Notes from my Knapsack 6-6-24

Notes from my Knapsack 6-6-24
Jeff Gill

Narratives in nature unfolding around us
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Selborne is a village in southern England, in Hampshire (old, not new), and I've never been there.

However, I feel like I know it well, thanks to Gilbert White.

White was a clergyman in the Anglican Church, a graduate of Oxford, and both grew up in and returned to Selborne for most of his adult life. His fascination with birds makes White perhaps the "original" birdwatcher; while not a professional scientist, there were very few in the late 1700s, so he is by default a naturalist and ornithologist of his time, and in many ways a pioneering environmentalist.

But all of this is due to his writing, more than his scientific work, such as it was. He wrote "The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne," which to my chagrin is better known today simply as "The Natural History of Selborne" with the antiquities, the history and archaeology, clipped off to make a shorter and more straightforward volume which has never been out of print since 1789.

I've mentioned Rev. White here before; he shames me a bit because his record keeping supports his lyrical writing about nature and creatures around him in rustic Selborne. He practiced what's called today "phenology," or the study of cycles and starting points: when trees leaf out, when certain blossoms bloom, and of course the arrival of migrating birds.

White in a comic mode is almost certainly the reason British birdwatching helped create the running joke in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" which I can't pause to explain here, but many of you will know exactly what I'm talking about. If you know the bit, it will echo in your head at many points in "The Natural History of Selborne."

As I've also noted before, there is an Ohio State "Phenology Calendar" which you can consult online at "weather.cfaes.osu.edu/gdd/" for your zip code. To track recurring biological events makes you more aware of weather and the climate more generally, starting with something as simple as the frost free date. If you are planting tomatoes, "Mothers Day" is a standard metric around here, but if you lived further north you'd have grown up with a different bit of folk phenology. We all can watch bird migration and think about when those new arrivals relate to calendar events in our own lives; I think about the seasonal appearance of insects across the summer season from my many years of Scout camp staffing.

This column has often been directly as well as indirectly inspired by Gilbert White; it has never quite been "The Natural History of Granville" but writing something similar certainly has crossed my mind (but inevitably with "and Antiquities" added, even if a later generation would take it back out). Tony Stoneburner has written me on occasion to encourage my keeping up with such observations, and I wish I'd done more along those lines.

It fascinates me that we tend to think of summer, and high summer at that, as "normal," with leaves covering the trees and hillsides obscured by foliage, birds overhead. In fact, that's less than half the year. My dad always pushed me to learn trees by bark and by shape "because they don't have leaves all the time, do they?"

But nature is all around us all the time, ever changing.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he hopes to walk as much as he writes this summer. Tell him what's normal in your environment at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads.

Faith Works 5-31-24

Faith Works 5-31-24
Jeff Gill

A story with a modest moral for preachers
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This Sunday I'm looking forward to attending worship in the Wyandot Mission Church in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, and hearing Chief Billy Friend of today's Wyandotte Nation preach there. He's a preacher and a leader for his people, in Oklahoma but with deep roots still in Ohio.

In advance of Chief Friend coming to preach, I was doing some looking around online about the establishment of that Methodist mission station, the first in this county for them, the church building constructed in 1824.

I found an 1884 volume, talking about the early 1830s for a Methodist circuit rider in Ohio, Elnathan Gavitt, who was born in Granville in 1809. Elnathan as a young preacher had an older and perhaps more loquacious partner who at this time helped cover a large preaching circuit in northern Ohio, which centered on the Wyandot mission at Upper Sandusky. He tells this story from 1831 or 1832:

"On the Scioto river, near where the Pisgah Church now stands, was a log tavern kept by a friend, not a member of the Church. This was one of our preaching places where we remained over night with the landlord; and in the morning when we called for our bill he said he would prefer settling with us at the close of the year. This being the best we could do, we had to trust to his liberality in the final settlement, though with our limited means we could have wished it otherwise. However, as he was a friend to the cause of Christianity, we hoped for the best. At the close of the year we called for a final settlement. He said, as there was some credits in our favor, he would have to look over our account.

"This was a mistake, as we had not paid him anything during the year, but he insisted that he had kept a correct account, and knew more about it than we did. His account against us was quite reasonable, and somewhat better than we had expected; and now the next thing was to see for what we could have credit. Turning over the next page, he showed that he had credited us with every sermon preached, with every instance of worship, and with every blessing asked at the table. For a long sermon the credit was twenty-five cents; for a short sermon, fifty cents; long family service, twelve and one-half cents; short prayer and chapter, twenty-five cents, and the same in proportion for grace at the table. Being young and often embarrassed, all my services had received his approbation, and he now fell in my debt. My colleague being older and more prolific, fell in his debt.

"However, considering the benefit the community had received, as well as his family, and allowing something for good company, he would balance the account and call it all settled, provided we would call on him another year, if we were returned to the same charge; he then presented each of us with five dollars."

As a preacher myself, I'm going to keep that fee scale in mind! The Pisgah church is no more; it was near the Shawnee Ford on the Scioto River in Hardin County, Dudley Township, at Pfeiffer Station (unincorporated). On my way home I may stop by there and offer a prayer of thanksgiving for the generosity of Mr. Wheeler (as he was later named in Gavitt's account), in advancing the Gospel on the Ohio frontier.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been known to go on sometimes. Tell him what you thought about this story at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads.