Notes From My Knapsack 2-3-08
Jeff Gill
Do Not Call Me, Skip the Please
Rudeness is something we’re trying to avoid teaching the Little Guy, whether at home or away.
Away is going fine, but at home . . .
It’s hard to hide your phone etiquette from your son, especially around dinner time while you’re preparing a meal and he’s doing homework at the kitchen table.
The phone rings, and the mental algebra begins: what are the odds? Where is the Lovely Wife at currently, could it be her calling, is there anyone else with a pressing need for your ear today, this week, right now?
You shift into “I’ll answer it mode,” dry your hands, catch the receiver before the machine picks up at ring number four (and when nine out of ten calls click dead at the start of the message).
“Hello, Gill residence,” you say as you were trained from a pup, on a large heavy black unearthly dense plastic phone. Today’s device is smooth and light and small, but the courtesies are the same.
Your greeting gets no response, other than a crackling silence and then a very faint click, followed by a voice of robotic precision and recorded cheer. “If you are interested in a great deal that sounds too good to be true, please hold the line . . .” the disembodied lady’s voice went on in this vein a bit as I fumed and planned my next step. She concluded with “if you would like to hear more about this offer, press 1.”
Grimly, I stabbed the first key. Immediately as a voice began to ask me something, I said with great clarity and firmness “I would like to speak to a supervisor, immediately.”
You see, that’s supposed to be a law or something – you ask for a supervisor, they have to give you one. And obviously I’m not the only one to know this, because his response carried the mild weariness of someone who’s been down this route before. “I’m sorry, my supervisor does not wish to speak to you.”
Let’s just say I wasn’t surprised by this news, but thought a little persistence might help. “I am asking you, sir, officially and formally, to please connect me with a supervisor.”
With equal politeness, almost to the point of derision, he replied “Sir, my supervisor has specifically said he does not wish to speak to you. That is not going to happen. Are we done here?”
With the last idea I had, my retort was “If there is no supervisor available, I’d like a mailing address for your business, please.”
There was a brief silence, and then I think I heard a soft chuckle. “Sir, we have no address. We do not exist. And that, I believe, is the end of our conversation; good night.”
Well, if I were more committed to spending my precious free time aggravating people calling numbers on the “Do Not Call” registry, I could have played along a while and at least found out what they were selling – some kind of financial instruments, probably sheep futures or hedge trimmer funds or something like that – and maybe gotten a business name before calling on the no doubt still distant and inaccessible supervisor.
On the other hand, yelling and ranting on the phone while the Little Guy listens isn’t my best use of time, near 6:00 pm or any other time.
For all of you who have wondered, the “Do Not Call” registry at www.donotcall.gov is still working, works for mobile phones, and isn’t going to require you to call in every five years. Many of us did register our phones five years ago, but Congress has put the renewal question on hold.
If you’ve gotten one of the every January and July e-mails that float about referring to releases of cell phone numbers to telemarketers, don’t panic, and you can go to www.snopes.com and type in “Do Not Call” and “cell phone” to learn more about that internet myth (always check Snopes.com for those fwd: e-mails you get).
And if your phone isn’t on the registry, click or call 888-382-1222 and get yourself some minimal protection from the phone vultures. I can say when a local business in Licking County called at dinner time and I asked for a supervisor (they said, “I’m my supervisor, sir”), then pointed out it was illegal to call me, they immediately apologized and said they’d fix their, um, list (right, they have a list – they have an auto-dial machine is what they’ve got).
Then they offered me something free that was what I didn’t want to be called about, to make it up to me. I cheerfully observed that, from where I knew they were, it was five minutes to my house, and if they brought it, I’d feed them dinner. We both agreed that neither of us needed what the other offered, and there it ended.
For now.
Jeff Gill is in the book, perhaps foolishly; just e-mail him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Tuesday, January 29, 2008
Monday, January 21, 2008
Faith Works 1-26-08
Jeff Gill
In the Shadow of a Mighty Fortress
Rev. Dr. Vernon Johns is not a terribly well-known name even among folks who know the story of the American Civil Rights movement. I’ve got a couple reasons to lift him up this week after the King commemoration last Monday.
Almost 40 years older than the newly ordained young fellow who succeeded him at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, named Martin Luther King, Jr., it could have been Johns’ shadow that obscured King. He refused to get off of a bus years before Rosa Parks, but his stubbornness on all fronts was so usual that no one took any notice, leading civil rights advocates to say they needed someone “a little more surprising than Dr. Johns.”
Johns advocated economic empowerment as a vital first step to empowerment under the law and in the schools, but shocked his upwardly mobile African-American congregation by practicing what he preached alongside of rural, uneducated black sharecroppers, bringing them and the produce he helped them raise to the congregation for sale on Sunday, and setting them up outside the church door on elegant Dexter Avenue, in the shadow of the statehouse dome.
He passionately preached for full access to public services and education, and for that access to come right now, immediately, with a deacon board that constantly asked him to tone it down and slow up. When they tangled, he began in his first year to simply threaten to quit, and would seemingly always have a letter of resignation in his coat pocket to throw down on the table.
For five years he preached political action and economic co-operation with his sermons and his deeds, selling stocking from classroom to classroom one week and the next week, waving produce from his own garden, roots still attached to prove their origin, bits of dirt scattering across the well-dressed front rows and fine carpeting.
Finally, he showed up one Sunday in coveralls, intending to preach in them, with a cart full of watermelons fresh from the market garden. The deacons told him to move the cart and get a suit on, Johns threatened to quit, and the board shocked him by saying “fine.” His next, and last Sunday in the pulpit, he was asked from the sanctuary if he had anything to say about his departure, and his answer before stalking away can’t be published in a family paper.
Dexter Avenue had been slow to take up the letter because it was a hard time to find clergy, and indeed it was two years (very long in those days) before they found a fresh graduate who they thought would be a calming influence after the turmoil of Vernon Johns. They hired Martin Luther King’s son out of Atlanta by way of Boston, and the rest is history.
Except the other aspect of the story that fascinates me is that Vernon Johns was every pastor’s nightmare of a predecessor. Five conflict wracked years, two of interim where Johns was still quite prominent in Montgomery while traveling to his wife’s new job at a college in Virginia, and then the offer of a trial sermon.
That week, King opened the door of his family home in Atlanta to see – Vernon Johns. Johns had been asked to preach at the “other” prominent black church in Montgomery on the same Sunday (itself a breach of the vast body of unwritten but very firm clergy ethics), and wondered if he could hitch a ride with King.
And King said “yes.” Johns, by all accounts, tried to tell him who to work with and who not to. After King took the offer, Johns would still show up from time to time in coveralls with a cartload of produce in front of the church on Sunday, delighting a few but angering many. And Johns would call to tell King what he should do about this or that.
Through it all, somehow King managed to become not only a loved, trusted, and respected pastor for a very risk-averse congregation in a time of great trial after just one year, but he also became Vernon Johns’ friend. Many who know Johns’ work well (he left very little written material behind) hear a distinct echo of Johns’ classic preaching structure and images in the “I Have a Dream” sermon of 1963.
But that achievement of coming into a divided, fearful church with a fiery, muddy prophet still haunting the sidewalks, and building that bridge, is almost as amazing to me as what King was able to do in Montgomery and Birmingham and Selma.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he tells any skeptic about the King holiday each year to go out and read Taylor Branch’s “Parting the Waters.” If you have a book or story that makes you proud of your church and nation, tell him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
In the Shadow of a Mighty Fortress
Rev. Dr. Vernon Johns is not a terribly well-known name even among folks who know the story of the American Civil Rights movement. I’ve got a couple reasons to lift him up this week after the King commemoration last Monday.
Almost 40 years older than the newly ordained young fellow who succeeded him at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, named Martin Luther King, Jr., it could have been Johns’ shadow that obscured King. He refused to get off of a bus years before Rosa Parks, but his stubbornness on all fronts was so usual that no one took any notice, leading civil rights advocates to say they needed someone “a little more surprising than Dr. Johns.”
Johns advocated economic empowerment as a vital first step to empowerment under the law and in the schools, but shocked his upwardly mobile African-American congregation by practicing what he preached alongside of rural, uneducated black sharecroppers, bringing them and the produce he helped them raise to the congregation for sale on Sunday, and setting them up outside the church door on elegant Dexter Avenue, in the shadow of the statehouse dome.
He passionately preached for full access to public services and education, and for that access to come right now, immediately, with a deacon board that constantly asked him to tone it down and slow up. When they tangled, he began in his first year to simply threaten to quit, and would seemingly always have a letter of resignation in his coat pocket to throw down on the table.
For five years he preached political action and economic co-operation with his sermons and his deeds, selling stocking from classroom to classroom one week and the next week, waving produce from his own garden, roots still attached to prove their origin, bits of dirt scattering across the well-dressed front rows and fine carpeting.
Finally, he showed up one Sunday in coveralls, intending to preach in them, with a cart full of watermelons fresh from the market garden. The deacons told him to move the cart and get a suit on, Johns threatened to quit, and the board shocked him by saying “fine.” His next, and last Sunday in the pulpit, he was asked from the sanctuary if he had anything to say about his departure, and his answer before stalking away can’t be published in a family paper.
Dexter Avenue had been slow to take up the letter because it was a hard time to find clergy, and indeed it was two years (very long in those days) before they found a fresh graduate who they thought would be a calming influence after the turmoil of Vernon Johns. They hired Martin Luther King’s son out of Atlanta by way of Boston, and the rest is history.
Except the other aspect of the story that fascinates me is that Vernon Johns was every pastor’s nightmare of a predecessor. Five conflict wracked years, two of interim where Johns was still quite prominent in Montgomery while traveling to his wife’s new job at a college in Virginia, and then the offer of a trial sermon.
That week, King opened the door of his family home in Atlanta to see – Vernon Johns. Johns had been asked to preach at the “other” prominent black church in Montgomery on the same Sunday (itself a breach of the vast body of unwritten but very firm clergy ethics), and wondered if he could hitch a ride with King.
And King said “yes.” Johns, by all accounts, tried to tell him who to work with and who not to. After King took the offer, Johns would still show up from time to time in coveralls with a cartload of produce in front of the church on Sunday, delighting a few but angering many. And Johns would call to tell King what he should do about this or that.
Through it all, somehow King managed to become not only a loved, trusted, and respected pastor for a very risk-averse congregation in a time of great trial after just one year, but he also became Vernon Johns’ friend. Many who know Johns’ work well (he left very little written material behind) hear a distinct echo of Johns’ classic preaching structure and images in the “I Have a Dream” sermon of 1963.
But that achievement of coming into a divided, fearful church with a fiery, muddy prophet still haunting the sidewalks, and building that bridge, is almost as amazing to me as what King was able to do in Montgomery and Birmingham and Selma.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he tells any skeptic about the King holiday each year to go out and read Taylor Branch’s “Parting the Waters.” If you have a book or story that makes you proud of your church and nation, tell him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Sunday, January 20, 2008
Notes From My Knapsack 1-27-08
Jeff Gill
When the War Strikes Close To Home
One day last year I came home, north a bit from Cherry Valley Road and Rt. 16, and from our driveway I could see a column of black smoke south of Rt. 16, as it turns out right along Cherry Valley Road.
It was a blow from the Iraq war striking within a mile of my house.
If you didn’t know the war had come to Licking County, let me explain, or at least explain my inference.
