Hebron Crossroads 8-29-04
by Jeff Gill

Across the mown field behind Hebron Elementary a few evenings ago, the air was filled with motion. Insects, caught in the slanting light, swam thicker than dust motes in a haymow, an ocean of life suspended above the ground.

With the end of August, the burden of life weighs heavy across treelines and meadows, an overproduction of vine and stem and blossom that now sways low. Green no longer glows brightly, but the swelling tomatoes grow ever redder, and on curling vines some expectant pumpkins along alleys and in nearby fields fill with orange across the once-sickly white towards the stems.

Harvest time is coming, and a day to rest from our labors before then. Labor Day weekend means this week opens the Millersport Sweet Corn Festival (look for the Hebron Crossroads to relocate into Heritage Village near the bandstand!), the 25 year anniversary of the Lakewood Band Boosters Donut Booth, and Buckeye Lake Youth Association waffle cakes . . . plus many other culinary delights.

Corn may be available, too. And every other entrée and side dish your cardiologist warned you about; just park a really long way aways (like in Hebron?) and walk enough so you can eat a bit of everything!

The Hebron Lions join their Laker Lion colleagues with their fry booth, but without Mr. Potato Head himself, Verne Griffith, who took his last pass down National Trail Raceways in a suspiciously “Goldenrod” hued casket recently.

His passing, and the death of Barbara Pierce last week, leave Hebron and Jacksontown respectively poorer, and this column a bit sadder than I’d originally intended, but both gave a gallant meaning to “passing on,” dying after hard struggles with cancer that did not take away their love and good spirits they each tried to maintain for family and friends who gathered around them through the end.

A salute to the staff and volunteers of Hospice of Licking County, who made it possible for Verne to die at home and Barbara to at least be back closer to home at Licking Memorial.

If you want to add to a fitting memorial for Barbara Pierce, make sure to sign and keep with your driver’s license (or have placed on your next license) an organ donor card. The last five years were all gift for Homer & Eileen thanks to someone who did this, and made it possible for Barbara to enjoy a few more years of life and love.

Or if you’ve already done so, you can come by the Hebron municipal complex and give blood Tuesday from 1 to 6 pm. Transplant surgery often requires many units, and sometimes rare blood types (which you may have!) or O- as the universal donor. These regular blood drives are a great way to give of yourself for others, particularly for those who have given so generously of their hearts, their spirits, and themselves for a richer community ‘round these crossroads.

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and soon-to-be ten gallon blood donor (not all at once, though!); if you have news or information about community events, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

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Entertaining Yourself at the 2004 Sweet Corn Fest
By Jeff Gill

Entertainment is not the first thing most folks think about when the subject of the Millersport Sweet Corn Festival comes up.
There’s food (like lots of sweet corn), there’s the midway filled with rides and games, and there’s the parade opening the whole shebang on Wednesday, Sept. 1 at 6:00 pm.
But the Main Stage area is at the center of the festival grounds in more ways than one. Even though the Lions’ Building and Heritage Village are important locations for navigating around the hundreds of food booths and dozens of rides and games, the sounds from the Main Stage are a landmark of their own, crossing all boundaries of the festival and of musical tastes as well.
Many already know that noted country music legend Porter Wagoner is the closing act of the whole festival on Saturday, Sept. 4 at 8:30 pm, but did you know that the Teays River Cloggers were performing Wednesday at 7:30 pm at the Hickory Grove bandstand? Were you aware that The Ragtime Strutters were roving the Festival Park grounds on Thursday? Or had you planned to catch Confederate Railroad on Friday at 9 pm at the Main Stage?
In fact, from high school brass bands to Razzamatazz & Jazz Thursday evening, almost every type and genre of music (and dancing!) you can imagine will be part of this 58th Sweet Corn Festival.
Gospel singers, bluegrass, Charles Slater playing his harmonica from a park bench: you name it, and the Millersport Lions have found a place for it (except maybe “Swan Lake,” but someone may be selling roast duck on a stick in the food booths, which is close, isn’t it?).
Most amazingly, all this entertainment is free ($5 for parking in the area); just walk into Festival Park and follow your ears. Neither the food nor the rides can match that for the family on a budget. You don’t have to buy a set of tickets or shell out anything much more than the time it takes to enjoy a concert or performance.
Beyond the musical performances from local groups and marquee acts, there are entertainments of a variety of sorts available through each evening, such as Ohio Nature Education’s display of live wild animals at the Covered Bridge Entertainment Area, the always interesting corn eating contests at Founder’s Commons Stage. The Hickory Grove Bandstand has a series of cloggers, country dancers, and square dancers right through all four days of the festival, and there are the roving entertainers throughout the grounds.
If you like racing, whether it’s a 5K race to cheer on the runners, an antique tractor pull, or even a Hula Hoop contest, something to see and be fascinated by is going on all the time. As to the Rolling Pin Throwing Contest, perhaps we should just say that men may want to find something else to watch on Friday night.
Porter Wagoner does represent a very exciting entertainment option Saturday; a fellow who once had Dolly Parton as a backup singer in his band and then was smart enough to make her his singing partner clearly has made quite a mark in country and pop music.
“The Green, Green Grass of Home” and “Just Someone I Used To Know” represent just a small part of the music he has made popular across America and around the world. The Sweet Corn Festival will close with everyone having a chance to sing along with some old favorites and hear some new music from this country music icon, whose proudest moment he says was to perform at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville.
If nothing described here sounds entertaining, there is one more attraction to keep in mind. The Millersport Sweet Corn Festival has offered, since 1947, the very finest in . . . people-watching. You can spend hours and spend not a dime in this compelling, occasionally dramatic activity. Find a good spot to rest, and see the show.
Just remember, someone may be getting a charge out of watching you!

The Millersport Sweet Corn Festival is at Festival Park in Millersport OH at the end of Chautauqua Street west of Main (just follow the lines of cars!). The Millersport Ohio Lions Club has full information on their festival at www.sweetcornfest.com, or call 740-246-5680. Admission is free, with parking in most areas near the park at $5. The proceeds from this four-day community event are a major source of income for approximately eighty non-profit charitable organizations that participate from eight counties in the Central Ohio area. They operate all of the food & game concessions, whose profits go toward their administration and community projects.

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Hebron Christian Church
(Disciples of Christ)

For the fifth Sunday youth-led worship, Tracy Wildermuth will lead the call to worship, Mattie McCord will offer the invocation, Kalie McCord will share the offering meditation and blessing, and the presiders at the communion table will be Julie McNichols and Amy Brown. The scripture reading from Jeremiah will be from David Scheidegger, Whitney Mason will lead the children’s message, and Josh Halter will give the benediction.

The drama “Unpacking Church Camp” from Pastor Jeff is presented by Crystal Damron, Julie McNichols, Michael Scheidegger, Amy Brown, and Josh Halter, rehearsed by youth advisor Lisa McNichols. Serving through worship are Josh Walters, William Harris, Jessie McNichols, Katie Day, and others in the youth group.

For more info, call 928-4066 or click http://go.to/Hebron_Christian

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Notes From My Knapsack – Sept. “The Church Window”
Hebron Christian Church

Barbara Pierce was a gift to our church, as well as to her parents Homer and Eileen. She lived out an example of good spirits in the face of challenge and hardship that few of us can ever live up to, but we’d be better off all of us to try.

Eileen remembered over and over during our last few days at the hospice unit in Licking Memorial (and this after many, many weeks in University Hospital) that these last five years have been “a gift,” and indeed they have. The liver transplant, fixing a problem created by one of the many previous surgeries to fix other problems she had throughout her too-short life, made a few of it’s own problems. . .but without it, as Barbara herself would remind me each year on her “second birthday,” she wouldn’t be here.

Just as Shirley Curran asked us to remember her brother on his death by making sure we have advance directives and a living will prepared for the sake of our families, we have a chance here to honor Barbara with a simple act we can do ourselves.
At license bureaus, village hall, the library, or any police or state police office, we can pick up and fill out a donor ID card, to slide behind our driver’s license, affirming that we support organ donation on the occasion of our death. As Christians, we all know that death comes for each of us, even as Jesus experienced death, but that was simply a way-station on the road to eternal life.

So we shouldn’t fear acknowledging that day, and making good use (good stewardship, even?) of what we leave behind physically through our instructions. We can tell those we love what our wishes are, too, so they will know what to decide when we have moved on.

My driver’s license has laminated right into it a logo that indicates my wishes, intentions that now carry the double meaning of also honoring Barbara Pierce’s fortitude and example. I hope yours will, too.

In Grace & Peace,
Pastor Jeff

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Rally Day – Sept. 12
Outdoor Worship 10:30 am
Strawbale seating on the north yard
(bring lawn chairs if you wish)
All-church Picnic at Noon!

