Notes from my Knapsack 1-4-18

Notes from my Knapsack 1-4-18

Jeff Gill

 

Let's take a step forward

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We have a new year. Congratulations!

 

Yes, yes, I know, we just held on until the big blue marble rolled all the way around the fireball one more time. But that's not nothing. So well done, all.

 

And we roll on. It's funny that we have such a linear concept of time when in fact we can just sit on the sofa and time still passes. We neither need to march on or roll down the river or put the pedal to the metal. Sit still, and time still passes. Quite well.

 

Many of us have had the chastening experience of losing a loved one, and being almost startled to shock and surprise that the world still turns, the day blurs into night and then dawns afresh, after the loss of someone around whom our world revolved.

 

That's the personal, the emotional side of time's inexorable passage; the physicists get impatient when a layman with little math such as myself ask about a point in space that is perfectly still, because apparently it doesn't quite exist. Or it does, I'm actually not sure.

 

But I know as I sit and type, I'm hurtling at hundreds of miles an hour to the east as the globe spins; the solar system rotates as a whole around the Sun; about the galactic center our puny set of orbiting rocks moves in stately array – and the Milky Way galaxy itself turns, even as it hurtles in . . . some direction. Up? Out?

 

And I do nothing, if you count typing this column on a laptop as nothing, which some would, and I won't argue. Burning calories I'm not. Yet time passes, and the world turns.

 

Which is where, in this new year, though the cosmos doesn't need it, I feel the need for motion. For more movement. And I share this because I'm not alone. My doctor hints at it (with me, he's more direct), and all the health departments and public agencies say the same: we all need to move more.

 

It's too easy to see marathoners and ironmen and ironwomen in exercise togs and with high-tech gear and the stickers saying "26.2" on the back of their vehicles, and think "well, not me." I'm out of that loop enough I spent months wondering some years back why I kept seeing "13.1" on trunks and rear windows in front of me.

 

What we don't all have to do is run half, or even quarter marathons. We just need to move. It can help, even in modest doses. I can quote studies to you, but guiltily, we all know it. Get up and move more than you do, and you will be better off for it – physically, psychologically, even spiritually. You can pray as you walk, you know. Kneeling and sitting are not Biblical mandates. They're customs. What about walking prayer?

 

You'll not see me mandating for one and all a prescription. That's not for me to say. Maybe every day, perhaps three days a week would be a great step forward for you. Is it a mile, or three laps of the house? Outdoor or indoor, or even just getting up every 30 minutes to stretch and flex a bit before you sit some more – we need to move.

 

My bias is towards metaphors of progress and movement towards a goal. That may or may not be the best way to look at life, or how to deal with setbacks or the treadmill that life can be in some seasons, but I want to commend to one and all, and commit myself in public for 2018: let's get a move on.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's a recovering runner who just wants to get back to walking more. Tell him how you are on the move at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 12-21-17

Notes from my Knapsack 12-21-17

Jeff Gill

 

Christmas and customs in early Granville

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It is probably worth noting that Bushnell's early history of Granville, published in 1889 and written over the previous decades with resort to some of those first generation settlers, has not one mention of Christmas in it.

 

Not in the index, not in a search of the pages word by word. Many details of the life of the original Christian bodies here, Congregational and Methodist and Episcopal and Baptist (the Congregational Church ultimately adopting the Presbyterian form of governance), and about their feasts and frolics, but of Christmas there is not a word.

 

Recall that it was a Congregational body that pioneered the formal settlement of Granville in 1805, with roots going back through Massachusetts to Oliver Cromwell and the Puritans – who had abolished and banned Christmas celebrations in the 1640s. The Scottish Kirk, forerunner to what we know as Presbyterians today, had forbidden Christmas observances back in the 1560s.

 

So when you learn that Charles Dickens gets called "The Man Who Invented Christmas" in a recent (and delightful) movie, and you know "A Christmas Carol" was written in 1843, you start to see the ebb and surge of the cultural and churchly markers of what we call a "traditional Christmas."

 

New Englanders in general were not a Christmasy people, thanks to that Puritan substrate, and the early pioneers across the Western Reserve and here in central Ohio and on across the Northwest Territory . . . they didn't "do" Christmas.

