Faith Works 8-27-05
Jeff Gill

A Short Walk To a Better Place

If you were walking to get a drink of fresh, clean water, something would be wrong.
Even in the heart of the ice storm around year’s turn eight months back, we never quite lost our water supply. But the warnings began towards the end of the emergency: can we keep the tanks filled? How fast are they draining? Could we run out of water?
And in fact there were some in outlying areas who rely on electricity to pump their own water from the earth, who were forced to melting snow on fires for basic needs.
In much of the developing world, getting a drink of clean, pure water means a walk. Not infrequently, it means what we would call a lengthy walk. Maybe two or three kilometers to the wellhead, even ten kilometers at least to get new water jugs to carry supplies back to your home and family.
Church World Service (CWS), a joint effort of Christian relief agencies in the United States, works to provide development assistance and increase awareness of need in what used to be called "the Third World," and before that the "rural overseas" where wells and markets and basic infrastructure was lacking or absent. They started a program after the Marshall Plan got started for "the Second World," or Europe, mainly, called the "Christian Rural Overseas Project," or CROP.
The tie between fundraising and education is summed up by their motto, "We walk because they walk," and a ten kilometer fundraising walk draws visibility in the community and awareness among the participants, along with giving church groups a chance to work together for a good cause.
Local servant leaders like Dick Burgie and Tom Mackey have been with this program in Licking County for many years, and a diverse committee puts each new CROP Walk together. Each church that wishes to participate is encouraged to send a "recruiter" to a training event at St. Paul’s Lutheran on N. Fifth St. in Newark, starting at 9 am on Saturday, Sept. 10.
The Licking County CROP Walk is on Sunday, October 16, beginning at the parking lots of OSU-N and following the bike path to the YMCA and back. They will have a registration celebration at 1 pm and the "celebrity walker," principal Jessie Truit of Newark High School, will lead the start at 1:30 pm.
If you have more questions, you can call Dick Burgie at 344-1620 or call St. Paul’s at 345-6115. The recruiter training is a very helpful first step where the pledge forms are explained and the best ways to recruit walkers young and old are shared. As the first organization to hold "pledge walks" nationwide, the CROP Walk of CWS has seen many imitators, but the point of why we walk to fight world hunger and disease can’t be copied.
This year is also a special anniversary for those interested in global relief efforts. Ten years ago this week, CWS was one of what is now 126 national ecumenical religious relief agencies to form ACT, or Action by Churches Together. They began in response to the horrible crisis in Rwanda of that year, which we were reminded of by the recent movie "Hotel Rwanda." This joint effort was so successful that the coalition built simply grew and gathered steam, and was a key element in the swift and efficient response to the Tsunami disaster last year in southeast Asia.
Global co-operation through ACT, national co-ordination through CWS (which works with global Catholic Relief Services in ACT), and our own proud tradition of ecumencial service in Licking County. There’s a message in all of this about how people of faith are called to embody the unity they profess.
And I’ll just let you reflect on that message while we all mark our calendars for Oct. 16, and another great CROP Walk!

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio who has been on CROP Walk committees in three states; if you have a walking story from years past or your church’s effort this fall, send it to disciple@voyager.net.

Notes From My Knapsack 8-28-05

Criminal Stupidity?

Summer’s end is a good time for one last foolish, reckless fling at good sense. Haven’t eaten two elephant ears in a row? Now or never…Ride the spinning deathtrap that always makes you nauseous, but might not this time…why not?
And those two words fraught with potential and peril: road trip.
Even if you don’t have kids in school, Labor Day weekend marks a watershed and closes a chapter, which makes some of us scribble hurriedly to enter a few more episodes in the Book o’ Life before the Great Pageturner moves on to a slower paced period.
All Nature shows the signs of weariness, though, with all this growth and life and energy. Leaves begin to crinkle around the edges, yellow starts to tint the greens from skyline to lawn’s edge, and the grass itself is browning and going dormant. Plants and tree limbs sag with the damp weight of overgrowth, and the tomato vine, neatly plucked of fruit by the ever-helpful deer (who actually ate pieces out of the Irish Spring bars of soap around the edge), are twining into incomprehensible snarls of foliage.
Flashlight beams are looking tan and amber (replace ‘em soon, before winter!), toys with batteries are winding down into slo-mo, and even the Little Guy’s flashing red light sandals only flicker on one foot, the other having frozen on and then faded to black after three days of steady shining. Broken handled toy shovels and cracked pails and jagged-edged pieces of once beloved plastic have quietly slid into the trashcan the night before pickup.
For media and politics, where fun in the water and play on the sidewalks rarely enters the equation – which may be what ails them, come to think on it – the month of August is famously or infamously a prime "silly season." Filling the front page, writing a compelling editorial, or getting voters to listen without handing out free fans are all big challenges, which can be met in a variety of goofy ways.
Regular readers of this column know that your scrivener is no fan of Bob Taft. I’ve been long underwhelmed, and since his turn of phrase "Medicaid monster" in a State of the State address, I’ve been actively disgusted by him. Medicaid as a budget item is certainly a problem, and a public servant needs to help us understand who these fellow citizens are, that we care for and heal at an ever growing percentage of the state budget. Literally demonizing them and the situation is demagoguery of the worst sort. ‘Nuff said on that.
So having established that I think our governor is deeply and sadly unfit for office, may I ask, in the spirit of summer hyperbole, what was he doing in court?
This may just further point out my own unfitness for public office, but why is an ethics violation a criminal matter? Really, is that what we want judges and the court system tied up with?
Again, I heartily agree with Sen. Jay Hottinger and his call for Taft’s resignation; but criminal charges? Who wrote that as a law, a legal matter, anyhow?
Ethics guidelines, reporting, and broad disclosure of the sort that was a gift from the heavens for news starved metro editors: Taft playing golf frequently in the toniest surroundings with developers and, um, coin dealers etc. Embarrass the man no end, make it easy for you and me to see the details, and let the political process work. In other words, vote da bums out.
But I didn’t see why Martha Stewart went to lockup and is still wearing an ankle bracelet, or why the Watergate clowns went to prison either (it just made martyrs out of some of them, which a few are still riding to this day), and I can’t understand why a judge had to spend time on this. Serious it was, as Yoda would say, but criminal it is not.
If we’re gonna make stupidity criminal, the jails will be a’buildin’ right through the next millenium, and they still won’t be big enough to hold all the convicts.
I want judges and the court system prosecuting crime and fraud and corruption (stay tuned, Taft may yet make it into court for perfectly sound reasons at the rate he’s going), and I want us to vote goofs out of office or party leaders to show some leadership when a good looking candidate turns out to be a crummy officeholder.
And that’s my overheated summertime rant for the day! Next, back to school follies and everyday foibles. See you in a week…

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; get your last overheated rant in to disciple@voyager.net.

Faith Works 8-20-05
Jeff Gill

If This Is August, It Must Be Time To…

Would you believe that your pastor is working on planning Advent and Christmas services right now? Have you noticed that the children’s musical folks are already collecting costume materials for the shepherds?

September is almost too late to get started for all of the Christian liturgical and traditional folderol that packs December tighter than a seven year old’s stocking on the chimney. If your church or faith community is going to do all of the things they intend between Thanksgiving and New Year’s, they are already hard at work.

Actually, this phenomena is widely noted and well understood. Less well known is work that probably began months ago for the annual fall stewardship campaign. Church treasurers, financial secretaries, board chairs, and clergy have been reviewing the first six months giving from ’05, matching trends over the last few years, projecting fixed expenses for church life into ’06, and thinking about how to communicate these prosaic points in a useful and encouraging manner to the congregation.

Christians tend to call this aspect of church life "stewardship," the process of looking at what God has given to us as individuals and as a faith community, and discerning how to faithfully use those talents, those gifts and graces, to do the work that church is called to do.
Some places use pledge cards and the newsletter to communicate, others have been accustomed to informational mailings separate from the usual print material to highlight specific needs, but use no "commitment card" or other written follow-up.

A few church bodies have very high expectations as to percentage giving for people in leadership, or for the entire membership. Many simply want to encourage members to "up" or increase their giving, an inelegant point which created a legendary bulletin blooper from a stewardship chairman. "I increased my pledge last year, so up yours!"

No, this is not a process which encourages humor or irony, and may even stifle the awareness of how ludicrous it must appear to God that we see ourselves in a struggle when we are surrounded by so much abundance.

This is where an awareness of global and local missions, if not a sense of humor, is so helpful to an effective stewardship education and communication plan. When a congregation is used to hearing about how shockingly poor church groups in the developing world not only support their immediate needs more readily than Americans do, but then offer to send "50 goats for the orphans from the World Trade Center disaster," the outreach budget looks different.

When all the membership is aware of individual missionaries and the challenges they face in ministering to global south communities where AIDS is running at 40% of the population, our own giving gets real real fast.

If the average pew sitter has heard, or better yet heard directly from, a life transformed right here in Licking County because of the
activities that church supports or is involved in, they are more ready to respond. They want to hear more about that, and they want to be part of it in any way they can.

Oh, and the best mission speakers I’ve heard always know how to see the humor in even the most challenging situation, which is a message about the stewardship of our attitudes as well as an encouragement for giving cheerfully.

How does your faith community do stewardship education?

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply pastor around central
Ohio; send your tales to disciple@voyager.net while you take a break
from making this year’s shepherd costumes!

Notes from My Knapsack 8-21-05
Jeff Gill

School Isn’t All That’s Started Already

Lakewood School District and many county systems start this week. The back-to-school supply shelves are already scraped down to metal, and the last trips to fill the unmet expectations of summer fun are planned as teachers and staff are already sweltering in the classrooms, stapling bulletin boards together and mustering lesson plans for ‘05-’06.
For everyone, the annual "watch out for buses and pedestrians" alert goes out. Corn, even with the withering drought the farmers are battling, is redefining the view at corners and along curves along roads. Stay alert: a clear view just a week or so ago may be a wall of green (well, yellow-green) shocks topped with growing tassels.
Kids are also learning or re-learning bus stop etiquette and expectations, so we pilots of metal behemoths have to be extra cautious.
Bands and teams are well into their preparations, with training camps and special sessions already weeks old. Sunday, Sept. 4, the Lakewood Alumni Band will hold practice in the LHS band room from 2 pm to 5 pm. This is to prepare for Friday, Sept. 9 which is "2005 Lakewood Alumni Band Night" directed by Scott Coffey and David Wolford.
The practice just two weeks away will jostle with the previous four days of Millersport Sweet Corn Festival, where Lakewood Band Boosters raise the bulk of their support each year at a booth that sells, um, something tasty. Rice balls, or guava pops, or, ah . . .wait, no, they sell pierogies!
No, that’s not right. Where are my notes? (Sound of scuffling and rustling.) Here it is: doughnuts. They sell doughtnuts (you may spell it donuts, which is easier to paint on a sign, I’ll admit, and shorter to type). A third of a million dollars of donuts if you can believe it, and the Band Boosters can, since 1980. That’s a lotta donuts, or doughtnuts, either way.
So band alumni are invited to join "alumni shifts" in the infamous booth, where you will see everyone. Yep, everyone comes by the donut booth sooner or later, and if you help make, dunk, or sell donuts, you’ll see ‘em.
If you are planning on playing Sept. 9, even if you don’t help at the booth (but you really should), they need you to come practice on Sept. 4. And after, they plan to have a dinner, so please contact Beth (Miller ’81) Walters at 928-1299 if you haven’t already signed up through the mailing they’ve sent to their alumni list.
So band and football and teachers and custodians and administrators and bus drivers are already hard at work, starting well before the so-called "first day," and parents and caregivers are hunting the sales and snagging vital supplies for the growing mind like glue sticks and new socks. Each of them thinks "first day, hah!"
Along that same line: one of the most significant learning experiences of my time at boot camp came at 4:00 am. My good fortune was to draw fireguard duty one night just before wakeup at 5 am (which was a joke, since we usually were awakened by the clashing of trash cans down the squad bay at 4:45). No, there’s no stove in the barracks and the shingles are fireproof, but why stop an ancient tradition?
So there I march, up and down the central aisle in the pitch dark between the bunk beds. At the end facing the company street, where the screen door opened toward the platoon command hut matching us across the way, I heard on each pass a strange sound. Finally I took the risk of pausing at the door and listening, the risk being a deranged (I thought) sergeant with the company who checked silently at random on those doing sentry duty through the night.
Freezing by the screen door, leaning to a vantage point across the way, I realized that our much "beloved" sergeant instructor was humming Sousa march tunes while ironing his camo fatigues near his screen door, five yards away. He had been up and driven to our camp and dressed and was at work . . . long before we had received our oh-so-early wake-up call.
And it occurred to me that after we had been put away at lights out, as Sgt. Camire (you never forget their names, never) stalked out of the squadbay, he no doubt went back to command hut for some festive paperwork before he drove home to his semi-mythical family. Up before us, up after us, and up in our faces all day.
So it is for the so-called nine month job of teaching or working in today’s educational system. Thanks for getting eveything ready when the buildings are at their fiendishly hottest, and let’s send our kids to school ready to learn. They’re ready to teach ‘em.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; send your Sweet Corn Festival stories to disciple@voyager.net.

Faith Works 8-13-05
Jeff Gill

So Many Bibles, So Little Time

"What is the best version of the Bible?" I get that question fairlyregularly.There is a simple answer. Get a good Hebrew Bible for what’s generallyknown as the Old Testament, and the Reader’s New Testament in Greek.With the discovery in 1859 of Codex Sinaiticus hand printed by order ofEmperor Constantine by way of St. Catherine’s Monastery, and theMasoretic Text of the Hebrew books by way of the Synod of Jamniaconfirmed by the Dead Sea Scrolls since 1947, we have solid sourcing andconsistent readings of the sacred texts of scripture ranging from over3,500 years ago to about 110 AD. Enjoy!Or maybe you meant "what’s the best translation of all that into English?"Can I go back to talking about the ancient papyrus and parchment?Recently, I went into Moments For Majesty in their large new store nowpart of Southgate Plaza. I was looking for a very particular edition ofone translation (but didn’t have the ISBN number. Always write down theISBN number.).Pausing to review the shelves and the dozens of Bible translations andpackaging options on display, I quickly confirmed it wasn’t "out there"and went on to the counter. Explaining my request, the very helpfulsales folk did some looking on their terminal, and then offered to letme browse through their master catalogue of Bibles. Just Bibles.Over 700 pages, longer than the new Harry Potter, had descriptions offour to seven different types of Bible on each page. Some 4000 Bibles tochoose from.And you guessed it. My Bible wasn’t there, meaning that there are . . .about that many.I recall the debates among old guard KJVers and new wild-eyed RSV users,both stunned when the "Good News Bible" or TEV showed up in paperback,no less. Then Ken Taylor wrote out his paraphrase for grandkids, "TheLiving Bible," and made Tyndale a publishing powerhouse in Bible terms.Then evangelicals nervous about the applications made of currentscholarship helped Thomas Nelson et alia come out with the NewInternational Version, the NIV, and then . . .So we’ve gone in about 50 years from the Catholic Douay version and theProtestant King James, with a few very small circulation translations,to dozens of very skillfully done translations printed in everythingfrom magazine format Bibles for teen girls to weighty gold spined tomescontaining those familiar first words of scripture many children readquietly to themselves, "Rich Moroccan Leather."No one will thank me for saying, in answer to "what’s a goodtranslation" the immortal "it depends." But it does.Do you want readability? The New Living Translation or Eugene Peterson’s"The Message" use the TEV’s principle of "dynamic equivalence," holdingthe text more closely than a paraphrase, but speaking in a contemporaryidiom.Do you want to work with a close study using resources word-by-word?Then the modern NRSV or TNIV allow understandability to work hand inhand with scholarly tools from the original Hebrew and Greek. The NASBhas many helps in print as well.Do you want public resonance for reading aloud? The Jerusalem Bible isstill considered a top contender in this bracket, along with the NEB,now ESV. And the NKJV (when in doubt, N is these abbreviations is always"New") has eliminated most of the Elizabethan tonguetwisters whilekeeping the Shakespearean cadences.Unless you are a dyed-in-the-Lamb’s-wool King James 1611 adherent, alittle examination will show that there are many excellent, useful,upbuilding translations out there today. We have so much available to usthat our grandparents could only imagine.The question is, do they get us to read the text itself?

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around centralOhio, and he found his Reader’s Greek NT online. What Bible are youreading, and what works for you in reading it? Tell him throughdisciple@voyager.net.

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Notes From My Knapsack 8-14-05
Jeff Gill

Baird, Ashbrook Leave a Gap

So you registered to vote, actually do vote, fly your flag, and saluteher when she goes by. You may even have enlisted to serve in the armedforces or the Peace Corps or VISTA and done your duty that way. But haveyou ever run for office?Being a candidate isn’t a peculiar calling for only the privileged few.Sure, just like not everyone’s cut out for military service, noteveryone can hold a civic office: but more can than seem to think so.Every local election in recent years offers a slate with a large numberof one candidate ballots, or worse yet, the county always sees a fewspots with no one running a’tall. And that ain’t good.Is it because it’s just so difficult to run even for a local position?Your columnist wandered by the Board of Elections office, just behindthe front desk of the County Administration Building opposite the CountyCourthouse in Newark. Actually, I went in to pick up the form to serveas a pollworker, another cog in the machinery of democracy that isexperiencing parts shortages. The Little Guy was in good humortravelling with me, and so I picked up the one form and then went on toask, "How do you take out petitions to run for council?"Now, I haven’t even lived in my current address for a year, so thequestion is truly moot, but before I could say another word, the veryhelpful lady at the counter had bustled off and started banging away ata typewriter. When she began asking questions of me while still typing,I realized she was actually performing the steps to create my petitions,and I amiably exclaimed, "But I really don’t think I can run.""Well, do you want me to finish these so you have ‘em until you figureout if you can?" When she said that, I had the thought that passesthrough my mind far too often: "Hey, I can get a column out of that…" SoI said yes.And here’s the real point of this column, friends. I shared counterspace for five minutes with people who were easily recognizable aslongtime office holders in Licking County and other complete idiots…Imean, novices to the political process. With exactly equivalent patience and simplicity, the staff there explained that, with somevariation depending on the where and the which of the position, youneeded this many signatures, gathered on these forms, countersigned bythese people, all required back in here by August 25. Add one more formfor who is keeping track of the money involved or not involved (becausemany folks run for office in Licking County without spending a dime, orat least more than a few hundred dollars), and you are set. Even a guywith a seven year old in tow could walk away with (unuseable) petitionsin about five minutes.What am I saying? I’m telling you that two trips to downtown Newark andmaybe fifty signatures on a petition, and you are that great servant ofliberty, The Candidate. You may not win, but you ran, and kept someoneelse running on their toes.Friends, I grew up in and around Chicago in the 1960’s, and with all duerespect to the Daley family, one party, one candidate democracy is not agood thing. No true party partisan in America should be happy when noone from the other tribe runs against your incumbent. Just like any ofus, when Uncle Sam gets flabby and complacent and unresponsive, hestarts to show it. He moves slower, acts logy and half-stupid, and setshimself up for some real problems down the line.More seriously, we’ve lost some real electoral stalwarts in recentyears, and this last year saw the death of both Al Ashbrook and JayBaird just last week. I feel like I lost a friend with Jay, even thoughI didn’t get to know him until after he’d taken on fighting cancer as afull-time hobby. Those two did the work of seven of the rest of us inrunning for offices and serving the public during their lifetimes.Meanwhile, we see those blank spots on the ballot. One of them has yourname on it. And look at it this way: if you don’t run, that nutcase downthe street will, and may walk in unopposed. You know who I’m talkingabout. So think about it, OK?And if you don’t, you can serve as a pollworker. Stay tuned for news onthat front, live from this station.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around centralOhio. He’d be happy to sign your petition if you’re running for anythingin his area, but you really don’t want his endorsement; just throwideas, not hats in the ring by e-mailing disciple@voyager.net.

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Faith Works 8-06-05
Jeff Gill

State Churches and the State of the Church

Odd observations of the dog days of summer can be a little moreheat-warped than others, but sometimes the milky haze of Augustlassitude can reveal a new way of seeing things. You can obscure quite abit behind waves of heat rising off the pavement, and even see miragesoff the blacktop miles ahead, but at least we all tend to look around usat the world during this time of year when we often just blur along inthe cooler months.But my stray thought comes from a book read indoors while avoiding theheat. Now, there’s beach reading and there’s beach reading (whether ornot sand is involved). A big fat doorstop of a book I’ve just read isthe new biography of Soren Kierkegaard (look, I don’t make fun of yourhobbies, you don’t mock mine, OK?).The author is a professor in Denmark, a Great Dane like his subject, whois part of the team translating SK’s journals and notebooks and arecognized authority on the philosopher and theologian’s life and work.What has had many looking forward for the last five years to this workcoming out in translation is that Joachim Garff is focusing onKierkegaard’s everyday life as context for the voluminous writings hisproduced in mid-1800’s Copenhagen.So what’s it got to do with our everyday life in heat-swamped,drought-stricken central Ohio? Nothing. That’s the point. Thecommonplaces of street scenes, shops, shepherding were all very, verydifferent than what we might easily assume.And the mentions of the role of the State Church both throw illuminationon Kierkegaard’s work resisting the socialization of Christianity in histime, and also on our debates today about what the folks across the pond(where one brother had migrated and died a few decades after theConstitution was written) meant when they talked about "establishment"of an official church.Peter Kierkegaard had to sign the baptismal book at the local church foreach of his children when they were born. Sounds fine, right? Yep,except so did Baptists and Swedenborgians and Dissenters of all sorts.Wait, you ask, what if they didn’t want their child baptized into theDanish Lutheran Church? Well, that was against the law. But they sawthemselves as very tolerant, because if you then went to have your childbaptized in some other faith, you could without fear of arrest.And for Peter and his sons Michael and Soren when they grew toadulthood, if they wanted to receive communion, they had to go by theoffice and sign up for it, so that a full check could be done into theircurrent state of both civic and spiritual fitness to be accepted at thecommunion table. You needed to get signed up early, the warnings said innewspapers, to give religious authorities plenty of time to do a fullinvestigation.This kind of stuff is what the Founding Folks were looking back toEurope and seeing, and what they were wanting explicitly banned in thenew US Constitution. Even though Massachusetts still had an officialchurch (Congregationalist, now UCC) into the 1830’s, and tax money wascollected to support Anglican churches (now Episcopalian) in many statesright through and even past the Revolution, they hoped that in time theidea of a state church could be banned on the national level, anddiscouraged in the separate states.How we politically deal with the modern desire to frame the"establishment" clause as the right to be free of having to deal with orexperience religion anywhere in the public sphere is a hot potato, butthe roots of the so-called "separation of church and state" don’t diginto that territory. That’s some new excavation which we will continueto sift and study.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around centralOhio. Tell him how you’re spending the summer through disciple@voyager.net.

Notes From My Knapsack 8-07-05
Jeff Gill

Downtown Newark’s new Police Department offices on South Fourth Streetare an attractive addition to a cityscape where there recently wasemptiness and decay. The building is bright and airy, simple but withsome classy touches.When I walked in the main lobby a few weeks back to work on some of thelogistical arrangements for this fall’s Moonrise event at the OctagonEarthworks, I had the delightful and eerie experience of walking rightalong the axis through the connected circle and octagon that points tothe northwest horizon maximum moonrise point.You may know that the departmental insignia, on their uniform patchesand across the door of their police cruisers, is of a Hopewell-periodspearpoint, patterned as if made of our local Flint Ridge flint, andacross it is a green outline of the solid circle and octagon broken ateach corner with a small interior mound dotting each gap.This badge has been reproduced large scale in the flooring material, sothat one walks directly along the central alignment towards the moonrisewe’re celebrating this year, as you walk up to the information window.Drop by and see it: the staff is quite friendly, and there is also ahistorical display about Newark officers killed on duty which I hope towrite about later.Monday, August 8, is the last "golf free" day out at the actual OctagonEarthwork (off 33rd St.) before the Oct. 22 Newark Earthworks Day atOSU-N and Moonrise event that night at 10:14 pm. This Monday, by brightdaylight, you may walk around the 30 acre interior of the circle (a bitsmaller than the "Great Circle" over by Heath) or the 50 some acresenclosed by the octagonal works stretching from Raccoon Creek to 30thStreet.With the Ohio Historical Society committed over at the Ohio State Fairand many local volunteers tied up with our own Hartford Fair, this willbe another low key, quiet time of access to the site, thanks to theongoing work OHS and Moundbuilders Country Club are doing on publicaccess. You might want to drop by after 9 am before you head up toCroton (or Hartford, or Croton P.O., or whatever) for the fair, sincethe access on Oct. 22 will be necessarily tightly controlled and, ofcourse, after dark.If you can’t, the next day, Sunday, Oct. 23, will be a golf-free day onthe site, and you can return after experiencing the awe and wonder ofthese massive works pointing out a complex astronomical occurrence bymoonlight, and more closely examine the structure that records andpredicts this 18.6 year cycle by daylight.Of course, keep reading this space for ongoing updates about the widerange of activities on the OSU-N campus through Oct. 22, and shuttlearrangements from OSU-N to the Octagon that evening.If you enjoy mysterious sights in the sky showing the power of scienceand the human mind against the backdrop of the infinite cosmos, you canget up Monday morning, Aug. 8, before 5:45 am, and look to thesouthwest. There you’ll see, if the flight plan doesn’t changesignificantly [and it did - editor], the paired steady lights cross the sky for three minutesof the Space Shuttle Discovery and the International Space Station. Andthen you’ll be up, so you can make a lunch to take by the Octagon StateMemorial that golf-free day, enjoying a day where earth and sky areconnected by human ingenuity through both technology and time.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around centralOhio. You can share your stories with him through disciple@voyager.net.

Notes From My Knapsack 7-31-05
Jeff Gill

Lance Armstrong and I have this much in common: we were both on bicycles last Sunday. Beyond that, not much.
Well, we do both go out with gorgeous babes who are talented musicians (OK, hon?).
Seven Tours of France won by a single human being, and all those both in a row, but also after a diagnosis and chemotherapy for testicular cancer. Who would trade places with Lance for that package?
His achievement is not just one of athletic accomplishment, but of the human spirit. Cancer still carries all too much a sense of endings and retreat, even if not death. Things stop and cease when cancer is diagnosed, even as treatment begins.
But not only cancer, chemo too isn’t what it used to be, in a very, very good way. No walk in the park in the best circumstances, chemo is both myriad forms of delivery – IV, pills, in varying dosages and durations – and with assorted impacts, many of which are greatly lessened by other drugs which reduce the ill effects.
One of the messages of the original and ubiquitous yellow wristbands bearing the word "Livestrong" is that cancer can be for many a stutter step, a momentary diversion along the path to your goals. The fundraising task of fighting the still deadly aspects of cancer remains, and the race Lance Armstrong says he’s still in is to find the causes and cures needed to make cancer just another illness. We’re not there yet, but the progress over recent decades is dramatic, and that yellow jersey in Paris last weekend is one more indication of just how far we’ve come.
Bike riding in Licking County is a popular hobby, helped by the wonderful network of "rails to trails" crisscrossing not just this area, but the whole country.
There’s serendipity for you. Engineers a century and more ago carefully planned so that stream engines could avoid steep grades, laying out routes through even hilly terrain with a gentle ebb and flow in their rising and falling. Which is ideal for cyclists, especially families with children out for a good, long, healthful ride. They also tend to skirt heavily trafficked arteries, not crossing main roads often but always near for access.
No one planned the New York Central or Pennsylvania Railroad routes for re-use as bike trails, but we have much to be thankful for in their availability today.
Along right-of-ways and at the edges of open fields, the blackberry blossoms have turned to ripe fruit, a refreshing pause for mid-summer hikes and rides. Near the vines and shoots and patches of poison ivy so verdant this year, the yellow drooping flower of jewel weed, or some say touch-me-not, is in evidence, with the rosy joints of the stems holding an excellent anti-itch fluid.
Near houses, hibiscus and hollyhock is blossoming in profusion, and the stalks of ironweed are already shooting up above the general height of most open field growth, ready to erupt in purple in weeks if not days.
Drink plenty of water and wear your sunscreen, but get out of the house and enjoy a stroll, a saunter, a walk or ride. Exercise is said by doctors to be a preventative medicine par excellence for everything from cancer to depression.
Plus we gotta get in shape for the Hartford Fair, State Fair, and Sweet Corn Festival! That’s a lotta elephant ear eating (plus standing in the sun), so we need to start our training program yesterday. I haven’t even tried the deep fried pickle yet.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he is obviously not a gourmet. Try to inspire him with healthy ideas through disciple@voyager.net.

Faith Works 7-23-05
Jeff Gill

Paradise, With Insects

Paradise. From ancient Semetic root words for "walled garden," a "par dis" is the term for the original garden, an Eden where creation is begun and maybe even fulfilled.
In the enclosures of ancient lands where precious plants and herbs were tended, a glimpse of divine purpose and potential was seen in a safe place carved out of the chaos of wilderness, with nurturance and growth the rule within the garden walls.
Church camp is called many things, but rarely a paradise. Bugs, poison ivy, mealtimes with a table full of cabin mates, and showers open to both the night sky above and daddy longlegs all around: these do not fit into most people's conception of paradise.
But that "par dis," the "walled garden" of the ancient near East, is something of what makes the camp experience so remarkable and transformative. We may be in the woods, but in a place defined by tradition and history. Our home is a cabin more open than enclosed, but we enter (at whatever age we are at camp) into a new community where relationships and roles are not assumed and enforced, but where quiet children can show unexpected gifts for leadership, or city kids learn something of what goes on beyond "where the sidewalk ends."
Why yes, I did just return from camp; why do you ask? Yep, it shows. Camp people can be quite annoying in their assertion that a week at camp can be the seasoning that flavors the richness of the entire year. We want, we expect everyone to go to camp (it could be 4-H, or Scouting, but church campers can be the very most obnoxious), and we will not stop talking about it.
It can be hard when you know you're right.
Really, to engage in a long-term intentional Christian community, which is a fancy way of saying "church camp," is to experience one's faith from a variety of angles that can't be found in the lowlands of everyday life. What camp folk have to remember (and we don't, always) is that you can't live up in the mountains all year 'round, either; Moses had to come down off of Sinai to share the Word with the people, and camp is just a prelude to the hard work of living your faith the next 51 weeks.
Up at Templed Hills a few weeks back, Badger Camp ended and 68 kids from 3, 4, and 5 grade with 18 adults (some young, but all quite mature) headed home tired, bug bit, and much more aware of what a faith community really looks like when you are consciously living out love, forgiveness, and compassion.
We all missed Dory Smathers, who had been a cabin counselor on Second Level for some years now, but had some lame excuse for missing out on 2005.
If you give the child "Badger" for a middle name, Dory, all is forgiven!

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, supply preacher around central Ohio, and for one week each year, church camp director. You can semaphore him or flash signal mirrors to disciple@voyager.net.[

Notes From My Knapsack 7-24-05
Jeff Gill

Glory Days For Geekdom

We are living, beyond any reasonable doubt, in Glory Days for Geeks.
I use this term with love and respect, not least because I have been a card-carrying Geek for pretty much my whole life. A good friend of mine taught her kids to say "there’s the Big Geek" when I came in the house, due to my having off-handedly commented that a particular overpass on a nearby highway looked like the Parthenon at a certain time of day. And it does, too.
So, noting that geek describes a certain trait of character reveling in odd, obscure detail, often immersed in science fiction, fantasy, mythology, and comic books, I say again: These are Glory Days for Geekdom.
We had in the last year the wrap-up of "The Lord of the Rings" film trilogy, and now look forward to the beginning of a "Chronicles of Narnia" series in theaters, Tolkien having inspired Lewis in both faith and fiction, now opening up the chance to see Mr. Tumnus scamper past the Lamppost, fearful of the White Witch and as yet unaware of Aslan’s advent.
Harry Potter is entering new adventures on the printed page, and J.K. Rowling’s indirect inspiration, Roald Dahl, must posthumously enjoy the rapturous remake of "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." No matter how good Johnny Depp is as Mr. Wonka, you still should read the book, and I hope many watch Gene Wilder’s version again just for fun.
Star Wars reaches the apotheosis of Episode Three, linking 1977’s Episode Four to 2005 and bringing what turns out to be the epic of the rise, fall, and redemption of Anakin Skywalker full-circle. Star Trek wraps a franchise run from ST:NG to DS9 to Voyager to Enterprise that closed with Scott Bakula returning us to some of the delights of both ST:OS and cameos with Riker and Troi. There is wonderful rumour that after a breathing spell (a needed one, even this geek agrees), Rick Berman, who has been the Keeper of the Flame since Great Bird of the Galaxy, Gene Roddenberry, died, will return to Gene’s idea of a Starfleet Academy series, with young versions of (and here rumor diverges like a stream in a swamp) the Kirk era characters, or perhaps Picardians, or maybe a whole new set of people to imagine backstories for in fan fiction.
Did I mention there are many, many geeks out there?
And then there’s the comics: who of us in geekdom ever imagined that Spiderman would be brought to the screen so well, and twice over now? But even the more visionary of our clan would not have guessed that both the X-Men and . . . be still, my heart . . . The Fantastic Four would be successfully cinematized. Thanks to George Lucas and Industrial Light and Magic, every one from Peter Parker and the radioactive arachnid to Johnny Storm can be shown in action as if Jack Kirby or even John Byrne were drawing with a magic pencil.
Then you tell me that Michael Chiklis is Ben Grimm, The Thing.
These are Glory Days for Geekdom. Somehow, we who sat at the weird table in the junior high cafeteria, who ran mimeos late at night during breaks in drama club practice to "print" our own fanzines, who majored in highly unrenumerative subjects in college, are in the driver’s seat of popular culture.
As Mr. Grimm would say, "Whooda thunk it?"

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio. He was once editor of the "Society for the Pursuit of the Questing Beast" newsletter, no longer in print, or one should say, mimeo. Share your geekness with him at disciple@voyager.net.

Faith Works 7-16-05
Jeff Gill

Changing the Face of Ministry

John Thomas, the pastoral leader of the United Church of Christ (UCC), predicted this a few weeks ago. He knew that with the huge wave of publicity from their resolution affirming same-sex marriage, few would attend carefully to a concrete step they took with dramatic implications of its own.
The General Synod of the UCC may not be able to change laws about marriage, but they can say who qualifies for ordination, the status that makes someone qualified to preside over sacramental acts such as communion or baptism.
Most mainline/oldline Protestant denominations in the US have tended to follow the European model sometimes called the "4-3" track to ordination: four years of college to a bachelor’s degree, and three years at a seminary for graduate training, usually a "masters of divinity" or M.Div. before the administration of ordination by a church body.
What the UCC decision making body said was that "there may be other tracks" a candidate may follow to qualify for ordination. There was much language affirming that a seminary degree is still the "normative" path, and that few, special cases are what’s being affirmed. Many understand, though, that this is a major step which is likely to result in a large number of candidates presenting themselves for ordination after time as a licensed or lay minister, without the full set of degrees.
With clergy candidates coming out of seminary with student loan debt comparable to any master’s degree graduate, and a first year teacher with only a bachelor’s in Ohio making more than the average pastoral position, let alone an entry level position, the whole process of training and credentialing clergy is being shaken up and transformed.
For more sacramental traditions, the status of "ordained" is necessary to have someone who can preside at the communion table or perform baptisms. The title usually associated with ordination, "Reverend" is technically "the Reverend" since it is an adjective more than a term, describing a quality of the person now ordained, someone who can perform sacramental acts.
That’s also why a number of Protestant groups and their ministers tend to avoid or reject "Rev." such as Billy Graham, usually called "Dr. Graham" by those who want to be formal, but accurate. If the performance of sacramental activities is open to all baptized believers, then you don’t label the preacher as the Rev., but just say pastor or parson or Brother So-and-so.
Still, for groups like the UCC’s, United Methodists, Lutherans, and so on, the need for an ordained person is counterbalanced by the difficulty in supporting that level of education and the costs that implies for so many small and medium size congregations. Licensed ministry has filled a number of gaps in providing preaching, teaching, and pastoral care, but ordination is still required at communion and baptism, and preferred for weddings and funerals, by many faith communities.
So John Thomas was right: this is a major step, and one that will change the face of who can step into that spot behind the communion table for many churches. It will also impact the look of seminaries and denominational training programs in ways we still can’t even anticipate.
How do you see the face of ministry changing in your denomination?

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; how have you experienced the changing face of ministry? Send your reactions to disciple@voyager.net.

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Faith Works 7-09-05
Jeff Gill

Rock the Vote, Rock Your Faith

U2 is a Christian rock band. You may not think of them that way, but they see themselves in that light.
Bono is a Christian, who believes that his faith, his music, and his commitments are all of a piece, a "seamless garment" as the saying goes. And his efforts leading up to the G8 summit and the Live8 concerts preceding it were an expression of that faith.
Bob Geldolf, organizer of the original "Live Aid" twenty years ago, has said that along with Bono, they need American evangelical help in addressing the needs of Africa because "they are the ones who get things done in international relief."
All of which has led to the startling sight of black and white TV ads with Pat Robertson and Dennis Hopper appearing in identical garb, sharing a common message; George Clooney and Rick Warren (looking like Mike Halter’s older brother!) both echoing each others’ words.
Evangelical Christians, as the influential magazine "Christianity Today" has recently said, are no longer outsiders looking in on the culture. In this country, at least, they cannot portray themselves as the put-upon, helpless victim. Faith may be trivialized and mocked in some quarters, but the stature and impact of vigorous Christianitiy is clearly evident in popular culture and running through the heart of society, even if not the primary motive force in daily life.
The editors of "Christianity Today" think that this means two main things: Christians should be very wary of getting "co-opted" by the dominant culture, which is not automatically going to emphasize the faith as believers would, and also that this is a time to offer the very best faith has to offer, not to coast on a social wave, assuming the spot on the crest will last. All waves hit the beach, sooner or later, and tumble everything topsy-turvy.
One.org looks like a good idea, and many clergy have "signed on" and affirmed to their congregations the ideas and ideals behind this shared effort for global debt relief and development assistance where properly managed. The tsunami relief campaign, with all due respect to former Presidents Bush and Clinton, was well on the way to one billion before they began their PR road show, largely due to overwhelming support by church-based relief groups.
While the UN issued statements and bureaucrats debated over packaging issues for "official" aid, WorldVision, Samaritan’s Purse, CWS/CROP, and Catholic Relief Services were on the ground and hard at work. The total effective relief number is approaching two billion.
On the other hand, the impact and effectiveness of a mobilized Christian sector of the population will attract many social groups and movements with their own agendas to try to hitch their wagons to the Bethlehem star.
So the challenge for a church in a neighborhood or village here in Licking County, for a region or conference or diocese in Ohio, or a denomination or national organization, is to take up the challenge of assessing for themselves where their influence is to be used, and how. What change do you want to make, and for what purpose, using which means?
Then and only then can you choose your allies and make broader alliances, some of which may very well be unlikely. If you know your vision and mission up front, and are honest and direct about that, no association is too outlandish.
But if the church (however defined) just wants to run with the cool kids on the block, then you may find yourself engaged in some activities you didn’t anticipate, wearing a sign or a button that undermines your own message, and may keep you out past your curfew, and over a line you forgot to draw in the first place.
What is the mission of your faith community, locally and globally, and what activities and alliances would logically proceed from that vision?

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s worked with a wide variety of church groups to set a vision for ministry, and would love to hear yours: send them to disciple@voyager.net.
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Notes From My Knapsack 7-17-05
Jeff Gill

Minnesota is next to have a state quarter in circulation; some on-line acquaintances link me to heated debate over the look and symbolism of the design, prominently featuring a loon on a lake and (some would say redundantly) a person in a motorboat with a fishing rod.

The whole state quarter scam -- the Mint gets to print money, create some modest variations to get you not to spend it, thereby making a great profit margin -- is at least a good example for consumers in demonstrating the fine distinctions that separate good design from bad art.

