Faith Works 9-2-06
Jeff Gill
Free Exercise of Religion, and Freedom of the Press
The page you’re reading right now represents an interesting intersection of two elements in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
That’s it, that’s the First Amendment, so often cited piecemeal or selectively.
My thought is that this statement is meant as a whole, one entire thought expressed in 45 words.
These words were written almost 220 years ago. Just 35 years after that, Benjamin Briggs founded the newspaper we still call the "Newark Advocate." (We don’t know if they pronounced it "Ad-vo-kate" or "Ad-vuh-kit" back then.)
For 185 years, people have both expressed their sentiments through the pages of this paper, and expressed their frustration with the opinions expressed by others in this paper. Hill’s 1881 history of Licking County recounts the ire of Granville citizens over slights they perceived coming from the county seat in the early days of the paper, and records:
"Shortly after a number of subscribers took produce of various kinds to Newark to pay their subscriptions and stop the paper. Briggs published in his next issue an article in regard to the matter, attempting to ridicule the people, and there the matter ended; but the Advocate, after that time, never had much circulation there while he conducted it."
Sereno Wright began "The Wanderer" in response, but that paper lasted only a couple years, and irregularly at that.
But it wasn’t closed by government action or any other reason than that it couldn’t pay the bills. Meanwhile, one way or another (maybe he took the produce to the farmer’s market and cashed it in), Mr. Briggs kept the paper going. He sold it in later life, having served in Congress and other public offices, and the community institution many still call "The Aggravate" has passed through many hands, now owned by the Gannett Corporation and with a significant internet presence.
Likewise our churches are free to thrive, or close, independent of any legal pressure or support. Times change, and many of the houses of worship lovingly depicted in 1800’s histories are both closed and forgotten. Newark’s "New Jerusalem Church" once had a vital congregation and many civic officials in her pews, and by 1890 their building site was a brewery.
Freedom of religion, and freedom of the press. Both are freedoms to close up shop as well as to open new branches, a marketplace of ideas seeking support from the public. A.J. Liebling famously noted that "freedom of the press is limited to those that own one," but the internet has made it possible for all sort of purveyors of news and information to provide their service and seek compensation in new and unexpected ways, even without a printing press and all that messy ink in the basement.
Freedom of religion is expressed both by those choosing to opt out of joining a church altogether, and by the right to open up a church in one’s living room or nearby storefront. Licking County has her share of both.
I appreciate the opportunity this newspaper gives to engage freedom of expression and freedom of religion on this page and in my column, and I really can’t express how engaging it is, for me personally, to try to communicate the breadth of how those freedoms are lived out around our area.
185 years later, I think Benj. Briggs would approve, and offer me a tomato, only slightly bruised.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he has plenty of tomatoes. Exercise your freedom of expression by writing him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
Tuesday, August 29, 2006
Notes From My Knapsack 9-3-06
Jeff Gill
Pestofest 2006 Draws To a Close
Three basil plants on the Gill acreage (OK, maybe 50 square feet) are still pushing out the foliage, but the stalk is getting woody and the lower leaves yellow.
The cicadas are in the thirtieth day of their infernal racket, which may be the sound of romantic murmurings by Julio to certain female insects, but sounds to me like the singing of Hasselhoff. Folk wisdom sayeth forty-five days after the cicada chorus begins, the first frost wins, so we’re two days from our initial morning dusting of white.
I could eat pesto and tear up basil leaves over food all year long (except raisin bran), but they are a taste of late summer at heart, with the season cheating pleasure of some pesto from the freezer in October.
My colleague Trish elsewhere in these pages said, last week, that her pesto recipe uses walnuts. I’m gonna have to try that; we both know the canonical ingredient is pine nuts, which can be found nowadays in this area, but before that became common I got into the habit of making it with almonds. I even used macadamia nuts once when I was out of almonds and didn’t know it until I had started food processing the leaves of basil, garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice.
She also recommends adding parmesan cheese to frozen pesto only after you thaw, which makes sense. Probably would keep it less clumpy, which doesn’t bother me much, but helps in serving.
Trish has well-explained recipes in her column, which I can never do, because, well, here’s why. Another seasonal favorite of mine is a Tuscan salad, which I make this way: take a bunch of onions from the garden, and some big handfuls of basil, including the budding tops of nested crowns which are where the plant gets its name ("basilea," or kingdom in Greek). Chop ‘em up, and then find some tomatoes from friends who don’t live in a deer browsing zone and chop them up. Mince a few cloves of garlic, and toss it all up with them and a few dashes of balsamic vinegar. Take a big hunk of mozarella cheese and cube it up, toss in not long before serving. Serves lots.
You can see why I don’t write a recipe column.
What I do like to write and talk and even preach about is the value of eating food you raised, even in modest amounts, or at least food grown locally, or at least making sure of putting some emphasis on eating seasonally.
There’s a fine line, and one I probably cross, between tooting your own horn and letting people know "hey, this is food I grew or was grown by people I know down the road." There was a study done recently looking at some average Iowa families and their dinner tables. Turns out that while they were primarily eating food that could be grown and raised in their county, let alone their state, they were actually consuming mostly food from California, Oregon, and other countries.
Start with the fuel costs (and pollution) of getting that food down the highway to them, add chemicals and processes needed to ship foodstuffs that kind of distance and under those pressures of packaging – oh, and the environmental cost of packaging – and don’t forget the health aspects of all that plus the still studied issue of what eating food out of your own ecosystem does for you, and it looks crazy, doesn’t it?
When I’ve defended Wal-Mart in the past (and I will again, probably), what I’m thinking we should be concerned about is the model that creates illusory, or at least very short-term cost savings. Cheap energy makes it look like radishes from Ecuador cost less, but that simply isn’t true in a global sense. Beef from five states away and even sweet corn from the other side of the Mississippi is costing the global system somewhere, even when we think we’re getting a deal.
So promoting the concept of eating locally is important to me. I’m not a fundamentalist in religion, politics, or the environment, so I’m not a vegetarian and I don’t throw a fit (in front of company) over fisheries degradation when swordfish is served. It just makes sense to grab the local gusto or pesto when it comes by, and if more people did a bit more of that some more of the time, we’d live more lightly on this lovely planet filled with so much food and so many hungry people.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s a bit of a gardener, too. Send recipes or rants to knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Pestofest 2006 Draws To a Close
Three basil plants on the Gill acreage (OK, maybe 50 square feet) are still pushing out the foliage, but the stalk is getting woody and the lower leaves yellow.
The cicadas are in the thirtieth day of their infernal racket, which may be the sound of romantic murmurings by Julio to certain female insects, but sounds to me like the singing of Hasselhoff. Folk wisdom sayeth forty-five days after the cicada chorus begins, the first frost wins, so we’re two days from our initial morning dusting of white.
I could eat pesto and tear up basil leaves over food all year long (except raisin bran), but they are a taste of late summer at heart, with the season cheating pleasure of some pesto from the freezer in October.
My colleague Trish elsewhere in these pages said, last week, that her pesto recipe uses walnuts. I’m gonna have to try that; we both know the canonical ingredient is pine nuts, which can be found nowadays in this area, but before that became common I got into the habit of making it with almonds. I even used macadamia nuts once when I was out of almonds and didn’t know it until I had started food processing the leaves of basil, garlic, olive oil, and lemon juice.
She also recommends adding parmesan cheese to frozen pesto only after you thaw, which makes sense. Probably would keep it less clumpy, which doesn’t bother me much, but helps in serving.
Trish has well-explained recipes in her column, which I can never do, because, well, here’s why. Another seasonal favorite of mine is a Tuscan salad, which I make this way: take a bunch of onions from the garden, and some big handfuls of basil, including the budding tops of nested crowns which are where the plant gets its name ("basilea," or kingdom in Greek). Chop ‘em up, and then find some tomatoes from friends who don’t live in a deer browsing zone and chop them up. Mince a few cloves of garlic, and toss it all up with them and a few dashes of balsamic vinegar. Take a big hunk of mozarella cheese and cube it up, toss in not long before serving. Serves lots.
You can see why I don’t write a recipe column.
What I do like to write and talk and even preach about is the value of eating food you raised, even in modest amounts, or at least food grown locally, or at least making sure of putting some emphasis on eating seasonally.
There’s a fine line, and one I probably cross, between tooting your own horn and letting people know "hey, this is food I grew or was grown by people I know down the road." There was a study done recently looking at some average Iowa families and their dinner tables. Turns out that while they were primarily eating food that could be grown and raised in their county, let alone their state, they were actually consuming mostly food from California, Oregon, and other countries.
Start with the fuel costs (and pollution) of getting that food down the highway to them, add chemicals and processes needed to ship foodstuffs that kind of distance and under those pressures of packaging – oh, and the environmental cost of packaging – and don’t forget the health aspects of all that plus the still studied issue of what eating food out of your own ecosystem does for you, and it looks crazy, doesn’t it?
When I’ve defended Wal-Mart in the past (and I will again, probably), what I’m thinking we should be concerned about is the model that creates illusory, or at least very short-term cost savings. Cheap energy makes it look like radishes from Ecuador cost less, but that simply isn’t true in a global sense. Beef from five states away and even sweet corn from the other side of the Mississippi is costing the global system somewhere, even when we think we’re getting a deal.
So promoting the concept of eating locally is important to me. I’m not a fundamentalist in religion, politics, or the environment, so I’m not a vegetarian and I don’t throw a fit (in front of company) over fisheries degradation when swordfish is served. It just makes sense to grab the local gusto or pesto when it comes by, and if more people did a bit more of that some more of the time, we’d live more lightly on this lovely planet filled with so much food and so many hungry people.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s a bit of a gardener, too. Send recipes or rants to knapsack77@gmail.com.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
Faith Works 8-26-06
Jeff Gill
A Spirituality Made Of Flint
Ching . . . ching . . . ching . . . plink.
Ching . . . ching . . . ching . . . ching . . . tangk!
Multiply times dozens, if you can hear what I just described, and you have the soundscape of Flint Ridge State Memorial next weekend, Sept. 1 through 3, for the annual Flint Ridge Knap-In.
Flint knapping is the process of chipping at a flint nodule until you have a projectile point, an arrowhead or spear point, ready to join a shaft of wood with raw sinew wrappings drying to a tight tough grip. A few feathers, or fletchings, to give stability through flight to the target, and you have a dart or spear to throw by hand or with throwing stick.
Our modern term for throwing stick is adapted from modern South American indigenous language, an "atl atl," or "fish shaped stick." This simple tool allows a flint-tipped spear to fly farther with more impact.
The key, though, is flint, found in a limited number of spots in Ohio, but nowhere else with as much color and contrast as right here in Licking County.
Flint Ridge Flint is a type of flint known by geologists and archaeologists all over North America. Just as resources from all over the continent are found in graves and sites from 2000 years ago in central Ohio, like copper from northern Michigan, shells from the Gulf Coast, and obsidian from the Yellowstone area of Wyoming, so is Flint Ridge flint found in those areas.
But with this one, odd, attention grabbing qualification. Flint Ridge flint, with rainbow of colors from bubble gum to root beer to translucent, is found in remarkably small amount in those places, especially compared to the amount of distant material found in central Ohio.
Mica, a mineral from the Carolina mountains, has been found in bushel basket loads in burials around Licking County from 2000 years ago, a period known archaeologically as "Hopewell," but Flint Ridge flint is seen in the archaeological record in barely handfuls from the same area.
This would seem to mean one of two possible interpretations: that Flint Ridge flint, full of color and variety, was greatly valuable like unto diamonds, or it was a token, with symbolic meaning as a pilgrim’s souvenir. Or both.
Those who have learned today the ancient skill of knapping flint have said that the act of shaping a useful tool, a knife or projectile point, from flint is a process of near hypnotic repetition, rhythm, and finally beauty. The aesthetic aspect of crafting a vitally useful tool from Flint Ridge flint is tangible, as well as visual.
It doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch to wonder that the work of making everyday implements from our local, uniquely vivid flint, took the makers to a very special mental and even spiritual state.
Add to that the stories I have heard from modern day Native American peoples about Flint Ridge: that this high plateau is up where the rainbow of the sky touches the precious stone of the earth, and brings earth and sky together in a spectrum of colors from violet to red and all nature in between, joining the ground and the heavens in this unique mineral. You feel the special nature of this place in those stories and with the stones themselves.
Go out US 40 and turn north at Brownsville, or east on US 16 and turn south on Brownsville Road to Flint Ridge State Memorial, where a modest parking fee gives access to this rhythmic music of knapping and shaping, the revelation of the earth’s colors and the display of atl-atl throwers making skillful use of the heavenly mineral on a speartip.
Is there a spiritual element to these Licking County materials? Look, listen, and participate, and you tell me.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he also regularly guides school groups around Flint Ridge State Memorial. Offer your perspective on the spiritual elements of everyday life to knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
A Spirituality Made Of Flint
Ching . . . ching . . . ching . . . plink.
Ching . . . ching . . . ching . . . ching . . . tangk!
Multiply times dozens, if you can hear what I just described, and you have the soundscape of Flint Ridge State Memorial next weekend, Sept. 1 through 3, for the annual Flint Ridge Knap-In.
Flint knapping is the process of chipping at a flint nodule until you have a projectile point, an arrowhead or spear point, ready to join a shaft of wood with raw sinew wrappings drying to a tight tough grip. A few feathers, or fletchings, to give stability through flight to the target, and you have a dart or spear to throw by hand or with throwing stick.
Our modern term for throwing stick is adapted from modern South American indigenous language, an "atl atl," or "fish shaped stick." This simple tool allows a flint-tipped spear to fly farther with more impact.
The key, though, is flint, found in a limited number of spots in Ohio, but nowhere else with as much color and contrast as right here in Licking County.
Flint Ridge Flint is a type of flint known by geologists and archaeologists all over North America. Just as resources from all over the continent are found in graves and sites from 2000 years ago in central Ohio, like copper from northern Michigan, shells from the Gulf Coast, and obsidian from the Yellowstone area of Wyoming, so is Flint Ridge flint found in those areas.
But with this one, odd, attention grabbing qualification. Flint Ridge flint, with rainbow of colors from bubble gum to root beer to translucent, is found in remarkably small amount in those places, especially compared to the amount of distant material found in central Ohio.
Mica, a mineral from the Carolina mountains, has been found in bushel basket loads in burials around Licking County from 2000 years ago, a period known archaeologically as "Hopewell," but Flint Ridge flint is seen in the archaeological record in barely handfuls from the same area.
This would seem to mean one of two possible interpretations: that Flint Ridge flint, full of color and variety, was greatly valuable like unto diamonds, or it was a token, with symbolic meaning as a pilgrim’s souvenir. Or both.
Those who have learned today the ancient skill of knapping flint have said that the act of shaping a useful tool, a knife or projectile point, from flint is a process of near hypnotic repetition, rhythm, and finally beauty. The aesthetic aspect of crafting a vitally useful tool from Flint Ridge flint is tangible, as well as visual.
It doesn’t seem like too much of a stretch to wonder that the work of making everyday implements from our local, uniquely vivid flint, took the makers to a very special mental and even spiritual state.
Add to that the stories I have heard from modern day Native American peoples about Flint Ridge: that this high plateau is up where the rainbow of the sky touches the precious stone of the earth, and brings earth and sky together in a spectrum of colors from violet to red and all nature in between, joining the ground and the heavens in this unique mineral. You feel the special nature of this place in those stories and with the stones themselves.
Go out US 40 and turn north at Brownsville, or east on US 16 and turn south on Brownsville Road to Flint Ridge State Memorial, where a modest parking fee gives access to this rhythmic music of knapping and shaping, the revelation of the earth’s colors and the display of atl-atl throwers making skillful use of the heavenly mineral on a speartip.
Is there a spiritual element to these Licking County materials? Look, listen, and participate, and you tell me.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he also regularly guides school groups around Flint Ridge State Memorial. Offer your perspective on the spiritual elements of everyday life to knapsack77@gmail.com.
Monday, August 21, 2006
Notes From My Knapsack 8-27-06
Jeff Gill
90 Years of Wonder and Awe
Park rangers in "Smokey Bear" hats and grey shirts, with a gold name badge glinting under a broad smile. I hope one of them is part of your summer memories from 2006.
August 25, 1906 was the legal birthdate of the National Park Service. The Lovely Wife once wore that uniform, and some of the best memories of our marriage are associated with national parks and our ranger friends, some still in that proud service. When you hear rangers joke about being paid in sunsets and scenery, they aren’t joking (sadly), but they do consider themselves well paid in that category, if no other.
Ohio has NPS units 60 miles south of us, in Chillicothe at Hopewell Culture (formerly Mound City) National Park, and 100 miles northeast with Cuyahoga Valley National Park which I wrote about earlier this summer. Head west on US 30 towards Chicago and you are five or six hours from Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, where I grew up as the park took shape since it began in 1966. (This weekend I manage to get halfway to 90 myself, so I’m a bit older than the Dunes as a national park.)