 

In Newark, the noted Father Jean-Baptiste Lamy, later the Archbishop of Santa Fe of whom Willa Cather so wonderfully writes in fictional form through "Death Comes For the Archbishop," is recorded as having encouraged his parishioners in the 1840s to decorate their new church, the first St. Francis de Sales parish, with evergreen boughs and candles, and the Protestants would crowd around the windows outside to see this strange sight.

 

In majority Catholic countries, there were religious observances around Christmas, and especially northern Europe and Scandinavia had cultural customs involving Sinter Klass and magic reindeer and the like. Cities on the east coast, like New York, had immigrant populations through whom some of these traditions began to infiltrate the population, including the strange and marvelous idea of cutting down a tree outdoors and dragging it into your house.

 

So when Washington Irving began to write about the ancient rural Christmas customs of Great Britain in 1819, and Charles Dickens catches that spark to blow into the warm hearth of his "Carol" in 1843, they are bringing back a set of practices over 200 years set aside. The urban flicker of interest in all this, shown in pieces like Clement Clarke Moore's "A Visit From St. Nicholas" of 1823, becomes a bonfire across the country following the Civil War, when soldiers in camp from Ohio and Iowa and Missouri meet troops from Boston and Philadelphia and NYC and then, in 1865, bring home the customs of gifts and trees and the full-blown commemoration of Christmas itself as a national celebration.

 

Just so, in Granville you see in the old records very little mention even of December 25 as a date for religious or social celebration, let alone the word Christmas. But after our Civil War veterans return home, they bring new customs like bearded men, men and women sitting together in church, and Christmas much as we know it today.

 

May your Christmas be a season of joy however you celebrate it!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's got his stockings hung by the chimney with care. Tell him about your family traditions at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 12-30-17

Faith Works 12-30-17

Jeff Gill

 

The year of Our Lord, Two-thousand and seventeen

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Anno Domini. A.D. "The year of Our Lord…" as you can still read in old wills and legal documents.

 

Today historians and scholars in general prefer the more neutral CE, for "Common Era" (and BCE, "Before Common Era," versus B.C. for "Before Christ" and no, I don't know why the jump from Latin back to English on those older labels).

 

Turns out it's unlikely that Jesus was born in what's now 1 A.D. (or A.D. 1, in Latin usage – there is no "Year Zero"), with some students of Scripture reading Matthew 2 & Luke 2 to point more towards 4 B.C., meaning that Jesus would then be born four years before Christ, which does seem a bit odd.

 

"The year of the Lord," though, does ground a year in a benchmark date or era, and gives us a healthy sense of time past, and time passing. Ancient Rome dated years "A.U.C." for "ab urbe condita" or "since the founding of the city" and you shouldn't ask an ancient Roman which city they're referring to. Romulus and Remus in 753 B.C. hold the traditional honors for establishing Rome.

 

The Hebrew calendar puts us in A.M. 5778, "anno Mundi" or "the year of the World," adapted from the Hebrew for "to the year of Creation," measuring from a point determined a few thousand years ago by Biblical genealogies; the Orthodox Christians of the east sometimes use a Byzantine calendar which does the same sort of math differently, and states that we are in the year 7526 "from the creation of the world."

 

Inclusivity and diversity aside (and trust me, there are many more systems of numbering I could tell you about) we're likely to use our current Gregorian calendar for some time to come. There are other points in the year different cultures use for the turn of the year and the change of the annual number, but even in the west, even in our own country in pre-colonial days, January has not always been the day you change the calendar or almanac. To the early 1700s, March 1 or March 25 or Easter were used as the date for a new year to begin; since the advent of the Gregorian calendar generally, after 1750 (later in Russia and elsewhere, though), January 1 has been the big day.

 

What I think many of us can agree on is that we're ready to give the year 2017 back to our Lord. Take it, Almighty God, and store it where you will, and bless us with a truly new year. This may be purely personal pique, but 2017 has just been ugly and unpleasant and pestiferous and impudent and . . . Hallmark Channel will stop showing Christmas movies in the next day or so.

 

We need a new year.

 

And that's the hope, the blessing, whatever your faith perspective. Can we find a fresh start, a way forward, a possibility of being born anew? Or are we condemned to a steadily declining spiral of repeated futility down into the cosmic drain?

