and a new sculpture by the Tribune Tower i'd not seen before (and across from the Wrigley Building, whose clock tower you can see reflected behind the American Gothic couple) --
Friday, January 09, 2009
Thursday, January 08, 2009
Faith Works 1-10-09
Jeff Gill
A Preacher By Any Other Name
Garrison Keillor is coming to Newark in a week and a half, appearing at the Midland Theatre on Wednesday, Jan. 21. You may not have heard his name in the same way that Ben Vereen or Kathy Mattea are well known, but if you’ve not heard of “Prairie Home Companion,” then you may not know about Garrison and his distinctive style on public radio.
He’s written quite a few books and even starred in a movie loosely based on his long running Saturday night radio program, but it’s “PHC” that’s been around some 30 years and created a new style by reaching back to old ways of doing “a show.”
Call it an urbane, upscale “Hee Haw” and I suspect he wouldn’t be offended; if you’re old enough to remember radio shows like “National Barn Dance” on Chicago’s WLS or their heirs at the “Grand Ole Opry” on Nashville’s WSM, you have a better sense of where “PHC” is coming from, with organic bran muffins instead of the cornpone.
I’ve been suggesting for years at my old seminary that they should give an honorary degree to Garrison Keillor, because I suspect there are few people who have had a stronger influence on mainline/oldline Protestant preaching than what so many pastors in those churches listen to Saturday night as they (koff) polish their sermons (koff).
You see, one of the things Garrison does each week, in a show with a format that borders perilously on the liturgical in its regularity and structure, is at the point where a church service might have a sermon, he does The Monologue.
Now, even if you think you’ve never heard of Garrison Keillor, I guarantee you know something of The Monologue, which always starts out with the opening invocation “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my hometown.” Lake Wobegon is a fictional town in an imaginary county in Minnesota, somewhere north of Minneapolis-St. Paul (where the show usually broadcasts from, in the Fitzgerald Theatre). Garrison will tell us about the events and the doings of the population there, and sometimes going abroad to follow her citizens in their travels or the always somewhat wistful exiles who grew up there and left. Church life is as central as the fortunes of the local baseball team, the Lake Wobegon Whippets. Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility Catholic Church, or Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church, led by Father Emil and Pastor Ingqvist, are often at the heart of what’s going on, even as we venture into the Sidetrack Tap, the Chatterbox Café, or over to Bunsen Motors.
What I’m sure you’ve heard is the closing, which you don’t always see coming, and can sneak up on you (and no doubt the engineer up in the booth working the broadcast), but is clearly marked by the words “That’s the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.”
The thing about the monologue for a preacher is that you can tell – you just can tell, if you get up in front of big groups of people and talk for a living – that he’s put effort into thinking through and planning the rough outline of what he’s going to say, but then he’s laid it aside and is just talking to you, the listener. Which means sometimes the narrative goes in a direction that your spoken reflections and the subtle cues you pick up from your audience steers far out of sight of the security of your prepared text.
There are not infrequently a kind of highwire act moment, when you can just tell that Keillor, struck by what he’s just heard himself describe, and catching a glimpse of where this tale might go next, will windmill a bit into the microphone: “And then . . . and then . . . and then . . . (and the audience in the theatre starts to laugh a bit) . . . and then they saw this bird, with a long, curling tail, fly off into the trees!” There’s just a hint of triumph in his voice, and satisfaction among the audience that they saw him swing and sway a little out over the crowd, but he found his footing, and then the story hurtles forward.
My suspicion is that aside from vocal style, which is unique to the man, Garrison Keillor has emboldened many a pastor to lay aside their manuscript pages, and take a chance that they may actually grope for a word in public, and the congregation won’t mind at all. You may even go in a totally unexpected direction, feeling the gentle nudge of . . . a glance from the choir? A nodding head in the back? A brush of angel’s wings? But you go there, and the listeners go with you.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he waited too long to figure out if he could go to the now sold-out Keillor show, so tell him what you thought about it at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Listen to a Keillor narration with National Geographic photos of places that could/may be Lake Wobegon at the following link (text is there, click sidebar for narrated slideshow):
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0012/feature5/index.html
Jeff Gill
A Preacher By Any Other Name
Garrison Keillor is coming to Newark in a week and a half, appearing at the Midland Theatre on Wednesday, Jan. 21. You may not have heard his name in the same way that Ben Vereen or Kathy Mattea are well known, but if you’ve not heard of “Prairie Home Companion,” then you may not know about Garrison and his distinctive style on public radio.
