Notes From My Knapsack 8-20-15

Notes From My Knapsack 8-20-15

Jeff Gill

 

A saunter around summer's end

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Birds have been in my field of vision this summer.

 

Carolina chickadees were all over my neighborhood following the spring; they've moved on, but I still see the occasional small black-capped visitor in the back yard.

 

House sparrows are pecking their way through the neighbor's mulch most mornings out the kitchen window. A non-native, the field guides tell me, but they've always been around from my point of view, which makes them native in my mental landscape.

 

I saw an Eastern towhee on my street, up in a curbside maple, hearing it before spotting the distinctive near-orange sides. "Drink your tea, drink your tea" is one of the few birdsongs I can remember from year to year without looking them up; with apps online and on phones, it is much easier to figure them out if you want. Red-winged blackbirds are always easy to recall, and when the meadow I drive through leaving home is let go, they're common not far from the house, so I can hear them from my porch.

 

The towering tree behind my home attracts fewer birds than I might have first thought; sycamores aren't a food source, so they don't have a great deal of attraction other than as a passing perch for starlings and robins and the like. But I did once hear, then saw a peregrine falcon up high, scanning the yards and roadside for something to swoop on for lunch.

 

A few weeks ago I saw a majestic white-headed bald eagle down in Ross County, paddling down Paint Creek in a kayak. He regally disregarded me in passing, giving just a fine profile shot to those with me who had good cameras. Rightly or wrongly I'd decided this trip I'd take no camera at all, but just look, and hopefully see. If you can see that bald eagle, yellow hooked beak curving down to greyish brown feathers across a broad breast, staring out – eagle eyed! – over the flowing water, then you don't need a picture taken, do you?

 

And on my way back from leading Sunday worship up at the Hartford Fair, I saw a bald eagle in flight, just past Chatham, soaring down along Dry Creek. We have at least two nesting pairs here in Licking County, something many of us thought we'd never see in our lifetimes, but now becoming nearly a common sight.

 

On the brick street next to the church I pastor in Newark we've seen an outburst of goldfinches recently, picking at some plant erupting from the spaces between the ruddy pavement, a beautiful contrast to the bright yellow and deep black of the birds.

 

But my favorite sightings are still great blue herons. When you watch one picking their way through the shallows in Raccoon Creek or over by one of the branches of the Licking River, you see immediately the connection to their dinosaur ancestors. The manic glint of the round eye, above a wicked long sharp beak, flare of feathers at the back of the head, stick-like legs swiveling and stepping into and across obstacles, all seeming awkwardness until the swift stab into the water and a wriggling meal skewered and swallowed. A T-Rex of the waterside world, indeed.

 

In flight, though, something the theropods of antiquity didn't master, a heron is a thing of beauty, to me at any rate. Their steady wing beat sets them apart even at a distance from buzzards, let alone eagles, who glide and soar; great blues flap strongly from one watershed to the next, their "beast feet" (the meaning of "theropod") dangling behind.

 

They (and the more humble and widely spread house sparrows) represent what's left of that dinosaur family in our world, diplomatic representatives of a more dangerous era. Oh, and since I like to say that pretty much every subject has a Licking County connection if you look hard enough: O.C. Marsh, the paleontologist who created the name "theropods" for the best-known type of dinosaur, grew up in Zanesville, and perhaps the earliest published piece of professional archaeology relating to Licking County was by him describing an excavation he conducted south of Newark in 1865, of a mound still visible near Rt. 13 and Dorsey Mill Road.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about your bird sightings at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 8-15-15

Faith Works 8-15-15

Jeff Gill

 

"Go Set a Watchman" Asks Us To Look

___

 

Harper Lee's long awaited second novel takes its title from Isaiah 21:6: "For thus hath the Lord said unto me, Go, set a watchman, let him declare what he seeth."

 

The church in Maycomb where Jean Louise Finch returns, a young woman of 26, is where she hears these words, but not where she finds clear vision. As happens today in many churches, including where I preach, the Bible may speak to a listener entirely separate from where the sermon goes… and that's fine. Sometimes it's even better.

 

"Go Set a Watchman" is, to sum up my own reaction, a remarkable production of a first time novelist. Yes, I said this was Harper Lee's second novel, as published. Apparently what we received this summer was her first full-length written fiction, of which Tay Hohoff, her editor in 1957, said "the spark of the true writer flashed in every line."

 

That is a true statement. It is also true that Hohoff felt there was an even better book in Harper Lee, and led her through repeated drafts, which culminated three years later in "To Kill a Mockingbird." What could confuse is that the earlier novel, published second, takes place later than the setting of the first.