What had happened was a young man, new to driving a tanker truck, just back from surviving a tour driving such heavy vehicles around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, had rolled over the edge of the 175 year-plus Showman Bridge into Raccoon Creek.
He was not impaired, and the weather was fine, and in my opinion there is only one explanation for what killed him. When you don’t know which curve harbors snipers or which bridges hide bombs, and you deal with that uncertainty for a year, you don’t just shift back down to civilian pace overnight.
The young man who had proudly and honorably served his country by getting supplies and gear from point A to point B quickly and in one piece came home to support his new family in Ohio by doing much the same, but the tendency to punch the accelerator and go easy on the brake led to a load slosh that tipped him onto a railing, into a creekbed, and to his death a mile or so from my home.
Can you see why I think it’s fair to say he’s a casualty of the Iraq war? Sure, young drivers misjudge curves and turns all the time, and he might have lost his ticket if he had never been overseas. But I make that sweeping left turn from Reddington onto Cherry Valley over the old aqueduct all the time, and I keep thinking about how just a little too much “gung ho,” a bit too edgy a nerve ending about crossing where you can see the piers where they meet the water, and whoosh, bam, boom. You’re dead.
Of course if the military paid a full benefit for such a death after discharge and coming home, they would end up spending billions, right? Insert your favorite military spending joke here.
This won’t be a Purple Heart or a name for some future Iraq “Conflict” memorial, just an unlucky guy who died trying to make a living after surviving military service. Now, if he had some kind of brain injury, which the VA tells us is showing up for one in five returning vets, maybe he could have gotten a medical check that would have taken him out of the cab of that truck on that day.
Did he have some level of post traumatic stress, undiagnosed, that could have been treated to help him throttle back in life in general, and in heavy trucks specifically? They’re suggesting that half of returnees from both Iraq and Afghanistan should get assessment and treatment for PTSD, helping them ease back into the rhythms of hometown life.
With the primary debates and discussions, I heard an interesting quote out of South Carolina from a man who said he voted for John McCain. “I think he’ll get us out of Iraq fastest.”
That’s interesting, since many other candidates are working hard to say specifically that they’ll get the troops home fastest. McCain’s said quite a few things about Iraq, but getting the troops back home soon isn’t one of them.
But this fellow was a retired soldier himself, and what he seemed to be saying was that he knows how soldiers feel about war, and about being overseas, and he knew McCain had spent five and a half years in the infamous Hanoi Hilton wanting to get home.
What too many folks don’t seem to know is that soldiers and sailors and Marines and aviators all have three things in common if they’re career professional military. 1) They love training. 2) They are made somewhat uneasy by peace and quiet, ‘tis true. 3) They hate war.
Truly, the warrior class as a whole hates war. They like knowing that their training and preparation makes them ready for actions that most citizens are not capable of, and need someone to perform from time to time, such as flying helicopters out over the Gulf Coast and New Orleans to save 30,000 people from rooftops after Katrina. They like that knowledge, that capacity in themselves, a great deal.
They hate war, though. They know what it does to their friends and to the innocent and they know full well what it does to themselves. They love training all the more, so that sweat displaces blood.
Will McCain get our troops back to driving tanker trucks, slowly, down Cherry Valley Road? I don’t know about that, but I can see why someone would think he’d try, and try effectively.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him your story of war and peace at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
When the War Strikes Close To Home
One day last year I came home, north a bit from Cherry Valley Road and Rt. 16, and from our driveway I could see a column of black smoke south of Rt. 16, as it turns out right along Cherry Valley Road.
It was a blow from the Iraq war striking within a mile of my house.
If you didn’t know the war had come to Licking County, let me explain, or at least explain my inference.
What had happened was a young man, new to driving a tanker truck, just back from surviving a tour driving such heavy vehicles around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, had rolled over the edge of the 175 year-plus Showman Bridge into Raccoon Creek.
He was not impaired, and the weather was fine, and in my opinion there is only one explanation for what killed him. When you don’t know which curve harbors snipers or which bridges hide bombs, and you deal with that uncertainty for a year, you don’t just shift back down to civilian pace overnight.
The young man who had proudly and honorably served his country by getting supplies and gear from point A to point B quickly and in one piece came home to support his new family in Ohio by doing much the same, but the tendency to punch the accelerator and go easy on the brake led to a load slosh that tipped him onto a railing, into a creekbed, and to his death a mile or so from my home.
Can you see why I think it’s fair to say he’s a casualty of the Iraq war? Sure, young drivers misjudge curves and turns all the time, and he might have lost his ticket if he had never been overseas. But I make that sweeping left turn from Reddington onto Cherry Valley over the old aqueduct all the time, and I keep thinking about how just a little too much “gung ho,” a bit too edgy a nerve ending about crossing where you can see the piers where they meet the water, and whoosh, bam, boom. You’re dead.
Of course if the military paid a full benefit for such a death after discharge and coming home, they would end up spending billions, right? Insert your favorite military spending joke here.
This won’t be a Purple Heart or a name for some future Iraq “Conflict” memorial, just an unlucky guy who died trying to make a living after surviving military service. Now, if he had some kind of brain injury, which the VA tells us is showing up for one in five returning vets, maybe he could have gotten a medical check that would have taken him out of the cab of that truck on that day.
Did he have some level of post traumatic stress, undiagnosed, that could have been treated to help him throttle back in life in general, and in heavy trucks specifically? They’re suggesting that half of returnees from both Iraq and Afghanistan should get assessment and treatment for PTSD, helping them ease back into the rhythms of hometown life.
With the primary debates and discussions, I heard an interesting quote out of South Carolina from a man who said he voted for John McCain. “I think he’ll get us out of Iraq fastest.”
That’s interesting, since many other candidates are working hard to say specifically that they’ll get the troops home fastest. McCain’s said quite a few things about Iraq, but getting the troops back home soon isn’t one of them.
But this fellow was a retired soldier himself, and what he seemed to be saying was that he knows how soldiers feel about war, and about being overseas, and he knew McCain had spent five and a half years in the infamous Hanoi Hilton wanting to get home.
What too many folks don’t seem to know is that soldiers and sailors and Marines and aviators all have three things in common if they’re career professional military. 1) They love training. 2) They are made somewhat uneasy by peace and quiet, ‘tis true. 3) They hate war.
Truly, the warrior class as a whole hates war. They like knowing that their training and preparation makes them ready for actions that most citizens are not capable of, and need someone to perform from time to time, such as flying helicopters out over the Gulf Coast and New Orleans to save 30,000 people from rooftops after Katrina. They like that knowledge, that capacity in themselves, a great deal.
They hate war, though. They know what it does to their friends and to the innocent and they know full well what it does to themselves. They love training all the more, so that sweat displaces blood.
Will McCain get our troops back to driving tanker trucks, slowly, down Cherry Valley Road? I don’t know about that, but I can see why someone would think he’d try, and try effectively.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him your story of war and peace at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Thursday, January 17, 2008
Faith Works 1-19-08
Jeff Gill
Open All the Time, Not Always Possible
With some hesitation, “Faith Works” jumps into the discussion around Britney Spears.
Yes, Britney Spears.
You heard the story from last week, and I write this with real fear that almost anything could happen by the time this column sees print. She’s a mother who has already lost custody of her children, and when she had a hearing where there was a chance of getting some kind of visitation back, she showed up late, then backed out of the court building, drove around the LA area, and then . . .
What was little discussed but generally noted was that Ms. Spears drove past a place in Studio City, California called “The Little Brown Church of the Valley,” came back around the block with a flotilla of photographers chasing her from vehicles and in the air, and stopped to go into the church.
Why that church?
No one knows for sure, but the sign out front likely had something to do with her decision. “Come in and pray, the door is open night and day.”
The Little Brown Church was born in 1930 when Rev. John Wells felt a calling to build what he called “a refuge” in the growing fringes of Los Angeles. The church looks like a piece of middle America from the middle of the last century. Knotty pine furnishings, a pulpit to the left, a Warner Sallman portrait of Christ to the right, and communion table in the center.
Did it look like a church from the Louisiana of Britney’s not so distant youth? Or was it the wording of the sign, probably passed many times before?
In 1989 Central Christian Church of Van Nuys and the Little Brown Church combined their ministries, creating the Church of the Valley, with “The Little Brown Church of the Valley” an outreach ministry of the core congregation. (Look around at their work through their website, www.covtoday.org)
And don’t confuse this body with “The Little Brown Church in the Vale,” also known from the hymn as “The Church in the Wildwood” which is in Iowa, and online at www.littlebrownchurch.org.
The Church of the Valley is part of my home tradition, the Disciples of Christ, and I’ve worked with their music minister, Bill Thomas, at a number of Disciples’ events. Bill wasn’t in the area of The Little Brown Church when Britney arrived, but the youth minister, Michael Kosik was, and even for an Angeleno, the media frenzy was more than he’d ever seen.
As a pastor, his first instinct was to give the person some privacy who had come in response to the sign, “Come in and pray, the door is open night and day.” But by the time he had made a circuit of the building and reminded all the gathered press that this space was indeed a sanctuary, the person who came in had gone out, leaving almost as quickly as she had arrived.
What I’ve heard secondhand is that Britney was distraught, distracted, and could barely even sit down, pacing about as if pursued by . . . what? There are many descriptions we might fill into that gap of the kind of haunting specters that might drive such a soul from place to place, pew to pew, and then out the door.
I’m proud of The Little Brown Church for trying to remain a refuge, even in the San Fernando Valley, opening their doors to all comers, and putting out a brave sign advertising that fact. Britney Spears did not find peace, not yet, but I am heartened even in my sorrow that it was a place that said they were open for prayer that she came to when she didn’t know where else to go.
Bill and Michael and the rest of the staff at COV have, in fact, bent over backwards not to join the media maelstrom. Kudos to them, as everyone from former security guard employed for a week and garbage collectors have taken money from tabloids to tell their stories, true or fabulized. All we can know is that a woman with a troubled heart stopped by, looked for a moment of peace, and then moved on.
Should our doors be open? In the heart of an urban neighborhood, out in an isolated rural location, can we safely keep our doors so open we could erect such a sign, even if it meant just a few minutes refuge for a lonely, maybe even lost soul, to come and kneel?
“Come in and pray, the door is open night and day.” We are in all likelihood not each and all called to provide such a ministry. But are circumstances such that your place of worship, or at least some corner for prayer, could be available for a passer-by?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s delighted in open doors to places of worship in some of the most unexpected places. Tell him where you’ve paused to pray at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Open All the Time, Not Always Possible
With some hesitation, “Faith Works” jumps into the discussion around Britney Spears.
Yes, Britney Spears.
You heard the story from last week, and I write this with real fear that almost anything could happen by the time this column sees print. She’s a mother who has already lost custody of her children, and when she had a hearing where there was a chance of getting some kind of visitation back, she showed up late, then backed out of the court building, drove around the LA area, and then . . .
What was little discussed but generally noted was that Ms. Spears drove past a place in Studio City, California called “The Little Brown Church of the Valley,” came back around the block with a flotilla of photographers chasing her from vehicles and in the air, and stopped to go into the church.
Why that church?
No one knows for sure, but the sign out front likely had something to do with her decision. “Come in and pray, the door is open night and day.”