 

For me as a Christian and minister of that faith, this is where my beliefs keep me right through "New Year" to celebrating Christmas, as most Christians do through Epiphany, the celebration of the Magi arriving to honor the newborn King, on January 6 or twelve days after Christmas Day itself. You know, "on the sixth day of Christmas my true love gave to me . . ."

 

New Year 2018 and the season of Christmastide is a time for reflection, of remembering (even if in a chastened and rueful fashion) and of anticipating the year past and the one to come. They work together very nicely, I think, to remind us that as we take down the old calendar, we can put more behind us than we think. In putting up the new calendar, in switching our references and annotations to a new year, we have a fresher start than everyday life would lead us to believe.

 

We can begin anew. 2018 can be different. It may not be, but that's largely our choice; we are called to commit ourselves through prayer and faith and service to give the new year a chance to be the season of renewal God desires for all of us.

 

May your New Year celebrations bring you to a new appreciation of what's past, and a restored hope it what can yet be, in the year of Our Lord Two-thousand and eighteen.

 

 

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

Faith Works 12-23-17

Faith Works 12-23-17

Jeff Gill

 

Simon lives! (part three)

___

 

[ital.] A story of the Christmas season [end ital.]

 

Simon is alive.

 

Now I understood, or thought I did.

 

Ernestine had been married to Simon for over fifty years when he died last Christmastime, and as their pastor, I'd officiated at his funeral, tears amidst the tinsel. Christmas week funerals are a very particular sort of grief and celebration, and no matter how many I've done you never quite feel at ease with them.

 

But now Ern was smiling at me, a year later, as I sat in her kitchen at the table, coffee in front of me and cookies near at hand (ah, temptation). She had asked me to "snoop around a bit," as if she thought I might find it a natural fit with my skill set, to find the answer to a puzzle, a mystery of this Advent season.

 

She had been getting "thank yous" by mail and phone about good deeds done around town the last few weeks, all supposedly the work of Simon. Who was deceased, as we both knew so well. But for a number of people in our community, he had just done them a favor, given a gift, offered aid. How was this so?

 

Her suspicion was that it was all a well-intended gesture from their two sons, or a gentle jests in Simon's memory by "The Golden Cuppers," his weekday coffee crew, or one of the men from church he'd done home repairs with. She had hoped I could find out who, so she could offer thanks of her own for the kind intention.

 

"If you'd told me last year, or six months ago, that someone would be using Simon's name this way, it probably would have irritated me a bit – I'm just being honest! – but I'm actually starting to enjoy this, pastor. It's like having him around again, but knowing he's with the Lord, all at once." Ern's eyes were bright as she poured me more coffee and went on with her reflections. "This is just like him, so whoever thought of doing it, I want them to know I appreciate it." She sat down opposite me.

 

"Well, Ern, first I have to tell you something." She leaned in expectantly. I went on: "You have only heard of about three of Simon's little good deeds, or in some cases, not so little?" She nodded. "Actually, as I was asking around, I found two or three more, places or people where something was given or done in the last few weeks, and the note with the cash or the greeting from the man at the door was that it was a Merry Christmas gift from . . ."

 

"Simon," she whispered. "Yes," I replied. "Simon has been busy this Christmas."

 

"But who is it?" she asked.

 

"That's the best part, I think…" As I started to finish my answer, she closed her eyes and smiled. "It's all of them," I concluded. Her eyes opened back up, wide and startled.

 

"All of whom?" she responded. "Well, remember you wondered if it could be your two sons, or if it was the Golden Cuppers at work, or the men from the church he worked with on home repair?" She nodded. "It was all of them. They all have been doing things in your husband's memory this Christmas, and putting his name to the good deeds." Ern nodded again, understanding.

 

"The flat tire he helped with; the man who worked the jack and got the lug nuts off said he was Simon, but the guy said there was another man back in the car . . . and he somehow traced the car back to your sons, and when he found the last name he put it with the first name he'd been given, not knowing Simon was gone, and mailed his thank you here. The Golden Cuppers have been going around to Salvation Army kettles with their coins, and the carpentry crew have been telling people their lumber was paid for by Simon. Simon has paid for people behind him in the drive-thru at breakfast, and he's paid off I don't know how many layaways, plus he's adopted a few kids through the Angel Tree. Simon has been busy this Christmas, Ern! But the answer to your question: it's all of them."

 

We had a prayer together of thankfulness there at the dinette table, and Ern gave me a big hug and through her tears said "thank you, you don't know how happy this makes me."

 

On my way out to the car, the cold wind made me shove my hands in my jacket pockets. Suddenly in one, I felt a cool, round . . . and pulled it out to find a buckeye there. Had Ern put it in when she hugged me? I almost turned to go back to ask her, and then I realized there was no need.

 

Because Simon put it there. Simon lives!

 

(Part three of three, and Merry Christmas!)

 

 

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

Faith Works 12-16-17

Faith Works 12-16-17

Jeff Gill

 

Simon lives! (part two)

___

 

[ital.] A story of the Christmas season [end ital.]

 

So, how is it that Simon is alive?

 

I had been Ernestine and Simon's pastor for some years now, and they had both been members of our congregation for most of their eighty-some years. He died last year right around Christmas, and this December strange things had happened to lead Ern to call me and ask if I could do some "snooping around" as she called it, to find some answers.

 

She was wondering if this spate of good deeds done around town the last few weeks was a well-intended gesture by their two sons, or a loving prank being played in Simon's memory by "The Golden Cuppers" he used to drink coffee with every weekday morning, or could a group of the men from church he'd done home repairs with be using his name for their helpful holiday actions?

 

Which is how I ended up at a layaway counter at one of our big stores, asking if anyone could remember who had left a note, saying "Merry Christmas, Simon" for a woman who had learned to her delight that the kids' Christmas gifts were paid for.

 

The clerk surprised me, calling me by name and then explaining she'd been a bridesmaid at a wedding I'd done last spring out at the Trout Club. When I told her what I was curious about, she immediately replied "Oh, I remember how happy that lady was! That made her year."

 

"But were you working when someone came in to pay off her account?" I asked.

 

She nodded. "I think so. We get lots of customers here, of course, but usually people are paying on their own stuff. It was an older guy, older than you I mean, and when he said what he wanted to do I couldn't think of any reason why he couldn't, like paying for the person behind you in the drive-up line, you know?"

 

I nodded, leaving alone the question of "older than who?" She tried to recall details, but her description could have been any of a few thousand men of a certain age in winter coats and grey hair who leave little or no impression on a young woman's memory. I thanked her, and invited her to Christmas Eve services.

 

"Thank you!" she said, surprising me with how surprised she seemed at the offer, and then added "Hey, that guy said the same thing. You just reminded me of that." She couldn't remember much more, but it was clearly our church, with the same times of service and all. Other customers came in, so after a few more Christmas wishes, I wandered back towards the main doors.

 

Heading into the parking lot, I passed the Salvation Army bellringer and his red kettle. Remembering they'd gotten some gold coins, wrapped in pieces of paper, and only found later when they were emptied, I paused to fish out a five, and as I put it in, asked "Do you know yet who put gold coins in your kettle?"

 

"Well, sir, they tell me the note said it was a fellow named Simon, but I'm pretty sure I remember who it was the day it happened," he said, pausing in his ringing.

 

"Really? You recall the piece of paper being tucked into the slot?" I asked.

 

"Exactly," he nodded. "Except the time I'm thinking of, it wasn't one guy, it was three of them." He explained one had the carefully folded note in his hand, but it was clearly three guys together, who went off among the parked cars as a group.

 

Interesting, I thought -- the Golden Cuppers had a core group of three who sat there the longest, even though it was an assembly that could end up four or five or even more some mornings. They'd been four until Simon passed.

 

Ern had given me the name and address of the person who had gotten assistance with their flat tire a few weeks ago; as I went to my car, I mentally mapped out my route from the store to the house. Yet another strange encounter, where an older man had shown up and helped with the jack and spare, saying as he left his name was Simon. Without the last name, how had they found Ern's home address to send a thank you to, if he'd just said he was Simon?

 

More questions to ask yet, and when I was done asking them, would I have an answer for her? How was it that her late husband was busy all over our community doing good deeds a year after we'd said our goodbyes? Now I wanted to know as much as his widow did.

 

(Part two of three, concluding next week!)

 

 

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