Notes From My Knapsack 2-28-18

Notes From My Knapsack 2-28-18

Jeff Gill

 

A little less conversation

___

 

As is too well known now, I can't talk.

 

Actually, by the time you read this, I should be able to speak a bit more audibly, but who knows?

 

I've been diagnosed with what NPR listeners call "Diane Rehm disease," or what is actually called spasmodic dysphonia. It's a neurological disability that literally grabs you by the throat, and is just as much fun as that sounds. The treatment is being stabbed in the throat with needles, ditto.

 

For the last couple years, it's been creeping up on me, and even when you didn't hear me suddenly getting into a strangled tone of voice or sounding as if I had a touch of laryngitis that came and went, when I sounded fine, I was feeling a steel glove grabbing my larynx any time I tried to speak. Ironically, shouting or singing loudly without impairment is actually one of the indicators of the ailment; speaking in a softer tone of voice was what was hard.

 

The good news is that the injections worked from almost the outset on the voice box spasms. The bad news is that the early phase of "working" means my vocal cords are largely paralyzed. Later on, my voice should return to a more normal tone, and without the spasms plaguing me.

 

The better news is that this is good for me. It all happened very fast, and without the time to plan I would have liked, putting me in some awkward public situations recently, work-wise. The more complicated news is that, if this is to be an ongoing therapy for me, I will have three or four intervals a year of two week "vocal pauses" (and three or four sessions of having injections through my neck cartilage with a scope down my nose, but hey, everything has a price).

 

What I've tried to do is use this first experience with the injections and the recovery phase as a chance to listen better. I can't talk, I cannot anticipate managing a rejoinder anyhow, so if I'm listening I am listening with a mind not to what I will say next. This is not a bad thing.

 

As Elvis said, sometimes "a little less conversation" is a good thing. A little more action, a bit more emphasis on "so what shall we do" next rather than having something more to say.

 

My future work for the county and as a preacher and storyteller will have to become something different, as well. The days of gathering in people by volume and intensity of the spoken word are going to be constrained by the availability of electronic amplification. I'm going to have to work more with small groups, and less often with big crowds wandering the earthworks or on the public square. And even in smaller settings, I can't talk over ambient noise the way I've been used to.

 

So a little more intentionality and planning, a little less public speaking in general, and a lot more listening. It's really not a bad thing at all.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's still got a few things left to say. Tell him what you've heard at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 2-24-18

Faith Works 2-24-18

Jeff Gill

 

I am broken. Which is good.

___

 

I am broken.

 

Let me explain, not that this is exactly news.

 

For many years, I've been the guy with the big voice. For Scout events out at camp, inside a big room, or in church, I didn't need a microphone. If there was something going on at a venue, and everyone was still talking to each other, the group leader would not infrequently say "hey, Jeff, can you get their attention?"

 

Could I? Yep.

 

But no more.

For the last five years I've been plagued by recurrent sinus infections, to the point where they got very unpleasant. Yes, I'll spare you details. But many different antibiotics, additional treatment methods (I think I could withstand waterboarding longer than most of you, now), and further therapies all had to be deployed.

 

As we got closer, as it turns out, to a fairly long-lasting solution to the sinus problem, about two to three years ago I started having significant trouble simply speaking. In fact, I could sing if it was loudly, or bellow like a bull moose, but to talk took focus, concentration, effort, and even then I often would find my voice checking and choking and strangling into incoherence. Let's just say that for a preacher this is a problem. I got better at working around the issue, but felt it hurting more and more, a steel glove covered with spikes wrapped around my throat whenever I tried to speak in a normal tone.

 

A bit over a year ago, I went to the next level of medical assessment, and got a tentative diagnosis of "spasmodic dysphonia." It's poorly understood, in part (as everyone points out) because no one has ever died of spasmodic dysphonia, so research is limited. But it's a spasming of the vocal cords when you try to talk, and in fact being able to sing clearly while not being able to speak softly is one of the key indicators for the diagnosis. There is a treatment that eases the symptoms if not curing the disability, and I asked if we could wait to knock down the infection before trying the treatment.

 

Well, shortly before Christmas, the infection seemed finally at bay, and the spasms were if anything worse. So I went in to get botulinum toxin injected into my vocal cords.

 

From the front. Through the throat. Yeah, it was about as much fun as you'd imagine.

 

Now the toxins are working their way through, to give me ease (and it is!) but it takes a while to get back to the balance of vocal cord use with a paralysis of the spasms. Which means, basically, I can't talk.

 

Well, I can, but it's a Mickey Mouse sort of stage whisper. I can't be heard on the phone, can't get someone's attention at the end of a table, let alone across the room. My voice is broken, and will only come back so far. The pain and discomfort is gone, but a big part of who I am is also gone.

 

Which is what it means to be broken. I'm learning things, about myself, about how others handle this as their lasting reality, and where I have to adjust to being someone different. I tried to play a part in worship last Sunday, in church and in a nursing home, and what I was used to doing, I could not. What I could do, was broken and imperfect on its face. I was a broken participant in those services.

 

Only God, in a religious understanding, is entire, whole, and perfect. God is perfect wholeness, "shalom" in Hebrew, the source of healing and the reality of perfection in God's own being. We . . . are not perfect. Or as Christians put it, "all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God." We are broken.

 

But in this Lenten season, we follow the story of one who accepted being broken, in becoming human, to communicate to all of humankind the perfection of God's glory, in the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. Who God is, is beyond our imperfect comprehension; but in Jesus' brokenness, we see the insistent urge to wholeness and healing that God desires for us all. In him is peace, breaking down the dividing wall of hostility between the wholeness of heaven and the brokenness of this world.

 

Monday, I helped with a committal service. My broken voice was sufficient to bless the ashes and the plot, and it was enough. Out of brokenness can come wholeness, and peace.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's got a vocal disability, but it doesn't give him a blue placard for his car. Tell him about your experiences with brokenness at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 2-17-18

Faith Works 2-17-18

Jeff Gill

 

Do you really want to?

___

 

Lent has begun, and the journey towards Easter is upon us.

 

April 1 is the morning Christian celebrate the Resurrection of Jesus Christ this year, and there are many making a special effort to prepare their spirits for this commemoration. Some will be baptized, others will recommit their faith in God through Christ, others simply are adopting certain disciplines of the mind and body for a season.

 

Many people want to use this time of lengthening light, earlier dawns, to improve their prayer life. With the apostles on the Mount of Olives, they are saying "Lord, teach us to pray." Books are available and whole classes are taught on the subject, and it is a question many clergy get asked: how can I improve my prayer life?

 

To some degree, this minister has some bad news for you. You probably won't. I'll draw a quick parallel.

 

If you're someone who started the new year with an interest in improving your physical health and all-around endurance, you may have joined a fitness center, a gym with memberships for sale. Most of those like to have a public area that has a whole lot of glass and a wide view to passers-by of people trotting on treadmills or lifting weights on machines.

 

A non-scientific indicator: in January, those devices were of an evening well-filled with users. I imagine the regular patrons of those gyms were a little frustrated as they came in at their usual time for their own pattern of exercise, and found a heap of new folks in the building, tentatively using the equipment.

 

But by mid-February, be of good cheer, fitness buffs. Many of those trial memberships have lapsed, lots of those new customers have fallen away with the first few weather alerts, obstacles to regularity, and just the passage of time. By March, it will be back to the regulars, and perhaps a few hardy souls who have stayed the course.

 

This is what I want to be perfectly clear about as to prayer. It is a form of exercise for the mind and soul. If you really want to be spiritually healthier, and enhance your fitness for godly discernment, it will take disciplined faithfulness. You will need to stick with it, through frustrations and set-backs – and most people who start into a path of prayer do not stay with it after the first bobble or two.

