Faith Works 3-24-07
Jeff Gill
We Devastate So We Can Build
If you haven’t recently driven from Newark to Columbus along Rt. 161, I need to warn you about something.
No, not the traffic, which is about as bad as ever, and steadily getting worse at certain times in different directions.
The landscape is devastated, and I really mean that. Even knowing what was coming, with the widening of the highway and the slow spread of orange spray paint on trees and little neon flags low to the ground, then the soil erosion fences near watercourses, you couldn’t be ready for this.
Of course, this being America, there are companies that specialize in narrow sub-fields, so a no doubt fine group of people called “Complete Clearing, Inc.” have taken the forefront. (“Woodchippers, Inc.” is no doubt at work, but they don’t have signage.)
With amazing speed and fearful efficiency, this particular part of the overall roadbuilding contract has stripped the hillsides and margins, buzzed the shrubbery and trees down more efficiently than a boot camp barber, and revealed, almost like a flasher, the naked outlines of the terrain.
Some salvage, and mainly demolition crews, have started in behind the tree chewers and earth movers to tear apart the houses and sheds and barns that flank both the current route and projected track of the four-lane 161.
These half-ruined (probably fully wrecked and obliterated by the time you read this) homes are the most viscerally shocking part of the trip. This may be a personal quirk, but this drive is one I’ve been making with semi-regularity for nearly twenty years. I’ve known a couple people who live along the route, but mostly I have a shadow narrative in my head of what it might be like to live here, and here, and next here, as I drive along.
Do you do this? Reflect on what houses look fun to live in, which farms or stables are part of a life you’ll never live, but fit into a “but maybe” scenario you toss around for a few moments each time you pass? And there have been houses that have always struck me as sad, sad looking before with occupants and tragic now with roof torn off and gaping windows staring crazily past you.
In fairness, some of those houses have been vacant almost as long as I’ve driven past them. But the shift from slow decay to sudden destruction – even that is a bit of a gut punch.
This is how we progress, so called. If cars are not to back up and slow and stop and idle and double pump carbon into the atmosphere, if we’re to get to the restaurant on time to meet George and Martha, if the trucks carrying the latest flat screen plasmoid hyperdrive quasi-3D TVs are to get into Licking County promptly, this is what we must do.
And there are spots, as you pass by and look rudely into the revealed landscape, where you can see that the familiar road itself supplanted another, older, slower, gentler road.
Near Moots Run, just before the Alexandria/Rt. 37 turnoff (where the Col. Scott house stands solitary, the lone reprieve along death row), you can see on the south where bridge abutments, long abandoned, now unbridged, softened by time, perch on either side of the creek. The narrow cut up the bank to the east shows where the roadbed once ran.
Many of the denuded banks of tree stump stubble are themselves the thirty-plus years gone overgrowth, run wild after the current road was thrust through, and I’m sure it looked ghastly then. The slopes drizzled soil, took root in grass, and the untended steeper banks went from shoots to stalks to the clumps of gangly trees that now are mulch.
We devastate, so we can build. Our waste and inefficiency may be more apparent than actual, but you can’t look at such a scene and not think: “is there a better way? What would that way look like?”
In this season, Christians think it looks something like resurrection. There are stones to roll away, oils and spices and unguents to set aside, grave wrappings to clear away, but life everlasting when the site prep is done. The Newark Area Ministerial Association has been kind enough to invite me to preach the Community Sunrise Service at 6:30 am in the Midland Theater Easter morning, and I’m looking for signs of new life and resurrection power.
Maybe they can be found even along the construction corridor of 161. I’ve got to drive it again today, so I’ll let you know.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Notes From My Knapsack 3-25-07
Jeff Gill
Making Predictions, Taking Chances
Of course, the wisdom of Yogi Berra says it all: "Predictions are difficult, especially about the future."
Ask Bill Gates, who said in the early days of Microsoft: “No one will need more than 637Kb of memory for a personal computer.”
He ended up doing OK, considering he was competing against the brilliant forecasters of IBM, who had told management in the 1960’s “The total requirements for computing in the United States can be satisfied by fewer than 100 IBM mainframe computers.”
Many of you recall growing up under the assumption that the US would always be in a state of near-war with the Soviet Union, which would dominate Olympic gymnastics, if not the world, pretty much always.
Through college, we all worried about the inevitable bloody end the everyone could see coming quite clearly for South Africa, what with Mandela still a prisoner and the white minority never letting go of control other than through a violent revolution by the majority.
And you may need to be a bit older to know who the Rev. Ian Paisley is, but for me it was a double shock to learn a) he’s still alive (soon to be 81, in fact), and b) about to meet with the Archbishop of Armagh, the Roman Catholic primate of Ireland. Apparently the peace negotiations have progressed to the point where “Rev. No” (among other things, he denounced Pope John Paul II to his face as the Antichrist) is saying yes to joining a government along with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the militant Catholic minority.
Nope, I didn’t see that one coming.
What’s going to happen in Iraq? I have not the faintest idea.
Donald Trump – sorry, The Donald – has no such hesitation. He said over last weekend that anyone can see how the whole place will turn into a bloodbath the moment we leave no matter what we do, so we should just leave now, the sooner to let them carnage it out.
Aside from the fact that Mr. Trump is making all the usual noises of a possible Democratic candidate for President (he almost did it once before, recall), I’m thinking he’s right in the one thing that he doesn’t realize is true.
Whatever the next major change is, in the land around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, steps to greater peace and everyday prosperity won’t come at the commands of armed men.
The sooner there are more leaders counting on their own quiet, future retirement than current riches and power; when business people are trying to plan for expansion rather than destruction as a tool for competition; once there are internet connections in villages and home improvement stores in towns and yes, Starbucks in the cities . . .
For all the wars and rumors of wars in the last century of this world, the sucker bet is still pessimism. A hundred years ago, the norm for a human being on planet Earth was actual or effective slavery (see “serfdom”), death by disease in the first three years, or around age 40 if you survived childhood, and fair measure of pain and discomfort through wars, harsh working conditions, and social viciousness (Google “lynching” and then come on back).
Today, we’ve seen some amazing things in the last twenty years that are still bearing fruit, such as in Northern Ireland. It wasn’t that long ago that the Palestinian problem and Northern Ireland were always mentioned in one breath as the intractable, unsolvable problems of now and forever.
Hamas and Syria and Hezbollah all keep me nervous about the likely near term outcomes for the Middle East, and the history of the Fertile Crescent justifies more wariness than the current administration seems to have used in planning their Iraq venture. But the desire of people, given half a chance, to nudge their leaders to less killing, more freedom, and general stability, is stronger than pessimism.
Here’s a crazy, wild-eyed prediction made in 1816: "Old Europe will have to lean on our shoulders, and to hobble along by our side, under the monkish trammels of priests and kings, as she can. What a colossus we shall be." That’s just the thought of a gentleman farmer who was not himself so clear-eyed about slavery, but had a sense of what freedom might accomplish for his fellow Americans. Thomas Jefferson made a more outrageous forecast than Bill Gates and IBM put together, and all of them were looking at what was known, what had always been true, and what most people thought would be likely in the future.
It was the fellow from Monticello who added a small, measured dose of confidence, in people given a taste of freedom, who saw what might be done with that liberty, even beyond what he could see himself.
If I have to bet between The Donald and The Thomas, I don’t have to think long. As for the NCAA tournament, I’m for Butler…so don’t follow my brackets!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him your tale of the unexpected at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Making Predictions, Taking Chances
Of course, the wisdom of Yogi Berra says it all: "Predictions are difficult, especially about the future."
Ask Bill Gates, who said in the early days of Microsoft: “No one will need more than 637Kb of memory for a personal computer.”
He ended up doing OK, considering he was competing against the brilliant forecasters of IBM, who had told management in the 1960’s “The total requirements for computing in the United States can be satisfied by fewer than 100 IBM mainframe computers.”
Many of you recall growing up under the assumption that the US would always be in a state of near-war with the Soviet Union, which would dominate Olympic gymnastics, if not the world, pretty much always.
Through college, we all worried about the inevitable bloody end the everyone could see coming quite clearly for South Africa, what with Mandela still a prisoner and the white minority never letting go of control other than through a violent revolution by the majority.
And you may need to be a bit older to know who the Rev. Ian Paisley is, but for me it was a double shock to learn a) he’s still alive (soon to be 81, in fact), and b) about to meet with the Archbishop of Armagh, the Roman Catholic primate of Ireland. Apparently the peace negotiations have progressed to the point where “Rev. No” (among other things, he denounced Pope John Paul II to his face as the Antichrist) is saying yes to joining a government along with Sinn Fein, the political wing of the militant Catholic minority.
Nope, I didn’t see that one coming.
What’s going to happen in Iraq? I have not the faintest idea.
Donald Trump – sorry, The Donald – has no such hesitation. He said over last weekend that anyone can see how the whole place will turn into a bloodbath the moment we leave no matter what we do, so we should just leave now, the sooner to let them carnage it out.
Aside from the fact that Mr. Trump is making all the usual noises of a possible Democratic candidate for President (he almost did it once before, recall), I’m thinking he’s right in the one thing that he doesn’t realize is true.
Whatever the next major change is, in the land around the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers, steps to greater peace and everyday prosperity won’t come at the commands of armed men.
The sooner there are more leaders counting on their own quiet, future retirement than current riches and power; when business people are trying to plan for expansion rather than destruction as a tool for competition; once there are internet connections in villages and home improvement stores in towns and yes, Starbucks in the cities . . .
For all the wars and rumors of wars in the last century of this world, the sucker bet is still pessimism. A hundred years ago, the norm for a human being on planet Earth was actual or effective slavery (see “serfdom”), death by disease in the first three years, or around age 40 if you survived childhood, and fair measure of pain and discomfort through wars, harsh working conditions, and social viciousness (Google “lynching” and then come on back).
Today, we’ve seen some amazing things in the last twenty years that are still bearing fruit, such as in Northern Ireland. It wasn’t that long ago that the Palestinian problem and Northern Ireland were always mentioned in one breath as the intractable, unsolvable problems of now and forever.
Hamas and Syria and Hezbollah all keep me nervous about the likely near term outcomes for the Middle East, and the history of the Fertile Crescent justifies more wariness than the current administration seems to have used in planning their Iraq venture. But the desire of people, given half a chance, to nudge their leaders to less killing, more freedom, and general stability, is stronger than pessimism.
Here’s a crazy, wild-eyed prediction made in 1816: "Old Europe will have to lean on our shoulders, and to hobble along by our side, under the monkish trammels of priests and kings, as she can. What a colossus we shall be." That’s just the thought of a gentleman farmer who was not himself so clear-eyed about slavery, but had a sense of what freedom might accomplish for his fellow Americans. Thomas Jefferson made a more outrageous forecast than Bill Gates and IBM put together, and all of them were looking at what was known, what had always been true, and what most people thought would be likely in the future.
It was the fellow from Monticello who added a small, measured dose of confidence, in people given a taste of freedom, who saw what might be done with that liberty, even beyond what he could see himself.
If I have to bet between The Donald and The Thomas, I don’t have to think long. As for the NCAA tournament, I’m for Butler…so don’t follow my brackets!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him your tale of the unexpected at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Friday, March 16, 2007
Notes From My Knapsack 3-18-07
Jeff Gill
Spring Cleaning Means Planning, Too
Our Community Blueprint just arrived. The United Way has been
working for much of the last year to take an innovative
approach to gathering data in Licking County, and the results
are worth the wait.
My only qualification is that this is less a blueprint than the
architect’s notes from a series of client meetings. No, I’m not
being obtuse (which I’ll admit I often am). This isn’t the
plan, or even the clear outlines of a plan. What we’ve got is
even more important to get first, before you start drawing
lines on a sheet of paper and then debating whether to move
that line a little over here, or a bit over there.
This "Community Blueprint" is meant to give us all the clearest
possible perspective on what Licking County needs to a) stay as
a good a place to live and raise a family as it is in so many
ways, and b) where we need to improve matters, especially for
children and the most vulnerable.
The comparative survey is most intriguing to me, but that may
be because I live and work in many of the other statistics so
much they don’t catch me the same way.
Questions were asked of "key informants," or community
leadership type folk, whether they’re elected, or occupying
jobs and positions that give them a lead role; these same
questions were asked then of a random telephone survey across
the county. Each group was asked about how common certain
issues were off of a list, and to rank how "serious" they were
relative to each other. That last was done in the phone survey
by asking if the issue was in your household (and they defined
household however they defined it, which makes sense to me).
Leaders around Licking County said "lack of affordable health
insurance, affordable dental care, affordable medical care,
alcohol and/or drug abuse among young people, and alcohol
and/or drug abuse among adults" were their top five issues they
saw, in that order. But asked to say how seriousness ranked
them, they said "alcohol and/or drug abuse among adults,
affordable health insurance, affordable medical care,
unemployment, and shortage of affordable housing" were the top
five of concern.
Now, read back through those two lists of five, and think about
how the priorities shifted. Health insurance stays high, but
the immediate impact of drug/alcohol abuse made it a higher
concern. Unemployment and affordable housing are a little less
visible to folks, even in leadership, but they bump dental care
and youth drug and alcohol use when asked to consider
seriousness. (I wonder if underemployment vs. unemployment is a
distinction that folks stop to make, but that’s a matter of
interpretation.)
Now go to the households – randomly selected for phone surveys
across the county, remember. Their top five "issues" were "lack
of affordable health insurance, affordable dental insurance,
affordable dental care, affordable medical care, and lack of
jobs." Hmmmm.
And asked "in my household"? The list went this way: "mental
illness or emotional issues among adults, lack of affordable
dental insurance, affordable health insurance, affordable
dental care, and affordable medical care." Make the question
personal, and mental health issues and . . . dental issues:
those are the "top of mind" concerns.
You can see how this doesn’t exactly give us the blueprint for
breaking ground and building new capacity in our social safety
net right now, but it does start us down the path of planning
more sensibly. Is dental health a major community issue? If it
effects your ability to get jobs because you can’t sleep for
toothache, barely eat decent food and are all woozy from that
since you can’t chew, and may self-medicate, um,
"inappropriately" to deal with the pain . . . uh, yeah.
Mental health issues in Licking County, thanks to Moundbuilders
Guidance Center, the Community Mental Health and Recovery
Board, The Main Place, and Mental Health America of Licking
County, have some strong advocates and points of assistance.
Churches offer counseling, and schools work with many programs
and approaches to support healthy habits of mind beyond just
studiousness.
But when our local households put "mental illness or emotional
issues among adults" as the top item of concern "in my
household," that puts the matter in a slightly different
light.
There will be more to consider out of this comprehensive study of our county, and we’ll be getting some plans drawn up soon. Thanks to Chairperson Cheryl Snyder, staffers Donna Carpenter, Sylvia Friel, and everyone at Licking County United Way for giving us such useful architect’s notes, and see their website for the whole deal: http://www.lickingcountycommunityblueprint.com.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around
central Ohio; tell him about your blueprints for a better
future at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Spring Cleaning Means Planning, Too
Our Community Blueprint just arrived. The United Way has been
working for much of the last year to take an innovative
approach to gathering data in Licking County, and the results
are worth the wait.
My only qualification is that this is less a blueprint than the
architect’s notes from a series of client meetings. No, I’m not
being obtuse (which I’ll admit I often am). This isn’t the
plan, or even the clear outlines of a plan. What we’ve got is
even more important to get first, before you start drawing
lines on a sheet of paper and then debating whether to move
that line a little over here, or a bit over there.
This "Community Blueprint" is meant to give us all the clearest
possible perspective on what Licking County needs to a) stay as
a good a place to live and raise a family as it is in so many
ways, and b) where we need to improve matters, especially for
children and the most vulnerable.
The comparative survey is most intriguing to me, but that may
be because I live and work in many of the other statistics so
much they don’t catch me the same way.
Questions were asked of "key informants," or community
leadership type folk, whether they’re elected, or occupying
jobs and positions that give them a lead role; these same
questions were asked then of a random telephone survey across
the county. Each group was asked about how common certain
issues were off of a list, and to rank how "serious" they were
relative to each other. That last was done in the phone survey
by asking if the issue was in your household (and they defined
household however they defined it, which makes sense to me).
Leaders around Licking County said "lack of affordable health
insurance, affordable dental care, affordable medical care,
alcohol and/or drug abuse among young people, and alcohol
and/or drug abuse among adults" were their top five issues they
saw, in that order. But asked to say how seriousness ranked
them, they said "alcohol and/or drug abuse among adults,
affordable health insurance, affordable medical care,
unemployment, and shortage of affordable housing" were the top
five of concern.
Now, read back through those two lists of five, and think about
how the priorities shifted. Health insurance stays high, but
the immediate impact of drug/alcohol abuse made it a higher
concern. Unemployment and affordable housing are a little less
visible to folks, even in leadership, but they bump dental care
and youth drug and alcohol use when asked to consider
seriousness. (I wonder if underemployment vs. unemployment is a
distinction that folks stop to make, but that’s a matter of
interpretation.)