He’s written quite a few books and even starred in a movie loosely based on his long running Saturday night radio program, but it’s “PHC” that’s been around some 30 years and created a new style by reaching back to old ways of doing “a show.”
Call it an urbane, upscale “Hee Haw” and I suspect he wouldn’t be offended; if you’re old enough to remember radio shows like “National Barn Dance” on Chicago’s WLS or their heirs at the “Grand Ole Opry” on Nashville’s WSM, you have a better sense of where “PHC” is coming from, with organic bran muffins instead of the cornpone.
I’ve been suggesting for years at my old seminary that they should give an honorary degree to Garrison Keillor, because I suspect there are few people who have had a stronger influence on mainline/oldline Protestant preaching than what so many pastors in those churches listen to Saturday night as they (koff) polish their sermons (koff).
You see, one of the things Garrison does each week, in a show with a format that borders perilously on the liturgical in its regularity and structure, is at the point where a church service might have a sermon, he does The Monologue.
Now, even if you think you’ve never heard of Garrison Keillor, I guarantee you know something of The Monologue, which always starts out with the opening invocation “It’s been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, my hometown.” Lake Wobegon is a fictional town in an imaginary county in Minnesota, somewhere north of Minneapolis-St. Paul (where the show usually broadcasts from, in the Fitzgerald Theatre). Garrison will tell us about the events and the doings of the population there, and sometimes going abroad to follow her citizens in their travels or the always somewhat wistful exiles who grew up there and left. Church life is as central as the fortunes of the local baseball team, the Lake Wobegon Whippets. Our Lady of Perpetual Responsibility Catholic Church, or Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church, led by Father Emil and Pastor Ingqvist, are often at the heart of what’s going on, even as we venture into the Sidetrack Tap, the Chatterbox Café, or over to Bunsen Motors.
What I’m sure you’ve heard is the closing, which you don’t always see coming, and can sneak up on you (and no doubt the engineer up in the booth working the broadcast), but is clearly marked by the words “That’s the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.”
The thing about the monologue for a preacher is that you can tell – you just can tell, if you get up in front of big groups of people and talk for a living – that he’s put effort into thinking through and planning the rough outline of what he’s going to say, but then he’s laid it aside and is just talking to you, the listener. Which means sometimes the narrative goes in a direction that your spoken reflections and the subtle cues you pick up from your audience steers far out of sight of the security of your prepared text.
There are not infrequently a kind of highwire act moment, when you can just tell that Keillor, struck by what he’s just heard himself describe, and catching a glimpse of where this tale might go next, will windmill a bit into the microphone: “And then . . . and then . . . and then . . . (and the audience in the theatre starts to laugh a bit) . . . and then they saw this bird, with a long, curling tail, fly off into the trees!” There’s just a hint of triumph in his voice, and satisfaction among the audience that they saw him swing and sway a little out over the crowd, but he found his footing, and then the story hurtles forward.
My suspicion is that aside from vocal style, which is unique to the man, Garrison Keillor has emboldened many a pastor to lay aside their manuscript pages, and take a chance that they may actually grope for a word in public, and the congregation won’t mind at all. You may even go in a totally unexpected direction, feeling the gentle nudge of . . . a glance from the choir? A nodding head in the back? A brush of angel’s wings? But you go there, and the listeners go with you.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he waited too long to figure out if he could go to the now sold-out Keillor show, so tell him what you thought about it at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Listen to a Keillor narration with National Geographic photos of places that could/may be Lake Wobegon at the following link (text is there, click sidebar for narrated slideshow):
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/ngm/0012/feature5/index.html
One of the most interesting interviews i've ever done -- http://www.denison.edu/offices/publicaffairs/mlk_2009_bernice_johnson_reagon.html
Tuesday, January 06, 2009
Who was Cap Streeter?