From urban monuments like Independence Hall in Philadelphia to the vastness of the Arches in Utah, the National Park Service interprets and protects important cultural and natural sites of many different types. "Interpreter" is the term NPS uses along with many state and metro park systems for the skill and art of presenting a site to the general public. Park rangers and naturalists, as interpreters, have major challenges to face in their work, starting with our American predilection to not want to get out of our cars.
The fellow considered the founder of interpretation as a discipline that can be taught and shared is Freeman Tilden, whose book "Interpreting Our Heritage," is still the common text for rangers and any sort of resource interpreter, now 50 years after his work.
That book is still in print, but a number of his other works are now only available on-line or through used bookstores; Tilden knew that not all the cultural and historic landmarks of the nation were in federal hands and also wrote eloquently and passionately about preservation and interpretation of state and local sites.
His book "The State Parks: Their Meaning in American Life," written in 1962, gives chapter 12 to Ohio, and is almost entirely about the Newark Earthworks. This experienced traveler around the desert southwest, the Atlantic coast, and Colonial historic sites quotes Squier and Davis from their 1848 work for the Smithsonian approvingly:
"…In entering the ancient avenues for the first time, the visitor does not fail to experience a sense of awe such as he might feel in passing the portals of an Egyptian temple, or in gazing upon the silent ruins of Petra of the desert."
Since the citizens of Newark and Licking County chose by voting to approve a bond issue to purchase the Octagon and Observatory Circle more than 25 years before the nation saw fit to establish a national park service, we can only stand in awe of our more immediate ancestors as well for their foresight. We may not have a national park in Licking County, but we are connected to the great tradition of interpretation and preservation that began in the United States and is now a global priority not a hundred years after the first national park program was adopted here.
If you have any vacation pictures with friendly rangers in the scene, or memories of monuments and landscapes that speak to your spirit, this is a good weekend to pull them out and look them over, with a thankful thought to Freeman Tilden, Stephen Mather, and everyone who has accepted a paycheck largely made up of sunsets so they could help interpret and protect our nation’s real treasures.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he also volunteers for the Ohio Historical Society and Licking Park District to interpret their sites around our county. Tell him your story through knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
90 Years of Wonder and Awe
Park rangers in "Smokey Bear" hats and grey shirts, with a gold name badge glinting under a broad smile. I hope one of them is part of your summer memories from 2006.
August 25, 1906 was the legal birthdate of the National Park Service. The Lovely Wife once wore that uniform, and some of the best memories of our marriage are associated with national parks and our ranger friends, some still in that proud service. When you hear rangers joke about being paid in sunsets and scenery, they aren’t joking (sadly), but they do consider themselves well paid in that category, if no other.
Ohio has NPS units 60 miles south of us, in Chillicothe at Hopewell Culture (formerly Mound City) National Park, and 100 miles northeast with Cuyahoga Valley National Park which I wrote about earlier this summer. Head west on US 30 towards Chicago and you are five or six hours from Indiana Dunes National Lakeshore, where I grew up as the park took shape since it began in 1966. (This weekend I manage to get halfway to 90 myself, so I’m a bit older than the Dunes as a national park.)
From urban monuments like Independence Hall in Philadelphia to the vastness of the Arches in Utah, the National Park Service interprets and protects important cultural and natural sites of many different types. "Interpreter" is the term NPS uses along with many state and metro park systems for the skill and art of presenting a site to the general public. Park rangers and naturalists, as interpreters, have major challenges to face in their work, starting with our American predilection to not want to get out of our cars.
The fellow considered the founder of interpretation as a discipline that can be taught and shared is Freeman Tilden, whose book "Interpreting Our Heritage," is still the common text for rangers and any sort of resource interpreter, now 50 years after his work.
That book is still in print, but a number of his other works are now only available on-line or through used bookstores; Tilden knew that not all the cultural and historic landmarks of the nation were in federal hands and also wrote eloquently and passionately about preservation and interpretation of state and local sites.
His book "The State Parks: Their Meaning in American Life," written in 1962, gives chapter 12 to Ohio, and is almost entirely about the Newark Earthworks. This experienced traveler around the desert southwest, the Atlantic coast, and Colonial historic sites quotes Squier and Davis from their 1848 work for the Smithsonian approvingly:
"…In entering the ancient avenues for the first time, the visitor does not fail to experience a sense of awe such as he might feel in passing the portals of an Egyptian temple, or in gazing upon the silent ruins of Petra of the desert."
Since the citizens of Newark and Licking County chose by voting to approve a bond issue to purchase the Octagon and Observatory Circle more than 25 years before the nation saw fit to establish a national park service, we can only stand in awe of our more immediate ancestors as well for their foresight. We may not have a national park in Licking County, but we are connected to the great tradition of interpretation and preservation that began in the United States and is now a global priority not a hundred years after the first national park program was adopted here.
If you have any vacation pictures with friendly rangers in the scene, or memories of monuments and landscapes that speak to your spirit, this is a good weekend to pull them out and look them over, with a thankful thought to Freeman Tilden, Stephen Mather, and everyone who has accepted a paycheck largely made up of sunsets so they could help interpret and protect our nation’s real treasures.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he also volunteers for the Ohio Historical Society and Licking Park District to interpret their sites around our county. Tell him your story through knapsack77@gmail.com.
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Faith Works 8-19-06
Jeff Gill
Let Us Break Bread Together
Thanksgiving is perhaps the high holy day of American civil religion, shared by most whatever their faith tradition.
It is a meal, usually shared among family and close friends, with certain rituals and traditions tied to how you set, select, and eat the meal.
There is a sort of tie to Passover, the great feast of Judaism, which is itself a home based observance. Certain dishes and dishware, words said even in secular households, and a meal with meaning going back over 3,000 years.
A meal, not too removed from the basics of people coming together to share some food, is central to the work of faith for almost every tradition likely to read "Faith Works." Native American spirituality holds to the holy in every mealtime, with many traditional peoples setting aside a small "offering" of the first spoonful out of each dish. Many pagan and neo-pagan observant folk pour out a libation onto the soil before eating themselves.
Buddhism has traditions of offerings on their altars where food, usually rice or mealcakes, are placed; Shinto, Japan’s tradition of honoring ancestors, places such offerings on home altars and take full dinners on certain occasions to gravesites.
So can a picnic be holy? Well, most religious people would want to ask first about intention, and where that intention is aimed (or to Whom), and many perspectives would want to see what is getting done – what effects result from the intention.
But I just want to say "Sure it can." Any time people come together to share food is a chance for something greater than one’s own concerns and interests to break through, and that’s an opening for the holy, or at least the Wholly Other.
Eating a burger in your car listening to channel 437 on your satellite radio: it would take direct divine intervention, I think, to break through our tendency to self-absorption then. A picnic, though, forces one to take others into consideration from setting up the table to sharing the last piece of pie. Nature must be faced, at least to fastening tablecloths against stray breezes, and accepted with equanimity (think ants). The fading sunlight reminds us of the passing of time, and the inevitable laughter and play of children all around calls us to hope in the future.
Can a picnic be holy? More than most of our commonplace acts, and with a little good intention and positive results (meeting neighbors, taking up a bit of excess for food pantries, putting ourselves second), the power of a simple grace and sitting down together is hard to stop.
Even after school starts, there is still enough room in our shrinking evenings and cooler weekends for some picnic opportunity to break into the everyday. Grab a chance when you get one!
Of tailgating, we will not speak.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he does not, in fact, think green bean casserole is a sacrament. Share a picnic prayer with him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Let Us Break Bread Together
Thanksgiving is perhaps the high holy day of American civil religion, shared by most whatever their faith tradition.
It is a meal, usually shared among family and close friends, with certain rituals and traditions tied to how you set, select, and eat the meal.
There is a sort of tie to Passover, the great feast of Judaism, which is itself a home based observance. Certain dishes and dishware, words said even in secular households, and a meal with meaning going back over 3,000 years.
A meal, not too removed from the basics of people coming together to share some food, is central to the work of faith for almost every tradition likely to read "Faith Works." Native American spirituality holds to the holy in every mealtime, with many traditional peoples setting aside a small "offering" of the first spoonful out of each dish. Many pagan and neo-pagan observant folk pour out a libation onto the soil before eating themselves.
Buddhism has traditions of offerings on their altars where food, usually rice or mealcakes, are placed; Shinto, Japan’s tradition of honoring ancestors, places such offerings on home altars and take full dinners on certain occasions to gravesites.
So can a picnic be holy? Well, most religious people would want to ask first about intention, and where that intention is aimed (or to Whom), and many perspectives would want to see what is getting done – what effects result from the intention.
But I just want to say "Sure it can." Any time people come together to share food is a chance for something greater than one’s own concerns and interests to break through, and that’s an opening for the holy, or at least the Wholly Other.
Eating a burger in your car listening to channel 437 on your satellite radio: it would take direct divine intervention, I think, to break through our tendency to self-absorption then. A picnic, though, forces one to take others into consideration from setting up the table to sharing the last piece of pie. Nature must be faced, at least to fastening tablecloths against stray breezes, and accepted with equanimity (think ants). The fading sunlight reminds us of the passing of time, and the inevitable laughter and play of children all around calls us to hope in the future.
Can a picnic be holy? More than most of our commonplace acts, and with a little good intention and positive results (meeting neighbors, taking up a bit of excess for food pantries, putting ourselves second), the power of a simple grace and sitting down together is hard to stop.
Even after school starts, there is still enough room in our shrinking evenings and cooler weekends for some picnic opportunity to break into the everyday. Grab a chance when you get one!
Of tailgating, we will not speak.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he does not, in fact, think green bean casserole is a sacrament. Share a picnic prayer with him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
Notes From My Knapsack 8-20-06
Jeff Gill
Where Do They Come From?
One question on many minds right now is "where do they come from?"
The news of Hezbollah in Lebanon firing unaimed missiles by the thousands, and British born Arabs who embrace a suicidal, authoritarian dream of a world cleansed of some groups, and others (mainly women) firmly under total control, all raise concern over the source of such anger and militancy.
Not to take such developments casually, but their appearance is the historic norm, not an aberration of a particular time or place. Rome was assaulted by Visigoths and Vandals, conquered by Ostrogoths and savaged by Huns, all semi-nomadic groups who came together around authoritarian leaders and a violent dream of conquest.
A thousand years ago, early Islam was tormented by the Assassins, an odd sect or movement that believed killing Moslem caliphs could improve society more to their liking. Both Arab rulers and Crusader kings were harassed by the followers of Hasan-ibn Sabbah, the proverbial "Old Man of the Mountain," and they were active through the 14 th century or so.
Which is about when the records show the rise of a cult in India called "Thugee" by some, root word for our thug today. Killing for Kali, they were both roadside bandits and religious fanatics, who had a new renaissance under British occupation. The Raj tried to break up Thugee in the 1800’s, with limited success, and I’m told some isolated districts are still haunted by these mystical highwaymen.
In Europe, the anarchist movement wove in and out of early Marxism, with Mikhail Bakunin saying around 1850 that "the passion for destruction is a creative passion." Honored by many terrorist groups today, Bakunism was integral to much of the Bolshevik spirit in Russia, nationalist assassins (that word again) who brought on World War I, and the Black Hand societies of Italy which gave great impetus to the modern Mafia, itself a strange mix of superstition and religion and greed. Transnational and violent, how many cops have you heard say "if they put the time and energy into legal business that they do breaking the law, they’d be richer than they are as crooks." But the Mafia mindset calls darkness to darkness.
Enough? It just seems that every continent, faith group, and era has it’s own Sheikh-ul-Jibaal, an old man of the mountains who offers dark visions, a wild unfettered life, and a sense of unearned superiority. That kind of storyteller draws a crowd as well, and a twisted community forms, and can endure.
The question for society and civilization is not "where do they come from," as interesting as the consideration can be. They come from a dark corner of the human heart that apparently is always there.
Our challenge is this: do we want to survive? Do we know what it is about our way of life that is worth preserving, what price will we pay to maintain it, and what means can we use to protect civil society that does not itself undermine what we defend?
For Israel, for societies of the Western Anglosphere, the discussion is very much engaged and worth having, as to how we will protect and build up our values in the face of those who would destroy them. Lines will continue to be drawn more sharply as to what is beyond where civilization may go, what is proportionate, what is just, what is honorable, and bombs rarely can meet any of those standards for any side.
Too easy to skip over, though, is the first question: do we want to survive? Is the nihilistic dream of Bakunin infecting us, wondering if it wouldn’t be better to see it all fall apart and start from some mythical state of nature? The darndest people have said words of that sort in my earshot over the last few weeks, and leave me (nearly) speechless. Do we want to survive, or do we go from an impatience with silly gas guzzling sidewalk showboats to a vague wish for social destruction just to clear the roadway? Do we want to hold onto civil liberties, or get so weary of defending them we desire a survivalist compound in the hills living by barter?
Of course, this debate has even more immediacy for the residents of Kiryat Shmona and Safed.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; offer your defense or rejection of western society to knapsack77@gmail.com (and yes, I know the Gandhi quote, thank you!).
Jeff Gill
Where Do They Come From?
One question on many minds right now is "where do they come from?"
The news of Hezbollah in Lebanon firing unaimed missiles by the thousands, and British born Arabs who embrace a suicidal, authoritarian dream of a world cleansed of some groups, and others (mainly women) firmly under total control, all raise concern over the source of such anger and militancy.
Not to take such developments casually, but their appearance is the historic norm, not an aberration of a particular time or place. Rome was assaulted by Visigoths and Vandals, conquered by Ostrogoths and savaged by Huns, all semi-nomadic groups who came together around authoritarian leaders and a violent dream of conquest.
A thousand years ago, early Islam was tormented by the Assassins, an odd sect or movement that believed killing Moslem caliphs could improve society more to their liking. Both Arab rulers and Crusader kings were harassed by the followers of Hasan-ibn Sabbah, the proverbial "Old Man of the Mountain," and they were active through the 14 th century or so.
Which is about when the records show the rise of a cult in India called "Thugee" by some, root word for our thug today. Killing for Kali, they were both roadside bandits and religious fanatics, who had a new renaissance under British occupation. The Raj tried to break up Thugee in the 1800’s, with limited success, and I’m told some isolated districts are still haunted by these mystical highwaymen.
In Europe, the anarchist movement wove in and out of early Marxism, with Mikhail Bakunin saying around 1850 that "the passion for destruction is a creative passion." Honored by many terrorist groups today, Bakunism was integral to much of the Bolshevik spirit in Russia, nationalist assassins (that word again) who brought on World War I, and the Black Hand societies of Italy which gave great impetus to the modern Mafia, itself a strange mix of superstition and religion and greed. Transnational and violent, how many cops have you heard say "if they put the time and energy into legal business that they do breaking the law, they’d be richer than they are as crooks." But the Mafia mindset calls darkness to darkness.
Enough? It just seems that every continent, faith group, and era has it’s own Sheikh-ul-Jibaal, an old man of the mountains who offers dark visions, a wild unfettered life, and a sense of unearned superiority. That kind of storyteller draws a crowd as well, and a twisted community forms, and can endure.
The question for society and civilization is not "where do they come from," as interesting as the consideration can be. They come from a dark corner of the human heart that apparently is always there.
Our challenge is this: do we want to survive? Do we know what it is about our way of life that is worth preserving, what price will we pay to maintain it, and what means can we use to protect civil society that does not itself undermine what we defend?
For Israel, for societies of the Western Anglosphere, the discussion is very much engaged and worth having, as to how we will protect and build up our values in the face of those who would destroy them. Lines will continue to be drawn more sharply as to what is beyond where civilization may go, what is proportionate, what is just, what is honorable, and bombs rarely can meet any of those standards for any side.
Too easy to skip over, though, is the first question: do we want to survive? Is the nihilistic dream of Bakunin infecting us, wondering if it wouldn’t be better to see it all fall apart and start from some mythical state of nature? The darndest people have said words of that sort in my earshot over the last few weeks, and leave me (nearly) speechless. Do we want to survive, or do we go from an impatience with silly gas guzzling sidewalk showboats to a vague wish for social destruction just to clear the roadway? Do we want to hold onto civil liberties, or get so weary of defending them we desire a survivalist compound in the hills living by barter?
Of course, this debate has even more immediacy for the residents of Kiryat Shmona and Safed.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; offer your defense or rejection of western society to knapsack77@gmail.com (and yes, I know the Gandhi quote, thank you!).
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Faith Works 8-12-06
Jeff Gill
What’s a Supply Preacher?
I still get the question "what’s a supply preacher" often enough, both from people who’ve known me for years and complete strangers, that it seems worth discussing again.
Some of the confusion is from a category that is nowadays pretty common, if misunderstood. An "interim minister" is now a category of clergy who are often, but by no means always, near or past retirement, who have been trained for intentional interim ministry.
