Notes from my Knapsack 7-3-2025

Getting a little ahead for the July holidays...

Notes from my Knapsack 7-3-2025
Jeff Gill

Democracy and other old habits
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249 years since the Second Continental Congress in a hot, stuffy room in Philadelphia put down on paper their reasons for declaring the colonies to be a group of states, united even, independent from Great Britain and her monarch.

It's reliably reported that George III's descendant, King Charles III (his great-grandmother's great-grandfather was George III), does not hold this against us. Much. Which is kind of him.

It was actually some years later, in 1787 as the Constitution was being finalized, that a lady not allowed inside the Pennsylvania State House (now Independence Hall for those 1776 events), named Elizabeth Willing Powel had a question for Benjamin Franklin: "Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" She wasn't being sarcastic, she just wasn't sure what the Constitutional Convention had decided upon.

Franklin's response has entered American legend: "A republic, if you can keep it."

That semi-sardonic closer, "if you can keep it," has echoed through a dozen generations or so. Can we keep it? Franklin was saying to Mrs. Powel that the Constitutional Convention had not chosen monarchy as our form of American continuity, but if we want our governance to be done as a democratic republic, we're going to have to keep working at it. Working, in order to keep it.

The historian and philosopher Hannah Arendt perhaps helps Franklin make his point with her aphorism: "In every generation, civilization is invaded by barbarians – we call them 'children.'"

Children come in a variety of sizes, and even ages in a way. Franklin and Arendt are just reminding us it takes an ongoing teaching effort to maintain an idea, let alone a complex interlocking set of ideas, in common currency.

The American experiment is based on democracy, but of a particular sort. We don't vote on everything, even if the vote of the people, or the "demos" is at the foundation of how we intend our government to operate. We don't have town meetings to decide on war powers or the amount of inside millage. We ask elected representatives to handle the "public things," the "res publica" if you'll forgive a little Latin, on our behalf. In a democratic republic, we vote in people to exercise wisdom and discernment, knowing if they govern too far off the popular will, we can vote again to remove them.

Polling isn't in the Constitution, or the Declaration of Independence. I think the Founders would have been baffled by how much time we spend politically thinking about poll results, but they would have understood the basic concept. They knew in their day that maybe 15-20% of the Thirteen Colonies were Loyalists, wanting to maintain historic and legal ties to the British Crown, and maybe 15-20% were avidly for independence.

That meant 60-70% of the new United States were "yeah, okay, whatever" about independence. If it worked out for them, they were for it; if things went pear-shaped, they might change their minds. To govern meant to find a path where a working consensus could hold.

"If you can keep it." The challenge continues in 2025. To teach what democracy is and isn't, why a republic operates the way it does, and to vote (and sometimes impeach, or otherwise let elected officials know where they need to be wary) for the elected officials who will govern wisely and well. I think we can keep it, but the question will remain.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's found democracy in a republic to be a neat trick. Tell him how you see it working at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Faith Works 6-20-2025

Faith Works 6-20-2025
Jeff Gill

Longest days, shortest nights, time in balance
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"To stand still" is the literal meaning of solstice, with "sol" added to the standing stillness, as the sun's apparent movement on the horizon stops.

Each morning for some time now, the sun has appeared from our perspective to rise further and further north. It arcs higher and higher in the sky, and the days are getting longer in ways you don't need to check your phone to verify.

Daylight is longer (and hotter) while nights are shorter (and often warmer themselves). This has been happening since March and the equinox, or equalness of night and day, the Sun rising due east. Now the light starts far to the northeast.

During the period around a solstice, the rise point is stable. Steady. But you know what that means. No one will thank me for pointing out that in a day or two further on, the Sun's appearances will start sliding south, to the east at the autumnal equinox in September, heading for the other solstice, winter's own, in late December.

Of course that's all far away. Half the year. For now, we have long days well into July and verging into August, but you will start to notice the change in the mornings. The angle of the sunlight on the bedroom floor, where your morning chair sits as dawn breaks . . . and daytime will slowly, steadily reduce.

For now we can hold onto what we have. The longest days of the year this weekend give us lengthy mornings, and evenings that go on as if we were in Alaska or something, the light only grudgingly retiring into night.

Our church calendars are focused on the darker half of the year, with Advent taking us into the darkest stretch of time, and Lent helping open up daylight from early spring towards Easter. Those seasons and celebrations from Christmas to Pentecost allow us to frame and manage the loss of light and warmth through our devotions and disciplines. The rest of the year is labeled "Common" or "Ordinary Time," but I'll dispute it enough to say there's nothing ordinary about the weeks we're privileged to be living through.

It is peculiar that we treat trees fully in leaf as normal, when they spend a majority of their time otherwise. My father taught me to know trees by their bark and shape, as well as leaves "because most of the time they don't have them!" An ordinary day might be spent running through sprinklers and sitting in lawn chairs listening to a concert on the green, but how ordinary is that sort of experience?

We all know that when things get stable and steady, like they are around a solstice, the next thing to come is change. And for most of us, we don't like it. This can deteriorate quickly into always mistrusting security or comfort or any simple pleasure, because the experience of it can become a signal to us it soon will end. That way lies discontent.

My mother, who just celebrated a major birthday, is content. She has lost most of her memory, and yes, that's a sorrow, one we children of hers feel often. What can't be denied, though, is that a woman who has spent many of her ninety years worried about what will happen next, not without reason given her memories of the past, is now happy. Sincerely, seriously happy. In ways we really didn't see coming.

Since she no longer remembers most of what has worried her in the past, she's delighted by almost any enjoyment that comes her way. The party, the cake, her kids and friends of theirs: she delighted in pretty much all of it. Not despite, but because she can't remember much. It's enough to make you think about forgetting some stuff.

We are in the time of solstice. If you recall, that means days will soon get shorter, and that can worry us. Or you could just forget it, and give thanks for the long warm sunny days we are getting right now.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he has a list of things he really should just forget about. Tell him how forgetting helps you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Notes from my Knapsack 6-19-2025

Notes from my Knapsack 6-19-2025
Jeff Gill

When a canal boat is a vehicle into the future


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Saturday morning in downtown Newark, 10:00 am June 28th under the broad canopy of the Canal Market District just south of Courthouse Square (which I promise I will get back to after the Fourth of July!), there's an occasion of some living history I'd love to invite you to.

We will be sitting "in" the Ohio and Erie Canal, so to speak. Newark's Canal Street marks where the canal itself, once filled with water and the passing canal boat, formerly rippled past the old County Jail and on towards an aqueduct over the North Fork of the Licking River, heading east towards Coshocton and ultimately Cleveland, or west if you prefer, back through Lockport's many canal locks, and then south down to Portsmouth.

Canal Street is a street today. It hasn't flowed since the Flood of 1913 gave it a final flush. But it all began 200 years ago, with the first spadefuls dug for this massive project for 1825 America, actually just south of the city, in today's Heath, Ohio.

Considered the "Licking Summit," a practical high point on the way from the Ohio River to Lake Erie, governors of Ohio and New York State came to the rural countryside of Licking County to formally get the Ohio and Erie Canal project started, a companion to New York's famous Erie Canal which was already changing the economic and social landscape of the Midwest. Begun in 1817, it was already in use but was a few weeks away from formal opening ceremonies when New York Governor DeWitt Clinton, a presidential hopeful, came to Licking County to help break ground for the state-spanning project.

July 4, 1825 was the groundbreaking, and after speeches by Thomas Ewing of Lancaster and Gov. Clinton, and a few remarks by Governor Jeremiah Morrow of Ohio, the two governors took turns with shovels before a large crowd of appreciative onlookers from not just Newark & Granville, but from all over the state. The Erie Canal connected the Hudson River, and in effect New York City, to Lake Erie at North Tonawanda, New York next door to Buffalo; the new means of transportation helped grow and develop both cities as hubs of commerce and industry, along with lowering food prices on the Atlantic Coast while helping enrich farmers and brokers in the Midwest.

The hope was that from Buffalo to Cleveland, lake passage would then connect to even deeper access to more of the Midwest, with financial benefits (it was said) to all involved.

The Ohio and Erie Canal was in use in parts by 1828, and from end to end by 1832. Granted, the rise of railroads in the 1850s began the obsolescence of the canal system, but canals played a key role in opening up the heart of the United States to commercial development. DeWitt Clinton unexpectedly died in 1828; Jeremiah Morrow ended his second two year term as governor in 1826, and would later serve in the U.S. House of Representative, but refused to run again in 1842 because he thought he was too old to serve. He was 70 years old at the time; he would live to age 80, and Morrow County to our north is named in his honor.

Fourth of July events take precedence, so our 200th anniversary for our pioneering infrastructure project will be on June 28th. It's a good time in any case for us to look back at canals and transportation, and look ahead to how business and industry are changing our landscape today. Come join us!


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's looking forward to speaking on behalf of the unsung Jeremiah Morrow at the program. Tell him what living history you've learned from at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Faith Works 6-13-2025

Faith Works 6-13-2025
Jeff Gill

Two giant shadows across this summer's landscape
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Walter Brueggemann said not long ago: "Churches should be the most honest place in town, not the happiest place in town."

Born in 1933, he died on June 5; it seems no coincidence to many ministers and teachers of religion in this area that David Woodyard, born less than a year earlier, died at the end of March, with a memorial service at Denison's Swasey Chapel last weekend, where he ministered as chaplain and taught as a professor for over 60 years. David and his wife Joanne were married in Swasey on her graduation in 1955, together 70 years as a couple.

There were echoes of Brueggemann's passing in the air as we talked about Dave Woodyard, Dr. Woodyard, Dean Woodyard, depending on who was speaking. Dignitaries from the stage, and friends of long-standing in the aisles before and after. David's father was an alumnus (Class of 1916), and later board member, so in sum there have been Woodyards shaping Denison University for over half its existence.

Both Woodyard and Brueggemann were known for their commitment to their students, sometimes to their discomfiture. I only knew Brueggemann by his writings, and one workshop almost thirty years ago where I heard him speak twice, preach once, and a couple of interactions afterwards in the hallways. Still I can say they shared a passionate intensity about the human ability to know something of God's intentions in this world, and a kind but relentless insistence that the text of the Bible shows us a divine purpose that is often at cross purposes to our own desires.

One thing said in a number of ways by multiple speakers at David Woodyard's memorial was "Dave showed up." He practiced a ministry of presence, on campus, in student spaces when invited, opening his home with Joanne to students and new faculty in many ways. He kept more than office hours, he came when called no matter the circumstances or tensions afoot, and in many ways we all called him fearless.

Which made him hard to argue with sometimes; I still did, and I enjoy some of the memories of our interactions even when they were disputes. Like Brueggemann, Dave Woodyard felt American Christians in general, and his own mainline Protestant fellows, were too comfortable. He argued from the sincerely held belief that church should not simply be a place you come to in order to find reassurance, especially to be reassured that you were right.

Walter Brueggemann said not long ago, according to Carey Newman in Baptist News, to a room full of pastors: "You are afraid of the text." 

Then, Newman says, he paused.

"You are afraid of what the Bible says."

Again, there was a pause.

"You are afraid of the what the Bible says because you are afraid of what the Bible will ask you to do."

That sounds very like something Dave Woodyard would say.

As someone who has spent the bulk of his professional life in congregational ministry, I pushed back occasionally on Dave's assertions that Christians are too comfortable, and needed to be challenged at every turn. I would offer from my own experience a counter-perspective about the very real pain and needs of even middle-class American Protestants, while admitting that there was a point to his concerns with how comfortable churchgoing people could insist on being.

Dave didn't blast me out of my seat, he listened, as I know he did with his students. Then he would, with respect but a sharp wit, push back. These were always useful discussions, I think for both of us.

Having taken that side so often in life, I will admit on his passing, and that of his fellow Christian and peer in both age and perspective, he and Brueggemann are right to worry. Now that they are gone from our midst, we need to pick up the theme. If faith is simply a source of comfort, it may not be the clarion call of God for justice and sacrificial love that scripture testifies so consistently.

Let us be uncomfortable at times in church, and thank Walter and Dave for the reminders of how this is part of God's love for us, as well.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he always knows it's a fine line between discomfort and justice in this life. Tell him how you need to be pushed at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Faith Works 6-6-2025

Faith Works 6-6-2025
Jeff Gill

Missing Bible verses found in Biblical footnotes


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We were talking last week about verses which some English translations of the New Testament have relegated to footnotes, changing the numbering system going back to the King James Version (KJV) of 1611.

The dozen and a half or so you'll see marked differently in modern versions are: Matthew 17:21, 18:11, 23:14; Mark 7:16, 9:44 & 9:46, 11:26, 15:28; Luke 17:36; John 5:3b-4; Acts 8:37, 15:34, 24:6-8, 28:29; Romans 16:24; and then the very controversial status of I John 5:7-8 which is a column itself, let alone the highly debated Mark 16:9-20 closing which often gets a "box" or typeface change, plus the well-known story at the end of John 7 and opening verses of chapter 8 (which many scholars think is misplaced, but original to the Greek text).

In the Twentieth Century U.S., there were attempts to take the Tyndale-KJV tradition and render it into modern English for American churches (dealing with stuff like "suffer the little children," as well as "thee" & "Thou"). This produced a U.S. translation into English known today as the Revised Standard Version, which is the one I grew up with. The RSV translators used the newest Greek text consensus, which was different at a number of points from the old 1500s "Textus Receptus."

The RSV became controversial for using the oldest texts as their benchmark, then using footnotes to indicate "other sources say," differing from KJV readings. Some churches said "KJV or nothing," others accepted the newer readings from older texts, but there were challenges to some of the translation choices made. This meant after 1952 when the entire RSV Bible was published, other groups pushed for their own translation into modern English, starting with the New International Version (NIV) which was worked on between 1955 and 1978. Some liked it, some did not.

The Living Bible was also an attempt (originally by one man) to take the KJV norm, but adapting it or paraphrasing into modern language. Ken Taylor's complete Living Bible paraphrase came out in 1971, beating the NIV team (you may know it as "The Way" which was its paperback cover produced in large numbers through the Seventies and Eighties). The New American Standard Bible and New King James Version each were their own responses by different publishers to tensions around the choices made by the RSV & NIV translators.

Today we have around a dozen solid English translations, some aimed at more conservative audiences, others more academic in aim, but all stuck with the same question: lots of the bedrock KJV Bible underneath English language understandings of scripture is based on a consensus from the late 1500s. We have a different consensus today in the textual studies world about what the earliest readings are in some places -- and it's not the KJV reading. Which means in traditional numbering, some verses get "relegated" to footnotes, because they're now seen as pretty clearly additions or changes made, well after the earliest manuscript basis can be established. If we get a reading from two good manuscripts clearly dated to 250 or 275 AD, but the KJV/Textus Receptus reading is based on manuscripts from 300 or 325 or even 410, the translators today will go with the earlier reading.

The numbering issue does surprise if you don't know this background. If one says (for instance) Matthew 17:21 is a later interpolation into the text, you can't renumber the whole remaining New Testament from there. So the translators skip from 17:20 to 17:22, but I guarantee you there's a footnote explaining it, and usually including the former reading but in smaller print at the bottom of the page.

Ironically, we saw debates over translations back to the release of the KJV itself, when "conservatives" in 1611 said "We will keep using the Geneva Bible!" because they disagreed with some of King James's readings about kings, purple cloth, monarchs, etc. The issue of seeking clarity about what God is saying to us in these texts is one still with us today.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; as his wife can tell you, he owns too many Bibles if that's possible. Tell him why you prefer a particular translation at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads of Bluesky.

Notes from my Knapsack 6-5-2025
Jeff Gill

A few words about Joseph Warren, 250 years later


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As I hope you're aware, there are many plans being made around Ohio and the nation at large for 2026's 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The America 250-Ohio organization has been active around Licking County already, and we'll hear more from their cooperating groups in coming months.

Back in 2023 I had the pleasure of noting an early 250th anniversary, of Rev. David Jones passing through Licking County on February 10-11 in 1773 and leaving the first detailed historical reference to our area. And 1776 brings us to 250 years next summer.

But we just marked 250 years since the Battles of Lexington and Concord, generally acknowledged as the formal beginning of the Revolutionary War (the Boston Massacre in 1770 & the Boston Tea Party in 1773 early eruptions of what was to come). April 19, 1775 was "the shot heard 'round the world" at Concord Bridge, an overt hostilities between the local militia, the Minutemen for how quickly they trained to be ready to meet British regulars, and the armed forces of the Crown.

I had started to tell you all about our West Courtroom's art, and will return to the subject; Todd Kleismit, the America 250-Ohio executive director came on May 1 to help us mark the restoration of that glorious space. But I wanted to pause that narrative to mark an event I've long found inspiring.

June 17, 1775 is having a 250th commemoration, and it's the date of the Battle of Bunker Hill, just across the Charles River from Boston. The British forces moved to push Colonial troops out of fortifications overlooking the harbor, thinking as one of their generals said that "this untrained rabble" would not take much pushing.

They pushed back. One general commanding the valiant defense, Israel Putnam, was cousin to Ohio's renowned Rufus Putnam; another who leapt to front line defense while holding a general's commission was Dr. Joseph Warren. Thanks to Esther Forbes's 1944 novel "Johnny Tremain," I've long had a soft spot for the humane doctor behind the patriotic legend, and history supports much of how Forbes portrayed him, and how Disney depicted him in 1957's movie version.