Hebron Crossroads 8-22-04
By Jeff Gill

Zooooom. . .
That rush of wind was the summer passing us by; from late spring to early autumn, there was an interval of but a few weeks we could call the summertime.
Monday, Aug. 23, Lakewood schools and most of our surrounding districts start classes. Devotees of St. Murphy are sure that we’ll get our long overdue warm spell with heat and humidity when our kindergarten through third graders are safely ensconced within the un-airconditioned walls of Hebron Elementary.
We will see; they took shorts and t-shirts to band camp at Marengo and put out an emergency call for blankets and sweatshirts the first day, so anything can happen.
I’m going to stall a bit on sharing Hartford Fair results ‘til I’m sure I’ve got everyone I can from around the Hebron Crossroads. Prime Producers and Kith-and-Kin got ribbons for their delightful booth displays, and many local faces were seen around the show rings and barns. More to come. . .
Monday evening on Aug. 23, after school has truly begun, there will be a chance to give our whole community an education, as a dedication is scheduled for the Hebron Historical Society display cases in the lobby of the Municipal Complex, starting at 7:00 pm.
That lobby and the council chamber will host the village Blood Drive, coming ‘round again Tues., Aug. 31 from 1 to 6 pm. The end of summer sees the shelves of central Ohio blood banks pretty bare, with few wanting to stop and donate blood during these vacation-heavy months. If you are fit and healthy, come help your fellow man. . .actually, a fellow man, woman, and child, since each unit often helps as many as three people once processed. We tend to get around thirty donors, which adds up to nearly a hundred humans helped by this simple act.
Y’know, with all the pre-first-day-o’-school preparations (and without fair results), there’s not going to be much more to this column, so let me sign off with this observation from my hometown county fair (and yes, as has been asked, I’m trying to get my sister’s challa bread recipe to print here soon, too).
The Porter County (Indiana) Fair had, along with the 4-H displays and barns, the midway and the rides, some interesting attractions including a sea lion show four times a day, alternating with an elephant performing.
If you walked around behind the elephant enclosure and saw the portable stabling arrangement (not your standard horse trailer), there was a large sign against the back wall in sharply contrasting black and yellow, standing above a rack of very large shovels and rakes.
It read, “Manure Happens!”
Ah, show business.

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and a big fan of show business at all ends; if you have glamorous news to share from the stockbarn or swinepens, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

Hebron Crossroads 8-15-04
By Jeff Gill

If you see this before Saturday afternoon, Aug. 14, an opening note to lay this paper down where you can find it later, and run down to Hebron United Methodist Church on E. Main between 4:30 and 7 for their Ice Cream Social.
They’ll have the usual array of tasty food, ice cream, and a chance to meet Rev. Penny Drenton, their new pastor. Go ahead, I’ll be here when you get back. (Rustle of newsprint, slam of door.)
***
(Click of door opening, creak of sofa.) All right, now that you’re well fed, let’s talk about the home of fine dining on a stick, the Hartford Fair! Not only fine fair food, but plenty of great weather, a marvelous set of 4-H booths and projects on display (yes, those were plastic water bottles transformed into tropical fish!), and a whole herd – really – of animals shown from around the Hebron Crossroads.
Special congrats to David Cable, Junior Fair Board member from Hebron who got to go to the State Fair after winning the Tractor Rodeo. This is all the more special as his grandfather, John Slater, won the same event at the same age, making it a few years back in Hartford history.
This is one of the delights of the Biggest Little Fair In The World since 1858: family history and continuity and tradition. Like our tradition of getting sick on elephant ears, part of our Gill family heritage. Some families just have a bit more to be proud of, that’s all.
Kindergarten Orientation and Open House at Hebron Elementary is this Thursday, Aug. 19 at 6 pm. Dr. Jeff Geist, our building principal, and members of the kindergarten teaching staff will be in the gymnasium for the opening and in the classrooms to meet parents, grandparents, and guardians with their new school-age charges, as they charge (gently) around the building.
Your friendly neighborhood columnist will be there, disguised as this year’s PTO president, with a few words to share about a new year for our whole building, K through Third Grade, and about our Fall fundraiser which will start in less than two weeks, with a student rally on Friday, Aug. 27. Let’s get it done, and focus on education and improvement through the year with the help of your purchases.
Do you think you’ll hear a bit more the next few weeks about the Hebron PTO fundraiser? As they say in Minnesota, “Yah, youbetcha.”
Back to school for all is Monday, Aug. 23; note the bus stops and the kids waiting in the still well lit dawn, plus the high corn (shoot, the high soybeans!) around the rural intersections. Those big yellow buses will be a’rollin’ hyar soon, and remember to “Stop” when the little red octagon swings out from the side.
Amazing how many people seem vague on what that’s about. Feel free to write down license numbers and share them with your local law enforcement: they’d be happy to help deliver a reminder to those confused drivers.

Many, many little start o’ the school year details to tend to, and little of note to share with y’all at the moment, so I’ll close with this note about health and fitness.
No, not stay off of scooters. But wear your helmet and elbowpads, right?
Seriously, with the end of summer vacation and the start of school, the new schedule is a critical time for kids to make activity a part of their afterschool plan. Others (read: teachers) will tell you more effectively and with stronger incentives than I have just how important doing your homework is when you get home. Let me add a plug for “motion,” a bit before you sit down to study and more after.
With hours of chair piloting behind your child when they get home from a school day, slumping into a seat at home just helps push the Numb Button for the brain as much as the gluteus maximus. Get outside while the days still have an evening and warmth, and get your blood pumping. Pull some weeds (don’t tell me you haven’t any), ride a bike (no scooters? Well…), play hopscotch – whatever. Just move!
And after homework time is done, whether it’s getting the stack of engine blocks moved out of the garage to the shed out back or sitting in the driveway playing jacks, don’t plug your cerebrum into the tube right away. Time enough in the chill darkness of winter to soak up the latest pop culture by passively absorbing flickering images while slumping your spine before the shrine of silliness.
This applies to child, adult, or senior alike. If the late summer/early fall pattern is set with sitting and soaking up TV on returning home, you’ll surely do little else in the dim winter days, either. Start now molding a day around the school schedule with some motion (push-ups, playing catch, chasing fireflies) and the momentum might just carry you into next spring with your pants still fitting. . .unless you’ve grown five inches taller.
So I’ll stop here to go shop for new school clothes for the Little Guy, who seems to have done just that.

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and Hebron PTO president this year (for his sins); if you have news of the upcoming Sweet Corn Festival to share or other notes to pass along, e-mail him at disciple@voyager.net, or call 928-4066.

“The Scouter” – Simon Kenton Council Sept. 2004

Licking District Trailmarkers

From the last reports on School Night Round-Ups to the Fall Camporee/Apple Butter Days at Camp Falling Rock, there’s quite a bit to keep up with, so without any editorial blather, let’s start with:

Popcorn is Poppin’ Out All Over!

Oct. 1 to 28 is the Popcorn Sale window, but first are “Show & Deliver” sales from Sept. 20. If your unit didn’t get popcorn info at the Fall Program kickoff or Roundtable (first Tuesdays, 7:15 pm, Central Christian on Mt. Vernon Rd. in Newark!), call Mary Rose Lewis, our newest Popcorn Kernel with Tressa Kroll on the Popcorn Corps. Mary Rose can be reached at 345-1306 (home) or 345-4336 (work).

Pick-up for the “early” Show & Deliver sales is at the Alltel Building on Hopewell Drive (across from Park Lanes in Heath) Oct. 2 from 8 am to Noon. Unsold material – including broken cases this year! – can be returned Oct. 30 at Alltel from 9 to 11 am.

Orders for the Popcorn Sale in general need to be in by Oct. 28 (mark that date, Oct. 28!!), with pick-up Nov. 20 from 8 to Noon at – you guessed it! – Alltel, our good corporate partner. Bring checks to that location, dated to Dec. 6, to receive your unit’s order.

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Fall Round-Ups and School Nights

Most of you will see this after the bulk of Cub Scout registrations for the new program year are turned in; Sept. 20 is the date Bill Acklin, our Membership Chairman, and Tim Bubb, School Night Chairman, would like to have all results for units, especially Cub Packs.

Many Boy Scout units have an open house early in the school year, along with Venture Crews (Randy Crothers will be working with those 14 to 21 year old young men and women this year as they continue to grow across Licking County). Whatever your branch of Scouting, if you have new Fall registrations, we need to get them on Scouting rolls, with insurance, and receiving great membership bonuses like . . . this newspaper!

Call Bill at 344-1502 if you have results yet to report on getting “The Scouter.”

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From the Commish:

October 5 Roundtable will be devoted to Charter Renewal Training. Hopefully we’ll have all the information about the “new” on-line recharter process. I and my commissioners will be there “in force” to answer your questions. See you there.

Yours In Scouting, Mike Deeslie

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Boy Scout Leader Basic Training

If you have Boy Scout new leaders, or leaders needing training, contact Mike as noted above, or Jim Francis at 366-7677 about “BSLBT” (however you pronounce it).

Dates are held on Sept. 11 & 12, and the full weekend with outdoor experience Oct. 8, 9, & 10.

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Fall Camporee – Apple Butter Days

Nov. 5-7 is our Fall Camporee weekend, where with your registrations turned in, your popcorn sold, and your leaders trained, you and your Scouts can come and enjoy the real heart of Scouting, which is “Outing” out at Camp Falling Rock.

Saturday, Nov. 6 will offer a number of special Cub activities, and Friday through Sunday is open to Scouts and Venturers. Mike Dalton will be in touch as the District Activities Committee continues to offer great experiences for your unit program.

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Down the Trail -- A Closing Word

Some recent publications I had threatened to discuss in this space two months ago (July/August) will wait, as we have so much of immediate interest to share. But a note from the Round-Up Training: Bill Acklin and Trevor Gamble, our District Chairman, reminded all of us that, of youth eligible in Licking County for Cub Scouting, 1 in 5 or 20% are registered. Their goal this year is to get our “density” figure up to 1 in 4, or 25%.

Right along with that, may I offer that to reach that goal, we need to get as close as we can to 100% of eligible youth getting an invitation to a Scouting unit. We’ll never see anything close to 100% density, but each young person in Licking County deserves to hear about the opportunity to learn and grow through outdoor education, leadership development, and values training in the Scouting program.

Ask your local fast food joint to put on their sign for a week the date of your local “Round-Up,” send your info to your local correspondent in those free weeklies around the county, put up a sign in your place of worship or service group’s hall, and make sure to invite a child on your street and their parents to try out Scouting for themselves.