Try the wikipedia entry -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Streeter
-- and make sure to click the word "Reutan" for a great website on the story behind Maria and George "Cap" Streeter.
Monday, January 05, 2009
My Kind Of Town, Chicago Is!
If you go across the street from the Tribune Tower, towards the Wrigley Building just a block north of the Chicago River on Michigan Avenue, and . . . descend. Below street level, down to the edge of Lower Wacker Drive, and then through a bright red door shining out of the murk, onto another flight of steps. You drop into a warm place where a man in a greasy apron waving a spatula at you starts to shout, and then tells the man with his back to you at the grill, no matter what you just said, "Cheezborger, double."
You've reached the Billy Goat Tavern, the heart of more Chicago lore than the Historical Society could hold, and twice as tasty. (Yes, we went some other places if you scroll on down.)
We took a look at the Walnut Room and the Great Tree in what i still call Marshall Field's on State Street, but the new Macy's overlords saw fit to put Uncle Mistletoe and Aunt Holly in a glass case off to one side, and not atop the tree itself.
Hmmmpphhh.
Anyhow, up in Streeterville, you can see the view from our room down a side street towards Michigan Avenue, with the Hancock Center astride the center of our window.
The Lovely Wife was a bit disconcerted by the echoing wail of sirens on and off through the night, and the sporadic, ominous, resounding booms that may have been dumpster lids swinging shut, or could have been giant footsteps pounding slowly down the alleys. I slept like an innocent babe through the long-forgotten, still familiar sounds, but to be fair, it does all seem a bit peculiar from certain vantage points.
As you can see above.
Ah, i did love it all. A wonderful weekend, and i think everyone got some pleasure if not relaxation out of it. And i got to tell a story in the wedding homily about Maria & George Wellington Streeter, twelve stories above the spot where the Reutan ran aground in 1882. What joy!
"My kind of town, Chicago is
My kind of people too
People who, smile at you
And each time I roam, Chicago is
Calling me home, Chicago is
One town that won't let you down
It's my kind of town"
("My Kind of Town" Cahn/VanHeusen, 1964)
This picture is of George & Maria's second houseboat/grounded steamer; they refloated the Reutan to ferry passengers to the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and lived in this one for the next few years, right where the Ritz-Carlton Four Seasons hotel sits today atop Water Tower Place.
If you go across the street from the Tribune Tower, towards the Wrigley Building just a block north of the Chicago River on Michigan Avenue, and . . . descend. Below street level, down to the edge of Lower Wacker Drive, and then through a bright red door shining out of the murk, onto another flight of steps. You drop into a warm place where a man in a greasy apron waving a spatula at you starts to shout, and then tells the man with his back to you at the grill, no matter what you just said, "Cheezborger, double."
You've reached the Billy Goat Tavern, the heart of more Chicago lore than the Historical Society could hold, and twice as tasty. (Yes, we went some other places if you scroll on down.)
We took a look at the Walnut Room and the Great Tree in what i still call Marshall Field's on State Street, but the new Macy's overlords saw fit to put Uncle Mistletoe and Aunt Holly in a glass case off to one side, and not atop the tree itself.
Hmmmpphhh.
Anyhow, up in Streeterville, you can see the view from our room down a side street towards Michigan Avenue, with the Hancock Center astride the center of our window.
The Lovely Wife was a bit disconcerted by the echoing wail of sirens on and off through the night, and the sporadic, ominous, resounding booms that may have been dumpster lids swinging shut, or could have been giant footsteps pounding slowly down the alleys. I slept like an innocent babe through the long-forgotten, still familiar sounds, but to be fair, it does all seem a bit peculiar from certain vantage points.
As you can see above.
