Faith Works 10-27

Advocate team: this was a surprisingly hard one to write. And long. This (for obvious reasons) won't be an issue for me again! Anyhow, if space is tight, feel free to drop the paragraph beginning "Mills Memorial" and even the next para starting "Zion Reformed" if necessary, although I already feel bad about the places and people I don't mention as it is! If you can find a place on page D-2 or 3 for the rest, I would appreciate it, but I know it's a beast of a column. Bad, bad columnist!

Shorter and sooner next week, back to our regular programming . . .

pax, jeff

Faith Works 10-27-12

Jeff Gill

 

What's a supply preacher? Nevermind.

___

 

 

No doubt about it, I will miss being a supply preacher.

 

For most of the years I've written the Faith Works column for the Your Faith page, my "sign off" has said variations on "Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio."

 

That's gotten me a fair number of inquiries as to "Jeff, what's a supply preacher?" Fair question.

 

Many people in congregations have gotten used to the concept of "interim ministers," who come in after the regular preacher, pastor, or pulpit minister (variously called) has moved on, and while the congregational leadership is searching for a new parson. Methodists and Catholics and other traditions where there are appointed clergy don't have this, but in communions which allow churches to "call" their own leadership, you have a process, and the process takes time.

 

Well, that's not what I was doing these last seven years. What I was doing was something that is regularly needed, but doesn't have much of a structure around it the way interim ministry does. The best comparison is to a substitute teacher: when a teacher just needs to be gone for a day, you call a sub. When a preacher needs to miss a Sunday, you call . . .

 

There's the problem. It used to be that pastors called some lively retired person, but these days even "retired" clergy tend to have a part-time smaller congregation of their own . . . and that pastor needs a Sunday off from time to time, too!

 

And preachers, contrary to what you might think, want a good sermon preached while they're gone. True, it can be good for people to be glad you're back, but a really bad experience from the pulpit can lead to your congregation not wanting you to take time off again soon, or ever. So supply preaching really meets a need, and it's good to provide that kind of support to hard working clergy.

 

For just over seven years, that's what I did. I "filled the pulpit" in a variety of locations, mostly in Ohio but occasionally further afield. Locally, there were places I kept coming back to, where I began to feel downright at home, and whom I will miss.

 

St. Paul's Lutheran here in Newark was kind to me as I worked to master the full liturgy they use, and I managed to sing it (sort of) my last time at the altar with them. I'll always proudly be Bill Rauch's vicar pro tem!

 

Mills Memorial UMC in Lancaster had me back time and time again, to the point where I know where all the little steps are around the platform. I also got to master the art of preaching a triple charge on a Sunday morning with St. Louisville, Chatham, and Liberty UMCs at 9, 10, & 11 am across the northern swath of Licking County, driving right past Highwater Congregational UCC where I got a number of opportunities to preach, even bringing my parents along for a visit.

 

Zion Reformed UCC also is place I've gotten to worship, let alone preach, on the beautiful road to Somerset in Perry County, literally on a High Point (Rd.). Their history is the history of this region, and their Mercersburg tradition of worship & spirituality is a gift to the UCCs and my own Disciples of Christ (and their pastor, Dr. Herb Hicks, has standing in both). Due west of them, St. Michael's UCC on Bickel Church Rd. has paid me in turnips to preach, and they were GOOD turnips.

 

My wife has been a worship leader for New Life Community UMC at Lakewood Middle School since they began, and Brian Harkness has not only invited me to preach when he was gone, but we even did a number of "duets" preaching together (and no, it didn't go twice as long).

 

And then there's Centenary UMC in Granville, where I've hung my spiritual hat for longer than any church other than the one I grew up in, almost eight years. Steve Cramer has been my pastor and friend, and the congregation welcomed me as an erratically attending quasi-leader, and it's a wonderful place to preach three times on a Sunday without driving!

 

So many more than I can list here, with my last providential supply sermon here in Newark at the Brethren Church on 26^th St., where I'd long wanted to worship, and finally did on Memorial Day weekend, and Pastor Ellis asked me if I had a Word to preach that day . . . what a blessing, I hope all around.

 

Then Newark Central asked me, this past summer, if I'd fill in for the retiring Rick Rintamaa; we kept up the conversation, and they've asked if we could just keep on going. To that request I was happy and honored to say "Yes."

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor; he's ready to settle down, and is pretty sure what he wants to do when he grows up. Tell him about your travels in vocation & employment at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

Faith Works 10-20

Faith Works 10-20-12

Jeff Gill

 

Speaking in public, dying, and other hazards of ministry

___

 

You've probably heard that for most Americans, according to surveys (and they're always right, aren't they?), death is preferable to having to speak in public.

 

Is this really what people say? Maybe so. I've been at meetings where the darndest people didn't speak, and the dad-drattedest people did.

 

In just a few more Sunday afternoons, I will have yet again the honor, for the fifth time (fifth time!), to walk out onto the stage of The Midland Theatre and be the master of ceremonies for the annual Coalition of Care Gospel Concert.

 

Another great lineup of college and church choirs, quartets, and soloists is being brought together by the desire of local faith communities to work together, to meet needs of those who need assistance with the necessities of life like rent and utilities and transportation. (Tickets are just $20 or $15 for a full program of joyful voices.)

 

So Sunday November 4^th, in downtown Newark at 4:00 pm, I will walk out in front of a few hundred of my closest friends and talk and read and sing. Since I'm a pastor, this is no strange thing, right?

 

Welllllll . . . there's a story here. And it goes back to John Dean. You recall the Watergate fellow, the former White House counsel? In 1981 he was speaking at my university, in a vast cavernous hall built off of the blueprints of Radio City in NY, seating 6,000 when filled but leaving only a few thousand to rattle around inside like change in a pocket.