As the label implies, not that long ago interims were sort of accidental: church officials looked around for someone not doing anything else who could serve a church for a short period while they were looking for a new full-time pastoral leader. The nearest recently retired person would usually do.
More recently folks have seen that there is a special skill set for diving into a congregation, setting a new tone after the departure of a parish pastor, or pulpit minister, or whatever you call the settled clergy of your tradition. This skill set can, to a degree, be taught, and intentional interim programs for training are common now all across the US.
All of this, of course, means nothing in traditions like Catholicism or Methodism, where the old pastor leaves and the new one is sent, usually without a gap a’tall. But even there, certain clergy with special gifts are often identified and even trained to be those sent in after a period of major change or disruption.
So we’re talking mainly about churches that largely or in part hire their own clergy, which is the common practice for Licking County churches. Some of the denominations represented here actually recommend or even require a certain period of interim leadership after a long pastorate. The idea is to prevent another kind of "unintentional interim," the poor pastor who moves to a town following a long-standing predecessor, and lasts but a few years (or less) as the church sorts through the transitional issues from a long settled style to another.
This can be up to a two year contract for an interim, and often calls for the interim to move to an apartment in the area for part of each week. Anyhow, I don’t plan to do that! God bless those who chose to take on such a challenge.
Some folks actually prefer the short-term nature of interim work, and like regularly moving and seeing many new communities. That still suits more retirees than younger clergy, but there are an increasing number of people who actually start out as intentional interims and stay in that calling, though there is nowhere near enough of them nationwide.
That’s what a supply preacher isn’t, but what then are they? Well, think substitute teacher. They are credentialled and able to step in on short notice to do all that a teacher does for a day or a week, and turn it right back over to the same person.
What I knew going into this, was that there was a need for someone to do spot coverage during a vacation or a conference or even sudden family issues, and that’s what I’ve gotten to do. What I didn’t realize, as our family situation made this a good choice for all of us right now, is what a fulfilling ministry it would be, giving clergy a big thing not to worry about when they try to take a week off. Nothing discourages future leave time than a truly awful worship service for the home crowd when you’re away.
Add to that the opportunity to step in and help focus prayerful thought on subjects you then walk away from at service’s end, making it not be about you, but what you said, and supply preaching is quite uniquely rewarding.
Plus, I’ve gotten to see some sacred spaces in nine congregations, five counties, Sundays and weekdays, among multiple denominations, that I would never have seen let alone led worship in otherwise.
That’s what supply preaching is, and now that school starts in a few weeks, my busy season is ending. Let me know if the increased attention to this column helps or hurts!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; share a story with him through knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
What’s a Supply Preacher?
I still get the question "what’s a supply preacher" often enough, both from people who’ve known me for years and complete strangers, that it seems worth discussing again.
Some of the confusion is from a category that is nowadays pretty common, if misunderstood. An "interim minister" is now a category of clergy who are often, but by no means always, near or past retirement, who have been trained for intentional interim ministry.
As the label implies, not that long ago interims were sort of accidental: church officials looked around for someone not doing anything else who could serve a church for a short period while they were looking for a new full-time pastoral leader. The nearest recently retired person would usually do.
More recently folks have seen that there is a special skill set for diving into a congregation, setting a new tone after the departure of a parish pastor, or pulpit minister, or whatever you call the settled clergy of your tradition. This skill set can, to a degree, be taught, and intentional interim programs for training are common now all across the US.
All of this, of course, means nothing in traditions like Catholicism or Methodism, where the old pastor leaves and the new one is sent, usually without a gap a’tall. But even there, certain clergy with special gifts are often identified and even trained to be those sent in after a period of major change or disruption.
So we’re talking mainly about churches that largely or in part hire their own clergy, which is the common practice for Licking County churches. Some of the denominations represented here actually recommend or even require a certain period of interim leadership after a long pastorate. The idea is to prevent another kind of "unintentional interim," the poor pastor who moves to a town following a long-standing predecessor, and lasts but a few years (or less) as the church sorts through the transitional issues from a long settled style to another.
This can be up to a two year contract for an interim, and often calls for the interim to move to an apartment in the area for part of each week. Anyhow, I don’t plan to do that! God bless those who chose to take on such a challenge.
Some folks actually prefer the short-term nature of interim work, and like regularly moving and seeing many new communities. That still suits more retirees than younger clergy, but there are an increasing number of people who actually start out as intentional interims and stay in that calling, though there is nowhere near enough of them nationwide.
That’s what a supply preacher isn’t, but what then are they? Well, think substitute teacher. They are credentialled and able to step in on short notice to do all that a teacher does for a day or a week, and turn it right back over to the same person.
What I knew going into this, was that there was a need for someone to do spot coverage during a vacation or a conference or even sudden family issues, and that’s what I’ve gotten to do. What I didn’t realize, as our family situation made this a good choice for all of us right now, is what a fulfilling ministry it would be, giving clergy a big thing not to worry about when they try to take a week off. Nothing discourages future leave time than a truly awful worship service for the home crowd when you’re away.
Add to that the opportunity to step in and help focus prayerful thought on subjects you then walk away from at service’s end, making it not be about you, but what you said, and supply preaching is quite uniquely rewarding.
Plus, I’ve gotten to see some sacred spaces in nine congregations, five counties, Sundays and weekdays, among multiple denominations, that I would never have seen let alone led worship in otherwise.
That’s what supply preaching is, and now that school starts in a few weeks, my busy season is ending. Let me know if the increased attention to this column helps or hurts!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; share a story with him through knapsack77@gmail.com.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Notes From My Knapsack 8-13-06
Jeff Gill
Colors of Panic, or Spectrum of Silliness?
Surely it is not just me. I don’t even know what the Homeland Security threat level is right now, but I suspect it is best when green or something of the sort. Probably mauve or puce today.
No, those aren’t the colors of emergency and warning I’m puzzled about, but the little sequence and significance of light green, dark green, yellow, red, pink, white.
Those are, of course, the stages of rain intensity on weather radar, and even the Little Guy knows their import. I’ve been looking at these colors at least since cable and The Weather Channel entered our lives, which co-incidentally coincided with a point in my life when I was walking a mile-plus to work (and across a long bridge over a river at that).
What I know about weather radar can be put in…well, about anything small, because I know nothing about reflected radio waves other than the colors. But I have extensive personal direct experience, as do many of us, in watching our network local or national cable radar picture, and then walking out and spending a stretch under those pictures.
What I’ve known for years, I thought, was this: light speckled green meant rain that may not even hit the ground, solid light green mist or light rain, dark green pavement wetting precipitation, red hard rain, and yellow on up torrents with the stray flying poodle coming out of the sky.
Now, here’s my question. Did everyone decide this spring to shift the settings down one full notch on the color bar? Is the sensitivity switch set on high? Did the fiddling from the unmistakable winter hysteria-mongering stick, and carry over into warm weather?
Because apparently, scattered green is always dry pavement (verga or somesuch), light green usually ditto, dark solid green is still often pitter-pats and mostly dots on the concrete, with steady rain not showing up until you have red on the screen, which was formerly cats n’ dogs territory.
This is certainly not a major issue, but it is a sudden and significant shift in my mind. Those tints and the expectations we carry with them have held steady for a very long time, and they all (from my vantage) have made a sudden, distinct jump to overstating the obvious. What happened?
Did a station manager somewhere get cranky because the radar didn’t look cool enough often enough, and said "can’t you guys tweak this thing up a bit?" I have been noticing for the last couple years a tendency to cover yesterday’s storms well past their sell-by date ("here’s where the storm yesterday went a hundred miles away") or pump up tomorrow’s ("our projected track takes it along this possible course") to the exclusion of telling us much about the next 24 hours, unless there’s a colorful blob in the offing right now. The end result is that there’s always some yellow and red to point at excitedly.
Or if there’s nothing from the last two days or coming in three, we’re likely to get all wound up about the heat index. Enough on that for now.
The fact of the matter is that information is losing out to agitation on many fronts, and I just didn’t expect that trend to extend to the radar picture. Fear sells better than security and confidence, and anger trumps happiness in the marketplace. If you’re worried about rain, you’re a potential customer, and the world always needs more customers. So tweaked it must be, and I’ll just keep mowing the lawn right through green patches of radar, without a dot on the pavement.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; offer your radar views at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Colors of Panic, or Spectrum of Silliness?
Surely it is not just me. I don’t even know what the Homeland Security threat level is right now, but I suspect it is best when green or something of the sort. Probably mauve or puce today.
No, those aren’t the colors of emergency and warning I’m puzzled about, but the little sequence and significance of light green, dark green, yellow, red, pink, white.
Those are, of course, the stages of rain intensity on weather radar, and even the Little Guy knows their import. I’ve been looking at these colors at least since cable and The Weather Channel entered our lives, which co-incidentally coincided with a point in my life when I was walking a mile-plus to work (and across a long bridge over a river at that).
What I know about weather radar can be put in…well, about anything small, because I know nothing about reflected radio waves other than the colors. But I have extensive personal direct experience, as do many of us, in watching our network local or national cable radar picture, and then walking out and spending a stretch under those pictures.
What I’ve known for years, I thought, was this: light speckled green meant rain that may not even hit the ground, solid light green mist or light rain, dark green pavement wetting precipitation, red hard rain, and yellow on up torrents with the stray flying poodle coming out of the sky.
Now, here’s my question. Did everyone decide this spring to shift the settings down one full notch on the color bar? Is the sensitivity switch set on high? Did the fiddling from the unmistakable winter hysteria-mongering stick, and carry over into warm weather?
Because apparently, scattered green is always dry pavement (verga or somesuch), light green usually ditto, dark solid green is still often pitter-pats and mostly dots on the concrete, with steady rain not showing up until you have red on the screen, which was formerly cats n’ dogs territory.
This is certainly not a major issue, but it is a sudden and significant shift in my mind. Those tints and the expectations we carry with them have held steady for a very long time, and they all (from my vantage) have made a sudden, distinct jump to overstating the obvious. What happened?
Did a station manager somewhere get cranky because the radar didn’t look cool enough often enough, and said "can’t you guys tweak this thing up a bit?" I have been noticing for the last couple years a tendency to cover yesterday’s storms well past their sell-by date ("here’s where the storm yesterday went a hundred miles away") or pump up tomorrow’s ("our projected track takes it along this possible course") to the exclusion of telling us much about the next 24 hours, unless there’s a colorful blob in the offing right now. The end result is that there’s always some yellow and red to point at excitedly.
Or if there’s nothing from the last two days or coming in three, we’re likely to get all wound up about the heat index. Enough on that for now.
The fact of the matter is that information is losing out to agitation on many fronts, and I just didn’t expect that trend to extend to the radar picture. Fear sells better than security and confidence, and anger trumps happiness in the marketplace. If you’re worried about rain, you’re a potential customer, and the world always needs more customers. So tweaked it must be, and I’ll just keep mowing the lawn right through green patches of radar, without a dot on the pavement.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; offer your radar views at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Wednesday, August 02, 2006
Faith Works 8-05-06
Jeff Gill
When Church and Community Meet
Ann Munro Kennedy needs no further praise from the likes of this scribe; her works are written on hearts across this community and far beyond, with indelible ink. She changed lives both with her outward actions and inner decisions. If you did not know her, you might think you are the poorer for it, but most of us who knew her are aware of just how much she quietly and persistently enriched many who never met her, by how much better a place Licking County is to live because of what she’s done.
There’s more that can be said, has been said, will still be told, but the heart of our celebration in the midst of grief was a few Sundays back at a funeral service in her church, First Presbyterian in Granville.
Rev. Karen Chakoian led a wonderful memorial service with gospel music sung, hymns shared by all, and words offered by both pastor and family.
There is an art to the large, public funeral that cannot be taught in seminary, and must be learned, usually in a certain measure of terror, in the process of doing. Some of us have done enough of these that the raw edge of anxiety is a bit less, and the ease is not from it getting easier, but from the experience of how truly healing and helpful such events are for the wider community.
Don’t get me wrong: every funeral service is of major importance to the family and "loved ones" involved, and any pastor or lay leader worth their salt feels a sense of awe and anxiety about presiding over an occasion of such significance even to just half a dozen people. Truly.
But there are certain times when you know that this particular funeral is not just about large numbers present (some families can muster a big crowd even for crosspatch old Uncle Ebenezer), or about so-called big names in town (who can surprise you with how few turn out to mourn their passing). It is when you know you are part of laying to rest a person who lived at the intersection of so many paths through the vital regions of a place, and that many who walk those paths will wend their way into this particular funeral, whatever their faith or lack thereof.
That sort of funeral becomes, for good or ill, a significant moment for that family, that church, and that community (village, city, county, region, profession, all of which were communities represented in Ann’s homegoing). What is said, how presented, the sense and feel of the occasion, will echo in those communities of relationship for a long time to come.
When you try to take such a moment and turn it into your own direction, it can be worse than awkward (I think of the pastor who was part of the Reagan funeral: oy.); when you try to capitalize on such a moment for a cause or purpose, no matter how well intended, it can go very badly for all concerned.
But getting out of the way, letting the life speak of the deceased in the light of eternity, and allowing this to be a worship service even more than a memorial, but because we are remembering together what we know shouldn’t be forgotten . . . that craft can’t be taught, but we can learn together from such an occasion.
Thanks to Rev. Chakoian for providing such a moment with Ann Munro Kennedy’s funeral, and we will remember.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
When Church and Community Meet
Ann Munro Kennedy needs no further praise from the likes of this scribe; her works are written on hearts across this community and far beyond, with indelible ink. She changed lives both with her outward actions and inner decisions. If you did not know her, you might think you are the poorer for it, but most of us who knew her are aware of just how much she quietly and persistently enriched many who never met her, by how much better a place Licking County is to live because of what she’s done.
There’s more that can be said, has been said, will still be told, but the heart of our celebration in the midst of grief was a few Sundays back at a funeral service in her church, First Presbyterian in Granville.
Rev. Karen Chakoian led a wonderful memorial service with gospel music sung, hymns shared by all, and words offered by both pastor and family.
There is an art to the large, public funeral that cannot be taught in seminary, and must be learned, usually in a certain measure of terror, in the process of doing. Some of us have done enough of these that the raw edge of anxiety is a bit less, and the ease is not from it getting easier, but from the experience of how truly healing and helpful such events are for the wider community.
Don’t get me wrong: every funeral service is of major importance to the family and "loved ones" involved, and any pastor or lay leader worth their salt feels a sense of awe and anxiety about presiding over an occasion of such significance even to just half a dozen people. Truly.
But there are certain times when you know that this particular funeral is not just about large numbers present (some families can muster a big crowd even for crosspatch old Uncle Ebenezer), or about so-called big names in town (who can surprise you with how few turn out to mourn their passing). It is when you know you are part of laying to rest a person who lived at the intersection of so many paths through the vital regions of a place, and that many who walk those paths will wend their way into this particular funeral, whatever their faith or lack thereof.
That sort of funeral becomes, for good or ill, a significant moment for that family, that church, and that community (village, city, county, region, profession, all of which were communities represented in Ann’s homegoing). What is said, how presented, the sense and feel of the occasion, will echo in those communities of relationship for a long time to come.
When you try to take such a moment and turn it into your own direction, it can be worse than awkward (I think of the pastor who was part of the Reagan funeral: oy.); when you try to capitalize on such a moment for a cause or purpose, no matter how well intended, it can go very badly for all concerned.
But getting out of the way, letting the life speak of the deceased in the light of eternity, and allowing this to be a worship service even more than a memorial, but because we are remembering together what we know shouldn’t be forgotten . . . that craft can’t be taught, but we can learn together from such an occasion.
Thanks to Rev. Chakoian for providing such a moment with Ann Munro Kennedy’s funeral, and we will remember.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
Faith Works 7-29-06
Jeff Gill
To a Faraway Place in Heartfelt Prayer
Damascus is a city I have long hoped to visit, but doubt if I ever will.
Many years ago, from a ridge in the Golan, I looked over the plain where Saul so famously rode, and heard our guide say that the hazy buildings ten miles to our northeast were the southwestern suburbs of Damascus.
That view may have to suit me for some years to come. The results of the last few weeks’ bombardment is further instability and tension in a very nervous, if historic corner of this troubled world.
In Damascus Paul came to his defining faith and was nurtured in an early Christian community near what is still "the street called straight." Straight Street, the central artery of the city, has seen Suleiman the Magnificent and Saladin the Great and Lawrence of Arabia all march its length.
The original "bazaar" is found near the heart of this most ancient of cities, almost as old as Jericho and Ur, and sites of import to Islam and Mohammed’s history are found there, near to Mecca’s significance.