Dig a bunch of quarters out of your pocket or purse and give ‘em a look. Some are immediately attractive, some require you to look close and squint, and others just look like cheap tourism promos stamped on slugs suitable for a cheesy arcade.

This is where design is both an art and a science. Everyone knew they were creating a picture for the back of a quarter. If they were unclear, they could pull one out and check the size, shape, and general context.

The state of my birth, Illinois, has an attractive collage of Lincolnesque images and a theme tying civic boosterism to their history (21st state for the 21st century), all working nicely together. But without magnification and a strong north light, you see . . . not much. Louisiana takes a jeweler’s loupe as well.

California does something very comparable to Illinois (historic person, view of well known location), but keeps it pared down so the picture makes sense to the eye and mind even laying on the counter. It doesn’t do everything that the Golden State could jam in there, because someone realized "it’s a quarter."

Others have even more of the stench of design by committee. South Carolina should have put whoever designed their long-popular license plate on the job. But instead they wedged a palm tree and an outline and words and . . . almost as messy as Florida’s soup pot of a quarter.

Rhode Island, perhaps in a tribute to native son H.P. Lovecraft’s oeuvre, gives us a simple shot with two icons, the Newport bridge and a sailboat, but arranged in an ominous pose that more resembles the cover of a murder mystery. Lovecraft would also have liked Arkansas’ hovering giant diamond over what looks to me like Cthulu’s swamp; likewise Vermont may be thinking maple sap collector, but I’m seeing"Twin Peaks" under those angular tree trunks. Maine hints of doom as well . . .

Connecticut gives us a very nicely framed Charter Oak, a tree no longer standing, and New Hampshire has"The Old Man of the Mountain" who crumbled off the cliff face he had occupied for eons. I like Kentucky’s shot at an actual scene, just south of Bardstown with a thoroughbred and Foster’s"Old Kentucky Home."

The usual look is to combine a state outline with a stereotyped image associated with the area, like Massachusetts and the Minute Man, Indiana and the Indy Car, Georgia and the Giant Peach, and Texas with the Lone Star. Michigan decided it was too much work to come up with any icon, and gave us just the outline, with sketched in lakes all around.

Yikes. Were these design teams, or committees, or campaign donors, or whoever, thinking they were creating teaching aids for third graders? (I apologize in advance for any offense to bright third graders I may have given.) I don’t want the quarter to tell me how New York is shaped; I want to see what Virginia wants me to know that I didn’t before, and their colonial ships did that for me. North Carolina is elegantly simple: the Bishop’s boys and their motor kite at Kitty Hawk. Iowa is so Iowan, with an unadorned simple schoolhouse picking up on Grant Wood’s art without using the standard pitchforked duo.

Missouri has a nice idea, but someone needs to tell their engraver about foreshortening.

How do I like Ohio’s quarter? If you’ve read this far, you know my answer already. Maybe in another hundred years they’ll give us a second chance. On the good side, they won’t be putting Bob Taft on it.

Hope, maybe.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he usually has too much change in his pocket. Send your thoughts of change to disciple@voyager.net.

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Notes From My Knapsack 7-10-05
Jeff Gill

You don’t have to know Joey Parrish to feel absolutely devastated for his family, friends, fellow 4-H’ers, and anyone who had been in farming with him and his family.
16 is the age of an experienced farmer in a farm family, and from hearing him do safety presentations at 4-H meetings and knowing a bit about his folks and co-workers, I believe that he was as careful as any 61 year old would have been in that situation.
What so many of us don’t realize, even in a still fairly rural county, is that agriculture is one of the most dangerous occupations there are, even today with safety techniques and training having been honed over decades of hard experience.
I grew up around farmers who matter-of-factly accepted that augers, balers, and harvesters would take a toll of fingers, hands, and the stray eye; if you were alive, you were thankful, knowing that teams of horses, later on the use of power equipment, and always the scope and scale of silos, feed bins, and haymows could threaten both life and limb.
Any life lost, whether in Iraq or in the fields of Licking County, at an advanced age or as cruelly young as Joseph Parrish, is a tragedy, pure and simple. But this young man not only died doing what he loved, but he died for us. If you ate or used a manufactured product today, you needed a farmer to do their job, soybeans or corn or most any crop. We expect that there will be those who will plant the seeds and bring the harvest and take the incredible risks getting from one to the other requires, and in that sense Joey died for you.
So be thankful, and know that the lessons of caution and care are already being taken from this sad event among farmers young and old . . . but that there is no way to make farming hundreds of acres anywhere and thousands of bushels of anything a walk in the park. So be thankful.

In the more everyday surroundings of summer movies, the Midland Theater is doing an interesting thing, challenging local residents to take a look at some noted movies and the well crafted books that stand behind them.
I’m not interested in the "which is better" debate, which can be a bit of a non sequitur. Books is books, and movies are a whole ‘nother thing.
Coming into this late, I’ll note that this weekend is "The Maltese Falcon" which was a Dash Hammett novel before it was a Bogart movie. Can I note an entirely different book to pique your interest in the show: "Black Dahlia Avenger" by Steve Hodel. This is possibly the most absorbing true crime story of the last few decades, and has a creepy assortment of real world connections to the "Black Bird" of John Huston fame.
As for "Sideways" coming up later this month, may I gently note that this cinematic tale, reviewed as a bittersweet and comedic story about relationships, is a very adult movie. I mean, adult, as in adult movie. Don’t be surprised by a couple of near-pornographic scenes in an otherwise winsome story as were a few friends of mine.
Rex Pickett wrote a very well-plotted book which inspired Alexander Payne to make the movie, but the changes in getting the story to the screen are both less and more than you think. A major character in the book is absent from the screenplay (not uncommon), and a motivation for one primary character is also removed, which adds something to the flow on the page, but was probably (on further reflection) an unnecessary complication to the already complex film story.
But I’d love to hear from anyone who has read and seen "Sideways" who thinks Payne wimped out by removing the thousand reasons to look differently at one development, and that’s all I have to say about that.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; send your tales to disciple@voyager.net.

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Faith Works 7-02-05
Jeff Gill

Shalom, Peace, and Independence Day

"Be careful" is almost as frequent a saying as "Have a Happy Fourth of July!" this time of year. Fireworks are going off almost every night this week somewhere in our (any likely your) neighborhood, with a crescendo to Monday’s final blasts.
Add in water skiing at Buckeye Lake, potato salad in the sun, and poison ivy having a great year, and you get a sense of hazard along with the celebrational spirit for July 4.
It has been a year since I managed to have a very simple (OK, idiotic) fall in my driveway, break my arm in three places, have two surgeries, and put my life in order around casts, slings, and medical restrictions.
I am (ahem) young, fit (stop chuckling, would you?), and healed pretty fast according to Dr. Quimjian (three cheers for whom!), so there’s no real complication now and really was nothing to complain about then.
But I was amazed at how much I felt, well, "off" for months, even after the pins were removed and the last bandages came off. To fly with one wing for so long, and even with both limbs useable in many situations like driving, typing, or just putting the Little Guy to bed, there was something that just didn’t feel right. It wasn’t just the arm, it was the whole of me.
"Shalom" is the Hebrew word usually translated as "peace." Both greeting and farewell (like the Hawaiian "aloha"), shalom can be used in a wide variety of applications both in modern Hebrew as spoken in Israel, and when translating the Hebrew Scriptures, known to most Americans as the Old Testament of the Holy Bible.
Often in time of war, conflict, or upheaval, preachers know to point out that shalom is not just "peace" as the absence of war, but a fuller, whole-er, more active peace . . . peace seeking justice. We may seek peace, but the guns can stop firing and "shalom" not apply.
In a number of spots in the Old Testament, shalom refers to "wholeness," to the integrity of the human community, and even to bodily integrity. The state of shalom is where all the parts are communing in a blessed whole. Shalom is even used in a passage that discusses broken bones, when they are healed into renewed wholeness, or shalom.
Shalom does not accept partial wholeness. You are either together, or you aren’t; you’re in pieces, or in peace.
The American community, across faith traditions of all sorts, is "broken up" over the Iraq war. There was peace, the sort without open warfare, in Iraq before the war, but certainly no shalom. We now have casualties, some striking close to home in central Ohio, all fracturing families and futures, as justice is sought for an Iraqi people who have sought peace for decades, and need our help.
Whatever the outcome, and however one wishes the push to armed confrontation had been handled, we are still looking for shalom. That ancient Hebrew concept, rooted in the Semitic heritage of the cradle of civilization between the Tigris and Euphrates, points us to our need to include the wholeness of our community in any resolution.
The American Revolution was a time where armed conflict was a step on the way to shalom for the United States, but it took a president who knew his Old Testament well, George Washington (see his letter to the Touro Synagogue), to build shalom by bringing together not only Federalists and Whigs, but even Tory loyalists and oldline Patriots into the developing republic.
Communities of faith still have a role today in bridging the gap between individual independence so treasured by Americans, and the wholeness of creative interdependence that truly makes our national ideals a lived reality. We need to bring some "shalom" to the Fourth of July picnic!

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; healing and peacemaking stories alike are welcome at disciple@voyager.net.
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Out Of Order Alert!!!
[that's out of publishing order, actually; watch the date after the column header, but normally these go up in order that they're published on wood pulp - jbg]

Faith Works 6-25-05
Jeff Gill

Insuring Good Pastoral Leadership

Did you know that General Motors spends more per car on health insurance for employees than it does on steel?

OK, you answer, I didn’t know that and it’s an interesting but disturbing fact, illustrative of modern economic trends. But I turned to the "Your Faith" page today to read the "Faith Works" column, not "Business Round-Up."

And so you did. I’m telling you this because many denominations are finding it harder and harder to insure their clergy, let alone other full-time employees, which leaves congregations and local faith communities of all sorts scrambling. How do we properly provide for our pastors, preachers, staff of all sorts?

Small business owners and managers have been dealing with the premium increase spiral for years, but most church boards or budget committees have been either sheltered from the chill winds of reality or left thinking someone else was covering the question. Fewer options and skyrocketing costs whether self-insured or through a large company have started to wreak havoc with public entities like school systems (most of the large ones like Columbus are self-insured, with their own pool of funds set aside for paying out claims) and not-for-profits.