The actual Joseph Warren has Warren County in Ohio named for him, among fourteen states with one, along with a dozen cities and a few dozen townships across the United States. He took command of a redoubt, a strong point at the hinge of the thin American lines, where that "untrained rabble" held off three charges by well-trained British troops until their ammunition ran out, and faced with long rifles and fixed bayonets, their lines broke.

Not Warren, though. In 2011 his skull was exhumed and forensically examined. The shot that killed him left a clean circle on his left cheekbone, unmistakably indicating the calibre of round which was that of an officer's handgun, and the damage in the back of the skull marked the angle the shot was fired from. It was almost certainly an officer, on horseback, who recognized the Patriot leader, and in fury at the casualties his forces took in gaining the ground, shot a standing, unflinching Joseph Warren in cold blood.

He was brave, he was steadfast, he stood his ground, and his death inspired the Revolution that was to come, and outlived him. I honor his memory this June 17th, and you might want to, as well.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; this isn't the last America 250 piece you'll read by him! Tell him what inspires you in history at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Faith Works 5-30-2025

Faith Works 5-30-2025
Jeff Gill

Are there missing verses in my Bible?


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Apparently, there's a social media post going around on clips and reels and memes and such, talking excitedly about "missing verses" in someone's Bible, and that "they" (we all know about "Them!" of course) are making scriptural verses disappear.

After answering a couple of direct questions, this sounded like a definite item for this column, but I ask your forgiveness in advance: it will take two weeks. So this one won't resolve the whole issue!

On "missing" verses, it's true up to a point; many if not most modern translations have had to deal with new information about ancient texts in Greek and Hebrew. As for "missing," any translation I know has moved them into footnotes, so they're on the page, but not in the main body of the text.

To keep it as brief as I can, there is in the textual history of Scripture a number of verses which are "problematic." In the hundreds of Greek and Syriac and other early (pre-Latin) manuscripts (because the Bible is translated into Vulgate Latin by St. Jerome in about 400 AD, well after the first manuscripts in Greek script were written down), there are variations. Small variations, but unmistakable ones.

You can have ten versions of a New Testament book, like Matthew or John or Ephesians, all from before 300 AD, and within those ten texts three or four different phrases at the end of a line, or as a section transition into the next. Scholars for millennia have had to pick and choose WHICH reading of a verse or line to use in creating the new translation -- as Jerome did in Bethlehem making his Latin translation.

Luther is kind of his own thing (largely influenced by Erasmus, whom we'll come back to) in German, but when the English Reformation got rolling, influenced by Luther's translation and Calvin's work in Geneva, King James organized around 60 scholars to give English a good translation; before the Reformation, Wycliffe and Tyndale (and Coverdale) had already done versions in English, which the Roman Church condemned, as they used exclusively the Vulgate Latin. King James's translation team in 1604 used Wycliffe & Tyndale & Coverdale's work as a starting, but they wanted to go back to Hebrew & Greek originals themselves -- so they had to wrestle with which Greek text?

They chose the 1516 "Textus Receptus" which just means "Received Text," the brilliant Erasmus's best shot in the early 1500s to assemble a reliable consensus Greek text from the ancient manuscripts available -- at that time. The King James committee also chose the Masoretic text of the Hebrew scriptures (and used the Vulgate for the Apocrypa because they were running out of time by 1610, but that's not an issue for most American Protestants, so I'll skip that), which was a translation of a translation, but it would do until the Dead Sea Scrolls appeared in 1946.

The final "Authorized Version" of 1611 for the King, known today as the "King James Version" made a number of different choices than Erasmus in the New Testament reading of variant texts; some good choices, some because they suited the king's needs in the politics of the day. Puritans, who end up in large numbers coming to America in the next few decades, weren't thrilled with the AV, or KJV, because of those variations, but quickly it dominates in English over the "Geneva Bible" though many copies of it would make their way to the Colonies with the Puritan emigrants . . .

So there's already in 1611 a history of variant readings in different translations. This is all because Erasmus didn't have ALL the Greek manuscripts available to him when he assembled the "Textus Receptus," plus more very old manuscripts were yet to be found in the monastic libraries of the Far East.

That's part one on "missing verses" in today's Bibles; come back next week for part two!


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he wishes he read Syriac, but textual studies requires more patience than he possesses. Tell him what you've always wondered about at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Faith Works 5-23-2025

Faith Works 5-23-2025
Jeff Gill

As we vacation on Amity Island
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"Jaws" came out fifty years ago, and in the movie, Amity Island has a billboard celebrating "50th Annual Regatta — July 4th - 10th" which grounds the whole thing in history, kind of.

My high school basketball coach grew up on Martha's Vineyard, and he could not have loved "Jaws" more for the scenic tour of his old stomping grounds. I don't think he could have told you a thing about the plot of the thing, he just watched it multiple times to watch the scenery. Did he miss the point? He was entertained, and bought tickets, so everyone wins.

Monday is Memorial Day, and there will be celebrations and commemorations, and we will all miss the point in some ways. It is a day for remembrance — in Great Britain and Canada they have a Remembrance Day on Nov. 11, marking the end of World War I in 1918, which is also sometimes called Memorial Day (and we call Veterans Day here). Our day for memorials and remembrance of those who died in our nation's service goes back at least to 1868, and certainly in the fresh memory of the Civil War from 1861 to 1865, and the hundreds of thousands of deaths both North and South in that conflict.

So there is a solemnity to this weekend, and certainly to at least some part of Monday. Gen. Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic issued his General Order Number 11 asking that veterans mark May 30 as a date to tend graves and honor the dead of the late conflict (it can easily be found online, and I think still rewards re-reading even if the language is as flowery as you might imagine for 1868). May 30 was Memorial Day up into the 1970s when we nudged many national observances to Mondays, in the ongoing creation of "weekends" as a civic reality.

Memorial Day weekend is also the beginning of summer, with schools letting out and camps opening and family vacations setting out. It can also be, for many parish clergy, a time to say goodbye to substantial amounts of their congregations, with cherished hopes that they'll see them again come Labor Day or after.

Honoring sacrifice, giving thanks to God for life, taking a day of rest: these all have their place in most religious traditions. We stir them in with patriotism, commercialism, and a frantic pursuit of leisure, if not happiness, and get the modern American summer. Memorial Day is one of the first casualties of this potentially toxic mix.

Longtime readers know around this point of the year I like to encourage people to visit places of worship while on vacation. It's so nearly counter-intuitive for our culture of recreation I feel compelled to keep mentioning it, even as I don't want to make it one more obligation you should feel as if you have to fulfill.

Going to church somewhere you've never been can really teach you things about your own faith community you'll never learn at home. It will make you appreciate things you didn't know you valued, and might even cause you to see why a minister or some other church leader wants to make certain changes. Plus being a stranger in worship will help you see strangers in your church very differently, and I suspect much more clearly.

The mayor of Amity said insistently "we need summer dollars!" His pursuits in the office you might say blinded him to other realities swimming off-shore. We need much each summer, to refresh, renew, restore. Just make sure you don't pursue your version of Amity's summer dollars to where you miss what you need to see right in front of you.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's looking forward to Memorial Day observances for many reasons. Tell him how you revitalize in the summertime at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Notes from my Knapsack 5-22-2025

Notes from my Knapsack 5-22-2025
Jeff Gill

Licking County's most remarkable collection of art
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Earlier in May I was describing to you here the steps in the process which led to the West Courtroom of the Licking County Courthouse as we have it today, beautifully restored and re-dedicated on May 1, 2025, which is "Law Day" each year.

We had a justice of the Ohio Supreme Court on the bench, along with the Common Pleas Judges on either side, and another dozen judges filling the jury box. I was honored to get to speak as part of those proceedings, helping put some context on the amazing art and decoration you can see there, much of it dating to 1903 to 1905, with some blanks filled in over the past year of restoration work.

If you've been in the massive and ornate West Courtroom (I won't ask why!) you know the ceiling is dramatic, but throughout living memory has been shrouded in lamp-black and cigar smoke from earlier times. The amazing oculus in the center, evoking the Pantheon ceiling in Rome, has been dim and shadowy for generation.

As one of the final stages of restoration of our county's courthouse, which needed work from the cupola on top to the walls and windows of this 1876 structure, the West Courtroom was painstakingly restored, by skilled professionals in art restoration. We've all learned fascinating things about the work done and what it represents; my part has been to anchor the work to create the plaster architectural elements, and of the attached murals and paintings, to a precise point in time, and also to some specific artists.

The "maestros" of this complex display of art in a functional space were the Bryant Brothers of Columbus, Ohio. They had started some years earlier in Canton, and moved to the center of the state as their work expanded, but they were interior designers on a major scale. Their portfolio included churches and cathedrals all over the Midwest, a number of palatial residences, and just a few courthouse commissions.