Ah, i did love it all. A wonderful weekend, and i think everyone got some pleasure if not relaxation out of it. And i got to tell a story in the wedding homily about Maria & George Wellington Streeter, twelve stories above the spot where the Reutan ran aground in 1882. What joy!
"My kind of town, Chicago is
My kind of people too
People who, smile at you
And each time I roam, Chicago is
Calling me home, Chicago is
One town that won't let you down
It's my kind of town"
("My Kind of Town" Cahn/VanHeusen, 1964)
This picture is of George & Maria's second houseboat/grounded steamer; they refloated the Reutan to ferry passengers to the World's Columbian Exposition in 1893, and lived in this one for the next few years, right where the Ritz-Carlton Four Seasons hotel sits today atop Water Tower Place.
Thursday, January 01, 2009
Swiped with credit to David Head, a Baptist pastor in Lexington KY who blogs at http://ponderanew.wordpress.com/2009/01/01/some-questions-for-the-new-year/
Look Back
+ Write your 2008 story in six sentences –one for every other month or so.
+ Summarize all of that in six words. Turn the six words into a prayer.
+ What was your greatest mess, failure or disappointment this year? What lesson did you learn from that that you will take with you?
+ What was your greatest joy, success or accomplishment this year? What lesson did you learn from that you will take with you?
+ With whom did you develop a significant relationship this year? Why do you think the Lord has brought you together with this person?
+ When do you recall laughing the hardest this year? Crying? Enjoying some artistic or musical moment? Having your mind stimulated by a conversation, something you saw or read in a book?
+ How is your faith different than at the turn of last year?
+ What did your life this year show you about Jesus that makes him more beautiful, wise, strong, loving and faithful than you ever dreamed?
Taking Stock Now
Describe – as honestly as possible—where you stand today in the following life areas:
- worship (to what degree are all things for the glory of God?)
- intellectual depth, breadth & growth
- emotional maturity in dealing with anger, grief, frustration, etc.
- deep affections for God
- family relationships (spouse, children, parents, siblings)
- vocation ( work or school)
- integrity of life, words, actions
- Kingdom influence through my life (being salt and light)
- holiness (like God)
- Christ-like character
- Biblical knowledge and application
- forgiveness and reconciliation for broken relationships
- bearing witness to spiritually lost people
- involvement with the hurting & broken people you encounter
- stewardship of your life, talents, money & other resources
- concern for the nations, especially unreached people groups
+ all of this could be summed up in the consideration of one large question: To what degree does my life center on Jesus, enjoy the fullness of His gospel, and invite others to join me in that life?
Looking Forward
+ Ps. 90:12 says “teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Write a six-word prayer summarizing your God-ward impulses for 2009.
+ How will you pursue intimacy with God more passionately? Be specific.
+ What aspect of your inner world do you want to cultivate this year?
+ With what Christian brother or sister do you want to deepen or repair a relationship this year?
+ With what pre-Christians will you commit to develop a genuine friendship and have gospel-centered conversations?
+ How do you want to see your marriage grow this year? Your children develop?
+ How will you pursue beauty? Laughter? Curiosity? Knowledge? Wisdom? Generosity? Compassion?
+ How will there be a stronger gospel influence through you at work or school this year?
+ Is there a sense of calling or a prompting of the Spirit in a certain direction to which you need to give attention?
+ How can the gospel of Jesus – with its love, grace, power and hope–become larger and more real to you with every day that passes this year?
Happy New Year!!
Look Back
+ Write your 2008 story in six sentences –one for every other month or so.
+ Summarize all of that in six words. Turn the six words into a prayer.
+ What was your greatest mess, failure or disappointment this year? What lesson did you learn from that that you will take with you?
+ What was your greatest joy, success or accomplishment this year? What lesson did you learn from that you will take with you?
+ With whom did you develop a significant relationship this year? Why do you think the Lord has brought you together with this person?
+ When do you recall laughing the hardest this year? Crying? Enjoying some artistic or musical moment? Having your mind stimulated by a conversation, something you saw or read in a book?
+ How is your faith different than at the turn of last year?