Church groups have, as a whole, tended to keep the playing field even across their participants, with everyone paying the same rate regardless of age, part of the country, or specific circumstances.

But even the Catholic Church or United Methodists, who have very large pools to work with to balance payment in to costs going out, are finding it increasingly burdensome to maintain coverage without starting to cut into other programs.

More "free church" traditions have long left it up to individuals to buy individual coverage, but even loosely organized denominations have tried to offer a group insurance plan that can be paid for by the employing body (you have to pay taxes on money given you to buy individual coverage, which makes the apparent savings of individual coverage much less), and group insurance can go across state and regional boundaries. Clergy who may want to hold onto the flexibility of relocation later in their career are often unwilling to get a modest savings in cost in exchange for possibly tying themselves to one state for the rest of their career.

My own ordaining body, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), is now having to ask for $14,000 for the highest deductible family plan: almost half the average salary and housing allowance paid across the denomination. You can get your own coverage for around $9,000, but since you pay taxes on that money (individual vs. group), we’re looking at $12,000 and less or no portability.

And it doesn’t matter, because the agency of the church that manages the group plan for the church is still losing $3 million a year, and says they will bail out at year’s end, leaving anyone on that plan to scramble for coverage, unless they are authorized to make drastic and equally painful changes to how the plan is offered.

That’s one modestly sized church body in the US. Your group, I can assure you, is facing equally hard choices of one sort or another.

One result of this trend has been two quiet but widespread developments: an increase in bivocational or what’s known as "tentmaking" ministries, where the pastoral leadership is part-time and works a secular job which carries benefits. If you weren’t clever enough to anticipate all this and marry someone with a benefits package (insert irony here), that may be your best option.

The other development is a sharp increase in ordained clergy leaving full-time ministry, working in other fields altogether and fitting in church work like everyone else does, as time allows.

For churches accustomed to full-time, ordained clergy, it used to be that you had to have at least 50 or so average worship attendance to have your own minister. When I started seminary in the mid-80’s, it was said to be 75, then 100, then... Now we’re looking at about 150, all because of insurance costs.

How is your church caring for your leadership at the size you are now, and with the expectations you have of ministry? The time for conversation is past, and action is needed.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he and the Little Guy are on his wife’s insurance. If your faith community has an innovative solution, tell him at disciple@voyager.net.
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Notes From My Knapsack 7-03-05
Jeff Gill

You will likely fly the flag this weekend, or at least see one going by. Old Glory, the Star Spangled Banner, the Stars and Stripes, the Flag of the United States of America. Whatever name you call it, the banner of the republic evokes strong feelings, especially around the Glorious Fourth.
I had the pleasure and privilege to teach flag folding and (of course) a little history to Cub Scouts at Cub Scout Day Camp a few weeks ago. Ric and Angie Eader put in amazing hours, for no pay, to assemble and run a program that sees almost 300 six through ten year old boys for four days (plus an older Cubs’ overnighter) pass through Camp Falling Rock out past Rocky Fork. Some thirty volunteers staffed stations, and a total th rough the week of 150 and more parents and grandparents as den leaders and walkers covered the truly rugged acres of up and down terrain.
And that doesn’t even count the dozens of "sibling camp" boys and girls who came when their folks were doing den duty.
Anyhow, I had the chance to share with around 500 Licking Countians proper treatment of the national emblem. Not that all of them didn’t know this stuff: they are Scouts, mostly. But they got a chance to practice what many adults never master.
You see, the US flag is folded like no other flag in the world. The final form is a triangle akin to a colonial cocked hat, a tricorn like the Valley Forge Continental Army wore in 1777 just after the thirteen stripe, thirteen star flag was approved by Congress in June of that year.
There are odd stories circulating on the internet about the "true meaning of each fold," which is just a quaint legend created long after we’d been folding the flag that way. But it is absolutely true that our level of flag etiquette and respect is different in this country.
The key is in the words of the Pledge of Allegiance, which is "to the republic, for which it stands." We do not swear an oath to the Crown, or put a Queen on all our coinage like those nice Canadians do, let alone our British cousins. A person does not represent this land, so we don’t enlist by the name of the President or Congress. We don’t swear on the land, to a place like the District of Columbia or by a Fatherland or Motherland. The states have changed in num ber and shape over and over for two centuries and more.
So the Flag of the United States of America is a symbol of freedom and democracy as other places see a monarch or geography as the emblem of their national ideals. The Flag represents the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, our elective officials, our judiciary, and executive officers, our military and astronauts and park rangers.
The Flag is Us.
Which is why we taught kids to fold the flag correctly, raise it smartly in the morning, an d respectfully in the evening, and salute it to hat or heart as appropriate as it passes by.
You’ll be somewhere this Fourth of July weekend and see the flag in a parade. Stand when it approaches, and salute as it goes by, with most hats coming off and mo st of us with a simple hand over the heart.
When you salute the flag, you affirm that "we do not bow the knee before kings and princes" or take "oaths of tyranny" let alone swear by the ground we walk on, all concepts rejected in our nation’s founding. W e salute the flag because we know that a simple piece of cloth made from various strips and symbols of "a new constellation in the heavens" is enough. It is all we need to represent the values of a land where anyone can afford to own a flag of their own a nd fly it off of a porch in the country, no less than the occupant of the White House or a mansion downtown.
We salute simplicity and basic principles, not every policy initiative from the government or each choice made in the expansion of the states to t he Pacific. No gold or jewels, no hero even holding the staff is needed. We just salute the flag, and the democratic republic "for which it stands," and for which we should stand, too.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; if you see the flag respected in a newly meaningful way this weekend, tell him through disciple@voyager.net.
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Faith Works 6-18-05Jeff Gill
Mission trips for youth groups are a popular way to build community among the participants and teach core values of the faith.Some groups travel far afield, to San Antonio, Texas, Mexico, or even overseas to places like the Ukraine or the Phillipines (all spots Licking County groups have gone in service and ministry in recent years).Jeanelle Gutheil, youth director for Central Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), has taken the Christian Youth Fellowship from her church on long term mission the last few summers to Michigan, West Virginia, and western Pennsylvania.This last year has seen Jeanelle deal with some complications in planning and scheduling, so like most creative youth group leaders, she came up with a Plan B. Instead of a mission trip for a week to somewhere a ways away, she's leading a "missional experience" for high school youth every Wednesday through the first week of August.Each Wednesday morning, young people will come to the church building on Mount Vernon Road and Rugg Avenue, and spend the day in service around the community, helping with tasks at the Salvation Army shelter, and other opportunities for service right in their north Newark neighborhood."This doesn't replace the idea of traveling for a mission trip," says Gutheil. "But you can't always make the travel to see other places and ways of doing things. You can always find a place where God needs you, though, like right here in town."The group will travel: for fun and fellowship, they look forward to an overnight trip to Kennywood, a historic amusement park south of Pittsuburgh where their CYF has been at the end of an earlier mission trip. Not as large as Cedar Point or as well known as King's Island, Kennywood has history along with the roller coasters, and a location near the heart of a large city where challenge and success are both near at hand.Mission trips, at their best, reveal the differences and the similarities of the human condition as close neighbors, and teach how one's faith can bring about reconciliation and empowerment. A foreign land where a different language and a sense of being in the minority can be a powerful setting for learning what "missional work" in church life really is.But crossing a state line, or even just getting out of your famililar neighborhood, can be a step in the right direction.What is your faith community doing this summer to turn a piece of leisure time into mission experience?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio. Tell him about your mission trip at disciple@voyager.net.

Notes From My Knapsack 6-19-05
Jeff Gill

Whistling Down the Road to Father’s Day

Other than annoying you all with tales of my forester, craftsman, historian, church elder, all-around-good-guy dad, my other main role model for fatherhood was Sheriff Andy Taylor.
I’m surprised that no one has done a “backstory” treatment of “The Andy Griffith Show” and his main character, such as we’ve had for “Gone With the Wind” or “Batman.” Of course, the modern thinking would go “why would we want to know more about a likeable, friendly, sympathetic character?”
But while my liking and even admiration for Andy (yes, I know he’s fictional, more’s the pity) has continued into middle age and parenthood, the sense I’ve had of his story has developed and grown.
What little discussion you find on the internet or the one book on the show I’ve found tends to home in on the lost wife (deceased, as is obliquely said once) or the strange fortunes of Miss Crump.
But I have to admit that my own curiosity has filled in one blank with the idea that Andy Taylor was a Korean War veteran. He’d be about the right age, and the peculiar fact that he’s a law officer in rural North Carolina actually makes it odder, not more normal that he carries no weapon. Small villages like Mayberry would have taken guns for granted, especially on the hip of a sheriff.
Andy doesn’t carry one, which says to me he’s been there, done that, and doesn’t need to wear the t-shirt. His skillful use of non-violence in that time and place also makes me suspect that he’s seen a fair amount of the after-effects of violence and ammunition, and is willing to go to great lengths to avoid that outcome.
Over and over, you pick up on the fact that the sheriff may sound like a good ol’ boy from down on the farm, but knows more than a thing or two about the big city and even beyond . . . like Tokyo, or Seoul, perhaps?
And his handling of green, inexperienced lower ranks (sorry, Barney) says he’s been there, too.
So this all points me in the direction of Andy Taylor having seen the grey and buff hills of the Korean peninsula, and combat there during the “police action.” While vets of World War II pick up the deserved appellation of “greatest generation,” as we come to new appreciation of the sacrifices made by Vietnam vets, and we better thank those fighting in the Middle East as they serve, let alone after, Korea continues to be “the forgotten war.” Even the high-rated show placed there, “M*A*S*H,” was generally thought to be a Vietnam surrogate, taking even that from them (which would surprise the author of the book that inspired the movie, written by a Korean medical vet himself).
Korean war soldiers saw combat on a scale and with a frequency that would overshadow what many Vietnam vets or earlier conflicts would experience. They have played their own part in silence and reticence, not wanting to speak of their time at the front anymore than most who were at D-Day or Iwo Jima do. Like Andy Taylor? Could be.
And that generation, too, is slipping away from us with their stories too often untold; not as quickly as the 1940’s generation, but too, too fast.
One who told at least major parts of his story who left us recently is Col. David Hackworth, the most decorated living American soldier at the time of his death. “About Face” tells many stories, including his time in combat during Korea (and Vietnam in the latter half of the book), and he wrote columns defending the front line soldier against indifference at home and corruption up top until the day of his death from a cancer suspected to grow from the defoliants used in Vietnam.
I would honor his memory, and that of all Korean War vets in particular this Father’s Day, and I hope they don’t mind if I quietly wedge a fictional character from 60’s TV among their proud number.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; if you have stories to share, send them to disciple@voyager.net.