 

For years I had known all too well that if I went to an event where questions could be asked, and if I raised my hand and had even a few moments to wait expectantly for my turn to speak, things would not go well for me. My face would flush, my heart would race, and the world would start to spin. When I say "my heart would race," I mean something in the Formula One division, with a pounding in my ears like Gene Krupa or Keith Moon, and a shortness of breath that I was decades away from associating with heart attack. The longer I had to wait, knowing I would have to speak in front of a group, whether the size was a couple dozen, or a few thousand, the harder and faster my heart would pound. It was, to put not to fine a point on it, terrifying, and the smart man would just pull his hand down, back away from the microphone, and go back to his seat, where the symptoms would recede as quickly as they arose.

 

But I had a question, darn it, and when was I going to get to ask it of this fellow ever again? There was a certain insistence to my wish to hear what John Dean had to say in response to my particular question, and the fact that not long before I'd been through some fun and games with the United States Marine Corps, and I ended up saying to myself "Your heart is NOT going to beat itself out of your chest, and you can just stand here and be terrified, and still speak your piece."

 

And I did. In fact, I got invited to join Mr. Dean backstage in the green room afterwards, and spoke to him for quite some time, and received some wise counsel that has stood me in good stead for lo these many years, but that's a whole 'nother column.

 

But my point, such that I have one, is that it was only years later that I realized I was having panic attacks. In fact, I still often have them. And I am thankful that mine are mild, and manageable, and that I was able to get past them. But they've never gone away.

 

As I work with our local mental health service providers these days, it occurs to me that there are many folks who experience, even just on facing walking out the door of their house, a physical and mental experience akin to what I felt in class and in lecture halls and in the Elliott Hall of Music. And for some it's stronger, more debilitating, and they need to know it's not weakness, not just fear (which we all have from time to time), and it's okay to ask for help from others.

 

In fact, even a preacher can feel it on a Sunday morning, or afternoon, and we do. You even start to enjoy it, but the anxiety never quite goes away. But it's amazing what a prayer and a song can do to dispel the terrors.

 

"Tell Me Why" is especially effective.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in central Ohio; yes, he has panic attacks from time to time, but it makes sense at the time. Tell him your crazy anxieties at knapsack77@gmail.com.

Visitors' Guide 2013

LCCVB 2013 Visitors Guide

*  *  *

An invitation to a different sort of downtown

Newark Metropolitan Hotel & The Midland Theatre

 

Ten years since the historic Midland Theatre re-opened to rave reviews and sell-out crowds, downtown Newark has been waiting for a hospitality showcase to match the welcome at the Midland.

 

Newark Metropolitan Hotel is the ideal counterpart to the classic experience of the 1928 theatre just up the block. Completely refurbished from top to bottom, from the exterior to the interior, what had welcomed guests at "The Place Off the Square" as a quality hotel is now a high-tech, contemporary lodging experience.

 

With 118 rooms and suites and over 5,000 square feet of infinitely adaptable meeting space, with all new furnishings and interior finishes, it is an entirely new hotel. The latest in exercise equipment in the fitness center overlooking the indoor pool for your down time, and state-of-the-art audio/visual equipment for when the work needs to get done.

 

For many, the Newark Metropolitan will be all play and no work, using it as a base to explore Licking County sights as well as nearby attractions like the Longaberger Homestead, just across the county line to our east. The staff of the Metropolitan will be delighted to help you plan anything from a long golf weekend to a family wedding, and make it all go well.

 

Easiest of all is the stroll around the block to The Midland Theatre. Over 1,200 seats and not a bad view in the house, The Midland hosts the biggest of names and fan favorites as easily as children's theatrical events like the holiday Nutcracker and interactive science programs. Entertainers like Arlo Guthrie, Switchback, Wynonna, Charlie Daniels, and comedian Bill Engvall are just a few of the upcoming shows, and there's always more to come.

 

With the clean, crisp modern lines of the Newark Metropolitan Hotel, and the classic terracotta exterior and opulent interior of The Midland Theatre, you might expect a contrast, but the two compliment each other on the northern corner of Courthouse Square. Between the two, the staff and management of each make sure that the focus is on you as the guest, and the quality of the experience for everyone.

 

Come enjoy the hospitality of both on your next visit to Licking County.

[Let me know if you need phone, email, address, or GPS for these; I've got 'em all, just didn't know how you wanted to format pages.]

 

*  *  *

 

Cool times in four seasons

Lou and Gib Reese Ice Arena

 

You don't think much about ice rinks in August, do you?

 

In central Ohio, it's time to open up and prepare for hockey teams, beginner's lessons, and the all around fun that is skating!

 

This is especially the case if you're off of Sharon Valley Road in Newark, and you host the Ohio state champion Newark Generals, a high school club team. Ice is serious business in hockey, let alone for any sort of skating activity.

 

Along with the growth of popularity of the National Hockey League, spurred in central Ohio by the NHL Columbus Blue Jackets, interest in hockey has, well "caught fire" in this area, and with the support of local benefactors Lou & Gib Reese, Licking County has a centrally located ice arena that is open nine months of the year, from August to April.

 

During those three "down" months, the ice making equipment is being renewed and updated for another long season ahead: meanwhile, the arena area is air conditioned, allowing for rental to groups needing a large, indoor space for car shows, conventions, even indoor soccer. The arena never sleeps, even if the ice has to take a summer break.

 

Another plus of the long season is the opportunity to serve not only hockey teams from young to old, of men and women, but also the growing figure skating community in central Ohio. Add in plenty of free skate sessions for those just wanting to try out a few laps on shaky legs, and you have a major recreational facility, with plenty of parking as well.

