Notes From My Knapsack 2-25-07
Jeff Gill

This Week On the Red Carpet

Oscar Night is this weekend, and we’ll read all next week about the winners for
best picture, best actors and actresses, cinematography, and "the buzz."

Clearly, "buzz" isn’t just for apiculture anymore. Bee hive keepers know about
buzz, and now the contestants on "The Apprentice: LA" do, too, with their
venture into apiculture.

But if you work with honeybees, and are around the hive, their tone, their buzz
really does change. And I’m told, though blessedly have never been in earshot
to know personally, that you never forget the sound of an angry hive.
I’ve heard what I was told is the tone of a happy hive buzz, and it made me
profoundly nervous. So that’s all I need to know about angry.

"Buzz" is what drives the debate on the Iraq war, the ’08 presidential
nominating contest, and Oscar picks. There is, apparently, a tone of the
discussion and topics and attitudes that can be read to point out the ultimate
winner. Read the buzz, the logic goes, read the hive.

My problem with Oscar buzz is that for me, Best Picture is "Casablanca," Best
Actor is Bogie or Bing or Cary Grant, and Best Actress is (hmmmm) either Eva
Marie Saint or maybe Katherine Hepburn.

You could throw up "North by Northwest," Nobody’s Fool," or "Leap of Faith,"
Paul Newman or Steve Martin, Rene Russo in "The Thomas Crown Affair," or "A
Canterbury Tale," even "State and Main," and Phillip Seymour Hoffman and
Rebecca Pidgeon. The point is, I have no idea who’s made movies *this* year.
That’s not entirely true: the Lovely Wife and I took the Little Guy to see
"Cars," which was a delightful ripoff of "Doc Hollywood" if you ask me (did
they pay royalties to the doctor who wrote that, I wonder?).

And we had a grandparentally provided opportunity to see "The Nativity Story,"
which will no doubt win just as many Oscars as "The Passion" did (i.e., none,
with a consolation minor, non-TV show award). The guy who played Herod was
brilliantly evil, though, and having played many wise men through the years, I
delighted in Caspar, Balthasar, and Melchior, perhaps more than I did the Holy
Couple.

Anyhow, none of that qualifies me to comment on the Oscars. I know that the
trophies will go to a number of people who are in very expensive clothes who
are deeply concerned about hunger and global warming . . . before they drive
off to the post-party in Escalades, catching a chartered Gulfstream to make the
morning shows in New York, pumping Lord knows how much carbon into the
atmosphere.

If they aren’t giving Longaberger gift baskets to the presenters anymore (they
dropped the whole basket idea once it got thirty thousand dollars worth of
lavishness, embarrassing even Hollywood publicists), why exactly do we care?
The buzz, such as there is one, is around the fate of Hollywood itself. Younger
audiences are watching clips and movies on portable media (read iPods and their
clones), downloading movies to laptops, wifi-ing them into the big screen only
occasionally.

So studios no longer control the taps, so to speak. Visual media comes across a
wide variety of settings, and people of all ages are getting used to amateur
content as more of the norm (read YouTube) from news update footage from
cellphone shots to churches with inhouse productions showing on their
bigscreens.

If they don’t control the taps, they don’t control who pays – or if anyone is
paying.

And the aesthetic side is even bigger. "Lawrence of Arabia," for all David Lean’
s beautiful photography and Peter O’Toole’s acting, doesn’t work on a two inch
screen. It just doesn’t. The sands of the Empty Quarter and the rocky cliffs of
Petra aren’t more than colorful smudges on a DVD player screen, and Omar Sharif
riding towards the camera from dot to mounted Prince has little impact on a
laptop.

Will this mean movies will start getting made less for the silver screen, and
more to the micro-formats? What does that look like? More talking heads?
And you can’t think about any of this without remembering that we’re now a full
decade into the era where all videogames make more money than all movies put
together. Talk about making your own story, within a broad framework delivered
by the designer/director.

Movies have long been a crucial element in how we tell our stories about
ourselves to each other. So when we talk about the buzz around where Hollywood’
s going, we’re talking about our own stories.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio,
and he’s used to using movie images in preaching. Tell him how the changes in
cinema might change your story at knapsack77@gmail.com.

Faith Works 2-17-07
Jeff Gill

Love Can Last, Not So Statistics

It was when Mike Huckabee said it that I was startled.

For years, the casual observation has slipped into everyday conversation and general media reports: one out of two marriages end in divorce.

Everyone knows that.

And like most things everyone knows, it isn’t true. Usually social conservatives, like the aforementioned former governor of Arkansas (born in Hope, no less) who wants to be the next Republican president, are up to speed on social data.

But this non-data datum is so pervasive that maybe a candidate, wanting to point to cultural decay and their proposed fixes, can’t resist using it. They should, though, because I worry about how this sounds to young couples. "We got a fifty-fifty shot at lasting, no? Let’s just move in and keep it simple."

So to take apart misconception number one – the reason the "one in two" figure is so readily accepted, is probably something you’ve noticed in the pages of this very publication. You see thirty marriage license application listed, and fifteen divorces and dissolutions. One in two, Jeff, what’s your point?

That’s where actual statistical analysis comes in. When George and Martha have been married for 57 years, that’s one marriage. In the same period, Fred and Ethel marry and break up. That’s a divorce, one out of two; meanwhile, Fred marries and divorces three more times and Ethel twice. How do you count that?

Well, pollster Lewis Harris in his 1987 book "Inside America" wrote that "the idea that half of American marriages are doomed is one of the most specious pieces of statistical nonsense ever perpetuated in modern times." Add in couples that divorce and get back together (not a great many, but more than you might think), and it turns out that an accurate number for the "marriage success rate" is very hard to find.

Our competition over at the New York Times did a detailed demographic analysis two years ago, and concluded that "the percentage of all marriages that end in divorce" peaked at 41% in 1980, and today is at or below 30%.Is a 70% success rate for American marriage better than 50%? It’d sound like it to me if I was 23 and looking at setting a wedding date. Some studies push that number closer to 75%, meaning you could say with perfect accuracy "three out of four marriages last a lifetime."

What makes this info even more critical among couples starting out is the dramatic skew with education and socio-economic factors. Women who have completed college divorce around 20% of the time, while those with less education are divorcing in close to 40% of their marriages. Add in the more than twice that number skew for "out-of-wedlock entirely" births, and you see – well, you see Vickie Lynn Hogan. You see the sad story of Anna Nicole Smith (her stage name), but almost always without the millions or the fame. Just the bad choices leading to disastrous outcomes for the children who become ping pong balls in adult disputes.

The danger of this "well, you only have a one in two chance of making it, anyhow" logic is that those least able to deal with added stress and complication in their lives, the poorest and least educated, are thinking they hear a cultural signal of "it don’t matter nohow." The reality is that their better educated sisters are getting fewer partners, abortions, single pregnancies, and divorces. The wealth gap, which is growing in America, may have more to do with these trends than even NAFTA (and I’m not saying NAFTA doesn’t).

Or did you know that, according to a national survey in 1995, having just one sexual partner, outside of the one you’ll marry, increases your odds of divorce by half? And just a second (that’s only a lifetime total of three partners, if you’re keeping score at home), bumps that figure up another 10%?

So this St. Valentine’s week, as you can probably tell, I’m feeling pretty passionate about us telling the truth to each other about the state of marriage, the role of monogamy, its advantages, and why people of faith have a stake in both family and the economy to say so. Loudly.

And yes, I sent the Huckabee campaign got an email from me. If I hear anything back, I’ll let y’all know.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; send him your tale of faith and life in Licking County at knapsack77@gmail.com.

Notes From My Knapsack 2-18-07
Jeff Gill

Developers Develop

Developers develop projects.

I know that sounds painfully obvious, but as George Orwell liked to say, sometimes the hardest work is facing what’s right in front of us.

A developer, by definition, wants to develop.

First, the upside (yeah, there’s a downside, give me a minute). Developers by their very nature see something that others don’t see. They see homes, businesses, streets to connect them, infrastructure to service them, and even a community surrounding them. They see opportunity, possibility, and yes, profit. Which is not always a bad thing, OK?

Developers do see something different than many of us when they look at a green field or a woody hillside. Even on vacation, or in a national park, they look at a slope and think "how many of which kind of somethings could I put in there? If I put in fifty condos at 12% or build seventeen estate homes at 40%, I’m golden unless the market leaves me with over 5% empty…" and so on. It doesn’t mean they really want to do it, but it’s like me reading the front page of the Dispatch and circling the typos and usage errors. Writers write, and developers develop.

Developers have to be persistent, and think beyond a quarterly forecast, or a biennial budget, or the next election. Ten years is a fairly common timeframe for most developers, which makes them some of the most forward looking people in the area. Whether they’re of a mood to share their forecasts or projections is another matter, because developers aren’t rare. They have competition, competing for green space (cheapest to develop on), tax breaks (which aren’t, contrary to belief, limitless), or financing (ditto). Successful developers are rare; developers going through bankruptcy, not rare.

Then the downside. Developers are rarely into parks or reserve public lands, unless it helps block a competitor’s plan. They don’t actually see any land as permanently set aside as much as not politically viable…at this time. Developers know there are enough people interested in preserving green space that it isn’t their concern. Developers develop, and greenies try to set aside land.

For now.

From Granville to Gratiot, from Pataskala to Perry Township, Licking County is already sized up, planned and parceled up, and vastly overbuilt – in the minds of developers. They’ve gonna do whatever they can do, with the most optimal profit, just as farmers will sell their grain and plants sell product, looking for the best price point and market saturation. And pushing just past it.

There’s a fellow I know who’s been getting quite a bit of flak, behind his back and to his face, over objecting to a recent green space initiative. Actually, when I told him I would likely vote for it, he was nothing but encouraging. It was the task of keeping the wider public aware of the ongoing nature of this question – how much building can we sustain? – that motivated him.