The Little Brown Church was born in 1930 when Rev. John Wells felt a calling to build what he called “a refuge” in the growing fringes of Los Angeles. The church looks like a piece of middle America from the middle of the last century. Knotty pine furnishings, a pulpit to the left, a Warner Sallman portrait of Christ to the right, and communion table in the center.
Did it look like a church from the Louisiana of Britney’s not so distant youth? Or was it the wording of the sign, probably passed many times before?
In 1989 Central Christian Church of Van Nuys and the Little Brown Church combined their ministries, creating the Church of the Valley, with “The Little Brown Church of the Valley” an outreach ministry of the core congregation. (Look around at their work through their website, www.covtoday.org)
And don’t confuse this body with “The Little Brown Church in the Vale,” also known from the hymn as “The Church in the Wildwood” which is in Iowa, and online at www.littlebrownchurch.org.
The Church of the Valley is part of my home tradition, the Disciples of Christ, and I’ve worked with their music minister, Bill Thomas, at a number of Disciples’ events. Bill wasn’t in the area of The Little Brown Church when Britney arrived, but the youth minister, Michael Kosik was, and even for an Angeleno, the media frenzy was more than he’d ever seen.
As a pastor, his first instinct was to give the person some privacy who had come in response to the sign, “Come in and pray, the door is open night and day.” But by the time he had made a circuit of the building and reminded all the gathered press that this space was indeed a sanctuary, the person who came in had gone out, leaving almost as quickly as she had arrived.
What I’ve heard secondhand is that Britney was distraught, distracted, and could barely even sit down, pacing about as if pursued by . . . what? There are many descriptions we might fill into that gap of the kind of haunting specters that might drive such a soul from place to place, pew to pew, and then out the door.
I’m proud of The Little Brown Church for trying to remain a refuge, even in the San Fernando Valley, opening their doors to all comers, and putting out a brave sign advertising that fact. Britney Spears did not find peace, not yet, but I am heartened even in my sorrow that it was a place that said they were open for prayer that she came to when she didn’t know where else to go.
Bill and Michael and the rest of the staff at COV have, in fact, bent over backwards not to join the media maelstrom. Kudos to them, as everyone from former security guard employed for a week and garbage collectors have taken money from tabloids to tell their stories, true or fabulized. All we can know is that a woman with a troubled heart stopped by, looked for a moment of peace, and then moved on.
Should our doors be open? In the heart of an urban neighborhood, out in an isolated rural location, can we safely keep our doors so open we could erect such a sign, even if it meant just a few minutes refuge for a lonely, maybe even lost soul, to come and kneel?
“Come in and pray, the door is open night and day.” We are in all likelihood not each and all called to provide such a ministry. But are circumstances such that your place of worship, or at least some corner for prayer, could be available for a passer-by?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s delighted in open doors to places of worship in some of the most unexpected places. Tell him where you’ve paused to pray at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Notes From My Knapsack 1-20-08
Jeff Gill
Looking To a Wider View
One of the advantages of this generally harsh time of year outdoors is the view.
To take advantage of it, you have to bundle up and go for a walk, but you can catch enough of a hint through car windows to get the motivation you may need to do that.
The last of the dried leaves have fallen away from the trees, shrubs and taller grasses are now bent and broken, and even evergreen boughs are lifted a bit, reaching for what light the short days bring.
From all this, you see the land and the horizon and the undulations of the terrain in ways you don’t normally, at least for nine or ten months of the year. Walks that are shrouded by overhanging green canopies or walled in by undergrowth higher than your head are now strolls through vast halls and open arenas of nature.
Taking a number of classes from OSU-N out to Octagon State Memorial, hiking about (with care to avoid the greens of the warmer weather golf course, now approaching its own century mark), I found that you could easily see, from near the center of these 2000 year old marvels, the entire circumference of the 50 plus acre enclosure.
Strolling up the “causeway” connecting the Octagon Mounds to the Observatory Circle, the same was true in the 1054 foot diameter circle. Perspective and view was enhanced, and it almost seemed as if the cold air magnified my distance vision. If I recall my meteorology classes correctly, it is moisture that magnifies as storms in summer come along, but the dryness of the air must add clarity.
Walking along some local park trails, I see down into ravines and drainages, and up along slopes or tree trunks that are usually invisible to me. Add to all this the effect of a light fall of snow to accent elevation and angle like a topographic map, and you find yourself simply aware of a larger space even when you’re just walking along noodling at other thoughts.
After those peaceful thoughts, if you’re still with me, I ask your forebearance as I offer a small rant. Last weekend, the New York Times ran an absolutely appalling cover story that went on to receive more column inches than anything I’ve seen in their pages for many a moon, including lack of health insurance among the poor and the foreclosure crisis in the banking industry.
Does anyone in the Big Apple care what’s said about them in a free weekly paper in Ohio? Likely not. Should you care about what they said? Well, yes, because what the NYT says on a Sunday is often what local news and magazines say the next couple weeks. Respect them or not, they set the tone for national media and debate.
Their major story was that veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have committed murder on returning home, often against family members. Story after painful story was told in the lengthy piece, seemingly almost a bit about all 121 murders that were committed by returning service members since the conflicts began, from the start of 2003 to the end of 2007.
I don’t subscribe, but for the reasons noted above, I often buy a copy on Sunday. Seeing the “vets run amok” story, I read, flipping forward impatiently to see if they got to the comparison.
What comparison? Oh, just the fact that 18 to 34 year olds commit most of the murders in this country as it is, so how did veterans compare to their population? Sadly, tragically, I would say almost viciously, the comparison was never made.
Let me make it here. Returning veterans were FIVE TIMES LESS likely to commit murder than their age cohort. And don’t tell me New York Times reporters are less able to get Justice Department numbers from their website and do simple math than freelance columnists in Ohio.
In the service of what I’m sure they think is an honorable anti-war agenda, the Old Grey Lady of journalism defamed and slimed our nation’s servicemembers, tarring them with the “they come back crazy killers” brush. Someone should be ashamed; I know I am.
A returning vet is five times more likely to have more self-control, better self-knowledge, and improved problem solving skills than their peers. Should we get our troops home soon? Yes we should, and I’ll have something more to say about that next week.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he enlisted when he was seventeen, and if he’s crazy it has little to do with his brief period in the service. You can tell him he’s crazy at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Looking To a Wider View
One of the advantages of this generally harsh time of year outdoors is the view.
To take advantage of it, you have to bundle up and go for a walk, but you can catch enough of a hint through car windows to get the motivation you may need to do that.
The last of the dried leaves have fallen away from the trees, shrubs and taller grasses are now bent and broken, and even evergreen boughs are lifted a bit, reaching for what light the short days bring.
From all this, you see the land and the horizon and the undulations of the terrain in ways you don’t normally, at least for nine or ten months of the year. Walks that are shrouded by overhanging green canopies or walled in by undergrowth higher than your head are now strolls through vast halls and open arenas of nature.
Taking a number of classes from OSU-N out to Octagon State Memorial, hiking about (with care to avoid the greens of the warmer weather golf course, now approaching its own century mark), I found that you could easily see, from near the center of these 2000 year old marvels, the entire circumference of the 50 plus acre enclosure.
Strolling up the “causeway” connecting the Octagon Mounds to the Observatory Circle, the same was true in the 1054 foot diameter circle. Perspective and view was enhanced, and it almost seemed as if the cold air magnified my distance vision. If I recall my meteorology classes correctly, it is moisture that magnifies as storms in summer come along, but the dryness of the air must add clarity.
Walking along some local park trails, I see down into ravines and drainages, and up along slopes or tree trunks that are usually invisible to me. Add to all this the effect of a light fall of snow to accent elevation and angle like a topographic map, and you find yourself simply aware of a larger space even when you’re just walking along noodling at other thoughts.
After those peaceful thoughts, if you’re still with me, I ask your forebearance as I offer a small rant. Last weekend, the New York Times ran an absolutely appalling cover story that went on to receive more column inches than anything I’ve seen in their pages for many a moon, including lack of health insurance among the poor and the foreclosure crisis in the banking industry.
Does anyone in the Big Apple care what’s said about them in a free weekly paper in Ohio? Likely not. Should you care about what they said? Well, yes, because what the NYT says on a Sunday is often what local news and magazines say the next couple weeks. Respect them or not, they set the tone for national media and debate.
Their major story was that veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan have committed murder on returning home, often against family members. Story after painful story was told in the lengthy piece, seemingly almost a bit about all 121 murders that were committed by returning service members since the conflicts began, from the start of 2003 to the end of 2007.
I don’t subscribe, but for the reasons noted above, I often buy a copy on Sunday. Seeing the “vets run amok” story, I read, flipping forward impatiently to see if they got to the comparison.
What comparison? Oh, just the fact that 18 to 34 year olds commit most of the murders in this country as it is, so how did veterans compare to their population? Sadly, tragically, I would say almost viciously, the comparison was never made.
Let me make it here. Returning veterans were FIVE TIMES LESS likely to commit murder than their age cohort. And don’t tell me New York Times reporters are less able to get Justice Department numbers from their website and do simple math than freelance columnists in Ohio.
In the service of what I’m sure they think is an honorable anti-war agenda, the Old Grey Lady of journalism defamed and slimed our nation’s servicemembers, tarring them with the “they come back crazy killers” brush. Someone should be ashamed; I know I am.
A returning vet is five times more likely to have more self-control, better self-knowledge, and improved problem solving skills than their peers. Should we get our troops home soon? Yes we should, and I’ll have something more to say about that next week.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he enlisted when he was seventeen, and if he’s crazy it has little to do with his brief period in the service. You can tell him he’s crazy at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Wednesday, January 09, 2008
Faith Works 1-12-08
Jeff Gill
Yeah, More Football
If you’re weary of football and don’t want to hear anything more about a sport whose ball doesn’t even bounce properly, I understand.
Please summon up your last resources of pre-Lenten forebearance, and consider the “Souper Bowl.” Technically, the Souper Bowl of Caring.
Held on the same weekend as the Roman numeraled Super Bowl (XXL this year, or something like that), this is a now seventeen year old (XVII) event, started in 1990 by Brad Smith, a youth pastor at Spring Valley Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina.
All it was can be summed up in the prayer we still use: “Lord, even as we enjoy the Super Bowl game, let us be mindful of those who don’t even have a bowl of soup to eat.” The youth at Spring Valley challenged the congregation to buy canned goods for the food pantry when they bought their munchies for the game, and also took donations of cash for the food pantry on the collection Sunday.
The next year they invited other Presbyterian churches to join them, and got a few dozen. Some churches had team-based challenges and piles in the narthex, and others just stood at the church door with pots in their hands to collect.
A couple years later, they went multi-state, and then Brad became Rev. Dr. Smith, and now . . . well, now the Souper Bowl of Caring is 14,000 youth organizations, generating over $8 million last year for food pantries, at a time which just happens to be a real challenge for them, after the rush of Christmas and before the advent of warmer weather.
Personally, I suspect the actual total, with in-kind amounts gathered can by can by youth groups in this innovative and very productive fashion, is waaaay more than the $41 million of documented cash contributions. And it really doesn’t matter.
The point is to make some of our purchasing decisions accompanied with a conscious choice to help the hungry while stuffing our overloaded gullets on Super Bowl Sunday, baptizing the pagan rites of championship football into the waters of compassion and caritas.
To read more about Souper Bowl of Caring, go to: www.souperbowl.org. Their story is a marvelous one, including Rev. Dr. Smith going from another youth pastor with a crazy idea to executive director of a national foundation to help manage the wild beast he’s helped create.
Many Licking County congregations already have youth doing some kind of special food pantry promotion on Souper Bowl, I mean, Super Bowl Sunday, and whether there’s a formal relationship with the wider organization or not, what a great day to make a little extra effort to feed those in need?
The Licking County Food Pantry Network does great work, and any canned goods or cash contribution we add to the effort will be well used; your local food pantry probably has a productive relationship with them already. Pick up a can or two of soup, some beans and veggies, and some canned meat or peanut butter, and take it to church on Feb. 3.
Even if you don’t have a “Souper Bowl” program going on, it’s a forward pass for a first down to defeat hunger. And we all win in that game.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; yes, he stayed up last Monday night and isn’t sure why he did. Share your puzzles of life an faith with him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Yeah, More Football
If you’re weary of football and don’t want to hear anything more about a sport whose ball doesn’t even bounce properly, I understand.
Please summon up your last resources of pre-Lenten forebearance, and consider the “Souper Bowl.” Technically, the Souper Bowl of Caring.
Held on the same weekend as the Roman numeraled Super Bowl (XXL this year, or something like that), this is a now seventeen year old (XVII) event, started in 1990 by Brad Smith, a youth pastor at Spring Valley Presbyterian Church in Columbia, South Carolina.
All it was can be summed up in the prayer we still use: “Lord, even as we enjoy the Super Bowl game, let us be mindful of those who don’t even have a bowl of soup to eat.” The youth at Spring Valley challenged the congregation to buy canned goods for the food pantry when they bought their munchies for the game, and also took donations of cash for the food pantry on the collection Sunday.
The next year they invited other Presbyterian churches to join them, and got a few dozen. Some churches had team-based challenges and piles in the narthex, and others just stood at the church door with pots in their hands to collect.
A couple years later, they went multi-state, and then Brad became Rev. Dr. Smith, and now . . . well, now the Souper Bowl of Caring is 14,000 youth organizations, generating over $8 million last year for food pantries, at a time which just happens to be a real challenge for them, after the rush of Christmas and before the advent of warmer weather.
Personally, I suspect the actual total, with in-kind amounts gathered can by can by youth groups in this innovative and very productive fashion, is waaaay more than the $41 million of documented cash contributions. And it really doesn’t matter.
The point is to make some of our purchasing decisions accompanied with a conscious choice to help the hungry while stuffing our overloaded gullets on Super Bowl Sunday, baptizing the pagan rites of championship football into the waters of compassion and caritas.
To read more about Souper Bowl of Caring, go to: www.souperbowl.org. Their story is a marvelous one, including Rev. Dr. Smith going from another youth pastor with a crazy idea to executive director of a national foundation to help manage the wild beast he’s helped create.
Many Licking County congregations already have youth doing some kind of special food pantry promotion on Souper Bowl, I mean, Super Bowl Sunday, and whether there’s a formal relationship with the wider organization or not, what a great day to make a little extra effort to feed those in need?
The Licking County Food Pantry Network does great work, and any canned goods or cash contribution we add to the effort will be well used; your local food pantry probably has a productive relationship with them already. Pick up a can or two of soup, some beans and veggies, and some canned meat or peanut butter, and take it to church on Feb. 3.
Even if you don’t have a “Souper Bowl” program going on, it’s a forward pass for a first down to defeat hunger. And we all win in that game.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; yes, he stayed up last Monday night and isn’t sure why he did. Share your puzzles of life an faith with him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Sunday, January 06, 2008
Notes From My Knapsack 1-13-08
Jeff Gill
Change Your Life, Step By Step
A cynic might say that I’m about to tell you what you already know, and never will do.
Could be.
An educator would observe that people need to hear things six or seven times before they really “hear” it, which experience tells me is true.
Candidates for national office will say that they have a program to implement most of these steps, which cause most of us to roll our eyes and look for the remote, which is generally the correct response.
With the beginning of a new year, though, life-changing decisions are very much in vogue, as is the usual February collapse of those good intentions. But if you would change your life for the better, a few commonplace everyday thoughts for you:
What would happen if we filled store parking lots the way we do church pews? Everyone knows that no one wants to be in the rows closest to the front, and a seat in the farthest reaches of a sanctuary is often hardest to find.
Step one is MOVE. Anything that gets you moving about a bit more is a step in the right direction, so why not park farther away from the door? C’mon, everyone’s pushing a cart on the way out anyhow, so it isn’t for carrying stuff out that we jostle and wait and pound steering wheels waiting for a front row parking space.
Plus, you’ll hardly ever get door dings out beyond the last car.
A few stairs here, a little stroll there, and you’re exercising as much as many folks who paid for gym membership last week . . . but never go. Just move more, step one.
Step two is EAT COLOR. More salsa on your food is one step (Cholula and Tabasco don’t quite count here, but actually, they just might). Add some pickles here, a slice of tomato there, even just a handful of salad on the side to start, and your diet and digestion are entering new territory.
Food that is all grey, brown, and tan, with splashes of yellow-brown, is food that is sticking to your artery walls. Oatmeal is about the only real exception to this rule, and if you pile brown sugar or syrup on it and mix in cream, we’re right back to where we started. A handful of frozen blueberries thrown in the mix, or raisins, or an orange on the side, and you’ve got the color thing goin’ on.
Yes, fruits and vegetables require a side trip to the produce aisle when shopping, some cleaning and storing and preparation. Doing all that gives you an extra jump on step one, tho’, and gives you the dietary basis to make step two happen.
The other thing about “eating color” is that is usually requires intentional eating, not casual snacking. Unwrapping cellophane or tearing open a bag barely requires thought, which is the whole problem. When you eat color, your brain gets involved, and often tells you things, like . . .
Step three: SLEEP.
Is this one of those magic TV diet secrets: “let pounds melt away while you sleep?” Nope, just the wisdom of letting your body set the rhythm of life, and not the pattern of stimulants and depressants. We often eat and drink stuff we know darn good and well we shouldn’t because we’re trying to wake up, stay awake, or get relaxed enough to go to sleep.
A healthy sleep pattern pays all kinds of amazing benefits, and it comes out in our bodies, our lifestyles, our very lives.
Which also means we find the right time and space to MOVE, which takes us back to step one; lather, rinse, repeat. Three steps, no big deals, and you can change your life.
You may want to try that plan or not, but what I do want to make sure of is that you’re all invited to come Sunday, Jan. 13, to “The Works” just south of Newark’s Courthouse Square, for a 2:00 pm lecture kicking off the Licking County Bicentennial year. I’m coming in the garb and guise of one Chaplain David Jones, the second recorded European visitor to the terrain of what’s now Licking County, a county that formally came into being on March 1, 1808, carved out of Ross County, which came out of Fairfield County which itself was taken from Washington County, the original county of the Northwest Territory.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s been digging away at the story of Rev. Jones since 1989, and can’t wait to tell someone about it. Tell your unappreciated story to him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Change Your Life, Step By Step
A cynic might say that I’m about to tell you what you already know, and never will do.
Could be.
An educator would observe that people need to hear things six or seven times before they really “hear” it, which experience tells me is true.
Candidates for national office will say that they have a program to implement most of these steps, which cause most of us to roll our eyes and look for the remote, which is generally the correct response.
With the beginning of a new year, though, life-changing decisions are very much in vogue, as is the usual February collapse of those good intentions. But if you would change your life for the better, a few commonplace everyday thoughts for you:
What would happen if we filled store parking lots the way we do church pews? Everyone knows that no one wants to be in the rows closest to the front, and a seat in the farthest reaches of a sanctuary is often hardest to find.
Step one is MOVE. Anything that gets you moving about a bit more is a step in the right direction, so why not park farther away from the door? C’mon, everyone’s pushing a cart on the way out anyhow, so it isn’t for carrying stuff out that we jostle and wait and pound steering wheels waiting for a front row parking space.
Plus, you’ll hardly ever get door dings out beyond the last car.
A few stairs here, a little stroll there, and you’re exercising as much as many folks who paid for gym membership last week . . . but never go. Just move more, step one.
Step two is EAT COLOR. More salsa on your food is one step (Cholula and Tabasco don’t quite count here, but actually, they just might). Add some pickles here, a slice of tomato there, even just a handful of salad on the side to start, and your diet and digestion are entering new territory.
Food that is all grey, brown, and tan, with splashes of yellow-brown, is food that is sticking to your artery walls. Oatmeal is about the only real exception to this rule, and if you pile brown sugar or syrup on it and mix in cream, we’re right back to where we started. A handful of frozen blueberries thrown in the mix, or raisins, or an orange on the side, and you’ve got the color thing goin’ on.
Yes, fruits and vegetables require a side trip to the produce aisle when shopping, some cleaning and storing and preparation. Doing all that gives you an extra jump on step one, tho’, and gives you the dietary basis to make step two happen.
The other thing about “eating color” is that is usually requires intentional eating, not casual snacking. Unwrapping cellophane or tearing open a bag barely requires thought, which is the whole problem. When you eat color, your brain gets involved, and often tells you things, like . . .
Step three: SLEEP.
Is this one of those magic TV diet secrets: “let pounds melt away while you sleep?” Nope, just the wisdom of letting your body set the rhythm of life, and not the pattern of stimulants and depressants. We often eat and drink stuff we know darn good and well we shouldn’t because we’re trying to wake up, stay awake, or get relaxed enough to go to sleep.
A healthy sleep pattern pays all kinds of amazing benefits, and it comes out in our bodies, our lifestyles, our very lives.
Which also means we find the right time and space to MOVE, which takes us back to step one; lather, rinse, repeat. Three steps, no big deals, and you can change your life.
You may want to try that plan or not, but what I do want to make sure of is that you’re all invited to come Sunday, Jan. 13, to “The Works” just south of Newark’s Courthouse Square, for a 2:00 pm lecture kicking off the Licking County Bicentennial year. I’m coming in the garb and guise of one Chaplain David Jones, the second recorded European visitor to the terrain of what’s now Licking County, a county that formally came into being on March 1, 1808, carved out of Ross County, which came out of Fairfield County which itself was taken from Washington County, the original county of the Northwest Territory.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s been digging away at the story of Rev. Jones since 1989, and can’t wait to tell someone about it. Tell your unappreciated story to him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Monday, December 31, 2007
Diving into 2008, head-long, feet-first --
"What other church is there besides institutional? There’s nobody who doesn’t have problems with the church, because there’s sin in the church. But there’s no other place to be a Christian except the church. There’s sin in the local bank. There’s sin in the grocery stores. I really don’t understand this naïve criticism of the institution. I really don’t get it. Frederick von Hugel said the institution of the church is like the bark on the tree. There’s no life in the bark. It’s dead wood. But it protects the life of the tree within. And the tree grows and grows. If you take the bark off, it’s prone to disease, dehydration, death. So, yes, the church is dead but it protects something alive. And when you try to have a church without bark, it doesn’t last long. It disappears, gets sick, and it’s prone to all kinds of disease, heresy, and narcissism."
-Eugene Peterson
"What other church is there besides institutional? There’s nobody who doesn’t have problems with the church, because there’s sin in the church. But there’s no other place to be a Christian except the church. There’s sin in the local bank. There’s sin in the grocery stores. I really don’t understand this naïve criticism of the institution. I really don’t get it. Frederick von Hugel said the institution of the church is like the bark on the tree. There’s no life in the bark. It’s dead wood. But it protects the life of the tree within. And the tree grows and grows. If you take the bark off, it’s prone to disease, dehydration, death. So, yes, the church is dead but it protects something alive. And when you try to have a church without bark, it doesn’t last long. It disappears, gets sick, and it’s prone to all kinds of disease, heresy, and narcissism."
-Eugene Peterson
Friday, December 28, 2007
I Heard the Bells On Christmas Day
"I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!"
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
"I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet
The words repeat
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along
The unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Till, ringing, singing on its way,
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime
A chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
Then from each black accursed mouth
The cannon thundered in the South,
And with the sound
The carols drowned
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
It was as if an earthquake rent
The hearth-stones of a continent,
And made forlorn
The households born
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!
And in despair I bowed my head;
"There is no peace on earth," I said;
"For hate is strong,
And mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good-will to men!"
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
"God is not dead; nor doth he sleep!
The Wrong shall fail,
The Right prevail,
With peace on earth, good-will to men!"
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
Christmas Morning
On Christmas day I weep
Good Friday to rejoice.
I watch the Child asleep.
Does he half-dream the choice
The Man must make and keep?
At Christmastime I sigh
For my good Friday hope
Outflung the Child's arms lie
To span in their brief scope
The death the Man must die.
Come Christmastide I groan
To hear Good Friday's pealing.
The Man, racked to the bone,
Has made His hurt my healing,
Has made my ache His own.
Slay me, pierced to the core
With Christmas penitence
So I who, new-born, soar
To that Child's innocence,
May wound the Man no more.
--Vassar Miller
On Christmas day I weep
Good Friday to rejoice.
I watch the Child asleep.
Does he half-dream the choice
The Man must make and keep?
At Christmastime I sigh
For my good Friday hope
Outflung the Child's arms lie
To span in their brief scope
The death the Man must die.
Come Christmastide I groan
To hear Good Friday's pealing.
The Man, racked to the bone,
Has made His hurt my healing,
Has made my ache His own.
Slay me, pierced to the core
With Christmas penitence
So I who, new-born, soar
To that Child's innocence,
May wound the Man no more.
--Vassar Miller
Sunday, December 23, 2007
Where my ears and heart will be bending on Monday, Dec. 24, at 10 am EST --
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/advent/ninelessons.shtml;
more locally, try:
http://www.wosu.org/radio/listen-live/
The "Service of Nine Lessons and Carols" from King's College Cambridge will be "live" at 10 am Christmas Eve Day and repeated at 8 am Christmas Day on WOSU-FM.
And the Nativity in St. Peter's Square is just about in place -- look HERE.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/programmes/advent/ninelessons.shtml;
more locally, try:
http://www.wosu.org/radio/listen-live/
The "Service of Nine Lessons and Carols" from King's College Cambridge will be "live" at 10 am Christmas Eve Day and repeated at 8 am Christmas Day on WOSU-FM.
And the Nativity in St. Peter's Square is just about in place -- look HERE.
Saturday, December 22, 2007
Faith Works 1-5-08
Jeff Gill
Past and Future and Coming Attractions For All!
What’s the point of life?
More to the point, am I allowed to ask that question in church? Any church?
What, um, exactly is it that people of faith think happens when we die, and what do they base that on?
And could someone explain to me just why a guy who died 2,000 years ago has anything to do with my life today? I can tell that’s something Christians put a lot of stock it, but why?
. . . do any of those questions sound familiar? Would you or anyone you know want to know about where you could go and feel OK about asking them?
Would it help if dinner was served for free so you could just focus on hearing what the answers on offer are?
“The Alpha Course” is a Christian program that has roots in an urban parish near the heart of London, and now rattles literally around the world in 152 countries.
You might say that “the sun never sets” on Alpha, because Africa and Asia and Alabama and East LA all have congregations which have chosen to offer this unique opportunity.
You can see a bit about the general approach at www.alphausa.org, and Centenary United Methodist Church in Granville is the latest county church to offer Alpha to their community.
Starting Jan. 15 and running for ten Tuesdays until Mar. 18, folks are invited to come for a dinner and conversation. 6:00 pm is the start around the mealtime table, and each Tuesday is a different part of the well-tested Alpha program, with videos from Nicky Gumbel, one of the pastors with Holy Trinity, Brompton (London) where Alpha was launched in 1973.
You’ll see people on the streets of London and New York and other cities answering questions for interviewers that lead to other, even deeper questions, and Centenary has trained local leaders like Mike Evans who will take it from there as the tables lay out their own questions and work up some answers.
To have the table set up and meals ready, they’d love to know how many are coming, but they want you to come regardless. You can call 587-0022 or drop a note to 102 E. Broadway, Granville 43023 to let them know how many chickens to put in the pot.
One more invitation, even if you already have all the answers; you probably don’t know much about Chaplain David Jones, a fellow I argue may be the “lost founder” of Licking County.
In honor of the bicentennial of the establishment of Licking County on March 1, 1808, I’ve been asked by “The Works” to tell the story of Rev. Jones next Sunday, Jan. 13, at 2:00 pm. I’m going to wear what he would have had on in 1773 when he became only the second European to leave a record of passing through this terrain, but his story just gets better from there. Until the end of his long, fascinating life in 1820, he sent many (most?) of the early settlers to the forks of the Licking River, and returned here, making the long journey from his home by Valley Forge (yes, that Valley Forge, and he was there in 1777) to preach here for the first Baptists in Licking County time and again, well into his 80’s.
I’ve been looking forward to getting the fruits of my research into this amazing character and great soul out in front of a wider audience, and couldn’t be more delighted to help launch the county bicentennial observances with this presentation. Drop by, won’t you?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s been working on uncovering the lost story of Chaplain Jones since 1989, and he promised that it’s a doozy! Tell him your lost tale or unknown account at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Past and Future and Coming Attractions For All!
What’s the point of life?
More to the point, am I allowed to ask that question in church? Any church?
What, um, exactly is it that people of faith think happens when we die, and what do they base that on?
And could someone explain to me just why a guy who died 2,000 years ago has anything to do with my life today? I can tell that’s something Christians put a lot of stock it, but why?
. . . do any of those questions sound familiar? Would you or anyone you know want to know about where you could go and feel OK about asking them?
Would it help if dinner was served for free so you could just focus on hearing what the answers on offer are?
“The Alpha Course” is a Christian program that has roots in an urban parish near the heart of London, and now rattles literally around the world in 152 countries.
You might say that “the sun never sets” on Alpha, because Africa and Asia and Alabama and East LA all have congregations which have chosen to offer this unique opportunity.
You can see a bit about the general approach at www.alphausa.org, and Centenary United Methodist Church in Granville is the latest county church to offer Alpha to their community.
Starting Jan. 15 and running for ten Tuesdays until Mar. 18, folks are invited to come for a dinner and conversation. 6:00 pm is the start around the mealtime table, and each Tuesday is a different part of the well-tested Alpha program, with videos from Nicky Gumbel, one of the pastors with Holy Trinity, Brompton (London) where Alpha was launched in 1973.
You’ll see people on the streets of London and New York and other cities answering questions for interviewers that lead to other, even deeper questions, and Centenary has trained local leaders like Mike Evans who will take it from there as the tables lay out their own questions and work up some answers.
To have the table set up and meals ready, they’d love to know how many are coming, but they want you to come regardless. You can call 587-0022 or drop a note to 102 E. Broadway, Granville 43023 to let them know how many chickens to put in the pot.
One more invitation, even if you already have all the answers; you probably don’t know much about Chaplain David Jones, a fellow I argue may be the “lost founder” of Licking County.
In honor of the bicentennial of the establishment of Licking County on March 1, 1808, I’ve been asked by “The Works” to tell the story of Rev. Jones next Sunday, Jan. 13, at 2:00 pm. I’m going to wear what he would have had on in 1773 when he became only the second European to leave a record of passing through this terrain, but his story just gets better from there. Until the end of his long, fascinating life in 1820, he sent many (most?) of the early settlers to the forks of the Licking River, and returned here, making the long journey from his home by Valley Forge (yes, that Valley Forge, and he was there in 1777) to preach here for the first Baptists in Licking County time and again, well into his 80’s.
I’ve been looking forward to getting the fruits of my research into this amazing character and great soul out in front of a wider audience, and couldn’t be more delighted to help launch the county bicentennial observances with this presentation. Drop by, won’t you?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s been working on uncovering the lost story of Chaplain Jones since 1989, and he promised that it’s a doozy! Tell him your lost tale or unknown account at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Notes From My Knapsack 1-6-08
Jeff Gill
So Much Amazement, So Little Time
2008 is off to a flying start, and there is so much to marvel at and be surprised by.
We have an awesome bowl game here at the end of the college football season, begun back in August (or was it the spring scrimmage, which is just a few months ahead).
Many, many fans in central Ohio, more than just alums, and quite a few traveling to watch them battle it out against a wily opponent. And think about going down into the heart of the area devastated by Hurricane Katrina just a few years ago, now the place again for vacationers and warmth-seekers who will be in a stadium tonight to watch . . .
No, you think I mean tomorrow, Monday night, Jan. 7? Sorry, I was talking about the GMAC Bowl with Bowling Green playing Tulsa, in Mobile, Alabama. That’s Sunday night, Jan. 6, and it oughta be a barn-burner.
Sure, I’ll watch the thing Monday, too; who were the Bucks playing? Actually, I may watch “Good Eats” instead. Tune in for the last quarter, late.
What we can reflect on to our mutual benefit is a year that is still early in a new millennium, where fears about resurgent militant Islam and internal conflict among Western nations can and should be balanced with the rise of new technologies and strengthened religion in some nations that had in recent years become indifferent. New initiatives to build relationships between Islamic and Asian nations make some in the West nervous, but a new global economy is starting to benefit those who had formerly been at the very bottom of society.
I’m talking, of course, about 1008.
Then there’s . . . ok, I won’t go for the same cheesy effect for describing 1808, but you know I could! They had their own worries and unique challenges when the State of Ohio was young, but the human condition was not so different that you can’t find much to empathize with in their struggles and small victories.
Even a few big victories.
What I will do is invite you all to come next Sunday, Jan. 13, to “The Works” just south of Newark’s Courthouse Square, for a 2:00 pm lecture given by . . . well, me, sort of.
I’m coming in the garb and guise of one Chaplain David Jones, the second recorded European visitor to the terrain of what’s now Licking County, a county that formally came into being on March 1, 1808, carved out of Fairfield County which itself was taken from Washington County, which was originally the entire expanse of the Northwest Territory.
This year is the bicentennial of Licking County, and the “kick-off” event of a series of talks and programs is my presentation on, or as “Chaplain David Jones: The Lost Founder of Licking County?” I want to tell the story not only of his remarkable 1773 visit to the area, but of his many other visits through his death in 1820, the people he sent to this region, the institutions he directly or indirectly helped found, and his role in American history from Valley Forge (chaplain for Anthony Wayne) to the Battle of Fallen Timbers (he was there, with Wayne) to the Treaty of Greenville (he’s a signer), and beyond.
Granville and Union and Licking Townships, Baptists in general, and Owl Creek Baptist Church in particular up into Knox County, maybe even Newark itself all owe Rev. Jones some modest acknowledgement of his role right here. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather talk about to launch the bicentennial celebration of Licking County as a cultural and political institution than Chaplain Jones.
Come on by, won’t you? It’s not everyday that it’s 1808.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s been digging away at the story of Rev. Jones since 1989, and can’t wait to tell someone about it. Tell your unappreciated story to him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
So Much Amazement, So Little Time
2008 is off to a flying start, and there is so much to marvel at and be surprised by.
We have an awesome bowl game here at the end of the college football season, begun back in August (or was it the spring scrimmage, which is just a few months ahead).
Many, many fans in central Ohio, more than just alums, and quite a few traveling to watch them battle it out against a wily opponent. And think about going down into the heart of the area devastated by Hurricane Katrina just a few years ago, now the place again for vacationers and warmth-seekers who will be in a stadium tonight to watch . . .
No, you think I mean tomorrow, Monday night, Jan. 7? Sorry, I was talking about the GMAC Bowl with Bowling Green playing Tulsa, in Mobile, Alabama. That’s Sunday night, Jan. 6, and it oughta be a barn-burner.
Sure, I’ll watch the thing Monday, too; who were the Bucks playing? Actually, I may watch “Good Eats” instead. Tune in for the last quarter, late.
What we can reflect on to our mutual benefit is a year that is still early in a new millennium, where fears about resurgent militant Islam and internal conflict among Western nations can and should be balanced with the rise of new technologies and strengthened religion in some nations that had in recent years become indifferent. New initiatives to build relationships between Islamic and Asian nations make some in the West nervous, but a new global economy is starting to benefit those who had formerly been at the very bottom of society.
I’m talking, of course, about 1008.
Then there’s . . . ok, I won’t go for the same cheesy effect for describing 1808, but you know I could! They had their own worries and unique challenges when the State of Ohio was young, but the human condition was not so different that you can’t find much to empathize with in their struggles and small victories.
Even a few big victories.
What I will do is invite you all to come next Sunday, Jan. 13, to “The Works” just south of Newark’s Courthouse Square, for a 2:00 pm lecture given by . . . well, me, sort of.
I’m coming in the garb and guise of one Chaplain David Jones, the second recorded European visitor to the terrain of what’s now Licking County, a county that formally came into being on March 1, 1808, carved out of Fairfield County which itself was taken from Washington County, which was originally the entire expanse of the Northwest Territory.
This year is the bicentennial of Licking County, and the “kick-off” event of a series of talks and programs is my presentation on, or as “Chaplain David Jones: The Lost Founder of Licking County?” I want to tell the story not only of his remarkable 1773 visit to the area, but of his many other visits through his death in 1820, the people he sent to this region, the institutions he directly or indirectly helped found, and his role in American history from Valley Forge (chaplain for Anthony Wayne) to the Battle of Fallen Timbers (he was there, with Wayne) to the Treaty of Greenville (he’s a signer), and beyond.
Granville and Union and Licking Townships, Baptists in general, and Owl Creek Baptist Church in particular up into Knox County, maybe even Newark itself all owe Rev. Jones some modest acknowledgement of his role right here. I can’t think of anyone I’d rather talk about to launch the bicentennial celebration of Licking County as a cultural and political institution than Chaplain Jones.
Come on by, won’t you? It’s not everyday that it’s 1808.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s been digging away at the story of Rev. Jones since 1989, and can’t wait to tell someone about it. Tell your unappreciated story to him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Faith Works 12-22-07
Jeff Gill
What Are They Saying About That Baby
“Jesus is Lord.”
Lots of you reading this don’t find that an odd statement. You should, but it’s a phrase that’s been around long enough to lose the edge of strangeness.
Others of you may think “that’s quite a claim y’all make,” but consider your Christmas season appearance at a church to be a time for quiet courtesy, so it goes right on by.
But standing near a living nativity scene or small tabletop manger, the very ease and comfort of the homey display should make this central point of Christendom stand out.
“Jesus is Lord.”
People often make radical, not to say ridiculous claims about their children. Of course, neither of the birth narratives from the two Gospels have Mary or Joseph telling their visitors to look at their future high-achiever infant with wonder and awe.
You can’t say that about some of the Christmas letters that came in the mail.
It was an assortment of the unlikely and unworthy and utterly unexpected who came ready to call this child “Dominus,” Latin for “Lord,” “he who has dominion.”
The claim of “Jesus is Lord” is no less radical, but a bit more understandable when you consider that the Caesar Augustus mentioned at the outset of the Luke, chapter 2 narrative (beloved of Linus VanPelt on stage explaining to Charlie Brown “that’s what Christmas is all about,”) is the adopted Roman son of “Divus Julius,” Julius the Divine. For almost 40 years before the birth in Bethlehem, the Roman Senate had affirmed that Julius Caesar was a god in the Roman pantheon, and it was clear as Mary and Joseph made their way for the census, that the “son of Caesar” would be divinized soon by the same senators.
Caesar was just a guy’s name, but not after the Roman Empire made it a title of office and a label for a man above men, a human who took on the attributes of the gods on Olympus. By the time Mary’s son had left the carpentry shop behind and walked the shores of Galilee, Caesar was “Dominus,” the one who had dominion.
And not long after that empire had him executed, to do business – sell property, get a license, pay your taxes – meant going into a Roman public building, a basilica, and like getting your documents stamped by a clerk today, you then sealed the process by going to the central altar, dropping in a pinch of incense, and repeating the holy words that ordained the Pax Romana: Caesar is Lord. The godhood of the ruler ensured the stability of the rule, and conferred a certain status on the ruled.
It was in response to this environment that some rose out of Israel to say “Jesus is Lord.” The realm they saw before them was not guided by a diplomat-general-soothsayer-adopted-member-of-the-rapacious-Caesar-family, but a government on the shoulder of a gentle shepherd, who kept his heavenly attributes in the service of reaching down the cliff face for that hundredth sheep.
“Caesar is Lord” says that you’re part of the empire which will bring peace with imposed forceful quiet; “Jesus is Lord” speaks of the peace that passes all human understanding, except perhaps that of a child, calm yet expectant, excited while delighted, even as they drop off to a hopeful sleep.
On Christmas morning, children are absolute rulers, kings and queens in this society, and that’s not a bad one-day arrangement. We’ll survive that day. Whatever our faith perspective, as December 26 dawns, we go back to the question which our everyday actions and casual affirmations answer – who do we say is Lord, our “Dominus;” to whom or what do we give over dominion for our lives?
God bless us, every one.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
* * *
Faith Works 12-29-07
Jeff Gill
Suddenly, Your Church Is Crowded
Here’s the deal – the new year comes right on the heels of Christmas, where all kinds of visitors wander through almost every church.
Let’s hope you didn’t greet them Christmas Eve with any sarcastic remarks about how nice it was to see you . . . for the first time since Easter.
Yes, there are plenty of Christmas and Easter folk still around, and you know what? Many of them really do think of your church as, well, their church. They know they don’t have as many votes as you folk do who come every week, but if they made it from the parking lot in the door, trust me, they feel fairly comfortable in your church.
And if we don’t beat them away with sticks (you laugh, but some churches very nearly do just that), some will come back. They are a few steps behind in knowing when “everybody” stands up, or sits down, or says certain phrases or prayers, but they are back, and they’re looking for something.
The following is not meant as an exhaustive, scientific analysis. It is a prod to those already well-settled into a church to think about how folk think who are new to the pew, how d’ye do?
1. Now that I’m here, what do I do? Who do I watch? Does the bulletin tell me, or is there a person I should be looking at?
2. What are the basic disciplines everyone else here practices everyday, and how do I do them? Are you doing them?
3. The sermon was great, but it’s not enough. I have questions. Is there someone I can follow up with besides pestering the pastor?
4. Yikes, prayer. I don’t know how to pray. I find it very awkward and yet I want to pray, and I try to pray. I’m not really sure I’m doing it right. Can somebody show me how?
5. I want to get involved, but I have a very irregular schedule. I sure can’t teach, at least, not yet. Are there ways I can get involved that are meaningful and important, but don’t scare me so much I’ll run away?
6. If I do volunteer for anything, who defines what is a good job? Because I want to do it well, and I want to find a place here. What are the expectations? (Not a job description. Everyone knows about job descriptions. Ha.) When do I know that I’m done?
7. Mainly, I want to get connected. I’m connected to God I know, but through Jesus – how does that work? And I want to be connected to other people.
8. I know I need to learn more, so what’s the basic stuff I need to read? What are the first things that you read in your faith walk with God that helped you the most?
This list is adapted from a list made up by a new member of a church who wrote them down long before he showed them to anyone, thinking “Someday, if I get really active and end up in leadership with this faith community, I want to remember what these early days felt like.” Bless him!
These are some of the questions new believers ask. Don’t be afraid of them. Embrace them. Bring them in and include them. You’ll be incredibly glad you did.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; share your “starting out” story in a congregation with him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
What Are They Saying About That Baby
“Jesus is Lord.”
Lots of you reading this don’t find that an odd statement. You should, but it’s a phrase that’s been around long enough to lose the edge of strangeness.
Others of you may think “that’s quite a claim y’all make,” but consider your Christmas season appearance at a church to be a time for quiet courtesy, so it goes right on by.
But standing near a living nativity scene or small tabletop manger, the very ease and comfort of the homey display should make this central point of Christendom stand out.
“Jesus is Lord.”
People often make radical, not to say ridiculous claims about their children. Of course, neither of the birth narratives from the two Gospels have Mary or Joseph telling their visitors to look at their future high-achiever infant with wonder and awe.
You can’t say that about some of the Christmas letters that came in the mail.
It was an assortment of the unlikely and unworthy and utterly unexpected who came ready to call this child “Dominus,” Latin for “Lord,” “he who has dominion.”
The claim of “Jesus is Lord” is no less radical, but a bit more understandable when you consider that the Caesar Augustus mentioned at the outset of the Luke, chapter 2 narrative (beloved of Linus VanPelt on stage explaining to Charlie Brown “that’s what Christmas is all about,”) is the adopted Roman son of “Divus Julius,” Julius the Divine. For almost 40 years before the birth in Bethlehem, the Roman Senate had affirmed that Julius Caesar was a god in the Roman pantheon, and it was clear as Mary and Joseph made their way for the census, that the “son of Caesar” would be divinized soon by the same senators.
Caesar was just a guy’s name, but not after the Roman Empire made it a title of office and a label for a man above men, a human who took on the attributes of the gods on Olympus. By the time Mary’s son had left the carpentry shop behind and walked the shores of Galilee, Caesar was “Dominus,” the one who had dominion.
And not long after that empire had him executed, to do business – sell property, get a license, pay your taxes – meant going into a Roman public building, a basilica, and like getting your documents stamped by a clerk today, you then sealed the process by going to the central altar, dropping in a pinch of incense, and repeating the holy words that ordained the Pax Romana: Caesar is Lord. The godhood of the ruler ensured the stability of the rule, and conferred a certain status on the ruled.
It was in response to this environment that some rose out of Israel to say “Jesus is Lord.” The realm they saw before them was not guided by a diplomat-general-soothsayer-adopted-member-of-the-rapacious-Caesar-family, but a government on the shoulder of a gentle shepherd, who kept his heavenly attributes in the service of reaching down the cliff face for that hundredth sheep.