 

If you're interested in casual skating, lessons, or joining a hockey league, just check out the website or give them a call: www.newarkicearena.com, (740) 349-6784.

 

Lou and Gib Reese Ice Arena

936 Sharon Valley Road

Newark OH 43055

 

*  *  *

 

The secret ingredient of Licking County

 

Manufacturing and business have long been vital parts of the Licking County landscape. We make things here, all sorts of things, and we're proud of the ingenuity and quality that goes into what we send from this wonderful place to waiting customers around the world.

 

There are the old, old elements of trade that still color our image across the continent: Flint Ridge flint, a useful mineral for ancient hunters whose rainbow color is utterly unique, is found in the archaeological record all across North America, and the trade goods of the ancient world, such as mica, obsidian, copper, and sea shells, are found here in millennia old ruins just as our flint has been identified there. The quarry pits used by Native Americans can still be seen up at Flint Ridge State Memorial.

 

More recent engineering took everyday elements of the earth, like glass, and added skill, chemicals and dyes to create works of beauty, such as at the Heisey  Glass Company, whose artistic and collectible products can be seen at the National Heisey Glass Museum in downtown Newark – also in all the colors of the rainbow!

 

More practically, research engineer Games Slayter and a product team at Owens Corning worked on how to make, and use "glass fibers." They came up with a practical method of manufacture that is still largely in use today, not only making fiberglass insulation possible, but also distinctively pink.

 

Trade secrets and proprietary methods can be found in large factories, or even in small shops down quiet streets. In Licking County, there are two branches of a single family, both of whom make chocolate and candies according to recipes brought over from "the old country." Each branch of the family asserts that theirs is the true mix, the proper blend, the real sweet deal.

 

But both have up on the walls of their respective shops an image of the same old, handwritten recipe used by their father. That list is out in the open for anyone to see, because the elements, the ingredients, they would tell you, are not the most important part.

 

And in a way, their dispute tells the story of all of Licking County's business and industry: the difference is in the people. What makes our products unique is the care our friends and family and neighbors put into everything that goes from Licking County to around the world.

Newark Central – Notes From My Knapsack 10-17-12

Newark Central – Notes From My Knapsack 10-17-12

Jeff Gill

 

Dick Hamm, our Disciples of Christ former General Minister and President, once pointed out that it's kind of odd that we insist on having an "Installation" service for pastors.

 

It does sound a bit like putting a new appliance into your kitchen; hook up the test meters, run some current, say no to the delivery guy making one last pitch for the extended warranty.

 

The fact of the matter is that your new preacher is already ordained, already had their trial sermon, already has had a whole series of "first" usually, and then there's this thing, this event, this "installation," which we will hold at Newark Central on Oct. 28^th.

 

One reason we do this is because it is an occasion to affirm and celebrate connections as much or more than it is an installing sort of event.

 

Rev. Stephen Bentley, our longest serving regional staff member, will offer a special prayer and responsive reading that connects us as a church, in all our servant roles, to each other, and his presence reminds us of our connection to the Christian Church in Ohio. The message on Oct. 28^th will be from Ann Updegraff-Spleth, who has served in the general church through a variety of roles, with Homeland Ministries and at Christian Theological Seminary, while she now is in a "ministry" to help stamp out maternal tetanus as head of the Kiwanis International Foundation.

 

Meanwhile, the regular work of mission and ministry goes on: we're looking at making November a "month of membership," talking about what it means to "belong" to a congregation, and inviting people who may be wondering what that involves to come and join, starting with Nov. 4^th.

 

And for our youth, with the co-ordination of our youth director, Samantha Frizzell, the senior high youth will meet with me after worship on Nov. 11^th for another installment (!) of our ongoing series "God, and stuff." Why "stuff"? Because as any parent of a high schooler knows, if you ask what they did today, the invariable answer is "stuff." So we will converse together over lunch about "stuff," and how God relates to it.

 

So what's an installation service, really? It's God, and stuff, and how we all are connected in sorting our stuff out. Plus, it's another reason to have a dinner after church!

 

In grace and peace,

Pastor Jeff

Faith Works 10-13

Faith Works 10-13-12

Jeff Gill

 

Of the ancient and the already

___

 

 

Rome occupies the center of the western imagination when it comes to monuments and history.

 

Egypt and Greece may each be older, and London or Paris have motivations more understandable to the modern mind, but "the glory that was Rome" overshadows our reflections on law, politics, culture, and of course religion.

 

There's an obvious connection to the "Roman" Catholic Church, based in the Vatican which is actually across the Tiber from the city of Rome proper; founded in 753 BC, that year being "ab urbe condita" or "from the founding of the city" and Rome's original benchmark, so our current year is 2765 AUC.

 

But the western Roman empire fell somewhere in the neighborhood of 476 AD (anno domini) which would have been 1229 AUC, except no one was really keeping track any more.

 

Which is not to say that no one lived in Rome anymore. Many did, but fewer, and the business and political heart of things shifted in a number of directions, most dramatically to Constantinople, which continued to practice some of the rituals of empire until it fell in 1453 to the forces of Islam (and later became known as Istanbul).

 

Back in Rome, the Forum, the heart of the Roman Empire, was largely abandoned, left to grow over with weeds and briars, and the remaining structures slowly crumbled, with pieces cannibalized for use in other architecture. Crumbling stumps, grassy open spaces that were once pavements across which the voices of Cicero and Caesar and Marc Anthony once echoed, and sacred precincts like the Temple of the Vestals were not hidden from sight, but open to grazing sheep.