The personal invitation, in the end, is the one that matters the most.

And I invite you to share your Scouting news with me at disciple@voyager.net, or call 928-4066 and leave your info or call back contact numbers.

Jeff Gill, District PR guy and Chaplain

Hebron Crossroads 8-08-04
by Jeff Gill
Hartford Fair -- you think of sunny skies, sudden downpours, stock barns and amusement tents, midway rides and demolition derbies.
OK, and from the Hebron Crossroads area, you think of a long, long drive, farther than it would take to get to the Ohio State Fair. But Licking County is the second largest land-area county in the state, so what do you expect?
Through next Saturday, out past Croton north of Johnstown, this "Independent" Fair, not a county fair, will host our county 4-H displays (including this area's Prime Producers booth), county entries in quilting, gardening, and pie baking. But don't call it a county fair! County champions in swine, beef, and equestrian competition will be declared: since parts of Knox and Delaware Counties participate, don't call it a county fair. This is the Hartford Fair, bub, and don't you forget it. And a proud tradition it is, too.
Last week the family was on vacation, and we got to spend a day at my own childhood county fair, the Porter County (Indiana) Fair, their 154th edition. This is one big honkin' county fair, larger than many state fairs (we were always told), with sights to see like 20 "farm scene" entries in the 4-H barn.
For all the kids entering projects from 4-H in fair judging, i can't help but mention my sister Debbie. For four years she entered a dress and a food item in the county fair, winning a "participated ribbon."
Then she won not only the county "Grand Champion" awards, but went on to the Indiana State Fair, gaining both a "Reserve Grand Champion" for her challa bread but a "Grand Champion" for the outfit she handmade.
This is cool enough for a high school kid, but my real point is that she then went on to get a PhD in apparel merchandising and interior design, became a college professor, and travelled with her work on fabric and fashion to New York, Paris, and Milan, not to mention Nazca, Peru to evaluate ancient Inca textiles from the Andes.
All because she kept on entering the county fair with her 4-H projects. From dusty fairgrounds to exotic mountaintops: it can happen, trust me! I've seen it with my own eyes.
Speaking of watching the skies, if not the mountaintops (Sunset Hill west of Hebron doesn't count), the night of August 11 & 12 offers the Perseid meteor shower. These nighttime streaks of blazing light are the last hurrahs of dust from Comet Swift-Tuttle, a regular visitor to our heavens, peeled off that ice ball around 1862, now burning up in Earth's atmosphere.
Early in the evening of Aug. 11 to the east and after 2 am the morning of Aug. 12 more to the west you should see 40 or more meteors per hour, with a few less most of the evenings leading up to those nights and just after.
Fanning out of the constellation Perseus (hence the Perseids), these dashes of light in the darkness show how the cosmos and this planet continue to trade material and influence through the long ages. Go out Wednesday night, lay out a sleeping bag to the northeast, and lie down with your head to the southwest. If you can trace the course of the Milky Way, you'll see the main track the Perseids will follow.
Hebron Christian Church is pleased to welcome the Land of Legend Barbershop Chorus, directed by John Tegtmeyer, to their worship Aug. 15 at 10:30 am. You may well have heard them already, as these men travel all over Licking County during the summers, sharing the gift of their music with congregations in communities large and small. Good to have you all in Hebron, thanks to Kent Herreman!
All of us pray that there are no further terrorist attacks in the US, and many suspect that the next one is inevitable nonetheless. With a recent increased level of alert in the financial district of New York City, i'm reminded of the remarkable monument on the very steps of the New York Stock Exchange, right under the gaze of George Washington's statue across the way marking the first inauguration of a US president.
"The Ohio Company," a stock venture organized by a Cutler, one of the families ancestral to the Dawes clan just up Route 13, is remembered where 212 years ago a group of stockbrokers began yelling at each other with strange hand motions. The hand motions are now computer trades, and the yelling is often into wireless headsets, but that marker recalls a day only recently past when the fate of adventurers and tracts of wilderness were settled by a simple exchange of stock.
May the New York Stock Exchange continue on uninterrupted, and may the carving honoring "The Ohio Company" stand unmarred for many years to come.
Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church, and owner of no stock himself; if you have tips on buggy-whip futures or swampland in the Sahara, or news of local interest, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

The Church Window
Hebron Christian Church newsletter – August 2004

Notes From My Knapsack

With the closing weeks of July, I’m thinking about the Armstrong boys.  As I write this before we go to Lake Michigan and a visit to Valparaiso, Lance Armstrong is looking like he will win the Tour de France for a record sixth time, and the world recalled the 35th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” July 20, 1969.

They aren’t related to each other (as far as I know) and they aren’t related to anyone in Hebron (ditto), but the connections to us are real and all around.  Lance is winning his big number 6, all coming after recovering from a very aggressive form of cancer and going through chemo.  How many do we know in our congregation and community who have or are about to face such a battle, and we can give thanks for such a public witness to how much quality living can come after a malignant diagnosis.

Neil is an Ohio boy, one we can be proud of in many ways.  But there’s something that happened on July 20, 1969 that few are aware of.  Armstrong’s associate in the Lunar Module, Buzz Aldrin, was an active layman in his Houston area Episcopal congregation.  Few knew until his published memoirs and then through Tom Hanks's Emmy- winning HBO mini-series, “From the Earth to the Moon” in 1998, that one of the first acts performed on the Moon’s surface was his taking communion prepared for him by his home church and carried in his personal allowance.  "The First Communion on the Moon" is also significant as the most far-flung act of worship ever, done 235,000 miles from Earth, shared by the only two occupants of that entire world.

Colonel Aldrin, with an earned doctorate in astrophysics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was acknowledged as the most highly educated of the first astronauts; he was a "true scientist," yet respected by peers as an unabashed Christian.  Michael Collins, the pilot of the Command Module circling the Moon, had taken communion along with him from the Episcopal National Cathedral for that day as well.  To have recalled the importance of including communion in their risky venture, and prepared carefully to allow the possibility of having communion amidst all the other mass of detail:  that’s heroism of a very special sort.

“HeroQuest” was the theme for our Hebron Community VBS hosted at the Methodist Church this year.  Last week, young and old were reminded of “heroic virtues,” versus the qualities of celebrity.  With “strength, courage, determination, daring, and love” a new view of what a hero can be was taught and shared and shown.  Names like Esther and Phillip came to life.

We will always need heroes; the only question is what kind of hero will we choose to follow, to imitate – what kind of hero others will see us honor.  Which is what our weekly worship in the name of Jesus Christ is all about!

In Grace & Peace, Pastor Jeff

PS – Don’t forget that the first day of school this year is August 23; it can sneak up on you.

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Youth Activities

The day leading into the opening VBS session Friday night, July 30, all 6 to 12th grade youth are invited to join at the church at 10 am to help paint the garage doors off Cully St.  They’ll go on to a quick lunch and a pool party at McNichol’s Mtn., and those not off to Band at 5 pm are welcome to assist with VBS.

Friday, Aug. 6, we’ll head off to Wyandot Lake for a day of aquatic fun and intensive hydrotherapy for pregnant youth advisors.  More details will go out on the phone tree or at the painting day.

And Tues., Aug. 10 there will be many of our younger church youth up at the Cloverbud Barn Tour with the Hartford Fair, starting at 3 pm.  Many of our families will be up there all or part of Aug. 8 through the 14th.  Those who aren’t, may well be at Band Camp the same week!

Then there’s the Sweet Corn Festival. . .

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Outdoor Worship and Picnic

“Rally Day” marks the return of a regular schedule of one Sunday service and multiple church school classes at 9:30 am (instead of the other way around!).  On Sept. 12, the first Sunday after Labor Day, we will gather for worship on the north side of the building, with straw bale seating (or what you bring to sit upon) and some special music for the occasion.

A potluck picnic will follow right after the benediction, so bring your basket one more time before you pack it away for the fall, and be ready to eat hearty!

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Note to Editor:  For general notes, Sharon Scheidegger was Troop 33 unit leader for the week at Camp Falling Rock, along with Scouts from Kirkersville, Pataskala, Newark, Granville, and Utica.

Pastor Jeff will be teaching a class for eight weeks in Reynoldsburg on Saturdays through late Aug., Sept. & early Oct. on “Disciples’ Theology of Worship” to our regional licensed lay ministers.

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Hebron Crossroads 8-01-04
By Jeff Gill
 
35 ThingsThe latest internet infection isn’t a computer virus, it’s a game inviting webloggers (or “bloggers” in web parlance) to answer these questions for themselves, post ‘em on yer blog, and send to friends. . .or enemies, as the case may be.
With http://knapsack.blogspot.com not quite a blog as much as a dumping site for my text materials, I’ll still while away a lazy summer day and threaten to waste part of yours with “35 Things,” starting. . . now!
 