Faith Works 6-11-05
Jeff Gill

My grandmother had some very clear rules for living. Among them was “always use a coaster.”
A higher priority rule was “The Bible isn’t a coaster.”
In my upbringing, you didn’t set anything on the Bible. Not a cup (or a saucer), not even another book. Since there was usually a Bible sitting out somewhere, these issues had immediate relevance. If there were a number of items on a coffee table, the Good Book would get picked up, the new arrival on the tabletop would be placed, and then the Bible placed back on top.
In college, a campus pastor I worked with was intrigued, and maybe a bit amused by the way I would surreptitiously walk around behind a group discussion and quietly move foam cups of coffee or coke off of paperback copies of “The Word.” He’d say to me “Jeff, you don’t even like the Living Bible paraphrase; I appreciate that you don’t give people grief over it, but why do you keep moving stuff off of Bibles?”
The best answer I had was “Because it just bugs me.”
Respect for the Bible and the place it has in Christianity certainly has something to do with it, too. But family and culture and reinforcement over many years is a powerful force.
Some folks are no doubt confused by the flap over handling of the Koran in prisoner camps run by the US military. A kind of reflexive respect for any holy book is not as culturally common here, just as people need some friendly cueing to know when to stand and such when the American flag goes by in a parade (quick summary: you should stand when it comes past you within clear view, and courtesy suggests that you take off your hat and place it over your heart, as you would when singing the national anthem or saying the pledge).
Flag etiquette is still fairly consistent, if not well known. What is “book etiquette” when it comes to sacred scriptures, of one’s own or any other?
For observant Muslims, the rules they ask the guards to follow would sound familiar to my grandmother: keep it off the ground, nothing on top of it, and handle it respectfully, not letting it get splashed or soiled in any way. Many Buddhist holy texts should be kept not only where they would not be stepped on, but where the soles of one’s feet would not end up pointed at them. And Torah scrolls in Orthodox Judaism have a whole set of rules for their care and maintenance, kept primarily in an “ark” or enclosure central to their worship space.
Christians today no longer work with one version (KJV) in one format (black leather with gold tooled lettering) with one to a household. Our NIVs, NRSVs, NLBTs, and Skateboarder Life Application Bibles are often in paperback bindings, available in mass quantities, and made to travel with you to work, lunch, and activities, guaranteeing that they will not only pick up coffee rings on the cover but have repair manuals and the like placed on top of them.
Books that are part of one’s faith practice should probably be kept at the top of most piles. Not just out of some sense of respect, but so we actually remember to read them and reflect on why we have them in the first place. Any other reading matter can come in second place, wherever it is in the pile.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; don’t even get him started about dusty Bibles! Send your own stories of “habits of the heart” to disciple@voyager.net.

Notes from my Knapsack 6-12-05Jeff Gill
There was this great idea I had for a column, and I lost it. Got distracted and forgot the whole deal. It’s Tiger Woods’ fault.Your columnist is no golfer, not a’tall. When I was a kid, they built another nine holes onto the municipal course that wrapped around a ravine that began near my backyard. Scrambling up and down the steep slopes and knowing the narrow paths (almost crawlways) through the underbrush, I got into golf by retrieving lost balls. If you sliced off of the ninth tee, you were money in my pocket. Quarter for good ‘uns, and a bread bag full of sliced covers for two bucks, sold at a discreet distance from the ballwasher off the eighth hole.The club pro would very rarely tool along in his cart to chase us (I wasn’t the only agile entrepreneur in that ravine), but since he had a distinctive personal cart he was easy to avoid.One local doctor had balls made up with his name, which he would hand out freely but also obsessively want out of the woods if he put them there, and he’d pay us fifty cents to retrieve them. The scramble if there were three of us hunting that glossy monogrammed sphere through the tree roots and multifloral rose had to have been a sight if you could have seen more than three feet in that thicket.So why did Tiger lose me a column? Well, on a hot Sunday afternoon golf is a good TV option; you don’t have to watch closely, the scenes and music are fairly non-intrusive whether you’re reading, typing, or sleeping, and the Memorial was on.We here in central Ohio, golfer, duffer, or non-golfaholic know that Jack deserves support, and I always say “buy local,” so TV coverage from just up the road sealed the deal.Then Tiger Woods walks into the picture, teeing up at Muirfield. And he has a strip of duct tape down the back of his golf shirt.If you were watching – and apparently many of you did – you know what I’m talking about. He had a piece of glossy, silverish shiny material, remarkably similar to God’s gift to the unhandy in 50 yard rolls, running from collar to beltline.At first I thought “Maybe he has a rip in his shirt, and some helpful steward, probably from Licking County as so many are at the Memorial, got out the duct tape and fixed him right up.”The commentators were mute on the subject, although they also discreetly worked around the fact that the shirts were part of a line of clothing with the “TW” label, like some golden bear logos I’ve seen around these parts.Then it hit me. It actually could be duct tape, an artistic taper trimmed off the sides, stuck onto discount bin polo shirts along with the magical name, “Tiger.” And they would sell, not just for Father’s Day, but all year long. No one would say to Mr. Woods, “Uhhhh, sir, your shirt has duct tape on it.” They would say, “Wow, cool, where can I buy one and enrich you further, Mr. Woods?”Of course, if I wore one, people would walk up all day and try to pull the strip off my shirt. You know, just to be helpful. Who would want to wear duct tape?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio who is not getting any golf gear for Father’s Day; if you have suggestions to replace the column he forgot watching Tiger’s duct tape, e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

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Backup (no date as yet)
Notes From My Knapsack - general use
Jeff Gill

Minnesota is next to have a state quarter in circulation; some on-line acquaintances link me to heated debate over the look and symbolism of the design, prominently featuring a loon on a lake and (some would say redundantly) a person in a motorboat with a fishing rod.
The whole state quarter scam – the Mint gets to print money, create some modest variations to get you not to spend it, thereby making a great profit margin – is at least a good example for consumers in demonstrating the fine distinctions that separate good design from bad art.
Dig a bunch of quarters out of your pocket or purse and give ‘em a look. Some are immediately attractive, some require you to look close and squint, and others just look like cheap tourism promos stamped on slugs suitable for a cheesy arcade.
This is where design is both an art and a science. Everyone knew they were creating a picture for the back of a quarter. If they were unclear, they could pull one out and check the size, shape, and general context. The state of my birth, Illinois, has an attractive collage of Lincolnesque images and a theme tying civic boosterism to their history (21st state for the 21st century), all working nicely together. But without magnification and a strong north light, you see . . . not much. Louisiana takes a jeweler’s loupe as well.
California does something very comparable to Illinois (historic person, view of well known location), but keeps it pared down so the picture makes sense to the eye and mind even laying on the counter. It doesn’t do everything that the Golden State could jam in there, because someone realized “it’s a quarter.”
Others have even more of the stench of design by committee. South Carolina should have put whoever designed their long-popular license plate on the job. But instead they wedged a palm tree and an outline and words and . . . almost as messy as Florida’s soup pot of a quarter.
Rhode Island, perhaps in a tribute to native son H.P. Lovecraft’s oeuvre, gives us a simple shot with two icons, the Newport bridge and a sailboat, but arranged in an ominous pose that more resembles the cover of a murder mystery. Lovecraft would also have liked Arkansas’ hovering giant diamond over what looks to me like Cthulu’s swamp; likewise Vermont may be thinking maple sap collector, but I’m seeing “Twin Peaks” under those angular tree trunks. Maine hints of doom as well . . .
Connecticut gives us a very nicely framed Charter Oak, a tree no longer standing, and New Hampshire has “The Old Man of the Mountain” who crumbled off the cliff face he had occupied for eons. I like Kentucky’s shot at an actual scene, just south of Bardstown with a thoroughbred and Foster’s “Old Kentucky Home.”
The usual look is to combine a state outline with a stereotyped image associated with the area, like Massachusetts and the Minute Man, Indiana and the Indy Car, Georgia and the Giant Peach, and Texas with the Lone Star. Michigan decided it was too much work to come up with any icon, and gave us just the outline, with sketched in lakes all around.
Yikes. Were these design teams, or committees, or campaign donors, or whoever, thinking they were creating teaching aids for third graders? (I apologize in advance for any offense to bright third graders I may have given.) I don’t want the quarter to tell me how New York is shaped; I want to see what Virginia wants me to know that I didn’t before, and their colonial ships did that for me. North Carolina is elegantly simple: the Bishop’s boys and their motor kite at Kitty Hawk. Iowa is so Iowan, with an unadorned simple schoolhouse picking Grant Wood’s art without using the standard pitchforked duo. Missouri has a nice idea, but someone needs to tell their engraver about foreshortening.
How do I like Ohio’s quarter? If you’ve read this far, you know my answer already. Maybe in another hundred years they’ll give us a second chance. On the good side, they won’t be putting Bob Taft on it. Hope, maybe.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he usually has too much change in his pocket. Send your thoughts of change to disciple@voyager.net.