+ What did your life this year show you about Jesus that makes him more beautiful, wise, strong, loving and faithful than you ever dreamed?
Taking Stock Now
Describe – as honestly as possible—where you stand today in the following life areas:
- worship (to what degree are all things for the glory of God?)
- intellectual depth, breadth & growth
- emotional maturity in dealing with anger, grief, frustration, etc.
- deep affections for God
- family relationships (spouse, children, parents, siblings)
- vocation ( work or school)
- integrity of life, words, actions
- Kingdom influence through my life (being salt and light)
- holiness (like God)
- Christ-like character
- Biblical knowledge and application
- forgiveness and reconciliation for broken relationships
- bearing witness to spiritually lost people
- involvement with the hurting & broken people you encounter
- stewardship of your life, talents, money & other resources
- concern for the nations, especially unreached people groups
+ all of this could be summed up in the consideration of one large question: To what degree does my life center on Jesus, enjoy the fullness of His gospel, and invite others to join me in that life?
Looking Forward
+ Ps. 90:12 says “teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.” Write a six-word prayer summarizing your God-ward impulses for 2009.
+ How will you pursue intimacy with God more passionately? Be specific.
+ What aspect of your inner world do you want to cultivate this year?
+ With what Christian brother or sister do you want to deepen or repair a relationship this year?
+ With what pre-Christians will you commit to develop a genuine friendship and have gospel-centered conversations?
+ How do you want to see your marriage grow this year? Your children develop?
+ How will you pursue beauty? Laughter? Curiosity? Knowledge? Wisdom? Generosity? Compassion?
+ How will there be a stronger gospel influence through you at work or school this year?
+ Is there a sense of calling or a prompting of the Spirit in a certain direction to which you need to give attention?
+ How can the gospel of Jesus – with its love, grace, power and hope–become larger and more real to you with every day that passes this year?
Happy New Year!!
Faith Works 1-3-09
Jeff Gill
Ten Stories In the News With a Faith Angle
As the new year rolls in, the Religion Newswriters Association looked back at 2008, and asked its members to vote on the “Top 10 Religion News Stories.”
These scribes and columnists put the election of Barack Obama in the first place (big shock, that!), noting the role of candidate pastors and/or church memberships for both the winner and for John McCain, along with his running mate Sarah Palin. Their affiliations and relationship with church leaders has been under public scrutiny right on through Obama’s plans for his inauguration later this month (more on that later!).
Number Two was the Democratic Party outreach effort to religiously motivated voters, particularly conservative Christians. Obama appeared at a candidate forum moderated by Rick Warren at Saddleback Church in California, the kind of event Democrats used to skip and let the Republicans speak at all on their lonesome.
Third was Sarah Palin’s arrival on the national stage, with her message of support for unborn and disabled children rooted in an evangelical and somewhat Pentecostal viewpoint. Religious conservatives found a new measure of interest in the presidential election, but not quite as much as Obama generated among younger and more liberal voters.
Fourth place, said newswriters on religion, was the somewhat startling public reaction against gay marriage in California, Arizona, and Florida; the exact measure of what voting blocs turned out for what reason is still in the works, but much early anger from the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community was aimed at the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and Catholic Church.
Coming in fifth was the first American visit of Pope Benedict XVI, greeted by large crowds in Washington and New York, and by small groups who were invited to meet him representing victims of the sexual abuse scandals that have afflicted his communion. The Pope addressed the problem specifically, and the need for churches to face such occurrences clearly and honestly, directly from the pulpit.
In sixth place was the series of events leading to a request from conservative Episcopalians for a separate Anglican structure, or “province” for North America. Since the election and consecration of a noncelibate gay priest as bishop of New Hampshire five years ago, tensions and defections have slowly, but steadily opened up divisions in The Episcopal Church, most dramatically in the Diocese of Pittsburgh just to our east.
Seventh was listed as the terrorist violence in India inflicted by Islamic radicals on Jewish and secular targets in Mumbai (Bombay) just a few weeks ago, but an increase throughout the year of violence against Christians in smaller but no less deadly attacks in the eastern state of Orissa.