And to the west of Damascus is Mount Hermon, whose snowy heights, far above the source of the Jordan River, cool by sight if not in degrees the parched plains below. Stretching north are more mountains, whose western slopes once produced tall, straight cedars, the cedars of Lebanon which made possible the wide roof of the Jerusalem Temple built by Hiram of Tyre for King Solomon. They would have been cut, and hauled by oxen across the Bekaa Valley to Tyre, sailed south along the Mediterranean coast, and landed at Joppa (near modern Tel-Aviv) to make the long way up into the Judean hills.
Those ships would have passed Haifa, just below the Mount Carmel headland, where high-up caves once harbored Elijah and later monks known as Carmelites. From Tyre to Haifa is about the same distance as from Columbus to Newark, and on to Gratiot to match Joppa.
Christian, Jew, or Moslem, it is painful to see the familiar names and journeys from holy writings punctuated by rockets, missiles, and bombs, by killing and burning and demolition.
Your columnist is broadly speaking pro-Israel, and John Thomas, general minister and president of the United Church of Christ, broadly speaking, has tended pro-Palestinian. Our respective senses of what problem started when and who is responsible for next steps in that region are usually widely divergent.
His prayer, though, recently offered at a church event and made available on-line, speaks very pastorally to all of us, and in this moment I want to thank him by offering that prayer to you all:
A Prayer for the Middle East at a Time of War
You did not make us, O God, to die in bomb craters or to huddle through the night in basement shelters. You made us to play under olive trees and cedars and to sleep soundly with animal toys and gentle lovers.
Lord, have mercy.
You did not make us, O God, to hold hostages for barter or to rain deadly fury on innocent children and beautiful coast lands. You made us, O God, to welcome strangers and to cherish all creation.
Christ, have mercy.
You did not make us, O God, to oppress in the name of security or to kill in the name of justice. You made us, O God, to find security in justice and to risk life in the name of peace.
Lord, have mercy.
While leaders in Tel Aviv and Damascus, Tehran, Washington, and southern Lebanon pander to ancient fears, claim the mantle of righteous victim, and pursue their little empires in the name of gods of their own devising, the people of Lebanon and northern Israel are made captive to fear, true victims whose only advocate is You.
Save us from self-justifying histories and from moral equations that excuse our folly. Search our hearts for our own complicity. Spare us from pious prayers that neglect the prophet's angry cry. Let us speak a resounding "no" to this warring madness and thus unmake our ways of death, so that we may be made more and more into your image.
Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; share a story with him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
To a Faraway Place in Heartfelt Prayer
Damascus is a city I have long hoped to visit, but doubt if I ever will.
Many years ago, from a ridge in the Golan, I looked over the plain where Saul so famously rode, and heard our guide say that the hazy buildings ten miles to our northeast were the southwestern suburbs of Damascus.
That view may have to suit me for some years to come. The results of the last few weeks’ bombardment is further instability and tension in a very nervous, if historic corner of this troubled world.
In Damascus Paul came to his defining faith and was nurtured in an early Christian community near what is still "the street called straight." Straight Street, the central artery of the city, has seen Suleiman the Magnificent and Saladin the Great and Lawrence of Arabia all march its length.
The original "bazaar" is found near the heart of this most ancient of cities, almost as old as Jericho and Ur, and sites of import to Islam and Mohammed’s history are found there, near to Mecca’s significance.
And to the west of Damascus is Mount Hermon, whose snowy heights, far above the source of the Jordan River, cool by sight if not in degrees the parched plains below. Stretching north are more mountains, whose western slopes once produced tall, straight cedars, the cedars of Lebanon which made possible the wide roof of the Jerusalem Temple built by Hiram of Tyre for King Solomon. They would have been cut, and hauled by oxen across the Bekaa Valley to Tyre, sailed south along the Mediterranean coast, and landed at Joppa (near modern Tel-Aviv) to make the long way up into the Judean hills.
Those ships would have passed Haifa, just below the Mount Carmel headland, where high-up caves once harbored Elijah and later monks known as Carmelites. From Tyre to Haifa is about the same distance as from Columbus to Newark, and on to Gratiot to match Joppa.
Christian, Jew, or Moslem, it is painful to see the familiar names and journeys from holy writings punctuated by rockets, missiles, and bombs, by killing and burning and demolition.
Your columnist is broadly speaking pro-Israel, and John Thomas, general minister and president of the United Church of Christ, broadly speaking, has tended pro-Palestinian. Our respective senses of what problem started when and who is responsible for next steps in that region are usually widely divergent.
His prayer, though, recently offered at a church event and made available on-line, speaks very pastorally to all of us, and in this moment I want to thank him by offering that prayer to you all:
A Prayer for the Middle East at a Time of War
You did not make us, O God, to die in bomb craters or to huddle through the night in basement shelters. You made us to play under olive trees and cedars and to sleep soundly with animal toys and gentle lovers.
Lord, have mercy.
You did not make us, O God, to hold hostages for barter or to rain deadly fury on innocent children and beautiful coast lands. You made us, O God, to welcome strangers and to cherish all creation.
Christ, have mercy.
You did not make us, O God, to oppress in the name of security or to kill in the name of justice. You made us, O God, to find security in justice and to risk life in the name of peace.
Lord, have mercy.
While leaders in Tel Aviv and Damascus, Tehran, Washington, and southern Lebanon pander to ancient fears, claim the mantle of righteous victim, and pursue their little empires in the name of gods of their own devising, the people of Lebanon and northern Israel are made captive to fear, true victims whose only advocate is You.
Save us from self-justifying histories and from moral equations that excuse our folly. Search our hearts for our own complicity. Spare us from pious prayers that neglect the prophet's angry cry. Let us speak a resounding "no" to this warring madness and thus unmake our ways of death, so that we may be made more and more into your image.
Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison. Kyrie eleison.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; share a story with him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
Notes From My Knapsack 7-30-06
Jeff Gill
Malletheads, Unite!
If Jimmy Buffet fans are "Parrotheads," then could polo fans be called "malletheads"?
Each Sunday afternoon through September, the sport of kings and the king of sports, as polo players would have you believe, is played in front of the Bryn Du Mansion on Newrk-Granville Road.
Despite the horsey implication of wealth and cost, admission is free, and some fairly average people play the sport. I can’t say normal people, since Bernie Brush is one of them, but many Licking County residents spend more on their hunting dogs than it costs to maintain a horse or two.
Your columnist doesn’t get up on top of animals bigger than he is, but it is fun to watch – did I mention it’s free?
Adding to the fun in a few weeks is a little "value-added" experience that you can spend a bit of money on and help a great local cause. Sunday, August 13 from 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm the Licking County Coalition for Housing will set up a "professional" croquet area up by the mansion, and for $50 a person, $75 a couple, Bake-n-Brew is setting up a buffet and wine tasting to go with one of our last summer afternoons. Why croquet?
In part, because croquet is a spin-off of polo for those of us who don’t get up on animals larger than we are. The balls were originally old polo balls, and the mallets broken polo mallets (and they break often enough to keep up the supply).
Add a few horseshoe gates and the other end of the broken stick for a wicket, and you have ur-croquet. The game has evolved, and a croquet professional is part of the afternoon, who will show us how to (I suspect) put backspin on our cross court shots and jump balls to get around a sticky wicket.
The beverage set-up is a cash bar (hey, it is a fundraiser), but admission to the event does not include mandatory white clothing, so dress for the outdoor relaxation of it all before school starts nine or ten days later for most of us. Call LCCH 349-1921 during weekday business hours to reserve tickets, or go online at www.lcchousing.org.
As this catches on, Shani Smith and I imagine theme foursomes playing cutthroat, full-contact croquet; or at least with the costumes competing while the field of play is more peaceful. Whether you want to wear Edwardian whites or Bermuda shorts, just plan to wander by the Bryn Du Mansion on Aug. 13 and help more modest housing stay open and available to those who need it in Licking County.
And the polo alone is still free from the Newark-Granville Road entrance!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; toss him your croquet balls, bouquets, or brickbats at knapsack77@gmail.com (note new email!).
Jeff Gill
Malletheads, Unite!
If Jimmy Buffet fans are "Parrotheads," then could polo fans be called "malletheads"?
Each Sunday afternoon through September, the sport of kings and the king of sports, as polo players would have you believe, is played in front of the Bryn Du Mansion on Newrk-Granville Road.
Despite the horsey implication of wealth and cost, admission is free, and some fairly average people play the sport. I can’t say normal people, since Bernie Brush is one of them, but many Licking County residents spend more on their hunting dogs than it costs to maintain a horse or two.
Your columnist doesn’t get up on top of animals bigger than he is, but it is fun to watch – did I mention it’s free?
Adding to the fun in a few weeks is a little "value-added" experience that you can spend a bit of money on and help a great local cause. Sunday, August 13 from 2:00 pm to 6:00 pm the Licking County Coalition for Housing will set up a "professional" croquet area up by the mansion, and for $50 a person, $75 a couple, Bake-n-Brew is setting up a buffet and wine tasting to go with one of our last summer afternoons. Why croquet?
In part, because croquet is a spin-off of polo for those of us who don’t get up on animals larger than we are. The balls were originally old polo balls, and the mallets broken polo mallets (and they break often enough to keep up the supply).
Add a few horseshoe gates and the other end of the broken stick for a wicket, and you have ur-croquet. The game has evolved, and a croquet professional is part of the afternoon, who will show us how to (I suspect) put backspin on our cross court shots and jump balls to get around a sticky wicket.
The beverage set-up is a cash bar (hey, it is a fundraiser), but admission to the event does not include mandatory white clothing, so dress for the outdoor relaxation of it all before school starts nine or ten days later for most of us. Call LCCH 349-1921 during weekday business hours to reserve tickets, or go online at www.lcchousing.org.
As this catches on, Shani Smith and I imagine theme foursomes playing cutthroat, full-contact croquet; or at least with the costumes competing while the field of play is more peaceful. Whether you want to wear Edwardian whites or Bermuda shorts, just plan to wander by the Bryn Du Mansion on Aug. 13 and help more modest housing stay open and available to those who need it in Licking County.
And the polo alone is still free from the Newark-Granville Road entrance!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; toss him your croquet balls, bouquets, or brickbats at knapsack77@gmail.com (note new email!).
Thursday, July 20, 2006
Faith Works 7-22-06
Jeff Gill
A Trip To the South (Not Far!)
After our last two weeks looking at our Licking County religious history, we can’t forget Perry County.
Aside from giving us Dave Lehman, our area’s pioneer church heritage ties directly into some places of worship just over the border.
St. Joseph’s Catholic Church south of Somerset is the first Catholic parish in all of Ohio, with the first mass said by Bishop Fenwick in 1818. The current building is perhaps the oldest structure still in use as a regular service location for the county, dating to 1864. I may well be wrong about that, as Perry County has many buildings and congregations directly preceding and leading to Licking County establishments, but St. Joseph’s deserves and will get her own treatment in this space someday soon.
What we just marked as a bicentennial for a Perry County house of worship is the 1806 founding of Zion Church, along Rt. 13 south of Thornville. I’m sure I’m not the only one to find it ironic that after passing Zion Road exits for what seems half a dozen times between Thornport to the hill where today’s Zion UCC stands, you turn on High Point Road, east where the Backwoods Festival crowds turn west.
Founded as a union church for both German Reformed and Lutheran congregations, the Reformed branch joined under the E&R wing with the Congregational Church 50 years ago to help found the United Church of Christ. Zion Church still honors German roots, Reformed liturgy of the Mercersburg tradition, Lutheran Pietism and Congregational thoughtfulness in her life today, led by Dr. Herb Hicks.
Former Newark area pastors Dick Hurdiss, Dave Mitchell, and Bob Settlage have all preached there in recent years, and your scribe even fills in for Pastor Hicks these days.
The technical date for their 200th anniversary was a few weeks back, but they will celebrate as a congregation in mid-September. Before that happy event, they look forward to the arrival and installation of Perry County’s most recent state historical marker, telling the tale of the oldest church in those parts.
With thanks to David Smith, the congregation historian, here’s the text soon to be seen in gold and brown by High Point Road off Rt. 13:
* * *
ZION REFORMED CHURCH
Zion (Ribel’s) Church was built on this site in 1808. The log structure was located in the Zion Ridge Cemetery, adjacent to the first school in Thorn Township. The congregation of Zion Reformed Church is the oldest in Perry County still in existence. The church was officially organized in 1806 when the German Reformed and Lutheran congregations joined together in building the first church in Perry County. They purchased this land on June 30, 1806, and shared the building, alternating Sundays, until 1911. In 1803, Reverend Johannes Christian Koenig (John King) became the first minister to settle in Perry County and became the founding minister for the German Reformed congregation. In 1805, Reverend Wilhelm Georg Forster (William Foster) was the first Lutheran minister to settle in Perry County and was the founding minister for the Lutherans. The present Zion Reformed Church was built across the street from the original church in 1910.
* * *
Congrats to everyone at Zion Church on their high historic hill, and we’ll stay tuned for the big celebration in September.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; spin your historic narratives to him through disciple@voyager.net.
Jeff Gill
A Trip To the South (Not Far!)
After our last two weeks looking at our Licking County religious history, we can’t forget Perry County.
Aside from giving us Dave Lehman, our area’s pioneer church heritage ties directly into some places of worship just over the border.
St. Joseph’s Catholic Church south of Somerset is the first Catholic parish in all of Ohio, with the first mass said by Bishop Fenwick in 1818. The current building is perhaps the oldest structure still in use as a regular service location for the county, dating to 1864. I may well be wrong about that, as Perry County has many buildings and congregations directly preceding and leading to Licking County establishments, but St. Joseph’s deserves and will get her own treatment in this space someday soon.
What we just marked as a bicentennial for a Perry County house of worship is the 1806 founding of Zion Church, along Rt. 13 south of Thornville. I’m sure I’m not the only one to find it ironic that after passing Zion Road exits for what seems half a dozen times between Thornport to the hill where today’s Zion UCC stands, you turn on High Point Road, east where the Backwoods Festival crowds turn west.
Founded as a union church for both German Reformed and Lutheran congregations, the Reformed branch joined under the E&R wing with the Congregational Church 50 years ago to help found the United Church of Christ. Zion Church still honors German roots, Reformed liturgy of the Mercersburg tradition, Lutheran Pietism and Congregational thoughtfulness in her life today, led by Dr. Herb Hicks.
Former Newark area pastors Dick Hurdiss, Dave Mitchell, and Bob Settlage have all preached there in recent years, and your scribe even fills in for Pastor Hicks these days.
The technical date for their 200th anniversary was a few weeks back, but they will celebrate as a congregation in mid-September. Before that happy event, they look forward to the arrival and installation of Perry County’s most recent state historical marker, telling the tale of the oldest church in those parts.
With thanks to David Smith, the congregation historian, here’s the text soon to be seen in gold and brown by High Point Road off Rt. 13:
* * *
ZION REFORMED CHURCH
Zion (Ribel’s) Church was built on this site in 1808. The log structure was located in the Zion Ridge Cemetery, adjacent to the first school in Thorn Township. The congregation of Zion Reformed Church is the oldest in Perry County still in existence. The church was officially organized in 1806 when the German Reformed and Lutheran congregations joined together in building the first church in Perry County. They purchased this land on June 30, 1806, and shared the building, alternating Sundays, until 1911. In 1803, Reverend Johannes Christian Koenig (John King) became the first minister to settle in Perry County and became the founding minister for the German Reformed congregation. In 1805, Reverend Wilhelm Georg Forster (William Foster) was the first Lutheran minister to settle in Perry County and was the founding minister for the Lutherans. The present Zion Reformed Church was built across the street from the original church in 1910.
* * *
Congrats to everyone at Zion Church on their high historic hill, and we’ll stay tuned for the big celebration in September.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; spin your historic narratives to him through disciple@voyager.net.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Notes From My Knapsack 7-23-06
Jeff Gill
With Summer Set On High
Heat waves are no laughing matter, even for the sun worshipers among us who long for Florida or Arizona or the Riviera.
Some years ago a heat wave across the Northern Hemisphere led to hundreds of deaths in Chicago and tens of thousands in France, both pretty civilized places.
Even when the power doesn't go out, for those who dislike air conditioning, can't afford to run it, or just the bewildered and confused can get caught in a vicious cycle of heat, dehydraytion, and dizziness leading to unconsciousness and death.
This is a good time to get to know your neighbors if you haven't already, throw a late evening picnic or block party, and call relatives who are getting on a bit in years.
Lightning is more likely to strike you than the Powerball, and tornados are dramatic but quite infrequent, especially so far this summer. But people die in central Ohio every summer from heat stroke and related issues, often right in their living rooms . . . talk about your preventable causes of death!
Drink, drink, drink, y'all, and no, not that stuff. All year 'round Americans tend to go about in a general state of dehydration, with impairments from memory loss to slower reflexes to unnecessary discomfort. Soda pop, even in the MegaGulpSlurpCanister size, can help keep you on the down side of fluid balance in your body. Water is great, tap water just fine, but keep on drinking it through the day.
Eating a good quantity of fruits and vegetables has a good influence in making your body want fluid rather than feel falsely filled, so diet can affect this internal sense as well. Plus drinking water supresses your appetite naturally, leading to weight loss . . . it's all good.
As you may be able to tell, I just got back from directing a week of church camp, where the other gospel we preached was "drink water!" Counselors and kids alike, with the steady rains we experienced, had to be reminded frequently, and still the visits to the health officer came for headaches and tummy aches and just plain all body icks that tended to vanish with the application of 2000 ml of H2O between the teeth.
I know I got tedious on the subject at camp, and why should i not be tedious for you folks? As Spiderman says, with great heat comes great responsibility. Or something like that -- I feel tired and confused, and need to go get a drink.
I'll be right back!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; share a summer tip with him at disciple@voyager.net.
Jeff Gill
With Summer Set On High
Heat waves are no laughing matter, even for the sun worshipers among us who long for Florida or Arizona or the Riviera.
Some years ago a heat wave across the Northern Hemisphere led to hundreds of deaths in Chicago and tens of thousands in France, both pretty civilized places.
Even when the power doesn't go out, for those who dislike air conditioning, can't afford to run it, or just the bewildered and confused can get caught in a vicious cycle of heat, dehydraytion, and dizziness leading to unconsciousness and death.
This is a good time to get to know your neighbors if you haven't already, throw a late evening picnic or block party, and call relatives who are getting on a bit in years.
Lightning is more likely to strike you than the Powerball, and tornados are dramatic but quite infrequent, especially so far this summer. But people die in central Ohio every summer from heat stroke and related issues, often right in their living rooms . . . talk about your preventable causes of death!
Drink, drink, drink, y'all, and no, not that stuff. All year 'round Americans tend to go about in a general state of dehydration, with impairments from memory loss to slower reflexes to unnecessary discomfort. Soda pop, even in the MegaGulpSlurpCanister size, can help keep you on the down side of fluid balance in your body. Water is great, tap water just fine, but keep on drinking it through the day.
Eating a good quantity of fruits and vegetables has a good influence in making your body want fluid rather than feel falsely filled, so diet can affect this internal sense as well. Plus drinking water supresses your appetite naturally, leading to weight loss . . . it's all good.
As you may be able to tell, I just got back from directing a week of church camp, where the other gospel we preached was "drink water!" Counselors and kids alike, with the steady rains we experienced, had to be reminded frequently, and still the visits to the health officer came for headaches and tummy aches and just plain all body icks that tended to vanish with the application of 2000 ml of H2O between the teeth.
I know I got tedious on the subject at camp, and why should i not be tedious for you folks? As Spiderman says, with great heat comes great responsibility. Or something like that -- I feel tired and confused, and need to go get a drink.
I'll be right back!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; share a summer tip with him at disciple@voyager.net.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
Faith Works 7-8-06 (7-15 is part two, just below - keep scrolling!)
Jeff Gill
A Summer Puzzle
With the warm weather and outdoor activities, there are always folks who like a good crossword, sudoku, or word search in their comfy chair.
In that spirit, Faith Works offers a little quiz for y’all to mull over . . .
1) What is the oldest church building in Licking County?
2) What is the oldest church building still used for worship in these parts?
3) What is the oldest continuously worshiping congregation in the county?
4) Who was the first Christian missionary to this area, and under which denomination?
5) What was the first Christian observance in Licking County?
6) Where, and in what year was the first European child born in the county?
7) And what about the first wedding in the modern legal sense?
8)What is the earliest official cemetery in Licking County?
So, let’s give you some time to think about those questions. Not too many would know these down to the detail, but most would have a vague, general idea. If you’ll bear with me through the end of this week’s and next week’s column on the "Your Faith" page, I hope your general ideas will expand a bit.
Even if you don’t remember the specifics, but hey, it is the summertime. No test at the end, I promise.
OK, so here go the answers, with a few "tricks" I trust you’ll forgive. Errors of fact are the responsibility of the columnist, and are not the views of the management here at the Advocate!
1) What is the oldest church building in Licking County?
The correct answer, as best as I can confirm, is the Snider Muffler Shop on First Street, just south of Main Street in Newark.
Huh?
No, really; drive by sometime, a block before you reach "The Works," and look up past the Monroe Muffler banners. You’ll see a tower, and picked out in black against the cream paint over the aged brick is the year "1834," which is when Trinity Episcopal Church built the structure.
There are a number of other buildings which claim to be rebuilt on foundation stones going back farther, but I’m not aware of an older intact building made for worship . . . other than the Newark Earthworks, but we’ll leave their 2,000 year old purposes for other consideration. The lack of written records means Native faith and practice will get the standard qualifiers against their claims of "first European," et cetera.
2) You could kinda tell by the previous question that there was some kind of trick here. Not long after Trinity built the brick building now within Snider Muffler in 1834, the "Stone Pile" Church of Christ was built out on Brushy Run Road in southeastern Licking County, towards Flint Ridge. 1837 was when the work appears to begin, with worship regularly from 1838 forward. The congregation has ebbed and waned, but was given a new lease on life and a new roof by the Central Church of Christ (now Central Christian on Mt. Vernon Rd.) back 75 years ago, and there has been not only consistent worship but additions and improvements ever since.
Old Stone Church of Christ is still together on Sunday mornings in the 1837 building, and I’d have to say they have the oldest arrangement in the county.
If I am wrong about either 1) or 2), I would be absolutely delighted to hear about it!
3) What is the oldest continuously worshiping congregation in the county? Here’s where this exercise gets really tricky. First Presbyterian Church in Newark has a clear line right back to 1808, and is often called the "oldest," with the qualifier that First Presbyterian Church of Granville has met on their corner since 1805, but started as Congregational, switching under Rev. Jacob Little thirty some years later.
Licking Baptist Church in Union Township can trace their roots to 1803, and Welsh Hills Baptist to 1801 (sort of), but the congregations lapsed, sometimes more than once, over the last two centuries. Should this disqualify their claim the primacy? It certainly makes them non-continuous.
And White Chapel Methodist southeast of Heath on (yep) White Chapel Road could claim heritage to 1802 or 3, but their continuity is in some question as well.
Which brings us to: 4) Who was the first Christian missionary to this area, and under which denomination?
Actually, Chaplain David Jones, a Baptist preacher from Freehold, New Jersey, passed through and made notes just before the American Revolution, in 1773, and I’m having some fun looking for more details of his story.
But Parson Jones, who returned a number of times to visit Welsh Baptists who may well have come here on his recommendation, didn’t come with the intention to preach here. He came through largely by accident, heading back east with a guide who, um, wasn’t. Much of a guide, that is. More on Jones some other day. . .
We do know for a fact that brothers Asa and Levi Shinn, of a western Virginia settlement now called Shinnston WV, came as Methodist circuit riders to the Hog Run valley (aka White Chapel Road in Licking Township) specifically to preach the Gospel and save souls, starting a congregation if they could. By 1803, they were well known to the few earliest European settlers of all faiths in what was not yet Licking County.
5) through 8) comes next week!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; correct him (with verification!) at disciple@voyager.net.
* * *
* * *
Faith Works 7-15-06
Jeff Gill
Finishing the Quiz
Last week, I threw you eight Licking County faith community trivia questions. You only got four answers, so before I provide the last four, here are the questions again:
5) What was the first Christian observance in Licking County?
6) Where, and in what year was the first European child born in the county?
7) And what about the first wedding in the modern legal sense?
8) What is the earliest official cemetery in Licking County?
Of course, there is room for interpretation on most of these questions (is the oldest church just one still used, on the original site, without interruption, etc.), and 5) certainly counts.
Levi and Asa Shinn held worship services in settler cabins around 1800 and 1801, and Chaplain Jones returned to the area and preached for Welsh Baptists as the Granville Company settlers arrived in 1805, but Christopher Gist beats them all on a technicality. He wrote in his journal that his party of explorers celebrated Christmas just north of the Great Buffalo Swamp in 1750, heading for the Scioto valley.
The first service held in a building built for the purpose was a near tie between Presbyterians of Newark and Granville in and after 1805, using log structures built for both worship and school purposes.
6) We think we know the answer to this one, but as birth records were sketchy even when the so-called literate pioneers came in, noting that we disqualify at least 12,000 years of birthin’ babies to Native Americans due to lack of written records.
At the north end of Granville’s Galway Drive, just above the intersection of Cherry Valley Road and Newark-Granville Road, Lily Jones had a baby in 1802; she also died shortly after, and her husband John buried her there on the homestead, moving away with child (whose name is not known) and abandoning the cabin. The Jones property, later the Munson farm, was where the last night’s campsite was established before arriving in newly surveyed Granville 201 years ago. She was moved to their (Old) Colony Burying Ground as one of the first laid to rest there (or re-laid) after 1805.
7) is totally a trick question: the infrequence of resident or itinerant clergy, or even judges riding circuit in early pioneer days meant that the first weddings were often long after the first children, if they bothered at all by that point. It isn’t that folks didn’t want to get married – weddings were about all the celebration anyone got between 1800 and 1820 in these parts – but they had to be practical.
I’ve never read about broom-jumping or other folk customs as was common in the upper Ohio or Monongahela valleys before 1812, but I have trouble believing there wasn’t some Licking County equivalent. Common law marriage was simple expediency in those days.
8) Cemeteries, on the other hand, required a certain amount of community consensus. You couldn’t just plant Auntie Esmerelda anywhere, although that would have happened early enough, usually leading to a crop of marble (or local limestone & sandstone) springing up around her for a family cemetery. Many of these still adorn bends in country roads and nearby hilltops today, but often frustratingly illegible and unrecorded elsewhere.
What we do know is that the early 1803 settlers in Newark began just west of Fourth Street with a cemetery, many of whom were relocated to Sixth Street by 1814, when the first recorded graves were noted there. Some, but by no means all, were moved northeast to Cedar Hill when the city of Newark founded their third cemetery in 1850.
The Old Colony Burying Ground of Granville is usually called the oldest, with records beginning in 1805, but three may have started earlier: the Beard-Green family plot on the scenic drive through now Dawes Arboretum (not the Dawes monument and graves in the north drive, but the southern cemetery with the historic marker) may have interments going back to 1803 or earlier, and likewise the White Chapel Cemetery just north and Licking Baptist Cemetery to the west (off Beaver Run Road) are likely to contain burials from that same year.
On west, and a bit south along Refugee Road is Luray Cemetery, with some very old but illegible inscriptions. Hebron and Fairmount Cemeteries are quite historic in their own ways, but date to after 1830 and the National Road.
Fairmount also contains what archaeologists call an Adena period mound, which is a burial type, dating to as far back as 500 BC, so you might just want to count the mound, not the more "modern" cemetery as the oldest! Native American practices meant that a family or association didn’t spread out, as our cemeteries do today, but with cremation and a new interment layer the usual method, they rose up, looking over the landscape with a perspective built on their ancestors.
Literally.
And I hope this little quiz helped you get some perspective on our faith traditions in Licking County.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; send him a tombstone inscription or two through disciple@voyager.net.
Jeff Gill
A Summer Puzzle
With the warm weather and outdoor activities, there are always folks who like a good crossword, sudoku, or word search in their comfy chair.
In that spirit, Faith Works offers a little quiz for y’all to mull over . . .
1) What is the oldest church building in Licking County?
2) What is the oldest church building still used for worship in these parts?
3) What is the oldest continuously worshiping congregation in the county?
4) Who was the first Christian missionary to this area, and under which denomination?
5) What was the first Christian observance in Licking County?
6) Where, and in what year was the first European child born in the county?
7) And what about the first wedding in the modern legal sense?
8)What is the earliest official cemetery in Licking County?
So, let’s give you some time to think about those questions. Not too many would know these down to the detail, but most would have a vague, general idea. If you’ll bear with me through the end of this week’s and next week’s column on the "Your Faith" page, I hope your general ideas will expand a bit.
Even if you don’t remember the specifics, but hey, it is the summertime. No test at the end, I promise.
OK, so here go the answers, with a few "tricks" I trust you’ll forgive. Errors of fact are the responsibility of the columnist, and are not the views of the management here at the Advocate!
1) What is the oldest church building in Licking County?
The correct answer, as best as I can confirm, is the Snider Muffler Shop on First Street, just south of Main Street in Newark.
Huh?
No, really; drive by sometime, a block before you reach "The Works," and look up past the Monroe Muffler banners. You’ll see a tower, and picked out in black against the cream paint over the aged brick is the year "1834," which is when Trinity Episcopal Church built the structure.
There are a number of other buildings which claim to be rebuilt on foundation stones going back farther, but I’m not aware of an older intact building made for worship . . . other than the Newark Earthworks, but we’ll leave their 2,000 year old purposes for other consideration. The lack of written records means Native faith and practice will get the standard qualifiers against their claims of "first European," et cetera.
2) You could kinda tell by the previous question that there was some kind of trick here. Not long after Trinity built the brick building now within Snider Muffler in 1834, the "Stone Pile" Church of Christ was built out on Brushy Run Road in southeastern Licking County, towards Flint Ridge. 1837 was when the work appears to begin, with worship regularly from 1838 forward. The congregation has ebbed and waned, but was given a new lease on life and a new roof by the Central Church of Christ (now Central Christian on Mt. Vernon Rd.) back 75 years ago, and there has been not only consistent worship but additions and improvements ever since.
Old Stone Church of Christ is still together on Sunday mornings in the 1837 building, and I’d have to say they have the oldest arrangement in the county.
If I am wrong about either 1) or 2), I would be absolutely delighted to hear about it!
3) What is the oldest continuously worshiping congregation in the county? Here’s where this exercise gets really tricky. First Presbyterian Church in Newark has a clear line right back to 1808, and is often called the "oldest," with the qualifier that First Presbyterian Church of Granville has met on their corner since 1805, but started as Congregational, switching under Rev. Jacob Little thirty some years later.
Licking Baptist Church in Union Township can trace their roots to 1803, and Welsh Hills Baptist to 1801 (sort of), but the congregations lapsed, sometimes more than once, over the last two centuries. Should this disqualify their claim the primacy? It certainly makes them non-continuous.
And White Chapel Methodist southeast of Heath on (yep) White Chapel Road could claim heritage to 1802 or 3, but their continuity is in some question as well.
Which brings us to: 4) Who was the first Christian missionary to this area, and under which denomination?
Actually, Chaplain David Jones, a Baptist preacher from Freehold, New Jersey, passed through and made notes just before the American Revolution, in 1773, and I’m having some fun looking for more details of his story.
But Parson Jones, who returned a number of times to visit Welsh Baptists who may well have come here on his recommendation, didn’t come with the intention to preach here. He came through largely by accident, heading back east with a guide who, um, wasn’t. Much of a guide, that is. More on Jones some other day. . .
We do know for a fact that brothers Asa and Levi Shinn, of a western Virginia settlement now called Shinnston WV, came as Methodist circuit riders to the Hog Run valley (aka White Chapel Road in Licking Township) specifically to preach the Gospel and save souls, starting a congregation if they could. By 1803, they were well known to the few earliest European settlers of all faiths in what was not yet Licking County.
5) through 8) comes next week!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; correct him (with verification!) at disciple@voyager.net.
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Faith Works 7-15-06
Jeff Gill
Finishing the Quiz
Last week, I threw you eight Licking County faith community trivia questions. You only got four answers, so before I provide the last four, here are the questions again:
5) What was the first Christian observance in Licking County?
6) Where, and in what year was the first European child born in the county?
7) And what about the first wedding in the modern legal sense?
8) What is the earliest official cemetery in Licking County?
Of course, there is room for interpretation on most of these questions (is the oldest church just one still used, on the original site, without interruption, etc.), and 5) certainly counts.
Levi and Asa Shinn held worship services in settler cabins around 1800 and 1801, and Chaplain Jones returned to the area and preached for Welsh Baptists as the Granville Company settlers arrived in 1805, but Christopher Gist beats them all on a technicality. He wrote in his journal that his party of explorers celebrated Christmas just north of the Great Buffalo Swamp in 1750, heading for the Scioto valley.
The first service held in a building built for the purpose was a near tie between Presbyterians of Newark and Granville in and after 1805, using log structures built for both worship and school purposes.
6) We think we know the answer to this one, but as birth records were sketchy even when the so-called literate pioneers came in, noting that we disqualify at least 12,000 years of birthin’ babies to Native Americans due to lack of written records.
At the north end of Granville’s Galway Drive, just above the intersection of Cherry Valley Road and Newark-Granville Road, Lily Jones had a baby in 1802; she also died shortly after, and her husband John buried her there on the homestead, moving away with child (whose name is not known) and abandoning the cabin. The Jones property, later the Munson farm, was where the last night’s campsite was established before arriving in newly surveyed Granville 201 years ago. She was moved to their (Old) Colony Burying Ground as one of the first laid to rest there (or re-laid) after 1805.
7) is totally a trick question: the infrequence of resident or itinerant clergy, or even judges riding circuit in early pioneer days meant that the first weddings were often long after the first children, if they bothered at all by that point. It isn’t that folks didn’t want to get married – weddings were about all the celebration anyone got between 1800 and 1820 in these parts – but they had to be practical.
I’ve never read about broom-jumping or other folk customs as was common in the upper Ohio or Monongahela valleys before 1812, but I have trouble believing there wasn’t some Licking County equivalent. Common law marriage was simple expediency in those days.
8) Cemeteries, on the other hand, required a certain amount of community consensus. You couldn’t just plant Auntie Esmerelda anywhere, although that would have happened early enough, usually leading to a crop of marble (or local limestone & sandstone) springing up around her for a family cemetery. Many of these still adorn bends in country roads and nearby hilltops today, but often frustratingly illegible and unrecorded elsewhere.
What we do know is that the early 1803 settlers in Newark began just west of Fourth Street with a cemetery, many of whom were relocated to Sixth Street by 1814, when the first recorded graves were noted there. Some, but by no means all, were moved northeast to Cedar Hill when the city of Newark founded their third cemetery in 1850.
The Old Colony Burying Ground of Granville is usually called the oldest, with records beginning in 1805, but three may have started earlier: the Beard-Green family plot on the scenic drive through now Dawes Arboretum (not the Dawes monument and graves in the north drive, but the southern cemetery with the historic marker) may have interments going back to 1803 or earlier, and likewise the White Chapel Cemetery just north and Licking Baptist Cemetery to the west (off Beaver Run Road) are likely to contain burials from that same year.
On west, and a bit south along Refugee Road is Luray Cemetery, with some very old but illegible inscriptions. Hebron and Fairmount Cemeteries are quite historic in their own ways, but date to after 1830 and the National Road.
Fairmount also contains what archaeologists call an Adena period mound, which is a burial type, dating to as far back as 500 BC, so you might just want to count the mound, not the more "modern" cemetery as the oldest! Native American practices meant that a family or association didn’t spread out, as our cemeteries do today, but with cremation and a new interment layer the usual method, they rose up, looking over the landscape with a perspective built on their ancestors.
Literally.
And I hope this little quiz helped you get some perspective on our faith traditions in Licking County.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; send him a tombstone inscription or two through disciple@voyager.net.
Notes From My Knapsack 7-9-06 (see below for 7-16, a related column)
Jeff Gill
When Our Children Come Home
Along with camps and sports clinics and county fairs, kids are packing up in some households for college. Classes may not begin for weeks, but freshmen days on campus or early orientation or even "fall" sports get going in just the next few weeks.
These can be bittersweet days, all the more as most young people who travel away for higher education tend to stay away, returning for visits but very rarely moving home to work and live.
The Lovely Wife and I lived in West Virginia for six years, and were struck by how much political campaigning was focused on "bring our children home." Lines like "vote for me and we’ll keep our kids and grandkids here," or "my opponent has turned a blind eye to thousands of our young people moving out of state" were standard fare. No one was against this, it was more a question of who could make the better case for how their plans and policies would allow everyone’s descendents to stay near the home place, and not the other guy.
Meanwhile, the more this was the rhetoric, the reality just increased that college grads left the state, in ever larger numbers.
Then we moved back into Ohio, and what do you know: we’ve started hearing candidates slide references into ads like "and I’ll help keep our children working and living in Ohio."
Surely this is a fine idea that no one can argue with, but my fear is that as in West Virginia, and with so many other political footballs, we’ll hear the most ranting and raving about the stuff elected officials can’t do anything about, and little discussion of what they can affect.
Ohio has started competing with West Virginia in the rate of college graduates who move out of state, and by some measures we’re beating them in this category (keep in mind that they’ve already seen huge losses in years past, so we’re just catching up). Central Ohio is doing better than most of the rest of the Buckeye State, but population losses in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Akron, and Dayton, along with rural Ohio, more than overwhelm our local vitality.
How realistic is the "keep our kids here" logic? Scott Russell Sanders, who spoke to freshmen at Denison last fall, spoke eloquently about the easy assumptions we have around the links between mobility and education and professional advancement. He encouraged students to think about finding a place to live and putting down roots there, even if it meant a certain loss of potential prestige, status, advancement, or even (gasp) income.
Sketching the social costs of rootlessness and vagrant culture, tracing them through non-sustainable practices and cultural amnesia, Sanders made (and makes) a strong case for why your life is better with roots. Meanwhile, American society does, in fact, presuppose that a person or a couple will move many times, across multiple states, until they reach some level of economic stability where they will then buy a vacation home in yet another locale.
For myself, I feel wistful about the place I still think of as home, and faintly envious of high school classmates who still live and work where we were students together. They take their kids to the camps we attended, picnic in the parks I explored as a kid, and go to church where we grew up.
And there’s a different sense of the same jealousy for those around me now who are marching in the same parade with their kids that they marched in as children, or are running events they watched their parents manage years ago.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; send your thoughts about community to disciple@voyager.net.
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Notes From My Knapsack 7-16-06
Jeff Gill
Send the Candidates To School
Last week I talked about two categories of people I know, those back in my hometown (in another state) who take their kids to the same camps we attended, picnic in the parks I explored as a kid, and go to church where we all grew up; I do envy them bit.
And there’s a different sense of the same jealousy for those around me now who are marching in the same parade with their kids that they marched in as children, or are running events they watched their parents manage years ago.
But there are actually very few people for me to feel that way about. I know maybe a half-dozen people who left either spot for college and ended back home to raise their families. Two back in my hometown are actually able to be there in large part because they don’t have any kids, and are free to do what they want, which for them happens to be back in northwest Indiana.
Licking County is a great place to raise a family, but the professional options for supporting a household can be limited.
Wait, you say, aren’t there lots of interesting, challenging, and even well paid jobs in central Ohio? Exactly: in Franklin, Delaware, and other surrounding counties. Beyond hourly wage jobs, many local residents are pursuing opportunities down the road (roads like the new 16/161). This means a family that stays in Licking, but whose wage-earners are spending ten and more hours per week in their car, time they don’t spend as youth group leaders or tutors or board members in Licking County.
Last I heard, out-of-county workplace directed giving to our United Way was pushing past 25%. That’s good news of a sort, but an indication of problems to come, as the landscape of volunteerism and local involvement shifts seismically.
Many local civic leaders are asking "what can be done to increase the number and type of jobs here in Licking County?" This isn’t an anti-bedroom community issue, so much as a very real concern about balance and wholeness in how to be a sustainable bedroom community.
And our children are still likely to advance themselves by moving away, for schooling and for after. Easy answers aren’t going to be real solutions from anyone running for office, but everyone can share the goal of creating a state where more people want to live, and can.
Development is getting to be dirty word in Licking County. We still have to make decisions on things like whether to support our growing schools with property or income taxes, zoning and stormwater management, the question isn’t yes or no, but good or bad.
Maybe even "good or bad" is a less useful distinction than productive and sustainable versus short term and short sighted. Education out of state is getting more attractive, and picking up your bachelor’s degree out of state greatly magnifies the likelihood you’ll not return.
Even recipients of Ohio higher ed degrees are moving away, but that’s not a reason to cut state post-secondary budgets. We need the economic energy of research and technology that comes from colleges and universities, because that’s where new jobs are born. We also want to lure capital for investment in Ohio businesses, and those dollars tend to follow campuses and the educated work force found around them.
6,000 plus students (a bit over 2,000 each) are pursuing post-high education in Licking County, at OSU-N, COTC, and Denison. Around 12,000 kids are in high school right now ‘round here, watching to see where their future is heading. I hope the campaigning going into this fall has some clear proposals for what candidates intend for our most vital economic infrastructure.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; send your community news bulletins to disciple@voyager.net.
Jeff Gill
When Our Children Come Home
Along with camps and sports clinics and county fairs, kids are packing up in some households for college. Classes may not begin for weeks, but freshmen days on campus or early orientation or even "fall" sports get going in just the next few weeks.
These can be bittersweet days, all the more as most young people who travel away for higher education tend to stay away, returning for visits but very rarely moving home to work and live.
The Lovely Wife and I lived in West Virginia for six years, and were struck by how much political campaigning was focused on "bring our children home." Lines like "vote for me and we’ll keep our kids and grandkids here," or "my opponent has turned a blind eye to thousands of our young people moving out of state" were standard fare. No one was against this, it was more a question of who could make the better case for how their plans and policies would allow everyone’s descendents to stay near the home place, and not the other guy.
Meanwhile, the more this was the rhetoric, the reality just increased that college grads left the state, in ever larger numbers.
Then we moved back into Ohio, and what do you know: we’ve started hearing candidates slide references into ads like "and I’ll help keep our children working and living in Ohio."
Surely this is a fine idea that no one can argue with, but my fear is that as in West Virginia, and with so many other political footballs, we’ll hear the most ranting and raving about the stuff elected officials can’t do anything about, and little discussion of what they can affect.
Ohio has started competing with West Virginia in the rate of college graduates who move out of state, and by some measures we’re beating them in this category (keep in mind that they’ve already seen huge losses in years past, so we’re just catching up). Central Ohio is doing better than most of the rest of the Buckeye State, but population losses in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Toledo, Akron, and Dayton, along with rural Ohio, more than overwhelm our local vitality.
How realistic is the "keep our kids here" logic? Scott Russell Sanders, who spoke to freshmen at Denison last fall, spoke eloquently about the easy assumptions we have around the links between mobility and education and professional advancement. He encouraged students to think about finding a place to live and putting down roots there, even if it meant a certain loss of potential prestige, status, advancement, or even (gasp) income.
Sketching the social costs of rootlessness and vagrant culture, tracing them through non-sustainable practices and cultural amnesia, Sanders made (and makes) a strong case for why your life is better with roots. Meanwhile, American society does, in fact, presuppose that a person or a couple will move many times, across multiple states, until they reach some level of economic stability where they will then buy a vacation home in yet another locale.
For myself, I feel wistful about the place I still think of as home, and faintly envious of high school classmates who still live and work where we were students together. They take their kids to the camps we attended, picnic in the parks I explored as a kid, and go to church where we grew up.
And there’s a different sense of the same jealousy for those around me now who are marching in the same parade with their kids that they marched in as children, or are running events they watched their parents manage years ago.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; send your thoughts about community to disciple@voyager.net.
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Notes From My Knapsack 7-16-06
Jeff Gill
Send the Candidates To School
Last week I talked about two categories of people I know, those back in my hometown (in another state) who take their kids to the same camps we attended, picnic in the parks I explored as a kid, and go to church where we all grew up; I do envy them bit.
And there’s a different sense of the same jealousy for those around me now who are marching in the same parade with their kids that they marched in as children, or are running events they watched their parents manage years ago.
But there are actually very few people for me to feel that way about. I know maybe a half-dozen people who left either spot for college and ended back home to raise their families. Two back in my hometown are actually able to be there in large part because they don’t have any kids, and are free to do what they want, which for them happens to be back in northwest Indiana.
Licking County is a great place to raise a family, but the professional options for supporting a household can be limited.
Wait, you say, aren’t there lots of interesting, challenging, and even well paid jobs in central Ohio? Exactly: in Franklin, Delaware, and other surrounding counties. Beyond hourly wage jobs, many local residents are pursuing opportunities down the road (roads like the new 16/161). This means a family that stays in Licking, but whose wage-earners are spending ten and more hours per week in their car, time they don’t spend as youth group leaders or tutors or board members in Licking County.
Last I heard, out-of-county workplace directed giving to our United Way was pushing past 25%. That’s good news of a sort, but an indication of problems to come, as the landscape of volunteerism and local involvement shifts seismically.
Many local civic leaders are asking "what can be done to increase the number and type of jobs here in Licking County?" This isn’t an anti-bedroom community issue, so much as a very real concern about balance and wholeness in how to be a sustainable bedroom community.
And our children are still likely to advance themselves by moving away, for schooling and for after. Easy answers aren’t going to be real solutions from anyone running for office, but everyone can share the goal of creating a state where more people want to live, and can.
Development is getting to be dirty word in Licking County. We still have to make decisions on things like whether to support our growing schools with property or income taxes, zoning and stormwater management, the question isn’t yes or no, but good or bad.
Maybe even "good or bad" is a less useful distinction than productive and sustainable versus short term and short sighted. Education out of state is getting more attractive, and picking up your bachelor’s degree out of state greatly magnifies the likelihood you’ll not return.
Even recipients of Ohio higher ed degrees are moving away, but that’s not a reason to cut state post-secondary budgets. We need the economic energy of research and technology that comes from colleges and universities, because that’s where new jobs are born. We also want to lure capital for investment in Ohio businesses, and those dollars tend to follow campuses and the educated work force found around them.
6,000 plus students (a bit over 2,000 each) are pursuing post-high education in Licking County, at OSU-N, COTC, and Denison. Around 12,000 kids are in high school right now ‘round here, watching to see where their future is heading. I hope the campaigning going into this fall has some clear proposals for what candidates intend for our most vital economic infrastructure.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; send your community news bulletins to disciple@voyager.net.
Wednesday, June 28, 2006
Faith Works 7-1-06
Jeff Gill
Freedom To Be . . . What?
Over this next year two fiftieth anniversaries are catching my attention, and may have a link of sorts. Let’s see what you think.
1956 and 1957 saw the formal merger of the Congregationalist and "E&R" or "Evangelical and Reformed" Churches, to start what we now know as the United Church of Christ, or UCC. In and right around Licking County we have many congregations with artifacts of this era embedded in their names: Highwater Congregational, Trinity Evangelical, and so on. But all have the "cross, crown, and orb" of the UCC logo surrounded by Jesus’ prayer in John 17 "that they may all be one." From Pilgrim roots to Mercersburg Reformed liturgy, many different distinctive strands were woven together in 1957.
This was the high tide in some ways of the modern ecumenical movement, or at least the Protestant version of it, with an emphasis on organizational and institutional merger. The 50’s and 60’s saw not only the UCC but the EUB and many Methodist bodies join in the United Methodist Church. And the groundwork was laid for what is now the ELCA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, joining a number of liturgical and ethnic Lutheran bodies as one ecclesial group.
1956 also saw the beginning of something that no one at the time probably thought of as being in competition with this unifying impulse. The National Interstate System began, a dream in young Lieutenant Eisenhower’s head as he bounced across the continent after World War I in a military convoy that was lucky to get all its trucks from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
As President Eisenhower, he signed legislation putting federal dollars and influence into building a network of state spanning, limited access highways. Recall uneasily, if you will, that these ribbons of asphalt and concrete were not built originally to sell maple nut logs or meals o’ happiness with small crunchy toys to insert in your car’s upholstery, but to move military equipment swiftly back and forth across the country.
What they ended up doing was not shift armored columns from the west to east coast, but speed the shift of populations from city centers and "first rings" of urban growth to . . . uh, well, here. Exurban, let alone suburban communities as we know them now, are the creation of high speed cloverleafed transportation corridors.
Modern suburban life is a social experiment that we are living through right now, with potential implications on a par with the invention of agriculture or the rise of the nation-state.
No, I’m not kidding.
At no point in human history have we tried to live quite this way, with a growing majority of the population living in this kind of dispersed community structure. The outcomes of what we’re doing are almost utterly unpredictable, except that it isn’t sustainable as things currently stand beyond another fifty years (a whole ‘nother column).
What it has clearly done is affirm and cement the individualist tendencies of American culture into all kinds of social spheres . . . and church life is one of them.
Shopping, consumer choice, and driving around to find what you want: these are part and parcel of modern life. Don’t find exactly what you want right next door? Get in the car/van/humm-vee and drive thirty miles ‘til you find it.
Does this effect church life? Ask any pastor who calls on new visitors. If they’ve been at this a while, they can trace for you the shift in how those conversations have gone over the last 20 or 30 years.
This force works directly against the centralizing, institutionally centered ecumenist perspective that folks in many churches thought was the future as they celebrated yet another merger . . . while they drove home on US Rt. 66 past the ribbon cutting for I-40. Any connection? Well, I’m betting you see it now yourself, all the more if you saw the movie "Cars" recently. No church in "Cars," which is itself a whole ‘nother column . . .
And Happy Birthday today to my dad, who taught me to think in this odd connection oriented sort of way!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; observe your own trendspotting to him at disciple@voyager.net.
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Notes From My Knapsack 7-2-06
Jeff Gill
Freedom Far And Near
Even if you know nothing of 30,000 feet above the ground or 30 miles away, a cumulonimbus anvil-top thunderhead in a rose-tinted dusky glow says to you, "I’m as far away as you’ll ever see something."
Throw in a red tailed hawk circling in the middle distance, receding into an infinitesimal dot just barely perceivable, and such a view has more visceral impact than even a galaxy through a telescope.
Spiral star whirls and globular clusters are distant and amazing, but with a little help from binoculars and a big assist from the knowledge of what astronomers deduce from radio telescopes and infrared observatories. But a towering thunderhead speaks directly to your mind and heart of size and distance and power.
It helps a great deal if said cloud formation is heading away from you, at least for calm appreciation. When the roiling top is swelling both in height and width, looming in the northwest and heading southeast, you start to shift your reflections to a mental inventory of patio furniture and which windows are open.
But when you have an iced tea at hand, the lawn is mowed, and said storm is passing well to the south, ideal for porch viewing, a meditative mood is in order.
Most of us will watch a passing, but powerful phenomena over the next few days: cue the "ooohhh . . . . . aahhhhhh" of standard fireworks crowd response. We can all hope we see more of pyrotechnics from chemicals and electronic launchers than the standard summer aerial display of "(flash) . . . K-Boom." Granville’s Wildwood Park fireworks on Sunday night, Monday’s Columbus’ "Red, White, and Boom," or the OSU-N concert and fireworks, and Tuesday all over the place, will all have officials watch the sky nervously, and ironically.
Ironically, because the fear is less of no fireworks than of being upstaged by Mother Nature’s own, less colorful but more reliably earthshaking light show.
My own preference for an "ideal" Fourth of July weekend is less about getting a good view of the nighttime show, though the Little Guy wants that and will likely get it (and ask to be carried as we walk the long trudge back to the car about 10:30 pm). It is the chance to marvel at the meaning of freedom and liberty that was not just fought for around about 1776, but was dreamed of and envisioned and planned and occasionally plotted and not infrequently schemed for.
The Founders negotiated, discussed, wrote, wrote some more, published, debated, occasionally legislated, and yes, they did have to fight sometimes. They also had to run at the right moment (see Jefferson, Thomas) along with knowing when to stand their ground (see Forge, Valley).
What gave them the vision to see the kind of freedom that led to this amazing society we live in today? Some of it came from a view like I have from my own front porch on a summer afternoon, shading into evening with the vast expanse of the heavens textured by clouds. They reach for infinity, but finally find a limit even in the sky, jet streams slicing a flat anvil top which presses energy down into the lightning and rain below.
Something within that sense of vastness and limit, purpose and process is where the Adams’ and Washington and even old pragmatic Hamilton could look and see a hope and a promise that they translated into documents and traditions we still celebrate today.
I hope they had some good cool tea, if not iced, while they were dreaming all this up.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; send him your story to disciple@voyager.net.
Jeff Gill
Freedom To Be . . . What?
Over this next year two fiftieth anniversaries are catching my attention, and may have a link of sorts. Let’s see what you think.
1956 and 1957 saw the formal merger of the Congregationalist and "E&R" or "Evangelical and Reformed" Churches, to start what we now know as the United Church of Christ, or UCC. In and right around Licking County we have many congregations with artifacts of this era embedded in their names: Highwater Congregational, Trinity Evangelical, and so on. But all have the "cross, crown, and orb" of the UCC logo surrounded by Jesus’ prayer in John 17 "that they may all be one." From Pilgrim roots to Mercersburg Reformed liturgy, many different distinctive strands were woven together in 1957.
This was the high tide in some ways of the modern ecumenical movement, or at least the Protestant version of it, with an emphasis on organizational and institutional merger. The 50’s and 60’s saw not only the UCC but the EUB and many Methodist bodies join in the United Methodist Church. And the groundwork was laid for what is now the ELCA, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, joining a number of liturgical and ethnic Lutheran bodies as one ecclesial group.
1956 also saw the beginning of something that no one at the time probably thought of as being in competition with this unifying impulse. The National Interstate System began, a dream in young Lieutenant Eisenhower’s head as he bounced across the continent after World War I in a military convoy that was lucky to get all its trucks from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
As President Eisenhower, he signed legislation putting federal dollars and influence into building a network of state spanning, limited access highways. Recall uneasily, if you will, that these ribbons of asphalt and concrete were not built originally to sell maple nut logs or meals o’ happiness with small crunchy toys to insert in your car’s upholstery, but to move military equipment swiftly back and forth across the country.
What they ended up doing was not shift armored columns from the west to east coast, but speed the shift of populations from city centers and "first rings" of urban growth to . . . uh, well, here. Exurban, let alone suburban communities as we know them now, are the creation of high speed cloverleafed transportation corridors.
Modern suburban life is a social experiment that we are living through right now, with potential implications on a par with the invention of agriculture or the rise of the nation-state.
No, I’m not kidding.
At no point in human history have we tried to live quite this way, with a growing majority of the population living in this kind of dispersed community structure. The outcomes of what we’re doing are almost utterly unpredictable, except that it isn’t sustainable as things currently stand beyond another fifty years (a whole ‘nother column).
What it has clearly done is affirm and cement the individualist tendencies of American culture into all kinds of social spheres . . . and church life is one of them.
Shopping, consumer choice, and driving around to find what you want: these are part and parcel of modern life. Don’t find exactly what you want right next door? Get in the car/van/humm-vee and drive thirty miles ‘til you find it.
Does this effect church life? Ask any pastor who calls on new visitors. If they’ve been at this a while, they can trace for you the shift in how those conversations have gone over the last 20 or 30 years.
This force works directly against the centralizing, institutionally centered ecumenist perspective that folks in many churches thought was the future as they celebrated yet another merger . . . while they drove home on US Rt. 66 past the ribbon cutting for I-40. Any connection? Well, I’m betting you see it now yourself, all the more if you saw the movie "Cars" recently. No church in "Cars," which is itself a whole ‘nother column . . .
And Happy Birthday today to my dad, who taught me to think in this odd connection oriented sort of way!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; observe your own trendspotting to him at disciple@voyager.net.
* * *
* * *
Notes From My Knapsack 7-2-06
Jeff Gill
Freedom Far And Near
Even if you know nothing of 30,000 feet above the ground or 30 miles away, a cumulonimbus anvil-top thunderhead in a rose-tinted dusky glow says to you, "I’m as far away as you’ll ever see something."
Throw in a red tailed hawk circling in the middle distance, receding into an infinitesimal dot just barely perceivable, and such a view has more visceral impact than even a galaxy through a telescope.
Spiral star whirls and globular clusters are distant and amazing, but with a little help from binoculars and a big assist from the knowledge of what astronomers deduce from radio telescopes and infrared observatories. But a towering thunderhead speaks directly to your mind and heart of size and distance and power.
It helps a great deal if said cloud formation is heading away from you, at least for calm appreciation. When the roiling top is swelling both in height and width, looming in the northwest and heading southeast, you start to shift your reflections to a mental inventory of patio furniture and which windows are open.
But when you have an iced tea at hand, the lawn is mowed, and said storm is passing well to the south, ideal for porch viewing, a meditative mood is in order.
Most of us will watch a passing, but powerful phenomena over the next few days: cue the "ooohhh . . . . . aahhhhhh" of standard fireworks crowd response. We can all hope we see more of pyrotechnics from chemicals and electronic launchers than the standard summer aerial display of "(flash) . . . K-Boom." Granville’s Wildwood Park fireworks on Sunday night, Monday’s Columbus’ "Red, White, and Boom," or the OSU-N concert and fireworks, and Tuesday all over the place, will all have officials watch the sky nervously, and ironically.
Ironically, because the fear is less of no fireworks than of being upstaged by Mother Nature’s own, less colorful but more reliably earthshaking light show.
My own preference for an "ideal" Fourth of July weekend is less about getting a good view of the nighttime show, though the Little Guy wants that and will likely get it (and ask to be carried as we walk the long trudge back to the car about 10:30 pm). It is the chance to marvel at the meaning of freedom and liberty that was not just fought for around about 1776, but was dreamed of and envisioned and planned and occasionally plotted and not infrequently schemed for.
The Founders negotiated, discussed, wrote, wrote some more, published, debated, occasionally legislated, and yes, they did have to fight sometimes. They also had to run at the right moment (see Jefferson, Thomas) along with knowing when to stand their ground (see Forge, Valley).
What gave them the vision to see the kind of freedom that led to this amazing society we live in today? Some of it came from a view like I have from my own front porch on a summer afternoon, shading into evening with the vast expanse of the heavens textured by clouds. They reach for infinity, but finally find a limit even in the sky, jet streams slicing a flat anvil top which presses energy down into the lightning and rain below.
Something within that sense of vastness and limit, purpose and process is where the Adams’ and Washington and even old pragmatic Hamilton could look and see a hope and a promise that they translated into documents and traditions we still celebrate today.
I hope they had some good cool tea, if not iced, while they were dreaming all this up.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; send him your story to disciple@voyager.net.
Sunday, June 18, 2006
Notes From My Knapsack 6-25-06
Jeff Gill
Day Camp Takes All Year
Cub Scout Day Camp for Licking District Cub Scouts has ended, and the older Boy Scout troops are now going week by week out to Camp Falling Rock, out Rocky Fork way a couple miles past Hickman on Rt. 79.
Before we forget, and the carved bars of soap, birdhouses, and stamped leather crafts are put to work or put away around the house, it is time for a huge "Thank You!"
Our district Cub Day Camp is so popular, in fact, that the thanks have to come from Franklin, Fairfield, Perry, and Muskingum Counties. From June 13 to June 17, a total of 321 young boys from six to ten years old, 46 siblings who had parents that were among the 242 adults assisting with the twenty stations and four days (five for the older, or Webelos Scouts) of "Scouter Space" adventures, the theme for 2006 Cub Day Camp.
Ric and Angela Eader of Pataskala returned as directors, and were honored at the closing program by Jeff Schiavone, Licking District executive for the Simon Kenton Council, our wider Scouting structure in central Ohio. Over 600 crowded into the Waterfalls Amphitheater at Camp Falling Rock and gave a standing ovation to the leaders who made this amazing week possible.
For doing a program area, usually repeated twenty times in four days for groups of twelve to twenty-two, the Eaders note that they can’t be everywhere, so they needed these folks: A.J. Hildreth, Debbie Neighbarger, Brad Barborak, Amy Ybarra, Ruth Herbert, John Cash, Aaron Kirkingburg, Dave Addis, Jim Coley, Rick Ives, Randall Farley, Martie Slate, Jeff Chapman, Anne Arnold, Lisa Crum, Joe Bush, Harold Mason, health officer Russell Sparks and his wife Rebecca, and Lori Harvey, plus eight boys from Troop 141, and the staff of CFR who ran the pool.
That’s just to run the program.
Then you needed at least twenty adults who were committed to being there all four program days as day camp den leaders, plus dozens more "den walkers" who were parents who came a day or two as they could, and climbed Cardiac Hill as they could, or couldn’t.
We’re trying to get the name changed to the more optomistic "Cardio Hill," since your cardiovascular health is certainly helped by two or three trips up that slope each day!
For the den leaders who knew how to find the Foxfire Trail (hi Stephanie! Thanks Al!) and all the rest, the week really couldn’t happen without you.
Many youth serving programs have been having a rough time, with the press of so many competing options and the lure of the dancing blue fire in our air conditioned caves. I know many of you rejoice with me that close to 400 kids got dirty, got out in the sun (yes, SPF 40 was slathered in abundance), and got away from electronic almost everything, at least until they got home hungry, tired, and maybe a bit more thankful for their homes in the evenings.
And if we did our part right, they were ready for bed, too, for which I know their parents were thankful. Enjoy these longest days of the year this week, and get out and find a blister on a trail somewhere.
If you’re not sure what to do or where you’re going in the out-of-doors, ask your local Cub Scout. They have a pretty good idea of what’s going on out under the trees and stars.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s also a proud Cub Scout leader (like you couldn’t tell), so send him your tales of the trail at disciple@voyager.net.
Jeff Gill
Day Camp Takes All Year
Cub Scout Day Camp for Licking District Cub Scouts has ended, and the older Boy Scout troops are now going week by week out to Camp Falling Rock, out Rocky Fork way a couple miles past Hickman on Rt. 79.
Before we forget, and the carved bars of soap, birdhouses, and stamped leather crafts are put to work or put away around the house, it is time for a huge "Thank You!"
Our district Cub Day Camp is so popular, in fact, that the thanks have to come from Franklin, Fairfield, Perry, and Muskingum Counties. From June 13 to June 17, a total of 321 young boys from six to ten years old, 46 siblings who had parents that were among the 242 adults assisting with the twenty stations and four days (five for the older, or Webelos Scouts) of "Scouter Space" adventures, the theme for 2006 Cub Day Camp.
Ric and Angela Eader of Pataskala returned as directors, and were honored at the closing program by Jeff Schiavone, Licking District executive for the Simon Kenton Council, our wider Scouting structure in central Ohio. Over 600 crowded into the Waterfalls Amphitheater at Camp Falling Rock and gave a standing ovation to the leaders who made this amazing week possible.
For doing a program area, usually repeated twenty times in four days for groups of twelve to twenty-two, the Eaders note that they can’t be everywhere, so they needed these folks: A.J. Hildreth, Debbie Neighbarger, Brad Barborak, Amy Ybarra, Ruth Herbert, John Cash, Aaron Kirkingburg, Dave Addis, Jim Coley, Rick Ives, Randall Farley, Martie Slate, Jeff Chapman, Anne Arnold, Lisa Crum, Joe Bush, Harold Mason, health officer Russell Sparks and his wife Rebecca, and Lori Harvey, plus eight boys from Troop 141, and the staff of CFR who ran the pool.
That’s just to run the program.
Then you needed at least twenty adults who were committed to being there all four program days as day camp den leaders, plus dozens more "den walkers" who were parents who came a day or two as they could, and climbed Cardiac Hill as they could, or couldn’t.
We’re trying to get the name changed to the more optomistic "Cardio Hill," since your cardiovascular health is certainly helped by two or three trips up that slope each day!
For the den leaders who knew how to find the Foxfire Trail (hi Stephanie! Thanks Al!) and all the rest, the week really couldn’t happen without you.
Many youth serving programs have been having a rough time, with the press of so many competing options and the lure of the dancing blue fire in our air conditioned caves. I know many of you rejoice with me that close to 400 kids got dirty, got out in the sun (yes, SPF 40 was slathered in abundance), and got away from electronic almost everything, at least until they got home hungry, tired, and maybe a bit more thankful for their homes in the evenings.
And if we did our part right, they were ready for bed, too, for which I know their parents were thankful. Enjoy these longest days of the year this week, and get out and find a blister on a trail somewhere.
If you’re not sure what to do or where you’re going in the out-of-doors, ask your local Cub Scout. They have a pretty good idea of what’s going on out under the trees and stars.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s also a proud Cub Scout leader (like you couldn’t tell), so send him your tales of the trail at disciple@voyager.net.
Faith Works 6-24-06
Jeff Gill
Joseph Smith a Prophet for Some
(a problem for others!)
162 years ago this week, Joseph Smith, Jr. was martyred for his faith in Carthage, Illinois.
Yes, this is the man who founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, popularly known as "Mormons" and which we’ll call the LDS church.
Members prefer "Latter Day Saints" as a label, and have tried to focus popular attention to the prominence of Jesus Christ in their long-official full name. They use the King James Version of the Bible common to Christian denominations of all sorts, and a tour of one of their many temples around the world will feature Jesus’ story, albeit through the lens of the "Book of Mormon," an 1830 text which many believe Smith wrote himself but which the LDS Church holds as inspired scripture, including Jesus appearing in this hemisphere as part of his resurrected ministry.
So is the LDS Church a Christian denomination? A few of you noted I side-stepped the question in our brisk review of Christendom a few weeks back.
I had intended to write something about the LDSers and the Prophet Joseph closer to June 27, when he died in 1844, but there was a nod to the influence Smith’s movement had on the American frontier. . . and read on to see a key local connection with their own 175th anniversary this year.
The nod was in my discussion of the "Restoration Movement," usually associated with Barton Stone, Cane Ridge revivals in 1801, and Alexander Campbell. Less well known is that Joseph Smith is known among LDS and related groups (like the RLDS, now called the "Community of Christ"), as a "restorationist leader" with an original agenda of restoring the ancient order of things.
In fact, the parallels (or borrowings, hard to trace) are so strong that many of the early Stone-Campbell restorationist pastors jumped denominational boundaries a second time, saying Campbell in particular did not go far enough. They accepted the "Book of Mormon" as a tool for recovering the simplicity of the early Christian church, especially in northeast Ohio. There the Western Reserve district became a powerful center for Smith’s movement to build from, where the first Mormon temple was built and still stands (operated by the RLDS group) in Kirtland outside Cleveland.
Financial setbacks, including a fair amount of imprudence and illegality around founding a bank for common life in the Kirtland community, spurred a migration first to Missouri, where they faced harsh and violent persecution, and then to the Mississippi banks of Nauvoo, Illinois, where after a peaceful respite their Christian neighbors saw them with first alarm, and then anger. Threatened by both overwhelming growth and odd practices like polygamy, the civil authorities were manipulated and finally trumped by a lynch mob, which stormed the small courthouse and jail in Carthage where Joseph Smith, Jr. met his end at the age of 39.
Smith died for his beliefs. That much is clear. But was he a Christian? He would have said yes, but his additions and even corrections to Christian teachings have left many others saying no. Groups as diverse as the Catholic and Methodist churches require rebaptism of LDS members who convert, saying that the peculiarities of Mormon teachings clearly leave their baptism outside of any definition of Christian orthodoxy, such as the nature of God having once been a physical, human person, and that human persons will become gods themselves in the "celestial kingdom."
Beyond argument is that 12 million claim LDS Church membership, and their local churches, or "stakes" help to support the center stake of the tent of Zion in Salt Lake City, Utah today. Their vision of lay leadership through locally ordained overseers, or bishops is one approximation of what the Restorationist Movement intended in 1830.
And here in Licking County we all owe this much to that movement: Baptists, who lost a number of Western Reserve congregations to first the Reformed Baptists of Campbell (later Disciples of Christ) and to the early Latter Day Saints, decided in 1830 they needed to train their clergy and lay leaders better.
So in 1831 they founded a college to do just that, the Granville Theological and Literary Institution. As Denison University today, they celebrate their 175th anniversary in Granville this fall!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a tale at disciple@voyager.net.
Jeff Gill
Joseph Smith a Prophet for Some
(a problem for others!)
162 years ago this week, Joseph Smith, Jr. was martyred for his faith in Carthage, Illinois.
Yes, this is the man who founded the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, popularly known as "Mormons" and which we’ll call the LDS church.
Members prefer "Latter Day Saints" as a label, and have tried to focus popular attention to the prominence of Jesus Christ in their long-official full name. They use the King James Version of the Bible common to Christian denominations of all sorts, and a tour of one of their many temples around the world will feature Jesus’ story, albeit through the lens of the "Book of Mormon," an 1830 text which many believe Smith wrote himself but which the LDS Church holds as inspired scripture, including Jesus appearing in this hemisphere as part of his resurrected ministry.
So is the LDS Church a Christian denomination? A few of you noted I side-stepped the question in our brisk review of Christendom a few weeks back.
I had intended to write something about the LDSers and the Prophet Joseph closer to June 27, when he died in 1844, but there was a nod to the influence Smith’s movement had on the American frontier. . . and read on to see a key local connection with their own 175th anniversary this year.
The nod was in my discussion of the "Restoration Movement," usually associated with Barton Stone, Cane Ridge revivals in 1801, and Alexander Campbell. Less well known is that Joseph Smith is known among LDS and related groups (like the RLDS, now called the "Community of Christ"), as a "restorationist leader" with an original agenda of restoring the ancient order of things.
In fact, the parallels (or borrowings, hard to trace) are so strong that many of the early Stone-Campbell restorationist pastors jumped denominational boundaries a second time, saying Campbell in particular did not go far enough. They accepted the "Book of Mormon" as a tool for recovering the simplicity of the early Christian church, especially in northeast Ohio. There the Western Reserve district became a powerful center for Smith’s movement to build from, where the first Mormon temple was built and still stands (operated by the RLDS group) in Kirtland outside Cleveland.
Financial setbacks, including a fair amount of imprudence and illegality around founding a bank for common life in the Kirtland community, spurred a migration first to Missouri, where they faced harsh and violent persecution, and then to the Mississippi banks of Nauvoo, Illinois, where after a peaceful respite their Christian neighbors saw them with first alarm, and then anger. Threatened by both overwhelming growth and odd practices like polygamy, the civil authorities were manipulated and finally trumped by a lynch mob, which stormed the small courthouse and jail in Carthage where Joseph Smith, Jr. met his end at the age of 39.
Smith died for his beliefs. That much is clear. But was he a Christian? He would have said yes, but his additions and even corrections to Christian teachings have left many others saying no. Groups as diverse as the Catholic and Methodist churches require rebaptism of LDS members who convert, saying that the peculiarities of Mormon teachings clearly leave their baptism outside of any definition of Christian orthodoxy, such as the nature of God having once been a physical, human person, and that human persons will become gods themselves in the "celestial kingdom."
Beyond argument is that 12 million claim LDS Church membership, and their local churches, or "stakes" help to support the center stake of the tent of Zion in Salt Lake City, Utah today. Their vision of lay leadership through locally ordained overseers, or bishops is one approximation of what the Restorationist Movement intended in 1830.
And here in Licking County we all owe this much to that movement: Baptists, who lost a number of Western Reserve congregations to first the Reformed Baptists of Campbell (later Disciples of Christ) and to the early Latter Day Saints, decided in 1830 they needed to train their clergy and lay leaders better.
So in 1831 they founded a college to do just that, the Granville Theological and Literary Institution. As Denison University today, they celebrate their 175th anniversary in Granville this fall!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a tale at disciple@voyager.net.
Thursday, June 15, 2006
Faith Works 6-17-06
Jeff Gill
So Many Resolutions, So Little Time
Church bodies of all sorts, but especially Christian denominations, tend to have their conventions or assemblies or synods or whathaveyous in the summer.
Giving delegates a chance to wrap a family vacation around the affair is no doubt part of the plan, as well as less business or trade association traffic in the convention centers needed to pull off such an event. The size of the gathering has little to do with the size of the communion in question: The Episcopal Church numbers around two million members, but has around 10,000 people passing this weekend through the Columbus Convention Center, while 60 million Catholics await the reports out of a few dozen bishops at their conference.
Southern Baptists just elected a new chief executive officer with fewer delegates, or "messengers" than the Presbyterians use with six times the adherents.
One common feature from all of these gatherings I notice is a fundamental disconnect between national or general bodies and the average member in the pews. Sometimes that disagreement percolates up, as with the choice of an unexpected low key pastor at the Southern Baptist Convention, expressing a hesitation over the former front-running mega-church style pastor.
More often it is outright disagreement, such as is found among many Catholics in their personal and lifestyle choices versus the clear teachings of the US Bishops’ Conference (let alone the Vatican), or Presbyterians’ rejecting an "Israel dis-investment" resolution, or UCC churches withdrawing, including a number here in Ohio, over last summer’s resolutions on marriage equality for gay and lesbian persons (the synod was for it, many lay people are agin’ it).
Everyone from the local West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church, which just finished their annual "do," to the gathering of the UCC’s Ohio Conference, is looking at reductions in how much money local congregations are sending to work beyond their immediate areas, which forces cuts and major changes in how those state and national bodies staff and program their work.
Some blame this trend on increased personnel costs (which for full-time, especially clergy employees, has gone up drastically in recent years), building maintenance left undone by many churches through the last quarter-century, and fixed costs like insurance and heating. Others argue that a new form of selfishness pervades local churches, but much of that opinion comes from staff in wider ministries who are facing directly the outcome of those increased costs.
Or to put it another way, I just don’t think congregations are more selfish today than forty years ago. People are giving more, across the board, to their faith communities, it just isn’t being reflected in more income for nationally oriented programs.
There is an element of that holdback of funds that goes back to that disconnect, the one between local members and national leaders. It isn’t, if you’re assuming what I’ll say next, a liberal/conservative thing, since conservative groups are seeing much the same trends, just masked by more members.
People are not sure exactly what is being done, and why, in their name by many of these distant offices and programs and ministries. Offerings like "Week of Compassion," "One Great Hour of Sharing," or "(Blank) Relief Society of (Your Church)" get staggering amounts of money when a particular situation, with specific promises about where the resources go, are set before them.
But too many of the lobbying, opinion shaping, workshop after workshop presenting efforts, with a perceived lack of responsiveness or accountability to the local level, just don’t reach people on the basis of denominational loyalty anymore. Maybe they never should have . . .but they shore don’t work much now, brother.
Districts and regions and boards and commissions are closing down, replaced by smaller, leaner organizations, with the promise of greater transparency and stronger relatedness to the local church. The World War II generation, profoundly motivated by loyalty, is giving way to a generation that may well be less generous, but is also more skeptical.
Stewardship efforts will need to keep all this in mind as the work of the church is transformed by these trends. Local treasurers have known it for some time; maybe they could, um, ask them about it, no?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he was only church treasurer once, and prays nightly this cup will never pass his way again! Tell him your story at disciple@voyager.net.
Jeff Gill
So Many Resolutions, So Little Time
Church bodies of all sorts, but especially Christian denominations, tend to have their conventions or assemblies or synods or whathaveyous in the summer.
Giving delegates a chance to wrap a family vacation around the affair is no doubt part of the plan, as well as less business or trade association traffic in the convention centers needed to pull off such an event. The size of the gathering has little to do with the size of the communion in question: The Episcopal Church numbers around two million members, but has around 10,000 people passing this weekend through the Columbus Convention Center, while 60 million Catholics await the reports out of a few dozen bishops at their conference.
Southern Baptists just elected a new chief executive officer with fewer delegates, or "messengers" than the Presbyterians use with six times the adherents.
One common feature from all of these gatherings I notice is a fundamental disconnect between national or general bodies and the average member in the pews. Sometimes that disagreement percolates up, as with the choice of an unexpected low key pastor at the Southern Baptist Convention, expressing a hesitation over the former front-running mega-church style pastor.
More often it is outright disagreement, such as is found among many Catholics in their personal and lifestyle choices versus the clear teachings of the US Bishops’ Conference (let alone the Vatican), or Presbyterians’ rejecting an "Israel dis-investment" resolution, or UCC churches withdrawing, including a number here in Ohio, over last summer’s resolutions on marriage equality for gay and lesbian persons (the synod was for it, many lay people are agin’ it).
Everyone from the local West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church, which just finished their annual "do," to the gathering of the UCC’s Ohio Conference, is looking at reductions in how much money local congregations are sending to work beyond their immediate areas, which forces cuts and major changes in how those state and national bodies staff and program their work.
Some blame this trend on increased personnel costs (which for full-time, especially clergy employees, has gone up drastically in recent years), building maintenance left undone by many churches through the last quarter-century, and fixed costs like insurance and heating. Others argue that a new form of selfishness pervades local churches, but much of that opinion comes from staff in wider ministries who are facing directly the outcome of those increased costs.
Or to put it another way, I just don’t think congregations are more selfish today than forty years ago. People are giving more, across the board, to their faith communities, it just isn’t being reflected in more income for nationally oriented programs.
There is an element of that holdback of funds that goes back to that disconnect, the one between local members and national leaders. It isn’t, if you’re assuming what I’ll say next, a liberal/conservative thing, since conservative groups are seeing much the same trends, just masked by more members.
People are not sure exactly what is being done, and why, in their name by many of these distant offices and programs and ministries. Offerings like "Week of Compassion," "One Great Hour of Sharing," or "(Blank) Relief Society of (Your Church)" get staggering amounts of money when a particular situation, with specific promises about where the resources go, are set before them.
But too many of the lobbying, opinion shaping, workshop after workshop presenting efforts, with a perceived lack of responsiveness or accountability to the local level, just don’t reach people on the basis of denominational loyalty anymore. Maybe they never should have . . .but they shore don’t work much now, brother.
Districts and regions and boards and commissions are closing down, replaced by smaller, leaner organizations, with the promise of greater transparency and stronger relatedness to the local church. The World War II generation, profoundly motivated by loyalty, is giving way to a generation that may well be less generous, but is also more skeptical.
Stewardship efforts will need to keep all this in mind as the work of the church is transformed by these trends. Local treasurers have known it for some time; maybe they could, um, ask them about it, no?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he was only church treasurer once, and prays nightly this cup will never pass his way again! Tell him your story at disciple@voyager.net.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Notes From My Knapsack 6-18-06
Jeff Gill
Crossing the Border
Ken Salazar speaks fluent Spanish. He lives and works in Colorado, but his family is from the south. Not Mexico, though. . .
New Mexico, actually, where his ancestors were among the founders of Santa Fe four centuries ago. His lineage does go back to south of the Rio Grande, but before there was a Mexico, so he jokes before audiences about whether or not he can really claim the label "Mexican-American" many put on him. Salazar goes on to point out that his family never crossed the border, but the border crossed them.
As a United States Senator, he has this conversation often. The first Hispanic elected outside New Mexico to such office, the Democrat is asked to help Anglo audiences in Colorado and around the US understand some of the challenges and intricacies of the immigration issue.
No one, from Salazar on down, doubts that ten million plus illegal immigrants over the last decade from Mexico represents a unique problem that has to be addressed. What can be lost in the political furor over the southern border is that tens of millions of Spanish speaking Americans are already here, are US citizens from before the Gadsden Purchase, and that the Hispanic/Latino element of this country’s ethnic mix is vital and longstanding.
We may not get Ken Salazar to speak in Licking County anytime soon, but a new novel can help you get some perspective on how Latino is not new piece in the national fabric, but one of our oldest stripes of color in the flag.
"The Night Journal," by Elizabeth Crook, is a fictional story about made up people, but set in actual places you can visit, like Pecos Pueblo southeast of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Las Vegas. Nope, not that one, but a quieter and much, much older one on the eastern edge of the Rockies, where the Sangre de Cristo range starts to rise to the north.
Crook has clearly done her research on New Mexican, Mexican, Mormon, and general American history, weaving them together with a tale of settlers and railroads and a briefly glimpsed appearance by Paul Harvey. Nope, not that one, but the fellow who a century and more ago, opened up the southwest to the first tourism boom. If you’ve traveled in the Grand Canyon area, you may have run into the name still used for hotel and restaurant management.
This book is a richly detailed story about people set nearly today (in the 1980’s) and also a hundred years back, with windows through those characters another generation before and more. If you have read A. S. Byatt’s "Possession," this is constructed similarly, with letters and diary entries believably created to tell earlier stories, with ghostly scenes written by a narrative perspective quietly omniscient but selectively revealing.
Generally, I keep my book reviewing to stuff that’s out in paperback for ease of access, but with the immigration debate flaring around us, and our local libraries mostly carrying Crook’s newest book, this was a recommendation I didn’t want to delay in making. Find a copy however you wish, or remember it until the cheaper version comes out, but I can heartily endorse putting "The Night Journal" on the top of your reading pile.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him about your immigrant ancestors through disciple@voyager.net.
Jeff Gill
Crossing the Border
Ken Salazar speaks fluent Spanish. He lives and works in Colorado, but his family is from the south. Not Mexico, though. . .
New Mexico, actually, where his ancestors were among the founders of Santa Fe four centuries ago. His lineage does go back to south of the Rio Grande, but before there was a Mexico, so he jokes before audiences about whether or not he can really claim the label "Mexican-American" many put on him. Salazar goes on to point out that his family never crossed the border, but the border crossed them.
As a United States Senator, he has this conversation often. The first Hispanic elected outside New Mexico to such office, the Democrat is asked to help Anglo audiences in Colorado and around the US understand some of the challenges and intricacies of the immigration issue.
No one, from Salazar on down, doubts that ten million plus illegal immigrants over the last decade from Mexico represents a unique problem that has to be addressed. What can be lost in the political furor over the southern border is that tens of millions of Spanish speaking Americans are already here, are US citizens from before the Gadsden Purchase, and that the Hispanic/Latino element of this country’s ethnic mix is vital and longstanding.
We may not get Ken Salazar to speak in Licking County anytime soon, but a new novel can help you get some perspective on how Latino is not new piece in the national fabric, but one of our oldest stripes of color in the flag.
"The Night Journal," by Elizabeth Crook, is a fictional story about made up people, but set in actual places you can visit, like Pecos Pueblo southeast of Santa Fe, New Mexico, and Las Vegas. Nope, not that one, but a quieter and much, much older one on the eastern edge of the Rockies, where the Sangre de Cristo range starts to rise to the north.
Crook has clearly done her research on New Mexican, Mexican, Mormon, and general American history, weaving them together with a tale of settlers and railroads and a briefly glimpsed appearance by Paul Harvey. Nope, not that one, but the fellow who a century and more ago, opened up the southwest to the first tourism boom. If you’ve traveled in the Grand Canyon area, you may have run into the name still used for hotel and restaurant management.
This book is a richly detailed story about people set nearly today (in the 1980’s) and also a hundred years back, with windows through those characters another generation before and more. If you have read A. S. Byatt’s "Possession," this is constructed similarly, with letters and diary entries believably created to tell earlier stories, with ghostly scenes written by a narrative perspective quietly omniscient but selectively revealing.
Generally, I keep my book reviewing to stuff that’s out in paperback for ease of access, but with the immigration debate flaring around us, and our local libraries mostly carrying Crook’s newest book, this was a recommendation I didn’t want to delay in making. Find a copy however you wish, or remember it until the cheaper version comes out, but I can heartily endorse putting "The Night Journal" on the top of your reading pile.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him about your immigrant ancestors through disciple@voyager.net.
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