Faith Works 1-25-14

Faith Works 1-25-14

Jeff Gill

 

An uncertain trumpet

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In First Corinthians 14:8, Paul asks who gets ready for combat when they hear "an uncertain trumpet"?

 

The full King James Version verse is "For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?"

 

American churches after World War One had somewhat the opposite problem.

 

They had played "Charge" to their congregations, whose sons had found themselves in mud-mired trenches facing barbed-wire no-man's-lands and artillery duels punctuated by poison gas. After the equivocal end of post-war deliberations at Versailles, many in America said "What were we doing there, anyhow?"

 

None of this is to say that Germany under the Kaiser was in the right, or even that America shouldn't have joined with the western Allies. But there was a passion for battle and bloodshed on the part of the Christian churches in 1914 and after that, once the war ended, looked in retrospect rather unseemly at best, discreditable at worst.

 

In this third of three columns about the coming centennial of World War I, there's a bit more to say about how that event shaped the role of churches in American life (and possibly European, but that's more complex and even further outside of my skill set).

 

For the generation or two before World War I, church-related organizations had played a dominant role in national policy formation. The Temperance movement made Prohibition the law of the land, blue laws and other proscriptive legislation had passed to constrain and define American life, and churches – especially the so-called "mainline church" bodies, were tone and trend setters on social policy and education. Read newspapers of the era, and you can see that mark of a dominant Christendom on almost every page, on a wide variety of subjects.

 

The so-called "golden age" that people are talking about when they say "how things used to be" with the place of faith in civic life is, I would argue, more the turn of the last century than it is the post-war boom years. Yes, pastors and others are always hearing about how in the 1950s all the education wing was filled (or we built one and filled it) and how there was a line around the block to get in for Easter services, and those reminiscers usually blame some combination of "The Sixties", Vietnam, and Watergate for the breakdown of respect for authority and particularly for the church.

 

I realize I'm committing the practice of sociology without a license here, but I would argue as a pastor myself, who is a bootleg historian of sorts, that this is a confusion borne of the fact that like so many things, the wake of World War II created a ferment and to some degree a smoke screen that hid developments already under way.

 

Folks came back from the common mobilization still saluting authority, and got right to work having babies and raising children (hello, Baby Boom!), and there was a surge of church attendance. But those numbers hide the decline behind them back in the Depression era, which was both financial and numerical.

 

My reading of the national and denominational and local records has led me to say this: in the wake of the hyper-patriotic ferment that swept church life in World War I, the manic passion for "slaughtering our foe" which became nearly mandatory *within* congregational walls, not just in the public press, there was a very strong reaction afterwards. On the one hand, churches lost moral stature in the public arena; on the other, internal hand, denominations winced and withdrew from nationalism in ways that still are being debated within congregations and among clergy to this day. It was in the 1920s that church-founded colleges & universities pulled back from their denominational heritage in a decisive manner; it was in the 1920s that arguments over a conservative/modernist worldview began to split and formally divide denominations in ways that hadn't been seen since the 1840s over slavery.

 

In the 1930s, Prohibition ends to general approval, and social improvement is seen as more the province of government (New Deal programs) or secular wisdom (Jane Addams, settlement houses, social work). Churches close in record numbers, and the place of faith in social efforts becomes steadily more supplemental than central. In the African American community, the church is still central, but when the civil rights era begins the mainline bodies flinch, and that record can be read in heartbreaking full with Dr. King's "Letter from Birmingham Jail."

 

And what is the role of church & faith in the society we're making in the 21^st century? That trumpet call is yet to be played.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him where you think the church's role should focus at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 1-18-14

Faith Works 1-18-14

Jeff Gill

 

Onward, Christian Metaphors

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Perhaps "the moral equivalent of war" is a good way to go about mobilizing a culture.

 

William James thought so around 1900, and some sixty years later LBJ declared one against poverty.

 

At the same time, he was pulled into ramping up a . . . war-war, if you will. Not a moral-equivalent-of, but an actual Vietnam War. Did the use of the one metaphor cause some pushback because of the other?

 

I wonder about this. I'm not, as I've said in this column before, not a pacifist, but I don't say that proudly. It's pretty clear Jesus was one, and yet neither he nor his forerunner (and cousin) John the baptizer nor his leading follower, Simon Peter, condemn those who practiced the arts of war. I missed the era of the draft by a few years, but grew up in its shadow, yet I signed up for as complex a set of reasons as anyone who has enlisted. I'm proud to claim the title of United States Marine, even if I'm a bit bemused that I actually have an honorable discharge. My service was short, quiet, and stateside. Anyhow.

 

Obviously, I went on into ministry, and in looking at this history of that trade, I've seen a noticeable knot between warfare and worshipful arts back around 1914.

 

That's right, a centennial this year: The War to End All War. The Great War, they called it during its terrible course in England. Or as we later, more reasonably called it, World War One. Or some might say "The First Phase of the Century Long European-Focused Conflict."

 

It began a hundred years ago this summer. In late June Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife were assassinated in Sarajevo, and by late July the armies were mobilized and the mortars began their steady thump, a pounding rhythm that would relentlessly beat away at lives and property until four and half years later on November 11^th, still Armistice Day to many.

 

That conflict began without American involvement, and ended with our entry in 1917 decisively swinging the balance to the Western Allies. There's much to say about how "The Sleepwalkers" let the war begin, and much still to debate about how it all should have ended, but the League of Nations and the Versailles treaty certainly didn't work out the way people had hoped.

 

For churches, specifically American churches, there was arguably an element of their own involvement in the move to a "war footing" that didn't work out as they'd expected, either.

 

A startling book entitled "Preachers Present Arms" came out in 1969, researched and written by a pastor & historian named Ray Abrams. He pulls together the myriad stands of how Christian denominations, congregations, and individual parsons all ended up marching largely in lockstep to encourage entry and celebrate taking an active role in what had been, up to that point in the US, "the European Conflict."

 

It's a hard book to read. It doesn't matter how martially minded you are, or are feeling in that moment: the announcements and proclamations and sermons cited in this book trace a spasm of cheerleading for war and fervor for "slaughtering the Hun" as the German enemy was termed that can't not leave you breathless.

 

The bloodlust was bad enough in and of itself, but the aftermath is one of a stuttering, staggering, flailing Christian community across the nation looking back and asking "what in Heaven's name were we thinking?" The rationale for supporting the Allies entirely aside, the sheer zest for battle and blood specifically on the part of clergy safe in their US pulpits: it was appalling. And in many ways, the church bodies and institutions of ministry said "never again." The country may go to war, but the church doesn't have to lead the charge with fixed bayonets.

 

And whether you see that as a reasonable reaction or a failure of nerve, it was in my reading pretty clear that this war hysteria actually did a great deal to undermine the moral authority Christianity had in American culture. Everyday folk who may have had little heartfelt commitment to a particular church body came away from 1917-1918 with the thought "those folks are easily co-opted, and don't mind getting us into pointless bloodbaths."

 

I would argue the great loss of cultural authority on the part of Christendom that we usually associate with the 1960s actually has its basis in the reaction that began to set in after 1918.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he will have a bit more to say about war and faith next week, but tell him what you think at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 1-16-14

Notes from my Knapsack 1-16-14

Jeff Gill

 

Deep freeze and wide muddy lawns

___

 

 

There's a particular type of mud you find on your shoes this time of year. If you have an awkward tendency to stroll off of paved paths and blacktopped parking from time to time, you know the sort of fluid, glutinous mud I mean.

 

When the soil freezes, thaws, and refreezes, you have a slurry near the surface that squirts into your shoes and makes each step squirm a bit, swivel left, twist right, as you curse the wandering impulse that took you off of the flagstones or concrete walkways.

 

The turf, such as it still is, comes loose when the temps shoot back above freezing, barely a loose skin on the bones of what may still be a deeper solidity below. There's an undead element to the grayish-brown colors that overwhelm the few sickly shades of green left on the ground.

 

A good hard permafrost creating cold snap is actually good for the soil, maybe even for the ecosystem, although your more sensitive perennials may not agree. Some roots of recurring plants can get too cold, too fast; earthworms, whose beneficial effects I think we all know, can get down below the frost line if the cold wave doesn't hit too fast.

 

There are nasty plants and grubs and bugs who are duly "iced" in such weather, and you know the kinds of mold and mildew that grows on the north (and even the east or west) side of your house. A winter full of warmer weather and lots of cloud cover as we had a few years back, and that blackish green rash breaks out on siding, stucco, even fence rails and lawn furniture.

 

A certain amount of freezing "exercises" the earth, the frost lines popping open and heaving shut. Much of the original formation of soil in this area happened as the glaciers retreated barely more than 10,000 years ago. Scientists note that soil (dirt is what's under your fingernails, soil is what grows plants and feeds the world – that's what the Ag Dept. at Purdue taught me!) only forms at a rate of about half an inch every four to five hundred years.

 

So topsoil, the good soil in this neck of the woods, is at most twenty inches deep, and the fact is that not every area was prime for soil formation, nor did those conditions continue steadily throughout pre-history. Six inches is a good layer most places in the county, less of course on slopes, on rocky ridgetops, and so on.

 

To get from those ancient glaciers, tumbled granite washed down from Canada, and native sandstone, an end product of useful soil, you first need: freezing. Not just freezing, but a freeze-thaw cycle. The cracks in the rock that expanding water  pops open begins the long cycle of decay, breakdown, and chemical incorporation that end in rich, organic-filled topsoil.

 

But it starts with freezing. As King Lear says, "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow!" The ice and wind play their part in preparing the ground for coming spring.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County. Tell him about your muddy shoes at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

 

Newark Christian - Notes 1-10-14

Notes from my Knapsack (1-10-14) -- Preaching, pastoring, & politics

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When I was in high school, I got a gift, and in a small way, a burden.

 

At my congregation, during my junior year, I was selected to serve as a deacon, ended up as a substitute board secretary when the elected one had surgery, and finally was put on a pulpit committee when our long-time pastor retired.

 

It was, first of all, a gift and a grace to be called by my fellow Christians to a leadership role. It was humbling then, it's still something meaningful to me today. And as for being asked to be, granted, the "youth representative" on the pulpit committee, well: most of us in ministry have sat in front of pulpit committees, but very few of us have been on them. That experience is a unique one for clergy, and I value what that time has meant to me over the years.

 

But it also is a bit of a burden, because this set of memories from the mid-70s when I was 15 years old can loom larger than perhaps it should as an exemplar of what people are thinking of in looking for pastoral leadership.

 

There are so many vivid stories from that time, but in particular, there was a member of our team who always asked one question, and the same question, of each candidate we interviewed (and we interviewed many, a story in itself).

 

"Do you think ministers should be politically active?"

 

It was only years later that I came to learn and understand all the baggage that question carried. The Sixties were barely past, and alive for many, including that particular person. Our retired pastor had been in the forefront of the civil rights movement in Northwest Indiana, and if you know the Chicagoland area in the late Sixties, they were…. vigorous times. The Democratic convention and the riots outside were just the tip of the iceberg. Black faces had preached in our pulpit, a city where the Klan just forty years earlier had held sway… a Klan whose memory still hung like woodsmoke in summer in the oddest corners.

 

The racial politics of that era were still tugging at the social fabric, and the question was a live wire in a pile of dry leaves: Do you think ministers should be politically active? And honestly, even now, I'm not sure what answer that person was hoping for.

 

I've been remembering those interviews in this past week, as the fiftieth anniversary of the War on Poverty has gone by, with LBJ's first "State of the Union" after JFK's death. Johnson was a born and bred Disciples of Christ product, and so was Ronald Reagan. Our tradition has given formation to political views on both sides of the legislative aisle.

 

Yet our history, as a church, as a communion, is that we care deeply about how faith and freedom and the forgotten all intersect. We don't believe in fatalism about poverty, and we don't have consensus about the role of government's role in helping the disadvantaged, either.

 

Nor are we sure what we want our clergy to be seen as doing, either.

 

So here I am, 37 years later, with a newspaper column along with a church newsletter, a civic role in housing and community development, still cautiously treading where angels fear to wear campaign buttons. How shall we, as a church, as community leaders, take a place in the discussions?

 

All I'm sure of, nearly two generations later, is that we have to take one, but I'm still figuring out what it is.

 

In grace & peace, Pastor Jeff

Faith Works 1-11-14

Faith Works 1-11-14

Jeff Gill

 

Family and faith in formation

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This past week saw a significant national anniversary which got some, but (in my opinion) oddly little attention even in forums where you'd expect it to be a dominant topic, pro or con.

 

Last Wednesday was the fiftieth anniversary of Pres. Lyndon Baines Johnson giving his first "State of the Union" address, where he declared an "unconditional war on poverty" with policy plans to put behind that metaphor.

 

That metaphor, by the way, comes down to us by way of that great figure in the history of sociology and religious studies (and psychology, and a hatful of other fields), William James. In his work "Varieties of Religious Experience," (1902), the Harvard professor gave academic legitimacy to the phenomenological study of religion; four years later, he published "The Moral Equivalent of War" where he analyzed the drive towards world peace – the seeds of a hope for a "war to end all war" that were planted before World War I began – and pointed out the values and satisfactions people get from warfare. He makes the case that we can't abolish human nature, but we do need and can benefit from "the moral equivalent of war" in shared values, common struggle, and the achievement of wider goals through general participation in that struggle.

 

In that sense, LBJ was an heir of William James; he had seen warfare from both the security of Washington, and out in the field in the Pacific. He knew the positives and the negatives of warfare between nations, and he came back all the more committed to building up the spirit of national effort in ending the kind of desperate poverty he had known growing up and teaching school, in the Texas hill country outside of Austin, and down along the Rio Grande.

 

Much of LBJ's legacy has been overshadowed by his anguished continuation of the Vietnam War. You can find volumes of debate over what Kennedy would have done had he lived past 1963, and what Johnson could have done and didn't after he came into office following the assassination. It's hard to say for sure.

 

What can be said with some certainty is that Johnson already had more of a record of putting himself publicly on the side of civil rights before 1960, let alone 1964, and his "accidental" accession to the presidency meant he could use both the martyred predecessor's memory and his own considerable political skills to get a Civil Rights & Voting Rights Act through, but also to put alongside a suite of social legislation which he gave the caption "War on Poverty."

 

That legacy, itself, is still debated, but in ways that left the usual suspects on cable news and talk radio largely mute. It's an article of faith on the left that it was too little and not fully deployed, accomplishing less than it might have; equally so the right sees the so-called War programs as having done more harm than good. The impacts on family in particular are decried, in politics and not infrequently in churches.

 

I think you can see where some factors of family decline were reinforced unintentionally, but with no less harm, by AFDC (as one example), but the problem was building before then -- the curve really doesn't begin to bend in 1964, it bends through it. And we're still trying to figure out what was loosening those ties to start with, that AFDC gave some unfortunate momentum to. That's part of my morbid fascination with "Mad Men": I think that show is trying to get at some of the same questions in a way. The War on Poverty becomes an early goalpost for the Sixties, but the game had already begun.

 

Somewhere in the post-war era, we started down a road of no-fault divorce, delayed marriage, and general acceptance of birth control as an unspoken expectation. Oddly enough, poor people having more children than "they can afford" goes back to rural culture and a certain cold logic of farm life, and again, the first generation up from the South and into cities -- Appalachian & African-American -- was digging that hole for themselves years before the Pill and the Check started contorting social norms.

 

This is where reading Daniel Patrick Moynihan is so startling: we could have known this in 1963, but it was not politically palatable to talk about, so we didn't. And part of the resistance was due to what I would call an overemphasis on the problems of the "black family" as Moynihan put it, without realizing the social shift was much broader than any one ethnic group. "There are some mistakes only a Ph.D. can make," he said, and mistakes we can make listening to groups of Ph.D.'s in sum.

 

And at the same time, we see the role & centrality of churches change dramatically. Cause, correlation, or coincidence? There may be a further column here…

 

Jeff Gill is a storyteller, writer, and pastor in Licking County; he's ordained in the same tradition from which came LBJ, Ronald Reagan, & James Garfield. Tell him about your views on the sacred & the secular at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 1-2-14

Notes from my Knapsack 1-2-14

Jeff Gill

 

Stories near and far

___

 

Many thanks, at the start of this bright new yea,r to all the kindly and helpful input on my recent attempt to tell a story on the installment plan.

 

Given the 550 word limit on these columns, and the fact that there often had to be a little exposition to reframe the situation for those who didn't see every piece (election season broke up my usual every-other-week sequence), there was a surprisingly small amount of dialogue and character development you could put into any one segment.

 

But my ten section adventure began with a couple of items to hand: I'd had a surprising clash in July with a reader in print, and found myself entirely uninterested in fighting a war of words, whether with an unarmed opponent or a platoon of contumelious correspondents. And I'd been wanting to try something fictive, and episodic, for some time. At the end of July, the time seemed to be right.

 

Further, I had this image stuck in my mind of a man standing at a window looking at the stark jagged mountains around Las Vegas, thinking to himself "I want to go to Granville." He didn't know why, but he had to come here. A year and a half ago, I had my first flight into and out of Sin City, which probably sparked the concept, but it was just a picture with a scrap of plot device that had me thinking "so what next?"

 

Capping it all off, I had been wanting to try to show Granville to us, to we who live here, through the eyes of someone knowing nothing at all about the place. Most of us who are today's Granville's residents were not born here, though many of us say we got here as soon as we could. But few of us came here cold: we had jobs or spouse's jobs that brought us within the orbit of this little cosmos, some reason for coming into the neighborhood that gave us a context. We'd most of us had a bit of a picture or a piece of the story before driving north on Rt. 37 or across on Rt. 161. Those who hadn't and stayed got our moment of "gee whiz" and then it steadily sinks into the mire of everyday life and casual interactions.

 

As much as we can take it for granted, Brigadoon… I mean, Granville is a startling place to stumble upon, and we forget that. Most of us do, anyhow. It has a certain feel, an atmosphere which is evocative even for folks who can't put a single word to the whys or the wherefores.

 

Having been a "step-on" guide for hundreds of tour buses, and watched the looks on the faces of thousands of Canadians and Pennsylvanians and Utahns (et cetera), I can assure you there is a marvelous character to this place that we may be at risk of losing sight of, we who live here. I hope Nelson's story helped you recall that first time you saw the village we call home, and restored for some of us that excitement of living in a place that really does anchor the Land of Legend.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he & his wife stumbled into Granville for the candlelight walking tour in 1989, but it took them 15 more years to move here. Tell him your view of the village at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 1-4-14

Faith Works 1-4-14

Jeff Gill

 

Street ministry in Pottersville, 2014

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A new year dawns in Pottersville. We're sending you this fundraising appeal because you've been a supporter of our work in the past, and we hope you can aid us during the year ahead.

 

Our ministry center is still upstairs overlooking the heart of the old business district. We have a worship & gathering space at the top of the stairs from the street, and a number of private offices for confidential counseling appointments. One goal we have is to work with our landlord (Potter Enterprises) to install an elevator, but this accessibility asset will cost thousands more than we have on hand.

 

Ironically, if we can put together funding for this step, it will be installed where the old vault currently sits, its door permanently open . . . no one knows anymore what the combination is, and we have had it riveted open for safety. That area is reinforced below, though, which makes it the best spot to put a lift that can allow mobility-restricted individuals to be served in our space.

 

The Pottersville Community Association (PCA) continues to work on projects for the revitalization of our downtown, and we collaborate on these efforts while keeping our focus on direct service and ministries of compassion, care, and presence.

 

For the congregations in the Greater Bedford region who contribute to our programming here in the city, we can share a few of the stories where we are making a difference in Jesus' name. Violet is one of the residents of the senior housing complex located where the Gaiety Theatre and Tap Room once stood. She was born and raised here, traveling to the East Coast when she was younger and making a number of attempts to get into show business.

 

"I made plenty of mistakes, and there was always someone around to encourage me to make one more," Violet says. "When the Pottersville Mission opened its doors to me as a homeless old woman, it was like I was coming back to the home I never knew."

 

Tilly & Eustace are brother & sister, a pair who have been each other's caregivers since their parents died before World War II. They say about Pottersville Senior Housing "we have just gone from one barely habitable rental to another through our years, and this is the first safe, warm place we've called home since we were children." Friends of the pair say they are both over 100.

 

There are many who recall the heyday of Pottersville, when neon lights and parked cars ornamented the blocks all around. But most of those who remember those days also recall a darker side, with houses of prostitution on the blocks behind the business district, and pawn shops tucked in between the bars and dance halls.

 

Those years saw much activity, financial and otherwise, but little of the money stayed in town. And once trends in entertainment and economics began to undermine the profitability of movie houses and floor shows, the hollowing out of the business district happened with startling rapidity, leaving behind long stretches of vacant storefronts and only patchily occupied upstairs apartments.

 

The last blow seemed to be, ten years ago, when the First National Bank of Pottersville was bought out and closed by MegaCorpBanq, leaving depositors without a staffed branch closer than Bedford Heights (although there are ATMs on either end of neighborhood). And it is true that payday loan and car title cheap money, high interest rackets are dotted on either side where the town's main bank once operated.

 

But that vacancy has created our biggest new opportunity, and one we are very excited about. The old bank building, with its marble and wrought-iron stateliness, has attracted a ministry partnership of three area churches that are going to open it up as a vocational training center, in association with the county technology and education program, with a coffee shop as the centerpiece.

 

Where once the teller's cages received deposits, baristas will serve cappuchinos and lattes; back in the old president's office, students will learn the skills needed to serve customers and cook up sweet treats.

 

We continue to celebrate worship each Wednesday and Saturday night, and are still appreciating the rent-free arrangement with the county that allows us to use the old library building for the Tuesday & Thursday food pantry. Please keep our ministry of presence and proclamation in your prayers, and together, we know that just one person determined to make a difference can have an impact far beyond what they know, or can know!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; yes, he's still watching Christmas movies. Tell him where you would like to make a difference at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 12-28-13

Faith Works 12-28-13

Jeff Gill

 

Beyond the Barricades

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Weathervane Playhouse is wrapping up this weekend a winter run of the spectacular production "Les Misérables", an effort that reminds you of why the movie version was compelling and unique and yet something completely other than a live performance.

 

Don't get me wrong, Hugh Jackman, Anne Hathaway et alia did a fine job, and Tom Hooper's "in your face" camera work gave us a new approach to this familiar musical that was compelling for newbie and "Les Mis" veterans alike, but when you see a live production on stage, you realize just what a confident risk it is to come out on stage in front of an audience and try to sing, act, and move through a performance without "do-overs."

 

If you don't already have your tickets, tonight and tomorrow are probably sold out, or should be (you really should check, just in case), but the show made me think again about those revolutions in Europe of the early 1800s that became the seedbed of Victor Hugo's original doorstop of a novel from which the musical drew its plot, if not all the preceding detail.

 

"Les Misérables" in the French novel original starts with the end of Napoleon, and concludes with a revolution swirling around the death of a general who had shown sympathy for a more democratic France, in June of 1832.

 

We have a tendency in the United States, wrongly, to see Europe as a stable collection of historic nation-states, when in fact most of the "countries" we take for granted today were still menageries of petty kingdoms and dukedoms and such through the 1800s, well after the formation of a constitutional democracy in this country in 1787.

 

St. Paul's Lutheran in Newark had last weekend their "Deutscher Weihnachtsgottesdienst" which every year I mean to attend, and miss every Christmas season. It's a German language Christmas service they hold, along with singing from the Männerchor & Damenchor of our area and some tasty treats afterwards, one that honors their heritage.

 

In the 1830s & 1840s, there were many Germans, Italians, Poles and other European exiles here in Ohio who had found their way to the New World after participating in failed revolutions back home. The Poles rebelled against the Russian Empire in 1830 (and were crushed), the Carbonari revolt in Italy rose up in 1834 (and was crushed), spurring the later Risorgimento following 1848 (which was . . . pretty much crushed). In Germany, that "year of revolutions" across Europe also triggered outbreaks of rebellion in a number of the many German "states" but they had been erupting periodically across the Rhine valley from 1833.

 

Karl Marx & Friedrich Engels met in Paris 1844 as this revolutionary spirit was rising up all around them; they didn't create it, but its presence caused them and their philosophical circle to ask questions about the role of governments in the nation-states still struggling to define themselves, and the place of the people's voice in those decisions. Imperial authority and church autonomy had been the primary forces behind the world that had been, telling citizens their place and their duties and reinforcing status & class divisions under monarchical regimes. What if the new parliaments and citizen assemblies embodied by the American experiment across the ocean from 1787, and the French revolution of 1789, were just the beginning of a social transformation promising equality of opportunity and human rights for all?

 

Of course, Communism as a global force becomes terribly twisted through Stalin in Russia & Mao in China (let alone the nightmare state of North Korea under the Kim family). As a Christian, it's too easy for me to dismiss Marx's theories as an attempt to do arithmetic without even numbers, or geometry without straight lines, when he casts out faith & religion as "opiates of the people." But his hunger for a different conception of human social roles than his era had inherited is a logical, and even honorable outcome of the forces he saw at play all around him.

 

Christians and people of good will today still dream of a world where justice is not a dream, but a reality, and ask "how are we to live in community with each other?" In "Les Misérables," the tragic view of social development as requiring armed insurrection and violent revolution is not celebrated, but mourned. And for Victor Hugo, unlike his contemporary Marx, God is not out of the picture. Not at all.

 

The answers, though, still lie "somewhere beyond the barricades."

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's not much of a revolutionary, but there are moments…tell him what you find revolting at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

 

Faith Works 12-21-13

Faith Works 12-21-13

Jeff Gill

 

The Animals' Christmas

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There's an old story, or tradition, or superstition, or whathaveyou, that at midnight on the border between Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, the animals speak.

 

Who knows where this idea comes from, or what it teaches, but it has a certain charm, this idea that the donkey can talk to the lamb, and the ox to the camels, or your dog to the goldfish.

 

Animals are part of the Christmas scene from the Biblical narrative to the crèche set on your mantelpiece.

 

We know about Mary's poor donkey (more tradition than Scripture, but you don't think a nine-months'-gone woman walked from Nazareth to Bethlehem, do you), the camels of the magi (not in Matthew 2, perhaps, but they come from Isaiah 60), and obviously shepherds have to have sheep.

 

The ox is necessary if only because a) any rural, farming family in that time and place would have had one, and b) that's the one of the "living creatures" from Ezekiel and Revelation which has traditionally been associated with Luke's gospel, which is where the classic heart of the Christmas story come from (the wise men added from Matthew's account).

 

That's the menagerie you generally have gathered in any traditional manger scene. They set the scene in many ways, since the manger, the feed trough in which baby Jesus is placed, the sign which the angels share with the shepherds as how they can tell they've got the right child, surely belongs in a barn, and what's a barn without animals?

 

We may overdo the barn-like associations; on a winter night in Judea, the livestock probably lived right in there with the family, for warmth and security. In Ohio two hundred years ago, a posthouse lodging like Granville's Buxton Inn had the stable in the basement, so the body heat of the horses and cows and pigs would help to warm the rooms upstairs. If you think "that's not all of what would waft upstairs," you have to remember that the guests would have bathed once a month whether they needed it or not, so . . .

 

Anyhow, you can't have the Christmas story without the animals. They set the scene, frame the story, mark the developments directly or indirectly, and remind us that the grand story of redemption opening up with the birth of Jesus is intended because "God so loved the world," the "cosmos" as the Greek would put it. The gift of the Christ is intended to begin the work of transforming all of creation, and that is not just a matter of humans alone. All creatures great and small have their place.

 

Many homes have their pet traditions at Christmastime. It may just be reindeer antlers on the family dog, or it might be a special collar in red and green. We always leave out not only a snack for that jolly old elf, the good Saint Nicholas himself, but also some carrots and apple slices for those eight (nine?) hard-working reindeer. Red-nosed or not, they now are part of the zoology of the season, and if you don't want reindeer droppings on your living room carpet, you'd better make sure to keep that snack plate stocked with more than cookies.

 

Does your cat have a stocking? Should there be an extra dash of fish food into the aquarium? I once knew a person who had a diver-bubbler in their tank with a festive red hat peaked with a big white pom-pom, that she put in only for the month of December. January 1, the regular diver went back on duty "under the sea."

 

Pets and companion animals have the primary purpose of offering companionship and comfort to we humans, and each of us has a different reaction to various animals. Some make of pets a kind of substitute child, others just want a creature to check in on, if not to communicate with.

 

As Christians, we who have primary stewardship of the story of Jesus' birth know that his relationship with each human soul is of primary importance. We also should know that part of the network of relationships that can open up hearts to the good news of the gospel is modeled in most of our manger scenes, where our relationships with animals are an integral part of the story.

 

May your whole family, human and otherwise, have a joyful and blessed Christmas celebration next week!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Newark; many churches in Licking County, including his, will be hosting a living nativity this weekend. Tell him how animals add to your sense of the season at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 12-19-13

Notes from my Knapsack 12-19-13

Jeff Gill

 

A story on the way home - conclusion

___

 

 

It was one thing to lose a sister, and another to find a grandfather, but in this case the two were wrapped up in each other.

 

Nelson had made his way from his Florida home to his sister's last resting place in the Nevada desert to this Ohio village, following an unexpected claim of a hometown in this place he'd never heard of before, this Granville.

 

The threads he'd tugged at pulled him along, as if he'd been drifting until the slight momentum, this gentle gravitation, had given him direction to this place that….

 

Looking around again, he realized that the trailer home, while fairly tumbledown outside, was quite neat and well arranged within. It reminded him of something, someone, but even in Florida Nelson had not been in many such places until it occurred to him all at once: The Rockford Files. It looked like Jim's place in Malibu, incongruously parked up on blocks here in a corner between an expressway and an outlying lane that appeared to be getting busier by the moment, far away from the Pacific or any other ocean for that matter.

 

They looked at each other again, the elderly man with the oxygen tube along under his nose and a new fleece blanket across his knees sitting deep in a very weary looking recliner.

 

Grandfather Nelson said "You don't seem to impressed by my lodgings."

 

The younger Nelson replied "It's not that, I've just not been in one of these before, I don't think. Or if I were, it was a construction trailer arranged as an office."

 

"It's all here, everything I need, really. Some nice folks bring me a hot meal every weekday noon and make sure I'm still breathing; a nurse does the same twice a week and brings my new tank of oxygen. There's a van can come get me if I work it out ahead, from over in Newark; they took me last year over to there and I worked it all out with a nice young woman who set me up for my burial and such, pre-arrangement they call it."

 

"They do, do they? Didn't set a date, I hope."

 

"No, but we did talk about Mackinac Island and that movie the Superman fellow and Dr. Quinn starred in. Nice lady, the funeral woman I mean. At any rate, I'm all set. Why I'm still here not using it, only the good Lord knows."

 

"Well, maybe you and I needed to meet first and talk."

 

"That same thought had just occurred to me."

 

Nelson, the younger, slightly more baffled one, sat and thought. This was a great deal to take in, but he also realized he didn't really have anywhere else he had to be for a few days. "So, what should we talk about?"

 

"Your father, my son, is a complicated subject. Let's save him for later. How about I tell you about this odd little village I've been living in the last twenty years?"

 

"You know, I'd like that. It's starting to grow on me."

 

The older man smiled widely. "Granville will do that to you. Maybe I will, too."

 

"Oh, I think you already have."

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in central Ohio; tell him what you think happens next at knapsack77@gmail.com or @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 12-14-13

Faith Works 12-14-13

Jeff Gill

 

A quarter-century ago in South Africa, and Newark

___

 

Tomorrow, on Sunday, Nelson Mandela will be laid to rest in South Africa, near the place of his birth and upbringing.

 

His journey took him from childhood nobility to adult revolutionary to mature statesman, with a long sojourn as Prisoner 46664 on Robben Island.

 

During that time as a prisoner, as black South Africans worked and campaigned and protested and fought for rights and representation, Mandela became a symbol, and a rallying point for the African National Congress (ANC), and for the global campaign against apartheid.

 

He served over 27 years in prison, at hard labor, while the work of liberation went on without him; without even his picture or his words, since the Afrikaner government decided to forbid pictures or more than minimal letters (and those to family only) from Mandela to anyone in the outside world.

 

It seemed at the time, let alone in retrospect, a silly and counterproductive strategy. They made more of a martyr of him than even execution might have done, while keeping a flame burning in the hearts of the ANC faithful that their "Tata," or "Father" would return to them.

 

Whatever the faults of Mandela's choices in pursuing justice and resistance to the whites-only government, his step was sure after entering prison. He said later that his strategy was to "reveal nothing, learn everything." Especially about his oppressors. He learned their hopes, their desires, and their fears: the guards and the government in power. They learned very little if anything about "Madiba," his clan name in Xhosa, except that he was determined to endure. And to learn.

 

For myself, growing up knowing Mandela only as a prisoner, I knew little myself about him, but I kept hearing about South Africa. And the more I learned, and going to hear speakers like Donald Woods and Allan Boesak, listening to their stories about people like Steven Biko and a long list of leaders dying in custody, coming to realize just how harsh life was in places like Soweto and the townships around Johannesburg, I knew one thing. Apartheid could not last, would not last. A system that disenfranchises 90% to let 10% rule and benefit while the excluded suffer and die: it wasn't going to last.

 

But just as certain to me, in the 1970s, was that when the apartheid regime in South Africa ended, it would be horrible and bloody and deadly, for blacks and whites both but whites, ultimately, would be crushed and excluded in their turn, much as we had already seen in Rhodesia. It was a tragic prospect to contemplate, but how else could it end?

 

So when it came to that Sunday morning in February of 1990, and the news came across the television set that F.W. de Klerk had released Mandela from prison without conditions, it was with a mix of fear and hope many of us found ourselves, in this country, focused intently on the story.

 

I was the associate pastor here in 1990 at Newark Central Christian, where I'm now back as pastor, and then still new and young enough to know that being late is not done by clergy on a Sunday morning, but my fear of getting in trouble was tugged at by my fear of the inevitable in South Africa. Was a bloodbath about to begin?

 

And then we saw him. Walking out of his imprisonment, greyed by the years, the faintest hint of a stoop after those decades breaking rocks, and that smile. Yes, there have been leaders with malign intent who could smile on the world stage, but not THAT smile. It was a smile at peace with itself, and with a promise of laughter to come. Mandela smile, and walked out of prison, and into a place time and circumstances and grace had prepared for him.

 

It was a place he could have ascended to, then released the whirlwind from. That, he did not do. He walked out among the nation's people, black and white, and he showed them a path through truth and reconciliation towards peace.

 

South Africa still, like America, needs more truth, and further reconciliation. We both seek peace at home and abroad. But the man they bury tomorrow started a living memory still inspiring those who saw it, we who had so little hope for peace.

 

May this poor tired world waiting for angels singing this Christmas season remember to be thankful for a smiling prisoner, and find good will for today in that memory.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him who has inspired you recently at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 12-7-13

Faith Works 12-7-13

Jeff Gill

 

Closed for the holidays

___

 

Let's just jump right into it, shall we?

 

Why are the stores and restaurants and drive-thru windows all closed for Christmas?

 

We got the national retail debate going for Thanksgiving, and I don't want to be caught short going into the heart of the holiday festivities.

 

As you may know from personal experience, some stores opened up not on Black Friday's dawn (doesn't that seem like a good book title? "Black Friday's Dawn"), nor at midnight even, but on Thanksgiving Day itself at 6 or 8:00 pm. Apparently five to seven hours is the shopping equivalent of waiting an hour after eating before going swimming.

 

For some, this was a tragedy, a travesty, a crisis of national proportions. Stores, open on Thanksgiving Day! Oh, the humanity, the clerks & waitstaff forced to leave behind the football games and battles over who does the dishes that evening!

 

Yet we know the days of "better get gas, tomorrow's Sunday" are long in the past. Sure, a few serious drinkers know they can't restock until 1:00 pm or so on Sunday afternoon (sleep it off, campers), and car lots give us a little time to prowl without sales staff on site.

 

Once, some of us recall, Sunday was a desert of doing. Whether you were observant or not (let alone what day you called the Sabbath of your tradition), you had to take a break. I was discussing this general issue on Facebook the other day, and a friend reminded me that when he was growing up in Wisconsin someone went down to the pop machine on Main St. and unplugged it.

 

That's some serious Sabbathkeeping.

 

If you recall the newspaper having a graphic on the front page counting down how many "Shopping days until Christmas!" it's because there once were days when you (gasp) couldn't shop. And you don't see that graphic anymore, do you?

 

Now, we expect the TV stations to all be on 24/7 (we didn't say with stuff worth watching, but the waving flag, national anthem, test pattern end of the day is a thing of the past). We've always assumed that police and fire and hospital staff are on duty, but now we get flak at our congregation's volunteer-run medical loan closet ministry if we close down for Thanksgiving: why aren't you open?

 

And there were voices calling hypocrisy upon anyone who bemoaned Thanksgiving hours, but were happy to shop then, just as we once had people decrying the end of "blue laws" for Sunday closure in morning worship, and then muttered un-Christian thoughts when they went to a restaurant and found they had to wait in line for dinner (sermon must have been too long).

 

So let's just blow out the doors and get it over with. Everyone has to be open, all the time. No closing for Thanksgiving, open on Christmas Day, and let's promote hiring by staying up all night, and not just with the drive-up window the way some fast food places cheat and do, but dining room, too.

 

SpongeBob fans know that the Krusty Krab once stayed open round the clock, to the square-pantsed fry cook's everlasting glee. It was good enough for that little Poriferan, so why not everyone, Squidward and all of us alike? Of course, the episode "Graveyard Shift" doesn't quite turn out as planned.

 

And where will our current cultural experimentation take us? Is this the goal: 24/7 activity? Our shifts at work, the hours on task, the "open for business" permanently switched to the "on" position, all moving us towards… what?

 

Actually, I can answer that. It's death. Yep, d-e-d dead. We are built, evolved, designed, whatever, to have regular periods of rest. If we don't, we die. There's a reason leaving the lights on and waking up prisoners regularly as they doze off is called "torture." We seem to be bent on torturing each other to death.

 

In a complex modern economy, it may not be feasible or even truly desirable to have everyone pause at once, to have us all rest at the same time. Edison banished night and Bezos has banished "closed," but our bodies still crave sleep, and dreams.

 

Religious occasions aside, there is a very organic something to trying to hold onto a date or two where, insofar as you don't hazard public health, everything. Just. Shuts. Down. It would be good for us, because that's how we're made.

 

I'd say more, but I'm out of coffee.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's not good at resting, either, but c'mon. Tell him your own personal hypocrisies at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 12-5-13

Notes from my Knapsack 12-5-13

Jeff Gill

 

A story on the way home - pt. 9

___

 

 

Nelson stood looking at his grandfather.

 

He gazed placidly back, this elderly fellow with a tube under his nose and a blanket draped easy chair in the middle of a trailer home. Nelson had only just learned he had a grandfather, let alone one with his name (or he his), and had followed the winding trail of documents and receipts and paid utility bills to this cluster of mobile homes next to Rt. 16 off of Weaver Drive.

 

"Your sister," the man said, waving the younger Nelson to a less upholstered seat across from him, "she had tracked me down here. Don't ask me how, I don't know."

 

"She just showed up here?"

 

"Pretty much. Your father had brought me here when he taught for a while at Denison, and after he'd gotten into some kind of hot water, I guessed with a student, one of those young women that were always chasing after him or he them, he headed south to some new lecturer job. He'd invited me to come with him, but by then, I'd made some friends here, gotten involved with some folks…"

 

(At this point, Nelson's newly discovered grandfather very slowly offered up what for all the world looked like a wink, but his brain refused to process it as such until some time later.)

 

"Anyhow, your father wandered off again, something your sister assured me you were both used to, and I stayed put. Had an apartment in town, but after your father died down in Dallas, or was it Houston? Regardless, the money got tight, and I learned one of these fine modular homes (the wink appeared again, to the same level of bemused denial in Nelson's mind), and it fit my budget better, so here I am."

 

"And my sister knew you…" There was little Nelson could say, given how little conversation he'd had with her in recent years, not to mention some unspoken unvoiced unissues that kept them both dancing around candor.

 

"That's right," said the elder Nelson, as if his grandson's last statement was a masterpiece of clarity. "She didn't want to burden you with an old coot you might not want to know about, and since she said you were pretty bitter about your father, my prodigal son, she was waiting for the right moment to tell you about me. Which, the universe and circumstances divine and otherwise seem to think is now."

 

"Now wait a minute, I'm not bitter about…." Nelson paused in mid-statement and thought about what he was just about to say. Yes, his father had been more absent than present, and had been less than no help to his mother as he and Cheryl had grown up. And yes, he probably had referred to his biological father as…."okay, so I was not impressed with my father's paternal skills."

 

"Your sister was afraid learning about me would just cause you to pass along the rejection your father never noticed to an earlier, deservedly blameworthy generation." There was no rancor, no irony in his grandfather's voice. Just a matter of fact expression of mistakes made, and regrets noted.

 

"In fact, sir, grandfather sir, honored ancestor," (with that, a small smile blossomed on the elderly man's face) "I'm pleased to meet you. And what on earth do we do now?"

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in central Ohio; tell him what you think happens next at knapsack77@gmail.com or @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 11-21-13

Notes from my Knapsack 11-21-13

Jeff Gill

 

A story on the way home – pt. 8

___

 

Heading down the hill of S. Main St. after turning left off Broadway, Nelson was watching on his right after passing the Denison power plant.

 

Orville at the Buxton had told him that he'd be turning "on your right, past the bridge over the creek, right before the Sunoco station." It looked like he was about to go back onto the highway, but the directions were good and there at the gas station was a sign for Weaver Drive.

 

1200, 1300, 1400 addresses on the left then the right; the 1500 address on the utility bill in the folder he'd gotten at the inn, left there by his late sister, was an odd number, so it should be on the left.

 

Weaver Drive was running out when Nelson saw a board holding a line of mailboxes on the left side of the road. Risking a small traffic violation, he steered his rental car across the oncoming lane, and slowed down to pause at the perched postal addresses.

 

It was good that the car was stopped or he might have swerved right off the road. There was the address he was looking for, and under it, in neatly painted if faded letters, his own name.

 

Turning down the gravel drive, feeling just a bit disoriented, he realized there was a cluster of trailers, or modular homes, or whatever the proper term was. All looked older, not really neglected so much as weary. Some children's toys were scattered about, and a couple of the trailers appeared vacant.

 

Rapping at what seemed the right unit, a high thin voice from inside called out "Come in," and Nelson walked inside.

 

Across from the door, an elderly man sat in a recliner, a clear plastic tube running beneath his nose and running over to a device sitting on the floor and plugged into the wall. In a slightly deeper voice, the seated man said "Pardon me for not getting up," then began to cough, softly.

 

"You must be my grandfather."

 

"Quick one, like your sister."

 

"Did you know . . . she died?"

 

"I had assumed something of the sort. Since she'd found me here last year, she called every Sunday, and came out for a couple of days every month. After two Sundays and no call, I assumed the worst. That's usually the right call."

 

Nelson stood there, after closing the door behind him, looking at his newly discovered grandfather. After a wave of the elderly man's arm, he sat down in the chair opposite, realizing his sister had probably sat right here on her visits.

 

"Your father moved me here when he taught up at the college; I had an apartment in the village. When he moved on, I decided I'd be fine staying here; I'd made some friends, and it felt like home. Then he got himself in some jams, stopped calling me, and I knew he had burned his bridges with your mother. I stayed out of all that."

 

"But my sister? How did she find you, and why didn't she tell me?" Pausing, still processing all of the last few hours on some level of his thoughts, he added "If that's alright for me to ask."

 

"Oh, I'd be surprised if you didn't ask. But that's a story itself."

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in central Ohio; tell him what you think happens next at knapsack77@gmail.com or @Knapsack on Twitter.