China made eighth place by cracking down harshly on Buddhists who sought to raise the issue of Tibetan independence during the Olympic torch run, and even more ruthlessly during the Games themselves. Their approach to chaplaincy in the Athlete’s Village during the Olympics I’d nominate for the most under-covered story of the year.
Ninth place strikes perhaps closest to Licking County, as the economic crisis that ended the year has pushed many churches and faith communities to and even over the edge, including building closures and foreclosures, staff layoffs and cutbacks, and the reduction of many charitable programs just at a time when they are most needed.
Tenth place was given to the situation in Iraq, particularly the hazards faced by the small but ancient Christian community there, beginning the year with the assassination of the Chaldean Christian archbishop, but ending somewhat hopefully with the return of some who had left Iraq earlier in the year as the security situation stabilized.
What news stories would you have put on a list of news stories with a faith angle? How would you rank them for order of importance or impact? And can you find a way to feel a connection to each of them?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him how you see the new year shaping up at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Ten Stories In the News With a Faith Angle
As the new year rolls in, the Religion Newswriters Association looked back at 2008, and asked its members to vote on the “Top 10 Religion News Stories.”
These scribes and columnists put the election of Barack Obama in the first place (big shock, that!), noting the role of candidate pastors and/or church memberships for both the winner and for John McCain, along with his running mate Sarah Palin. Their affiliations and relationship with church leaders has been under public scrutiny right on through Obama’s plans for his inauguration later this month (more on that later!).
Number Two was the Democratic Party outreach effort to religiously motivated voters, particularly conservative Christians. Obama appeared at a candidate forum moderated by Rick Warren at Saddleback Church in California, the kind of event Democrats used to skip and let the Republicans speak at all on their lonesome.
Third was Sarah Palin’s arrival on the national stage, with her message of support for unborn and disabled children rooted in an evangelical and somewhat Pentecostal viewpoint. Religious conservatives found a new measure of interest in the presidential election, but not quite as much as Obama generated among younger and more liberal voters.
Fourth place, said newswriters on religion, was the somewhat startling public reaction against gay marriage in California, Arizona, and Florida; the exact measure of what voting blocs turned out for what reason is still in the works, but much early anger from the lesbian, gay, and bisexual community was aimed at the Latter Day Saints (Mormons) and Catholic Church.
Coming in fifth was the first American visit of Pope Benedict XVI, greeted by large crowds in Washington and New York, and by small groups who were invited to meet him representing victims of the sexual abuse scandals that have afflicted his communion. The Pope addressed the problem specifically, and the need for churches to face such occurrences clearly and honestly, directly from the pulpit.
In sixth place was the series of events leading to a request from conservative Episcopalians for a separate Anglican structure, or “province” for North America. Since the election and consecration of a noncelibate gay priest as bishop of New Hampshire five years ago, tensions and defections have slowly, but steadily opened up divisions in The Episcopal Church, most dramatically in the Diocese of Pittsburgh just to our east.
Seventh was listed as the terrorist violence in India inflicted by Islamic radicals on Jewish and secular targets in Mumbai (Bombay) just a few weeks ago, but an increase throughout the year of violence against Christians in smaller but no less deadly attacks in the eastern state of Orissa.
China made eighth place by cracking down harshly on Buddhists who sought to raise the issue of Tibetan independence during the Olympic torch run, and even more ruthlessly during the Games themselves. Their approach to chaplaincy in the Athlete’s Village during the Olympics I’d nominate for the most under-covered story of the year.
Ninth place strikes perhaps closest to Licking County, as the economic crisis that ended the year has pushed many churches and faith communities to and even over the edge, including building closures and foreclosures, staff layoffs and cutbacks, and the reduction of many charitable programs just at a time when they are most needed.
Tenth place was given to the situation in Iraq, particularly the hazards faced by the small but ancient Christian community there, beginning the year with the assassination of the Chaldean Christian archbishop, but ending somewhat hopefully with the return of some who had left Iraq earlier in the year as the security situation stabilized.