More to the point, I have a strong suspicion that we just saw a very skilled, experienced local developer play a community for chumps at a rigged card game. When every quote they have to give is ominous and threatening, and their phone banks are making calls filled with every loaded adjective to make people feel pushed into a corner, I wonder. It doesn’t take a skilled student of human nature to know that Licking Countians hate to be told they have no choice. Why would those supposedly trying to pass a bond levy push those buttons?

So now we have the hard work of many sincere community leaders, subtly undermined by way too many mailings, push poll phone banks, and a confrontative public stance by the owner of the land (a developer, note), ending in defeat.

So when a hearing over annexation someday is asking "Is this going to be a problem for the communities and schools affected?" the answer will come – "hey, they had a chance to vote and said they didn’t care."

Developers develop. Only the community, in dialogue amongst themselves, can build community.If a developer comes to your community and says they want to help, it could be. But just remember, developers develop.

Or am I repeating myself?

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio. Tell him a story through knapsack77@gmail.com

Faith Works 2-10-07
Jeff Gill

When Verses Collide!

Well, your faithful scribe had some well-timed St.
Valentine’s week observations on love and marriage
and relationships. Then reality happened, as so often
occurs; can we pick up later, in the wake of all the
cupids and red doilies getting packed away? Thanks.

This past week saw a classic collision, for Christians,
of two well-known, clearly stated, much honored
Scripture passages. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says
in chapter 25: 31-46, of acts of charity and assistance to
the needy that "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of
the least of these my brethren, you did it to me. . . Truly, I
say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these,
you did it not to me."

Paul says to the fledgling church in Rome, capital of the
empire which oppressed and jailed and killed
Christians, at chapter 13: "Let every person be subject
to the governing authorities."

So what’s a Christian to do when the governing
authorities close down a homeless shelter?
Roger & Marilyn Morgan have been working hard on
Newark’s East End with Last Call Ministries (see
www.lastcalloutreach.org ) for some years now, and
they’ve long hoped for a chance to open a shelter for
single adults. Between New Beginnings for abused
women and their children, and the Salvation Army’s
logistical challenge of three spaces, which could hold
eighteen or so, but if there’s a parent and child in each,
only six (it’s actually more complicated than that, but
you see the problem), there’s a clear lack of shelter
space for individuals who’ve hit a crisis point.
In a county of 150,000 souls, the idea that more than
one or two adults on their own, particularly men, might
need emergency shelter at any given time, is no stretch.

For a compassionate community, downtown
dumpsters don’t cut it, and churches and groups like
the Saint Vincent dePaul conferences at local Catholic
Christian parishes are spending money when they can
at hotels for such folk, but it’s not an ideal use of
benevolence money.

So when their plans weren’t a hundred percent set, but
as a near-record cold snap set in, the folks with the
Morgans at Last Call Ministries decided to step up and
open quick this winter.

Then the city of Newark found itself between a rock and
a cold place. With one entrance, the building was not
technically habitable, and when the "governing
authorities" became aware of the situation, they closed
the shelter down.

On the coldest night of 2007.

I actually see two dilemmas here, that I’d hope all
people of faith and anyone of good will would consider.
On the one hand, I believe the city when they say they’ll
get people off the street in harsh weather, whatever it
takes. I’m guessing the jail plays a role in that, but I’m
still not clear. What makes my trust useless to those
who may be homeless, is that they don’t trust the city
enough to follow the process, ask for help, be willing to
wait at a counter or desk until the mills of civic life start
turning.

Some might say, "well, if they’re so ‘impatient’ they’d
rather sleep out and maybe die, that’s not taxpyers’
problem." I have, really, nothing to say to that person.

But the other dilemma is that the city knows, and we
should be aware, that the moment an exception or
"pass" is given to us as Christians, to do what we
believe God calls us to do, there are unscrupulous
landlords, developers, and outright predators who will
jump in and say "me, too!" And that most certainly
includes little things like second doors, let alone toilets
that flush, or walls that you can see moonlight through
on the corners, with snow puffing into the bedroom
around the outsides of the windows.

Roger told me on Wednesday that, at that point, he
needed prayers, and a plumber, "…but in that order!" In
my opinion, Last Call Outreach is trying to house the
folks who tend to drop through the holes in our system
of care in this community, that are no less inexcusable
than gaps in the wall of a rental house.

The dilemma of connecting the broad spectrum of
services available, to people who aren’t always well
equipped to find or use them, is on the worktable of a
great group of people, right now (I’ll have more about
them soon!). They’re working hard, and fast, but when
the thermometer hits –5 below, we still find there are
still gaps.

Give Last Call your support (check the website for more
info), and The Salvation Army as well, along with
providers of emergency and transitional housing
across the spectrum. Your church is probably doing
something already; get involved.

Jesus and Paul didn’t mean to start an argument, and
the apostle takes a back seat when governments are
actively evil. This situation is one where everyone is
working towards the right in their own way, but we’ve
got a ways to go to get to the Promised Land.

Where the temps are more in the high 70’s, I hear.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher
around central Ohio; tell him a story at
knapsack77@gmail.com.

Notes From My Knapsack 2-11-07
Jeff Gill

Scouting For a New Century

Through the beginning of February, you may notice the uniform of Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, and Girl Scouts in some different settings, especially in churches around your community.Feb. 8, 1910 is the date of the national charter of the Boy Scouts of America; Cub Scouting was founded in 1930 for younger boys. Girl Scouting began when Juliette Low of Savannah, Georgia met Gen. Baden-Powell, the originator and founder of the Scouting Movement, and took the idea home to start in her carriage house, which looked like a chalet (and now you know where some of those cookie names come from!).

Girl Scouting marks a birthdate of March 12, 1912, so some areas have Brownies, Daisies, Junior or Senior Scouts marking the start of next month.In quite a few churches you’ll see the whole mob showing up together, for a "Scouting Sunday" with youth involved in the worship service in some way.This is a year with particular interest, since the retired hero of the Boer War, Robert Stephenson Smythe Baden-Powell, did the first practical test of the Scouting program in the summer of 1907, on Brownsea Island off Poole Harbour in the south of England.

This May and through the summer, centennial celebrations throughout Scouting, including our area’s Simon Kenton Council, will gather old Scouts and new. Ross County will host a council wide "camp-o-ree," Cub Day Camp at Licking County’s own Camp Falling Rock will mark the century.In 2005 there were nearly 3 million Girl Scouts of all age levels, and 3 million Boy Scouts from Cubs to Venturers (plus a couple million registered "Scouters," the adult volunteers that run the program). Around the world there are 38 million youth from 216 countries enrolled in the program on one level or another.

But why the emphasis on church services this time of year? What many don’t realize is that Scouting is, well, franchised to local organizations. Other than the screening registration for adults, to check a national database for the safety and security of the youth, Boy Scout units in particular are "chartered" to a group that is responsible for delivering the program. That charter is usually (but not always) to a congregation.

The United Methodist Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (aka Mormons) hold over three-fourths of all the BSA charters nationwide. The LDS Church has actually made Scouting their youth program within the church.

So Scout Sunday or Scout Sabbath is a way of saying thank you to the organizations that host, sponsor, or otherwise support their program. Even units chartered to a service club or group (and where I once was District Commissioner, we had a troop chartered to "Ziggy’s Archery") still may meet at a church or get major support from a congregation.

Our local service unit, Licking District of the By Scouts, has the right to nominate adult volunteers for an honor called the "Silver Beaver." This centennial year for Scouting, our district is proud that we were given the right to award two highly deserving Silver Beaver Awards for service to youth in their own unit, and in their community as well.

Ina Heath of Utica, and Dwight "Aby" Johnson (should I say, of Camp Falling Rock?) are this county’s contribution to the eleven Silver Beavers given in all of the Simon Kenton Council, among 8,000 adult volunteers spread from Delaware County to Maysville, KY. Ina has served her troop, the district, and the camping honorary called the "Order of the Arrow" for many years. She would also happily say she hasn’t done so as long as Aby Johnson has served Scouting, going back to when he was one of our very first Licking County Scouts to go to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, back when the paths were barely marked.

Hearing his tales of railtravel alone and a bit of hitchhiking, as a teenager in the years just after World War II, is a reminder of how far we’ve come but also of some of what we’ve left behind. Both of them are committed scouters who have improved the lives of countless Scouts who never even knew their names.

But we honor them, and look forward to seeing them out at Camp Falling Rock, where the 75+ year old Franklin Lodge will soon be joined by the new Sequoia Eagle Lodge, and a new century of Scouting continues!

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s almost as proud of being an Eagle Scout and Silver Beaver as he is of the Little Guy’s upcoming Bear badge in Cub Scouts. Tell him a scouting tale at knapsack77@gmail.com.

* * *

Faith in the Arena 2-03-07
By Jeff Gill

If Barack Obama says it, it must be so, right?

About the two coaches matched against each other in tomorrow's little shindig down in Miami, he's quoted in the Chicago Tribune: "It's a wonderful story. Obviously, to see two African-American coaches go to the Super Bowl when it has been historically difficult for black coaches to break into the NFL is terrific. But you know what makes it even better is that they are both men of humility, they are both men of God," Obama said. "They never trash talk. They are not yellers and screamers on the sidelines. They are just a couple of class individuals."

I began seminary in Indianapolis after the Colts made their midnight move from Baltimore to Indianapolis and got used to Irsay family quotes, many of which had to be edited for the sports page, or the front page of a courteous newspaper. Never were they on the religion page. So I was startled to hear that night on national television the owner, Jim Irsay, announce as he hefted the conference championship award: "There's a lot of glory up here with this trophy. As the humble leader of this organization, we're giving all the glory to God."

Ignoring, for the moment, it may be Jim has a ways to go in his spiritual growth if he thinks you should declare yourself as humble, that's quite a statement for a team owner.