 

It was a glorious ruin, with occupants who were interested less in conquest and commerce than in milking their goats and tending garden plots on the Capitoline Hill's slopes. And as a new widespread culture began to rise up from the roots of Roman understandings, in the Renaissance and the Enlightenment, visitors (not to say tourists) came to look, and wonder on the scenes they'd imagined as schoolchildren reading their Livy and Ovid in distant classrooms.

 

Gibbon famously began to compose his historical masterwork "The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire" after wandering through the largely abandoned Forum; Respighi composed "The Pines of Rome" after a similar saunter. Artists from Piranesi to Canaletto to Turner drew inspiration from the tumbled pillars and crumbled arches of the scene.

 

You can visit the Roman Forum still today, and it's easy enough to find images online of how it looks, a bit forlorn; no sheep or goats, since they've been replaced by taxis and metal fencing and the stray plastic awning. No shepherds, but blowing plastic bags and the occasional billboard. None of that takes away from the background sense of awe and wonder which draws tourists to this otherwise unimpressive site in the heart of what is now, again, a vital modern city.

 

I've never been to Rome, but I took Latin in junior high and high school and college, and the texts and etchings and imaginings are all fixed clearly in my mind. Perhaps I'll go someday, and make that connection between a classroom in Ben Franklin Junior High, a worn textbook with a picture of Trajan's Column on the back, and the words "Gallia est omnis divisa in partes tres."

 

Where I have been, where I'll be today and tomorrow afternoon, is in Newark. And standing near the railroad crossing on Union Street, south of West Main, as a group will do this morning having walked there from the Newark Earthworks museum at the Great Circle just off Rt. 79, I think both of the Native Americans who built these monuments, but also of Rome.

 

The Forum is not much to look at now, but we bring to it a variety of understandings, largely based on the written texts and shared ideas that have been passed down from 2,000 years ago to this day. Union Street's landscape doesn't automatically summon up poetry and mythology and history, and it takes a bit more effort precisely because we don't have those narratives and volumes of Native written history.

 

But there are hints, and scraps, and oral tradition's whispered descriptions, plus a bit of scientific reconstruction. There is also the realization we get to share on today's hike, and tomorrow's Octagon Open House from noon to dusk out 33^rd St., that these are places that were filled with activity and culture and contemplation, science and religion, and a great people's story was proclaimed under a watchful sky, for centuries. Almost the same stretch of time, in fact, that the Forum was most vitally in use.

 

Come, and listen. There are voices all around.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in central Ohio; tell him about how history has spoken to you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or @Knapsack on Twitter.

From the Newark (OH) Advocate OpEd page, A7

Jeff Gill back in the saddle again

In Ohio after the Revolutionary War, it was common to have a preacher on horseback ride into an area and preach wherever he found a willing audience. It might be in a cabin, a store, a school, a tavern or even in an open field. These men were called “circuit riders” or “saddle-back preachers.”

In 1825, one of these saddleback preachers, David Montgomery Glancy (a.k.a. D.M.

Glancy), traveled across Licking and surrounding counties on horseback from his home in a log cabin in Rocky Fork, down the road a piece from Newark. D.M. Glancy, who was my great-great-great-grandfather, a physician and a licensed Methodist minister, handed out many Bibles and preached more than 2,180 sermons to his flock, which was spread out in Ohio.

Presently in Licking County, we have a modern day roving preacher who has been serving the churches and organizations in our community for more than 20 years. Jeff Gill’s life reminds us of the dedication of a saddle-back preacher, as he has served where called each week.

Maybe you’ve seen him educating a group about the Indian mounds, swinging a hammer to help build a house for Habitat for Humanity, announcing in a boxing ring, mediating with local youth, serving on a community board or leading a group of Boy Scouts in song.

He always is there to support a charitable cause whether making fries at the Fourth of July celebration, serving as master of ceremonies at the Midland Theatre or even portraying a historical character dressed in colonial attire in a cemetery. He has preached in many different churches, assisted with various organizations, pitched in for numerous events and he has been available for the people. Fortunately for a local congregation, Jeff recently agreed to modify his itinerant ways and to serve as their minister.

A modern pastor who reads his Bible verses from a Kindle and is connected to the community and to the world by Facebook, Twitter and his weekly column in The Advocate, Jeff is a master storyteller and a historian capturing and holding the attention of his audience through current stories and parables.

We are having an installation service for him at Central Christian Church, 587 Mount Vernon Road, at the 10:30 a.m.

service Oct. 28. Please join us to congratulate Jeff as he continues his ministry.

I’m sure D.M. Glancy and the other saddle-back preachers from the past are proud to have him follow in their footsteps.

Janice Large Newark 

Faith Works 10-6

Faith Works 10-6-12

Jeff Gill

 

Faith walking, prayer talking

___

 

 

While I'm probably the last person who should be surprised by this, the spiritual side of our walks around ancient earthworks this summer has left me both amazed and delighted.

 

For those who aren't aware of it, I spend a fair amount of time (too much, my spouse might say) leading hikes and walks and rambles around and along our local earthworks and ancient mounds.

 

This summer has given me a chance to branch out a bit, not just across the expanses of Licking County, but along our newly developed Ancient Ohio Trail, an idea and a website which is a production of the Newark Earthworks Center with Ohio State, and the University of Cincinnati's Center for the Electronic Reconstruction of Historical and Archaeological Sites (or CERHAS, for obvious reasons).

 

With a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Ohio Humanities Council, and support from the Ohio Historical Society (OHS), the National Park Service (NPS), and the Licking County Convention and Visitors Bureau, we've tied together 2,000 year old culture and architecture from Cincinnati to Coshocton. I've gotten to be part of interpretive hikes since last November from Hopeton Works across the Scioto River from Hopewell Culture National Historical Park, Spruce Hill up the Paint Creek valley from Chillicothe (managed by NPS and the Arc of Appalachia), down at legendary Fort Ancient, the first site OHS took under care in 1885, and of course around our own Newark Earthworks . . . and many more.