What news stories would you have put on a list of news stories with a faith angle? How would you rank them for order of importance or impact? And can you find a way to feel a connection to each of them?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him how you see the new year shaping up at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Arctic Circle Press news release
Dec. 26, North Pole
Santa Claus Enterprises, LLC, has formally approached the incoming Obama administration team for a share of the bailout dollars, or TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) Fund, saying that "Christmas toys for girls and boys" may be endangered next year if access to capital and debt relief is not provided.
Kris Kringle, president and CEO, says "our operation has been a successful model for business success over generations, but when people are cutting back the way they have, we may not be there when the economy recovers without a boost to tide us over."
Mr. Kringle pointed out that they are, in fact, already needing to purchase supplies and materials for the 2009 Christmas season even before January. "Our supply chain is stretched tight, and we don't carry lots of materials inventory through the Christmas season - we're used to cleaning this place out, and then picking right up on Jan. 2 to get ready for next year."
Jimmy Jingle, senior provost of the Ancient & Honorable Order of Workshop, Delivery, and Transport Elves (also known as the "Little Teamsters"), agrees that a capital and credit guarantee is in order. "We think it is very important to maintain confidence in the entire North Pole operation -- there are very few mass gifting and very-special-delivery models out there, and this one, with the active support of parents and grandparents and local retailers, is doing the very best they can. We stand behind, while standing on each others' shoulders, the choices the Old Man has made that led us to this point, and are certain he will lead us into a brighter, more efficient, and new holiday season."
Kringle notes that in his initial contacts with Congress, he has made but sparing use of the fact that, in his words, he "knows who's been naughty and nice." Admitting that the senators and representatives he speaks to are aware of this capacity of his position, Kringle doubts that it has unfairly influenced any of the key committee chairs -- or Mr. Obama.
"President-elect Obama is acutely aware, through his two daughters, of how important continuity is to the Christmas morning surprise from year to year. We hope that no political considerations would end up endangering a smooth transition from one season to the next." Kringle has not spoken to the Chinese government about their possible underwriting of his operation, but he does say "we have talked, and that channel will always be open as long as parents want cheap toys."
As a privately held company, there was no immediate response on Wall Street from the news of the bailout request.
Dec. 26, North Pole
Santa Claus Enterprises, LLC, has formally approached the incoming Obama administration team for a share of the bailout dollars, or TARP (Troubled Asset Relief Program) Fund, saying that "Christmas toys for girls and boys" may be endangered next year if access to capital and debt relief is not provided.
Kris Kringle, president and CEO, says "our operation has been a successful model for business success over generations, but when people are cutting back the way they have, we may not be there when the economy recovers without a boost to tide us over."
Mr. Kringle pointed out that they are, in fact, already needing to purchase supplies and materials for the 2009 Christmas season even before January. "Our supply chain is stretched tight, and we don't carry lots of materials inventory through the Christmas season - we're used to cleaning this place out, and then picking right up on Jan. 2 to get ready for next year."
Jimmy Jingle, senior provost of the Ancient & Honorable Order of Workshop, Delivery, and Transport Elves (also known as the "Little Teamsters"), agrees that a capital and credit guarantee is in order. "We think it is very important to maintain confidence in the entire North Pole operation -- there are very few mass gifting and very-special-delivery models out there, and this one, with the active support of parents and grandparents and local retailers, is doing the very best they can. We stand behind, while standing on each others' shoulders, the choices the Old Man has made that led us to this point, and are certain he will lead us into a brighter, more efficient, and new holiday season."
Kringle notes that in his initial contacts with Congress, he has made but sparing use of the fact that, in his words, he "knows who's been naughty and nice." Admitting that the senators and representatives he speaks to are aware of this capacity of his position, Kringle doubts that it has unfairly influenced any of the key committee chairs -- or Mr. Obama.