Now go to the households – randomly selected for phone surveys
across the county, remember. Their top five "issues" were "lack
of affordable health insurance, affordable dental insurance,
affordable dental care, affordable medical care, and lack of
jobs." Hmmmm.
And asked "in my household"? The list went this way: "mental
illness or emotional issues among adults, lack of affordable
dental insurance, affordable health insurance, affordable
dental care, and affordable medical care." Make the question
personal, and mental health issues and . . . dental issues:
those are the "top of mind" concerns.
You can see how this doesn’t exactly give us the blueprint for
breaking ground and building new capacity in our social safety
net right now, but it does start us down the path of planning
more sensibly. Is dental health a major community issue? If it
effects your ability to get jobs because you can’t sleep for
toothache, barely eat decent food and are all woozy from that
since you can’t chew, and may self-medicate, um,
"inappropriately" to deal with the pain . . . uh, yeah.
Mental health issues in Licking County, thanks to Moundbuilders
Guidance Center, the Community Mental Health and Recovery
Board, The Main Place, and Mental Health America of Licking
County, have some strong advocates and points of assistance.
Churches offer counseling, and schools work with many programs
and approaches to support healthy habits of mind beyond just
studiousness.
But when our local households put "mental illness or emotional
issues among adults" as the top item of concern "in my
household," that puts the matter in a slightly different
light.
There will be more to consider out of this comprehensive study of our county, and we’ll be getting some plans drawn up soon. Thanks to Chairperson Cheryl Snyder, staffers Donna Carpenter, Sylvia Friel, and everyone at Licking County United Way for giving us such useful architect’s notes, and see their website for the whole deal: http://www.lickingcountycommunityblueprint.com.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around
central Ohio; tell him about your blueprints for a better
future at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Faith Works 3-17-07
Jeff Gill
Triple Redundancy Is Just Good Design
When folks wave around shamrocks, or what passes for them, around the sacred festival of Saint Patrick’s Day (known around bars and police stations as “Amateur Night”), they usually get two things wrong.
No surprise for a semi-holiday that the culture has grabbed ahold of, given a boozy twist, and wrenched as far off its foundations in faith as any other.
For the record, a shamrock is not a four leaf clover. There is clover on the Emerald Isle, and it generally has three leaves, with the stray four leafer being rare enough to carry a wee bit of superstitious cachet.
Which wasn’t what Patricius, the once kidnapped Roman Briton youth, was after, when he returned a priest to the land of his captivity.
So clover isn’t the preaching illustration the missionary bishop, out in the wild, untamed Irish isles at the oceanic end of the world, was looking for. It was the true shamrock, something more like “hepatica” here in the Western Hemisphere (here beyond the one-time ends of the earth). Shamrock is a very particular plant, with a symbolism that Patrick, sainted by public consensus as the ancient church once did such things, wanted to make particularly clear.
Shamrocks, like our North American hepatica, are common plants, close to the ground, growing best in the hardest circumstances, verging on evergreen in their through the year hardiness.
And they have leaves with three “lobes.” If you glance at a shamrock, you see three leaves off of a common stem. With clover, three or four leaf, if you pick it and hold it close, you’ll see three distinct, separate leaves, with their veins connecting to the stem like spokes to a hub.
Not so the shamrock. When you pick it, as Patrick did in his preaching out in the fields and among the common people of ancient Ireland, and hold it close for nearer scrutiny, you see the apparent three leaves are actually one, merging before vanishing into their stem.
The lobes are divided by deep indentations that don’t quite go all the way to the base. You have to look closely to see, but when you examine them closely it’s quite apparent: this is a single leaf, with three sections that appear to be distinct leaves only from a distance.
St. Patrick took up the shamrock, not the shillelagh, because he wanted to help the Celtic folk of the Blessed Isles understand what he was saying to them about Jesus, and the Trinity.
Among modern Christians, even those of a fairly conservative theological bent, there is a worrisome (to me, anyhow) dismissal of theology as an eggheaded, unimportant area for preachers and teachers of the faith to tend to. Preaching is for conversion and life transformation, which are both very important tasks for the church to be sure, but consideration of the nature of God and how and why God acts in the world is for the seminaries and scholars, say too many (in my opinion).
Thank God that Patrick didn’t see it that way.
In his missionary work, he was preaching to a largely unlettered populace, who had a healthy crop of everyday superstitions and folk magics (think leprechauns and that pot o’ gold) to harvest. Ol’ Paddy wanted to plant a belief in the unique role and person of Jesus of Nazareth, not as a particularly great bard or hilltop sage from a land far away.
If he had wanted to tell them about Jesus as a really, really wise man, the people of Ireland would have happily added him to the list of those whose wisdom was memorized and passed along by firelight, like Finn MacCool and Cuchulain the Fierce and Queen Maeve and Bridgit the Holy. No problem, always happy to have more wisdom, Pat; now have a little of this uiskebaugh, what we call the water of life.
Patrick wanted the Irish to know Jesus as he knew him, as the Son of God, as the very embodiment of God with us. But how do you have God walking among us, and God still eternally and unchangingly reigning over All Creation ™?
The historic short answer of the church has been: the Trinity. Three ways we know God, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but God still One, coexisting together in unity.
To be fair, the theological discussions about how the Trinity actually works can get to be heavy going, and aren’t everyone’s cup of strong, black tea. But the Irish had a worrisome tendency to hear Christian preaching, and say “OK, three chief gods. Got it. We’ll give that serious consideration: we’ve got a bunch of three throne ruling divinities in the collective wisdom, so you may have a point. We’ll, um, get back to you about the whole “love one another” thing, though.”
St. Patrick’s inspired insight was to reach down and pluck a nearby shamrock, and use a closer look at it to help him show why the Christian God was not meant to be understood as three individuals, even though they had three persons of God to tell stories of.
What the Apostles’ and Nicean and Athanasian Creeds do with many complex words, Patrick did with an everyday plant, and an invitation to look closely at the mysteries woven right into the fabric of creation.
And in that spirit, a merry St. Patrick’s Day to you!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Triple Redundancy Is Just Good Design
When folks wave around shamrocks, or what passes for them, around the sacred festival of Saint Patrick’s Day (known around bars and police stations as “Amateur Night”), they usually get two things wrong.
No surprise for a semi-holiday that the culture has grabbed ahold of, given a boozy twist, and wrenched as far off its foundations in faith as any other.
For the record, a shamrock is not a four leaf clover. There is clover on the Emerald Isle, and it generally has three leaves, with the stray four leafer being rare enough to carry a wee bit of superstitious cachet.
Which wasn’t what Patricius, the once kidnapped Roman Briton youth, was after, when he returned a priest to the land of his captivity.
So clover isn’t the preaching illustration the missionary bishop, out in the wild, untamed Irish isles at the oceanic end of the world, was looking for. It was the true shamrock, something more like “hepatica” here in the Western Hemisphere (here beyond the one-time ends of the earth). Shamrock is a very particular plant, with a symbolism that Patrick, sainted by public consensus as the ancient church once did such things, wanted to make particularly clear.
Shamrocks, like our North American hepatica, are common plants, close to the ground, growing best in the hardest circumstances, verging on evergreen in their through the year hardiness.
And they have leaves with three “lobes.” If you glance at a shamrock, you see three leaves off of a common stem. With clover, three or four leaf, if you pick it and hold it close, you’ll see three distinct, separate leaves, with their veins connecting to the stem like spokes to a hub.
Not so the shamrock. When you pick it, as Patrick did in his preaching out in the fields and among the common people of ancient Ireland, and hold it close for nearer scrutiny, you see the apparent three leaves are actually one, merging before vanishing into their stem.
The lobes are divided by deep indentations that don’t quite go all the way to the base. You have to look closely to see, but when you examine them closely it’s quite apparent: this is a single leaf, with three sections that appear to be distinct leaves only from a distance.
St. Patrick took up the shamrock, not the shillelagh, because he wanted to help the Celtic folk of the Blessed Isles understand what he was saying to them about Jesus, and the Trinity.
Among modern Christians, even those of a fairly conservative theological bent, there is a worrisome (to me, anyhow) dismissal of theology as an eggheaded, unimportant area for preachers and teachers of the faith to tend to. Preaching is for conversion and life transformation, which are both very important tasks for the church to be sure, but consideration of the nature of God and how and why God acts in the world is for the seminaries and scholars, say too many (in my opinion).
Thank God that Patrick didn’t see it that way.
In his missionary work, he was preaching to a largely unlettered populace, who had a healthy crop of everyday superstitions and folk magics (think leprechauns and that pot o’ gold) to harvest. Ol’ Paddy wanted to plant a belief in the unique role and person of Jesus of Nazareth, not as a particularly great bard or hilltop sage from a land far away.
If he had wanted to tell them about Jesus as a really, really wise man, the people of Ireland would have happily added him to the list of those whose wisdom was memorized and passed along by firelight, like Finn MacCool and Cuchulain the Fierce and Queen Maeve and Bridgit the Holy. No problem, always happy to have more wisdom, Pat; now have a little of this uiskebaugh, what we call the water of life.
Patrick wanted the Irish to know Jesus as he knew him, as the Son of God, as the very embodiment of God with us. But how do you have God walking among us, and God still eternally and unchangingly reigning over All Creation ™?
The historic short answer of the church has been: the Trinity. Three ways we know God, as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, but God still One, coexisting together in unity.
To be fair, the theological discussions about how the Trinity actually works can get to be heavy going, and aren’t everyone’s cup of strong, black tea. But the Irish had a worrisome tendency to hear Christian preaching, and say “OK, three chief gods. Got it. We’ll give that serious consideration: we’ve got a bunch of three throne ruling divinities in the collective wisdom, so you may have a point. We’ll, um, get back to you about the whole “love one another” thing, though.”
St. Patrick’s inspired insight was to reach down and pluck a nearby shamrock, and use a closer look at it to help him show why the Christian God was not meant to be understood as three individuals, even though they had three persons of God to tell stories of.
What the Apostles’ and Nicean and Athanasian Creeds do with many complex words, Patrick did with an everyday plant, and an invitation to look closely at the mysteries woven right into the fabric of creation.
And in that spirit, a merry St. Patrick’s Day to you!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Friday, March 09, 2007
Gentle reader -- I've put this older column back up to the top, as a few websites have kindly pointed folk to this piece with the 225th anniversary of the Gnadenhutten Massacre last Thursday. At the end of the piece, which ran (with a different headline) in the Newark Advocate last weekend, i mention my plans to visit on the "day of." I did, and my account of that venture is just below the column. Scroll past all that to find the 3-10 Faith Works or the 3-11 Booster column, "Notes From My Knapsack."
* * *
* * *
Faith Works 3-03-07
Jeff Gill
Crawford Died For Your Sins
A man once died a particularly cruel and painful death, to make up for the evil actions of others, of which he himself was entirely innocent. His death led to the birth of a religious community which counts many adherents all around us to this day. The place of his death is well known, but not a scrap of his body can be found to this day.
No, not Him.
It was in Ohio, beginning 225 years ago this week.
One phase of this tragic narrative began on the morning of March 8, in 1782, as almost 100 old men, women, and children of the Moravian Delaware Indian community were massacred, mostly by mallet and hand axe, about an hour east of us at Gnadenhutten. Two boys survived, one by playing dead after a blow to the head, lying still under a pile of his family and fellow worshipers; the other was small enough to sneak out between the logs of their church building, where the community was kept overnight in singing and prayer before their execution at dawn.
They, too, were innocent. The adult men of the community had been working to plant the next season’s corn, and a few other Indians from Fort Detroit may have sheltered with them overnight who had raided across the Ohio, but of those killed there was no blood on their hands. That didn’t keep their blood from watering the ground at the Moravian log church’s door.
The blood of those 96 or 98 victims actually fueled the flames of hostility on the frontier, the western theater of the American Revolution, where British officers taught the fine art of scalping to young rootless warriors and offered money for European scalps. Some Native leaders like Chief Cornstalk and Killbuck had argued for a neutral stance, but the temptations of cash for killing led enough across the Ohio that reprisal parties answered raiding parties, leading to the senseless slaughter of Gnadenhutten, or "Huts of Grace" in the German of the David Heckewelder’s missionary efforts.
Innocent blood called out to warriors and leaders who had stayed so far aloof from the irregular combat. A massing of Native people came together at Upper Sandusky, and a second expedition was planned near Washington, PA, to cross again at Fort Henry (Wheeling, today) and find a new, more fitting target for their vengance.
The two groups met at Tymochtee Creek, just south of Carey, OH, with the Pennsylvanians led by George Washington’s friend Col. William Crawford, sent somewhat against his will to keep tighter control on the angry and undisciplined frontier militia, most of whom had been at Gnadenhutten a few months before.
The Americans were attacked, broke, scattered, and Crawford was captured. It was explained to him that he must die to satisfy the debt incurred in his fellow soldier’s killings. By all accounts, his courage and relative calm was moving to all, but not enough to end the torture and death designed for him.
Could Indians and Americans share in building a culture and a home across the Ohio Territory? Logan and Cornstalk and Guyasuta and Killbuck and White-eyes all thought so, and the Moravian pastors John Heckewelder and David Zeisberger both believed it, and began to prove it at Schoenbrunn, at Lichtenau, and at Gnadenhutten.
After 1782, with Gnadenhutten a smoking, bloody ruin, and the other settlements abandoned, the likelihood of the two cultures sharing in the land dwindled to nothing. The rationale for the massacre, or the relative atrocity of Crawford’s death, were points of dispute well into the 1900’s, and only in recent years has a truly honest assessment been possible.
But buried in those recriminations of the early 1800’s and into the twentieth century are stories of those violent and angry young men, hearts set on useless vengeance, who grew to be husbands and community leaders and respected figures when territories became states.
The religious revivals of the Upper Ohio valley that led to the Restoration Movement, the teachings of Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell against the harsh Calvinism of their day, found fertile soil in the hearts of men who believed that there was no forgiveness for those who had such evils in their past, and they knew what they had done was evil. Baptist and Presbyterian practice of their day was that you could not join or commune until you could honestly say that you knew your sins were forgiven.
The Restoration Movement preachers like Walter Scott said "come, be baptized, and receive forgiveness; you don’t have to say you are forgiven to have the right to receive baptism, you enter the water to find it waiting for you there."
They taught Christ’s baptism, but the example of Crawford dying in their place surely lit the way for those now 50 & 60 year old men who came forward, and brought their families with them.
Today’s Churches of Christ, Disciples of Christ, independent Christian Churches, and United Church of Christ folk have a solemn anniversary of sorts this week, and I plan to make the brief pilgrimage myself to a silent mound, still marked with prayer and offerings, in Gnadenhutten.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; contact him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
* * *
* * *
"You Don’t Look Much Like an Indian"
---
It is written that they sang all night.
To really honor and keep vigil, even at 225 years’ worth of distance, I should have been there before dawn, when they were brought out blinking, facing the sun rising in the east, bluffs to the south looking down on the small settlement of log buildings, hemmed in by the Tuscarawas River looping north and west.
Some of the Pennsylvania and Virginia militiamen, even a majority out of the 450 or so who came from Fort Henry, refused to join in the slaughter, but neither did they stop it. None forgot it, though. Their testimony, and the frightened recollections of two small boys who escaped the Gnadenhutten Massacre, all agree that the 90 and more were divided, women in the church, males, elderly and youth, to the cooper’s shop. Told of their fate as evening fell March 7, they sang and prayed until dawn.
These were the Moravian Delawares, the Lenape Indians who adopted the Christianity taught by David Zeisberger and John Heckewelder. Their German-rooted faith carried a scattering of words from their old country naming homes in the new, like Gnadenhutten, meaning huts, or tents (tabernacles, really) of Grace.
Taken from other Moravian villages like Schoenbrunn and Salem, and herded together into this settlement, they were thought to be the raiders or at least supporters of war parties who had recently attacked colonial settlements in the early spring of 1782, egged on by the cash-for-scalps strategy of the British in Fort Detroit. In these simple structures built in the wilderness, they had hoped to find a Promised Land of peace, or at least the road to Heaven.
They were violently flung down the latter road, without a chance to find the former.I was there at noon, on a Thursday, long marked in my calendar as a "keep this date open" square. I came out of long developing awareness that, in trying to understand the vexed relationships of Anglo and Indian across the Ohio Territory before 1803, the cruel road to "removal" in the 1830’s for even the most assimilated tribes, and for social and religious movements across the early American Midwest, this place and the events of March 8, 1782 are a long missing key.
Knowing that this year was the 225th anniversary, and even knowing that it is an oddly Anglo habit to make much of certain numerical occurrences, I wondered if I would see anyone else. At least the circumstances of the season, the angle of the sun, the feel of nature, would echo something of what went on those days, which was reason enough for me to want to be there.
Pulling into the "Historical Park" around the site of the former settlement, there was still a thin coating of snow, unmelted from even the current relative warmth, showing that no one else had walked these paths for the last couple days.At the center of the long rectangle along the Tuscarawas was the monument. About 40 feet high, the obelisk catches your eye as you wind through the modern Gnadenhutten village cemetery which surrounds the park. When you approach it, the plinth reads, in very stark and deep carving:
Here
Triumphed In Death
Ninety
Christian Indians
March 8, 1782
and one level below, a single word in larger, all capital letters:
GNADENHUTTEN
…then on the opposite side, just as high but markedly less deep, as if unwilling to draw unnecessary attention to itself, the statement:
Erected June 5, 1872
For much of the year, when the sun rises, the shadow of the obelisk crosses the door of the mission house. It is a replica, with a small stone nearby quietly noting that the adjoining space is the actual site. Most of the time, and for all of my visits, you can’t get inside. There are windows, and an opposing window lets in a shaft of light that illuminates a slice of the large room, and illumination enough to see the split log benches, and the table to the front of the worship and gathering space.
You can’t get inside, I think; I cannot imagine that night, those hours, the actual experience of those hearts. They have literally seen the face of their implacable doom, set harshly on vengeance, standing at the one door to say that there is only a brief trip they will take out that door in the morning, they and their children. I do imagine that it was the women who began the singing, for women usually do, drawing the men across the way into their worship in the only way they could touch.
I cannot get inside the minds of the men outside, either. The accounts are clear about the killing and scalping and captive taking they had seen all around them, back across the Ohio River, and of their fury when a family that had settled across the river into Ohio was found murdered on the first day of their expedition to Upper Sandusky.
I can even sense some of the horror and mistrust that was sparked by the discovery of bloody rags in Gnadenhutten, cloth that one man among the now nameless militiamen (they never left a muster roll, or applied for compensation from their government, for obvious reasons) said that he was certain belonged to the dead woman of a few days before.
But as the night wore on, and the singing continued, how did they keep their hearts hardened? I don’t know, I don’t want to know, I need to know, I can’t ever know. David Williamson, a man so respected among his fellows that he was elected sheriff in later years for Washington County, Pennsylvania, was only in name the leader of this expedition."Colonel" Williamson is almost the only name known for certain with this venture, for he did gather them up and lead them with one purpose in mind. Stories agree that he was not in complete assent with the plans to slaughter the Moravian Indians, but also agree that he took a vote, and let the faction for murder have their way.
Did those two groups separate through the night? Did any of them sleep? No one knows. Rightly, all accounts focus on the singing, and the prayers, and the coming dawn.
Past the monument, the only other reconstructed building simply has another low stone carved with "The Cooper Shop – March 8, 1782." If you don’t know how that identifies this building, it seems to say, there’s no amount of text that will do it. It was a cooper’s large, heavy, wooden mallet that was taken up when the captives began to step out into the dawn’s early, brief light.
"Someone else take over, my arm’s getting tired," is the one quote preserved from the murderers, when the job was not even half done. So many stood by, but at least they remembered, and recorded.
The final home for those killed outside the doors of the church and cooperage was a few dozen yards to the south. The bodies were piled and burned, and a mound was raised over their remains later by the men of the settlement, who returned, from their attempt to begin planting the next year’s crop, to a scene of unutterable horror.
This low mound, no more than three feet high and about ten feet across, is now ringed with cypress shrubs gone woody, blocked from a gravel parking area by a few feet, and a row of old canal lock stones. They lay there between the pop machine at the museum’s back door, and a shuttered concession stand fenced about with piled picnic tables. When the Moravian missionaries returned with the adult men, they withdrew for some years from the Tuscarawas valley, but returned with now German Moravians and re-established the settlement. Their descendants are buried in the large cemetery all around, and now the folk of the village keep up the replica buildings and museum to tell the story of their faith’s heritage, largely for schoolchildren. There are some odd cutout figures attached to trees as silhouettes, and brightly painted panels for kids to push their faces through, giving them fake bodies to photograph, that gives the place a carnival atmosphere in certain angles. The main story seems to focus on the missionaries and the later, whiter settlement; but the fact that only the mission house and cooper shop are rebuilt says something about which story someone knew leaves the deeper mark.
I’ve pushed through the sentinel shrubbery just far enough to reach some windblown scraps of candy wrapper and newspaper, which I take to a nearby trashcan. However I feel about the décor, Gnadenhutten has always been neat and well tended whenever I’ve been by. Another walk past the mission house, looking through the window, and I come back to lean on my car, taking some notes, almost right next to the mound where this story didn’t, doesn’t end.
Another car drives around the museum, and pauses in the drive behind mine, not parking, but stopping. I see across the cemetery a fellow watching, by the maintenance shed, and just have a hunch that he may have called someone. Walking around the still running vehicle, I see the driver stab out a cigarette and roll down the window. She looks businesslike and a businesswoman, sharp featured and with knotted brow.
"You don’t look much like an Indian."
Now, in all fairness, I’m a tall, sandy haired, north of England looking fellow, who has been accused in heated arguments years ago of looking like a Hitler Youth poster. For the record, my eyes are brown, not blue, so Adolf might not have taken me. Anyhow.
"Ma’am?" I reply respectfully, thinking again that the park gate was open and that I’d seen no sign of closure, but also no sign of anyone else."You here about the anniversary?" she asked, glaring up at me, though in fairness the sun was bright, and behind my shoulder. So she knew.
"Sure. Wanted to see what observances or anything were going on today," I answered."
Nothing that I’ve heard, but we were watching to see if anyone came around to cause…" I realized that what had her attention was the fact that, from her point of view, I was an armed man. She had caught me starting to write down some of my reflections on this visit, for this day, and I still had an uncapped pen and some paper in my hand. It made her nervous. I have an unwarranted suspicion that a holstered .357 on my hip wouldn’t have made her nervous, but my taking notes did.
Having some small faith in memory, I shoved the notes and pen in my pocket. Sure enough, she lightened up considerably. She was with the local historical society, which owned the property and ran the museum ("we need more funding" ran the old, old song, which I briefly sang in duet with her). They tried to keep the mound tidy and the grounds attractive. She knew that the tobacco offerings that occasionally showed up on the burial mound were to be left alone, and told me the fellow across the way "wasn’t sure what you were up to," leaving the call inferred. "I appreciate the care you give to the area," I said.
She gestured to the sign in front of my car, a state historic marker that the Ohio Historical Society had put up just a few years ago. Under "The Gnadenhutten Massacre" was the phrase "A Day of Shame," and she said, looking sideways at it, "there were some bad things done back then. Town’s come a long way." Assuming she meant something more than that there had been no additional massacres since 1782, I asked what else the area did to keep the story of Gnadenhutten alive.
"School’s mascot is an Indian," and she saw me wince. "Oh, you’re one of them," she sighed resignedly, her entire tone shifting to the hard suspicion we’d begun on. "I just wondered if there were any Indian groups who came around to. . .""They all went west long ago," she snapped. "Went" is one word you could use, I thought, but kept my silence as she went on. "Glad to have their people visit, but they better not get any ideas about coming back and claiming this for a casino or anything. This is sacred ground."So it turns out we agreed on something, though we had no chance to explore this common belief together. The gravel was too damp from the melting snow to spray satisfactorily as she drove off, which I suspect was a disappointment to her. I could be wrong about that. I waved to her rearview mirror, and with malicious intent, made sure to pull out my notecards and pen while she could still see me, before she got onto the road and sped off.
I still couldn’t get inside. Not the mission house, the cooper shop, the minds of those who camped outside their doors 225 years and a night ago, nor this silent snowy mound. The museum was closed to me as well, and I fear also the mind of my colleague in museumkeeping.
I still didn’t know what urge, which motives caused the obelisk to be raised in 1872, not yet the national centennial nor the 100th commemoration of the event itself. In the 1890’s Ohio historians had tried to acknowledge the significance of this slaughter of the innocents, and how the new surge of anger among previously neutral Indians, and the guilty consciences of many frontier men, triggered consequences and responses far into the future. Even then, reactions to painting any of the first families of the Northwest Territory as anything other than saintly, came fast and furious. Simon Girty and Lewis Wetzel were the designated scapegoats for us all, a twisted (not quite right, you know) white man for each side, American and English. The "Williamson Expedition" that sputtered to a bloody end at Gnadenhutten fit no useful template, and was cast aside.
But the obelisk still stands, and the records, and even the guilt made some helpful memories last. "They sang through the night," knowing their doom was inescapable, and the sound of their singing was unforgettable, even if it was not enough to strengthen any of them to make common cause in their defense with fellow humans, let alone for fellow Christians.
Though I came at noon, as fit my schedule, I remembered that they sang through the night. This is what I remember of 225 years ago, and the days that are passing. They sang through the night, and that is what I hope the lady in the car remembers, too.
You can hear them still, if you listen. Just when you think the singing has stopped, it picks up again, waiting for the dawn. We should keep vigil with them, across the lawn between the buildings, across the centuries. They sang through the night, and we are not asked to do anything half as hard. Keep on singing their song, waiting to see who will join along, and do not let the singing end if you can help it. Some won’t join in, and others will frown, waiting for the song to stop.
They sang through the night.
What is given to us to do, to keep the story alive?
* * *
* * *
Faith Works 3-03-07
Jeff Gill
Crawford Died For Your Sins
A man once died a particularly cruel and painful death, to make up for the evil actions of others, of which he himself was entirely innocent. His death led to the birth of a religious community which counts many adherents all around us to this day. The place of his death is well known, but not a scrap of his body can be found to this day.
No, not Him.
It was in Ohio, beginning 225 years ago this week.
One phase of this tragic narrative began on the morning of March 8, in 1782, as almost 100 old men, women, and children of the Moravian Delaware Indian community were massacred, mostly by mallet and hand axe, about an hour east of us at Gnadenhutten. Two boys survived, one by playing dead after a blow to the head, lying still under a pile of his family and fellow worshipers; the other was small enough to sneak out between the logs of their church building, where the community was kept overnight in singing and prayer before their execution at dawn.
They, too, were innocent. The adult men of the community had been working to plant the next season’s corn, and a few other Indians from Fort Detroit may have sheltered with them overnight who had raided across the Ohio, but of those killed there was no blood on their hands. That didn’t keep their blood from watering the ground at the Moravian log church’s door.
The blood of those 96 or 98 victims actually fueled the flames of hostility on the frontier, the western theater of the American Revolution, where British officers taught the fine art of scalping to young rootless warriors and offered money for European scalps. Some Native leaders like Chief Cornstalk and Killbuck had argued for a neutral stance, but the temptations of cash for killing led enough across the Ohio that reprisal parties answered raiding parties, leading to the senseless slaughter of Gnadenhutten, or "Huts of Grace" in the German of the David Heckewelder’s missionary efforts.
Innocent blood called out to warriors and leaders who had stayed so far aloof from the irregular combat. A massing of Native people came together at Upper Sandusky, and a second expedition was planned near Washington, PA, to cross again at Fort Henry (Wheeling, today) and find a new, more fitting target for their vengance.
The two groups met at Tymochtee Creek, just south of Carey, OH, with the Pennsylvanians led by George Washington’s friend Col. William Crawford, sent somewhat against his will to keep tighter control on the angry and undisciplined frontier militia, most of whom had been at Gnadenhutten a few months before.
The Americans were attacked, broke, scattered, and Crawford was captured. It was explained to him that he must die to satisfy the debt incurred in his fellow soldier’s killings. By all accounts, his courage and relative calm was moving to all, but not enough to end the torture and death designed for him.
Could Indians and Americans share in building a culture and a home across the Ohio Territory? Logan and Cornstalk and Guyasuta and Killbuck and White-eyes all thought so, and the Moravian pastors John Heckewelder and David Zeisberger both believed it, and began to prove it at Schoenbrunn, at Lichtenau, and at Gnadenhutten.
After 1782, with Gnadenhutten a smoking, bloody ruin, and the other settlements abandoned, the likelihood of the two cultures sharing in the land dwindled to nothing. The rationale for the massacre, or the relative atrocity of Crawford’s death, were points of dispute well into the 1900’s, and only in recent years has a truly honest assessment been possible.
But buried in those recriminations of the early 1800’s and into the twentieth century are stories of those violent and angry young men, hearts set on useless vengeance, who grew to be husbands and community leaders and respected figures when territories became states.
The religious revivals of the Upper Ohio valley that led to the Restoration Movement, the teachings of Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell against the harsh Calvinism of their day, found fertile soil in the hearts of men who believed that there was no forgiveness for those who had such evils in their past, and they knew what they had done was evil. Baptist and Presbyterian practice of their day was that you could not join or commune until you could honestly say that you knew your sins were forgiven.
The Restoration Movement preachers like Walter Scott said "come, be baptized, and receive forgiveness; you don’t have to say you are forgiven to have the right to receive baptism, you enter the water to find it waiting for you there."
They taught Christ’s baptism, but the example of Crawford dying in their place surely lit the way for those now 50 & 60 year old men who came forward, and brought their families with them.
Today’s Churches of Christ, Disciples of Christ, independent Christian Churches, and United Church of Christ folk have a solemn anniversary of sorts this week, and I plan to make the brief pilgrimage myself to a silent mound, still marked with prayer and offerings, in Gnadenhutten.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; contact him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
* * *
* * *
"You Don’t Look Much Like an Indian"
---
It is written that they sang all night.
To really honor and keep vigil, even at 225 years’ worth of distance, I should have been there before dawn, when they were brought out blinking, facing the sun rising in the east, bluffs to the south looking down on the small settlement of log buildings, hemmed in by the Tuscarawas River looping north and west.
Some of the Pennsylvania and Virginia militiamen, even a majority out of the 450 or so who came from Fort Henry, refused to join in the slaughter, but neither did they stop it. None forgot it, though. Their testimony, and the frightened recollections of two small boys who escaped the Gnadenhutten Massacre, all agree that the 90 and more were divided, women in the church, males, elderly and youth, to the cooper’s shop. Told of their fate as evening fell March 7, they sang and prayed until dawn.
These were the Moravian Delawares, the Lenape Indians who adopted the Christianity taught by David Zeisberger and John Heckewelder. Their German-rooted faith carried a scattering of words from their old country naming homes in the new, like Gnadenhutten, meaning huts, or tents (tabernacles, really) of Grace.
Taken from other Moravian villages like Schoenbrunn and Salem, and herded together into this settlement, they were thought to be the raiders or at least supporters of war parties who had recently attacked colonial settlements in the early spring of 1782, egged on by the cash-for-scalps strategy of the British in Fort Detroit. In these simple structures built in the wilderness, they had hoped to find a Promised Land of peace, or at least the road to Heaven.
They were violently flung down the latter road, without a chance to find the former.I was there at noon, on a Thursday, long marked in my calendar as a "keep this date open" square. I came out of long developing awareness that, in trying to understand the vexed relationships of Anglo and Indian across the Ohio Territory before 1803, the cruel road to "removal" in the 1830’s for even the most assimilated tribes, and for social and religious movements across the early American Midwest, this place and the events of March 8, 1782 are a long missing key.
Knowing that this year was the 225th anniversary, and even knowing that it is an oddly Anglo habit to make much of certain numerical occurrences, I wondered if I would see anyone else. At least the circumstances of the season, the angle of the sun, the feel of nature, would echo something of what went on those days, which was reason enough for me to want to be there.
Pulling into the "Historical Park" around the site of the former settlement, there was still a thin coating of snow, unmelted from even the current relative warmth, showing that no one else had walked these paths for the last couple days.At the center of the long rectangle along the Tuscarawas was the monument. About 40 feet high, the obelisk catches your eye as you wind through the modern Gnadenhutten village cemetery which surrounds the park. When you approach it, the plinth reads, in very stark and deep carving:
Here
Triumphed In Death
Ninety
Christian Indians
March 8, 1782
and one level below, a single word in larger, all capital letters:
GNADENHUTTEN
…then on the opposite side, just as high but markedly less deep, as if unwilling to draw unnecessary attention to itself, the statement:
Erected June 5, 1872
For much of the year, when the sun rises, the shadow of the obelisk crosses the door of the mission house. It is a replica, with a small stone nearby quietly noting that the adjoining space is the actual site. Most of the time, and for all of my visits, you can’t get inside. There are windows, and an opposing window lets in a shaft of light that illuminates a slice of the large room, and illumination enough to see the split log benches, and the table to the front of the worship and gathering space.
You can’t get inside, I think; I cannot imagine that night, those hours, the actual experience of those hearts. They have literally seen the face of their implacable doom, set harshly on vengeance, standing at the one door to say that there is only a brief trip they will take out that door in the morning, they and their children. I do imagine that it was the women who began the singing, for women usually do, drawing the men across the way into their worship in the only way they could touch.