Given networks have taken to ever-more-careful camera shots at game's end to not show the large and growing number of players from both teams that kneel on the center logo of the field at the end of play to give thanks for a game well played, Jimbo took an opportunity that couldn't be edited out to say something about faith. Go ahead and be proud a bit, Mr. Irsay.

Tony Dungy, the Indy coach, has been more subtle and circumspect about his faith, making those who notice such things even more sure of the solidity and foundational quality of where he stands. The tragic death of his son last year, the sermon he preached as part of that memorial and the ongoing commitment to promoting responsible fatherhood in Indiana is part of who his community knows him to be, even a few hundred miles up I-65 to the competition's city, where the senator from Da Bears also said: "You can tell the loyalty and affection that their players have for them. It is a wonderful story, not just for African-Americans but for all Americans to see men like that who are good fathers, who are good leaders, who do things the right way, succeed."

But Dungy did say after the Patriots' game wild ending: "The Lord set this up in a way that no one would believe it. The Lord tested us a lot this year, but He set this up to get all the glory."

Even his quarterback weighed in. Peyton Manning offered on ESPN, "I said a little prayer there on that last drive," Manning acknowledged of a possession that culminated in the winning 3-yard touchdown run by rookie tailback Joseph Addai with just one minute remaining. "I don't know if you're supposed to pray or not in those kinds of situations, but I did." And a national TV audience saw him do quite a bit of praying during the last drive by New England.

So for all you Colts and Bears fans tomorrow -- is it a time for prayer? I've heard the great coach and passionate Christian (and Purdue alumnus!) John Wooden say it always is appropriate to pray for the right spirit of competitiveness, safety for all and that you play your best, but praying that the other guy break an ankle is likely to come back on you.
Dan Reeves and Tom Landry have said much the same: "Lord, help us do our best." But praying to win alone is, to paraphrase, an unhealthy spiritual discipline.
Kind of like what we'll be eating tomorrow afternoon.

Whatever your interest in football, which team you'll pray will "do their best," or however you snack, remember the youth in your congregation is likely to do some kind of "Souper Bowl" support for food pantries and hunger programs tomorrow as well.

One way to participate is when you're buying junk for watching the game, pick up an item of canned goods for each item of snackage and take those soup cans and tinned tuna or jars of peanut butter to church with you Sunday morning. This is often a bare-shelf time of year for pantries, so join your "Souper Bowl" however you can.

I'll be praying for you to do your best.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller and supply preacher around Central Ohio; share a story at knapsack77@gmail.com.

Notes From My Knapsack 2-4-07
Jeff Gill

A View Is Worth a Thousand…

"A picture is worth a thousand words" is the old saying.

True, but sometimes you need a thousand (well, 700 in this space) to find a pretty picture for your eyes.As Booster Snapshots gets rolling, we’ll be looking for your photos, of kids in action, schooners built in garages, and the necessary white horse on a green hillside.

Landscape shots are notoriously hard to transfer from the eyeball to the page. Few actually have the visual composition built into the natural scene that allows them to leap off of print (think Grand Canyon). Odds are, unless you’re a well-trained, long-practiced photographer, it will be hard to get a landscape shot that works for these pages.

Which is where text comes back into play! Licking County has quite a few beautiful views, and they play well on the heart if not in ink.

I’ve been out on a couple rambles lately which had me thinking about this, which were, unfortunately, on private property where access has to be very limited.So I can’t tell you about ‘em.There are plenty though, that you can see, and this is a great time of year for the long view. Leaves are off the trees, branches are thin, and a bit of snow accents all the terrain.

Easy and obvious, but missed by many, is Dawes Arboretum. You don’t have to be a demon hiker to enjoy either the overlook behind the Visitor’s Center, the tower along the south drive at the end of the hedge letters, or my favorite: past the Holly, park in the pulloff, and walk through the beeches to the Oak Overlook. An interpretive sign tells you about the ancient Teays River Valley, pre-glacial, and the Groveport fossil river running north to south before you.

When you look northwest, you are seeing a little way up the side valley of Raccoon Creek. To have the bookend view for Oak Overlook to the southwest, drive west on Newark-Granville Road to Bryn Du Woods, and drive back, and back, and back, tending left, and left, and left, until you hit the keyhole surrounding Alligator Mound.

I’ve written about that 1000 year old effigy mound before (and will again), but to see the sunrise over the ridges of Dawes at this time of year from that perspective is awesome.

Plus the sunrise isn’t too painfully early, yet. Park by the state historical marker and wander up.There are a number of automotive views, best seen from the passenger seat for safety’s sake, but the driver gets a peek or two.

Coming north on Rt. 13 past WCLT, as night falls, gives you a scattering of gems also known as Newark & Heath, rarely looking prettier. The same is true going north on Canyon as you approach Seminary Road. If you pause, watch your mirrors, as there are little in the way of shoulders. There is, of course, a quick glimpse of Newark and the Courthouse in a couple of the drives out of Morgan Manor, behind State Farm and Damon’s.

When I am going to Mount Vernon or Mansfield or Cleveland, I look forward to the point on Rt. 661 north of Granville as you hit a high point, with all the land sloping away. The highest point in Licking County is west of you, but there’s no view there to match the spot heading for Lundy’s Lane beyond Highwater.

Golfers already know that the Links at Echo Springs, just southwest of the county high spot, has a gorgeous view to the south in all seasons. I’m partial to most of the drive from Cedar Hill Cemetery out to Camp Falling Rock and Camp Ohio and Camp Wakatomica, but Rain Rock Road out there has a strange beauty all its own.

There are some vistas at Black Hand Gorge that take a little hiking, but are worth the effort. On south, the views along Brownsville Road to Flint Ridge, and the quick look down the valley of Dutch Run at Priest Hill on Flint Ridge Road, as you (almost) literally drop off the ridge is dramatic, if a wee bit dangerous.

And you can go just about anywhere and be impressed on the Licking Valley schools campus, which ironically is mostly up on a high point. Forget the irony, and enjoy the view.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him about a view special to you at knapsack77@gmail.com.

Faith Works 1-27-07
Jeff Gill

Faith Builds, Here And Globally

Licking County Habitat for Humanity is set to do a "Women Build" in March, sponsored by Lowe’s.Habitat is a global organization for faith-based homebuilding made famous by the likes of Jimmy Carter, Newt Gingrich, John Elway, and Jon BonJovi wearing carpenter’s aprons. It’s the involvement of community volunteers building alongside the person who will end up in and owning the house that makes Habitat, well, Habitat.

Why a "build," as HFH calls each project, with primarily women at work on the job site? Take a look at their website, which is easy to find at www.habitat.org:"Question: Why have Women Build? Can’t women learn construction on a regular Habitat site? Answer: Construction is still a male-dominated field. Because they are often more comfortable around tools and at job sites, men gravitate toward taking the lead in construction, and even smart, otherwise skilled women can end up with tasks such as painting, landscaping and cleaning up the site. These women rarely return for a second experience, but on a Women Build site, women are encouraged by other women to tackle all aspects of construction and quickly become skilled and engaged volunteers."

Makes good sense to me.

In keeping with their aim to provide low-cost housing with no-interest loans, backed by the sweat equity (that’s time and work) of the homeowner, Habitat will select a partner soon who needs the support of the local faith community to get into a home they will end up owning.They have a pool of candidates for their next build, but the ongoing dream is to receive support for two, three, and even four houses a year. If you want to help, call the local HFH office at 788-8778.

Just last week, over at the Ohio Ministries Convocation in Columbus, I attended a program where missionary staff returning from eight years overseas spoke of their work, which was largely through . . . yep, Habitat. Their true full name, in fact, is Habitat for Humanity International (HFHI for short), and they encourage each local chapter in this country to "tithe" an amount, ideally ten percent, of what they raise to go overseas where the builds are quite frankly hard to imagine.

What I saw in pictures was a six foot by six shack in Malaysian Borneo, home to a family of five. It sat on the bare earth, and when everyone laid down at night, at least one person had to go outside.

And it must be said: this tiny shack was beautiful. Well tended, each part in its place, but too small and unhygenic. Yet the natural beauty around, and the immaculate order of the house meant that Habitat couldn’t just throw up a frame ranch house with no trim and fling forest dwellers into the family room.

The next shot was of an attractive structure, set on short stilts, with window boxes filled with flowers. The homeowner partner had scavenged one liter bottles from the dump, and started flowers in them while her family sawed and swung hammers. When the dedication day came, they brought the now blossoming flowers to plant in those window boxes, and the new home was both larger, and just as beautiful.

We saw a mud house, one door, no windows, in Bangladesh. Their traditional building practices and available materials left no margin for windows, and so no light.

But the new build cleverly worked a plaster coating, made from local materials, onto a frame structure, so space, air, sunlight, and local custom were all honored.Then there was Indonesia, where two weeks before these missionaries arrived, a ninety foot wall of water had gone before. They worked with a taxi driver (pedal variety) who lost his wife and five children, and had already joined builds for four other families, but was willing to let a house go up for him when everyone else in Banda Aceh had gotten help.

In Banda Aceh, a million dollars built more than an Ohio contractor’s wildest dreams (think a buck a square foot, or less), from Christian bodies with outreach offerings called "Week of Compassion," "One Great Hour of Sharing," and "Church World Service." In conjuction with Habitat, many denominations multiplied their offerings for overflowing blessings.

Wouldn’t it be magnificent if our Licking County Habitat chapter was so well supported that they could build four houses a year and tithe to the global low-cost housing work of HFHI? The first step, though, is that team of women coming together for the next house.

And the homeowner partner will take care of making that house a home.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s helped start Habitat chapters in other states, and tried hard to lose a thumbnail more than once. Tell him about an exciting ministry through knapsack77@gmail.com.

Notes From My Knapsack 1-28-07
Jeff Gill

Blogging in Newsprint and Ink

During the turn of the year holidays, a number of people told me they thought
my column here in "The Booster" sounded like a blog, and asked if that was
intentional.

