Notes from my Knapsack 10-26-23

Notes from my Knapsack 10-26-23 

Jeff Gill

We are in good company

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With the formal declaration of World Heritage List status for the Newark Earthworks, in company with the Chillicothe and Lebanon, Ohio area earthworks together as the "Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks" nomination, it's a good time to look around at the company we are now numbered with by UNESCO.

In this same session of the World Heritage Committee, other new nominations from around the world included the ancient city of Jericho, on the Jordan River, and World War I memorial sites in another group nomination, which includes the Menin Gate and Vimy Ridge monument.

Listening online in the early hours of September 19th, in that morning session there were six nominations from around the world considered including the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, and two of them were turned aside. It's not a small or simple matter to become a World Heritage Site. They have the opportunity to revise and resubmit in a future cycle, but there are relatively few nominations allowed every two years to a country.

There are both cultural and natural sites; the Newark Earthworks are part of what became the 25th for the United States, among about a thousand around the world.

U.S. cultural sites in alphabetical order, with the year they were inscribed on the World Heritage List in parentheses, are: Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site (1982), Chaco Culture (1987), Independence Hall (1979), La Fortaleza and San Juan National Historic Site in Puerto Rico (1983), Mesa Verde National Park (1978), Monticello and the University of Virginia in Charlottesville (1987), Monumental Earthworks of Poverty Point (2014), San Antonio Missions (2015), Statue of Liberty (1984), Taos Pueblo (1992), and The 20th-Century Architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright (2019). Now, with Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks (2023), six of the twelve mark Native American achievements and architecture, but only Poverty Point is older in construction. Taos Pueblo is a living site, still occupied, and well worth visiting in northern New Mexico, about six hundred years old at the foundation level; the Newark Earthworks are nearly two thousand years old.

We share company with the natural sites on the World Heritage List: Carlsbad Caverns National Park (1995), Everglades National Park (1979), Grand Canyon National Park (1979), Great Smoky Mountains National Park (1983), Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (1987), Kluane / Wrangell-St. Elias / Glacier Bay / Tatshenshini-Alsek (1979, 1992, 1994), Mammoth Cave National Park (1981), Olympic National Park (1981), Redwood National and State Parks (1980), Waterton Glacier International Peace Park (1995), Yellowstone National Park (1978), and Yosemite National Park (1984). Along with those twelve, there is one mixed cultural & natural site, in the Pacific Ocean west of Hawaii: Papahānaumokuākea (2010).

It's been one of the small pleasures of working with the World Heritage effort that if I'm looking at it in print, I now know how to say "Papahānaumokuākea"!

I've also had the pleasure over the years to visit 13 of the 25 United States World Heritage Sites. Like many, I'm now reviewing those I've missed and revising my "bucket list": time to go visit a few more and learn about their "outstanding universal value" to the world!

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been both to the San Antonio Missions, and the Alamo, which are not quite the same things. Tell him what other WHL sites you'd like to visit at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads.

Faith Works 10-13-23

Faith Works 10-13-23

Jeff Gill

Tragedy and trust in church life

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My goal was to spend three columns, ending in this one, talking about trust and the work of church leadership, particularly ministers, in a time when trust is in short supply.

Events in the Middle East on top of turmoil in Washington just turn those dials up to eleven. The personal and the political intersect with faith and faith communities in peculiar ways; they always have, and always will.

But we're going through a particularly challenging era in that busy intersection. Between the internet and cable news access to alternative perspectives has never been easier, but the ability to judge between them may not have grown along with the range of choices.

Sure, someone can say and even make a case for "you can't trust the mainstream media" (although the fact I can write that line and know it will get printed should tell you that's not the whole story), but when they say "but I trust the bulletin board at Craig's Crab Shack implicitly!" I think you're allowed to ask "why is that?" There are online media outlets that aren't much more well sourced than the cork board in a restaurant bathroom hallway.

I don't want to paint a rosy picture of the past. In my first congregational position as a minister, people would walk up to me with mimeographed fliers about Madalyn Murray O'Hair and the FCC (I'm dating myself, aren't I?) and get upset when I would explain the case was in 1964, over twenty years ago, and had been dismissed. And yeah, I'd ask myself as they walked off "why do they trust a mimeo sheet in the mail from a stranger more than they trust me?"

So in that sense, this has always been with us. But as I said about things turned up to eleven, the internet and cable TV have intensified this problem. If I were disagreeing with Walter Cronkite in some way, the congregation I preached for might hear him for 22 minutes a night five nights a week, not even two full hours versus the hour or two we had together for preaching and teaching.

Today, it's not unusual to have politically engaged members tuned into an outlet with a set of perspectives for a dozen hours or more a week. To which I preach once, maybe teach in Bible study, and any other material I can put forward (newsletters, posts on social media, even columns in newspapers!). 

Which means there's trust, and there's time. I still think most church folk would say they trust their pastor more than any one media source, but we're losing the battle of time which erodes the effective nature of trust.

Not always, though. I've noticed over the years that people I've had the chance, even in tragic situations, to sit with for stretches of time, are most likely to trust me in challenging situations. When you've spent a long morning in a surgery waiting room with someone, your relationship changes.

I'll close these reflections with an observation and a challenge. It has been a concern of mine that many online and televised ministries like to use the line "what your minister won't tell you" as a way to both flatter the listener or reader, and imply a connection… and drive contributions their way. I've been given materials to read which I've taken back to the member who shared them, and pointed out that line, usually with a reminder of when I actually had recently talked about it.

Which is to ask any of us: whom do you trust, and why?

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he knows that trust is earned over time. Tell him when you know you can trust someone at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads.