Faith Works 7-22-17

Faith Works 7-22-17

Jeff Gill

 

Traditional means what, exactly?

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Contemporary, traditional, blended.

 

These are still words that tangle up congregations from time to time.

 

As I try to note from time to time, my own perspective is Protestant Christian, and while I try to be relatively well informed about other Christian bodies, my understanding of interfaith issues may be better than most, but it's still far behind where it could be.

 

So I note sheepishly that I just don't know if Buddhist or Islamic groups have their own version of the "worship wars" controversies, where musical selections and informality of the program tug different groups within the same tradition in very different directions.

 

Judaism has seen over a century of tensions resulting in the Orthodox, Ultra-orthodox, Hasidic, Reform, Conservative, and Reconstructionist Jewish groups. They all share certain elements around the Sabbath and how to observe it, but their willingness to bend tradition runs from not at all to just about anything goes.

 

Buddhism is a universe of complexity in itself, with three major traditions of teaching (depending on whom you ask) and within those schools of practice that can be very modern in their tone, or the next assembly down the road of that same school working to create the sense that you're in a cavern in Asia, from décor to language to program outlines.

 

So when I hear people talk in Midwestern varieties of mainline Protestantism about how they worry about people making changes in "timeless" traditions of worship, I have to resist a temptation to roll my eyes. Because it would be rude, not because they're not wrong.

 

The enduring problem is that when we've grown up with certain traditions and seen only them at work our whole lives, it's amazing how easy it is to assume this is what Peter, James, and Paul did back in the day.

 

In fact, we've all – Presbyterian and Episcopal and Baptist and Methodist and Lutheran, et cetera – seen our polity let alone our liturgy change quite a bit over the last century.

 

My own particular Protestant tradition had a major rift a century ago over the use of organ music as to whether that was appropriate for corporate worship or not. Sociologically, the relative cost of pipe organs had something to do with the division, as those who could afford them said they were surely fine, while those who couldn't argued that they weren't right for anyone. There were also some practical and theological arguments together as to whether corporate worship was improved by the loud and overpowering voice of the organ overwhelming the congregational singing, and when you add in a question of Biblical essentialism to the debate, you had a split in the making.

 

Meanwhile, today we hear many of the same arguments about praise bands and electronic amplification.  All of which go along with a contemporary Christian music style, but doesn't address the overall loss of interest in group singing or musical participation . . . I've led singing at church and Scout camps for over 40 years, and I can tell you that it's just plain harder to get people to sing than it used to be. Period.

 

Which is where I think the "traditional, contemporary, blended" distinctions miss the fact that while these categories are themselves, rightly or wrongly, controversial, there are intersections with other social issues that can confuse the issue for church leaders and worshipers alike.

 

Especially when it comes to those who are (for lack of a better term) un-churched, who may be seeking a faith community but have no experience with them in general, it's important to understand that folks do come in off the street with not so much a hostility as an absolute indifference to things like singing out loud. "Oh, you sing out loud? That's nice, I'm not gonna." It's not personal, it's just totally not their experience. Meanwhile, long-time Christians tell me they worry about screens and "losing the ability to hear the church sing hymns in four part harmony!"

 

Um, when did you last hear that?

 

I do agree: we lose something in Christian worship when we don't have the worship songs sung as a corporate, communal experience of common confession and united faith. It IS a loss, I agree. But we also have to understand the assumptions people walk in with, and those are often more passive, more internal, more absorptive with the processing happening elsewhere than during the church service itself.

 

Engagement is still important to them, but not necessarily in long responsive readings or lots of singing. I'll have more on that subject next week!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he loves to sing the bass line on "Softly and Tenderly"; tell him about your experiences with worship style and outreach at knapsack77@gmail.com or @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 7-15-17

Faith Works 7-15-17

Jeff Gill

 

Halfway along through the summer

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Some will bemoan my gloomy observation that we are now, July 15, halfway through the classic American summer.

 

We're past the astronomical summer start of June 21 and the solstice; you can get technical with Memorial Day and Labor Day.

 

And kids go back to school about August 22 (depending on your district, check to be sure), with some athletes and musicians starting into training camps in just a week or two.

 

But basically, we think in the American Midwest of summer being June, July, and August, and this is the halfway point. A good time to assess, and make course corrections if called for.

 

What did you start out intending to do this summer? Paint the patio furniture? Get more exercise? Lose weight? Pray regularly in the morning? Visit some different church gatherings?

 

If you said you wanted to go somewhere or do something this summer, still believe it was a good idea, and haven't checked that off the list yet, then good news: it's not too late! Go for it, but make a plan.

 

Occasionally, especially for those of us for whom summer is over about the time the Hartford Fair wraps up (which gives some of us four weeks, tops), there's a grim realization that we can't do what we meant to do this summer. The two week trip isn't happening. The twenty pounds are not coming off by September. The reading plan is going to become a nightmare if we start now.

 

So good news even so: this is an ideal point to reassess. Stop, calm your mind, take out a piece of paper and a pencil, and work within your limitations. "Good enough" can be great when you get done and realize what you did, as opposed to what you intended.

 

Intentions can be a real burden, honestly.

 

What is do-able, and what is next? If I had any pastoral advice for you all, the congregation of the column, it would be simple, "good enough" things.

 

Eat a little more plant and vegetable material. Get an extra salad in this week. Forget the whatabouts (what about sugar? what about organic? what about vegetarian?) and just say "I will have a salad today." With or without grilled chicken? No, you're over-thinking this one. Just have a salad. Make an extra veg side dish next time you cook. A little more. Good, enough.

 

I'd counsel you to go take a walk. The whatabouts ask "what about how far? what about how often? what about how fast?" Nah, just take a walk. Around the block? Sure, it's better than the sofa for the next twenty minutes! Oh, you ask, I need to walk twenty minutes? No, overthinking. Maybe fifteen, maybe thirty; if you like the path and the weather and the company, maybe sixty. Just take a walk.

 

And likewise prayer. Pray for someone. "What about who I should pray for?" Okay, whatabout, I'll give you this one. Pray for someone else. Otherwise, how you pray, how long, where you sit, how many you pray for: nope, not going there. You'll know. A good enough prayer is spending some time focusing your heart and mind towards the power of God blessing someone not at your address. Oh, and you can pray while walking! Or not, good enough.

 

Learn something new. Every day? Ha, almost caught me. Yeah, often is good, but it's not a check-off. Maybe two things learned today, nothing tomorrow; learn something new. Stretch your mind. Yes, flipping through a travel magazine counts, or even a web page if you look closely, read some captions, think about life in a different place. Something new, learn something now and then.

 

And wonder. Experience wonder, at a cloud, a sunset, a newly opened flower. Oh, nature is what it's about? NO. How might you experience wonder? For me, sunrises are good, yes even in the summer. It's easier in the winter, I'll grant you. Look closely at the world, whether a brick pavement's pattern or the scattering of stars at dusk. But make sure you consume as much wonder as you do junk food, if not more.

 

Be blessed with whatever you do with the rest of your summer: I suspect if you put some effort into it, it will be good enough.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he likes sunrises and sunsets, but rainbows aren't bad at all. Tell him where you experience wonder at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 7-8-17

Faith Works 7-8-17

Jeff Gill

 

Distractions leading to spiritual clarity

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One of the subjects I'm most often asked by you all to write about is the matter of cell phones in worship.

 

Generally, the wish is for me to find the right formula of words from the pulpit or statement printed on the bulletin or up on the screens to help get the point across to everyone: please turn off or at least mute your devices!

 

I've heard phones go off at three of the last four funerals I've done. They're as likely to be among the immediate family as they are someone in the back row, so many of the clever and sharp rejoinders I've had suggested simply wouldn't be right. It does make you wonder what people are thinking . . . until your own goes off at an awkward moment. People who live through glass touchscreens shouldn't throw stones, perhaps?

 

My own cell phone is in a permanent state of mute. That works for me because I have reason enough to check it often, and keep it with me. Ring tones always seemed to me to be a piece of self-promotion and identity statement that really didn't work -- if I had a "Wu Tang Clan" ringtone, would that make me more legit? Doubtful.

 

Others I understand need at times that sound cue to remind them to check in, let alone answer the phone. So how to get it turned off, or down, or something, when it's time for worship, let alone a wedding or indeed a funeral?

 

From time to time, I will make a comment in the "setting-up" exercises in church, before the worship itself starts, and I don't tell anyone not to put a word in special folders for certain services, but I hate to put too much effort into it.

 

If you have the sensitivity of a snail, you already know you're in a special space, a different atmosphere, and times of quiet are ahead where a ring tone will make heads snap around. And if you get that, you'll self-police. If you don't get that, you probably won't think my announcement applies to you, anyhow.

 

What I would offer up is a word to those of us who feel that a cell phone's "ringing" is a jarring distraction that takes us out of where we want our thoughts to go: let's work on that problem in ourselves, shall we?

 

Because distractions change over time – I remember the first few months when digital watches and their on-the-hour beep were a chorus of electronica every 10 or 11 am in church – but some are not going away. Babies will fuss, or cry. Older members will grow a bit baffled, a great deal deaf, and whisper in a loud voice "what's he talking about?" to their friend in the next pew during a dramatic pause. Sirens will hasten past just beyond the walls, their sound intentionally even more piercing than they were a decade ago. Thunder rumbles in the summer season, other audible interruptions are all around us, whether the AC kicking in, or the blowers in the winter when the heat comes on.

 

Does a cell phone alert actually have to take us entirely, and enduringly, out of our attitude of prayer? Why should the vocalizations of an infant be a distraction that makes communion with the Lord impossible? What issues of focus and concern and guilt are tugging at our mental sleeves, already? If we regularly work on our spiritual disciplines and times of prayer, a distraction is really a bit of a test. Any of us can get jolted into a different awareness, but can we swiftly return to the peace we were feeling? Or were we there in the first place . . .

 

I don't want to encourage cell phones in worship. This is not an excuse for rude behavior (although I am intrigued by some people's choices in ring tones, I have to admit), but a call to reflection. What are we reacting to, and why is it such a big deal for us?

 

Trust me, I've been in churches where a baby hasn't interrupted worship for years. I'd rather learn, in faith, how to handle internally and communally the distractions when they come, than end up in a faith community where you're guaranteed no sudden loud noises.

 

That sounds more like a cemetery than a church!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about how you deal with distractions in worship at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes From My Knapsack 7-6-17

Notes From My Knapsack 7-6-17

Jeff Gill

 

 

Slowing down the times

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This is not about a super power, which I would be delighted to have if they existed. Invisibility, mind reading, flying, those would all be cool.

 

What I'm talking about is the ability, which I believe almost any of us has if we choose to develop it, to become mindful on a different level than we usually exercise.

 

The particular practice I have in mind is that of slowing down our perceptions to where we can see what is actually happening right in front of us, but which we often miss because of the speed at which our minds have grown accustomed to working.

 

We've all paused to look at clouds, right? If you stop and settle yourself and have a good solid perspective on the cloud above you, odds are you can detect its movement. Plant your feet and pick a spot, especially with an edge of treeline or a building's roof, and you can see that cloud moving.

 

Once you've adjusted your observation to that level, you can often shift over to the puffs and extrusions of the cloud itself, and see these thousand foot domes and towers rise and topple, surging and collapsing.

 

It's slow, but it's discernable. You can detect it, and it happens all around you, but you generally don't notice it. When you calm yourself, center yourself, and focus, it's right there, amazing to behold.

 

A little closer to home, there's the passage of the sun. If you're just sitting on the porch of an afternoon, there's probably an edge of the house casting a shadow on the driveway or sidewalk or patio. Look at that line of light and darkness, and begin to see it move. Later (or earlier) in the day it's a little more noticeable than around noon, but you can see it even then if you can wait, and watch, and be with the moment.

 

Not long ago I was watching the full moon in the east through binoculars, and there was a high power line in the distance which showed up clearly against the white and grey of the lunar surface. Keeping my focus, I could see the moon rise up and pass along behind the dark, narrow line, a steady stately pace.

 

It took me back to a year or so ago when I sat with others at the Octagon Earthworks (FYI, the next open house day there is Monday, July 31) and watched the moon set, late enough at night that you could see it after sunset coming down to the horizon, the long arc of its orbit intersecting with the straight line of earthen embankment just as designed 2,000 some years ago. I felt a connection with the builders, and with the cosmos, as I got in tune with that movement.

 

And just the other day, I watched patiently as a sprig of rosemary, a new leaf, unfurled bit by bit. It moved, and I moved with it in the stillness.

 

This column, in closing, is also a tribute to someone I had this conversation with a few years ago, who died last week: National Park Service ranger and earthworks aficionado and delightful human being, Bruce Lombardo. Someone I watched the sun set with many times. Godspeed, Bruce!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he thinks you can see these things, too! Tell him how your experiments in awareness go at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 7-1-17

Faith Works 7-1-17

Jeff Gill

 

Lincoln's parenthesis

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Actually, it's between em dashes.

 

And it includes a phrase not in the original draft, but shown in enough contemporary transcripts to be present in the speech as given, plus Lincoln himself added it when re-copying the manuscript later.

 

"That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom"

 

That phrase comes between these two statements: "that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain" and the closing affirmation "and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

 

Abraham Lincoln was reflecting on what it meant to dedicate a place of memorial for thousands of soldiers killed in the Battle of Gettysburg, which began 154 years ago today. He wanted to recruit the listeners that following November, on that great battlefield of the Civil War, to resolve with him that the nation learn something from all this, to grow in unity, to turn away from warfare to some better, less lethal way to sort out questions that divide the country.

 

Slavery would be ended, that much was clear. But Lincoln was too astute a politician not to realize that we would have future dissention that would raise voices, but should not end up raising armies. So he asked his audience to commit with him that these burial plots and soldiers' headstones not be placed here in vain.

 

If there were future civil conflicts, after the harsh example of the war of rebellion now surely heading to conclusion, if future generations would not learn from their tragedy but add more bodies to national cemeteries through armed dispute, this nation may well not survive. This was what was on the president's mind as he worked from his prepared text to the delivered speech.

 

Lincoln's drafts do not include "under God," but his re-copied texts in his own hand, and transcripts by journalists, all agree that Lincoln said those two words. They put either an anchor or a prayer into the phrase that he had hammered out in advance: "That this nation shall have a new birth of freedom." His hope was that out of the conflict and pain and sorrow we might realize where we had gone wrong, and turn in a better direction.

 

Of course, for 87 years we had managed as a nation, again and again, to sidestep those realizations, to avoid a new possibility to be born in our midst. What would it take for the United States to undergo some form of turning, or repentance, from the path we had been on, to a better way? It would take a power greater than force, more than guns, even bigger than a country already stretching from sea to shining sea.

 

Lincoln's em dash framed, parenthetical remark, was in a sense the heart of his address. His personal prayer that this nation might have a new birth of freedom once this war was concluded and when peace prevailed. He reasoned his way into the basis for that hope, and he cast a vision leading forward from that hope if fulfilled. It was what had to happen, lest our form of self-government perish from the earth.

 

So in the actual delivery, two words found themselves added to an already sublime speech. Lincoln said them, spoke them in the moment, almost as an act of grace itself, making real and possible and true the rest of what he was speaking: "That this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom." Two little, simple words, whose rhythm fit the pattern he was seeking, and whose meaning said what he hoped we would hear, as a nation, as citizens, as souls seeking healing after a long season of conflict.

 

Two words which offer the willing hearer a path to possibility and transformation and peace:

 

"Under God."

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he loves to visit Gettysburg, but he loves a good Fourth of July parade even more! Wave at him in a passing parade, or contact him at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

 

Drafts of the Gettysburg Address:

http://www.abrahamlincolnonline.org/lincoln/speeches/gettysburg.htm