I cannot get inside the minds of the men outside, either. The accounts are clear about the killing and scalping and captive taking they had seen all around them, back across the Ohio River, and of their fury when a family that had settled across the river into Ohio was found murdered on the first day of their expedition to Upper Sandusky.
I can even sense some of the horror and mistrust that was sparked by the discovery of bloody rags in Gnadenhutten, cloth that one man among the now nameless militiamen (they never left a muster roll, or applied for compensation from their government, for obvious reasons) said that he was certain belonged to the dead woman of a few days before.
But as the night wore on, and the singing continued, how did they keep their hearts hardened? I don’t know, I don’t want to know, I need to know, I can’t ever know. David Williamson, a man so respected among his fellows that he was elected sheriff in later years for Washington County, Pennsylvania, was only in name the leader of this expedition."Colonel" Williamson is almost the only name known for certain with this venture, for he did gather them up and lead them with one purpose in mind. Stories agree that he was not in complete assent with the plans to slaughter the Moravian Indians, but also agree that he took a vote, and let the faction for murder have their way.
Did those two groups separate through the night? Did any of them sleep? No one knows. Rightly, all accounts focus on the singing, and the prayers, and the coming dawn.
Past the monument, the only other reconstructed building simply has another low stone carved with "The Cooper Shop – March 8, 1782." If you don’t know how that identifies this building, it seems to say, there’s no amount of text that will do it. It was a cooper’s large, heavy, wooden mallet that was taken up when the captives began to step out into the dawn’s early, brief light.
"Someone else take over, my arm’s getting tired," is the one quote preserved from the murderers, when the job was not even half done. So many stood by, but at least they remembered, and recorded.
The final home for those killed outside the doors of the church and cooperage was a few dozen yards to the south. The bodies were piled and burned, and a mound was raised over their remains later by the men of the settlement, who returned, from their attempt to begin planting the next year’s crop, to a scene of unutterable horror.
This low mound, no more than three feet high and about ten feet across, is now ringed with cypress shrubs gone woody, blocked from a gravel parking area by a few feet, and a row of old canal lock stones. They lay there between the pop machine at the museum’s back door, and a shuttered concession stand fenced about with piled picnic tables. When the Moravian missionaries returned with the adult men, they withdrew for some years from the Tuscarawas valley, but returned with now German Moravians and re-established the settlement. Their descendants are buried in the large cemetery all around, and now the folk of the village keep up the replica buildings and museum to tell the story of their faith’s heritage, largely for schoolchildren. There are some odd cutout figures attached to trees as silhouettes, and brightly painted panels for kids to push their faces through, giving them fake bodies to photograph, that gives the place a carnival atmosphere in certain angles. The main story seems to focus on the missionaries and the later, whiter settlement; but the fact that only the mission house and cooper shop are rebuilt says something about which story someone knew leaves the deeper mark.
I’ve pushed through the sentinel shrubbery just far enough to reach some windblown scraps of candy wrapper and newspaper, which I take to a nearby trashcan. However I feel about the décor, Gnadenhutten has always been neat and well tended whenever I’ve been by. Another walk past the mission house, looking through the window, and I come back to lean on my car, taking some notes, almost right next to the mound where this story didn’t, doesn’t end.
Another car drives around the museum, and pauses in the drive behind mine, not parking, but stopping. I see across the cemetery a fellow watching, by the maintenance shed, and just have a hunch that he may have called someone. Walking around the still running vehicle, I see the driver stab out a cigarette and roll down the window. She looks businesslike and a businesswoman, sharp featured and with knotted brow.
"You don’t look much like an Indian."
Now, in all fairness, I’m a tall, sandy haired, north of England looking fellow, who has been accused in heated arguments years ago of looking like a Hitler Youth poster. For the record, my eyes are brown, not blue, so Adolf might not have taken me. Anyhow.
"Ma’am?" I reply respectfully, thinking again that the park gate was open and that I’d seen no sign of closure, but also no sign of anyone else."You here about the anniversary?" she asked, glaring up at me, though in fairness the sun was bright, and behind my shoulder. So she knew.
"Sure. Wanted to see what observances or anything were going on today," I answered."
Nothing that I’ve heard, but we were watching to see if anyone came around to cause…" I realized that what had her attention was the fact that, from her point of view, I was an armed man. She had caught me starting to write down some of my reflections on this visit, for this day, and I still had an uncapped pen and some paper in my hand. It made her nervous. I have an unwarranted suspicion that a holstered .357 on my hip wouldn’t have made her nervous, but my taking notes did.
Having some small faith in memory, I shoved the notes and pen in my pocket. Sure enough, she lightened up considerably. She was with the local historical society, which owned the property and ran the museum ("we need more funding" ran the old, old song, which I briefly sang in duet with her). They tried to keep the mound tidy and the grounds attractive. She knew that the tobacco offerings that occasionally showed up on the burial mound were to be left alone, and told me the fellow across the way "wasn’t sure what you were up to," leaving the call inferred. "I appreciate the care you give to the area," I said.
She gestured to the sign in front of my car, a state historic marker that the Ohio Historical Society had put up just a few years ago. Under "The Gnadenhutten Massacre" was the phrase "A Day of Shame," and she said, looking sideways at it, "there were some bad things done back then. Town’s come a long way." Assuming she meant something more than that there had been no additional massacres since 1782, I asked what else the area did to keep the story of Gnadenhutten alive.
"School’s mascot is an Indian," and she saw me wince. "Oh, you’re one of them," she sighed resignedly, her entire tone shifting to the hard suspicion we’d begun on. "I just wondered if there were any Indian groups who came around to. . .""They all went west long ago," she snapped. "Went" is one word you could use, I thought, but kept my silence as she went on. "Glad to have their people visit, but they better not get any ideas about coming back and claiming this for a casino or anything. This is sacred ground."So it turns out we agreed on something, though we had no chance to explore this common belief together. The gravel was too damp from the melting snow to spray satisfactorily as she drove off, which I suspect was a disappointment to her. I could be wrong about that. I waved to her rearview mirror, and with malicious intent, made sure to pull out my notecards and pen while she could still see me, before she got onto the road and sped off.
I still couldn’t get inside. Not the mission house, the cooper shop, the minds of those who camped outside their doors 225 years and a night ago, nor this silent snowy mound. The museum was closed to me as well, and I fear also the mind of my colleague in museumkeeping.
I still didn’t know what urge, which motives caused the obelisk to be raised in 1872, not yet the national centennial nor the 100th commemoration of the event itself. In the 1890’s Ohio historians had tried to acknowledge the significance of this slaughter of the innocents, and how the new surge of anger among previously neutral Indians, and the guilty consciences of many frontier men, triggered consequences and responses far into the future. Even then, reactions to painting any of the first families of the Northwest Territory as anything other than saintly, came fast and furious. Simon Girty and Lewis Wetzel were the designated scapegoats for us all, a twisted (not quite right, you know) white man for each side, American and English. The "Williamson Expedition" that sputtered to a bloody end at Gnadenhutten fit no useful template, and was cast aside.
But the obelisk still stands, and the records, and even the guilt made some helpful memories last. "They sang through the night," knowing their doom was inescapable, and the sound of their singing was unforgettable, even if it was not enough to strengthen any of them to make common cause in their defense with fellow humans, let alone for fellow Christians.
Though I came at noon, as fit my schedule, I remembered that they sang through the night. This is what I remember of 225 years ago, and the days that are passing. They sang through the night, and that is what I hope the lady in the car remembers, too.
You can hear them still, if you listen. Just when you think the singing has stopped, it picks up again, waiting for the dawn. We should keep vigil with them, across the lawn between the buildings, across the centuries. They sang through the night, and we are not asked to do anything half as hard. Keep on singing their song, waiting to see who will join along, and do not let the singing end if you can help it. Some won’t join in, and others will frown, waiting for the song to stop.
They sang through the night.
What is given to us to do, to keep the story alive?
Faith Works 3-10-07
Jeff Gill
Tartar Sauce With Your Faith?
Driving down 21 st St. in Newark recently, four signs in quick succession indicated some kind of "fish sandwich special."
A chain that I won’t specify, but has a polite, bearded Colonel whose stock in trade is fowl, did an unusual thing last month, asking the Vatican in Rome to "bless" their new fish snacker. Something about how these restaurateurs just want to help us in our "busy modern lives."
The Pope’s answer has not, to my knowledge, been shared publicly, but the blessing seems to be on hold.
What’s the deal with fish? On those sign boards, there’s often a very precise "Friday" offer involved.
There is a long tradition in Christianity of "fish on Friday." Usually associated with Roman Catholicism, it actually isn’t just a Catholic Christian thing. Orthodox Christians of the Eastern rites (Greek, Russian, et alia) observe a rigorous fast throughout Lent, the period of preparation before Easter, where they abstain from meat and dairy entirely.
The point of "fish on Friday" isn’t so much fish, as it is the giving up of meat on the day Jesus was crucified and died. Christians of a variety of traditions have long had some form of fasting on Friday, whether from meat or other dietary niceties, throughout the year. The Catholic Church used to recommend this practice very strongly, and the observance is reinforced during Lent with the ubiquitous "Friday Fish Fry," at a parish near you.
Even if you aren’t helping the outreach budget of a Knights of Columbus chapter, there are plenty of you who stick to fish on Lenten Fridays, or so many fast food joints wouldn’t make it a selling point.
Going back into the Middle Ages of Europe, the ideal of fasting from rich, red meat was balanced by the availability of seafood, particularly in places like the British Isles and the Spanish and Italian peninsulas, where so many of our ancestors lived.
A preaching point helped to cement the message of "fish on Friday." Many know the two-curve glyph of a simple fish outline, signifying Christian belief. One of the roots of this icon is in an acronym for "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior" in Greek, which from those Greek letters is "Ichthus," or "fish."
A fish was an object of marvel in the ancient world, being an animal that lived in the sea, a sea creature with eyes and mouth and group behavior. "Neither fish nor fowl," speaking of the two forms of life that lived in the margins of what human understand.
Jesus as man, Christ as God, the "God-Man" as ancient creed literally said, was in two worlds at once, in a way human understanding could not quite comprehend. So a fish, an image so common in the Gospels to start with, was a sensible symbol of Christianity.
Eating fish, then, became both a renunciation of usual habits with fasting from steak and mutton, and an opportunity to meditate on God’s purposes worked out on the margins of our experience, eating an animal that lived in the water and breathed not air. If God can create a fish, why not become man?
Fasting is suitable for most of us, whatever our religious tradition. There are indications that many faith groups are recovering a sense of discipline and devotion through practices like fasting, but little indication in the culture that an epidemic of fasting is threatening to close DonutDome or BurgerWorld.
Drastic fasts, reducing down to fluids only, or just juices, should get some medical counsel as well as spiritual guidance. But anyone could simply give up a little extra, set aside some savings for good works of your choice, and even have some fish and reflect on the marvels of the created world around us as Spring approaches.
Too much tartar sauce, though, would defeat the whole purpose.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he could do with giving up the fries with his fish fillets. Tell him about a culinary devotion of your own at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Tartar Sauce With Your Faith?
Driving down 21 st St. in Newark recently, four signs in quick succession indicated some kind of "fish sandwich special."
A chain that I won’t specify, but has a polite, bearded Colonel whose stock in trade is fowl, did an unusual thing last month, asking the Vatican in Rome to "bless" their new fish snacker. Something about how these restaurateurs just want to help us in our "busy modern lives."
The Pope’s answer has not, to my knowledge, been shared publicly, but the blessing seems to be on hold.
What’s the deal with fish? On those sign boards, there’s often a very precise "Friday" offer involved.
There is a long tradition in Christianity of "fish on Friday." Usually associated with Roman Catholicism, it actually isn’t just a Catholic Christian thing. Orthodox Christians of the Eastern rites (Greek, Russian, et alia) observe a rigorous fast throughout Lent, the period of preparation before Easter, where they abstain from meat and dairy entirely.
The point of "fish on Friday" isn’t so much fish, as it is the giving up of meat on the day Jesus was crucified and died. Christians of a variety of traditions have long had some form of fasting on Friday, whether from meat or other dietary niceties, throughout the year. The Catholic Church used to recommend this practice very strongly, and the observance is reinforced during Lent with the ubiquitous "Friday Fish Fry," at a parish near you.
Even if you aren’t helping the outreach budget of a Knights of Columbus chapter, there are plenty of you who stick to fish on Lenten Fridays, or so many fast food joints wouldn’t make it a selling point.
Going back into the Middle Ages of Europe, the ideal of fasting from rich, red meat was balanced by the availability of seafood, particularly in places like the British Isles and the Spanish and Italian peninsulas, where so many of our ancestors lived.
A preaching point helped to cement the message of "fish on Friday." Many know the two-curve glyph of a simple fish outline, signifying Christian belief. One of the roots of this icon is in an acronym for "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior" in Greek, which from those Greek letters is "Ichthus," or "fish."
A fish was an object of marvel in the ancient world, being an animal that lived in the sea, a sea creature with eyes and mouth and group behavior. "Neither fish nor fowl," speaking of the two forms of life that lived in the margins of what human understand.
Jesus as man, Christ as God, the "God-Man" as ancient creed literally said, was in two worlds at once, in a way human understanding could not quite comprehend. So a fish, an image so common in the Gospels to start with, was a sensible symbol of Christianity.
Eating fish, then, became both a renunciation of usual habits with fasting from steak and mutton, and an opportunity to meditate on God’s purposes worked out on the margins of our experience, eating an animal that lived in the water and breathed not air. If God can create a fish, why not become man?
Fasting is suitable for most of us, whatever our religious tradition. There are indications that many faith groups are recovering a sense of discipline and devotion through practices like fasting, but little indication in the culture that an epidemic of fasting is threatening to close DonutDome or BurgerWorld.
Drastic fasts, reducing down to fluids only, or just juices, should get some medical counsel as well as spiritual guidance. But anyone could simply give up a little extra, set aside some savings for good works of your choice, and even have some fish and reflect on the marvels of the created world around us as Spring approaches.
Too much tartar sauce, though, would defeat the whole purpose.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he could do with giving up the fries with his fish fillets. Tell him about a culinary devotion of your own at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Notes From My Knapsack 3-11-07
Jeff Gill
Are We Running Out of Oil?
Are we running out of oil?
Of course we are.
Pretty much every serious scientist who has looked at the question agrees that
there is a finite amount of petrochemicals that exists in pockets and strata
below the surface of the earth. It was made through long, deep processes of
geology and chemistry that cannot be reproduced through mechanical means, so
when we use it up, that’s it.
A non-renewable resource, they call it, with reason.
Footnote: I say "pretty much" because there is an intriguing, if highly
unlikely loophole. Go Google "abiogenic, petroleum, origin" and enjoy if you
want. I don’t buy it.
The point remains, though, that we don’t even really understand how clubmoss
and fern pollen becomes black gold. (Hint: bacteria)
More optomistically, the real energy locked up in traditional oil and coal is
actually (wait for it) solar power. Yep, the energy of a sunny day long ago is
literally "fossilized" into carbon deposits, hence fossil fuels. Our best plan
for the future is to use this odd interlude in human history, which we get to
burn through but once, to figure out how to tap the original source, which is
our nearest star, the Sun.
(Um, but you said we’re running out. Could you go back to that?)
Sure. We are, indisputably, using up our fossil fuels. They’ve powered the
world’s economies, from Britain’s Industrial Revolution out of the northern
English coal fields, to today’s Middle Eastern to Microchip global tangle.
We’ve expanded wealth, generally and as available to a percentage of the world’
s population, beyond any point in recorded history. More people are fabulously
wealthy in the world (that’s you, happy Booster reader, relatively speaking)
than ever before, and even the poor have longer lifespans and better prospects
for health and understanding than their ancestors did a hundred years ago.
The problem, of course, is that it isn’t sustainable.
I am, however, irritatingly optomistic on this front (my friends and family
assure me of the irritating part, anyhow). Just as photos of Licking County
from 1907 show a barren and denuded landscape from deforestation (I’m talking
anywhere in the county, folks; stripped), largely for firewood, and street
scenes virtually reek of the horsemuck, many feet deep, helping folks rich and
poor die of cholera . . .
The year 2107 isn’t going to show a gasoline and Conesville electric plant
world. How will we get our power from the sun, the seas, or the deep core?
Dunno.
What I’m sure of, though, is that we’ll develop new technologies and industries
around the end of fossil fuel and the "Carbon" Economy the start of the "Blank"
Economy.
What I’m less sure of is what all this will do in the Middle East. Tom Friedman
has pegged this one, as he does so often, with his passionate arguments for a
"Geo-Green" strategy for the United States.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been ruled since the 1920’s by one man, with 50
to 1000 children from more than 17 "official" wives, whose successors to date
have all been sons. (King Ibn Saud died in 1953, but their official legal code
says the ruler must be a son or grandson of the founder, and they’re still well
stocked). The country is literally staffed by foreigners, since Saudis
themselves are largely out of the labor market.
Recently, it was shown that Saudi Arabia is working harder to produce the same
amount of oil. Put starkly, they’re running out of oil they can afford to sell
for what it costs to get.
When a quarter of your population are aliens who can’t vote and aren’t allowed
to worship or gather, and you can’t pay them anymore, what happens? When you
have to get them out of your country before your own dissidents start fomenting
rebellion among them, who drives the garbage trucks and runs the water plant,
or brings the mango chutney to your table? Oil is 90% of their economy.
We (that’s you and me, kids) helped make this feudal nightmare work for almost
a century. Like Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Iraq, the nations we built in
1920 after World War I are hitting their balloon payment dates, and the bill
has come in innocent blood. The first two are almost fully reconstituted along
reasonable lines, and we’re working on what Iraq will become. That land’s been
a piece of cake compared to what the endgame will be for Saudi Arabia.
We need sustainable energy, domestically produced, and soon, but not for the
reasons the doomsayers offer. This country is the chief support of a non-
sustainable government in the Middle East, and we’re going to have to be part
of finding a soft landing for them. The sticky mess was partly our fault back
when it was just sand, and oil has only made it messier.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio;
argue with him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Are We Running Out of Oil?
Are we running out of oil?
Of course we are.
Pretty much every serious scientist who has looked at the question agrees that
there is a finite amount of petrochemicals that exists in pockets and strata
below the surface of the earth. It was made through long, deep processes of
geology and chemistry that cannot be reproduced through mechanical means, so
when we use it up, that’s it.
A non-renewable resource, they call it, with reason.
Footnote: I say "pretty much" because there is an intriguing, if highly
unlikely loophole. Go Google "abiogenic, petroleum, origin" and enjoy if you
want. I don’t buy it.
The point remains, though, that we don’t even really understand how clubmoss
and fern pollen becomes black gold. (Hint: bacteria)
More optomistically, the real energy locked up in traditional oil and coal is
actually (wait for it) solar power. Yep, the energy of a sunny day long ago is
literally "fossilized" into carbon deposits, hence fossil fuels. Our best plan
for the future is to use this odd interlude in human history, which we get to
burn through but once, to figure out how to tap the original source, which is
our nearest star, the Sun.
(Um, but you said we’re running out. Could you go back to that?)
Sure. We are, indisputably, using up our fossil fuels. They’ve powered the
world’s economies, from Britain’s Industrial Revolution out of the northern
English coal fields, to today’s Middle Eastern to Microchip global tangle.
We’ve expanded wealth, generally and as available to a percentage of the world’
s population, beyond any point in recorded history. More people are fabulously
wealthy in the world (that’s you, happy Booster reader, relatively speaking)
than ever before, and even the poor have longer lifespans and better prospects
for health and understanding than their ancestors did a hundred years ago.
The problem, of course, is that it isn’t sustainable.
I am, however, irritatingly optomistic on this front (my friends and family
assure me of the irritating part, anyhow). Just as photos of Licking County
from 1907 show a barren and denuded landscape from deforestation (I’m talking
anywhere in the county, folks; stripped), largely for firewood, and street
scenes virtually reek of the horsemuck, many feet deep, helping folks rich and
poor die of cholera . . .
The year 2107 isn’t going to show a gasoline and Conesville electric plant
world. How will we get our power from the sun, the seas, or the deep core?
Dunno.
What I’m sure of, though, is that we’ll develop new technologies and industries
around the end of fossil fuel and the "Carbon" Economy the start of the "Blank"
Economy.
What I’m less sure of is what all this will do in the Middle East. Tom Friedman
has pegged this one, as he does so often, with his passionate arguments for a
"Geo-Green" strategy for the United States.
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has been ruled since the 1920’s by one man, with 50
to 1000 children from more than 17 "official" wives, whose successors to date
have all been sons. (King Ibn Saud died in 1953, but their official legal code
says the ruler must be a son or grandson of the founder, and they’re still well
stocked). The country is literally staffed by foreigners, since Saudis
themselves are largely out of the labor market.
Recently, it was shown that Saudi Arabia is working harder to produce the same
amount of oil. Put starkly, they’re running out of oil they can afford to sell
for what it costs to get.
When a quarter of your population are aliens who can’t vote and aren’t allowed
to worship or gather, and you can’t pay them anymore, what happens? When you
have to get them out of your country before your own dissidents start fomenting
rebellion among them, who drives the garbage trucks and runs the water plant,
or brings the mango chutney to your table? Oil is 90% of their economy.
We (that’s you and me, kids) helped make this feudal nightmare work for almost
a century. Like Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Iraq, the nations we built in
1920 after World War I are hitting their balloon payment dates, and the bill
has come in innocent blood. The first two are almost fully reconstituted along
reasonable lines, and we’re working on what Iraq will become. That land’s been
a piece of cake compared to what the endgame will be for Saudi Arabia.
We need sustainable energy, domestically produced, and soon, but not for the
reasons the doomsayers offer. This country is the chief support of a non-
sustainable government in the Middle East, and we’re going to have to be part
of finding a soft landing for them. The sticky mess was partly our fault back
when it was just sand, and oil has only made it messier.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio;
argue with him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Monday, February 26, 2007
Faith Works 3-03-07
Jeff Gill
Crawford Died For Your Sins
A man once died a particularly cruel and painful death, to make up for the evil actions of others, of which he himself was entirely innocent. His death led to the birth of a religious community which counts many adherents all around us to this day. The place of his death is well known, but not a scrap of his body can be found to this day.
No, not Him.
It was in Ohio, beginning 225 years ago this week.
One phase of this tragic narrative began on the morning of March 8, in 1782, as almost 100 old men, women, and children of the Moravian Delaware Indian community were massacred, mostly by mallet and hand axe, about an hour east of us at Gnadenhutten. Two boys survived, one by playing dead after a blow to the head, lying still under a pile of his family and fellow worshipers; the other was small enough to sneak out between the logs of their church building, where the community was kept overnight in singing and prayer before their execution at dawn.
They, too, were innocent. The adult men of the community had been working to plant the next season’s corn, and a few other Indians from Fort Detroit may have sheltered with them overnight who had raided across the Ohio, but of those killed there was no blood on their hands. That didn’t keep their blood from watering the ground at the Moravian log church’s door.
The blood of those 96 or 98 victims actually fueled the flames of hostility on the frontier, the western theater of the American Revolution, where British officers taught the fine art of scalping to young rootless warriors and offered money for European scalps. Some Native leaders like Chief Cornstalk and Killbuck had argued for a neutral stance, but the temptations of cash for killing led enough across the Ohio that reprisal parties answered raiding parties, leading to the senseless slaughter of Gnadenhutten, or "Huts of Grace" in the German of the David Heckewelder’s missionary efforts.
Innocent blood called out to warriors and leaders who had stayed so far aloof from the irregular combat. A massing of Native people came together at Upper Sandusky, and a second expedition was planned near Washington, PA, to cross again at Fort Henry (Wheeling, today) and find a new, more fitting target for their vengance.
The two groups met at Tymochtee Creek, just south of Carey, OH, with the Pennsylvanians led by George Washington’s friend Col. William Crawford, sent somewhat against his will to keep tighter control on the angry and undisciplined frontier militia, most of whom had been at Gnadenhutten a few months before.
The Americans were attacked, broke, scattered, and Crawford was captured. It was explained to him that he must die to satisfy the debt incurred in his fellow soldier’s killings. By all accounts, his courage and relative calm was moving to all, but not enough to end the torture and death designed for him.
Could Indians and Americans share in building a culture and a home across the Ohio Territory? Logan and Cornstalk and Guyasuta and Killbuck and White-eyes all thought so, and the Moravian pastors John Heckewelder and David Zeisberger both believed it, and began to prove it at Schoenbrunn, at Lichtenau, and at Gnadenhutten.After 1782, with Gnadenhutten a smoking, bloody ruin, and the other settlements abandoned, the likelihood of the two cultures sharing in the land dwindled to nothing. The rationale for the massacre, or the relative atrocity of Crawford’s death, were points of dispute well into the 1900’s, and only in recent years has a truly honest assessment been possible.
But buried in those recriminations of the early 1800’s and into the twentieth century are stories of those violent and angry young men, hearts set on useless vengeance, who grew to be husbands and community leaders and respected figures when territories became states.
The religious revivals of the Upper Ohio valley that led to the Restoration Movement, the teachings of Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell against the harsh Calvinism of their day, found fertile soil in the hearts of men who believed that there was no forgiveness for those who had such evils in their past, and they knew what they had done was evil. Baptist and Presbyterian practice of their day was that you could not join or commune until you could honestly say that you knew your sins were forgiven.
The Restoration Movement preachers like Walter Scott said "come, be baptized, and receive forgiveness; you don’t have to say you are forgiven to have the right to receive baptism, you enter the water to find it waiting for you there."
They taught Christ’s baptism, but the example of Crawford dying in their place surely lit the way for those now 50 & 60 year old men who came forward, and brought their families with them.
Today’s Churches of Christ, Disciples of Christ, independent Christian Churches, and United Church of Christ folk have a solemn anniversary of sorts this week, and I plan to make the brief pilgrimage myself to a silent mound, still marked with prayer and offerings, in Gnadenhutten.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; contact him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Crawford Died For Your Sins
A man once died a particularly cruel and painful death, to make up for the evil actions of others, of which he himself was entirely innocent. His death led to the birth of a religious community which counts many adherents all around us to this day. The place of his death is well known, but not a scrap of his body can be found to this day.
No, not Him.
It was in Ohio, beginning 225 years ago this week.
One phase of this tragic narrative began on the morning of March 8, in 1782, as almost 100 old men, women, and children of the Moravian Delaware Indian community were massacred, mostly by mallet and hand axe, about an hour east of us at Gnadenhutten. Two boys survived, one by playing dead after a blow to the head, lying still under a pile of his family and fellow worshipers; the other was small enough to sneak out between the logs of their church building, where the community was kept overnight in singing and prayer before their execution at dawn.
They, too, were innocent. The adult men of the community had been working to plant the next season’s corn, and a few other Indians from Fort Detroit may have sheltered with them overnight who had raided across the Ohio, but of those killed there was no blood on their hands. That didn’t keep their blood from watering the ground at the Moravian log church’s door.
The blood of those 96 or 98 victims actually fueled the flames of hostility on the frontier, the western theater of the American Revolution, where British officers taught the fine art of scalping to young rootless warriors and offered money for European scalps. Some Native leaders like Chief Cornstalk and Killbuck had argued for a neutral stance, but the temptations of cash for killing led enough across the Ohio that reprisal parties answered raiding parties, leading to the senseless slaughter of Gnadenhutten, or "Huts of Grace" in the German of the David Heckewelder’s missionary efforts.
Innocent blood called out to warriors and leaders who had stayed so far aloof from the irregular combat. A massing of Native people came together at Upper Sandusky, and a second expedition was planned near Washington, PA, to cross again at Fort Henry (Wheeling, today) and find a new, more fitting target for their vengance.
The two groups met at Tymochtee Creek, just south of Carey, OH, with the Pennsylvanians led by George Washington’s friend Col. William Crawford, sent somewhat against his will to keep tighter control on the angry and undisciplined frontier militia, most of whom had been at Gnadenhutten a few months before.
The Americans were attacked, broke, scattered, and Crawford was captured. It was explained to him that he must die to satisfy the debt incurred in his fellow soldier’s killings. By all accounts, his courage and relative calm was moving to all, but not enough to end the torture and death designed for him.
Could Indians and Americans share in building a culture and a home across the Ohio Territory? Logan and Cornstalk and Guyasuta and Killbuck and White-eyes all thought so, and the Moravian pastors John Heckewelder and David Zeisberger both believed it, and began to prove it at Schoenbrunn, at Lichtenau, and at Gnadenhutten.After 1782, with Gnadenhutten a smoking, bloody ruin, and the other settlements abandoned, the likelihood of the two cultures sharing in the land dwindled to nothing. The rationale for the massacre, or the relative atrocity of Crawford’s death, were points of dispute well into the 1900’s, and only in recent years has a truly honest assessment been possible.
But buried in those recriminations of the early 1800’s and into the twentieth century are stories of those violent and angry young men, hearts set on useless vengeance, who grew to be husbands and community leaders and respected figures when territories became states.
The religious revivals of the Upper Ohio valley that led to the Restoration Movement, the teachings of Barton Stone and Alexander Campbell against the harsh Calvinism of their day, found fertile soil in the hearts of men who believed that there was no forgiveness for those who had such evils in their past, and they knew what they had done was evil. Baptist and Presbyterian practice of their day was that you could not join or commune until you could honestly say that you knew your sins were forgiven.
The Restoration Movement preachers like Walter Scott said "come, be baptized, and receive forgiveness; you don’t have to say you are forgiven to have the right to receive baptism, you enter the water to find it waiting for you there."
They taught Christ’s baptism, but the example of Crawford dying in their place surely lit the way for those now 50 & 60 year old men who came forward, and brought their families with them.
Today’s Churches of Christ, Disciples of Christ, independent Christian Churches, and United Church of Christ folk have a solemn anniversary of sorts this week, and I plan to make the brief pilgrimage myself to a silent mound, still marked with prayer and offerings, in Gnadenhutten.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; contact him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Notes From My Knapsack 3-4-07
Jeff Gill
Countrymen, Lend Me Your Ears
Clint Eastwood doing translation from Italian to English on live television: how cool is that? Dirty Harry can order calamari in Napoli and flirt with the waitresses va bene. Of course he speaks the musical tongue of the land of spaghetti westerns, but it says something about what kind of artist he is that he bothered to do so, instead of sending a personal assistant to get his fried squid rings for him. So much for Oscar excitement.
I’m a big fan of the Tony Awards where the recipients not only rarely read off of a piece of paper, but they say interesting and unexpected things. The Morricone lifetime acheivement Oscar was the most exciting speech, and we knew about that one a month ago.
Speaking off the cuff in public is a rare talent; some would call it a gift. Doing so effectively under adverse circumstances is even less common. The bar was set in 1912 by Teddy Roosevelt, who was getting set to give a speech in Milwaukee, in his campaign for the presidency on the Bull Moose ticket. The Republican Party had left him behind in favor of William Howard Taft (you may recall his great-grandson, recent governor hereabouts), and TR wanted to make a stronger case against Woodrow Wilson than his party was willing to hear, so he ran as an independent. Stepping onto the platform, he was shot by a man who had stalked him for weeks, waiting for a clear shot. In Milwaukee, the moment came, and Roosevelt fell with a bullet in his chest.
Here’s how we know the speech was largely unread: Teddy stepped to the podium to calm the crowd, brandishing the text of the speech he was to give. The heavy paper, folded lengthwise in half and thrust in a jacket breast pocket, had slowed the bullet, along with the tweed jacket. His skin was broken, but the bullet lost enough energy going through the entire speech, twice, that it slid off a rib and stopped between them, just under the skin. He barely bled, and said he "just had the wind knocked out of him," like falling off a horse.
And then, still waving the pierced sheaf of paper, he gave his speech to a *very* attentive crowd.
Part of what had me thinking recently about that speech, and the value of a third party candidate, is the fairly dreary sheaf of candidates, R and D, we’ve got jostling already for the 2008 presidential election. Even Obama, whom I’d love to go hear speak, has policy idea number one still back in the focus groups, but next to nuttin’ in his speeches. And the GOP gang -- yikes.
What did a bruised, breathless, ultimately futile Teddy Roosevelt want to say on the platform in 1912? Why did he keep speaking to a rapt audience while his friends on the podium kept urging him to sit down and let attendants carry him off the stage? (He did go to a hospital after the speech and have the slug cut out of his chest and get wrapped in bandages.)
Here are the main points of the speech: Americans deserve an eight hour day, a forty hour week, with at least two weeks of paid vacation you could take without losing your job. He passionately maintained that factory child labor should be abolished all across the country, and that the minimum wage should apply to women who had paying work, just like it did for men.
That wild-eyed radical, Teddy Roosevelt.
For standing up for those "Progressive" views, he couldn’t even get a voice at either party convention; so he ran as an independent. He lost, but his ideas won.
Full disclosure: my first adult involvement in politics was to work for the Indiana state organization for John Anderson. No, he didn’t win, and while you couldn’t get him to say so in public, he knew he had not a prayer of winning. He also knew that he had precisely no ability to influence the Reagan ticket by helping him as an Illinois supporter, but could get issues on the table as a candidate. I liked his emphasis on the governmental responsibility to maintain infrastructure, which needed and needs a spotlight, other than new bridges to nowhere. His take on welfare reform was in line with what didn’t happen until the Clinton administration fifteen years later, and Anderson was passionate about public education, especially support for state universities as a primary piece of civic infrastructure and economic development. I still don’t regret working for him (he’s still alive, 85, and teaching in Florida, smart man that he is), and believe he influenced the debate to a useful degree. Could we use a strong third party voice this year? No, Nader hasn’t shown himself to have even Anderson level support, and his views are outliers from the perspective of most Americans. Anderson ran a fusion ticket, asking a Democratic governor to run with him.
I keep thinking Lieberman-Hagel, myself. They’d have courteous, incisive debates while they waited for the other candidates to show up for the sound check. Then they’d get really good . . .
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; throw your political opinions in the ring at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Countrymen, Lend Me Your Ears
Clint Eastwood doing translation from Italian to English on live television: how cool is that? Dirty Harry can order calamari in Napoli and flirt with the waitresses va bene. Of course he speaks the musical tongue of the land of spaghetti westerns, but it says something about what kind of artist he is that he bothered to do so, instead of sending a personal assistant to get his fried squid rings for him. So much for Oscar excitement.
I’m a big fan of the Tony Awards where the recipients not only rarely read off of a piece of paper, but they say interesting and unexpected things. The Morricone lifetime acheivement Oscar was the most exciting speech, and we knew about that one a month ago.
Speaking off the cuff in public is a rare talent; some would call it a gift. Doing so effectively under adverse circumstances is even less common. The bar was set in 1912 by Teddy Roosevelt, who was getting set to give a speech in Milwaukee, in his campaign for the presidency on the Bull Moose ticket. The Republican Party had left him behind in favor of William Howard Taft (you may recall his great-grandson, recent governor hereabouts), and TR wanted to make a stronger case against Woodrow Wilson than his party was willing to hear, so he ran as an independent. Stepping onto the platform, he was shot by a man who had stalked him for weeks, waiting for a clear shot. In Milwaukee, the moment came, and Roosevelt fell with a bullet in his chest.
Here’s how we know the speech was largely unread: Teddy stepped to the podium to calm the crowd, brandishing the text of the speech he was to give. The heavy paper, folded lengthwise in half and thrust in a jacket breast pocket, had slowed the bullet, along with the tweed jacket. His skin was broken, but the bullet lost enough energy going through the entire speech, twice, that it slid off a rib and stopped between them, just under the skin. He barely bled, and said he "just had the wind knocked out of him," like falling off a horse.
And then, still waving the pierced sheaf of paper, he gave his speech to a *very* attentive crowd.
Part of what had me thinking recently about that speech, and the value of a third party candidate, is the fairly dreary sheaf of candidates, R and D, we’ve got jostling already for the 2008 presidential election. Even Obama, whom I’d love to go hear speak, has policy idea number one still back in the focus groups, but next to nuttin’ in his speeches. And the GOP gang -- yikes.
What did a bruised, breathless, ultimately futile Teddy Roosevelt want to say on the platform in 1912? Why did he keep speaking to a rapt audience while his friends on the podium kept urging him to sit down and let attendants carry him off the stage? (He did go to a hospital after the speech and have the slug cut out of his chest and get wrapped in bandages.)
Here are the main points of the speech: Americans deserve an eight hour day, a forty hour week, with at least two weeks of paid vacation you could take without losing your job. He passionately maintained that factory child labor should be abolished all across the country, and that the minimum wage should apply to women who had paying work, just like it did for men.
That wild-eyed radical, Teddy Roosevelt.
For standing up for those "Progressive" views, he couldn’t even get a voice at either party convention; so he ran as an independent. He lost, but his ideas won.
Full disclosure: my first adult involvement in politics was to work for the Indiana state organization for John Anderson. No, he didn’t win, and while you couldn’t get him to say so in public, he knew he had not a prayer of winning. He also knew that he had precisely no ability to influence the Reagan ticket by helping him as an Illinois supporter, but could get issues on the table as a candidate. I liked his emphasis on the governmental responsibility to maintain infrastructure, which needed and needs a spotlight, other than new bridges to nowhere. His take on welfare reform was in line with what didn’t happen until the Clinton administration fifteen years later, and Anderson was passionate about public education, especially support for state universities as a primary piece of civic infrastructure and economic development. I still don’t regret working for him (he’s still alive, 85, and teaching in Florida, smart man that he is), and believe he influenced the debate to a useful degree. Could we use a strong third party voice this year? No, Nader hasn’t shown himself to have even Anderson level support, and his views are outliers from the perspective of most Americans. Anderson ran a fusion ticket, asking a Democratic governor to run with him.
I keep thinking Lieberman-Hagel, myself. They’d have courteous, incisive debates while they waited for the other candidates to show up for the sound check. Then they’d get really good . . .
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; throw your political opinions in the ring at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Thursday, February 22, 2007
Faith Works 2-24-07
Jeff Gill
Bridal Tips From "The Officiant"
Today is the Advocate sponsored Bridal Show out at Indian Mound Mall.
Nope, no one asked me to help flack the company event, I was just reading my
Bridal Show insert last weekend. There were tips on booking the reception hall,
finding a photographer, picking the color of your dresses.
But who performs the wedding?
Now, right there, I’ve always wondered. How did the term of art around this
legal function become "perform a wedding"? Although many of the clergy, judges,
and mayors who have done more than a few know that images of a circus come to
mind, quite often.
The legal truth is that the Secretary of State issues the certificate that
allows one to "solemnize a marriage" (now I can agree with that term!), in
whatever county of Ohio. Mine is signed by Sherrod Brown, as it happens, before
he became our US Senator.
The county Probate Court issues a license, checking the legal status of the two
to enter into this legal state, and it is "good for" thirty days.
Within thirty days of getting your license from the courthouse, you have to
find someone who is willing to authorize it. That means a person who is a
judge, mayor, or clergymember (with a certificate from the Sec’y of State) who
will verify you are the two listed on the license, will ask and witness to the
answer of "do you commit yourselves to one another in marriage?" and will sign
and return said license to the Probate Court, where on arrival it becomes
registered and you are now legally married.
Wait, you say, what about the church?
Don’t need one. That’s the answer. Now, if your religious tradition requires
the use of sacred space, a specific ritual, and particular acts, that is what
constitutes "duly married" in the church, but it is completely separate –
except in practice! – from legally married.
For instance, as is best known, there are many couples, even within Catholic
parishes, who are legally married, but are not "married in the eyes of the
church." Their status is not in question under the law, but their freedom to
receive the sacraments of the church or hold certain offices in parish life is
subject to limitations.
There are also situations, admittedly rare, but by no means unheard of, when
couples get married by an officiating clergyperson, but are not "legally
married." Think "Romeo & Juliet" and Friar Lawrence.
Some older couples have asked their pastor to hold a wedding ceremony for them,
but for legal or financial reasons choose not to become a legal couple. That
rarely makes as much sense as people convince themselves it does, and I’ve
never done one, but I hear about these all the time.
And many of you heard about the young woman last fall who had a terminal
disease, and a fiance who had no health insurance, so they married at church,
moved into the young woman’s parent’s home, but did not get a legal marrige so
she could stay on her dad’s policy. That’s a tough one, and I would not dream
of criticizing the clergy who officiated there.
But the point I’m wanting to make for all the bridal planners out there: no one
"has to" perform your wedding. If you book the photographer, the reception
hall, that crazy cake baker from Baltimore on The Food Network, and the band
(even "The Band"), and then go to your friendly neighborhood pastor . . . um.
They might have a family vacation planned, there might be another bride who got
there first, or they may not do weddings on three weeks’ notice.
Many churches, in fact, require both a certain period of notice, and meetings
with the minister or classes along with other couples. Six months is not
unusual. Some churches simply don’t do non-member weddings at all.
And if you don’t have a church home, but want a church wedding, here’s a
thought for you both. Talk through *why* you want a church wedding. Make sure
you know why, and have communicated about it.
No pastor likes to say "no" to a couple, truly. But when you’re talking to
folks who get hugely upset at the news that you won’t do it on less than three
months’ notice, that they have to meet with you, or that you can’t redecorate
the sanctuary from apse to nave or pick exactly the music you want . . . you
just say "no" and try to save everyone heartache.
Add in that many clergy won’t do wedding services other than in a church, and
you may need to be planning as carefully for an officiant as you do a caterer.
You should, and you won’t regret it. That gives them a chance to help you keep
in mind that the wedding is just the prelude to a marriage. The marriage is
what this is all about, anyhow.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio,
and he’s performed a few weddings. Tell him your wedding tales at
knapsack77@gmail.com.
Notes From My Knapsack 2-25-07
Jeff Gill
This Week On the Red Carpet
Oscar Night is this weekend, and we’ll read all next week about the winners for
best picture, best actors and actresses, cinematography, and "the buzz."
Clearly, "buzz" isn’t just for apiculture anymore. Bee hive keepers know about
buzz, and now the contestants on "The Apprentice: LA" do, too, with their
venture into apiculture.
But if you work with honeybees, and are around the hive, their tone, their buzz
really does change. And I’m told, though blessedly have never been in earshot
to know personally, that you never forget the sound of an angry hive.
I’ve heard what I was told is the tone of a happy hive buzz, and it made me
profoundly nervous. So that’s all I need to know about angry.
"Buzz" is what drives the debate on the Iraq war, the ’08 presidential
nominating contest, and Oscar picks. There is, apparently, a tone of the
discussion and topics and attitudes that can be read to point out the ultimate
winner. Read the buzz, the logic goes, read the hive.
My problem with Oscar buzz is that for me, Best Picture is "Casablanca," Best
Actor is Bogie or Bing or Cary Grant, and Best Actress is (hmmmm) either Eva
Marie Saint or maybe Katherine Hepburn.
You could throw up "North by Northwest," Nobody’s Fool," or "Leap of Faith,"
Paul Newman or Steve Martin, Rene Russo in "The Thomas Crown Affair," or "A
Canterbury Tale," even "State and Main," and Phillip Seymour Hoffman and
Rebecca Pidgeon. The point is, I have no idea who’s made movies *this* year.
That’s not entirely true: the Lovely Wife and I took the Little Guy to see
"Cars," which was a delightful ripoff of "Doc Hollywood" if you ask me (did
they pay royalties to the doctor who wrote that, I wonder?).
And we had a grandparentally provided opportunity to see "The Nativity Story,"
which will no doubt win just as many Oscars as "The Passion" did (i.e., none,
with a consolation minor, non-TV show award). The guy who played Herod was
brilliantly evil, though, and having played many wise men through the years, I
delighted in Caspar, Balthasar, and Melchior, perhaps more than I did the Holy
Couple.
Anyhow, none of that qualifies me to comment on the Oscars. I know that the
trophies will go to a number of people who are in very expensive clothes who
are deeply concerned about hunger and global warming . . . before they drive
off to the post-party in Escalades, catching a chartered Gulfstream to make the
morning shows in New York, pumping Lord knows how much carbon into the
atmosphere.
If they aren’t giving Longaberger gift baskets to the presenters anymore (they
dropped the whole basket idea once it got thirty thousand dollars worth of
lavishness, embarrassing even Hollywood publicists), why exactly do we care?
The buzz, such as there is one, is around the fate of Hollywood itself. Younger
audiences are watching clips and movies on portable media (read iPods and their
clones), downloading movies to laptops, wifi-ing them into the big screen only
occasionally.
So studios no longer control the taps, so to speak. Visual media comes across a
wide variety of settings, and people of all ages are getting used to amateur
content as more of the norm (read YouTube) from news update footage from
cellphone shots to churches with inhouse productions showing on their
bigscreens.
If they don’t control the taps, they don’t control who pays – or if anyone is
paying.
And the aesthetic side is even bigger. "Lawrence of Arabia," for all David Lean’
s beautiful photography and Peter O’Toole’s acting, doesn’t work on a two inch
screen. It just doesn’t. The sands of the Empty Quarter and the rocky cliffs of
Petra aren’t more than colorful smudges on a DVD player screen, and Omar Sharif
riding towards the camera from dot to mounted Prince has little impact on a
laptop.
Will this mean movies will start getting made less for the silver screen, and
more to the micro-formats? What does that look like? More talking heads?
And you can’t think about any of this without remembering that we’re now a full
decade into the era where all videogames make more money than all movies put
together. Talk about making your own story, within a broad framework delivered
by the designer/director.
Movies have long been a crucial element in how we tell our stories about
ourselves to each other. So when we talk about the buzz around where Hollywood’
s going, we’re talking about our own stories.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio,
and he’s used to using movie images in preaching. Tell him how the changes in
cinema might change your story at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Friday, February 16, 2007
Faith Works 2-17-07
Jeff Gill
Love Can Last, Not So Statistics
It was when Mike Huckabee said it that I was startled.
For years, the casual observation has slipped into everyday conversation and general media reports: one out of two marriages end in divorce.
Everyone knows that.
And like most things everyone knows, it isn’t true. Usually social conservatives, like the aforementioned former governor of Arkansas (born in Hope, no less) who wants to be the next Republican president, are up to speed on social data.
But this non-data datum is so pervasive that maybe a candidate, wanting to point to cultural decay and their proposed fixes, can’t resist using it. They should, though, because I worry about how this sounds to young couples. "We got a fifty-fifty shot at lasting, no? Let’s just move in and keep it simple."
So to take apart misconception number one – the reason the "one in two" figure is so readily accepted, is probably something you’ve noticed in the pages of this very publication. You see thirty marriage license application listed, and fifteen divorces and dissolutions. One in two, Jeff, what’s your point?
That’s where actual statistical analysis comes in. When George and Martha have been married for 57 years, that’s one marriage. In the same period, Fred and Ethel marry and break up. That’s a divorce, one out of two; meanwhile, Fred marries and divorces three more times and Ethel twice. How do you count that?
Well, pollster Lewis Harris in his 1987 book "Inside America" wrote that "the idea that half of American marriages are doomed is one of the most specious pieces of statistical nonsense ever perpetuated in modern times." Add in couples that divorce and get back together (not a great many, but more than you might think), and it turns out that an accurate number for the "marriage success rate" is very hard to find.
Our competition over at the New York Times did a detailed demographic analysis two years ago, and concluded that "the percentage of all marriages that end in divorce" peaked at 41% in 1980, and today is at or below 30%.Is a 70% success rate for American marriage better than 50%? It’d sound like it to me if I was 23 and looking at setting a wedding date. Some studies push that number closer to 75%, meaning you could say with perfect accuracy "three out of four marriages last a lifetime."
What makes this info even more critical among couples starting out is the dramatic skew with education and socio-economic factors. Women who have completed college divorce around 20% of the time, while those with less education are divorcing in close to 40% of their marriages. Add in the more than twice that number skew for "out-of-wedlock entirely" births, and you see – well, you see Vickie Lynn Hogan. You see the sad story of Anna Nicole Smith (her stage name), but almost always without the millions or the fame. Just the bad choices leading to disastrous outcomes for the children who become ping pong balls in adult disputes.
The danger of this "well, you only have a one in two chance of making it, anyhow" logic is that those least able to deal with added stress and complication in their lives, the poorest and least educated, are thinking they hear a cultural signal of "it don’t matter nohow." The reality is that their better educated sisters are getting fewer partners, abortions, single pregnancies, and divorces. The wealth gap, which is growing in America, may have more to do with these trends than even NAFTA (and I’m not saying NAFTA doesn’t).
Or did you know that, according to a national survey in 1995, having just one sexual partner, outside of the one you’ll marry, increases your odds of divorce by half? And just a second (that’s only a lifetime total of three partners, if you’re keeping score at home), bumps that figure up another 10%?
So this St. Valentine’s week, as you can probably tell, I’m feeling pretty passionate about us telling the truth to each other about the state of marriage, the role of monogamy, its advantages, and why people of faith have a stake in both family and the economy to say so. Loudly.
And yes, I sent the Huckabee campaign got an email from me. If I hear anything back, I’ll let y’all know.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; send him your tale of faith and life in Licking County at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Love Can Last, Not So Statistics
It was when Mike Huckabee said it that I was startled.
For years, the casual observation has slipped into everyday conversation and general media reports: one out of two marriages end in divorce.
Everyone knows that.
And like most things everyone knows, it isn’t true. Usually social conservatives, like the aforementioned former governor of Arkansas (born in Hope, no less) who wants to be the next Republican president, are up to speed on social data.
But this non-data datum is so pervasive that maybe a candidate, wanting to point to cultural decay and their proposed fixes, can’t resist using it. They should, though, because I worry about how this sounds to young couples. "We got a fifty-fifty shot at lasting, no? Let’s just move in and keep it simple."
So to take apart misconception number one – the reason the "one in two" figure is so readily accepted, is probably something you’ve noticed in the pages of this very publication. You see thirty marriage license application listed, and fifteen divorces and dissolutions. One in two, Jeff, what’s your point?
That’s where actual statistical analysis comes in. When George and Martha have been married for 57 years, that’s one marriage. In the same period, Fred and Ethel marry and break up. That’s a divorce, one out of two; meanwhile, Fred marries and divorces three more times and Ethel twice. How do you count that?
Well, pollster Lewis Harris in his 1987 book "Inside America" wrote that "the idea that half of American marriages are doomed is one of the most specious pieces of statistical nonsense ever perpetuated in modern times." Add in couples that divorce and get back together (not a great many, but more than you might think), and it turns out that an accurate number for the "marriage success rate" is very hard to find.
Our competition over at the New York Times did a detailed demographic analysis two years ago, and concluded that "the percentage of all marriages that end in divorce" peaked at 41% in 1980, and today is at or below 30%.Is a 70% success rate for American marriage better than 50%? It’d sound like it to me if I was 23 and looking at setting a wedding date. Some studies push that number closer to 75%, meaning you could say with perfect accuracy "three out of four marriages last a lifetime."
What makes this info even more critical among couples starting out is the dramatic skew with education and socio-economic factors. Women who have completed college divorce around 20% of the time, while those with less education are divorcing in close to 40% of their marriages. Add in the more than twice that number skew for "out-of-wedlock entirely" births, and you see – well, you see Vickie Lynn Hogan. You see the sad story of Anna Nicole Smith (her stage name), but almost always without the millions or the fame. Just the bad choices leading to disastrous outcomes for the children who become ping pong balls in adult disputes.
The danger of this "well, you only have a one in two chance of making it, anyhow" logic is that those least able to deal with added stress and complication in their lives, the poorest and least educated, are thinking they hear a cultural signal of "it don’t matter nohow." The reality is that their better educated sisters are getting fewer partners, abortions, single pregnancies, and divorces. The wealth gap, which is growing in America, may have more to do with these trends than even NAFTA (and I’m not saying NAFTA doesn’t).
Or did you know that, according to a national survey in 1995, having just one sexual partner, outside of the one you’ll marry, increases your odds of divorce by half? And just a second (that’s only a lifetime total of three partners, if you’re keeping score at home), bumps that figure up another 10%?
So this St. Valentine’s week, as you can probably tell, I’m feeling pretty passionate about us telling the truth to each other about the state of marriage, the role of monogamy, its advantages, and why people of faith have a stake in both family and the economy to say so. Loudly.
And yes, I sent the Huckabee campaign got an email from me. If I hear anything back, I’ll let y’all know.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; send him your tale of faith and life in Licking County at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Notes From My Knapsack 2-18-07
Jeff Gill
Developers Develop
Developers develop projects.
I know that sounds painfully obvious, but as George Orwell liked to say, sometimes the hardest work is facing what’s right in front of us.
A developer, by definition, wants to develop.
First, the upside (yeah, there’s a downside, give me a minute). Developers by their very nature see something that others don’t see. They see homes, businesses, streets to connect them, infrastructure to service them, and even a community surrounding them. They see opportunity, possibility, and yes, profit. Which is not always a bad thing, OK?
Developers do see something different than many of us when they look at a green field or a woody hillside. Even on vacation, or in a national park, they look at a slope and think "how many of which kind of somethings could I put in there? If I put in fifty condos at 12% or build seventeen estate homes at 40%, I’m golden unless the market leaves me with over 5% empty…" and so on. It doesn’t mean they really want to do it, but it’s like me reading the front page of the Dispatch and circling the typos and usage errors. Writers write, and developers develop.
Developers have to be persistent, and think beyond a quarterly forecast, or a biennial budget, or the next election. Ten years is a fairly common timeframe for most developers, which makes them some of the most forward looking people in the area. Whether they’re of a mood to share their forecasts or projections is another matter, because developers aren’t rare. They have competition, competing for green space (cheapest to develop on), tax breaks (which aren’t, contrary to belief, limitless), or financing (ditto). Successful developers are rare; developers going through bankruptcy, not rare.
Then the downside. Developers are rarely into parks or reserve public lands, unless it helps block a competitor’s plan. They don’t actually see any land as permanently set aside as much as not politically viable…at this time. Developers know there are enough people interested in preserving green space that it isn’t their concern. Developers develop, and greenies try to set aside land.
For now.
From Granville to Gratiot, from Pataskala to Perry Township, Licking County is already sized up, planned and parceled up, and vastly overbuilt – in the minds of developers. They’ve gonna do whatever they can do, with the most optimal profit, just as farmers will sell their grain and plants sell product, looking for the best price point and market saturation. And pushing just past it.
There’s a fellow I know who’s been getting quite a bit of flak, behind his back and to his face, over objecting to a recent green space initiative. Actually, when I told him I would likely vote for it, he was nothing but encouraging. It was the task of keeping the wider public aware of the ongoing nature of this question – how much building can we sustain? – that motivated him.
More to the point, I have a strong suspicion that we just saw a very skilled, experienced local developer play a community for chumps at a rigged card game. When every quote they have to give is ominous and threatening, and their phone banks are making calls filled with every loaded adjective to make people feel pushed into a corner, I wonder. It doesn’t take a skilled student of human nature to know that Licking Countians hate to be told they have no choice. Why would those supposedly trying to pass a bond levy push those buttons?
So now we have the hard work of many sincere community leaders, subtly undermined by way too many mailings, push poll phone banks, and a confrontative public stance by the owner of the land (a developer, note), ending in defeat.
So when a hearing over annexation someday is asking "Is this going to be a problem for the communities and schools affected?" the answer will come – "hey, they had a chance to vote and said they didn’t care."
Developers develop. Only the community, in dialogue amongst themselves, can build community.If a developer comes to your community and says they want to help, it could be. But just remember, developers develop.
Or am I repeating myself?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio. Tell him a story through knapsack77@gmail.com
Jeff Gill
Developers Develop
Developers develop projects.
I know that sounds painfully obvious, but as George Orwell liked to say, sometimes the hardest work is facing what’s right in front of us.
A developer, by definition, wants to develop.
First, the upside (yeah, there’s a downside, give me a minute). Developers by their very nature see something that others don’t see. They see homes, businesses, streets to connect them, infrastructure to service them, and even a community surrounding them. They see opportunity, possibility, and yes, profit. Which is not always a bad thing, OK?
Developers do see something different than many of us when they look at a green field or a woody hillside. Even on vacation, or in a national park, they look at a slope and think "how many of which kind of somethings could I put in there? If I put in fifty condos at 12% or build seventeen estate homes at 40%, I’m golden unless the market leaves me with over 5% empty…" and so on. It doesn’t mean they really want to do it, but it’s like me reading the front page of the Dispatch and circling the typos and usage errors. Writers write, and developers develop.
Developers have to be persistent, and think beyond a quarterly forecast, or a biennial budget, or the next election. Ten years is a fairly common timeframe for most developers, which makes them some of the most forward looking people in the area. Whether they’re of a mood to share their forecasts or projections is another matter, because developers aren’t rare. They have competition, competing for green space (cheapest to develop on), tax breaks (which aren’t, contrary to belief, limitless), or financing (ditto). Successful developers are rare; developers going through bankruptcy, not rare.
Then the downside. Developers are rarely into parks or reserve public lands, unless it helps block a competitor’s plan. They don’t actually see any land as permanently set aside as much as not politically viable…at this time. Developers know there are enough people interested in preserving green space that it isn’t their concern. Developers develop, and greenies try to set aside land.
For now.
From Granville to Gratiot, from Pataskala to Perry Township, Licking County is already sized up, planned and parceled up, and vastly overbuilt – in the minds of developers. They’ve gonna do whatever they can do, with the most optimal profit, just as farmers will sell their grain and plants sell product, looking for the best price point and market saturation. And pushing just past it.
There’s a fellow I know who’s been getting quite a bit of flak, behind his back and to his face, over objecting to a recent green space initiative. Actually, when I told him I would likely vote for it, he was nothing but encouraging. It was the task of keeping the wider public aware of the ongoing nature of this question – how much building can we sustain? – that motivated him.
More to the point, I have a strong suspicion that we just saw a very skilled, experienced local developer play a community for chumps at a rigged card game. When every quote they have to give is ominous and threatening, and their phone banks are making calls filled with every loaded adjective to make people feel pushed into a corner, I wonder. It doesn’t take a skilled student of human nature to know that Licking Countians hate to be told they have no choice. Why would those supposedly trying to pass a bond levy push those buttons?
So now we have the hard work of many sincere community leaders, subtly undermined by way too many mailings, push poll phone banks, and a confrontative public stance by the owner of the land (a developer, note), ending in defeat.
So when a hearing over annexation someday is asking "Is this going to be a problem for the communities and schools affected?" the answer will come – "hey, they had a chance to vote and said they didn’t care."
Developers develop. Only the community, in dialogue amongst themselves, can build community.If a developer comes to your community and says they want to help, it could be. But just remember, developers develop.
Or am I repeating myself?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio. Tell him a story through knapsack77@gmail.com
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Faith Works 2-10-07
Jeff Gill
When Verses Collide!
Well, your faithful scribe had some well-timed St.
Valentine’s week observations on love and marriage
and relationships. Then reality happened, as so often
occurs; can we pick up later, in the wake of all the
cupids and red doilies getting packed away? Thanks.
This past week saw a classic collision, for Christians,
of two well-known, clearly stated, much honored
Scripture passages. In Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says
in chapter 25: 31-46, of acts of charity and assistance to
the needy that "Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of
the least of these my brethren, you did it to me. . . Truly, I
say to you, as you did it not to one of the least of these,
you did it not to me."
Paul says to the fledgling church in Rome, capital of the
empire which oppressed and jailed and killed
Christians, at chapter 13: "Let every person be subject
to the governing authorities."
So what’s a Christian to do when the governing
authorities close down a homeless shelter?
Roger & Marilyn Morgan have been working hard on
Newark’s East End with Last Call Ministries (see
www.lastcalloutreach.org ) for some years now, and
they’ve long hoped for a chance to open a shelter for
single adults. Between New Beginnings for abused
women and their children, and the Salvation Army’s
logistical challenge of three spaces, which could hold
eighteen or so, but if there’s a parent and child in each,
only six (it’s actually more complicated than that, but
you see the problem), there’s a clear lack of shelter
space for individuals who’ve hit a crisis point.
In a county of 150,000 souls, the idea that more than
one or two adults on their own, particularly men, might
need emergency shelter at any given time, is no stretch.
For a compassionate community, downtown
dumpsters don’t cut it, and churches and groups like
the Saint Vincent dePaul conferences at local Catholic
Christian parishes are spending money when they can
at hotels for such folk, but it’s not an ideal use of
benevolence money.
So when their plans weren’t a hundred percent set, but
as a near-record cold snap set in, the folks with the
Morgans at Last Call Ministries decided to step up and
open quick this winter.
Then the city of Newark found itself between a rock and
a cold place. With one entrance, the building was not
technically habitable, and when the "governing
authorities" became aware of the situation, they closed
the shelter down.
On the coldest night of 2007.
I actually see two dilemmas here, that I’d hope all
people of faith and anyone of good will would consider.
On the one hand, I believe the city when they say they’ll
get people off the street in harsh weather, whatever it
takes. I’m guessing the jail plays a role in that, but I’m
still not clear. What makes my trust useless to those
who may be homeless, is that they don’t trust the city
enough to follow the process, ask for help, be willing to
wait at a counter or desk until the mills of civic life start
turning.
Some might say, "well, if they’re so ‘impatient’ they’d
rather sleep out and maybe die, that’s not taxpyers’
problem." I have, really, nothing to say to that person.
But the other dilemma is that the city knows, and we
should be aware, that the moment an exception or
"pass" is given to us as Christians, to do what we
believe God calls us to do, there are unscrupulous
landlords, developers, and outright predators who will
jump in and say "me, too!" And that most certainly
includes little things like second doors, let alone toilets
that flush, or walls that you can see moonlight through
on the corners, with snow puffing into the bedroom
around the outsides of the windows.
Roger told me on Wednesday that, at that point, he
needed prayers, and a plumber, "…but in that order!" In
my opinion, Last Call Outreach is trying to house the
folks who tend to drop through the holes in our system
of care in this community, that are no less inexcusable
than gaps in the wall of a rental house.
The dilemma of connecting the broad spectrum of
services available, to people who aren’t always well
equipped to find or use them, is on the worktable of a
great group of people, right now (I’ll have more about
them soon!). They’re working hard, and fast, but when
the thermometer hits –5 below, we still find there are
still gaps.
Give Last Call your support (check the website for more
info), and The Salvation Army as well, along with
providers of emergency and transitional housing
across the spectrum. Your church is probably doing
something already; get involved.
Jesus and Paul didn’t mean to start an argument, and
the apostle takes a back seat when governments are
actively evil. This situation is one where everyone is
working towards the right in their own way, but we’ve
got a ways to go to get to the Promised Land.
Where the temps are more in the high 70’s, I hear.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher
around central Ohio; tell him a story at
knapsack77@gmail.com.
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Notes From My Knapsack 2-11-07
Jeff Gill
Scouting For a New Century
Through the beginning of February, you may notice the uniform of Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, and Girl Scouts in some different settings, especially in churches around your community.Feb. 8, 1910 is the date of the national charter of the Boy Scouts of America; Cub Scouting was founded in 1930 for younger boys. Girl Scouting began when Juliette Low of Savannah, Georgia met Gen. Baden-Powell, the originator and founder of the Scouting Movement, and took the idea home to start in her carriage house, which looked like a chalet (and now you know where some of those cookie names come from!).
Girl Scouting marks a birthdate of March 12, 1912, so some areas have Brownies, Daisies, Junior or Senior Scouts marking the start of next month.In quite a few churches you’ll see the whole mob showing up together, for a "Scouting Sunday" with youth involved in the worship service in some way.This is a year with particular interest, since the retired hero of the Boer War, Robert Stephenson Smythe Baden-Powell, did the first practical test of the Scouting program in the summer of 1907, on Brownsea Island off Poole Harbour in the south of England.
This May and through the summer, centennial celebrations throughout Scouting, including our area’s Simon Kenton Council, will gather old Scouts and new. Ross County will host a council wide "camp-o-ree," Cub Day Camp at Licking County’s own Camp Falling Rock will mark the century.In 2005 there were nearly 3 million Girl Scouts of all age levels, and 3 million Boy Scouts from Cubs to Venturers (plus a couple million registered "Scouters," the adult volunteers that run the program). Around the world there are 38 million youth from 216 countries enrolled in the program on one level or another.
But why the emphasis on church services this time of year? What many don’t realize is that Scouting is, well, franchised to local organizations. Other than the screening registration for adults, to check a national database for the safety and security of the youth, Boy Scout units in particular are "chartered" to a group that is responsible for delivering the program. That charter is usually (but not always) to a congregation.
The United Methodist Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (aka Mormons) hold over three-fourths of all the BSA charters nationwide. The LDS Church has actually made Scouting their youth program within the church.
So Scout Sunday or Scout Sabbath is a way of saying thank you to the organizations that host, sponsor, or otherwise support their program. Even units chartered to a service club or group (and where I once was District Commissioner, we had a troop chartered to "Ziggy’s Archery") still may meet at a church or get major support from a congregation.
Our local service unit, Licking District of the By Scouts, has the right to nominate adult volunteers for an honor called the "Silver Beaver." This centennial year for Scouting, our district is proud that we were given the right to award two highly deserving Silver Beaver Awards for service to youth in their own unit, and in their community as well.
Ina Heath of Utica, and Dwight "Aby" Johnson (should I say, of Camp Falling Rock?) are this county’s contribution to the eleven Silver Beavers given in all of the Simon Kenton Council, among 8,000 adult volunteers spread from Delaware County to Maysville, KY. Ina has served her troop, the district, and the camping honorary called the "Order of the Arrow" for many years. She would also happily say she hasn’t done so as long as Aby Johnson has served Scouting, going back to when he was one of our very first Licking County Scouts to go to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, back when the paths were barely marked.
Hearing his tales of railtravel alone and a bit of hitchhiking, as a teenager in the years just after World War II, is a reminder of how far we’ve come but also of some of what we’ve left behind. Both of them are committed scouters who have improved the lives of countless Scouts who never even knew their names.
But we honor them, and look forward to seeing them out at Camp Falling Rock, where the 75+ year old Franklin Lodge will soon be joined by the new Sequoia Eagle Lodge, and a new century of Scouting continues!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s almost as proud of being an Eagle Scout and Silver Beaver as he is of the Little Guy’s upcoming Bear badge in Cub Scouts. Tell him a scouting tale at knapsack77@gmail.com.
* * *
Faith in the Arena 2-03-07
By Jeff Gill
If Barack Obama says it, it must be so, right?
About the two coaches matched against each other in tomorrow's little shindig down in Miami, he's quoted in the Chicago Tribune: "It's a wonderful story. Obviously, to see two African-American coaches go to the Super Bowl when it has been historically difficult for black coaches to break into the NFL is terrific. But you know what makes it even better is that they are both men of humility, they are both men of God," Obama said. "They never trash talk. They are not yellers and screamers on the sidelines. They are just a couple of class individuals."
I began seminary in Indianapolis after the Colts made their midnight move from Baltimore to Indianapolis and got used to Irsay family quotes, many of which had to be edited for the sports page, or the front page of a courteous newspaper. Never were they on the religion page. So I was startled to hear that night on national television the owner, Jim Irsay, announce as he hefted the conference championship award: "There's a lot of glory up here with this trophy. As the humble leader of this organization, we're giving all the glory to God."
Ignoring, for the moment, it may be Jim has a ways to go in his spiritual growth if he thinks you should declare yourself as humble, that's quite a statement for a team owner.
Given networks have taken to ever-more-careful camera shots at game's end to not show the large and growing number of players from both teams that kneel on the center logo of the field at the end of play to give thanks for a game well played, Jimbo took an opportunity that couldn't be edited out to say something about faith. Go ahead and be proud a bit, Mr. Irsay.
Tony Dungy, the Indy coach, has been more subtle and circumspect about his faith, making those who notice such things even more sure of the solidity and foundational quality of where he stands. The tragic death of his son last year, the sermon he preached as part of that memorial and the ongoing commitment to promoting responsible fatherhood in Indiana is part of who his community knows him to be, even a few hundred miles up I-65 to the competition's city, where the senator from Da Bears also said: "You can tell the loyalty and affection that their players have for them. It is a wonderful story, not just for African-Americans but for all Americans to see men like that who are good fathers, who are good leaders, who do things the right way, succeed."
But Dungy did say after the Patriots' game wild ending: "The Lord set this up in a way that no one would believe it. The Lord tested us a lot this year, but He set this up to get all the glory."
Even his quarterback weighed in. Peyton Manning offered on ESPN, "I said a little prayer there on that last drive," Manning acknowledged of a possession that culminated in the winning 3-yard touchdown run by rookie tailback Joseph Addai with just one minute remaining. "I don't know if you're supposed to pray or not in those kinds of situations, but I did." And a national TV audience saw him do quite a bit of praying during the last drive by New England.
So for all you Colts and Bears fans tomorrow -- is it a time for prayer? I've heard the great coach and passionate Christian (and Purdue alumnus!) John Wooden say it always is appropriate to pray for the right spirit of competitiveness, safety for all and that you play your best, but praying that the other guy break an ankle is likely to come back on you.
Dan Reeves and Tom Landry have said much the same: "Lord, help us do our best." But praying to win alone is, to paraphrase, an unhealthy spiritual discipline.
Kind of like what we'll be eating tomorrow afternoon.
Whatever your interest in football, which team you'll pray will "do their best," or however you snack, remember the youth in your congregation is likely to do some kind of "Souper Bowl" support for food pantries and hunger programs tomorrow as well.
One way to participate is when you're buying junk for watching the game, pick up an item of canned goods for each item of snackage and take those soup cans and tinned tuna or jars of peanut butter to church with you Sunday morning. This is often a bare-shelf time of year for pantries, so join your "Souper Bowl" however you can.
I'll be praying for you to do your best.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller and supply preacher around Central Ohio; share a story at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Scouting For a New Century
Through the beginning of February, you may notice the uniform of Boy Scouts, Cub Scouts, and Girl Scouts in some different settings, especially in churches around your community.Feb. 8, 1910 is the date of the national charter of the Boy Scouts of America; Cub Scouting was founded in 1930 for younger boys. Girl Scouting began when Juliette Low of Savannah, Georgia met Gen. Baden-Powell, the originator and founder of the Scouting Movement, and took the idea home to start in her carriage house, which looked like a chalet (and now you know where some of those cookie names come from!).
Girl Scouting marks a birthdate of March 12, 1912, so some areas have Brownies, Daisies, Junior or Senior Scouts marking the start of next month.In quite a few churches you’ll see the whole mob showing up together, for a "Scouting Sunday" with youth involved in the worship service in some way.This is a year with particular interest, since the retired hero of the Boer War, Robert Stephenson Smythe Baden-Powell, did the first practical test of the Scouting program in the summer of 1907, on Brownsea Island off Poole Harbour in the south of England.
This May and through the summer, centennial celebrations throughout Scouting, including our area’s Simon Kenton Council, will gather old Scouts and new. Ross County will host a council wide "camp-o-ree," Cub Day Camp at Licking County’s own Camp Falling Rock will mark the century.In 2005 there were nearly 3 million Girl Scouts of all age levels, and 3 million Boy Scouts from Cubs to Venturers (plus a couple million registered "Scouters," the adult volunteers that run the program). Around the world there are 38 million youth from 216 countries enrolled in the program on one level or another.
But why the emphasis on church services this time of year? What many don’t realize is that Scouting is, well, franchised to local organizations. Other than the screening registration for adults, to check a national database for the safety and security of the youth, Boy Scout units in particular are "chartered" to a group that is responsible for delivering the program. That charter is usually (but not always) to a congregation.
The United Methodist Church, the Southern Baptist Convention, and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (aka Mormons) hold over three-fourths of all the BSA charters nationwide. The LDS Church has actually made Scouting their youth program within the church.
So Scout Sunday or Scout Sabbath is a way of saying thank you to the organizations that host, sponsor, or otherwise support their program. Even units chartered to a service club or group (and where I once was District Commissioner, we had a troop chartered to "Ziggy’s Archery") still may meet at a church or get major support from a congregation.
Our local service unit, Licking District of the By Scouts, has the right to nominate adult volunteers for an honor called the "Silver Beaver." This centennial year for Scouting, our district is proud that we were given the right to award two highly deserving Silver Beaver Awards for service to youth in their own unit, and in their community as well.
Ina Heath of Utica, and Dwight "Aby" Johnson (should I say, of Camp Falling Rock?) are this county’s contribution to the eleven Silver Beavers given in all of the Simon Kenton Council, among 8,000 adult volunteers spread from Delaware County to Maysville, KY. Ina has served her troop, the district, and the camping honorary called the "Order of the Arrow" for many years. She would also happily say she hasn’t done so as long as Aby Johnson has served Scouting, going back to when he was one of our very first Licking County Scouts to go to Philmont Scout Ranch in New Mexico, back when the paths were barely marked.
Hearing his tales of railtravel alone and a bit of hitchhiking, as a teenager in the years just after World War II, is a reminder of how far we’ve come but also of some of what we’ve left behind. Both of them are committed scouters who have improved the lives of countless Scouts who never even knew their names.
But we honor them, and look forward to seeing them out at Camp Falling Rock, where the 75+ year old Franklin Lodge will soon be joined by the new Sequoia Eagle Lodge, and a new century of Scouting continues!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s almost as proud of being an Eagle Scout and Silver Beaver as he is of the Little Guy’s upcoming Bear badge in Cub Scouts. Tell him a scouting tale at knapsack77@gmail.com.
* * *
Faith in the Arena 2-03-07
By Jeff Gill
If Barack Obama says it, it must be so, right?
About the two coaches matched against each other in tomorrow's little shindig down in Miami, he's quoted in the Chicago Tribune: "It's a wonderful story. Obviously, to see two African-American coaches go to the Super Bowl when it has been historically difficult for black coaches to break into the NFL is terrific. But you know what makes it even better is that they are both men of humility, they are both men of God," Obama said. "They never trash talk. They are not yellers and screamers on the sidelines. They are just a couple of class individuals."
I began seminary in Indianapolis after the Colts made their midnight move from Baltimore to Indianapolis and got used to Irsay family quotes, many of which had to be edited for the sports page, or the front page of a courteous newspaper. Never were they on the religion page. So I was startled to hear that night on national television the owner, Jim Irsay, announce as he hefted the conference championship award: "There's a lot of glory up here with this trophy. As the humble leader of this organization, we're giving all the glory to God."
Ignoring, for the moment, it may be Jim has a ways to go in his spiritual growth if he thinks you should declare yourself as humble, that's quite a statement for a team owner.
Given networks have taken to ever-more-careful camera shots at game's end to not show the large and growing number of players from both teams that kneel on the center logo of the field at the end of play to give thanks for a game well played, Jimbo took an opportunity that couldn't be edited out to say something about faith. Go ahead and be proud a bit, Mr. Irsay.
Tony Dungy, the Indy coach, has been more subtle and circumspect about his faith, making those who notice such things even more sure of the solidity and foundational quality of where he stands. The tragic death of his son last year, the sermon he preached as part of that memorial and the ongoing commitment to promoting responsible fatherhood in Indiana is part of who his community knows him to be, even a few hundred miles up I-65 to the competition's city, where the senator from Da Bears also said: "You can tell the loyalty and affection that their players have for them. It is a wonderful story, not just for African-Americans but for all Americans to see men like that who are good fathers, who are good leaders, who do things the right way, succeed."
But Dungy did say after the Patriots' game wild ending: "The Lord set this up in a way that no one would believe it. The Lord tested us a lot this year, but He set this up to get all the glory."
Even his quarterback weighed in. Peyton Manning offered on ESPN, "I said a little prayer there on that last drive," Manning acknowledged of a possession that culminated in the winning 3-yard touchdown run by rookie tailback Joseph Addai with just one minute remaining. "I don't know if you're supposed to pray or not in those kinds of situations, but I did." And a national TV audience saw him do quite a bit of praying during the last drive by New England.
So for all you Colts and Bears fans tomorrow -- is it a time for prayer? I've heard the great coach and passionate Christian (and Purdue alumnus!) John Wooden say it always is appropriate to pray for the right spirit of competitiveness, safety for all and that you play your best, but praying that the other guy break an ankle is likely to come back on you.
Dan Reeves and Tom Landry have said much the same: "Lord, help us do our best." But praying to win alone is, to paraphrase, an unhealthy spiritual discipline.
Kind of like what we'll be eating tomorrow afternoon.
Whatever your interest in football, which team you'll pray will "do their best," or however you snack, remember the youth in your congregation is likely to do some kind of "Souper Bowl" support for food pantries and hunger programs tomorrow as well.
One way to participate is when you're buying junk for watching the game, pick up an item of canned goods for each item of snackage and take those soup cans and tinned tuna or jars of peanut butter to church with you Sunday morning. This is often a bare-shelf time of year for pantries, so join your "Souper Bowl" however you can.
I'll be praying for you to do your best.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller and supply preacher around Central Ohio; share a story at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Notes From My Knapsack 2-4-07
Jeff Gill
A View Is Worth a Thousand…
"A picture is worth a thousand words" is the old saying.
True, but sometimes you need a thousand (well, 700 in this space) to find a pretty picture for your eyes.As Booster Snapshots gets rolling, we’ll be looking for your photos, of kids in action, schooners built in garages, and the necessary white horse on a green hillside.
Landscape shots are notoriously hard to transfer from the eyeball to the page. Few actually have the visual composition built into the natural scene that allows them to leap off of print (think Grand Canyon). Odds are, unless you’re a well-trained, long-practiced photographer, it will be hard to get a landscape shot that works for these pages.
Which is where text comes back into play! Licking County has quite a few beautiful views, and they play well on the heart if not in ink.
I’ve been out on a couple rambles lately which had me thinking about this, which were, unfortunately, on private property where access has to be very limited.So I can’t tell you about ‘em.There are plenty though, that you can see, and this is a great time of year for the long view. Leaves are off the trees, branches are thin, and a bit of snow accents all the terrain.
Easy and obvious, but missed by many, is Dawes Arboretum. You don’t have to be a demon hiker to enjoy either the overlook behind the Visitor’s Center, the tower along the south drive at the end of the hedge letters, or my favorite: past the Holly, park in the pulloff, and walk through the beeches to the Oak Overlook. An interpretive sign tells you about the ancient Teays River Valley, pre-glacial, and the Groveport fossil river running north to south before you.
When you look northwest, you are seeing a little way up the side valley of Raccoon Creek. To have the bookend view for Oak Overlook to the southwest, drive west on Newark-Granville Road to Bryn Du Woods, and drive back, and back, and back, tending left, and left, and left, until you hit the keyhole surrounding Alligator Mound.
I’ve written about that 1000 year old effigy mound before (and will again), but to see the sunrise over the ridges of Dawes at this time of year from that perspective is awesome.
Plus the sunrise isn’t too painfully early, yet. Park by the state historical marker and wander up.There are a number of automotive views, best seen from the passenger seat for safety’s sake, but the driver gets a peek or two.
Coming north on Rt. 13 past WCLT, as night falls, gives you a scattering of gems also known as Newark & Heath, rarely looking prettier. The same is true going north on Canyon as you approach Seminary Road. If you pause, watch your mirrors, as there are little in the way of shoulders. There is, of course, a quick glimpse of Newark and the Courthouse in a couple of the drives out of Morgan Manor, behind State Farm and Damon’s.
When I am going to Mount Vernon or Mansfield or Cleveland, I look forward to the point on Rt. 661 north of Granville as you hit a high point, with all the land sloping away. The highest point in Licking County is west of you, but there’s no view there to match the spot heading for Lundy’s Lane beyond Highwater.
Golfers already know that the Links at Echo Springs, just southwest of the county high spot, has a gorgeous view to the south in all seasons. I’m partial to most of the drive from Cedar Hill Cemetery out to Camp Falling Rock and Camp Ohio and Camp Wakatomica, but Rain Rock Road out there has a strange beauty all its own.
There are some vistas at Black Hand Gorge that take a little hiking, but are worth the effort. On south, the views along Brownsville Road to Flint Ridge, and the quick look down the valley of Dutch Run at Priest Hill on Flint Ridge Road, as you (almost) literally drop off the ridge is dramatic, if a wee bit dangerous.
And you can go just about anywhere and be impressed on the Licking Valley schools campus, which ironically is mostly up on a high point. Forget the irony, and enjoy the view.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him about a view special to you at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
A View Is Worth a Thousand…
"A picture is worth a thousand words" is the old saying.
True, but sometimes you need a thousand (well, 700 in this space) to find a pretty picture for your eyes.As Booster Snapshots gets rolling, we’ll be looking for your photos, of kids in action, schooners built in garages, and the necessary white horse on a green hillside.
Landscape shots are notoriously hard to transfer from the eyeball to the page. Few actually have the visual composition built into the natural scene that allows them to leap off of print (think Grand Canyon). Odds are, unless you’re a well-trained, long-practiced photographer, it will be hard to get a landscape shot that works for these pages.
Which is where text comes back into play! Licking County has quite a few beautiful views, and they play well on the heart if not in ink.
I’ve been out on a couple rambles lately which had me thinking about this, which were, unfortunately, on private property where access has to be very limited.So I can’t tell you about ‘em.There are plenty though, that you can see, and this is a great time of year for the long view. Leaves are off the trees, branches are thin, and a bit of snow accents all the terrain.
Easy and obvious, but missed by many, is Dawes Arboretum. You don’t have to be a demon hiker to enjoy either the overlook behind the Visitor’s Center, the tower along the south drive at the end of the hedge letters, or my favorite: past the Holly, park in the pulloff, and walk through the beeches to the Oak Overlook. An interpretive sign tells you about the ancient Teays River Valley, pre-glacial, and the Groveport fossil river running north to south before you.
When you look northwest, you are seeing a little way up the side valley of Raccoon Creek. To have the bookend view for Oak Overlook to the southwest, drive west on Newark-Granville Road to Bryn Du Woods, and drive back, and back, and back, tending left, and left, and left, until you hit the keyhole surrounding Alligator Mound.
I’ve written about that 1000 year old effigy mound before (and will again), but to see the sunrise over the ridges of Dawes at this time of year from that perspective is awesome.
Plus the sunrise isn’t too painfully early, yet. Park by the state historical marker and wander up.There are a number of automotive views, best seen from the passenger seat for safety’s sake, but the driver gets a peek or two.
Coming north on Rt. 13 past WCLT, as night falls, gives you a scattering of gems also known as Newark & Heath, rarely looking prettier. The same is true going north on Canyon as you approach Seminary Road. If you pause, watch your mirrors, as there are little in the way of shoulders. There is, of course, a quick glimpse of Newark and the Courthouse in a couple of the drives out of Morgan Manor, behind State Farm and Damon’s.
When I am going to Mount Vernon or Mansfield or Cleveland, I look forward to the point on Rt. 661 north of Granville as you hit a high point, with all the land sloping away. The highest point in Licking County is west of you, but there’s no view there to match the spot heading for Lundy’s Lane beyond Highwater.
Golfers already know that the Links at Echo Springs, just southwest of the county high spot, has a gorgeous view to the south in all seasons. I’m partial to most of the drive from Cedar Hill Cemetery out to Camp Falling Rock and Camp Ohio and Camp Wakatomica, but Rain Rock Road out there has a strange beauty all its own.
There are some vistas at Black Hand Gorge that take a little hiking, but are worth the effort. On south, the views along Brownsville Road to Flint Ridge, and the quick look down the valley of Dutch Run at Priest Hill on Flint Ridge Road, as you (almost) literally drop off the ridge is dramatic, if a wee bit dangerous.
And you can go just about anywhere and be impressed on the Licking Valley schools campus, which ironically is mostly up on a high point. Forget the irony, and enjoy the view.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him about a view special to you at knapsack77@gmail.com.
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