The Bryants didn't do the art, they hired the artists for the client, and put the pieces together in a harmonious whole, as interior designers do. On June 26, 1905, the county commissioners in their official minutes contracted with Bryant Brothers to finish the interior of the West Courtroom, and with August Roeder of Toledo to finish the flooring upstairs, soon after with an additional amount to complete the general contracting of the electrical work and finished carpentry of the space. The lighting design of the room was on the cutting edge of technology for 1905, even if the art was classical.

And classical barely begins to describe what the Bryant Brothers pulled together, which you can now see in bright, vivid colors again today. They employed an artist from Toledo, Ludwig Bang, about whom I've already written, who was the only one of the three main artists for the West Courtroom to actually visit Newark. Two more artists play a significant role: Adèle Bassi, with her studio in Florence, Italy just up the block from the Uffizi, and John Franklin Douthitt of New York City, with his studios above Fifth Avenue.

All three would come together in one place, thanks to the Bryants; each has a unique story — for which you'll have to come back and hear more!


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's had a great time researching this little project, with more to share. Tell him about the art that inspires you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads of Bluesky.

Faith Works 5-16-2025

Faith Works 5-16-2025
Jeff Gill

Pope Bob from Dalton makes me smile
___



Habemus papam: we have a pope!

I'm from northwest Indiana and my father spent his last two decades working in Hegewisch, a Chicago neighborhood that's about as far south as you can get, with Dalton the next one over. So there's a whole bunch about Robert Prevost's upbringing which I can relate to, even if he's six years older than I am.

His mother was the Cubs fan; he's a White Sox fan, which is a comfort to many on the South Side, I'm sure.

A short point, and a longer observation: first, there are some complaints on social media about all the attention to a Catholic pope "because not everyone belongs to his church." True, but as a non-Catholic myself, what a pope says is worth hearing. I may not agree with all his doctrine, but the papacy is a leadership office in the world which in its own way is as consequential as, say, the president of Russia or the premier of China.

My longer comment has to do with choosing to be the fourteenth Leo of the 267 popes since St. Peter. The new pope has clearly said it's meant as a nod to Pope Leo XIII, who died in 1903, born in 1810.

Leo XIII wrote a papal encyclical titled: "Rerum novarum." In English, "Rights and duties" or "Rerum novarum" in Latin, short for "the rights and duties of capital and labor."

"Rerum novarum" is significant far beyond the Roman Catholic Church in that coming out in 1891 this was one of the earliest comprehensive social, theological, and political responses to Karl Marx's "Das Kapital."

Both works were meant as responses to what was known in the Nineteenth Century as "the Social question." In brief, this is the challenge presented to Western societies in the wake of the Industrial Revolution. Rural life could be poor, but endurable, in a medieval culture where the people of the land might have no money or wealth, but their garden plots and market exchange provided a relatively decent standard of living.

The late 1700s and early 1800s saw a shift to mechanization, a move to urbanization, and a working class developing living in cities on a wage-earning basis . . . and for many in this new industrial working class, poverty of a different sort than came from drought or pestilence and crop failure in the country.

The Social question asked what was to be done about industrial scale poverty; two hundred years after the development of nation-states, in 1848 there were popular revolutions all across Europe, centered in urban areas, forcing an accounting of how a government should respond to poverty. One was the Communist Manifesto of 1848, which was developed into a broader theory of capital and class consciousness and ultimately revolution by Marx in 1867.

Meanwhile, in places like Great Britain were debates between people like Gladstone and Disraeli who were united in saying "constitutional democracy will sort this out" with a social safety net of sorts; northern Europe tended towards more of what we call today a "welfare state." In the U.S. of this period, our response was to say "Go West, young man" and solve such socio-economic tensions with the frontier and homesteading.

Leo XIII said "there's another way." That's what "Rerum novarum" is, basically. An attempt with an eye towards eternity to talk about current tensions between labor and capital that is neither weighted towards revolution nor is it a faith in a welfare state to create a safety net. Without getting into further detail on Leo XIII's other way, what we've heard from Leo XIV is that in 2025, it's time for the Catholic Church and Christians in general to look at the lives of working class people in light of emerging technology once again, and look for "other ways."


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's got social questions aplenty. Tell him what yours are at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Faith Works 5-9-2025

Faith Works 5-9-2025
Jeff Gill

Selecting a leader in religious traditions
___


This week a conclave of cardinals begins the work of selecting a new Bishop of Rome, and leader of the Catholic Church.

It's a very public process, with the traditions and rituals of secluding the voting cardinals (not all cardinals vote, but most of them) to focus their prayers and reflections, and then the crowds thronging St. Peter's Square to watch for the legendary "white smoke" which means a new Pope has been chosen, as the ballots are burned.

It's a democratic process, of sorts. Not a popular democracy where Catholics line up in various parishes to vote for a candidate; not every priest or even each bishop, just cardinals, and those over 80 years of age are excluded, making it about 135 who will be crowded into the Sistine Chapel.

There's an old saying about campaigning for the office, I've been told by people with some experience in Rome: those who enter a conclave as pope, will leave a cardinal. Which is to say, don't put too much faith in a front-runner.

Our presidential campaigns used to run more that way, too. I've been spending a great deal of time lately in 1859 and 1860; Lincoln didn't even go to the Republican Convention in Chicago in the summer of 1860. Everyone knew he was "in the running," but the most likely candidates were Ohio's Salmon Chase, or William Seward of New York. Abraham Lincoln of Illinois was a "dark horse" candidate, but his allies campaigned on the floor, while Abe stayed downstate in Springfield.

It's quite possible by the time you read this the new pope will be selected, but given that so many of the current crop of under-80 cardinals don't know each other, and most have never even been to a conclave, it could take a while, just to allow them to size one another up. And the final selection could be someone we're all not talking about.

Various religious traditions have a variety of ways of selecting their pre-eminent leader. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints has a process which ends with their most senior leader as President of the church, and the current office holder is Russell M. Nelson, who is 100 years old. Contrariwise, there are Amish groups who come to a time of leadership transition, which tends to happen each year, and the adult men are called forward to select a Bible from a table covered with them: when everyone has chosen, an elder calls out a Bible verse, to which all turn. One man finds in his Bible a slip of colored paper in that page, and he is the leader for the coming term.

Age, providence, election: which is the best way? My own religious tradition has a "General Minister and President" who serves a six year term, which can be reaffirmed once, voted on at a General Assembly which we've held every other year but is about to move to every third year, but where each church has representatives who can vote, as can each minister with standing. In her second term currently is Rev. Teresa Hord Owens, and she's done a fine job in this parson's opinion.

My mentor in seminary, Dr. Michael Kinnamon, was a nominee for the office in 1991. He recently wrote a book titled "The Nominee: A Novel" which puts "a novel" in the title to make it clear this is fiction. However, if you were around our religious tradition in 1991, you'll quickly realize he's barely fictionalizing the process. I commend the book, and my quick take on it is he's wanting to communicate something about the complexity of how any religious group selects leaders.

What is the right way to do it? I really can't say. But I'll be "watching" for that white smoke.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's interested in how you think religious leaders should be selected. Tell him at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky. 

Licking County Courthouse - West Courtroom

Licking County Courthouse - West Courtroom

A Cleveland architect, H.E. Meyer, designed our fourth courthouse in 1876, after our 1832 Greek Revival structure burned down in 1875. He laid out a Second Empire style on the exterior, then popular, echoing the transformation of Paris between 1850 and 1870 into the city we know today of broad boulevards and striking public buildings like the Paris Opera. Inside, though, his touch was light.

Our west courtroom for some twenty-five years was similar to the courtrooms on the first floor, steel framing for flat ceilings with pressed tin panels. By 1903, there was growing interest in having a more finished main courtroom, but county finances were tight. Needed repairs on the ceilings of the second floor, however, opened up the possibility of some aesthetic refinement, and Nov. 9, 1903 the county commissioners's journal records "It was further decided by said committee to change 6 panels in ceiling of Court room from steel to plastering."

They also contracted with a local firm, "Pratt & Montgomery to furnish wood finishings in Court room as per specifications for $623.25." This was the beginning of what would become the West Courtroom as we know it. It becomes clear from later payments that the commissioners on or after Nov. 9 selected W.J. Harper & Son as lead contractor for the "Court room" project, but I did not find that stated directly in the journals.

By Mar. 14, 1904, though, "In the matter of remodeling the Court room /
In view of the fact that the Building fund is now overdrawn, be it therefore resolved that no new contract be entered into to complete Court Room repairs, and no outstanding contracts to commence, unless in the judgment of the Commissioners such work is necessary to protect work already done, until funds are available for such work." All three commissioners vote "Yea."

However, since October 1903, they had been purchasing piecemeal, on a square foot basis, round stained glass medallions from Kyle Art Glass of Springfield, Ohio. By July of 1904 they have installed four, and the plastered, coffered ceiling is done, but the vast expanses of walls and ceiling are largely empty.