 

Now, the encouraging word: just as fitness trainers get frustrated by unrealistic expectations, spiritual counselors such as myself caution folks that steady is better than spectacular. If you want to get physically fit and have not even been close before, you can't go out and try to run a mile, or even a half mile. If you push too hard out of some unrealistic image of what it means to be healthy, you'll create your own set-backs. Just move, get up, walk briskly. Trot if you like, but not too far. Trot and walk, and maybe you'll be a runner in short stretches, or maybe you'll just be a walker, but that's better than just being a sitter.

 

Ditto people who want to bench press their weight, and are horrified to learn they can barely handle the weight of their head. Maybe lifting is for you, or perhaps you would benefit from stretching and light repetitions, and you just are not going to bench press your weight, which admit it, is just a thing you heard on TV.

 

But to do almost any of that, you need a friendly guide to show you how to start, to point out basic mistakes anyone makes as they get going, and you also need a friend, an accountability partner. They may not go to the gym or work out at the same time and place you do, but you are in ongoing communication about how that's going. And you encourage each other.

 

That's what improving your prayer life needs. Ideally, a faith community where there are people practiced in prayer around who can help guide you in the very basic basics, and in your life an accountability partner, even a spiritual director, but someone with whom you're in contact who keeps up with how your prayer life is going . . . and nudges you when it isn't going at all!

 

This Lent, it would be wonderful if more of us moved a little bit more, and prayed a bit more consistently. Small steps make great journeys.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's sure without prayer he'd probably not be very fit for much of anything! Tell him about your prayer disciplines at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes From My Knapsack 2-14-18

Notes From My Knapsack 2-14-18

Jeff Gill

 

Love and other vital signs

___

 

My apologies at the outset; for friends and casual acquaintances, it's been clear on my social media and in other outlets like this column that I'm not quite as cheerful and optimistic these days as I'd like to be.

 

Thank you to expressions of concern from any and all, but in fact I am blessed indeed with a wife who loves me, a son who's finding his way with class and distinction, and work that fulfills me. In my life, all is well.

 

And with Julian of Norwich, I haven't lost my sense, as a Christian and a pastor, that all shall be well. (If you've not read any Julian, give her a look online – much to enjoy even four centuries on.) All shall be well, indeed, but we're not promised an easy path to get there.

 

Which is why in my vocation and avocations, in and around Licking County and Our Fayre Village, I do worry about just how hard a path we have before us. Incomes are increasing, employment is high, and Elon Musk just sent a Tesla to Ceres. There is much to call encouraging all around us.

 

But even as we are given a time of prosperity and ease like no culture has ever known, it feels to me that the levels of discontent, anxiety, and outright fear are off the charts. I've spent quality time in archives and records and journals from our pioneer era, when ox drawn carts brought families with a good axe, a ploughshare, and a bag of seed into this valley. They died young of odd ailments almost unknown today; they wore themselves down with labor few of us can even imagine doing for twenty minutes in the gym. Yet they had hope, and hopes, and good cheer in great measure when time and circumstance allowed.

 

The pre-Civil War times when timber frame houses were turning into brick and stone, with Grecian models of architecture pointing to aspirations for education and art, were still filled with sudden death and grinding work. Don't even ask about bathing or other creature comforts: yet the letters and diaries of that period are filled with grace and satisfaction, and aspirations which did not weigh them down in the present moment.

 

I could go on – until I get to today. Where anger and frustration and outright rage seem so common, in politics but also in family life; with suicide a storm cloud with flashes striking ever closer and more frequently around us; as images and visual culture soaked with violence and brutality both of a criminal and intimate variety.

 

Maybe I'm missing how the unpleasantness, the alienation, was always there, but unrecorded. It's quite possible. Kant's "crooked timber of humanity" from which "no straight thing was ever made" has been a reality for generations, I know.