“Caesar is Lord” says that you’re part of the empire which will bring peace with imposed forceful quiet; “Jesus is Lord” speaks of the peace that passes all human understanding, except perhaps that of a child, calm yet expectant, excited while delighted, even as they drop off to a hopeful sleep.
On Christmas morning, children are absolute rulers, kings and queens in this society, and that’s not a bad one-day arrangement. We’ll survive that day. Whatever our faith perspective, as December 26 dawns, we go back to the question which our everyday actions and casual affirmations answer – who do we say is Lord, our “Dominus;” to whom or what do we give over dominion for our lives?
God bless us, every one.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!
* * *
Faith Works 12-29-07
Jeff Gill
Suddenly, Your Church Is Crowded
Here’s the deal – the new year comes right on the heels of Christmas, where all kinds of visitors wander through almost every church.
Let’s hope you didn’t greet them Christmas Eve with any sarcastic remarks about how nice it was to see you . . . for the first time since Easter.
Yes, there are plenty of Christmas and Easter folk still around, and you know what? Many of them really do think of your church as, well, their church. They know they don’t have as many votes as you folk do who come every week, but if they made it from the parking lot in the door, trust me, they feel fairly comfortable in your church.
And if we don’t beat them away with sticks (you laugh, but some churches very nearly do just that), some will come back. They are a few steps behind in knowing when “everybody” stands up, or sits down, or says certain phrases or prayers, but they are back, and they’re looking for something.
The following is not meant as an exhaustive, scientific analysis. It is a prod to those already well-settled into a church to think about how folk think who are new to the pew, how d’ye do?
1. Now that I’m here, what do I do? Who do I watch? Does the bulletin tell me, or is there a person I should be looking at?
2. What are the basic disciplines everyone else here practices everyday, and how do I do them? Are you doing them?
3. The sermon was great, but it’s not enough. I have questions. Is there someone I can follow up with besides pestering the pastor?
4. Yikes, prayer. I don’t know how to pray. I find it very awkward and yet I want to pray, and I try to pray. I’m not really sure I’m doing it right. Can somebody show me how?
5. I want to get involved, but I have a very irregular schedule. I sure can’t teach, at least, not yet. Are there ways I can get involved that are meaningful and important, but don’t scare me so much I’ll run away?
6. If I do volunteer for anything, who defines what is a good job? Because I want to do it well, and I want to find a place here. What are the expectations? (Not a job description. Everyone knows about job descriptions. Ha.) When do I know that I’m done?
7. Mainly, I want to get connected. I’m connected to God I know, but through Jesus – how does that work? And I want to be connected to other people.
8. I know I need to learn more, so what’s the basic stuff I need to read? What are the first things that you read in your faith walk with God that helped you the most?
This list is adapted from a list made up by a new member of a church who wrote them down long before he showed them to anyone, thinking “Someday, if I get really active and end up in leadership with this faith community, I want to remember what these early days felt like.” Bless him!
These are some of the questions new believers ask. Don’t be afraid of them. Embrace them. Bring them in and include them. You’ll be incredibly glad you did.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; share your “starting out” story in a congregation with him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Monday, December 17, 2007
The next two weeks' columns, which constitute a story series along with Notes 12-16 -- pax, jbg
* * *
Notes From My Knapsack 12-23-07
Jeff Gill
You May Be An Angel, This Week Anyhow
When the lady opened the door for him, he knew this was going to be a talker.
She was asking him questions even before he got his shoes off and set them on the mat in the front hallway. Questions that were in the form of statements about the filter she’d had her nephew change last month, how old the furnace was, the way she made sure not to let boxes and bags of water softener lean against the ductwork.
She was elderly, but he’d been certain of that from the first conversation as he answered her worried message on the voicemail. If you were going to do HVAC work these days, you had to have voicemail, though it always tightened his stomach a bit to work the buttons on his cell phone and listen intently to the muddled recordings coming to him from who knows where.
In December folks always sound fearful and a bit defensive on their messages, needing heat to come back soon, and knowing that, since they’re calling, they can’t fix it themselves, and resent needing his expertise more than a little bit.
This lady, though, was sweet and courteous in the way you expect grandmotherly types to be. He’d not known any elderly women like that in his family, but he knew they were out there, somewhere, often making cookies when he came to repair their furnaces just to confirm the image.
There was no tell-tale scent in the air this early in the morning, but she was his first stop since kissing the kids goodbye and waving across the living room to where his wife was diapering their youngest. He listened to the quavering voice standing by the sink in the kitchen, where the ruckus of off-to-school prep was around a corner and blunted just a little. She was the third message of five, but the first in need as he heard out her situation.
She continued a rattling stream of cheeriness as he levered the panel off the side of the furnace, looked about with his heavy yellow-cased flashlight, and twitched the main flow knob. Then she stopped as he leaned back and looked thoughtful.
“Is there any dreadfully wrong, after all?” she asked, this time a direct question.
“No, ma’am, but I just realized I forgot to do something.”
“Do you need a tool from your truck?”
“Not exactly,” he smiled reassuringly, and walked past her and back up the stairs.
Turning the corner where his experience told him it must be, he stood in front of the thermostat. Yep, that’s it, he thought.
With a careful check of his tone, he said “The, uh, furnace was turned off. Here at the on-off switch. I usually call and tell people to check that before I come by, but I just came right over. My mistake . . .” As he spoke, he flipped the toggle to “on” and immediately heard the hum below his feet confirming what he already knew.
“Oh, oh dear, I am so . . .” the lady started to say, and was cut off by an upraised hand, and the words “No, this happens all the time when the temperature swings around, and folks assume the worst. That’s why I should have called and even looked here first; please don’t worry about it.”
“Well, certainly I owe you something for your . . .” and the hand again, so gently raised, barely waist-high, and a response “Please, ma’am, don’t even fret a moment. Glad to ease your worries.”
He went on down to the basement, set all to rights, and came up to get his shoes on and make an exit. She stood in the same spot with a bright look on her face as he went, and just as his hand reached the doorknob, said “You are my Christmas angel, you know that? Thank you so very much, my dear.”
Driving to the next address he’d listed on his notepad, the image wouldn’t leave his mind. Him, an angel. Right.
Except for her, it was true. The heat was back on, confirmation that all was well, and no trace of his having been there – mud on the carpet, a bill on the table – all meant that, for her, he had been exactly what she called him: “my Christmas angel.”
So that’s what I am, he chuckled. An angel. OK.
With that acceptance, he pulled into a parking lot to call the next two homes and ask them to check their “on” switches. Just in case. Couldn’t be an angel that much this week; it’s hard on a man to be nothing but an angel.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he wishes one and all a Merry Christmas, and you can wish him one at knapsack77@gmail.com.
* * *
Notes From My Knapsack 12-30-07
Jeff Gill
Christmas Day, 2007, Drawing To a Close
In some families, there are movies that make Christmas Day, whether it’s the repeating cycle of “A Christmas Story” on TNT or “White Christmas” with Der Bingle crooning alongside Rosemary Clooney.
When he had married his wife and her two daughters, they had always watched “A Christmas Carol” on Christmas Eve or on the day in between presents, but their Dickens movie version was different from the one he had grown up with – plus, he was convinced that the Mr. Magoo version was the best, anyhow.
After some good-natured disputing about which line or another “really belonged” in the story, his wife had pulled a dog-eared paperback copy of the actual story out of some box, and he read it to everyone after dinner.
The book went into the Christmas decoration box that year, and came back out for a Christmas Day evening reading each of the last five years. From 1843 to today, the language gap was wide, but he suspected the girls were just starting to make the leap and really hear what the words were saying.
“Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.”
One of the girls asked if there really were people like this around today, and he sadly nodded his head. “I used to work for one, which is how I started my own business. It’s scary, but not as scary as working for someone with ice for a soul.” OK, she replied, keep going.
The three Spirits made their appearances, the revelation at the gravesides for Tiny Tim and Scrooge himself hit hard, and then the sun rose over London:
“He dressed himself "all in his best," and at last got out into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present; and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows said, "Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!" And Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears.”
Can people really change like that? They both watched him closely, wanting to know the answer; yes, he said, but not often enough. Most of us get set in a course early on, and don’t leave it.
You told us that you did, though: did you see a ghost?
Yes, I did, he smiled back, but kind of like Scrooge, it was my ghost I saw. And I didn’t want to be him, I wanted to be your dad someday. They smiled back, and then looked at the book; he picked it up, and concluded:
“Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a
master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him. . .and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!”
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; Happy New Year to one and all, and may you and your family be blessed with health and hope and happiness in 2008. And Go Bucks!
* * *
Notes From My Knapsack 12-23-07
Jeff Gill
You May Be An Angel, This Week Anyhow
When the lady opened the door for him, he knew this was going to be a talker.
She was asking him questions even before he got his shoes off and set them on the mat in the front hallway. Questions that were in the form of statements about the filter she’d had her nephew change last month, how old the furnace was, the way she made sure not to let boxes and bags of water softener lean against the ductwork.
She was elderly, but he’d been certain of that from the first conversation as he answered her worried message on the voicemail. If you were going to do HVAC work these days, you had to have voicemail, though it always tightened his stomach a bit to work the buttons on his cell phone and listen intently to the muddled recordings coming to him from who knows where.
In December folks always sound fearful and a bit defensive on their messages, needing heat to come back soon, and knowing that, since they’re calling, they can’t fix it themselves, and resent needing his expertise more than a little bit.
This lady, though, was sweet and courteous in the way you expect grandmotherly types to be. He’d not known any elderly women like that in his family, but he knew they were out there, somewhere, often making cookies when he came to repair their furnaces just to confirm the image.
There was no tell-tale scent in the air this early in the morning, but she was his first stop since kissing the kids goodbye and waving across the living room to where his wife was diapering their youngest. He listened to the quavering voice standing by the sink in the kitchen, where the ruckus of off-to-school prep was around a corner and blunted just a little. She was the third message of five, but the first in need as he heard out her situation.
She continued a rattling stream of cheeriness as he levered the panel off the side of the furnace, looked about with his heavy yellow-cased flashlight, and twitched the main flow knob. Then she stopped as he leaned back and looked thoughtful.
“Is there any dreadfully wrong, after all?” she asked, this time a direct question.
“No, ma’am, but I just realized I forgot to do something.”
“Do you need a tool from your truck?”
“Not exactly,” he smiled reassuringly, and walked past her and back up the stairs.
Turning the corner where his experience told him it must be, he stood in front of the thermostat. Yep, that’s it, he thought.
With a careful check of his tone, he said “The, uh, furnace was turned off. Here at the on-off switch. I usually call and tell people to check that before I come by, but I just came right over. My mistake . . .” As he spoke, he flipped the toggle to “on” and immediately heard the hum below his feet confirming what he already knew.
“Oh, oh dear, I am so . . .” the lady started to say, and was cut off by an upraised hand, and the words “No, this happens all the time when the temperature swings around, and folks assume the worst. That’s why I should have called and even looked here first; please don’t worry about it.”
“Well, certainly I owe you something for your . . .” and the hand again, so gently raised, barely waist-high, and a response “Please, ma’am, don’t even fret a moment. Glad to ease your worries.”
He went on down to the basement, set all to rights, and came up to get his shoes on and make an exit. She stood in the same spot with a bright look on her face as he went, and just as his hand reached the doorknob, said “You are my Christmas angel, you know that? Thank you so very much, my dear.”