In the Commissioners's journal for June 26, 1905 [pg. 82] "On motion a contract was awarded August Roeder [of Toledo] to construct Floor in Court Room as per specifications. Contract price — $472.00" [There are a number of other items of county business, then…]

"On motion a contract was awarded Bryant Brothers of Columbus Ohio to Decorate Court room as per plans and specifications attached to contract / work to be done in [all?/full?] contract price — $1910.00"

That amount would be about $68,000 in 2025 dollars.

The next line in the journal says: "On motion a contract was awarded August Roeder for items following work in Court room as per Plans and specifications… [then follows some detail under three headings as to wood work, marble, and something electrical] — total $765.00."

Calling Bryant Brothers of Columbus, Ohio was a significant step towards the West Courtroom we see today. A "History of Ohio" written some twenty years later reports on "the Bryant Brothers Company, decorators in fresco, an organization of the highest artistic merits and one whose clientele and patronage are by no means consigned to Columbus. The Bryants have done some of the finest mural and other interior decorative work in the Middle West."

This 1925 account continues: "After finishing his schooling W.C. Bryant took up the business of interior decorator and has devoted forty years of his life to that occupation. His partner is Charles L. Bryant, and they established a business at Canton, Ohio but for the past ten years their headquarters have been in Columbus. They have executed commissions for interior decoration in many of the states of the Union."

I found this section of great interest: "Few people know that the very popular indirect lighting system originated with the Bryant Brothers, letters patent having been issued to W.C. Bryant for important elements in the art of reflected lighting. This line has been so expanded and developed that the American Reflex Lighting Company with W.C. Bryant as president has recently been incorporated, and the business has become a distinctive one with many branches in other cities."

One point I had hoped to clear up in these researches was how the decision was made to place the oculus, echoing Rome's Pantheon, in the center of the West Courtroom ceiling. I am still puzzled how no specific reference to this made it into the commissioners's journals. But it seems likely that this was an option presented and put into place by the Bryant Brothers, for whom electrical work and indirect illumination was already a part of their business at a time when many contractors had barely begun to work with this then-new technology.

More crucially for our overall understanding of the room's art, the historical entry concludes: "The Bryants have had many years of expert experience in interior decoration work. Their artistic taste combined with their ability to direct and organize a corps of artists efficient have enabled them to broaden their business to one of national importance. Their most extensive work has been designers of interiors for many of the noted cathedrals and larger churches. They have been fortunate in combining artistic talent with financial resources to develop such an extensive business and to it they have given their best endeavors."

What the Bryant Brothers did was assemble the artisans, and supervise the final decoration of a space, whether a cathedral in Cleveland or a courtroom in Newark. They did not do the detail work: they had "a corps of artists" on which they could draw, which extended not just over Ohio, or even across the United States, but likely around the world.

There are at least three artisans whose work graces the West Courtroom, almost certainly four, beyond the Kyle Art Glass installed before Bryant Brothers were brought on board. First, for the murals on the ceiling: Adèle Bassi is a Swiss artist, buried with her parents Ansemle and Rosine Boni in a dramatically designed monument with her uncle, Rinaldo Rossi, who helped engineer the Simplon Tunnel, whose opening is recreated in massive scale as a frame for their shared resting place in Switzerland.

Records for her are few and unclear, but one account says she "studied and worked in Italy for most of her adult life, where she appears to have earned a livelihood selling to the tourist trade highly skilled copies of Old Master paintings then on view in the major Italian city galleries and museums. Recently, a signed work by Bassi bearing the inscription "Picture Gallery, Mme. Bassi, Peinture / Angiolo (Carlo) Dolci, Uffizi Gallery, Florence" was offered at auction, providing some indication of the nature of her artistic work when in Florence and Italy more generally." Also on another Bassi painting reverse is the inscription: "Picture Gallery, Mme. A. Bassi, Peinter, 15 Borgognissanti 15, Florence" and "Angiolo (Carlo Dolci), Uffizi Gallery, Florence." She may have had a studio in New York for a time, or possibly just an agent for her commissions there, while she lived a substantial portion of her life in Florence. Circumstances of the implied Mr. Bassi are unknown, as is the year of her death, which was at some point after 1910.

On the south wall, two panels also applied as murals painted elsewhere, are signed and clearly the work of John Franklin Douthitt, an artist born in Illinois but whose professional career is unambiguously based in New York City, on Fifth Avenue, for the years between 1880 and 1908. A painter and tapestry maker, he ran a school of art in Manhattan, and was much in demand as an interior decorator himself. Born in 1856, on his death in 1945 he is buried in the famous Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Westchester County up the Hudson River from New York.

Our third signed artist of this space is Ludwig Bang. Like Douthitt, Bang is a temptation to digression because we almost know too much about him: born in northeastern Germany on the Baltic coast in 1857, he came to America after studies in Munich and Paris to visit the World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago during 1893, and moved shortly afterwards to Toledo, where he developed a diverse clientele in a variety of painting circumstances, from theatre curtain scenes to murals in restaurants and book illustrations. With the growth of anti-German sentiment before World War I, he returned home in 1914 to become a noted muralist and history painter in his native land. He would die in 1944 as war raged around him, and is buried in a place of honor in Bad Doberan, his birthplace.

Unsigned, but clearly by his hand, are the portrait medallions painted directly onto the plaster walls of the West Courtroom; these start with the martyred presidents of that era, Lincoln to the left of the bench as the jury, trial participants, and audience would see it, and McKinley to the right. It was the placement of McKinley in parallel with Lincoln that began this project, looking in records after 1901, since before that date it would be highly unusual for anyone, even in Ohio, to put McKinley on a par with Lincoln. It is that theme of assassinated leaders that probably led to the misidentification of the president behind the jury, Grant, as Garfield, though both are deceased by the time Bang painted these three and the state seal onto the walls in 1905. On Nov. 7, 1905 the Newark American Tribune prints an article about the beauty of the West Courtroom as being comparable to a fine museum on the East Coast, or even in Europe, and states "the work should be completed within the next two weeks." The anonymous reporter describes the portraits of Lincoln & McKinley flanking the bench, and misidentifies Grant as Garfield on the north wall. So I take this contemporary account as being of interest, but with caution: they say the figures overhead in the Bassi ceiling murals are Music & Art in the northwest corner, Commerce in the northeast, Science in the southeast, and Industry in the southwest.

Nearing the end of the work, the Commissioners's journal of Jan. 2, 1906 [pg. 159] has a line "Bryant Bros. / 2 East wall panels — $200." These are clearly Ludwig Bang's two angel paintings. The procedural mind will recall that the commission to the Bryants was "to Decorate Court room as per plans and specifications attached to contract / work to be done in [all?/full?] contract price" but anyone who has worked with a project such as these know there's always a few late additions that go over the budget, and these are carefully negotiated.

What we don't know is how or if the Bryants made proposals for two more bas reliefs, or additional panels, and were told "don't even ask." The work has been clearly somewhat "unfinished" for 120 years; even aspects of the Bassi & Douthitt murals may be presented "as is" and not in an entirely completed form. We will likely never know if the two paintings signed by Bang behind the bench were specifically imagined for that location, or if they were what he had which would fit; I obviously like the idea of the former, and have written at length on the details within each painting telling something about both Bang's journey to that point, and where the country was at, with evocations of Winslow Homer and the Louvre's Winged Victory out of Greece creating layers of storytelling in a small space.

But it was time to conclude. The courtroom was being put into use with the new year, 1906, thirty years after the building itself had been built. One last time to the Commissioners's journal, for Feb. 5, 1906, and a mundane entry along with many to provide for work on roads, bridges, and culverts around Licking County. The county commissioners approve a cleaning contract for the "new part of Court House" which will include the Jury Room & entry area for janitorial services, with the following cautionary note: "I hereby certify that funds are now in process of collection or are already in County Treasury and cannot be appropriated for another purpose. J.N. Wright, Auditor." What funds there were left no room for additional finery, and it would have to be enough for about another 120 years.

I mentioned a fourth artisan in the West Courtroom, whose name I had hoped to confirm: the sculptor of the busts high above the room, somewhat alternating with the art glass roundels, Clay and Webster above the bench. We don't have a definitive answer to this question, but a possible one can be found if you go back down to the first floor, and turn aside a mat in front of the rotunda desk.

There, in the black and white tiles, speckled with ancient fossils if you look closely at them, is a central tile which has skillfully inset these words: "P.C. Reniers Pittsburg PA" — the craftsman who cut and laid this ornamental flooring. He arrived in Pittsburg (as it was spelled then) in 1851 and had an active business there until his death in 1894. In his obituary material, it is said quite emphatically that he was a skilled sculptor, particularly in demand for marble busts, which were in many homes and public places around the city, and that there were many left in his workshop on his passing.

Is it possible, even before the decorating project for the West Courtroom began in earnest ten years later, the busts we see today were by the hand of Peter Reiniers? He could have sold them as he did the first floor work years before, and they might have been on display around the courthouse in years between, or they could have been purchased from his estate. Lacking a carved signature, we will not know.