 

Maslow's famous "hierarchy of needs" tells us that we need shelter and food and clothing first and foremost, but the next level of his pyramid is "safety" and the one after that is "love." As a community, in Granville and the state as a whole, I find myself worrying much these days that we're not even getting to love, because people just do not feel safe. Air bags and webcams on front doors aren't the cure. It's a level of safety of the heart, the soul, that we need to tend.

 

What would it mean to be a community where people felt truly safe? And what is undermining that sense which keeps us from getting to love? I think that's a needed thought in this Valentine's Day season.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's been talking about our "hope deficit" for some time. Tell him where you see resources of hope and safety at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 2-10-18

Faith Works 2-10-18

Jeff Gill

 

Wavelengths and bandwidth and transmissions of all sorts

___

 

With our wintry snow days recently, it has been a struggle to keep up with school closings.

 

Along with ministry and preaching, I work across the county in a role that has me in and out of a variety of our many Licking County school districts on weekdays.

 

I've noticed, especially in recent years, that the various school districts each have their own "culture of communication" that's often unique to their area.

 

Some districts have preferred modes of communication that are not the same as how other districts like to do things. There are those that have found the auto-call, robo-phone systems to be their best delivery system for a morning message. They push for parents to sign up with it, and in some of those cases, do not have on their website or any social media platform much of a way to check . . . and in one case I can think of, their closing info is always late to the Newark Advocate system, and no I don't know why.

 

But other districts are first to reach out through media like the Columbus TV stations, the Advocate's closing page, and our local radio stations. Call it old school, but it still reaches quite a few quickly, though these days you have to be very patient to wait out the crawl at the bottom of the screen.

 

And a few, Newark City Schools foremost among them, use social media as a major element of their outreach. Their Twitter is first and fast, with district and school Facebook pages not far behind. Not that they don't get word up on the Advocate and TV and such, but their use of social media tells me they know a plurality of their parents and guardians are connected that way.

 

In church life, pastors often talk about a similar sort of problem, or let's say challenge, in microcosm. We have leaders in churches who like to be called. Period. Phone is best, and they're most likely if not talking to us in person to leave us a voicemail.

 

But others like email. Some use email, but rely on spouses or children to let them know they got one. A few want written notes, in their mailbox slot at the church or left in an envelope on the welcome center for the next time they come through the church building.

 

And quite a few, not just the younger folks, are using Facebook Messenger, whether on their browser from a laptop or on their phones. Many of those also text, and a chunk jump back and forth asking questions or passing along information for the newsletter or bulletin between standard phone text messages and Messenger.

 

Which brings up the situation of many clerics I know, and of which I'll share a circumstance from Wednesday morning's snow event: I sent a couple key people a quick general text, posted on Twitter, my Facebook, and the church Facebook . . . then typed up a more detailed summary of what was (not) going to happen today, clicked "send" for a mass email I'd just edited off that: then 30 seconds after I posted to the church Facebook the text of the email, got a phone texts from two people at the same time asking me about details of closings & postponements. That's not a complaint, it's an observation about the nature of church communications in 2018.

 

When I was first ordained, church communications was a monthly print newsletter you produced on mimeograph and sent for a couple of pennies a copy (print and postage costs altogether), the weekly bulletin calendar, and phone calls on land lines. Maybe a bulletin board you had to manage at the main entrance. That was it. Then phone message machines with little tape cassettes came along, and then . . . BOOM.

 

So be kind to your church staff. And your school administrators! We're now managing multiple lines of communication beyond the imagination even of most current seminary instructors, and the delivery systems and personal preferences, of both young AND old, keeps changing almost monthly. And then there's sermons . . .

 

Oh, and this week, for liturgically minded Christians, Ash Wednesday and Valentine's Day are simultaneous. No, I will not be inscribing heart-shaped ash smudges on your foreheads. I'm sure there's a meditation on this confluence that someone else will have to write, but I'd love to see it!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him how you prefer to hear church news at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.