 

My hat on these walks and tours is one of guide, with an emphasis on the historical and archaeological, but we are getting better at adding the cultural aspect of these engineering achievements, with the involvement of more and more Native American folk. The Newark Earthworks Center has been pioneering efforts to make contact with and renew connections between Indian tribes with historic connections to Ohio before 1832 and "the removal period," along with other Native nations whose people show in DNA and oral tradition that their heritage runs back through these valleys as well.

 

But the pastor hat is in my pocket, I have to admit. And occasionally, quietly, it goes on my head. When people talk about their own now deceased relatives, and their ties to these sites through memory and affection; when visitors ask "do you believe that there is a curse here?" as we journey through areas of destruction or loss; when a group stops at a point where hundreds, likely thousands of burials once were placed and are mostly still in the ground beneath our feet, and we struggle to find the words and sense to honor what the place means today.

 

And joyfully so, I feel the pastoral role as I've gotten the chance to walk along where ancient avenues once led, and hear a man talk about his own alienation from his Native traditions and customs, and his sense of renewal in a sweat lodge ceremony, and how our stories here about what Native Americans achieved in this place has changed how he raises his children.

 

This isn't all about book learning. It's about heart shaping, and story telling. We have facts, we have theories, we have legends and traditions, and we have the quiet steady certainty of the sun's rising and moon's setting, and the seasons within that cosmic frame.

 

So I invite you, as this long Ancient Ohio Summer comes to an end next weekend, to meet at the Great Circle Museum off Rt. 79, next Saturday, Oct. 13th at 9:00 am. Come walk three miles and change, spend a couple of hours seeing some of the hidden remnants of the Newark Earthworks. Or travel down to Chillicothe on Saturday if you've already journeyed with us on one of the local walks, and participate in the NPS Discovery Day down there (see www.nps.gov/hocu for details).

 

Then come out to 33^rd St. and Parkview on Sunday, Oct. 14th to experience the last Octagon Open House of 2012, one of four this year, when you can ramble the 50+ acre Octagon or 20 acres of the Observatory Circle. Some of us will be there to provide tours, but you may just want to experience the site, and consider the past, and the peoples then and now on the landscape.

 

Is it a spiritual or historical experience? My thought is, why choose?

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in central Ohio; he's delighted to show you around next Sunday at the Octagon Earthworks. Let him know where you've been inspired in Ohio at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

World Communion Sunday 2012

Newark Central – World Communion Sunday 2012

Isaiah 28: 23-29, John 12: 20-26

"The Baker's Lament" presented by Dennis Kohler

           by Jeff Gill

*  *  *

So, where were you at 4:30 am?

I was where I always am. You know where the baker has to be, don't you?

This is not a complaint. A baker's life is a good life. My father was a bricklayer, and his father was a farmer. Their lives were up with the sun, and down with it, but their fortunes were just as up and down. The frost or the rain or the economy could cut them off or build them up, and just as quickly bring them down.

Me, I bake the bread. People eat bread in good times and in bad; they may want a wedding cake once in their lives, and some cookies for Christmas, but week in and week out, they need bread, and I bake it for them.

In return for the stability of my livelihood, I don't get up with the sun, I get ahead of it. The sun rises to see me already covered in flour and half done with filling the vats with dough to set and rise in the room by the ovens. And I'm home well before dinner, unless there's one of those cakes to be made . . . but that pays for the extras, so no one minds. I see the dinner table with my family more than my father ever did, or his.

You could call it cleaner work, as well, although it seems like I'm always washing my hands. I'm in dough up to my elbows as often as not, and moving from the rolls to the doughnuts to the loaves, it's all fresh and sweet. Some people don't like the smell of yeast at work, but I remember grandfather's barns, and helping shovel out from around the cows: give me the bakery any day.

And I do still smell it. Some people say the scent vanishes from over-exposure, but I've never found it to be so. Fresh bread baking is my best advertisement, and noses are my billboards, but I get the first sniff. You learn, you train your nose like you would your fingers on a piano or your eyes on sentry duty . . . the faint tinge of too much crust, edging up to overdone; yeast distinct from mold, always a hazard; the richness of bread not quite ready to be removed from the oven, but moments before you might smell something burnt if you waited a touch too long.

[sniffs the air, smiles, lets everyone imagine the scent]

But baking the bread is nearly the last part of what I do. It all starts with the flour. You know, even the Bible knows that you have to have your flour ground just right, not too fine, not too rough. Isaiah 28:28!

You seem a bit surprised, as if I wouldn't know the Good Book well enough to quote it for you?

It's true, I'm rarely in church. Someone has to bake the bread, and I assure you I haven't been sleeping in and skipping services. I'm not one of those who say "Oh, I can worship God just as well out in nature, like the fourteenth fairway!" But of necessity, my work table and my sales counter have become my communion tables. If this is where I have to be, to feed my family and carry out what I perceive to be my own calling, then I need to find my own worship in this space.

So Isaiah and Judges and Ecclesiastes know something of threshing and winnowing and grinding. To get the goodness of the earth into a loaf of bread hasn't changed as much as you might think, no matter how many machines and engines we might have placed in the middle of the process. The farmer tends the grain, and it grows as God sends; after the harvest, the grain comes through the miller to me, and it flourishes as much as I'm willing to work. I can't work hard enough to make grain grow out of season, so I let God do his part and am thankful . . . and my prayers here in the bakery won't make loaves hop on their own out of the oven. God trusts me to do my part, as well, and I know how many depend on me to do it. The mixing and the kneading and the punching down and the kneading and the rolling and proofing and the baking and the . . . well, I don't mean to imply my work is harder than God's. But I do my part.

And God's part . . . yes, there is growth. And there is death. And there is new life that comes as if out of the fire, transformed and reborn. It's right there in John's Gospel: "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit." My days begin alone, and in the dark, but the ovens are lit, the day breaks, and the smell of bread brings people to my shop. The seed is scattered, but the harvest comes in. The bread is baked, but it must be broken for anyone to eat.

There have been moments in my life, and I daresay in yours, that I would have preserved, untouched. [Picks up loaf of bread from table.] There are losses that hurt so much that you could almost wish you'd never seen the days that led to goodbye. There are times when you have to get up the next day, and come to the shop, and you think . . . why bother? Why must we scatter, and lose, and break? [Breaks the loaf, with half in each hand.]

Except, the perfect loaf on the shelf? It's made of wax and papier-mache. It isn't real, and can't feed anyone, hungry child or indifferent customer. [Sets down broken loaf.] A loaf, so well made you want to keep it on display, for pride and personal satisfaction? It will rot. And given enough time? Will become a thing of horror . . . plus, the health department would shut you down. "Sir, you do know that your display is filled with moldering, decaying lumps of bread?" And will you answer "Yes, but they were perfect, weren't they?" No. If they're perfect, all the more reason to break them, and slice them, and share them, and see them gone.

Because, after all, the next line after Jesus tells us about how the grain of wheat must fall into the ground and die? "Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life." [Picks up broken loaf again.]

This way, I have bread that lives on. [Holds up halves.] It gets eaten, and becomes part of those who enjoy it, and strengthens them to go out and love and work and care and try. And love. You can't put the loaf back together again, but it becomes whole and everlasting when the memory of a good meal and the meaning of the time spent around that table goes into those lives. [Sets halves down again.] And that love.

And those lives are what God uses to make something eternal, something everlasting. Our lives, your lives, my life. I may only make it to church for Christmas Eve and Maundy Thursday, smelling of dough and toast and a bit of icing behind my ear, but I know enough of God's plan for this world to know this: that for all the reaping and grinding and rolling and baking we might go through, we are part of the recipe. We ourselves are invited to be fed by feeding others. Our brokenness can help make others whole. Our hunger for grace can feed others with the Bread of Life.

Me, I've got to go make the doughnuts. Cream filled, the kids love those.

[ten minutes]

Knapsack 10-4

Notes from my Knapsack 10-4-12

Jeff Gill

 

Did Jesus Have a Dog?

___

 

 

A remarkable discovery in the desert outside of Tucson, Arizona has scholars buzzing around the world, and checking their closets for shirts without stripes that can be worn on TV interview programs, since stripes can create odd patterns on the set and distract the viewer.

 

Published first in the Journal of Occasional Studies, a twice-annual periodical found in all the libraries to which it is sent, Dr. Ferb Forster has written a potentially revolutionary study of the "Tucson fragment" as it is now known, since I just told you that, entitled "Did Jesus Have a Dog?"

 

While scholars of the Greco-Roman world had long known that mosaics with the letters "Cave Canem" were a dead giveaway that Greeks and Romans had dogs which could speak Latin, the status of canines in the world of 1^st century Judea is largely a Terra Incognita (all of which has used up my allocation of Latin allusions for 2012 in this column).

 

The "Tucson Fragment" is a corroded, bent, rusty partial dog license tag on which the Roman letters "…over" can be seen on the top line, "ll shots and fe" on the second, and excitingly on the third line is (pretty much) clearly the word "Jesus" followed by "Martinez" and some numbers and another, illegible word.

 

Some have pointed out that metal dog license tags are not known to have been used in ancient Israel (or even in Rome, for that matter); a few have also observed that the location of the discovery in Arizona, almost half a world away from the Galilean lake and Judean hills where the historical Jesus walked, would seem to discredit the find on its face.

 

Dr. Forster is undeterred by such nay-sayers, however, and suggests that the somewhat mysterious circumstances of the object's discovery are an indication that the "Tucson fragment" is not of local origin, but was brought over by some later traveler, such as Welsh explorers of the fourteenth century, or a wandering itinerant rabbi dealing on the side in antiquities from his homeland.

 

Prof. Kibble Conway, a long-time foe of Dr. Forster in the annual faculty picnic tug-of-war, has stated firmly to anyone who would listen that the so-called "least hypothesis" or application of "Occam's razor" to this bristly problem would point anyone with even a small dose of good sense to the realization that this is a recent, modern dog tag of an animal owned by a Jesus Martinez which either died in the desert having run off, or was running about the desert with the Martinez family on vacation when the tag simply fell off the dog's collar.

 

Forster notes the unresolved and frankly inconsistent explanation offered by his academic nemesis, and lifts up the fact that "Mar Tinez" in Hebrew could, with the adjustment of a few letters, be a reference to "Mar," the respected one, and "Tinez" an Aramaicization of Thomas, who is called "the Twin" and may even be a twin for Jesus depending on which Dan Brown novel you've last read.

 

Seen in such a light, the "Tucson Fragment" is a mysterious window into the ancient past: and what might it tell us about Jesus? There are no references to dogs in any of the canonical gospels, but Conway insists that there are a number of dogs roaming through some of the "deutero-canonical" gospels, rejected by the early church, for which he had citations in a pile on his desk just a minute or so ago.

 

If Jesus did indeed have a dog, it would radically change everything we thought we knew about the man; as a dog owner, and dog lover, his image would be much more warm, humane, and approachable claims Forster. "Nonsense," sputters Conway, "at the most, it would mean Jesus had a dog. Which he didn't."

 

Despite the best efforts of deniers like Prof. Conway, students and scholars plan to continue their investigations, and find out more about this tantalizing possibility: that when Jesus walked on water, he had a dog splashing along doing a dog paddle right beside him.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in central Ohio; he's more of a cat person. As was Jesus. Write your scathing contradictions to knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 9-29

Faith Works 9-29-12

Jeff Gill

 

Did Jesus Have a Dog?

___

 

 

A remarkable discovery in the desert outside of Tucson, Arizona has scholars buzzing around the world, and checking their closets for shirts without stripes that can be worn on TV interview programs, since stripes can create odd patterns on the set and distract the viewer.

 

Published first in the Journal of Occasional Studies, a twice-annual periodical found in all the libraries to which it is sent, Dr. Ferb Forster has written a potentially revolutionary study of the "Tucson fragment" as it is now known, since I just told you that, entitled "Did Jesus Have a Dog?"

 

While scholars of the Greco-Roman world had long known that mosaics with the letters "Cave Canem" were a dead giveaway that Greeks and Romans had dogs which could speak Latin, the status of canines in the world of 1^st century Judea is largely a Terra Incognita (all of which has used up my allocation of Latin allusions for 2012 in this one column).

 

The "Tucson Fragment" is a corroded, bent, rusty partial dog license tag on which the Roman letters "…over" can be seen on the top line, "ll shots and fe" on the second, and excitingly on the third line is (pretty much) clearly the word "Jesus" followed by "Martinez" and some numbers and another, illegible word.

 

Some have pointed out that metal dog license tags are not known to have been used in ancient Israel (or even in Rome, for that matter); a few have also observed that the location of the discovery in Arizona, almost half a world away from the Galilean lake and Judean hills where the historical Jesus walked, would seem to discredit the find on its face.

 

Dr. Forster is undeterred by such nay-sayers, however, and suggests that the somewhat mysterious circumstances of the object's discovery are an indication that the "Tucson fragment" is not of local origin, but was brought over by some later traveler, such as Welsh explorers of the fourteenth century, or a wandering itinerant rabbi dealing on the side in antiquities from his homeland.

 

Prof. Kibble Conway, a long-time foe of Dr. Forster in the annual faculty picnic tug-of-war, has stated firmly to anyone who would listen that the so-called "least hypothesis" or application of "Occam's razor" to this bristly problem would point anyone with even a small dose of good sense to the realization that this is a recent, modern dog tag of an animal owned by a Jesus Martinez which either died in the desert having run off, or was running about the desert with the Martinez family on vacation when the tag simply fell off the dog's collar.

 

Forster notes the unresolved and frankly inconsistent explanation offered by his academic nemesis, and lifts up the fact that "Mar Tinez" in Hebrew could, with the adjustment of a few letters, be a reference to "Mar," the respected one, and "Tinez" an Aramaicization of Thomas, who is called "the Twin" and may even be a twin for Jesus depending on which Dan Brown novel you've last read.

 

Seen in such a light, the "Tucson Fragment" is a mysterious window into the ancient past: and what might it tell us about Jesus? There are no references to dogs in any of the canonical gospels, but Conway insists that there are a number of dogs roaming through some of the "deutero-canonical" gospels, rejected by the early church, for which he had citations in a pile on his desk just a minute or so ago.

 

If Jesus did indeed have a dog, it would radically change everything we thought we knew about the man; as a dog owner, and dog lover, his image would be much more warm, humane, and approachable claims Forster. "Nonsense," sputters Conway, "at the most, it would mean Jesus had a dog. Which he didn't."

 

Despite the best efforts of deniers like Prof. Conway, students and scholars plan to continue their investigations, and find out more about this tantalizing possibility: that when Jesus walked on water, he had a dog splashing along doing a dog paddle right beside him.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in central Ohio; he's more of a cat person. As was Jesus. Write your scathing contradictions to knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

Faith Works 9-22

Faith Works 9-22-12

Jeff Gill

 

Fundamentalism and its discontents

___

  

When you hear the word "fundamentalism" used it's often in the context of describing violent demonstrations ("Islamic fundamentalism") or intolerant displays of disapproval ("Christian fundamentalism"); it can show up on the other side of the world ("Hindu fundamentalism") and even appear in discussions of politics ("constitutional fundamentalism").

 

I think it's helpful, and also interesting to look at where the whole idea of "fundamentalism" comes from, and what gave it birth, because it has not only a history, but a fairly recent one.

 

Fundamentalism is essentially one of a number of reactions to Modernism. It dates almost entirely to the period of the late 1800s and dawn of the 1900s, when the implications of the European Enlightenment from the 1600s were starting to percolate into popular, mass culture . . . and some would argue it was the rise of mass culture (sometimes called more recently "pop culture") that not only created the context of Modernism, but virtually forced the rise of Fundamentalism.

 

There are other reactions to Modernism, the best known of which is Post-Modernism, a cultural move that's largely (in this writer's opinion) running out of gas. But if you think the end of the PoMo period in academic and artistic discourse means that Modernism died long ago, you'd be (again, in my opinion) dead wrong.

 

Modernism is Darwin, Marx, and Freud, but it's also Pulitzer and Hearst and Hollywood. It's a sense of scientific understanding combined with an awareness of "deep time" in geology and biology that evokes a little awe and wonder, and lots of irony. Modernism is the realization that things haven't always been this way, so historical consciousness looks back and a certain wry apocalypticism looks forward, nervously. Modernism says "try something new" and values it not because it continues a tradition, but because of the innovation that becomes a value of its own: cars and electricity and flight are new, and good, so something new in art and literature is very likely to be good, too – right?

 

Or not. So conservatism, with roots in the English hesitation over the twin challenges of the American Revolution and the French, starts to offer a qualification to "new equals good." Conservatism (as opposed to reactionary-ism) says "let's try something new, but cautiously, without tossing the old and traditional, not yet."

 

So liberal and conservative trends in social and cultural life began butting heads (and became political parties), but what about the church? Or the Church?

 

Some faith traditions had an innate conservatism built into them (Orthodoxy, much of Catholicism), while others reasonably would tend to a more liberal acceptance of change (Protestantism in general). But "new" and "revealed truth" are not likely to be automatic fast friends.

 

This is where "The Fundamentals" come in. They were, in fact, a series of lengthy essays, ultimately multiple books worth, edited by a group of Protestant theologians and church leaders who looked Modernism in the eye around 1910 and said "Not so fast, bucko."

 

Or words to that effect.

 

I bring all this up simply to note that whether it's Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, or even Buddhism, all world religious traditions are still trying to figure out what to make of Modernism's inroads on their traditional terrain. Complete withdrawal from Modernism means a disavowal of science and culture, which is itself not in keeping with Protestant tradition, but Modernism has proven to be a sticky lint ball of a cultural trend, which is difficult to touch lightly.

 

So I actually have a smidgen of sympathy for some in the Far East, whether you dismiss them as mad mullahs or outraged imams. The Enlightenment in general, and Modernism in particular, has only relatively recently (since WWII) made inroads into their home territory, and they are only just now trying to figure out what it means to affirm or reject, in whole or in part, this strange new ideology.

 

And I'd argue that we're not done figuring it out right here, either.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in central Ohio; he'd not call himself a fundamentalist, but he may have read more of "The Fundamentals" than most who would. Tell him what's foundational for you at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Knapsack 9-19-12

Notes From My Knapsack 9-19-12

Jeff Gill

 

 

We need nature, and now more than ever

___

 

 

Yes, the election season is wholly upon us.

 

Yes, the rhetoric is overheated and the facts are being spun, twisted, mangled, and fracked beyond all earthly recognition.

 

Yes, I have no interest in joining in with the din (nor do I have bananas, I have no bananas today).

 

What I need is a walk in the woods. Or . . .

 

To tell you the truth, I've been doing a fair amount of creekwalking recently. Creekwalking is not something you should do, nor am I recommending it. You get me? I. AM. NOT. RECOMMENDING. IT. (Corporate legal, are we happy now?)

 

Creekwalking is indeed tricky because there are legal questions about who owns what or where, whose liability covers you down in the shallow waterways (I. AM. NOT. RECOMMENDING. IT.), and then there's the fact that once in a while, even around Licking County (or Legend County, if you prefer) the water gets deep.

 

Not often, though. You can pick your way from Alexandria down through Granville if you don't mind getting wet up to your armpits, and as a citizen measuring five foot, seventeen inches, that might come out a little differently for you.

 

My favorite stretches are closer to the confluences, where the South Fork of the Licking curls down from Pataskala to bounce off of the northbank of Buckeye Lake, then wandering through Hebron arcing north to Heath and joining Raccoon Creek where Newark begins.

 

Down in the lowest levels of the ecosystem, you can still see the richest span of species and types, along with the rarities not often spotted on the flat stretches we think of as the lowlands, which are far above your head when you tread the gravelly, sandy, occasionally soggy breadth of the bottomlands.

 

Sheltered by overhanging trees and high banks of shrub and sapling, a cedar waxwing perches on one bush; a kingfisher splashes into the water in front of you; a great blue heron slowly flaps a primordial path past your vantage point; scarlet tanagers and goldfinches punctuate the margins of the ribbon of blue unspooling overhead.

 

When your path allows no other way forward than into the water, you share the road with fish in shoals and schools; young and small, you tend to see only those who have the potential of being fished, since the seniors of the set stay in the very spots you intentionally avoid while creekwalking: deep pools, side riffles with overhanging brambly brush.

 

Native accounts and early settler tales remind us that once these waters were rich in paddlefish and freshwater sturgeon, in a time when the moral equivalent of caviar was a local staple, not a foreign delicacy. Clams and mussels are seen almost not at all, only as broken, long dead shell bits probably only washing down from the furthest upstream reaches. The general lack of health in the waters, even with all the progress we've made since the Clean Water Act and the EPA, is reflected in the absence still of those canaries in our well lit coal mines, the freshwater molluscs.

 

Despite that hint of concern, it's remarkable the range and number of wildlife you can see literally within blocks of the county courthouse. Yes, including bald eagles. Yet for all my creekwalking in recent months, I've seen precisely one guy out there fishing, and he said the catch was good. (Okay, I saw two other people, but they were smoking something and didn't seem pleased to see me pass by their secluded bankside hideaway. Anyhow.)

 

Nicholas Kristof of the New York Times has noted that the US Fish and Wildlife Service reports the number of Americans who fish has dropped fifteen percent from 1996 to 2006; the National Park Service has seen a thirty percent drop in the number of backcountry permits since the late 1970s.

 

"In wildness is the preservation of the world" said Thoreau in his magnificent essay "Walking," and it is certainly the preservation of my sanity. There's social science data coming in showing that exposure to and time spent in nature helps youth reduce the impact of things like attention deficit disorder and general anxiety, and for adults it can improve blood pressure and general well-being far beyond just the health impact of walking alone.

 

Have you had your nature today?

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in central Ohio; he DOES NOT RECOMMEND creekwalking. Tell him what you recommend at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.