So many hands, brought together from around the county: Pratt & Montgomery, W.J. Harper and Son; other Ohioans like Kyle Art Glass in Springfield, August Roeder's workshop out of Toledo, the Bryant Brothers of Canton and Columbus . . . then the wider range of Ludwig Bang, John F. Douthitt, and Adèle Bassi, evoking Germany and Paris and Florence, plus P.C. Reniers of Pittsburg . . . all to bring us a room where justice can rule, surrounded not just by artistic beauty, but with object civic lessons, some of them obvious, and others which challenge us to ask more and deeper questions about how we got here, today.

West courtroom re-dedication May 1, 2025

West courtroom re-dedication May 1, 2025

William Stanbery, was born in Essex County, New Jersey, on August 10th in 1788; he died at 84 in Newark, on January 23rd, 1873. Having read for the law in New York City with Judge Nathaniel Pendleton, who was Alexander Hamilton's second in the famous duel with Aaron Burr in 1804, Stanbery came to Ohio in 1809. He served in the state senate in 1824 & 1825 then was elected, in 1827, to the US Congress as a Jacksonian House candidate. He later won reelection as an anti-Jacksonian candidate and served in Congress until 1833.

In 1832 he made accusatory remarks in the House chamber regarding Sam Houston and Jacksonian rations contracts for Native Americans. Houston, a big man himself, both of them something over six feet tall, later met Stanbery on a Washington DC street; shouting turned into a fight and Houston beat our man with his hickory cane. Congressman Stanbery allegedly attempted to shoot Houston but his pistol misfired. In a trial before Congress, Houston was found guilty but thanks to his lawyer, Francis Scott Key, the former Tennessee congressman was lightly reprimanded. For his part in the controversy, the Ohio Congressman was censured by the Speaker of the House for use of "unparliamentary language," effectively ending his electoral career. His half-brother Henry Stanbery was Ohio's first Attorney-General, and after the end of the Civil War became U.S. Attorney General, arguing in the Supreme Court case known today as "Ex parte Milligan" and successfully defending Andrew Johnson in the first presidential impeachment trial before the U.S. Senate.

But William Stanbery focused his skills closer to home. As described in the words of distinguished Licking County jurist & Civil War veteran Judge Charles Kibler, at a 1906 bar association meeting, looking back over half a century earlier:

"When I came here in 1851, the prominent lawyers were [and he lists] William Stanbery, [first, with four other notables of that era] Samuel D. King, George B. Smythe, Henry D. Sprague and Lucius Case.

Wm. Stanbery was a man of large body, large mind, great voice and a very sonorous laugh. He was not a polished man, like his half brother, Henry Stanbery. He was a great admirer of the common law, and particularly opposed to statutory law. He was the finest conversationalist I ever knew. He was argumentative and disputatious. He delighted upon public questions to take the other side. He came to town from Oakwood [his rustic but palatial home on the far east edge of Newark] about twice a week, stopping at the office of Stanbery and Kibler. I recall one morning when he came in, he saw a modest young man, a student in the office. Seeing him, he roared out to him, "Well, sir, what are you doing here?" The young man answered "I am beginning the study of law." The old man in his loudest voice said "Well, sir, why don't you pursue some honest business?" . . . and then came the loud laugh."

He was a lawyer in Newark for sixty-four years.

=+=+=+=

Samuel McFadden Hunter, born in 1838 in Cadiz, Harrison County, Ohio; died Feb. 20th, 1907 (aged 68–69)

Judge Samuel Hunter we know of in large part because of a book by his son & fellow jurist Robbins Hunter, father in turn of Robbins Hunter, Jr. whose museum graces Broadway in Granville. But the family roots are found in Newark, and they go deep into Courthouse Square, or "The Public Square" as it was often called in Newark's first century. Samuel Hunter's son says in "The Judge Rode a Sorrel Horse" many things about the extended Robbins & Hunter families in the east end of Newark, of his father's circuit riding efforts across this county & beyond to establish the rule of law in early Ohio, and about his ties to both this and the previous courthouse, the third located here before the fourth one in which we sit today:

"The old courthouse stood in the center of the public square. This building, erected in 1832, was of Greek Revival design. It was two stories high and had six stone columns at the east and west fronts, and was in much better taste than the present building, erected after the fire in 1875."

The first time I saw that line, I had to re-read it twice. Wait, is he saying . . . "In much better taste"? Well, hold on until page 62, when he starts describing Judge Samuel Hunter's stern but engaging demeanor, and his formal style of dress, beginning with his Prince Albert coat and silk top hat.

"He was extremely erect, and made a very outstanding appearance. He was prominent in the affairs of the town, and when the new courthouse was built in 1876 he made a speech at the laying of the cornerstone. This building is an outstanding example of the hideous architecture of the Seventies. At that time elevators were unheard of, but apparently would not have been desired anyway. The saving of steps was no part of the scheme of things. People were so fond of stairs in those days that they even went out of their way to work them in, and an elevator would have been considered a useless extravagance."

Given that Robbins Hunter, Sr. was born in 1880, I'm guessing his views here were inherited from his father, a strong aesthetic feeling about this now much beloved building in our county's center!

But for an adequate summary of Judge Samuel Hunter and his son, Judge Robbins Hunter, I look to their gravestones at Cedar Hill Cemetery, close together, and in between them and their spouses that of Robbins Hunter, Jr., our honoree's grandson. This third generation Hunter gave us the Robbins Hunter Museum in Granville, and other bequests to the Licking County Historical Society, not least of which is the row of historic houses we have today on Sixth Street. His marker is identical to his father & grandfather's in being simply a name & two dates, but subtly, on the vertical face of this headstone, close to the ground and easy to miss, are added four words: "I loved Licking County." In that inheritance, he speaks for his ancestors, for it is clear: Judge Samuel Hunter loved Licking County.

Faith Works 5-2-2025

Faith Works 5-2-2025
Jeff Gill

The imperatives of funeral customs, then & now
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Most of what happened around the death and subsequent funeral services for Pope Francis had a traditional ring to them.

Obviously, when the pope dies in Rome, tradition has much to say about how everything is handled (and yes, I've watched "Conclave"). But I'm thinking more of the whole sequence of how Francis died on Monday, had "calling hours" for three days, and a funeral followed by committal within the week.

Increasingly, this is not common anymore. As a parish minister, for many years, there was a sequence you kept in mind the moment you learned of a death, thinking through the days ahead, but the factors were a) where Sunday fell, because no one did funerals on Sundays, and b) plus or minus a couple of days at most. A death on Monday, especially if earlier in the day, could mean a meeting at the funeral home on Tuesday, then calling on Wednesday or Thursday or Friday, and the funeral and graveside on Thursday or Friday, with a Friday calling and Saturday funeral possible, but involving multiple complications (starting with extra charges for weekends, plus some cemeteries not open on Saturday at all).

Behind that decades long pattern was the urgency represented by the corpse. Even with embalming, there were and are practical limits to how long you could stretch out the process. And everyone, from employers to airlines, understood the pressure of time around those imperatives.

Those aren't gone, but they're much less often an issue because of the sea change in cultural acceptance of cremation. I hear different figures but in general what was under 5% of all deaths when I was a seminarian in the 1980s is up to 40% or even past 50% today. In some demographics, it's over 75%.

I've written before about this issue, the resulting increase in "homeless cremains." Urns and more often just the black boxes with heavy vinyl bags of ashes, left on shelves or in closets, and some family member ultimately left to ask "what should I do with these?" It's a topic I'm likely to come back to, as often as I get asked about it.

But more to the point here is the change in schedules, and logistics, and overall assumptions around memorial services when death is rapidly followed by cremation, no "viewing" (a subject on which there are many views, many opposed but some pastoral questions about how that obstructs the grieving process), and a celebration of life "event" at a point to be determined . . . later.

Clergy and morticians alike have noted the steady pressure towards Saturday services, and while a few religious traditions still maintain an absolute bar to Sunday funerals, the expectation that a Sunday afternoon funeral can be accommodated is high. I went thirty years never being asked; the first time it came up, the funeral home was already locked in, and family flight schedules were being made. So I did so, and found myself doing quite a few more in subsequent years.

To be blunt, funeral practices will not be rewinding back to "how we used to do it." The whole apparatus of caskets and vaults and plots and markers has moved into a price point where many families that might want to have a "regular funeral" can't afford to do one. Cremation will continue to be a new normal, and there's a case to be made for it on practical as well as financial grounds; some families hold out for a viewing, and cremation after using a "rental casket" for the calling.

What does concern me pastorally is how often deferred memorial services simply never happen. And the opportunity to come together as family, friends, and community is lost. We caught a hint of what that can mean at the funeral of Pope Francis.



Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's made his funeral plans and suggests you do the same. Tell him what you know you don't want at yours at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Notes from my Knapsack 5-1-2025

Notes from my Knapsack 5-1-2025
Jeff Gill

Why our courthouses are central, practically & symbolically
___




May 1 is the official dedication day for the restored West Courtroom in the Licking County Courthouse. That day has also been "Law Day" since the 1950s, so it makes sense as a time for judges, lawyers, elected officials, and perhaps a few historians to come together and celebrate this central space in our county's central structure.

In Europe, the central building of a city is usually a palace for nobility, or a chief civic officer's place of operations. They may be castles or towers, usually with a military history attached to them.

Our pattern from early on in the United States, and certainly in the Midwest, is to built our county seats around courthouses. That says something specific about how we saw our governmental organization, of laws and justice at the center, not of a central executive or even legislative location. We can take the commonality of Courthouse Squares as just how it's always been, but there's a particular message here. "Equal Justice Under Law" as the Supreme Court in Washington has carved over the main door; in Newark, we have Lady Justice, blindfolded, with sword in one hand and scales in the other, to say the same thing.

A Cleveland architect, H.E. Meyer, designed our fourth courthouse in 1876, after our 1832 Greek Revival structure burned down in 1875. He laid out a Second Empire style on the exterior, then popular, echoing the transformation of Paris between 1850 and 1870 into the city we know today of broad boulevards and striking public buildings like the Paris Opera. Inside, though, his touch was light.

Our west courtroom for some twenty-five years was similar to the courtrooms on the first floor, steel framing for flat ceilings with pressed tin panels. By 1903, there was growing interest in having a more finished main courtroom, but county finances were tight. Needed repairs on the ceilings on the second floor, however, opened up the possibility of refinement, and Nov. 9, 1903 the county commissioners's journal records "It was further decided by said committee to change 6 panels in ceiling of Court room from steel to plastering." They also contracted with a local firm, "Pratt & Montgomery to furnish wood finishings in Court room as per specifications for $623.25. This was the beginning of what would become the West Courtroom as we know it.

By Mar. 14, 1904, though, "In the matter of remodeling the Court room /
In view of the fact that the Building fund is now overdrawn, be it therefore resolved that no new contract be entered into to complete Court Room repairs, and no outstanding contracts to commence, unless in the judgment of the Commissioners such work is necessary to protect work already done, until funds are available for such work." All three commissioners vote "Yea."

However, since the previous October, they had been purchasing piecemeal, on a square foot basis, round stained glass medallions from Kyle Art Glass of Springfield, Ohio. By July of 1904 they have installed four, and the plastered, coffered ceiling is done, but the vast expanses of walls and ceiling are largely empty. Which is the point at which the Bryant Brothers of Columbus, Ohio are called.

[To be continued!]


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's had fun turning the huge pages of commissioners's journals to trace this story. Tell him what history you're curious about at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Faith Works 4-25-2025

Faith Works 4-25-2025
Jeff Gill

Farewells and continuity, with popes and otherwise
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My first papal funeral was black and white, grainy in a then-amazing overseas satellite hookup. Pope John XXIII died in the summer of 1963, and young as I was, it became blurred in memory with a very different yet quite similar series of honors in November, with the death of President Kennedy.

Still, I recall my mother explaining to me the significance of the ceremony (or ceremonies, as they do indeed blend together over sixty years later), the rituals and processions and the great sense of solemnity around it all.

Not being Catholic myself, I paid less attention to his successor, Pope Paul VI, but when he died in August of 1978, I happened to be in a radio station with an AP ticker, a black box around a teletype machine. It had a bell, which rang for a new story coming in, to tell someone it was time to tear it off. A big story and the bell rang twice, rarely three times, which meant you ran over to the machine immediately to see what was up. (Note to self: explain the world before the internet HERE.)

The bell rang, rang, then rang again, and I followed the news director over (John Bartholomew, WNWI, Wonderful North West Indiana), where he tore off the flimsy paper, and read "Pope dies." It was big news.

As it happens, less than two months later, at the end of September, I was in the newsroom of the student newspaper at Purdue. We were looking over a layout for the next day's paper, blue pencil marks and razor cut graphics pasted onto a mock-up. The AP ticker was across the newsroom, much larger than the radio studio I had been in last month.

It rang on September 28, 1978, and no one took much notice, because it rang all the time. Then quickly a second, then a third, and people all around looked up. And it rang a fourth time. The only time I ever heard that. A senior editor strode over to the device, ripped off the output, and gasped. He turned to the newsroom, and said "Pope John Paul just died." The layout editor next to me slid the mock-up of tomorrow's paper off the light table. It was now trash.

Pope John Paul II, "the Polish pope," would enter his pontificate the next month, and serve over a quarter-century. His passing, after a long struggle with age and debility at the end of his long life, was at age 84 in 2005. The papal funeral for him gathered together four kings, five queens, some 70 presidents and prime ministers, plus a dozen or more presiders over other faiths. Millions pressed into Rome and Vatican City, and at least a quarter million were crowded into St. Peter's Square and the basilica itself. Presiding over the ceremonies was the man who would succeed him, as Pope Benedict XVI.

Benedict would serve less than eight years, then took the relatively unprecedented step of retiring, a possibility that has haunted these last few years of Francis's pontificate. Benedict's funeral just over two years ago, on the last day of December 2022, was a more muted affair. He died at age 95, with the services presided over by Pope Francis, the first time this had happened in over two hundred years.

Now, with Francis's death at age 88, we are back in more familiar territory. He will lay in state at St. Peter's and Vatican officials will organize and preside over his funeral even as the cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church gather to hold a conclave, a special session to elect the new Bishop of Rome, and Pontiff or "Bridge Builder" of the church.

Many of us non-Catholics will be praying for wisdom and discernment in their gathering. The papacy is a symbolic figure who speaks to many, and popes have opportunities few humans have to address the times in which they live.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's moved by ritual even when it's not his own tradition. Tell him about memorial services which moved you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky. 

Notes from my Knapsack 4-17-2025

Notes from my Knapsack 4-17-2025

Jeff Gill

Children services serve us all
___


It is very hard to believe it has been ten years since Licking County had to approve our primary levy for Children Services, and it's up again for vote May 6th.

Ohio revised code calls on counties to put these sorts of limited levies before the voters on a recurrent basis; ten years is about the longest these go. School districts, boards of developmental disabilities, libraries are all the kinds of public entities which are subject to this kind of electoral review.

Yes, I was involved in this the last time, as campaign treasurer and working with the Citizens for Children Services, a kind of political action committee specifically for asking support of our levy.

Children Services is one part of the larger Licking County Job & Family Services office, which has a variety of funding streams, state and federal, for the work they do, but Children Services is largely funded directly by county property owners.

It's been long discussed in Ohio that when it comes to the amount of state support for local Children Services, on foster care and kinship care, adoption, and assisting with abused and neglected children, we are at or near the very bottom. By most nationwide measures, Ohio is 50th out of 50 states, and if the state were to double the amount they contribute to Children Services, we would . . . still be in 50th place.

It should really sting that in 49th place? Is Michigan. Yeah, they're at the bottom, too, but above us.

There's a long history as to why this is so. I can't fix long standing systemic problems (though I've tried to be engaged and proactive these last ten years since I first learned these data points), so the reality in Ohio is the state expects county property owners to cover what they won't. And we have to do it again, because the law says these levies are limited.

This time, we're asking for a replacement of the existing levy. The millage stays the same, but we get basically the smallest possible increase by way of allowing the value of the housing to be updated. It's not an increase in the millage, but because of the mysteries of rollback provisions in state law, as housing values are assessed, the levy recipients continue collecting on where we were.

We need a replacement levy passed simply because while we are successfully helping see to it fewer kids are entering the care of the county, the costs have increased beyond the reduction of total cases. Specialized foster care and residential care costs more, and the county staff has their hands full finding placement as it is. We decided well before the last renewal of this levy in 2015 that we were committed to keeping Ohio kids in Ohio, and not using out of state placements, even when those might have cost us less. That's still our program. To implement it, we need the dollars to cover in state placement.

So on May 6, or as you vote early, in Licking County we are asking you to vote "yes" to replace the Children Services levy. I am here to tell you the money is carefully managed, spent wisely, and with an eye to reducing the need to have state care intervene in a child's life in the first place. But when it has to happen, we want to keep kids safe, close to home, and where they can thrive.

I hope you will join me in voting "yes" for Children Services this May 6.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's worked on a few Children Services levies and programs before. Tell him how you want to see children grow and thrive at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Faith Works 4-11-2025 & 4-18-2025

Editors: it seemed prudent to get you the next two columns at once here, in advance of Easter week...

Faith Works 4-11-2025
Jeff Gill

Reading the Gospels for Holy Week
___


We are in the home stretch of Lent, going into the final week, also called Holy Week by many Christians.