First, a note of explanation for those not wasting too much time on the
internet. A "blog" is short for "weblog," a regularly updated running narrative
usually filled with links that you can click to jump over to another web page
which relates to what you were talking about. Do enough clicking and linking,
and you will experience the odd rush of "surfing" the net, grazing the tops of
large reservoirs of data which, if you like, you can pause to dive down into
deeply.

Or keep skimming from ap.com to cia.gov to habitat.org to newarkadvocate.com,
dip your hand in the waters to leave a comment on a story, and surf on to
lcounty.com and on and on.

Anyhow, the answer to the question is "sort of." Since this column began in
2001, I spend much more time reading internet material, and that’s no doubt
impacted by writing style. This "platform" in real, not virtual ink, is not
handy for typing a long "url" (universal resource locator) that you can put in
your browser window with an "http" (hypertext transfer protocol) address.

When I can point you, the reader, to resources with a starter link and a few
clues that could help you use Google or Dogpile or some other search engine to
find web materials, I do.

More to the question of "is this a blog?" is the idea that it is a kind of
ongoing conversation. I don’t shy away from picking up threads and carrying
forward stories, with what I trust is enough context to keep you reading even
if you haven’t been checking each week for six years. In that sense, I am
intentionally picking up the blogger ethos.

And wrap around that my awareness, from emails y’all send me and conversations
at the grocery store, that regular readers on paper are also more voracious
consumers of all media, especially web based. The news business is shifting
rapidly, and pundits and consultants of all stripes have opinions they’d love
to sell you as fact along with various bridges and swampland (or ethanol
plants?).

My impression is not that the web is cannibalizing print newspapers ("dead
tree" media say the web-uber-hip), but that some readers are spreading out and
in fact upping their commitment, while others are drifting farther into the 379
channel wasteland. Organizations like the Gannett Corporation are trying to
figure out what readers want and where they’re going, and what ever the facts
turn out to be, the internet will be a significant part of it.

But wood pulp and ink on your fingers isn’t going to vanish. Less central to
everyone’s day, maybe, but perhaps it never was.

Next week, I’m told there will be a "new" Booster, with a format that sounds to
me like it is meant to echo and reinforce the web presence of our cousins at
the Newark Advocate and Granville Sentinel and Pataskala Standard. Larry Fugate
and I will still show up in these pages, plus lots of pictures, with the
welcome news that the pictures won’t be of us, other than the usual tiny one.

Maybe Lady will have a bigger photo.

That kind of strategy makes sense, and it won’t surprise me if someday I’m
asked to type four 150 word pieces a week to go online instead of one 700 word
column for print.

It won’t surprise me if I’m still writing "Notes From My Knapsack" another six
years from now, either.

So stay tuned, some of us will see you next week, and the rest will spread out
across the growing, changing landscape of Licking County news. And rest assured
my appreciation for you as readers is not virtual at all!

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio;
reach him through the internet at knapsack77@gmail.com.

Notes From My Knapsack 1-21-07
Jeff Gill

January is Getting Moldy This Year

You may have noticed something going on in your community.
North sides of houses and sheds and buildings are starting to get, well,
colorful. Sort of.

Mostly the colors are grey and green and speckled black, with the stray venture
into rusty browns. On pavements there can be a lighter green, even some yellows
and bluish greens.

The hues are due to mold. Mold, or mildew, or fungi of various sorts, with
lichens less likely (they tend to take years to develop), are all having a rare
field day in our neck of the woods.

Short days, low light angle when the Sun does come out, the Sun rarely coming
out, and fairly constant moisture along with persistent above freezing
temperatures: it spells fungi.

Which is, of course, the plural of fungus. But fungus is rarely among us in
singular amounts, but like "The Blob" it spreads fast. Fungus is already
invisibly everywhere, the spores that propagate it or the first tiny colonies
busily consuming organic material (think fallen logs) and turning it into
energy for growth.

When conditions are as oddly good as they’ve been recently, they grow fast and
wide and get downright visible. Everything from mushrooms in your mulch to that
yellow orange dog vomit stuff (actually, not a fungus, but a slime mold;
different family, same habits) and the green slime on your siding is getting
big and bigger.

As it happens, they are absolutely crucial to most life, especially trees.
Killing it all is a bad idea, although you probably want to use some bleach or
SimpleGreen on your house just for tidiness sake.

Baker’s yeast which makes bread, the staff of life, lively? A fungus. Brewer’s
yeast, which brings us everything from Milwaukee’s (coff) Best to fine
Champagne? Fungus.

You probably already thought of penicillin, the first antibiotic, as a product
of fungal growth, but it turns out there are over 1600 antibiotics in general
use, all due to fungi.

Biologist trace fungi back in the fossil record about 400 million years, and
botanists chuckle over "mycology," the study of fungus, being in their
department, since DNA studies shows fungi as closer to animals than plants.

And it was a fungus that was European Potato Blight, killing the relatively new
New World plant after a couple centuries, long enough to see ‘taters become a
staple of the Irish diet. So the Potato Famine was due to fungi, as are the
Kennedy family, Irish cops, and far too many performances of "Danny Boy."

But so are truffles, that final flourish on "Iron Chef America" where we’re
regularly reminded "these are $50 a pound" while the sous-chef briskly grates a
couple sawbucks’ worth onto scrambled eggs or something.

Mycologists tell us that fungi are absolutely vital to the Global Carbon Cycle,
from the breakdown of wood to every stage of decomposition that keeps new
energy flowing through Nature’s systems.

You can reflect on all of this as you struggle to clean the little buggers off
your porch with a stiff brush, and welcome the arrival of sub-freezing
weather.

Just remember: it doesn’t kill them, it just slows them down. They’re out
there, everywhere, waiting for a chance to grow . . .

In the Upper Peninsula of Michigan 15 years ago, while doing unrelated
scientific research, some ecologists found a "humongous fungus," a connected
mushroom colony that is essentially one organism, covering dozens of acres.
Tipped off by the announcement in "Nature" magazine, scientists found one 82
acres big in the Pacific Northwest. Everyone thinks there are more, still
undiscovered, even as mushroom hunters break off bits to take home for their
omelets.

So be kind as you obliterate them; their relatives may be taking notes, and
patiently waiting for their day . . . which will be dim, and cool, and rainy.
Meanwhile, I want ‘shrooms on my pizza. They can hold it against me if they
want.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he
is not a trained mycologist. If you are, send him your views (or anyone else)
at knapsack77@gmail.com.

Faith Works 1-13-07
Jeff Gill

Care . . . For Some Pasta?

The Coalition of Care might be a good name for a restaurant, but they aren’t actually in that line of business.You could say it is their line of work, though.The Coalition of Care is a group of churches, still expanding in number, who are pooling resources in order to more effectively assist needy families and individuals who are looking for help. Along with the Crisis Information Center of Pathways at 345-HELP, the CoC number at 323-0603 is a place where you can find out where resources are available, and get a listening ear to help you put those scattered pieces together.Food help, housing emergency counseling, and some basic life skills guidance are all part of their menu. Friendly volunteers are at the CoC number from 9:00 am to 5:00 pm every weekday.But tomorrow, they want to serve a warm, welcoming pasta dinner to folks who will support their weekday program. For just $15, $5 under 8 years old, you can come to Granville’s First Presbyterian Church on Sunday anytime between 5:00 and 7:30 pm. Chefs Jay and Alfredo will serve up antipastos, other salads, a range of pastas from Meaty Marinara to, of course, Alfredo sauce (and a Vegetarian selection). Mama Carmen’s own Lasagna is on offer as well.Like the work of the Coalition of Care, the breads and desserts come from bakers and pastry chefs out of many local churches.Take home orders may be offered after 7:30 depending on availability.Just as the St. Vincent dePaul Help Line at 348-0989 gives the St. VdP Societies at Roman Catholic parishes of the area a way to offer direct, faith-rooted assistance, the Coalition of Care wants to be the same kind of opportunity for Protestant churches to offer help out of their own faith commitments. Anyone who calls 323-0603 can count on respect and compassion, coming from trained volunteers who are motivated by their beliefs to help anyone who is in need, without regard to what culture or church they come from. And while The Salvation Army, at 345-8120, is a church itself, with a worshiping congregation as part of the emergency shelter options they offer, is also open to all faiths (or none) -- there is room in this county for a variety of approaches and methods in serving those who live on our societal margins.Any of the four groups and phone numbers I’ve mentioned in this column can get a person on the most direct, helpful path to finding the assistance that may be housed in a couple, or a couple dozen other agencies all hard at work every day here. The problem is that when the chips are down for a person, that’s a tough time to ask them to navigate a slew of phone numbers and doorways to find the aid they probably already qualify for, if they can find it. Pathways/Crisis Info at 345-HELP, St. Vincent dePaul at 348-0989, Salvation Army at 345-8120, and the Coalition of Care at 323-0603. Keep those numbers handy if you think you might ever want to know how to connect a person in need with help that will get them back into stability and security.But only the Coalition of Care is having a pasta dinner tomorrow night! Drop by First Pres in Granville off the four corners, and grab a bite. You’ll feed more than yourself that way, and you might feed more than just your growling tummy.Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; pass the word about food anywhere to him through knapsack77@gmail.com.

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Faith Works 12-30-06
Jeff Gill

Give Up Resolutions Now!

