Faith Works 9-17-16

Faith Works 9-17-16

Jeff Gill

 

Decency and decorum and faithful living

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My great-aunts, who were a sort of extra uber-grandparents to me and my brothers and sister growing up, had a very precise and certain sense of decorum. Things had to be a certain way, and to not be that way was indecent, "wasn't done."

 

They surely taught me enunciation (as did my mother, who got some of that from them herself), and table manners, and how to behave in public. Not that my parents didn't tend to such things, but the great-aunts lived in and took us to the big city, where the restaurants we visited and the sights we saw were not what we had in Indiana.

 

What those extra pieces of silverware were for, and who stood up when or held which chair for whom: they knew all that and how to tip, too.

 

They were devoted members of churches out of the same religious tradition in which I minister, and while they moved a number of times, they tended to look for congregations of that sort. I probably associate the Disciples of Christ with them more than is strictly accurate, but the truth is that quite a few of us grew up in this denomination surrounded by the spiritual sisters of the great-aunts.

 

Part of what made us a culture and set of social traditions that attached themselves to a Protestant Christian practice of our faith is that we were a frontier tradition, starting in pioneer communities, moving out with the plough and the log cabin, then sprouting in small towns and rural villages, pushing on into county seats, and only lastly emerging or being planted in urban settings.

 

One of the great-aunts' books (they lived together most of their lives, elderly maiden ladies who chose schoolteaching when it required the unmarried state, a rule which changed long after they had any thought of changing their state), I have my own copy of today, as a reminder, and a warning. "Evils of the Cities" by T. De Witt Talmage, D.D. This stern parson (his engraving facing the title page) preached a warning to all the fine folk of the countryside who might themselves, or sadly their children might find their way into the "evils of the cities." Primarily, cities were . . . indecent. Indecency, it seems, is the main reason cities were built in the first place, at least according to this book. Indecency around every corner and through each doorway.

 

Granted, most of the warnings are about East Coast cities, and the book was published in Chicago in 1909; Dr. Talmage served in Brooklyn, which clearly he believed he was keeping a moral and bucolic refuge in the hills beyond New York City proper. Brooklyn was more of a suburb then, the trolleys only just getting there in his era, making the local Trolley-Dodgers a crew worth naming a base-ball club after.

 

My great-aunts came from the farms and one-room schools of downstate Illinois to Chicago to make their way, and I never heard if the book was given them as a warning on departure, or purchased ironically by them in an old book shop after arriving. But it sums up what marked my mother's family, and in many ways my denomination in that era: social advancement was important, and even necessary, and could be honorable if it was done decently.

 

To curse and swear and spit and drink were perhaps ways to get ahead in the shop, on the Main Streets and Broadways of growing middle America, but the Christian way of temperance, chastity, and deferred gratification were not only the path of divine blessing, but the surer and more secure path to the social heights as well.

 

Candidly, decency has been a two-edged sword for us.  While Christianity has affirmed its unique gift of chastity since the earliest days of our faith, the larger bundle of "decency" has picked up a great many hats and girdles and neckties along the way. The first big church fight I remember from my youth was over the propriety of putting married women's first names in the directory (i.e. Mr. and Mrs. Joe Doakes, vs. Mr. and Mrs. Joe and Esmerelda Doakes… they settled it by putting Mr. and Mrs. Joe (Esmerelda) Doakes which, of course, satisfied no one).

 

Cleanliness is next to godliness is the old phrase – also not in Scripture, albeit beloved of John Wesley – there are many practices that are good that are not necessarily an index of faith in God, pro or con. Whited sepulchers, et cetera. I hope you'll bear with me as I carry this theme over into next week's column as well!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he still has a tendency to say "sir" and "ma'am" even when people ask him not to, and let's not even talk about holding doors and chairs. Tell him your ingrained habits at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 9-10-16

Faith Works 9-10-16

Jeff Gill

 

September 10, 2001

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Today is an anniversary of sorts.

 

Fifteen years ago, I had a quiet day as a pastor.

 

The next day I'd have an early morning meeting of the jail ministry board of which I was president, so I needed to make some preparations for that; and I had a trip Sept. 10 to meet with other church camp directors to review the summer, and start the plans for next year's camp and conference weeks.

 

It was relatively cool, and drizzly, not many people on the road. On the radio, the talk was about Chandra Levy (still missing) and summer shark attacks (still worrisome). That morning, before I headed out on the road, the Today Show talked about how to get good deals on airline travel.

 

And some 3,000 people across the country east of me were having their last full day of life.

 

In worship, falling as the observance does on a Sunday this year, we will mark the losses and the lessons. We will remember 343 firefighters who ran towards the smoke and flames, 60 law enforcement officers who died at their posts or putting themselves on duty at the Twin Towers, another dozen paramedics and elevator technicians who came to help of their own free will and did not leave; we will honor 125 who died at the Pentagon, military & civilian employees, and will salute 246 passengers and crew on the airplanes used in the committal of the crimes.

 

(And you may see different numbers for these categories in some tributes, as rightly the authorities have begun to include people whose deaths since 9-11 are clearly & unmistakably connected to their work "on the pile" including some survivors of the day who died in the next few years from breathing problems arising from what they inhaled in those next few hours or days.)

 

As preachers and pastors and many others have said in these last 15 years, no one caught between the plane impacts and collapse of the Twin Towers picked up their cell phone and called to settle scores or air out old grudges. No one is known to have spent their time trapped between flame and falling remembering former honors or past workplace promotions. They called people, or left voice mails, or did whatever they could to tell certain special persons in their lives that they loved them.

 

On Flight 93, the last of the four planes to crash, short of the hijackers' goal, phone technology was used to share love, and to pray together before that final assault on the cockpit. There was no more business to do, no need to worry about schedules or push agendas. Just "tell my family I love them, okay?" and the words of the Lord's Prayer and the 23rd Psalm.

 

We would pray together that none of us ever has to face such a time of trial; Jesus himself put that thought into his basic outline of prayer for his disciples -- "lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil" -- and he gives us that prayer because we know that evil days will come, and we need to remember that evil does not have the last word.

 

Today is a September 10^th for us; it always is, in a way, and we never really know what tomorrow brings. That awareness can chill our hearts and stop our souls with fear and doubt.

 

As there are trials and temptations to worry and fret and fear, let us remember that Jesus came to tell us, and to show us, that God desires peace for us, healing for all of creation, redemption for everything created. Salvation is not a dream for only the secure and the confident, but a promise to "all who labor and are heavy laden."

 

There is an upside to political candidates of all parties to keep us unnerved, anxious, worried, burdened. In large part, so that they can promise to be the ones who will bring us peace, lighten our load, and from them we will receive rest.

 

Friends, pray for those running for office, pray as Scripture teaches for those who are holding office and responsibility and are on guard for us; but as we honor and salute and vote, remember that our rest is in the Lord, that peace is a gift of the Christ, and that only God can save us . . . and that salvation is a gift of love. And love endures all things, always.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; his September 11 fifteen years ago seemed like it would never end, and in some ways it hasn't. Tell him about your reflections on that day at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes From My Knapsack 9-8-16

Notes From My Knapsack 9-8-16

Jeff Gill

 

Granville in the Movies

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We're still in the "middle" of filming for a real, live, Hollywood feature here in the village and environs.

 

Hat tips all around to director Steven C. Miller's choice to bring Bruce Willis and Hayden Christiensen to Granville, along with his crew and all the local spending they'll do here. The Granville Chamber of Commerce and Explore Licking County (our convention and visitors' bureau) have to be over the moon with excitement.

 

Granville has long had a sort of cinematic image in people's imaginations after they experience the actuality of our town. I've had occasion to reference our fair city as "Brigadoon," a sort of impossibly sweet place that can't really exist and only occasionally does in this world.

 

Many others besides myself have found themselves thinking in the last couple of weeks about Waterford, Vermont, the default filming location for the cast and crew of "State and Main." David Mamet should make more comedies, in my opinion, because this one is a hoot, and if you've not seen it, you need to find it and watch it soon – not that I'm making any comparisons between Alec Baldwin and Bruce Willis at all! (You'll get it when you watch it.) If director Miller would get Bruce to say "Go Blue Aces" just once in "First Kill" though . . .

 

Having just finished getting a child through the Granville educational gauntlet, I've heard enough "Hunger Games" comparisons to the high school experience to last me a lifetime. And I've heard many parents of young women make comments about how they feel like "Clueless," "Mean Girls," and even "Heathers" have come to life around them (maybe even especially "Heathers").

 

"Guarding Tess" is a movie I was told repeatedly when we first came back to the area that Granville had been considered for, or even used in filming; I've never seen any indication that this is so, but it's like the old story that Walt Disney almost built Disney World at Buckeye Lake – his people went all over the US checking locations, so you can't say for sure it never happened. "Tess" is a sweet little implausible tale that was where I realized "Moonstruck" was not a fluke, and that Nicholas Cage could act when he wanted to put in the effort ("Leaving Las Vegas" was the next year, which fortunately does not remind me of Granville in any way, shape, or form, blessedly).

 

But perhaps my favorite cinematic connection for our village is where "Sgt. John Sweet of Granville, Ohio" unexpectedly starred in the British World War II "A Canterbury Tale." Made by the famous team of Powell and Pressburger, known as "The Archers" production and direction partnership, they found John Sweet on Eisenhower's staff in the south of England, and needed a convincing American soldier for one of the three leads in their magical 1944 movie.

 

Filmed in and around Canterbury, England as the work was silently going on all around them for the Normandy landings, Sweet's character is presented as being from the American West, but I think you can hear the Granville boy in his lines and reactions all through this charming and, to me at least, beloved story.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's appeared in the movie "Hoosiers" but he and his wife are in a crowd scene, so… Tell him about your brushes with cinematic glory at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 9-3-16

Faith Works 9-3-16

Jeff Gill

 

How did you worship this past summer?

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Somehow there's always a glorious horizon around when the Hartford Fair is going on.

 

It probably has something to do with the first full week of August always being when the warm air masses have settled in over Ohio, and the brushing by of cooler air as always happens in the natural course of events gives rise to cumulonimbus thunderheads all around the compass.

 

Yes, this means you occasionally get one right over the top of you, with lightning and winds and heavy rain, but more often they're going by, at a stately remove, occasionally backlit and underlit by crackles of lightning through the lower purples and the rosy glow of a setting sun radiating off the puffy climbing caps.

 

Or a rising sun catches the mere hints of cloudy towers to come, a sharper salmon lining the wispy white emanations racing to the east. I enjoyed that display as I headed up the road to lead worship on the first day of the fair, in the friendly confines of the Natural Resources shelter, with a chorus of sheep bleating as background music.

 

Did we have church that day, in that place? You better believe it.

 

One of my favorite parts of the summer is how I often get to enjoy the experience of calling on God's presence, and seeking the divine will outside of the usual churchly surroundings. I love our sanctuary, the stained glass windows and the organ and choir (did I mention ours is a fairly traditional worship program?), but I think I appreciate them all the more through getting a sense of what it means to pray an invocation with some extra distractions in the atmosphere, to sing without those mighty chords supporting our music booming out of the chancel, to preach where there's no carpet or often even a sound system.

 

And to worship among a different group of people, to see what they respond to or how they react at different points along a different order of worship: it gives me a place from which to reflect on my own supposed preferences or expectations in church.

 

I think back over summers past, and times of worship in a flotilla of canoes around a raft in the middle of a lake; sitting on log benches in a forest where bird song threatened to drown out even hearty hymn singing; a gathering for communion around a tailgate turned down on a dusty pickup truck; a national park amphitheater toward which a very few early rising campers walked, smiling in recognition of a common purpose at complete strangers, gathering as a congregation which would assemble but once then scatter on their way; family devotions in a hotel room; worshiping as visitors in a congregation where we entered unknown and left as friends.

 

Back at the beginning of the last three months, I hope I encouraged you to consider worship while on vacation. Even (especially?) if you haven't been that into corporate worship recently in your life. There's something about a service chosen on the road, away from the familiar and well-traveled paths of home, that helps us get back to what we're really looking for in a church service, and why we want that discipline in our weekly routines.

 

What did you do this summer that was new, different, or reaffirmed the familiar for you? Where did you worship, with whom, and in what ways – and how did the experience speak to you about what it means to look for the presence of God in your life, as guardian, guide, and friend?

 

I look forward to hearing from you, and hope to have your permission to share (within certain limits of privacy, of course!) some of those experiences in a couple of weeks with all the readers here.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's really interested in hearing how you "did church" this summer, especially on vacation or just out and away. Tell him through knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 8-27-16

Faith Works 8-27-16

Jeff Gill

 

Interpretation of Resources, Natural & Spiritual

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Last Thursday, Aug. 25^th was the centennial of the National Park Service.

 

They have a history, in fact, the precedes their founding; Pres. Wilson signed the Organic Act of 1916 on Aug. 25 after Congress passed the legislation, which itself was rooted in the Antiquities Act of 1906 (signed by Teddy Roosevelt, which is the president most people associate with the NPS), and the first national park was established on its own in 1872, Yellowstone National Park.

 

The idea is one that's essentially unique to this country, to set aside public lands "For the benefit and enjoyment of the people" (as the Organic Act says and is inscribed on the Roosevelt Arch entering Yellowstone itself). We have begun this concept and it has spread around the world, but the US national parks are still the envy of much of the world and our own treasure held in trust for coming generations.

 

As a pastor, I've often thought about the similarities between my job, my vocation as a congregational pastor, and the work of a park ranger. Yes, the uniform is quite different, but the tasks and even the professions themselves have much in common.

 

Full disclosure: my wife got advanced degrees in what's called "natural resource interpretation," and the task of introducing and guiding and preserving while presenting both cultural and natural sites, like the Grand Canyon or Mammoth Cave or Independence Hall or Gettysburg battlefield – it's called "interpretation." A Park Ranger is often what's known as an interpreter, and that sort of non-formal education is an academic discipline, a field of research, and a profession within the NPS and many state park ranks.

 

So I have my own reasons to compare ministry to interpretation, but I think the parallels hold up in many ways – not all of them good, but I believe even the difficult points of comparison are worth consideration.

 

Right off the top: our goals, parsons and park rangers, is to get people to engage with and more deeply understand the very reason why we're where we are . . . and that can be harder than you might think. For NPS rangers, their ongoing frustration is that in survey after survey, over 90% of all visitors to national parks never get more than 50 yards from their cars or a park building.

 

That does mean that even in the most crowded and "popular" parks, you can find peace and solitude if you're just willing to pick a direction and go: NPS visitor centers like to make sure to prepare you for that, and they have guidelines, but they're always happy to help you with a backcountry permit, and if you are displaying that sort of interest, you'll find yourself with all the help and support you can stand. They're happy you love the park and the natural resource it is as much as they do.

 

Pastors want to get people out of the building and out into where the Holy Spirit blows and where Jesus is already at work; I don't have the same sort of surveys that the NPS has, but if someone said over 90% of worshipers don't get their faith very far out of the sanctuary on Sunday morning, I wouldn't be likely to argue.

 

So we . . . encourage, motivate, even "trick" people into staying for campfire talks and going on guided hikes and generally work with all our skills to help more people go deeper, into the wild, and find their own direct encounter with the "resource" of the Holy Spirit blowing through this world we've been given as a trust.

 

And on the more prosaic side, if you're a uniformed, trained, professional, full-time park ranger, you will still spend serious time replacing toilet paper, changing letters in signage, pulling weeds from walkways, and helping people find how to get where they're going when they're lost. Neither is a job well suited to just sitting in an office in a nice outfit. There are dress occasions, but much of your work is going to be in latrines and handling logistics and telling people where to turn . . . and listening politely to lots of stories about what used to be here, or how they used to do it in the 50s.

 

My wife did get to spend a summer as an NPS interpretive ranger, and most of what I just said I swiped from her observations. And where did she work?

 

She served as a ranger in Zion. And isn't that where I'm trying to direct people to, as well?

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he'd like to be a ranger in Zion someday, one way or another. Tell him about parks you've been marching to over the years at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.