April 13 this year is Palm Sunday, and April 20 Easter; the historic method of setting Easter for Western Christendom is to put it on the first Sunday following the first full moon following the vernal equinox. This is meant to echo the lunar Hebrew calendar, and the date of Passover which comes up in the Holy Week narrative in many ways, and Passover begins for our Jewish friends tomorrow night, the evening of April 12.

I've been encouraging people to look into the Bible this spring, first outlining the general structure of the 39 books of the Old Testament (as most Protestants count them). That set of categories for the library of texts which make up the Bible as a whole is echoed in the organization of the 27 books of the New Testament.

We saw the Torah, the opening books of the law, in the Hebrew scriptures; in the Christian testament we open with the Gospels: Matthew, Mark, Luke, John. Four accounts, with varying degrees of overlap and complementarity, of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

And these accounts focus on the last week of Jesus's earthly ministry, what's sometimes called "Passion Week," from the triumphal entry into Jerusalem we mark with Palm Sunday, through the Last Supper, the arrest and trial of Jesus before Pilate, and his crucifixion on what Christians call Good Friday.

In terms of total content, the Gospels focus a third of their attention on this one week. Mark's account is 25% about Passion Week; John's is over 40% just about those fateful days. These events are clearly the primary reason for recounting this sacred history by those witnesses and later evangelists. Why did Jesus die, how did this happen, and what does it mean?

Just as the Torah is reflected in the Gospels, in terms of placement and significance, the history books of the Old Testament are summarized in New Testament terms in the book of Acts. A narrative, with an interpretive role for the lives both of the early apostles out into the world, and how their story empowered by the Holy Spirit is a model for our lives in faith, wherever we are.

Following the Hebrew history books, we find what's called wisdom literature, from Job and Psalms and Proverbs through Ecclesiastes and the Song of Songs. The Greek New Testament matches that section with the Epistles, or sometimes called the apostolic writings: Romans, two letters to the Corinthians, Galatians, and so on.

In this collection of letters (which is what an epistle is, a fancy term for a letter), we hear from Paul, James, Peter, John, Jude, and perhaps others, as they share wisdom about the life of faith, for individuals, and for the newly established and often struggling assemblies of believers in Jesus as the Christ.

An amazing 13 of the 27 New Testament books are attributed to Paul, though scholars have their interpretations about just how many of those are directly from him, and what letters are compilations from his students and successors. Paul's books are in general shorter, as befits letters, which in almost every case appear to be actual missives sent to specific recipients, but often with the awareness that many more would ultimately read or more likely hear read the contents.

Given that difference in length, in fact Paul even at maximum attribution writes about 25% of the New Testament, with Luke's gospel and also his book of Acts giving him another 25%. Their contributions are about equal in quantity.

Next week, appropriately, we will end with: the Book of Revelation!


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he reads the Bible often, but most often at this time of year. Tell him your reading habits at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

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Faith Works 4-18-2025
Jeff Gill

The end of the Bible, and of all things
___


Section by section, we've moved this Lent and into Easter week through the Bible.

I've pointed out the parallels, the echoes between the Hebrew scriptures and the Greek testament, often called the Old & New Testaments.

What I'd left unreferenced last week from the Hebrew language collections is the last seventeen books of the Old Testament's 39, the prophets.

Traditionally there are five major prophets: Isaiah, Jeremiah, Lamentations (attributed to Jeremiah), Ezekiel, and Daniel. They are major not because they're more important, exactly, but because they're longer. Jeremiah is the longest book in the entire Bible however you organize it, if you simply count words (Genesis, Psalms, Ezekiel, and Exodus are the next four, with Isaiah at sixth longest).

The twelve minor prophets are simply shorter, from Hosea through Malachi, some so short you have to check closely as you turn pages lest you miss the delights of books like Obadiah, Jonah, or Micah.

In fact, the original synagogue reading of these would have been from a scroll; each major prophet would have had their own or possibly two scrolls, while the minor prophets all would have fit on one together.

Isaiah and Jeremiah are pre-exilic for the most part, set in Jerusalem, and warning the nation of judgment to come. As they end, death and destruction and defeat do arrive — hence the Lamentations — and the population is taken off into the Babylonian Exile of some 70 years. It's during this period of disruption and renewal we get Ezekiel and Daniel which take place mostly in Babylon, even if with much memory of Jerusalem (to which we get an account of the return in Ezra and Nehemiah at the end of the history books).

The minor prophets Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi are post-exilic, roughly contemporary with Ezra and Nehemiah, in the return and rebuilding of Jerusalem around 450 years before the birth of Jesus. This brings us to the end of the Old Testament.

At the end of the New Testament, both in placement, and also in most scholarship in terms of the last written, is the Book of Revelation.

Let me note, on behalf of Bible teachers everywhere, it's Revelation. There's a natural tendency to slide it into "Revelations" but the book is an apocalypse, an "unveiling" (which is what the word apocalypse means) or in more common, say King James's English, a revelation.

What is revealed to us in Revelation? There have been perhaps as many books written on that question as on anything this side of the Gospels. I don't have a great deal to add, certainly not in this limited space, except to sum up as well as I can: the book of Revelation is there to tell us that God is in control. Period.

I know, I know, lots of people want to find in Revelation details about how God's providential care for us all will work out, year by year or at least dispensation by dispensation, on the way to the last trumpet call of the End of Days, et cetera et cetera. I don't know about that.

What I do know is that Revelation, like the prophets, aren't there so much to predict the future — the meaning we tend to associate with the words prophet and prophecy — but to assure us of the nature of reality, and God's intention for us all. Are you a prophet if you say letting go of a wrench at waist height will result in it hitting the garage floor with a clang? In a sense, yes.

The prophets, major and minor, and the John who speaks for God in the book of Revelation, are telling us about a variety of tools hitting the ground when poorly handled, and how God will give us time to work, but in the end, the project will be completed, and it will be glorious. Accept that promise, or doubt it, but God's purposes will be fulfilled. That's the prophecy in both Old Testament and New. God is in control; rest in that knowledge as the world turns and churns.

A good prophetic word to keep in mind this Easter.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he knows God is in control, but can get impatient. Tell him to calm down & be patient at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Faith Works 4-4-2025

Faith Works 4-4-2025 

Jeff Gill

Scripture and the challenges of contact with the divine

___

Previously we had been talking about the order and organization of the Bible, starting with the sections in Hebrew tradition of the 39 books most Christians call the Old Testament.

This general organization of the library of texts which make up "The Holy Bible" is echoed in the Greek texts of our New Testament, some 27 of them in varying lengths. We'll get to those in the next two weeks before Easter, which is April 20 this year.

I'm not attempting a book by book analysis here, even across multiple weeks. There's too much going on in the Bible for that. However, I am hoping to provoke some interest in actually reading the blessed thing, as opposed to setting it on the coffee table or mantlepiece as sacred decor.

There was some interesting feedback the last two weeks about whether or not reading the Bible is useful, or in the technical term, "edifying" for someone who has not yet made a confession of faith. Some argue the Bible can't do you any good UNTIL you've been sanctified; that only after the Holy Spirit has entered your life can scripture study take you where God wants you to go.

While I generally avoid doctrinal debates here, I would just be honest about my own biases. I believe about the Bible very similarly what I teach and preach about communion: that it is, to borrow John Wesley's phrase (and me not even a Methodist!) about communion being a "sanctifying ordinance." You don't have to be saved to take communion; you take communion as a means to moving ever closer to salvation and redemption.

Likewise, my own Restoration Movement tradition believes the Bible is generally able to speak "for itself" to the willing heart. A reasonably good translation and an openness to God can allow any soul to gain benefit from reading what we call, after all, God's word. Preachers and sermons and study groups and curriculum are all well and good, but let the Bible speak, and you will hear.

If someone is walking in faith, fully accountable to a worshiping community, are they likely to get more out of the Bible than someone just reading for themselves? Certainly, and there's texts to support that (II Timothy 3:14-17 for starters, plus I Peter 3:15 and Acts 17:11).

But if you haven't tried reading the Bible for a while, I think Lent, the season leading into Easter, is a good time to take and read (as St. Augustine memorably heard). One place in the Old Testament I think is worth your time: the Book of Job.

Job is a place where the scholarship is revelatory; it's written in a very old Hebrew, just as you could tell if I put a document from the era of the Declaration of Independence and a similarly themed document from 1976 in front of you, which was older. There are quirks of language and typography which give it away. So too with Job: it's OLD.

And in this ancient witness to how God is at work around us, there is a drama outlined in chapters 1 through 5, and then concluded in chapters 37 through 42. If you're getting started, try those eleven chapters alone. You'll find more of it familiar than you might think.

You may then think about making the longer journey through the whole book. But if that seems like too much, let me at least point you to the pivot point of Job: chapter 19, and verse 25. 

Which is a good place for us to pivot next week, to the New Testament.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's a big fan of Job and hopes you read the whole thing. Tell him your favorite neglected book of the Bible at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.