Some New Year’s resolutions may be on your mind this week.
"Never again will I purchase items that require so much assembly; this year I will figure out what they actually want instead of what I want to give (at least to start); next year I will not spend money I don’t have."All good ideas, but true any time. New Year resolutions tend to go into the category of "change my life" decisions and plans, and then tend to go into the dumpster of life faster than last week’s wrapping paper."I will exercise every day but Mondays, eat more green vegetables, and lose 45 pounds.""Starting now, I will not lose my patience (or temper) with the kids, and start coaching some of their activities.""I will register for those classes and finish the program to get that certificate.""When I empty the milk carton, I will no longer put it back in the fridge; I will also consider purchasing milk occasionally myself when it runs below a quarter.""Mornings, I will try to throw outfits together that do not make my spouse wince with actual pain, because some colors are not meant to go together.""Mornings, I will try to throw yesterday’s clothes closer to the hamper than I usually do.""Mornings, I will get up more often.""I gotta clean the place up this year."All good ideas, each of ‘em, for all of us. What makes traditional resolutions so traditionally unobserved, I have observed, is our tendency to "over-elaborate" them. "I gotta clean up the place, so I should buy a carpet shampooer, except first the clutter needs to get out of the piles on the carpet all over, so if the plastic bins go on special after the holidays, then I can buy a label maker at the office supply store, with a color code for each category to match the bins, where I can label the outside of those to. . . why look, a puppy!"End of resolution.What I would commend, instead of a resolution, is an ancient Christian practice known as discernment. What’s discernment? Well, first, it involves prayer (actually, it’s pretty much prayer all the way through). You offer up your questions well before you sweat the answers. What is it you lack? Why are you feeling a need for change? Where is your life not working out? Lay it out in the presence of God.Yes, yes: God already knows. Not the point. It’s the practice of telling the truth, clearly and coherently to someone you can’t buffalo that helps to start.Now, you’ve laid out the situation as fairly and fully as you can; stay with that in prayer. Don’t rush for a solution or a tidy answer, so much as give God a chance to help you see your situation clearly. Prayer has a way of doing that.Discernment is considered a gift in the Bible, and as such is available to all believers in some measure, but a special capacity given to a few. This is where your life in community comes in; not just being part of a church or faith community of some such, but having a group that relates to you and you to them. They could be a fellowship circle or study class or just friends who come together regularly, but with a sense that you are especially responsible for one another. Or to put it more simply, people in your life who are almost as hard to buffalo as God is.Odds are there is someone in that group that has the gift of discernment. (PS – You my have the gift yourself, which is not the same as being able to apply it to yourself!) If your prayers lean in this direction, tell them about what you’re working on prayer-wise, and invite them to pray along with you.What discernment is ultimately about, in Christian understanding, is not a way of getting magical, mystical answers handed to you on a plate. Discerning is about the idea that each of us has been given some kind of gift (see entry under "Spirit, Holy, gifts of") and the world around us has certain needs. When the needs and gifts are put together, amazing things happen. When they go in different directions, problems occur for all involved, including the gifted.Do some discerning this new year as 2007 gets going. Be open to what you already doing, doing well, maybe even gifted for. And keep your eyes (and heart) open for what brokenness near you might be healed by you, and few other than you. The resolution to what ails you might just be in working on that other person’s problem.Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story about how faith works for you at knapsack77@gmail.com.

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Faith Works 12-23-06
Jeff Gill

A Family That Makes Do

You knew that Uncle Charlie and Aunt Edna were coming with their three kids some time ago, and between the guest room and a cot along with the sofa in the basement would set them up well enough.A conference in the hotel nearby, races down at the track, and parent’s visitation weekend on campus across town meant you’d have to put them up; even if you offered to pay for the room, "no vacancies" were lit up far and wide.Then your brother Martin dropped by, which he always does. He never calls, and you’re always glad to see him, and please would you call ahead next time? You say this as you make up the daybed in the sewing room.What you couldn’t have expected was Gadja and Grandpa showing up, since they usually don’t travel much, and they are getting on in years.But they heard Martin was passing through, and apparently he never drops in on them on the other side of the state. That would be rude, to just impose on your elderly grandparents (unlike your siblings, you think, but only think).When they see Charlie’s kids sprawled across the sofa and living room floor, they immediately say they’ll just sit and visit a bit, and then drive straight back.Right. Well over 80, they’ve driven four hours, and it’s already three in the afternoon. You say with perfect sincerity that you don’t want them to even think about doing that, and that if they don’t mind taking turns in the bathroom, we can make this work. You make eye contact with your dearly beloved across the room, who lifts an eyebrow, and then somehow points it at the sofa, currently covered with Charlie’s offspring. Nodding back, you blow a kiss across the room, and go downstairs to the camping closet where the foam pads are. You have time to rummage and assemble while Grandpa talks about how many months it was between hot showers during the war in Europe.And then the bell rings again, and since you’re in the hall you open it before the second chime. There stand cousin Joe and his – girlfriend? Fiance? – Mary. Or maybe they’ve gotten married since you last heard from him, but she certainly is pregnant.Someone quickly and graciously slides a chair from the kitchen across the back end of the living room to the edge of the wood floor near the entry, and Mary sits, with visible relief. Talking to Joe, you sketch out the situation, trying to stay cheerful while feeling "why me, Lord?" Then you see the worry and tension only slowly slipping off Mary’s face, as Joe stands close, one hand steadily rubbing her shoulder, and you think "OK Lord, I guess it’s me."You could put her in your bedroom with Gadja, and Grandpa could share the sewing room with Martin (Martin can go on the floor, you think with momentary satisfaction), and we’ll sleep on the sofa and floor out here. Joe winces and says very slowly that he’d rather sleep out in the garage than be separated from Mary right now.In a burst of noise behind them over the control of the TV remote, you and Joe put your heads closer together, just above Mary. There is a back room out there with a heater and actually even a toilet and shower, but with twenty feet from the house and cold nights and no real bed, you hadn’t planned to use it. There were straw bales there, though, for the rabbits and sheep you keep in the field below the house, and you could put a big foam roll over the top of a dozen of them on the floor, lay down a big sleeping bag from the hunting gear, and tuck in sheets all around and it’ll look and almost feel like a bed – if you don’t try to slide your shoes underneath.That gets a laugh even from Mary, and Joe says he’d be so thankful for that much, and still sorry to impose. You remind him that the rabbits will enjoy the company, and if Charlie’s kids get much louder you’ll be out to join them, so don’t even talk about imposing.Hardly anyone in the jammed living room notices when you all bundle up and go out the front door. There’s a stiff wind going around the house, but you hold the door for the two of them and they walk into what the family calls "the shop." With the lights on (florescent, but hey) and the heater already running, it looks spare but comfortable indeed after the chill outside. A little shifting of bales, the roll and bags from the loft (thankfully, you washed them this year before they went up that ladder), and the sheets on top really do look like a bed, if you ignore the plywood walls. Checking out the little bathroom, you point out they may have more hot water than anyone inside; and given where you’re sleeping, that’s only fair, you add, when you see Joe react. There’s a TV on the workbench, and CD’s in the player if they want, and don’t worry about the volume!With everyone laughing at that, you close the door firmly behind you, and head back to the house, with the snow starting to fall. Good thing you convinced the folks to stay the night, and now you have to convince them to take your bed.The only thing left, you think, is for that girl to go ahead and have her baby out there on the straw. Could this night get any crazier?Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; have a blessed and safe and warm Christmas in every possible way, and offer your seasonal wishes to knapsack77@gmail.com.

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Faith Works 12-16-06
Jeff Gill

The Privilege of Faith

Once again at Christmastime, we pick up stray echoes of arguments over trees in airports, greetings at cash registers, and analyses of greeting card inscriptions.What religious traditions should show up in public spaces, and how many private arguments will hinge on outward displays of personal faith?In debates about the role of religion in "the public square," the strict language of the US Constitution is no longer the actual point of dispute."Establishment" of an official state church is what is clearly forbidden in the first clause of the Bill of Rights. Then you read a promise for the "free exercise" of religion for all, and there hangs in the air, if not in print, a fainter echo from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote later in life about "separation of church and state."What people today are actually arguing about for the most part is a very modern concern, that of "privileging" a particular religion or faith tradition. To privilege a particular point of view is a cardinal sin in the modernist (not to say post-modernist) world view, as most if not all points-o’-view are supposed to be equal, or at least interchangeable.For Christians, a quick read of Philippians 2 will show that privilege is something to be willingly set aside (go ahead and check the reference, I’ll be here when you get back). Even someone with a very strong sense that Christian truth claims are absolute and exclusive can trust that "truth will out." In a marketplace of belief, the value of gold will always end up outweighing straw.An interesting example of this is playing out on the slopes of Granville’s College Hill leading up to Denison University, one of Licking County’s oldest institutions, civic or religious.This last week marked the precise 175th anniversary of the first classes at the Granville Theological and Literary Institution (Dec. 13, 1831, 2:00 pm, NE corner of Cherry and W. Broadway). Most of the observances which have already taken place and will be observed through the remainder of the academic year refer to the founding purposes of the Baptist worthies who started the school now known as Denison University.Those were to a) train ministers of the Christian gospel for the Baptist faith, and b) build up laity (OK, laymen) in citizenship and leadership for the same Baptist creed. From the very start, it was often mentioned in early records that they didn’t have as many Baptists as they had hoped would be attending the school.As time went on, not only did that problem continue, but Baptist denominational officials regularly made grand promises for fundraising and support which almost invariably fell less than short. Books could be, and have been written on what distractions kept the church from fulfilling its commitments to their academic institutions, but it can be fairly said that the move to a secular basis of schools like Denison – and Harvard, and William & Mary, and Brown, and most every other historic college in America – had as much to do with self-preservation as it did with a desire to cast loose the bonds of ecclessial limitation. Churches said to colleges, "go ye and be fruitful in the marketplace," and they have.Ironically, the landscape today shows that private, non-sectarian institutions like Denison can now more freely and easily contain clear and explicit expressions of, say, Christian faith (to pick one, not quite at random) in events and programs, as part of a range of religious offerings on campus. Meanwhile public schools, both secondary and post-secondary, fear including just some Bach in a choral concert.So even as Denison University removes the granite inscription from their main entrance saying, in part, "A Christian college," there is more room for Christian expression there, in that statement’s absence, than on any educational property owned by the government. Many would happily agree that this is what the Founders were after: private institutions offering religious viewpoints with designated support, and public institutions with no religion "privileged" only engaging churches as historical or social players.