Faith Works 06-04-05
Jeff Gill

Ten Reasons To Go To Church This Summer

1. It’s air conditioned. Really, most are anymore, even the little rural ones.
Of course, you may think it’s too cool, but you can wear a sweater; it may be that you are hot blooded, and wish it were more like a meat locker, but modern styles allow shortsleeves in church. You’ll be comfortable.
2. I’m told it may not be air conditioned other places. If you go to church, they can help you avoid those spots, um, in the long term. Just ask.
3. Either way, everyone relaxes the dress code. Formal churches get less so, and more unstructured churches are how they always are, so don’t sweat the shirt selection so much. Put on something clean, and any church in the county will welcome you; dirty shirts really aren’t such a problem, either. No one ever went to the hot place (see #2) over breaking the dress code. For pushing someone out over the dress code, possibly . . .
4. If you don’t go, they’ll talk about you.
Now, I’ve spent an awful lot of time over my years as a parish pastor telling people that other folks actually don’t talk about them as much as they think they are, or that the look they think someone gave them might have been their breakfast, not their attitude.
But you can’t get around the fact that they can’t talk about you as much as when you’re there.
5. Everyone lightens up a bit during the summertime.
Yes, even pastors. Look, we all know folks have twice the temptations to go and do other things in June, July, and August than even the rest of the frantic, frenetic year we have nowadays. So Sunday school teachers, preachers, those who pray or sing in the service are really bringing their “A game” during the summer months. Plus you are more likely to get the youth just back from camp telling amazing stories of spiritual uplift, or fellow worshipers who have been on a mission trip back testifying about the transformative experiences they had in Mexico, the Appalachians, on a Native American reservation, or who knows where overseas.
6. Crafts. Yes, you too. Even we craft-impaired people would benefit from integrating mind and body into our spirituality, and crafts aren’t busy work, they are at their best “soul work” of the most enduring kind. Crafts I no longer have I remember the lessons of better than stuff I’ve got on the shelf in the dining room.
7. Outdoor worship. Many places have at least one outside worship experience through the summer, and it really can change how you look at church the other 51 Sundays. Try it!
8. Ya gotta get out of bed sometime. Stay in bed after sunrise is fun occasionally, but it can leave you feeling really creaky if you do it too much. Go to church already, will ya?
9. It is true that summer attendance is a bit lower in most churches through these months; that means parking spaces and finding a seat in the worship space is much easier.
10. Licking County has over 200 places of worship regularly gathering. One of them is likely to suit you, and be there for you as a community when you need the strength and support that even family can’t always provide, and a faith for an uncertain future. Look around, and visit a few this summer.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio. Contact him at disciple@voyager.net.

Notes From My Knapsack 06-05-05
Jeff Gill

The Lawn and Winding Road

Maintaining a diverse ecosystem is a good thing, right? We’ve all heard about the downside of monoculture, vast swaths of one plant across huge areas, vulnerable to so many ills and threats, any one of which can wreak havoc on the whole.
And no one alive today hasn’t heard that diversity is the modern watchword.
Not when it comes to lawns. The societal expectation is grass, lots of grass, kept even, green, and free of alien intruders . . . like the ones that have been here for thousands of years on prairies and forested river bottoms.
If I fertilize aggressively with broadleaf herbicides mixed in, I’m likely to go from mowing every five days as it is to mowing every other day. On the other hand, with dandelions, plantain, thistle, and the omnipresent clover, the grass may be edged out of the rich variety that is my front yard.
And as the Martian might say, on the other other hand, the Little Guy couldn’t have found a four-leaf clover in front of the house if we had a deep green even lawn.
Actually, I like the exercise of mowing regularly (since it makes me exercise regularly, for one thing) and getting the winter kinks out of my legs and back. A set of sharpened blades and a new air filter brings a happy roar from the red and grey grass chomper, now 13 years old and going strong, and the unmistakable scent of mown grass, nearly undescribable except as itself, says warm weather even when it isn’t so warm.
I call it a mix of onion and banana, smell wise, but your proboscis may differ.
Out away from houses and well maintained frontages, the forests have filled out to their max of foliage. On North Street in Hebron and below Swasey Chapel at Denison the catalpa trees have lit their torches high up, blossoming in stalks up where you have to crane your necks to see them. Likewise the yellow, or tulip poplars have their peach and orange and yellow flowers now, only visible to most of us when they fall to earth like a gift from on high. 70, 90, over a hundred feet above the forest floor, they mostly flower their brightest and widest where only the swifts and hawks can see.
The vertical depth of forest life, when phenomena like tulip poplar blossoms flutter into my awareness from above, always reminds me of the scene in “The Hobbit” when the dwarves and Bilbo are lost in Mirkwood.
The unlucky (he thinks) hobbit is picked to climb a high tree in the dense forest, trying to spy out where they are and which direction they should go, Mirkwood being very like the Ohio Simon Kenton first described where “a squirrel could travel a hundred feet off the ground from the Great River to the Great Lakes without touching ground.”
When Bilbo’s face first peeked out into sunlight climbing into the canopy of his fictional forest, he sees an ocean of treetops and leaves, undulating to the horizon in all directions. And he is heartened, oddly, by a few darkly colorful butterflies, violet-hued, living their lives in the sun while they marched in darkness far below, each mostly unaware of the other.
There is so much richness in everyday life just a few feet, or maybe a few hundred feet at most away from the ruts we tend to follow. Use this summer to climb a tree, or climb out of a rut, and check out the view. You might find a mysterious flower, an unseen butterfly, or make a friend.
Or read “The Hobbit” if you haven’t, or haven’t lately!

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he and the Lovely Wife are telling some stories at Infirmary Mound Park on June 4 at 7 pm. You can tell him a story through disciple@voyager.net.

Notes From My Knapsack 5-29-05
Jeff Gill

Hebron Crossroads Festival in Canal Park

Striped tents, bright lights, carnival music wafting across the Historic Crossroads of Ohio, and a festival in Hebron’s Canal Park!
Memorial Day weekend brings the second Crossroads Festival, sponsored by the Hebron Elementary School PTO. Albanese Amusements will bring rides, games, and some food booths, while many other community organizations with line the midway on down to the big Gazebo and the picnic shelter with the famous Hebron Lions’ fry wagon.
Friday, May 27, right through May 30 (starting after the Memorial Day parade from the Legion Hall down to the Hebron Cemetery and veterans’ memorial there), you can bring the kids . . . of all ages! . . . and enjoy some local fun in a widespread tradition of Ohio festivalling (if that’s a word).
Right through Labor Day with the Millersport Sweet Corn Festival and Flint Ridge Knap-In, this area has a remarkable assortment of community sponsored events, usually with a fair amount of food and a signature element of the area as the label. Hebron’s motto as a historic crossroads of the Ohio-Erie Canal and the National Road, going back to the 1830’s and passers-by like Henry Clay and Andrew Jackson (leaving his name behind just past Hebron to mark Jacksontown), makes a “Crossroads Festival” a very natural choice.
Music is planned in the Gazebo on Saturday night, and area Methodists are combining for an outdoor worship service on Sunday morning, warming up at 10 am for some singin’ and preachin’. This year, the original Memorial Day date of May 30 is actually the “day off” since our legislative Monday phenomena began with so many observances, and everyone from veterans to Civil War buffs to band members marching can appreciate the combination this year, with the 1868 “General Order” to the Grand Army of the Republic, the original American vets organization, establishing May 30 as “Memorial Day” standing behind all we do.
After the wreath laying and speech making, the rides and fun continue through the afternoon, with our enjoyment accented by the knowledge of what has been sacrificed that we might celebrate today.
I hope that, wherever you live in Licking County, you find your way to a local commemoration. One is taking place very near you, in a quiet cemetery or village square. Come and place your hand over your heart, and find your weekend made complete!

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher who will be telling some tall tales and helping cook s’mores over at Infirmary Mound Park next Saturday, June 4, around 7 pm. Come join him, or e-mail disciple@voyager.net to join the narrative.

Faith Works 5-28-05
Jeff Gill

A Memorial Day Observation

Robert Ingersoll was possibly the best known public speaker in America between the end of the Civil War and to his death in 1899. He was particularly in demand for his Memorial Day addresses, which he gave at civic gatherings and national cemeteries all over the country.
What made this somewhat unusual is that Ingersoll was to America what Thomas Huxley was to Great Britain, where “Darwin’s Bulldog” created the word “agnostic” to describe his beliefs. Not atheists, either of them, but those who literally “did not know,” the meaning of the Greek root words that make up agnostic.
Ingersoll actually reveled in his contrarian stance against the tides of family values and patriotism which he sailed in quite comfortably, while not flying the flag of any organized or dogmatic religion. He was called “The Great Infidel,” and Ingersoll delighted to call that label his own. He made the nominating speech for many a national candidate of the Republican Party, and might have been the one nominated if he would modify or mute his views on the place of church.
To each such request he calmly answered that he could not be other than who he was, and never held elective office. But as a colonel at Shiloh, and a decorated veteran of the Civil War, his speeches on the valor of the common soldier and of loyalty that extended beyond the battlefield left him in great demand, if not to offer the invocation.
Once, having given a well-received speech in Chicago, he was on his way to Indianapolis to offer much the same message at the dedication of a Soldiers and Sailors Monument at the heart of that city, still to be seen today on the circle near the state capital.
About halfway, at Crawfordsville, a man boarded the train and entered the compartment where Ingersoll sat. He turned out to be a fellow veteran of the Union army, a fellow officer at Shiloh, and they had much to discuss. But the matter quickly turned to personal faith, and the place of such belief.
As he had on public platforms so often, each argument for Christianity and faith was met with a coldly logical counter from “The Great Infidel,” and fairly quickly the old comrades agreed that they would not let this difference of opinion come between them as fellow soldiers.
But as the train entered Union Station, Ingersoll said to his friend something like this: “You hold your faith with great passion, and I respect that. What you must do, then, is make me feel it as well. Our logic can carry us only so far, which is why I am simply an agnostic. Make me feel the source of your faith, and you will have my ear.”
With those words in his head, Lew Wallace stepped off the train. Nearly ten years later, he finished the book “Ben-Hur.” The first great Biblical epic was not only a best seller by the standards of the 1880’s or even today, but it was made into a movie at the dawn of motion pictures, for the fourth time with Charlton Heston, while the book has never gone out of print.
You’ve surely heard of Ben-Hur, and his book subtitled “A Tale of The Christ,” if not his creator Lew Wallace. Robert Ingersoll has largely been forgotten. Let’s remember them both this Memorial Day weekend.

Jeff Gill is a storyteller and supply preacher around central Ohio, and he’s telling some stories next Saturday at Infirmary Mound Park around 7 pm, with s’mores to follow. Tell him your story of faith at work at disciple@voyager.net.