1. WHAT COLOR ARE YOUR BEDROOM WALLS? Colonial white.2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? N.T. Wright's The New Testament and the People of God. Have I mentioned I’m a pastor?3. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? A Columbus Zoo menagerie.4. FAVORITE BOARD GAME? Bored by such games, I am, but “Candy Land – Pooh edition” has been a favorite with the Little Guy.5. FAVORITE MAGAZINE? Atlantic Monthly, followed closely by National Geographic.6. FAVORITE SMELL? Fresh-brewed coffee.7. FAVORITE COLOR? Forest green.8. LEAST FAVORITE COLOR? Blue-green institutional wall paint.9. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOUR ANSWERING MACHINE PICKS UP? Four. 10. MOST IMPORTANT MATERIAL THING IN MY LIFE? Material? Our house, I suppose. We love it.11. FAVORITE FLAVOR OF ICE CREAM? Vanilla with fresh fruit on top.12. DO YOU BREAK THE SPEED LIMIT DAILY? Possibly; who’s asking?13. DO YOU HAVE A STUFFED ANIMAL IN YOUR ROOM SOMEWHERE? Nowadays, we’re more a hard plastic humanoid figure underfoot household.14. STORMS - COOL OR SCARY? Cool, way cool.15. FAVORITE DRINK? Starbucks red-eye with a shot of hazelnut flavor (it’s a coffe drink, people). 16. WHEN IS YOUR BIRTHDAY? August.17. FAVORITE VEGETABLES? Green peas, just like Thomas Jefferson – although the resemblance ends there. 18. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB, WHAT WOULD IT BE? Columnist and book reviewer, which describes being a parson pretty well, too.19. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY COLOR HAIR, WHAT WOULD IT BE? Sandy brown is fine, thanks.20. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE? Yes.21. TOP THREE FAVORITE MOVIES (IN ORDER)? Ow.....I can't rank them. Three of my favorites would be Holiday Inn, Casablanca and Local Hero. 22. DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS? No, especially recently. 23. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED? Nothing; my Lovely Wife is a neat fre. . .tidy person.24. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER? 5.  Or 4.  Maybe 3.  1 is fine, and 2 is nice.  How do you have a favorite number, anyhow?25. FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH ON TV & IN PERSON?  Baseball in person. On TV, very little; golf if the course looks nice and they turn up the bird noise.
26. WHAT IS YOUR SINGLE BIGGEST FEAR? Leaving my son behind somewhere (no, not yet, thanks for asking).27. FAVORITE CD OF ALL TIME & RIGHT NOW? Auugghh.  Why did I start this?  There’s a Michael W. Smith praise music CD called “Worship” that I play too much these days, and of all time is probably a Mahler symphony, but don’t ask me which one.  Or Billy Joel’s “The Stranger.”28. FAVORITE TV SHOW OF ALL TIME & RIGHT NOW? Fawlty Towers, all time, or “Northern Exposure.”  (“Twin Peaks” on Prozac, high dosage).  Currently, “Weather on the Eights” at The Weather Channel. 29. HAMBURGERS OR HOT DOGS? Hamburgers, unless Hebrew Nationals are available.30. THE COOLEST PLACES YOU'VE EVER BEEN? Colonial Williamsburg, and the Mount of Olives at sunset over Jerusalem.31. WHAT WALLPAPER AND/OR SCREENSAVER IS ON YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW? Rembrandt’s “The Old Philosopher At His Studies.”
32. DOES MCDONALD'S SKIMP ON YOUR FRIES & DO YOU CARE?  To quote a colleague:  “A counter guy tried it once. They buried him at dusk.”33. FAVORITE CHAIN RESTAURANT(s)? Olive Garden gets so much abuse for Italo-hokery, but it works for us.  We loved Eat n’ Park in western PA; perhaps they’ll expand west someday.34. IF YOU HAVE A BOY (OR HAVE ANOTHER BOY) WHAT WOULD YOU NAME HIM? Nathaniel (see “Little Men” for background).  35. IF YOU COULD LEARN TO PLAY ONE INSTRUMENT OVERNIGHT, WHAT WOULD IT BE? Oboe. Guitar would be more useful, but what a great space-filling sound an oboe solo is.
 
Now YOU play. . .
 
Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and also a believer in the phrase “de gustibus non disputandum.”  If you have quotes from Horace or news of local interest, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

To all whom it may concern -- Greetings in Christ's Name!It was a quiet week in Badger Camp, my hometown. . .Here are the less narrative-driven details summing up the week, but be ye forewarned that any further questions are likely to evoke a lengthy monologue filled with colorful characters.Badger Total:   94*Camper total:   74DoC campers:    58UCC campers:    16male campers - 29; female campers 43Staff total:    20*3 director/resource; 10* counselors; 7 CITsmale counselors - 5; female couns. - 5*male CITs - 2; female CITs 5*Badger used a staff counselor, female, who was a lifesaver,as you can tell by the skew female-to-male in registrations.Even so, we had two cabins with doubled CITs, which was marginally acceptable to me as we had some 2nd year CIT ladies.Badger Camp occupied 11 cabins; 5 male & 6 female,in 4 family groups.Our average camper # per cabin was 6.7; however, it was6 per cabin male, vs. 7.3 for female cabins.  Two more cabins'worth on our two hills, or about 14, would still be feasible, but the gender skew and difficulty in getting counselors who arebetween 18 and 50 means staff planning will still mean totalratios of staff to campers like our 20 to 74, which may seem high until you break out the figures.  Our dependence on under18 staff, a point of serious concern to me, is mitigated by theincreasing interest in the program, which means Jeanelle and i can pick and choose.  Given that i believe we will be requiredin the near-future to have two adults (however defined) in eachsleeping area (Camp Christian, please note!), this is at least apartial step in a good direction.We continue to work towards a goal of 85-90 campers in 13 cabinsand 6 family groups; but 19 registrations coming in two to four days before i drive down Honeycreek Road makes it hard to plan --highly punitive late fees are more and more imperative for the Partnership Camp system to work!  $305 for registrations arriving less than two weeks before starting day strikes me as perfectly fair, especially when you consider the amount of overnight mailing, phone calls in midday, and other *actual expenses* (including needing to overload your CIT count in anticipation of last-minutefolk).
And that's what happened at Badger Camp, where all the female staff were strong, all the male staff good-looking, and the children were assuredly above-average!In Grace & Peace,Jeff GillHebron, Ohiohttp://go.to/Hebron_Christianhttp://knapsack.blogspot.com

Hebron Crossroads 7-25-04By Jeff Gill
This is turning into quite a summer for Ray Bradbury fans, and I hope a good one for Mr. Bradbury himself.Mars has not one, but two rovers exploring the planet and sending back pictures from a place that will long bear the imprint of “The Martian Chronicles.”  NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have a great deal to be proud of with those devices working now over twice their rated life-span, and the Cassini probe successfully passing through Saturn’s rings on the way to Titan.But Ray Bradbury is known for not only science fiction set on distant worlds, but for imaginative fiction set on a planet that may be ours, around a twisted corner or down a dark future, oddly lit by brightly ominous sunshine.“Something Wicked This Way Comes” is written across the top of the newest Harry Potter movie poster, and since it comes from Shakespeare by way of Macbeth they have every right to borrow that line. Those words, though, will always make me think of Bradbury’s tale of the dark day that the circus --- Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show --- came to the village of Green Town, Illinois. Set in a Midwest not unlike the area around our own Hebron Crossroads, two boys find their lives taking dramatic and terrifying turns on the edge of adolescence.And then there’s the fairly unoriginal “Fahrenheit 9-11,” swiped not too cleverly and without permission from “Fahrenheit 451,” a title taken in turn (and brilliantly) from the burning point of paper, describing a dystopian future with a bright glimmer of hope set into the ending, the sort that Stephen King has to learn to write if he’s ever gonna make a reader of me.Bradbury himself has protested the admittedly legal, if somewhat unethical title sideswipe of Michael Moore’s movie, with only deafening silence in response. Too bad, because if Moore really wanted to both scare people and make them think, he could make no better friend than Ray Bradbury. “S is for Space” (which has almost no stories in that collection taking place in outer space) left a mark on my youthful imagination that remains to this day, admitting and looking directly at the darkness in everyday life, gazing calmly through it to the possibility of further horizons beyond.Preacher note: Bradbury was, in a younger day himself, part of the crew of screenwriters on “King of Kings,” a cheesy Biblical epic of about 40 years back, but with one of the best endings of any Bible pics I know out of Hollywood. It delighted me no end to learn that the ending came from Ray, who had an idea when the veteran scriptwriters got bogged down in how to wrap up their tale of Jesus: let’s use one of the endings from the . . . ummm . . . Bible!  The others were underwhelmed by the idea, so he went home, got out a Bible, wrote an ending from the close of John’s Gospel, and came back to the studio, not telling them where he got it.They loved him, said it was a brilliant solution to the finale, and told him he had a bright future in the bizness. Bradbury decided to commit to writing books and short stories instead, and we’re all lucky he did.
“Something Heroic This Way Comes” could be the title for the Hebron Community Vacation Bible School on Friday, July 30 from 6 pm to 8:30, and Saturday, July 31 from 10 am to 4 pm. The title selected by the host church this year is actually “HeroQuest,” with stations looking at the heroic virtues of strength, courage, determination, daring and love. Hebron United Methodist Church on East Main Street is the site, and Hebron Christian Church is assisting.Children Kindergarten through 5th grade are invited to participate, while older youth can be group escorts through the activity stations, where the young people will learn through story, song, and activity about the Biblical figures who make good examples for those five heroic virtues.From the VBS materials, HeroQuest is "designed to give children an understanding of what makes an ordinary person a hero. ... Children will come to know that being a true hero has nothing to do within the super heroes they read about in comic books or see in the movies. What makes an ordinary person a hero is that person's heart." Sounds like a message that any of our children would benefit from!If you want more info, call or drop by either Hebron United Methodist (928-2471) or Hebron Christian (928-4066), or just e-mail me at disciple@voyager.net.

Hebron Crossroads 7-18-04
By Jeff Gill

Mandatory; zero tolerance; banned; across the board; no exceptions.
Y’all were quite tolerant of my rant a few weeks back about the trend to social developments like smoking bans in all public spaces or mandatory sentencing guidelines in criminal cases. To repeat: I loathe cigarette smoke, physically and personally, and think court judgments should be swift, certain, consistent, and grim. But without human judgment, however flawed, we pre-empt common sense anywhere by penalizing folks for not using common sense everywhere.
But an interesting question was raised with me about something like “universal service.” What did I think about that?
Actually, the interesting dilemma I have here is that I think it would be great if absolutely everyone did it, and the best way to ruin universal service is to. . .yep, make it mandatory.
For instance, a public service requirement for high school graduation has been popular in some areas recently. May I say that spending time on a work trip, mission experience with a church, or service project at home or away is one of the most life expanding, uplifting and enlightening things a young person (or old: remember Miz Lillian in the Peace Corps in her 80’s?) can do.
But making it an obligation for absolutely everyone carries the seeds of decay for the entire ideal. First off, the sense that one chooses to do something they don’t have to do is lost. Remember how you felt when you went to the closet to get out the vacuum unasked and use it, and a voice comes around the corner “Oh, would you run the sweeper while you’re in there?” You have this crestfallen moment of losing that chance to be seen as doing something “over and above.”
And not everyone serves usefully in the same context. The match of one’s gifts to need can be a tricky recipe to cook up; universal service programs, of necessity due to the scale of numbers and projects, tend to lapse into a “hole and peg” kind of mentality. Putting someone to work in a context they regret and resent can create the opposite of what voluntary service does in a person’s heart, narrowing and embittering their view of others in the world.
Many folks with very good intentions have said that the country and our young would be well served by requiring a term of mandatory service, a year or two in the military, in urban or rural teaching, in medical assistance with hospitals or trail clearing and repair in our parks. My own view is that we should have such a program, for Ohio or nationally, to promote and facilitate such service, and could add meaningful incentives without making it paid make-work as opposed to volunteerism.
But mandatory? No. Ask any sergeant about the differences between a draftee army (bless ‘em all!) and the all volunteer services of today. I’ve supervised work crews of volunteers who had some sad sacks (usually drug along unwillingly by a friend) and a crew of court-ordered public servers which had a participant who loved the work and stayed late: but generally, mandatory makes for mopes and malcontents.
Do I wish everyone wanted to volunteer to help others? Sure do. Let’s encourage that, not require it, and set the first example ourselves.

Next week, a few VBS notes in Jacksontown and Hebron (I’ll bet they still need some volunteers!) and some updates on the Hartford Fair (Aug. 8, starting late this year), band camp (same day), and the dreaded words “Back To School.” Well, dreaded by some, anyway.

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and does a little volunteering himself; if you have service opportunities to promote or news of local interest, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

Hebron Crossroads 7-11-04
By Jeff Gill

Next Saturday, July 17, Licking Baptist Church on Beaver Run Road will hold a “Summer Fun Festival” for the community. From 9 am to 5 pm they plan games, music, food, door prizes, and activities for all ages at their new worship center west of Canyon Road on the south side of Beaver Run Road.
A craft show will be part of the event, says Mark King, and you can call him at 928-4618 for more info. Lonnie Aleshire is pastor, and I’ll bet he’d love to see you at church on Sunday, too! But this “Summer Fun Festival” is simply an event open to all for fun and fellowship.
As you drive out to Licking Baptist, it’s time for my annual note about “corn corners” in the Hebron Crossroads area. “Knee high by the Fourth of July” long ago became a bit of an anachronism in this modern age of hybrids and early planting; knee high on a giraffe, maybe. As high as an elephant’s eye? You got it now, and not just in Oklahoma.
For all of us, farmers and non-farmers particularly, this means that some stretches of road and a number of intersections will suddenly undergo a dramatic change in visual terrain. A spot where you could see for miles can be a blind spot, screened by a thick curtain of corn stalks, even as our mind still thinks “bump the brake and floor the gas.”
Since it happens just a few weeks a year, most of us don’t remember well how this can shape our landscape. Keep it in mind, and be careful out there, OK?

Recuperating from my combo elbow fracture/surgery/ghastly flu bug, coffee has spent some time off my list, an experience normally restricted to alternate Lenten seasons.
What my stomach has more happily tolerated is tea, and Earl Grey in particular has hit what little spot I still had. Twinings Earl Grey (I’m sure the brand Jean-Luc Picard drinks on the Enterprise, lo these many centuries ahead) is still in the dull yellow and dark brown trimmed box I first saw in a college care package decades ago. There was some measure of comfort just in seeing that yellow rectangle and particular typeface.
It got me to thinking about colors and packaging and food, and how we’ve gone from making our mental food associations with particular strong individual colors – rich green corn stalks, deep blue blueberries, bright red tomatoes – to packaging choices of more elaborate color schemes.
Brown wrapping with orange accents says Heath bar from across a room, and makes my tongue think of toffee. Honey yellow and bright yellow on a tall box says Cheerios, and you can almost taste the oats before you open the box, but white background with red says to me, anyhow, Special K.
Particular color pairings have been so effectively conditioned into some of us that. . .well, it doesn’t matter if the ad meant something else or if I’m looking into a toy box for blocks, but if I see turquoise and orange, I think fried clams at HoJo’s: don’t you?
Do you have color/food associations? Is this a quirk of the Gill hardwiring, or do certain flavors leap to mind when you see certain color combos? Zip off your thoughts to disciple@voyager.net, and we’ll print a few.

This Sunday night, on PBS, “A Thief of Time” airs on Mystery. It marks the third time an attempt has been made to film a Tony Hillerman novel. Proof that movie making is an art, not a science, the wonderful mysteries Hillerman has written set in some of America’s most beautiful landscapes, the desert Southwest, and with a central role to two Navajo Tribal Police officers giving a natural conflict between modern and traditional life, have been in their first two movie versions. . .awful. “The Dark Wind” was almost unwatchable, and “Skinwalkers” had to be inexplicable to someone who hadn’t read the book.
The trailer on WOSU looks good, but we’ve all been burned by those, haven’t we? I recommend giving it a chance, though, since the material – book and setting – is so rich and marvelous, and the actors starting with Wes Studi as Joe Leaphorn look well cast and intriguing.
Better yet, if you haven’t built up a backlog on your summer reading pile yet, may I recommend a few Tony Hillerman mysteries? If you’ve never read any, I envy your ability to read them for the first time; I can assure you that they reward re-reading, too.

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and would love to visit the Colorado Plateau again; if you have other books to recommend as substitutes for vacations away or news of local interest, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

Licking District Trailmarkers Aug 2004

Our Scouting year, like the school year, starts in September, which really means August if you want to stay on top of your game – and not end up behind all year long!

We have some great planning and training events coming up in the next few months; don’t miss these opportunities to not just keep up, but get ahead.

* * * * * * *

Fall Program Kickoff
Newark Public Library Mtg. Room
Tues., Aug. 17 – 5 to 7 pm

This event, for all Cubmasters, Scoutmasters, and unit program chairs, includes Popcorn Sale info, leadership training updates, and a chance to meet people with programs from all over Licking County who want to help your Scouts succeed.

The Membership team, led by Bill Acklin, will offer a training break with a sample “model boy talk” for those going into elementary classrooms and community groups to offer Scouting through an invitation to a School Night for Scouting.

Also included are activity options from Buckeye Lake, Flint Ridge & Newark Earthworks State Memorials, Licking Park District to Dawes Arboretum and the Ohio Nature Education folks. At the Kickoff you can reach in one place people from one end of our district to the other. . .plus talk to almost any of our district leadership as the fall program year gets started.

Drop by, have some coffee or pop, and tour the tables, ask questions, and best yet get some answers, whether on charters, youth religious awards, or how to tie a one-handed bowline. See you there!

* * * * * * *

Popcorn Kernels On Call!

Tressa Kroll, our long-serving District Kernel (Colonel? Commander?), has been joined by an assistant kernel, Mary Rose Lewis of Pack 75. They will offer a Unit Popcorn Kernel training at the next Roundtable from 6:15 to 7:15, before the RT starts.

“Show & Deliver” popcorn has to be ordered by Sept. 20 (info also available at the Fall Program Kickoff), with pick-up Oct. 2 from 8 am to Noon.

The Council Wide Popcorn Sale is officially Oct. 1 to 29, with publicity support for your unit sales in media all over central Ohio. It’s a great fundraiser for your Scouting program and helps the entire council support our camps and activities!

* * * * * * *

Membership Recruitment Schedule

“School Night” training was moved earlier to Aug. 3 from the 10th due to the later date of the Hartford Fair (starting Aug. 8 this year!), still at the Alltel Building, with pizza at 6 and training from 6:30 to 8 pm.

August 24 - September 2 -- Boy Talk “Warm Up—Information” fliers sent to boys’ home from school in their beginning of the school year packets.

August 24 - September 9 -- Boy Talks and School Night rallies to be held

September 2 & 11 -- Packs turn in new boy’s applications and new leader’s applications (turn-in night locations TBA)

* * * * * * *
Cub Day Camp & Scout long-term Camp report

Almost 300 Cub Scouts went to Camp Falling Rock in June for Cub Day Camp. There was plenty of water for the creek walks, and enough sunshine to help make the program a success for packs all over Licking District and some from beyond.

If troop and crews have reports of their time at any long-term camp this summer, please send info to disciple@voyager.net, and we’ll share that next month (remember the Scouter deadline is the first Thursday of each month). Some digital photos may be usable as well!

* * * * * * *
Encouraging Scouting News From Iraq
(full story at http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38761)

On the shores of the Tigris River sits 40 acres of prime real estate which recently was home to a compound used by Saddam Hussein's secret police. . .Now, a retired U.S. Navy commander is leading the charge to turn the remnants of the police camp into a first-class camp and training facility for Boy Scouts in Iraq, and have Scouting flourish once again in the region.
Chip Beck, a former Scout himself and father of one, accepted the Pentagon's call to serve in Iraq as a civilian advisor with the Coalition Provisional Authority, and found in Baghdad a large number of fellow workers who also happened to be involved with Scouting.
"Scouting is perceived with tremendous excitement and receptivity, because it's been here for 50 years. It's got its own Iraqi face to it," Beck said . . . "We in America sometimes tend to think that the Boy Scouts of America [is] the only Scouting organization in the world, when in fact it is one of 217.
The Boy Scouts originally were established in Iraq in 1954, but suffered repression with Hussein in power.
"Under Saddam, he had restricted their independence and movement. They couldn't travel outside the country to go to other jamborees, and international Scouts couldn't come here," Beck said. "Saddam didn't control the Scouts the way he wanted to. He started his own youth movement which was really corrupt."
But Beck says older Scout leaders, men in their 50s and 60s who had been trained with international Scout standards, kept their honor and dignity in the wake of deterioration caused by Saddam.
"They came through it kind of battered and tattered, I'd say, but with their head held high. Now we're trying to get 80 young leaders under the age of 35 – 40 men, 40 women from all over the country – to go to Cairo and be trained in a two-week professional Scouting leadership and program-management course. They're all excited about this!"
Beck says there's been no resistance to his effort, as he works with the Iraqi Center for Reconciliation, which includes leaders from the region's diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds.
"All of them agree that Scouting is good for their young people, their communities, themselves, the country. It promotes what I call universal values. It doesn't have to be American or British or Jordanian or South African or anybody's beliefs. It's something every decent person in the world can agree on. These are the values of right and wrong."
Beck is hoping to raise some $4.5 million dollars to rebuild the damaged secret-police camp as the national headquarters of the Iraqi Scouts.
And while he admits there is still violence afoot throughout the nation, he's optimistic it can be quelled.
"We can do it. There's more people out here in Iraq that want to see their own society succeed and need our help than there are those who want to destroy, but those with guns can also make a loud statement. It's the quiet ones that need to do the work more effectively."
(Editor's note: Those wishing to donate to the Iraqi Scouting effort can make checks out to: World Friendship Fund, PO Box 152079, Irving, Texas 75015 Include the notation "Iraqi Scouting" in the memo.)

* * * * * * *
President Reagan, born the year after Scouting began in the US, was never a member of BSA as a youth, but as a leader there was never any doubt of his support for the ideals we shared. At the Reagan Library during the initial public procession past the flag-draped casket, even CNN couldn’t be cynical about a whole Scout troop, standing and saluting.
Quoted from the New York Times of 8 June 2004:
“Also filing by his coffin on Tuesday were members of Boy Scout Troop 316 of Santa Clarita. Nick Jarvis, an 18-year-old Eagle Scout, said that he admired Mr. Reagan based on what he had read and heard about him.
"He had the courage to step up and lead us as a nation," Mr. Jarvis said. "All this makes me feel that my vote counts if we elect the right people to office."”
* * * * * *

Hebron Crossroads 7-04-04
By Jeff Gill

John Adams, writing to his beloved Abigail from the Second Continental Congress in 1776, said of the resolution declaring America’s independence from Great Britain, that this day should in future years “be celebrated by pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other. . .”

He was talking, of course, about July the. . .Second. The resolution was signed by most of the delegates on July the. . .Eighth.

But on the Fourth of July, the document was read in public for the first time: good enough! Let the pomps and illuminations freely fly along with our flags!


A few drips of news, then a flood of opinion.

Locally, we’ve had some unexpected and tragic deaths, including a few young adults and children. As a help to Lakewood area parents, teachers, and family members, the school district will hold an evening event this Tuesday, July 6, at 7:00 pm in Lakewood Middle School on “Helping Students Cope With the Loss of a Friend/Classmate.” If you would like to hear more about how to help students deal with the loss of someone they knew, then this panel discussion is for you.

This professionally led program is free and open to the public. Like the Monday morning reading program at Hebron Elementary, this is another reminder that your Lakewood School District staff is working year-round for you, even when school itself is not formally in session.

Good news for Buckeye Lake Village, and they’re due some: Congressman Bob Ney has asked for $350,000 in federal funds to help the village water project move to the next level. Congratulations to Mayor Frank Foster and others who did the leg work and put forward a coherent proposal that made it possible for Mr. Ney to pull the ends together and tie them up in a bow.

Our entire area will benefit from an economically healthier Buckeye Lake, and municipal water is a vital next step to that kind of stability and solid development.

And from the subterranean to the cosmic. . .if you find space at all fascinating, then you want to point your web browsers for the next week at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov for the ongoing updates on the Cassini/Huygens spacecraft and probe.

The unmanned scientific craft will be going “up” through a gap in the rings of Saturn as you receive this, and then will loop ‘round and ‘round the planet making close approaches to the moons of Saturn like Titan and Enceladus. Cassini is already so close to the solar system’s second largest planet that it can no longer take pictures of the entire sphere, but only segments across the viewfinder.

Now, back to earth, and on into the treacherous vast wastes of. . .my opinions.
Columbus, that neighbor of ours to the west you may have heard of, recently made a controversial move through their board of health and city council. Smoking is now banned in all public places, plus within 20 feet of entrances.

To what I suspect will be the amazement of many of my friends and acquaintances, I think this is ridiculous. Really.

A word of background: I am horribly allergic to cigarette smoke, and not only do not smoke, but feel my sinuses slamming shut like a bank vault (a bank vault with a severe drainage problem, that is) and my eyeballs protruding from their sockets just on getting a goodly whiff downwind of a smoker’s exhalation. As a pastor, I’ve spent way too much time praying with families who are watching a beloved family member die by inches and half-drawn breaths. I’ve listened to folk in tears as they admit their shame and disgust in not being able to stop smoking. More recently, I’ve heard nurses tell me as my shattered elbow was inspected post-surgery that smokers usually take twice as long to heal in skin and bones, aside from the illnesses they obviously cause.

Hear where I’m comin’ from?

Nevertheless. To ban smoking from public buildings, yes. To ban or severely limit smoking in public spaces where large numbers of people come and gather, and where folks likely have little choice about coming occasionally or bringing children, OK. (I’m thinking grocery stores, banks, large retail outlets, etc.)

But if a business wants to test the market for ash-befouled goods or blue-hazed atmosphere, whether eating, drinking, bowling, or any other such establishment where you or I could go our whole lives and never enter if we choose not to, I stand concerned if not outright in opposition. Somewhere south of this new ordinance, a line got crossed. I’m not certain where I’d put that line, but. . .

The problem is basically one of zero-tolerance, mandatory, no exceptions thinking, which I believe is actually a phenomenon of not thinking. The ages old complaint “there’s no common sense anymore” isn’t new (Hammurabi, Cicero, and John Adams all complained of it), but there’s also a chicken-and-egg side to the problem. If we start acting and judging and regulating on the assumption that no one can use judgement and common sense, then people will continue living down to that expectation, and past it a bit.

I disagree with mandatory minimum sentencing: not because I think we have a surplus of restrained, reasonable judges (far from it), but because you change the entire courtroom dynamic of trial and sentencing (or plea bargain and probation) when the final phase is simply a checklist for the functionary in black robes to follow.

I disagree with almost every schoolhouse zero tolerance protocol I’ve ever heard of: not because every school superintendent or administrator is a paragon of Solomonic wisdom (ask Licking Valley), but because some kids need the book thrown at them, and others need a book handed to them during a judiciously applied suspension, and we need to back up our administrators when they try creative ways to redirect what is often high spirits and hormonal overload. Will some parents threaten lawsuits if penalties aren’t cookbook identical across the board? Sure, and that’s where we need school boards with common sense and steel vertebrae as well.

And I disagree with mindless universal protocols for medical care overseen by a clerk with an MBA on a phone three states away, versus the wisdom of an MD who has my broken arm and X-rays right in front of their face. Oh, you thought I forgot about HMO’s from last week’s column, did you? Youbetchabuddy I remembered!

A person, with multiple fractures through bone (yes, it was stabilized, and yes, it was a closed fracture, meaning I wasn’t bleeding on the carpeting) confirmed by X-ray and an ER doc, has to go to their PCP before visiting the OS who immediately schedules you for an OR PDQ? You know we’re talking about HMO’s when there are that many acronyms in a couple of paragraphs.

I also vocally disagree with no exceptions to “may I have your phone number” when making a purchase or “please provide your home address” when purchasing tickets for performance events or “enter your household income” registering for access to web sites (I get “why” the zip code question, and will comply with that, but no further!). If there’s no room in the computer system for sales clerk discretion for customers who don’t want to share personal information to see a movie or buy a cable, I owe it to that business to keep my economic activity from overburdening their oddly prioritized time.

For all of these situations, what I welcome are choices that allow the market to shape policy in tandem with the public good, but with the public good defined as starting with individual freedom, not ending with liberty as a luxury we get to keep if it doesn’t conflict with an assortment of other “expert defined” goods.

Personally, if I never have to enter another smoky bowling alley or nicotine stained eating establishment, the better. And if packs o’ smokes were taxed to cover the actual measurable costs of the medical care associated with cigarettes, we’d likely have fewer smokers and less cost-shifting insurance bureaucracy.

But telling Ma’s Diner or Choo-choo’s Pool Hall to ban smoking starts to edge over into territory that in turn is way to close to a land where a friendly government official asks to review my Sunday sermons for their “positive thoughts quotient.”

Let’s use some common sense and know when we’re free to just stay out of each other’s airspace, without any enforcement or officialdom needed. Keep your cancer sticks downwind, I’ll avoid smoke-filled businesses while going about with the Little Guy, and if you don’t want to listen to me preach, you can just turn the p. . . . .

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and observer of Saturn’s rings and Jupiter’s moons; if you have an astronomical question for these clear, cool summer nights or news of local interest, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

The Church Window -- July 2004

Notes from my Knapsack

Camp and VBS are the usual themes for July, after the fireworks of the Glorious Fourth (and the depressing sight of back-to-school supplies right after the bunting comes down).

After my recent bone-crushing experience, a few folks assumed I’d take this summer off of camp directing. Nope, and let me tell you why.

First, I’m healing up very well says Dr. Quimjian, and if he had said “no” then “no” it would be, since I want to be picking up grandkids when I’m in my 70’s and that means doing my therapy and following instructions now.

Second, because the reason we’re here is to transform lives through an encounter with Jesus Christ. That’s the point, folks! We expect, we stand on God’s promises that radical change and healing of mind, body, and spirit can happen when people meet the living Christ. The maintenance mode of most Sunday worship can dull our expectation of what can and does happen – which is why I believe in camp and retreat experiences so much.

There is nowhere else in church life where I so often see that kind of transformation, and follow lasting effects from those changes, than out of long-term Christian community such as you find in a camp setting. Hopelessness and despair and anger and lostness are exorcised, and in their places comes the Spirit of the Living God, and the fruits of that Spirit: hope, peace, joy, and unity of purpose.

For those who suspect I regularly try to sneak bits and pieces of camp into our regular Sunday worship. . .guilty as charged! Because I wish for all of us the kind of life-changing transformation that comes so often through the dining halls and cabins and paths of that place we call camp, but is indeed for many “holy ground.”

In Grace & Peace, Pastor Jeff

PS: Look for some praise choruses in worship at 10:30 in August! jbg

* * * * * * *

Hebron Community VBS
Fri. July 30 & Sat. July 31

Our shared VBS effort with Hebron United Methodist will rotate down to their location this year, which will also give us a chance to welcome their new pastor, Rev. Penny Drenton. A Friday evening rally and registration will lead to an all day program Saturday of Bible stories, songs, and shared experience.

More details will come out in the weekly bulletin on times and themes. On Aug. 1, we hope to hear a VBS song from our kids who attended and Mike McFarland of HUMC will share the message.

* * * * * * *

Board Meeting Delayed a Week

The July General Board meeting, which normally would be Monday, July 12 at 7:30 pm in the church basement, will go back a week to July 19. At least three officers will be unavailable (including the pastor at camp!) on July 12, and we preferred not to cancel for the month. As always, anyone is welcome to attend as church business and working policy is formed at these meetings; the Board in Jan., Mar., May, July, Sept., & Nov., and Finance working group in Feb., Apr., June, Aug., Oct., & Dec.

* * * * * * *

Outdoor Worship & Picnic

Sunday, August 8, Hebron Christian Church will worship at 10:30 am out on the grass in a straw bale amphitheater; following the service we’ll join in a potluck picnic together. The Hartford Fair begins that day, but band camp leaves the next Sunday as folks make their weary way back from Croton, and school the next week, so we’ll picnic before we run into the Sweet Corn Festival and the rest of Labor Day!

Another picnic and activity will come on Sun., Sept. 12

* * * * * * *

Stewardship, National & Local

First, the wider perspective:

“Americans' charitable giving rose in 2003 over 2002, and marks only the fifth time since
1971 that charitable giving in America topped 2 percent of gross domestic product, reported the New York Times.

Americans gave an estimated $240.72 billion in 2003, a slight increase from the previous
year, according to an annual survey of charitable contributions compiled by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

Estimated giving in 2003 equaled roughly 2.2 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, the fifth year since 1971 that charitable contributions exceeded 2 percent of the total output of goods and services.

"This occurs despite rather unsettling times," said Henry Goldstein, chairman of the foundation that oversaw the survey.”

Now, on our local scene: the Finance working group, meeting in the months between board meetings, has looked at giving patterns for Hebron Christian. Giving to the general fund of the church has steadily increased, from 1988 to 2003, around 7% a year. This is not including capital giving such as to Camp Christian, parsonage repair, roof replacement, elevator installation, or organ memorials, let alone our 2000 property purchase (which will be down to $50,000 of principal left on the mortgage at year’s end!).

Our stewardship has been strong and responsive through the financial downturn of the last few years, and we’re proud of the commitment of our members. We plan to fulfill the remaining $6000 we pledged to Camp Christian’s new buildings over the next two years, as well.

Hebron Crossroads 6-27-04
By Jeff Gill

So on a Saturday afternoon a few weeks back, I’m out in the driveway playing with the Little Guy, trying to keep him a) amused, b) interested, and c) out of the house while the Lovely Wife does vital and necessary housekeeping activities. Simple, no?
No. In trying to distract and amuse a tired and disgruntled six year old, I flip off a scooter onto the driveway. The concrete driveway. The hard, over six feet down from my eyeballs, very hard driveway; right onto my left elbow and nothing else.
Rolling over to my right, I grasp my left arm with right hand and feel a variety of things moving about that God did not intend to be moving loosely beneath the skin of my elbow, ironically barely scraped.
My first thought: this is not good. My second thought: this is gonna hurt. My third thought: I can get a column out of this!
OK, so the last two might be in reverse order.
Heading towards LMH in the passenger seat, iron grip on left elbow maintained by right hand, I divert the waves of pain and nausea with the thoughts: Who can preach tomorrow at early service? What about second service leadership? And: I’ll bet I could get a whole bunch of columns out of this experience! (Again, sequence open to dispute; it was gonna be a good sermon, though.)
You might have gotten the column on heartless, inefficient staff at the ER. But no, they were fast, caring, and even more extremely compassionate after they saw my x-rays.
You might have gotten the column on foolish, unprofessional behavior in the Fast Track area and Radiology late on a summer Saturday afternoon. But no, they were calm, considerate, and very good at explaining and answering questions. (My fellow patients, most of whom were not (patient). . .could be a column someday. Or a novel. Stay tuned.)
You might have gotten the column on fee-gouging, rapacious pharmacies that prey on those needing off-hours drugs. But no, after handing over a prescription sheet and some very basic data and a reasonable wait, I got pills that made my arm stop throbbing. A good deal, compared to chewing on yarrow shoots and lighting candles. Did I pay money for that? You bet, and my arm stopped hurting (some).
You might have gotten the column on pre-surgery as a humiliating, depersonalizing, alienating experience which precedes pain and terror with isolation and depression. Not at LMH, where friendly staff were helpful and responsive at every turn, and I got back everything I put in the lovely floral plastic bag (hello, the 60’s are so over) and had the LW with me as long as she could stand my brand of gallows humor. . .even had a fellow pastor come and pray with me before surgery, which felt very odd, given that I’m supposed to be the fully clothed one standing up doing the praying in that situation. Hmm, probably good for me to have that role reversal.
You might have gotten the column on opening child proof containers with one hand, but that is sooooo overdone (has that stopped you in the past? - internal editor's note). Yes, the Little Guy opened them for me, how'd you guess? Oh, you saw someone else's column on that. . .
You might have gotten the column on recovering from surgery with said six year old in house and both of you coming down with a stomach flu at the same time, but this is a family paper, so we shall draw a curtain across those grim days when the pain meds did not stay down, nor did anything else, including the Little Guy.
So many column possibilities, ruined by cheery competence, general professionalism, and a small amount of discretion. Since I’m typing with one hand until a further exam determines my next disposition in re metal pins, cast, etc., we’ll keep this short, but. . .
You might have gotten a column on the essential stupidity of the very concept of an HMO, and you will my friends, you will. A whole column, with plenty to say, none of which has to do with the Little Guy or staples or viruses.
But for everyone who aided in my medical care, emergency and otherwise, located in Licking County, who actually had anything to do with pinning together my shattered left elbow and bruised pride and sense of indispensability: thank you! I am, as so many cards, flowers, and ominously hovering balloons command, obeying the order to “Get Well Soon!”
HMOs, I’ll get to you soon.

Jeff Gill is the fractured pastor of Hebron Christian Church and veteran of many hospital visits, usually on other people. If you have tales of healing and hope to share, or scores to settle with HMOs, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

Hebron Crossroads 6-20-04
By Jeff Gill

Sunrise is now before 6 am; ‘tis Midsummer Night’s Eve made famous by the antics of Titania and Oberon in a Grecian wood, the magical time of the longest days of the year.

Tomorrow is the astronomical first day of summer, June 21, and with or without Shakespeare's influence they are turning out to be strange days, indeed. (If sprites and fairies are afoot in Dawes Woods, now celebrating a 75th anniversary as Dawes Arboretum, it would not surprise me in the least.)

More on just how strange life can be in coming weeks, but now, a long overdue look backwards, to a near-magical weekend in Canal Park.


From my point of view, the Crossroads Festival began with two boys on bikes, stopped and leaning forward on their handlebars, watching with rapt attention as the crew from Calliope Productions set up the Giant Slide on Friday.

Setting up the parking area provided by the Bowmans and Coughlin Chevrolet, I saw walking in from the bridge behind Hayman’s three young girls, high stepping through the grass, picking their way toward becoming the first “official” visitors to the carnival grounds.

Not far behind them, Helen Artz and Jean Houston came across the still bright white bridge, painted on Patriot’s Day last Sept. 11, walking past the Ohio outline flower bed also painted and recently renewed by Mary Alice Dernberger, who came along just after to shoot some pictures for her scrapbook of the Hebron festival back again from a long recess.

Scott Walters and his son Josh came by to offer a hand, and we fell to talking about the still-visible outline of the old interurban power plant in the ground nearby, and the near archaeological character of the lot, with dim traces of foundations and lanes just below the grown-over surface.

And I got another chance (not the last of the weekend!) to tell the story passed along to me by the McDaniels about the Madden girls climbing the smokestack, a hundred feet high with their long black skirts fluttering in that long-ago breeze.

Either the lights got brighter, or the day was darkening, when couples hand in hand started to appear with greater frequency; some couples looking too young to be in love and others old enough to know better, but all glad to be together on a cool night under starry skies.

Mrs. Weaver and her stalwart Student Leadership Council members from Hebron Elementary wove in and out of the rides and stands and booths, swapping out new trash bags for full ones from their containers. The roar of the main generator off the midway left many shouting their questions to each other; “Did you get that one?” “Which one?” “No, that one,” but they merrily kept up with their messy but necessary work.

As the clouds broke up with the setting of the sun, landing patterns at Port Columbus changed, bringing a steady parade of jets right across the sky over the crossroads, just under the waxing half moon from the southeast.

From Conestogas down the National Road in the same direction the airplanes echoed, crossed by the trickled tracing of the once important canal route, that feeling of intersection, of past and present crossing, even interrelating, was as visible as it was felt.

Some of those jets no doubt brought home returning soldiers, veterans newly minted, hoping like many vets before them that they might be the last to carry that proud title, hoping that their work overseas might bring us closer to the day when wars are no more.

I hope they looked down as evening fell on May 28, saw the spinning and rotating lights of a simple village festival, and remembered the boisterous peace and contented happiness of carnivals and circuses and cotton candy, a multicolored reflection of all they fought to protect, and to offer to others.

Life and liberty are blessings we know to cherish, but the pursuit of happiness can often confound us. Watching a family walk away from the grounds as night fell, Dad carrying a stuffed animal larger than either of the kids (and almost as big as Mom!) it seemed like Hebron had relearned what it meant to pursue happiness. . .and might even have caught it.

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and a proud officer of the Hebron Elementary PTO, which sponsored the Hebron Crossroads Festival. If you have news or stories about the pursuit of happiness in the Lakewood area, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

Hebron Crossroads 6-13-04
"These Are the Boys of Pointe Du Hoc"

With thanks to www.whitehouse.gov, at the Crossroads this week we read the words of Ronald Reagan on June 6, 1984:

WE stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon.

At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers - the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing.

Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.

Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.

Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your "lives fought for life . . . and left the vivid air signed with your honor."

Forty summers have passed since [that] battle. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet, you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next.

It was the deep knowledge - and pray God we have not lost it - that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

Something else helped the men of D-Day: their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, Gen. Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."

WHEN the war was over, there were lives to be rebuilt and governments to be returned to the people. There were nations to be reborn. Above all, there was a new peace to be assured. These were huge and daunting tasks. But the Allies summoned strength from the faith, belief, loyalty, and love of those who fell here. They rebuilt a new Europe together.

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two World Wars: It is better to be here ready to protect the peace than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent.

But we try always to be prepared for peace; prepared to deter aggression; prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms; and, yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation.

We are bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We're bound by reality. The strength of America's allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe's democracies. We were with you then; we are with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."

Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their [valor], and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all.

Jeff Gill is a pastor of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the denomination that helped raise and baptized both Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan, and shares his ministerial standing with James Garfield, the only US President to be an ordained clergyman. To share your stories, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

Hebron Crossroads 6-06-04
By Jeff Gill

School ended this week for pretty much everyone within ear and eyeshot of this column; I will not insult you by assuming you drive recklessly by day through the school year, and will slow down by hearing that more kids are on the streets.
But they are, and you should.
Perhaps it would help to get the kids off the streets and into Vacation Bible Schools, which start as soon as the summer begins. Here are the VBS’s that many in the Lakewood region enjoy and benefit from, and you may still send info if there are any I’ve missed for our general area.
In order that they happen:

Heath Church of Christ (on Hebron Road)
June 21-25 9 am to Noon
"Camp Creation"
info: 522-8402

First Community, Buckeye Lake
June 21-25 6 to 9 pm
"Lava Lava Island"
info: Maggie Blade, 928-4615

Jacksontown United Methodist
July 19-23 6:30 to 8:30 pm
"Lava Lava Island"
info: 323-4429

Hebron Community VBS
at Hebron United Methodist, E. Main St.
(with Hebron Christian)
July 30 eve. & 31 all day
info: 928-2471

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Buckeye Lake
July 19-23 5:30 to 8 pm
“Jesus Expedition”
info: 928-3264

Stacey Hoffman, the director of the last listed VBS, made a delightful sign that stood in the play area of Canal Park for the Crossroads Festival that showed all these dates.
Stacey, Kim Gowdy, and many others with Hebron PTO and the village staff have much to be proud of, and this column will share more next week about the festival.

Today, June 6, is the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, the beginning of the end of World War II.
Memorial Day weekend brought many memories to the fore around the dedication of the new National World War II Memorial in Washington, and a concert program on PBS included a harrowing and moving first person recollection of the day from the actor Charles Durning, who was there with the initial landing.
Some of you may have heard other stories from Omaha Beach, or the parachute landings behind the coastline and into the deadly hedgerows.
Two stories that weave through the D-Day narrative for me come from very unusual perspectives that I had the honor to hear firsthand.

One comes from sixth grade, when we had a month studying various countries, with art and recipes and guest speakers. When we came to Germany, a classmate had an uncle now living in town who grew up there, and he was invited to speak to us.
It was years later that I came to appreciate how carefully he chose his words, and explained the situation, as he told us of the late night knock at the door, the three men in the “draft party,” and his forced enlistment in the German Wehrmacht.
But even then I understood that there was something quite unusual about hearing of a person’s fears and doubts and unwillingness to be there on Normandy’s beaches: looking down on the sands through a pillbox slit. How long did he fight, and how hard? All this was, as I think I recall, quite vague; there was nothing indefinite about how over thirty years later he was thankful to be captured, humanely treated, and to end up an American citizen.

My other D-Day memory comes from an elderly woman with a thick Dutch accent, who had helped care for a parishioner of mine in West Virginia, lying in the bed next to hers in an extended care unit of our local hospital. She did not know this woman, but simply wanted to care for someone very near the end of her life.
So it was no surprise that Antje, years before, had been part of the Resistance in her native Netherlands. I continued to come and visit her long after the neighbor had passed away, and she told me stories, many sad, some tragic, a few precious happy ones.
When the 50th anniversary of D-Day came along, I asked Antje on one visit if she recalled D-Day. “Oh yes,” she said, “I never forget it. I was on a streetcar in Rotterdam, carrying a message of a drop coming that night of ammunition. My pocketbook was in my lap, and I was very nervous, very nervous indeed. But then from one of the storefronts, the word was shouted out of the landing in France, that the radio said the Allies were coming, that Americans had entered Europe. And for the rest of the ride, as more passed the word along, I was not nervous, all the way to the edge of the city; not nervous at all.”
Antje is gone now, but not her story. And now you know it too.

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and a collector and teller of stories; if you have one to share, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net. That goes for VBS tales, too!

Sat. May 29 Advocate Church Page message
“Memorials take many forms”
Rev. Jeff Gill, pastor
Hebron Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

This Memorial Day weekend, many Licking County communities like Hebron conduct solemn ceremonies marking this time-hallowed and sacrifice-marked day. But a few veterans and others who normally are present will be somewhere else.
Washington DC always attracts many with monuments and memorials, from the Iwo Jima Memorial across the Potomac in Alexandria to Washington Monument itself. At the foot of that obelisk is the capitol’s newest place of memory, the World War II Memorial. This year’s “Rolling Thunder” with thousands of motorcycles passing the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in review will now come to a plaza facing the Reflecting Pool leading to the Lincoln Memorial, a plaza with twin towers marked Atlantic and Pacific for the two theaters of the globe-spanning war. Between the towers is a wall of 4,000 gold stars, just a token representation of the 400,000 lives this nation lost as over 50 million died worldwide between 1939 and 1945.
This oceanic, continent-hopping war brought 16 million Americans into service. Too few of them lived to see this day, and this long-overdue monument in our nation’s heart. My own family echoes the impact of the war and its aftermath: my dad’s two older brothers served overseas, one in the infantry fighting across Europe to Berlin itself, the other in the Army Air Corps keeping bombers in the air over enemy naval bases. My dad’s nickname as the child he was then, “Butch,” even graced the nose of a bomber over the Pacific theater. Just among my two uncles, the lesson of those two towers is made real. And one is gone, while the other is still with us.
It is well less than half of those WWII vets are still here, and we lose a few more everyday, but they continue to shape our communities and institutions, not the least in our churches.
One of the great privileges of ministry is the chance I have, in homes and hospitals, in living rooms and nursing homes, to learn small pieces of this story that so shaped all our lives.
Without knowing it, I’ve found myself suddenly in the middle of conversations with holders of the Navy Cross and Silver Star, of submariners on diesels under the Pacific and deckhands in the cold North Atlantic. I’ve been given nuggets of the tale that held freedom together by Marines and Air Corps pilots, Coast Guard sailors and Seabees, holders of the CIB and Ranger tabs.
My own WWII memorial consists of recollections not my own from Camp Lee and Fort Hood, of wave top views in Leyte Gulf, vistas across North African sands, and tunnel vision through island jungle roads. And much more.
In some way, I believe that those memories have an essential character that will endure long past the life span on Vermont granite or Hoosier limestone. My prayer this Memorial Day is that our thankfulness for their service will last as long as well.