I doubt if the Founders could make head or tails of the current scene when it came to faith, even with a majority of them Unitarian Deists. What they did secure was the utter absence of a "state church" collecting their income through government taxes, and beyond that they expected a wide range of religious perspectives to flourish both on and adjoining the public square.

Administrators, bureaucrats, and politicians have a sort-of "constitutional" dislike of messiness and complexity and nuance.

Whatever "Congress shall make no law regarding an establishment of religion" means in a wider sense, it has been used to try to flatten and homogenize public discourse on the beliefs that will always underlie our choices.But Americans, however they feel about churches, are fine with messes. They are more comfortable with conflict and engaged, ongoing disagreement than their leaders are. Evangelical Christians will support the display of menorahs for Hanukah, Jewish leaders will affirm Christmas trees, and Wiccans will file briefs to keep Moslem crescent and star insignia in public use.

Colleges may take down the word Christian from their facades, but collegians can practice their faith all the more passionately in lecture rooms and on bulletin boards.

We may no longer sing "God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen" at civic events, or send angel-bordered Christmas letters, but it becomes all the clearer that those who do so nowadays really mean something by it.That strikes me as a good thing!

So Merry Christmas from my house to yours, and I welcome whatever seasonal greetings you freely choose to offer.

Jeff Gill knapsack77@gmail.com

Notes From My Knapsack 1-14-07
Jeff Gill

Bright Side, Or Right Side?

This is what I'm talking about.
Ohio State's football team goes, what, 15 and 1, plays in the national
championship game, has the quarterback win Coach Heisman's trophy, and everyone
is in mourning, downcast, muttering "what went wrong?"
Yes, I did watch the game. To the end. We stunk. Over seven weeks off, eating
banquet food five nights a week, and watching way too much football on TV
(think about it: how many college games do you think they watch during the
season other than "film" in the locker room?), and their brains were flabby,
not their bodies.
One more half and they woulda had 'em, I am sure.
But the point is, why are so many of us so very down? It was a good season,
with much to remember with contentment. Great moments, stellar performances,
and carrying the burden of a Number One rating almost six months. Yeah, and a
huge loss on Jan. 8.
This is what I was getting at about Newark and Licking County last week. Are
there problems here? You don't have to be clever a'tall to find 'em. Can you
honestly, accurately, precisely say that there are good things happening in
Licking County in general, and right down to Courthouse Square in Newark in
particular? Sure, and it doesn't take too much looking.
Last week I was waiting for a class tour at the Octagon Earthworks in the
parking lot of Moundbuilders Country Club. While the Little Guy and I were
waiting, a car pulled into the otherwise empty parking lot. They had North
Carolina plates, and walked over to the interpretive sign, so I said hello,
introduced myself, and said I'd be happy to answer any questions 'til the class
showed up.
This couple was interested in history, culture, and art, and they "chose" to
drive through Licking County on their way from Buffalo to Cincinnati to back
home. (I didn't ask, but got the impression it was a second honeymoon/25th
anniversary trip for them from Niagra Falls to family in Lexington KY.)
After talking about the 2000 year old mounds, the almost 100 year old golf
course, and the weird weather, they said "This sure looks like a nice place to
live! Can you tell us where there are any art museums, anything else to see?" I
gave them direction to The Works (and told them to see if they could get up to
the second floor courtroom in the Courthouse), LeFevre Hall at OSU-N, and Burke
Hall on the Dension campus, mentioned some galleries on Broadway in Granville,
and then said goodbye as the students arrived.
Do you hear what I'm saying? Of all the towns and all the attractions they
could have seen between western New York state and Kentucky, they came through
Licking County. And they were glad they did. And they bought at the very least
a meal, and may well (I don't know) have ended up staying a night, maybe even
bought some stuff. Like art.
The Urban Institute is an organization that does fascinating work on assessment
and policy for communities. You can look at most of their publications online
in "PDF" format through their website, www.urban.org. They aren't just about
big cities, but the nature and development of places where large numbers of
people come together, and how to make those interactions positive, mutually
beneficial, and sustainable.
They have found that in measuring typical "quality of life" benchmarks, far too
many areas end up unintentionally following the "drunk under the lamppost"
method: looking where there's the most light, not where you need to be looking.
Analysts tend to follow the most available data, so Census Bureau numbers and
standard economic measures carry the most weight.
Two insights they gave me in reading through a chunk of their material have to
do with "creative classes." Community vitality and quality of life are often
tied at one level or another to the raw numbers of artists, art galleries, art
sales, and other artistic venues like theaters, concerts, et cetera.  Urban
Institute scholars have asked whether or not we're missing "the rest of the
iceberg" in that approach -- those are the visible creative professionals, but
doctors, lawyers, academics, engineers, and many other professions are all
creative in different ways. Those "hidden" creative professionals usually know
that the creative process can be spurred by experiencing other forms of
creativity, so a programmer at State Farm is interested in the fabric art of an
executive at Longaberger who goes to hear a concert where one of the players is
county coroner (none of those three are made up, by the way).
So the second insight is that a community, while being careful not to find what
they want to find, needs to make sure they use not only standard quantitative
measures, but figure out some benchmarks that are meaningful for who and where
they are.
And promote the heck out of 'em.
Technically, that's called "indigenous venues of validation," but it just means
don't measure yourself against Albuquerque or Santa Fe or Taos, or even the
Short North Gallery Hop. Art and creativity are bubbling up all over Licking
County, in local libraries, school shows right down through elementary grades,
and in church fellowship halls.
I don't think we've even begun to correctly calculate the value of what we
have, which is why so many people aren't sure we have much. The Ohio Arts
Council (www.ohiosoar.org) has some approaches you can read as well.
Licking County, let's finish brushing the lint off our lapels and step out
proudly. We're competitive way above our weight class, and in ways we have not even
acknowledged yet.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio;
tell him about a creative endeavor near you through knapsack77@gmail.com.

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Notes From My Knapsack 1-07-07
Jeff Gill

Choosing a Place To Live

A few weeks ago, our family meandered to downtown Newark in the evening. It was
a weeknight, and we had a bag of canned goods to deliver to the "Elves in
Action" with the county Food Pantry Network by the courthouse square gazebo.
Turning off of Rt. 16, we came up West Main Street with a glorious view of the
Christmas-lit Courthouse. A lap around the square wove around many cars, since
Marie Osmond was appearing within the hour at the Midland Theater. On the
second lap, we pulled into the elf lane and the Little Guy handed out the bag
to waiting hands, getting a discreet candy cane in response.
We paused to let a mass of pedestrians cross to where a smaller crowd was
taking pictures of each other sitting with Mark Twain by the box office under
the marquee. Park Place Coffee Roasters was open, and the Natoma Café had a
full complement at the bar. Our last lap showed the Manna Restaurant and their
McCousin in the eatery business down the block both bustling, and then we were
on our way home, but first we looped south of the square, past the lovely Penn
Depot, turning just past the attractively exteriored Lil’ Bear downtown
grocery. Finally, around The Works complex where we had been to an art show and
bought quite a few presents a few weeks before.
And people fret about Newark’s downtown why, again?
Sure, it is no doubt an ongoing effort to keep businesses going these days in
the Ohio economy. Not just downtowns, though: I know folks out at the mall in
Heath who worry about the foot traffic volume and sales figures. American
willingness to walk twenty feet to save a buck versus spending more at drive-up
windows is fading to non-existent, and spending more for quality along with
walking around a (gasp) corner seems to be a lost art.
All true, but the bottom line that strikes me as worth underlining is that
Licking County has a vital, vibrant county seat downtown.
Hey, I heard that snort.
It baffles me as to why so many can’t believe it when people like, um, me say
that we’re doing great. There’s a combination of living in the past ("you
shoulda seen it when…") and not getting out much. Like to Columbus, f’r
instance.
Do we have problems? Oh, sure. Read a little microfilm on downtown Newark over
the last hundred years, and I’m liking our current crop. We’ve come a long,
long way. There are no department stores near Park National Bank, but Lazarus
and Ayres aren’t looking too good these days either.
If you have business that takes you to downtown Mansfield, Springfield, Akron,
Canton, Lima, Toledo, Xenia, or Portsmouth (just to name a few I’ve been to in
the last couple years), let alone nearby Columbus, tell me you see a place you’
d swap with downtown Newark.
Yes, the Licking County Convention and Visitors Bureau recently was very kind,
and honored me as their Volunteer of the Year (aka "sucker who always says yes
award"). I point this out only to say I have no personal angle to polish in
promoting our communities in Licking County, since I already have the award. I
enjoy doing local tours and what they call "step-ons" with tour buses passing
through because I really, truly think this is a wonderful place to live and
raise a family. The Lovely Wife and I came here from elsewhere, and came back a
second time, because we chose this place.
Which brings me to a web site that might be the nugget of a good idea for
someone here to put together. When we were visiting family over the holidays in
Indianapolis, a county seat with a few urban problems, but a truly awesome
downtown, I found out about a web site called "I Choose Indy." You can go to
www.ichooseindy.com and look around.
Some infotech professionals wanted to share their own take on how they chose
that town, as opposed to a marketing set of slogans.
Why have people chosen Licking County? They are, and in growing numbers. What
would we learn by giving them a chance to tell us why? It might even help us
all, longtime, newer, and just arriving residents of the Land of Legend, to
figure out what we need to protect and preserve and maintain, along with a few
new ideas for how to all make a community.
And look for more on why this is not only a great place to live, but to have
people visit, in 2007.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio;
tell him why you chose Licking County at knapsack77@gmail.com.

Faith Works 1-06-07
Jeff Gill

Thinking About Africa

Thought about Africa lately?

Darfur you likely know a little about, though my word processing program puts a red squiggle under it.

Windows Vista won’t let the new Office do that, I suspect, thanks to George Clooney and others who have worked hard, to little result so far, but some, to get more international attention to Sudan’s brutality.

Somalia and Ethiopia press against the Horn of Africa, trying to make enough noise to distract the major players across the Persian Gulf. Even the millions who watched "Black Hawk Down" couldn’t all spot Mogadishu on a detailed map, though.

Yemen and the USS Cole, first salvo in our current conflict, technically in Arabia but trading partner with most of the east coast of Africa, where terrorist bombs blew up in two African capitals before 9-11 was a date, not a phone number. Which two? Look ‘em up.

And after you figure out where Kenya and Tanzania are, note that the Congo (the one that used to be Zaire) is just west of them both, where three million (Four? Five?) have died the last few years in what is jestingly called a civil war, as neighbors all place bets and markers and their own players on the board.

Twenty million orphans are going to be wandering this continent by 2010. 20. Million. This in a place where ragtag armies already seek out soldier children to shape in their own vicious image, and AIDS will give them potential raw material beyond imagining.

The Bush administration, often criticized for an apparent obsession with the fellow they just hung, turns out to have better peripheral vision than many of us thought. Turns out that since 2001, when the US gave $1.4 billion in development and emergency aid to Africa, we deployed $4 billion in 2006, and President Bush has committed nearly $9 billion by 2010. Something about those 20 million orphans struck a chord, pragmaticlly or altruistically.Or some combination of both.

Church groups across a wide spectrum – Rick and Kay Warren, Sojourners Community, the Islamic Societies of North America, Jewish relief organizations, the Unitarian-Universalist Association, to name a few – have all tried to turn our attention, as a nation with global influence, to problems in Africa. They start with genocide in Darfur, and continue through HIV’s spread leaving 10% of all the continent’s children with at least one dead parent. Africa is more than just problems, though that seems to be the chief export. The one billion souls who live there are Christian, Muslim, and still a swath of animist believers. Just a few months back, the bishops of the United Methodist Church met in Maputo, Mozambique, on November 2 for their fall 2006 meeting. Not just an American body, there are conferences in a number of places, but the most overseas are in Africa.

Their historic parent body, the World Anglican Communion, of which The Episcopal Church is part from this country, will have a meeting of their chief leaders, or "primates" as primary bishops of their national churches, in Tanzania next month. Episcopal leaders, or bishops, that preside over African dioceses are offering theological insights and arguments that run counter to American and European trends.

Given that 50 million of the 77 million Anglicans in the world live in Africa, those bishops carry some weight. How will they throw that weight around?Africa now sends missionaries to the West, not vice versa. And the visitors who return to the scene of former missionary endeavors find that the land of bushmen and squatter’s camps and dictator’s palaces is now also a land of skyscrapers, apartment buildings (with elevators), and subdivisions. There are townships filled with scrap-built housing, but there are also paved streets with mailboxes.

TV stations in Africa compete with the internet to deliver news, and iPods (well, more often off-brand knock offs from Indonesia, but still) dangle from kinte cloth tunics with specially tailored pockets for that and the cell phone.

Have you thought about Africa lately?You really should.On Monday, Jan. 22, the week after the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, Denison University will host a special guest in Swasey Chapel at 1:30 pm. Tsidii Le Loka-Lupindo is an international recording artist, Broadway performer, and powerful public speaker, whose heritage is from her father’s side out of Lesotho. Don’t know where Lesotho is? Go look it up, but check southern Africa for nations surrounded by other countries.

As big as Lesotho is (you say "Lee-sue-too," by the way), the size and terrain of West Virginia, it is a small country in the vastness of Africa. Like Wales in the British Isles, Lesotho has musical tradition and cultural reach far beyond her size.

Tsidii will sing and speak and tell stories out of "the real Africa," she says. Not the Africa of war, crisis, AIDS, and poverty, though that is part of the story, but the whole Africa, Africa entire.Come join Denison that afternoon if you can, and either way, think about Africa.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; reach him at knapsack77@gmail.com.

Faith Works 12-9-06
Jeff Gill

Hospitality is Hard Work

Most religious traditions see hospitality as a gift, a talent that noteveryone has.

Martha and Mary had it between them in the Christian Gospels. Islam hasa strong tradition going back to Abraham and Bedouin culture ofwelcoming the guest, even the stranger. Judaism sets out an empty chairfor Elijah if he makes it to the Passover meal with your family, but theunexpected guest has a claim on that seat.

Certainly the season of Mary and Joseph making their way to Bethlehem, aplace where they have family history, but no living roots, makes usthink about the ones who have no place to stay in our own community,wherever they come from and wherever they are journeying. The Letter tothe Hebrews hints that "some have entertained angels unawares," and thatspirit is lively among Christians and many others that sees thesojourner as a vehicle for God's grace.

Not necessarily for them, but for us. Being a "pilgrim people" has atheme familiar to most faith traditions, but generally those who aredispossessed and lost in this world's deserts are victims of sin andbrokenness. God does not want anyone to be lost, but we have a chance toembody God's love in the encounter with those who are cast aside.

How do we react? Do we turn aside, sneer in contempt, snarl in anger atthese reminders of how fragile comfort and security are, let alone life?Wanting to turn away from the indigent and homeless isn't surprising,seeing how we tend to make use of nursing homes and hospitals to keepage and illness on the edge of life and at least a long corridor orelevator ride away from everyday life.

Or do we see our brother and sister in those folk, and try to find a wayto help without enabling, assist without condescending? Like our ownpossible sibling, who needs a little help, but just like that brother orcousin or grandchild (you've got one, I know) they don't really want tolisten to advice or guidance right off from you, you who have "gottenall the breaks." When family members don't graciously accept help, youcan imagine the task of helping, caring, assisting, has a ragged side toit.

Hospitality is a gift. Not everyone has it, nor every community. Somepeople can take a can of mushroom soup and the bottom of the wilteddrawer in the fridge and make a houseful feel at home without fuss, andsome of us can't make guests feel comfortable even with a caterer tohelp.

Our town now has dredged up a little reputation, desirable to some, ofbeing inhospitable. We've become too welcoming, is the observation, witha reaction trotting through the legislative process right now.

Many of you know I have some horses in this derby, and know which whitehorse I'd rather ride on. But my Boss rides a donkey, and reminds me,especially this time of year, that it isn't about winning or losing.(See also Ephesians 6:12.)

What does seem worth pointing out, in the context of this column, is aradical observation that I hope you'll reflect on. I mean this calmly,but with absolute grim concern. If we start legislating undesireables around the mapboard in the Game ofLife, then churches are next.

Right before I moved to Licking County in 1989, I worked with a newchurch start effort outside of Indianapolis. The denomination bought,market price, a useful intersection's worth of acres, and filed with thetownship for the permits to build a place of worship.

It took fifteen months of negotiations to get the permits, and only atthe cost of promising not to give out any food, host foster care agencyprograms, or offer any feeding programs of any sort at all, even forsenior citizens. Oh, and no weekday child care.Some of us started to wonder if we really wanted to build a church underall those restrictions. At least we got permission for a preschool inthe end.

That trend, which was news to me in 1989, is now quite widespread. Usezoning and other legal devices to make sure that churches only do whatthe secular world thinks they're supposed to do, which is do your sillylittle worship thing on Sunday, have choir practice during the week, gohome, shut up, and pay taxes.

So when I say - Churches are next - I really mean it. If you can't stopus religious people from feeding and housing and rehabilitating andtraining and 12-stepping and educating people who don't quite lookright, why not zone them out to the city's edge?

Wait, they're trying that one in Texas and California.

Or we can just go along with the idea that we're just for Sunday and anhour (or two, for the charismatics), and keep the doors shut for theweek.But what's to be done with those who have the gift of hospitality? Guess they'll have to learn to keep that light under a bushel, too.

I'll try to be more cheerful next week approaching Christmas. Maybe. But remember: Churches are next.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around centralOhio; he's also the current board president for the Licking CountyCoalition for Housing (donations can be made at www.lcchousing.org).Tell him what you want for Christmas at knapsack77@gmail.com.

If you are looking here for the seven scenes of Licking County, running from Thanksgiving weekend to New Year's in the Community Booster, just scroll down a bit -- they're posted there together.

Peace & Grace,
Jeff

Faith Works 12-2-06
Jeff Gill

What Lasts Forever?

Diamonds, of course, are forever, as James Bond and the DeBeers family and Botswanan miners all know.
Scientifically, let alone theologically, that’s not quite right: they’re only about a billion years old at best in their current carbon lattice formation, and the super hard material (10 on the Moh scale, to all you geologists) will not survive the rapid expansion of the sun in 5 to 6 billion years.

So not forever.

They are well known parts of the holiday season, since engagements are common in the Midwest during Christmas break, for a variety of reasons that have to do with gift-giving, having the family together, and colleges out of session.

Even non-collegiate folk have picked up on the growing tradition, making December a leading period for jewelers along with retailers and discounters. If you watch TV, you already knew that.

Ushering in the holiday season, we all got to see Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes wedding pictures along with the family photos passed around the Thanksgiving table. As garnish, a cheery newspaper story from new government data: 4 in 10 babies were born out of wedlock last year.

And the trend is only likely to increase in the near future, since these aren’t teen unmarried mothers, whose birth rate went down to the lowest levels on record in the same year. Add the fact that abortions are declining as well, and you have a new social pattern at work.

Let me pull out my old fogey hat, and then spell this out in simple terms.What was once a standard social sequence of meet, then a) get to know each other, b) get engaged, c) married, and d) move in together, e) have sex, and f) have a baby. . .is now this –- meet, e) have sex, d) move in together, a) get to know each other, f) have a baby, b) get engaged, and then c) get married (maybe).