 

I think many reviewers have overthought that complication. If "Go Set a Watchman" had come out ten years (or twenty, or thirty) after "Mockingbird," and to be perfectly fair had received a bit more loving attention from a Tay Hohoff or other thoughtful editor in the last third or so, I think it would have been welcomed as a worthy and equally weighty follow-up. The two books together read well as a unit, something I wanted to do before writing anything about the one.

 

It had been a very long time since I'd read "Mockingbird," and I was acutely aware of the presence of Gregory Peck and Mary Badham and Robert Duvall across the printed pages. The 1962 classic movie version of the story has, for many of us, swamped our recollections of the book.

 

I'd never tell you to forget the movie, and we can't. It was a very important movie for many of us in the 1960's, in darkened school auditoriums or late night rebroadcasts, helping Americans think about racism and community in new and personal ways. The town of Maycomb is quintessential Alabama, but also recognizable in almost any corner of the country; what happened there in the story, film and novel alike, helped make connections between what the nation saw in newspaper headlines and TV footage, and the places where we live.

 

But the moral heroism of Atticus Finch was also what many of us "white Americans" deeply desired to see writ large, for ourselves and for all of us. An admirable, principled lawyer and politician who taught children to think about what it meant to walk in someone else's shoes, and who said when asked why he did the unpopular thing that "I do my best to love everybody."

 

That lovely, loving man is present as Scout's father in the book, but he is intensified and magnified in the film. Gregory Peck is saintly and confident in his goodness in ways that the Atticus Finch on the page is not, quite. And the lines between the middle aged father Atticus in "Mockingbird" and the elderly leading citizen Mr. Finch in "Watchman" are, to me, quite clear, and compelling.

 

The older Atticus is burdened with years, with physical pain, and with concern for his community. He is also a racist.

 

As am I. As are most of you reading this. If we make, consciously and unconsciously, assumptions about individuals based on stereotypes about groups, if we have sweeping generalizations in our hearts and minds that tend to be the first layer we see of people in front of us, we're dealing with racism. In 1957, Harper Lee wanted Alabamians and Americans to see this, and talk about it.

 

"Watchman" probably couldn't have been published in 1957. She and her editor worked back to a younger Scout, and a story more in keeping with the needs of 1960, and we got "Mockingbird." The fact that she wrote the more burdened and weary Atticus first, to my mind, only heightens Harper Lee's achievement.

 

Atticus says things in "Watchman" that are both racist, and utterly in keeping with who he is said to be: a man who wants justice in his community, equal treatment before the law for everyone regardless of race, and as to people of other races… well, some of the quotes most disturbing to folks who say they don't like the idea that this, too, is Atticus Finch: they're things that Abraham Lincoln said, too.

 

We should take both Abe and Atticus in sum, and see them in full. They are, for good or ill, who many of us are at our best. And who should want to do better.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about books that have helped you see more clearly at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 8-8-15

Faith Works 8-8-15

Jeff Gill

 

Measuring progress on multiple levels

___

 

In many non-profits and social service agencies, there's a tool for tracking how things are going that's been borrowed from the business world, called a "dashboard."

 

It's a tool which is basically a set of graphic images, clever graphs or designs of data presentation that resemble fuel gauges or speedometers, that you get at regular intervals. A "dashboard" is a quick scan access of the question "how are we doing?"

 

It also is a response to the modern truism "we become what we measure." Or, as has been said in fields like community policing or social justice "if it isn't measured, it stops mattering."

 

For a business, you can have a dashboard that tracks sales, obviously, expenses, staffing and absenteeism, and in more elaborate versions, ongoing customer satisfaction surveys. And the question is whether these metrics are going up, or going down; are things getting better, or are we heading backwards from where we want to go?

 

I'm not aware of many church bodies that use a dashboard, but I'm sure they're out there. For a larger faith community, it can be a good way to check-in without just dumping numbers on people. But what would go on the dashboard for a church?

 

Actually, most congregations do have a sort of dashboard mentality already. In general, folks want to hear at board or cabinet or session meetings: how is attendance doing, what's going on with giving, where is our total membership? You can refine that down to tracking how many baptisms per month or quarter (and how many deaths or departures to transfer out); some might track sub-categories like Sunday school or midweek prayer meeting attendance.

 

Attendance, giving, membership: those are the implicit dashboard items for most church leaders. They don't tell the whole story (giving may be up, but if expenditures are up more, then you might be missing something!), but it's how we shape our narrative. Or, "what's measured is what's meaningful."

 

So the question gets asked "what else can or should we be measuring?" What other gauges should go on the dashboard?

 

One suggestion I've heard is to put mission and ministries beyond the church walls up there along with attendance and membership figures. How many meals did we serve last month, or in the previous quarter? What percent of our members participated in a mission or evangelism project of the church? How about the percentage of total budget or income that goes to outreach and mission? Have we reached 10% for the congregation, or has that been slipping back a percentage point per year for a while?

 

And even the "satisfaction" measure used by some businesses might have an interesting potential in a religious community. How might you randomly inquire of a sample each quarter "how are you being fed by your involvement here?" Or even more challenging: a regular survey in the wider community: "what do you know about our congregation?" Could that be done in a way where you could track if those efforts to share your message are doing better, or not so much?

 

For Christian communities, the call is to "go, baptize, make disciples." We can measure miles traveled in our going, certainly we can tally the baptisms of the newly faithful, and disciple-making activities may need attendance sheets or evaluations that tell those in charge how they're working and serving those who participate.

 

Are attendance, membership, and giving your major dashboard instruments where you worship? Can you think of other ways to keep track of where you're going, and how fast you're moving, plus where the fuel gauge sits, for your church family?

 

This is an instrument panel that's going to continually be rebuilt, even if the main dials in the center stay the same.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about dashboards you have consulted at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 8-1-15

Faith Works 8-1-15

Jeff Gill

 

What comes out of an education

___

  

Through the recent general church meeting I was part of last month, you could often hear "they didn't cover [blank] in seminary!"

 

And that was usually true. You can't cover everything, and the point of a seminary education is to give you the tools of ministry and some proficiency in using them, not to talk you through every possible usage of them. That's an entirely different column.

 

But it did get me to thinking about what I did learn, earning a "master of divinity" degree, an M.Div., at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis. I have some vivid recollections spurred by seeing and talking to many of my former professors in Columbus, which started me recalling the things they taught me that have been "sticky."

 

These may not be what they want to be remembered for, and I guarantee it's not all I recall, but these are what first come to mind a quarter-century later, largely because they're the learnings that have most often come back to mind in the years since (and the ones I've most quoted to others, as well). The names may not mean much to most of you, but I've added their "field" after each name.

 

Brian Grant (counseling and pastoral care): If you are going into ministry to resolve your family-of-origin issues, if you're looking to the church to be your ideal father figure or to resolve your mother's emotional absence, then run away, run away! And go work on those issues for yourself first.

 

Clark Williamson (theology): If you don't like how I'm asking these theological questions of you now, in a nice sunny classroom in the middle of a weekday, wait until you get asked the same ones by a grieving parent in an ER waiting room at 3 am.

 

Ed Towne (theology): Would you say that from the pulpit, I wonder? And if not, why not?

 

Michael Kinnamon (theology and ecumenism): Always engage with the best of your dialogue partner's viewpoint, don't home in on their weak points. They're used to defending those weaknesses, defensively; dialogue grows when strength meets strength . . . you'll get to your own weaknesses soon enough.

 

Newell Williams (church history): In regarding a religious tradition, ask in their framework three questions -- what is sin, what is salvation, and how do you get from one to the other?

 

Bernie Lyon (pastoral care and counseling): If your witness is not disciplined, it will be an uncertain, unclear, unhelpful witness to your time and place. Find the disciplines of thought, study, prayer, and praise that will allow you to have a witness that will bless your world.

 

Sue Kidwell (also pastoral care): That's very interesting. Tell me more!

 

Keith Watkins (worship): Worship is an approach to Almighty God. If you move any distance at all, God will close the rest of that gap, even if all you can do is turn in God's direction.

 

Gayle Sarber (music and sacred arts): Oh, for pity's sake, just sing out! We'll get it pretty with practice, but just sing out!

 

Rufus Burrow (Christian ethics): If your analysis of a time or place or person does not take into account the viewpoint of the minority, the perspective from below the level of power and authority, you see nothing but what you expect to see. If you say, historically or personally "there's no minority viewpoint involved", I suspect you simply do not see them.

 

Les Galbraith (librarian): I do not understand how people can graduate with an M.Div., and when I see them cross the stage at commencement, I think "I don't recall ever seeing them once in the library!" The librarians should get a veto on final graduation.

 

Al Edyvean (dramatic arts): If it is not in you, I can't make it come out of you. But it's all there in you, I promise you that. We shall look together into our depths.

 

Charles Ashanin (church history): That reminds me of something an angel told me once . . .

 

Gerald Janzen (Hebrew and Bible): That reminds me of a Robert Frost poem . . . 
(Okay, and "Take from your storehouse what is old, and what is new, and find in that combination the wisdom your moment is seeking.")

 

Marti Steussy (Biblical interpretation): There's always a story. Always. Find it, and *listen*.

 

Ron Allen (preaching): JEFF, DON'T HOLD BACK!!!

 

Well, there you go. Is that what I got out of four years at CTS? It has always felt like I got at least as much out of it as I put into it, which was never as much as the community deserved, but it was a blessed season.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about what you remember from your own education in life and spirit at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.