in contact with people who reject coronavirus precautions, which means I need to leave my job. I am fortunate that I have that flexibility at this juncture in my life, and a great deal of sorrow for those who have the same concerns in their lives, but can't do what I'm doing to protect the people I love.

 

It's not fair, but as my son has heard all through his growing up years, the fair is in Croton, and it's not August . . . except here it is August, and the Harford Fair is on, but I'm not going. Which doesn't seem fair. What I can do is look forward to the day when I can go back, and maybe even sing a hymn, and eat a Trojan Burger. Not at the same time, though.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he will need to change that tag line in a couple of weeks. Tell him about changes you've had to make during coronatimes at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

 

Faith Works 8-1-20

Faith Works 8-1-20

Jeff Gill

 

Don't make any major decisions

___

When you have a major loss in your life, people always say, and rightly so, "don't make any major decisions."

 

The logic is that when you've been under great stress, grief, or exertion, you are less mentally and spiritually ready to make tough choices than you would be with some time and rest and renewal behind you. It's kind of the emotional version of "don't shop while you're hungry." Who knows what you'll buy at the grocery store if you haven't eaten for a while, right?

 

Except the problem is always that this is exactly when we all have to make major decisions, when it's already been a hard stretch of road. This is why you've read here before my exhortations to make your end of life plans now, not just so you don't have to in a difficult context, but so those who love you don't have to wonder the day after you're gone "what did they want us to do, anyhow?"

 

It's so often one of the worst days in many people's lives when they have to make choices about things no one wants to think about. You can buffer or cushion that impact, but you can't take the burden away entirely. The main thing is to not make it heavier and harder.

 

I'd already brought this up about "the Hidalgo Effect" and understanding that your reaction times, your peripheral vision, your self-assessment is measurably worse when you've been under stress. (This is how two good drivers got into a wreck on the way to picking up their father's ashes.) You have to make allowances for not entirely being yourself. And under the pressures of COVID-19, we all need to give ourselves and each other a little slack.

 

All of which is why I wish I weren't having to make a major vocational choice right now, and where I'm at least looking for helpful lessons to pass along to the rest of you. Mostly, I'm just shaking my head at the ironies of our time and circumstance. But as it turns out, a week from tomorrow I preach my last sermon for the congregation I serve . . . from the front steps of the church porch to a parking lot full of cars, whose occupants are invisible behind the glare of the rising 10:30 am sun. I had not yet given my last sermon much thought, and if I had, it wasn't about how I'd preach through a low power FM signal to a congregation sitting in their vehicles, running the air conditioning to survive even an abbreviated service in the summer sun.

 

Wild stuff, eh? But my situation is simply that I need to refocus to help with family matters, intensified by coronavirus but this would have had to have been the case even if we weren't on state health department restrictions. My wife and I each have a surviving parent who has needs, and both of them happen to be in Indiana with no intention of moving. Neither do we, and my wife is continuing in her work here in Ohio while doing some virtual commuting, but soon I will be doing more of the back-and-forth. Since our parents are both up into the high risk zone as elderly persons, we need to be extra cautious about our social contacts, masks or otherwise. (By the way, all the questions you're thinking of that start "have you thought about…" can be answered "yes.")

 

So I have resigned as a pulpit minister, while resisting the term "retiring." And my "last sermons" I really hope will not be preached this Sunday or next, but it's hard to know for sure. How long will this virus still be a threat to older, more vulnerable people? For how many years will we need to do the particular kind of support we're gearing up for right now? As the song says, "God only knows." Perhaps I'll preach again, supply or interim or something else, but for now, my ministry is to my family.

 

It has been a good ministry in the church I serve, since May of 2012. I had more of a twelve to fifteen year plan when we started out, but between spasmodic dysphonia and global pandemic and joining the sandwich generation of starting to care for parents just as you stop caring for children, to use the archaic phrase: "man proposes but God disposes." It's not the best time to step down, for me or the church, but when is?

 

Newark Central has plans and leadership moving forward to take them onwards into God's plan for the church, and I'll be around here as long as the Advocate has space on the Faith page, in pixels or on paper. Because this is home, friends!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he will need to change that tag line in a couple of weeks. Tell him about changes you've had to make during coronatimes at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.