Driving to the next address he’d listed on his notepad, the image wouldn’t leave his mind. Him, an angel. Right.
Except for her, it was true. The heat was back on, confirmation that all was well, and no trace of his having been there – mud on the carpet, a bill on the table – all meant that, for her, he had been exactly what she called him: “my Christmas angel.”
So that’s what I am, he chuckled. An angel. OK.
With that acceptance, he pulled into a parking lot to call the next two homes and ask them to check their “on” switches. Just in case. Couldn’t be an angel that much this week; it’s hard on a man to be nothing but an angel.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he wishes one and all a Merry Christmas, and you can wish him one at knapsack77@gmail.com.
* * *
Notes From My Knapsack 12-30-07
Jeff Gill
Christmas Day, 2007, Drawing To a Close
In some families, there are movies that make Christmas Day, whether it’s the repeating cycle of “A Christmas Story” on TNT or “White Christmas” with Der Bingle crooning alongside Rosemary Clooney.
When he had married his wife and her two daughters, they had always watched “A Christmas Carol” on Christmas Eve or on the day in between presents, but their Dickens movie version was different from the one he had grown up with – plus, he was convinced that the Mr. Magoo version was the best, anyhow.
After some good-natured disputing about which line or another “really belonged” in the story, his wife had pulled a dog-eared paperback copy of the actual story out of some box, and he read it to everyone after dinner.
The book went into the Christmas decoration box that year, and came back out for a Christmas Day evening reading each of the last five years. From 1843 to today, the language gap was wide, but he suspected the girls were just starting to make the leap and really hear what the words were saying.
“Oh! But he was a tight-fisted hand at the grindstone, Scrooge! a squeezing, wrenching, grasping, scraping, clutching, covetous old sinner! Hard and sharp as flint, from which no steel had ever struck out generous fire; secret, and self-contained, and solitary as an oyster. The cold within him froze his old features, nipped his pointed nose, shrivelled his cheek, stiffened his gait; made his eyes red, his thin lips blue; and spoke out shrewdly in his grating voice. A frosty rime was on his head, and on his eyebrows, and his wiry chin. He carried his own low temperature always about with him; he iced his office in the dog-days; and didn't thaw it one degree at Christmas.”
One of the girls asked if there really were people like this around today, and he sadly nodded his head. “I used to work for one, which is how I started my own business. It’s scary, but not as scary as working for someone with ice for a soul.” OK, she replied, keep going.
The three Spirits made their appearances, the revelation at the gravesides for Tiny Tim and Scrooge himself hit hard, and then the sun rose over London:
“He dressed himself "all in his best," and at last got out into the streets. The people were by this time pouring forth, as he had seen them with the Ghost of Christmas Present; and walking with his hands behind him, Scrooge regarded every one with a delighted smile. He looked so irresistibly pleasant, in a word, that three or four good-humoured fellows said, "Good morning, sir! A merry Christmas to you!" And Scrooge said often afterwards, that of all the blithe sounds he had ever heard, those were the blithest in his ears.”
Can people really change like that? They both watched him closely, wanting to know the answer; yes, he said, but not often enough. Most of us get set in a course early on, and don’t leave it.
You told us that you did, though: did you see a ghost?
Yes, I did, he smiled back, but kind of like Scrooge, it was my ghost I saw. And I didn’t want to be him, I wanted to be your dad someday. They smiled back, and then looked at the book; he picked it up, and concluded:
“Scrooge was better than his word. He did it all, and infinitely more; and to Tiny Tim, who did NOT die, he was a second father. He became as good a friend, as good a
master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world. Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms. His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him. . .and it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. May that be truly said of us, and all of us! And so, as Tiny Tim observed, God bless Us, Every One!”
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; Happy New Year to one and all, and may you and your family be blessed with health and hope and happiness in 2008. And Go Bucks!
From Glasgow, Scotland, a view from today on Christmas worth considering . . .
link: http://twid.bibulus.org/uploaded_images/portglasgowxmas-731319.jpg
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
. . . and watch them putting up this year's arrangement of the outdoor manger scene at:
http://www.vaticanstate.va/EN/Monuments/webcam/index?cam=webcam5&testo=Basilica%20di%20S.Pietro
http://www.vaticanstate.va/EN/Monuments/webcam/index?cam=webcam5&testo=Basilica%20di%20S.Pietro
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Faith Works 12-15-07
Jeff Gill
Not So Far Away In a Manger
We have four manger scenes here at Sycamore Lodge. The Little Guy and Lovely Wife have arranged the Christmas décor just so, on the stair rail and in the windows and around the tree. Inside, we have a set of Nativity figures on the mantelpiece over the fireplace made by my great-aunts, a felt set that serves as an Advent calendar made by a lady at New Life Community for the children a few years back, and a molded plastic hinged scene in the basement.
But right by the front door, at the foot of the stairs where we come down each morning, and where you see it on Aunt Alice’s table from anywhere in the living room, is my mom’s family crèche. The simple lines of the stable were made by my grandfather, from wood out of an old barn behind a house where she lived as a child.
For the occupants, their origin is Italy, by way of the Sears catalog, made of some kind of hard rubber with handpainted detail that is remarkably durable for the mileage they’ve traveled over a half-century and more.
When I use this depiction of the circumstances of Jesus’ birth as the focus for my morning devotions, I’m looking at signs and symbols drawing together almost the entire sweep of the Bible, not just a quick cut-and-paste job on Matthew and Luke’s respective second chapters.
Even the animals, the particular creatures found in almost every variety of manger scene, tell a story of prophecy and promise, from Genesis to Revelation.
The Old Testament book of Isaiah is the prophet most on the lips of Jesus the teacher, through all four Gospels in the New Testament. In the first chapter of Isaiah, when the son of Amoz recounts a vision he had of God’s promises coming to fulfillment, he says “the ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib.” Near the end of Isaiah’s work, in chapter 60, verse six, he says “a multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.”
So the “magi” of Matthew 2 have their place, but the camels carry their own symbolism, a fragrant part of the crèche scene.
Among the minor prophets, Amos was a shepherd, and in Micah, chapter five, we read his account of the Lord’s saying: “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in travail has brought forth. . .”
That woman in travail – some have asked why the lady Mary, having just given birth, looks so calm and bright. But Phillips Brooks, Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts a century and more ago, understood the meaning of that unruffled appearance of Isaiah’s “virgin” after bringin forth “Emmanuel, God-with-us.” He wrote in his lyrics for “O Little Town of Bethlehem” from an 1865 visit to Israel, the phrase “how silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given.”
The implication goes back to Genesis, and the warning of God as Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden in disgrace, telling the woman that “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.” (Gen. 3:16). A tradition of the church through the ages is that Mary was spared the pain of childbirth, though she would be pierced through the heart with pain over her son’s sacrifice (Luke 2: 35, echoing back to Zechariah), but clothed in blue and gold, and with the moon under her feet as promised in Revelation, chapter 12. The colors are in most nativity sets for Mary’s garb, while the moon at her feet and stars above can be seen in the Hispanic traditions around the Virgin of Guadelupe, celebrated last Wednesday on Dec. 12.
And in the tradition of Martin Luther, the words of “Away in a Manger” echo Mary’s calm and the same tradition, that “little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.” Thus do most manger baby Jesuses smile and almost laugh. As any parent of a baby can tell you, a smiling baby that doesn’t cry is indeed a miracle.
There is a element of the miraculous in every “presepe” (to you Italophiles), going back to the beginning where Francis of Assisi had the inspiration to take models, even real people in costume, to carry the story of the Christ Child from the printed page to flesh and blood. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible comes alive in every manger scene you see, as you pause to reflect, and marvel, and pray.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him your Christmas tale at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Not So Far Away In a Manger
We have four manger scenes here at Sycamore Lodge. The Little Guy and Lovely Wife have arranged the Christmas décor just so, on the stair rail and in the windows and around the tree. Inside, we have a set of Nativity figures on the mantelpiece over the fireplace made by my great-aunts, a felt set that serves as an Advent calendar made by a lady at New Life Community for the children a few years back, and a molded plastic hinged scene in the basement.
But right by the front door, at the foot of the stairs where we come down each morning, and where you see it on Aunt Alice’s table from anywhere in the living room, is my mom’s family crèche. The simple lines of the stable were made by my grandfather, from wood out of an old barn behind a house where she lived as a child.
For the occupants, their origin is Italy, by way of the Sears catalog, made of some kind of hard rubber with handpainted detail that is remarkably durable for the mileage they’ve traveled over a half-century and more.
When I use this depiction of the circumstances of Jesus’ birth as the focus for my morning devotions, I’m looking at signs and symbols drawing together almost the entire sweep of the Bible, not just a quick cut-and-paste job on Matthew and Luke’s respective second chapters.
Even the animals, the particular creatures found in almost every variety of manger scene, tell a story of prophecy and promise, from Genesis to Revelation.
The Old Testament book of Isaiah is the prophet most on the lips of Jesus the teacher, through all four Gospels in the New Testament. In the first chapter of Isaiah, when the son of Amoz recounts a vision he had of God’s promises coming to fulfillment, he says “the ox knows its owner, and the ass its master’s crib.” Near the end of Isaiah’s work, in chapter 60, verse six, he says “a multitude of camels shall cover you, the young camels of Midian and Ephah; all those from Sheba shall come. They shall bring gold and frankincense, and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.”
So the “magi” of Matthew 2 have their place, but the camels carry their own symbolism, a fragrant part of the crèche scene.
Among the minor prophets, Amos was a shepherd, and in Micah, chapter five, we read his account of the Lord’s saying: “But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose origin is from old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in travail has brought forth. . .”
That woman in travail – some have asked why the lady Mary, having just given birth, looks so calm and bright. But Phillips Brooks, Episcopal bishop of Massachusetts a century and more ago, understood the meaning of that unruffled appearance of Isaiah’s “virgin” after bringin forth “Emmanuel, God-with-us.” He wrote in his lyrics for “O Little Town of Bethlehem” from an 1865 visit to Israel, the phrase “how silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given.”
The implication goes back to Genesis, and the warning of God as Adam and Eve left the Garden of Eden in disgrace, telling the woman that “I will greatly multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children.” (Gen. 3:16). A tradition of the church through the ages is that Mary was spared the pain of childbirth, though she would be pierced through the heart with pain over her son’s sacrifice (Luke 2: 35, echoing back to Zechariah), but clothed in blue and gold, and with the moon under her feet as promised in Revelation, chapter 12. The colors are in most nativity sets for Mary’s garb, while the moon at her feet and stars above can be seen in the Hispanic traditions around the Virgin of Guadelupe, celebrated last Wednesday on Dec. 12.
And in the tradition of Martin Luther, the words of “Away in a Manger” echo Mary’s calm and the same tradition, that “little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.” Thus do most manger baby Jesuses smile and almost laugh. As any parent of a baby can tell you, a smiling baby that doesn’t cry is indeed a miracle.
There is a element of the miraculous in every “presepe” (to you Italophiles), going back to the beginning where Francis of Assisi had the inspiration to take models, even real people in costume, to carry the story of the Christ Child from the printed page to flesh and blood. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible comes alive in every manger scene you see, as you pause to reflect, and marvel, and pray.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him your Christmas tale at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