Before you point out that people have been sneaking e) in ahead of c) for some time in human history, let me offer my real point.The Sexual Revolution is one of those tags for an era that is so imbedded in the popular and media imagination that you can’t imagine changing it, but I’d sure like to try.

Don’t let the little ones keep reading past this point, but there was no Sexual Revolution. As a pastor, I’ve been talking to elderly people since the 70’s about their lives, struggles, triumphs, regrets, and hope for a future they won’t see themselves. And if I’ve learned anything from all that conversation, mostly casual and sometimes heartfelt, occasionally in spirit of confession, is that they did it. It. Yes, that. No, that too. Uh huh. Yeah, and anything else later generations like to think they uniquely discovered. They did that, too. (You can turn off your imagination and let it cool down now.)

Trust me just this far: there was no sexual revolution. We had a Marriage Revolution, and it is still going on. That label hides too much of the reality of what it is American society, and most churches (especially Christian denominations) are still struggling with it. Every time a sloppy connection to a so-called "Sexual Revolution" gets made, ask yourself how the whole news story or cultural reference would sound if they had said Marriage Revolution?

Yes, from the 60’s forward we’ve had a new openness to nudity and sexual references in popular culture, which qualifies as a Sexualized Revolution, but that’s a separate consideration, and will keep until after New Year’s.

Questions of The Pill and birth control? A Marriage Revolution. Hook-ups and cohabitation? A Marriage Revolution. Quantity and sequence of, um, partners? A Sexual Revolution? Nope, I think it is revolutionary only in the context of how we’re looking at marriage.

Suri Cruise’s parents are now married – and getting to know each other, perhaps? – and Britney and K-Fed’s two aren’t, while their step-siblings never were, and fiancés are often introduced as the parent of their children. This is the elephant in the living room, or sanctuary, of many churches today. Do we talk about the Marriage Revolution that we’re all enlisted into during this time of year, or just shake our heads about the wacky doings of Paris Hilton as easier (and safer) to bemoan?And personally, I just think you can’t call someone a fiancé unless there’s a date set. Moving in together isn’t sufficient qualification.

But I could care less if you buy a diamond. My Lovely Wife got a peridot, in fact. It should be good for a couple billion years, anyhow. It’s only self-giving love that has a chance to last past the six billion mark.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s been married long enough to know that toasters and blenders definitely don’t last forever. Tell him something revolutionary at knapsack77@gmail.com.

* * *

FaithWorks 11-25-06
Jeff Gill

With slow, irregular movements, he worked his left leg around to a better position. He had been up in this tree stand since Orion began to dip down to the western horizon.

That constellation was striding across the sky when hunters first crouched silently waiting for dinner in these woods. Thoughts like that were why he hunted, the opportunity to get out and away from all the noise and buzz and just, well, think thoughts. Even pray sometimes.He didn’t pray that God would send him a big buck; somehow, that felt wrong, like praying (which he knew he didn’t do with the regularity he ought) when the Browns were down by a touchdown. What he did feel coming up and out of him as a natural, effective prayer, was that he would be careful, that he would be safe.

And praying that no half-wit with a new shotgun would stumble his direction, either.These woods were full of deer; the challenge, he thought, was just not to scare enough of them off by accident. So he wore his blaze orange along with a full kit of camo, he had a rain barrel that sat out back for all the washing of his hunting kit, which was stored in a special bag that hung in the shed away from the house. He didn’t use special scents, which the gear stores were full of, he just worked at keeping his own scents to a minimum.

His homework through the year of tracing the paths through the leaves, watching the deer stroll by without a motion on his part, setting out a bit of salt, placing two tree stands, all came down to this week.

It really was a spiritual discipline for him, and he tried to use it as one, with time set aside for silence and reflection offered to God along with the hunter’s preparation routine. This very moment was a prayer of sorts, with God all around, and he trying not to distract his mind and spirit into the opposite direction.

No, you couldn’t hunt God, but he also had come to the realization over the years, and a few bucks of his own, that you can’t capture this moment with a gunshot, either. When everything comes together, you already know that the end result will call on him to do the hard work of hanging up, bleeding out, and carrying away, the check station and the butchering and the packing away of the venison. There is an intersection of the preparation before and the intention to follow of which the right shot at the right time is only a part.

Whatever the deer’s role in all this was from God’s point of view he wasn’t sure. What he was sure of was that God definitely didn’t honor the wasteful and cruel dropping of a deer and leaving the carcass to rot in the woods; and God surely didn’t honor the carnage along the highway of roadkill, either.

If the deer was used well and not shot just as living target practice, there was an integrity in the act that fed back to you. That’s as far as he’d figured it out, but he did know that God sure let them reproduce at crazy rates, and it was hunting, disease, or roadkill for most of them. His freezer was full from bow season already. If he got a deer today, there was a food pantry his church worked with that would end up with the result.

Haze in the east was shimmering, barely at the level of starlight but stretching across the sky opposite the exit of Orion the Hunter. He saw his breath, and thought "what an amazing thing that is," even as he worried about letting that plume show too well.

Crystals of frost, blossoming on branches just below his stand, almost grew fast enough for him to see them expand. How weird it is, he thought, that if this were going on right outside my window, and I was standing in a warm spot with a mug of coffee in my hand, I wouldn’t have the patience to stand still and witness this.

On that thought, he caught a blur of movement, a hop, and then slow, steady movement on four hooves, almost moving right at his perch. If they turned left, he wouldn’t need to shift the gun at all, just a lift and pull. If they turn right, the adjustment he had to make would certainly spook them right off into a trot.

There were three, and they paused, just out of what he considered his range. Muzzles prodding at downed logs, shifting brush, then starting upright, looking around, nearly looking at him. They are beautiful creatures, he thought. He was thankful for them as they were, and he would be thankful for one of them as food for the hungry, while the other two ran away. He would be thankful, as he was thankful right now for this moment.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio. Share your story of where you hear God with him at knapsack77@gmail.com.

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Faith Works 11-18-06
Jeff Gill

Mythologies of the Holiday Season

With the finale of "Dancing With the Stars," are there any big, nationally anticipated sporting events left in 2006?
Oh, right. This afternoon.
For the majority of us (not all, I know) who will be watching the Apocalyptic Armageddon-ish Activity at 3:30 pm on television, The Game will be accompanied by The Ads.
Ohio State-Michigan isn’t the Super Bowl (this year, it may be bigger), so there aren’t the specially made advertising spots with megastar cameos and wild premises. What we do have in this High Holy Day for Buckeye fans (possibly, dare we hope, to be followed by High Holy Day, the sequel, in the BCS?) is the placement before both Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Those two days, and their alcoholic cousin New Year’s Eve, make up "The Holidays." As in "Happy Holidays," "Holiday Greetings," "Best Wishes for the Holidays," or maybe "Season’s Greetings."
No, it isn’t my purpose to haggle over when the US was a more "Merry Christmas" nation or which retailers are training their staffs to say what. You’ll hear about that elsewhere this year. But the holiday season, or "The Holidays," have taken on a certain bulk rate atmosphere of their own, one that holds onto pieces of what they used to be, and smooshes in clumps of what some may ask of them.
Thanksgiving and Christmas oriented commercials used to frequently have a middle class home setting, get the grandparents and little kids together kind of feel. The paradigm is summed up by a coffee commerical so effective they bring it back some years, even with the fuzziness of old videotape. The thirty second plot is a young man back from college unexpectedly and early, whose little sibling is sweetly shushed, and who wakes up the sleeping family by brewing a big ol’ pot of java. Mom comes down the stairs wondering what the little ‘un got into, and goes from worry to delight to a hug, and the company logo.
More dominant today is "The Party" for "The Holidays." An assortment of cars, a snowy night, tasteful gifts or a bottle of wine under the arm. China on the table, surrounding a centerpiece that has the Martha seal of approval, napkin rings, and most flat surfaces have a floral arrangement in muted colors.
The bright colors come from the multicultural gathering, and the striking sweaters and waistcoats worn by the partygoers. Some ads show a largely youthful event, ethnically diverse, others a more society type gathering with few children and more grey hair, but still racially inclusive.
You can look at these developments from a number of angles. Certainly it is harder to show a family gathering with four or five distinct ethnicities present in the mix, although I know families in Licking County who would say from their own experience, "why not?" And it is surely good that older Americans can be seen in Thanksgiving and after ads without being the grandma in the kitchen smacking the hands of the turkey pickers (grandpas can still be shown as irascible and dumpily dressed, just like the 60’s, I see, and dads are still always idiots unless they’re purchasing diamonds).
What I wonder is whether this is a cause, or an effect? It could be an outgrowth of the fact that it is harder for family to get together for seasonal gatherings, sprawled across the continent as we are, making social events more the center of our holiday calendar (just try to find an Advent calendar outside of a religious bookstore).
Or it could be that retailers and advertising companies like the greater latitude that "The Party" motif gives to product placement and sales. They can point to the admitted social value of multiculturalism as the reason to shift away from family scenes to events assembled by invitation more than relation. My concern isn’t with ethnic diversity, but the idea that the heart of the season is in "elective affinities," who we choose to associate with as individuals instead of who we’re related to. I love holiday parties myself, but they’ve always seemed to me as if they are, and ought to be, secondary to family activities.
One argument against that concern is that there are people who have little or no family: do you want to exclude them from seasonal enjoyment? I could answer, in a cranky mood, that we who don’t have sleek, glossy, sophisticated friends who throw painfully tasteful parties are pretty excluded by the new ideal . . . and I’m guessing there are quite a few of us.
Another way to ask the question is: are the ads just following where society is already going, or is the business getting out ahead of us, trying to lead us in a new direction?
And if the latter, should we go?
Something to think about as you watch the ads during The Game this afternoon, kicking off The Holidays.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; toss him your opinions about the ads o’ the season through knapsack77@gmail.com.