"President-elect Obama is acutely aware, through his two daughters, of how important continuity is to the Christmas morning surprise from year to year. We hope that no political considerations would end up endangering a smooth transition from one season to the next." Kringle has not spoken to the Chinese government about their possible underwriting of his operation, but he does say "we have talked, and that channel will always be open as long as parents want cheap toys."
As a privately held company, there was no immediate response on Wall Street from the news of the bailout request.
Thursday, December 25, 2008
"Christmas" by John Betjeman
The bells of waiting Advent ring,
The Tortoise stove is lit again
And lamp-oil light across the night
Has caught the streaks of winter rain.
In many a stained-glass window sheen
From Crimson Lake to Hooker's Green.
The holly in the windy hedge
And round the Manor House the yew
Will soon be stripped to deck the ledge,
The altar, font and arch and pew,
So that villagers can say
"The Church looks nice" on Christmas Day.
Provincial public houses blaze
And Corporation tramcars clang,
On lighted tenements I gaze
Where paper decorations hang,
And bunting in the red Town Hall
Says "Merry Christmas to you all".
And London shops on Christmas Eve
Are strung with silver bells and flowers
As hurrying clerks the City leave
To pigeon-haunted classic towers,
And marbled clouds go scudding by
The many-steepled London sky.
And girls in slacks remember Dad,
And oafish louts remember Mum,
And sleepless children's hearts are glad,
And Christmas morning bells say "Come!"
Even to shining ones who dwell
Safe in the Dorchester Hotel.
And is it true? and is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?
And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,
No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare –
That God was Man in Palestine
And lives to-day in Bread and Wine.
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Friday, December 19, 2008
Notes From My Knapsack 1-1-09 – Granville Sentinel
Jeff Gill
December 31, 1945
George hung up the phone and looked up at the picture of his father.
Just beneath it was the cross-stitch his mother had made for him of his dad’s favorite quote – 'All you can take with you is that which you give away.'
He looked past them to the window, where the snow was still falling outside. The building whose owner had just been speaking to him was sifting into invisibility behind the mist and growing dark.
Potter wanted him to know they had “found something of interest to both of them.” It was the much-searched for $8,000, in an envelope left in a deposit slip rack. A good-hearted customer had discovered the crumpled packet and turned it in to a teller; they had given $50 of it to the finder, which he was sure George would approve of.
Sure, said George. He was surprised how little excitement he felt at the return of the prodigal deposit, although he was amused at Potter’s generosity with George’s money. For a moment, he thought about asking “If I had found $10,000 of yours, and had given $20 as a reward, would you have been fine with that?” But he just added “Thank you for thinking of that, Mr. Potter.”
There was a peculiar tone to the rest of the call, though. Potter sounded positively wistful, asking him about his children’s Christmas day, and how the aftermath of that already fading Christmas eve had gone, with half of Bedford Falls crowded into his house on Sycamore Street.
It was true that the hall carpet was essentially ruined, but he didn’t tell Potter that.
Harry had left yesterday for Pensacola, where he would be training new pilots. “Watch out for that Potter,” he said at the train station, adding “he’s got something he wants to prove, and you’re in the way of it.”
So it was with an extra sense of unease George had heard the words “Why don’t you and that charming family come over to my house for dinner tonight, and toast a new year, and the prosperity of peace?”
There was silence on both sides of the line, long enough to punctuate with a couple of Potter’s carefully controlled wheezes, just enough sound to indicate listening silence.
“I’ll have to check with Mary first, Mr. Potter; to tell you the truth, things have been so busy I’m not sure what our plans at home might be.”
“Of course, of course my boy, you do that; wouldn’t want to upset the missus. Just give me all call when you get home out here to Beech Grove.”
Potter’s father had begun a large rambling Georgian home on a knoll well out of town, and built barns and a pond and trails for horseback riding around the wooded acreage. It was along those, everyone knew, that a young Potter Junior had been thrown by a spooked horse, and been paralyzed ever since. There were stories about a young woman and a broken engagement, but all that was before George was even born.
The current Mr. Potter had added wings and grey stone and a high iron fence, but the few who had been on the grounds reported back food that was excellent, cooked in Continental style by a chef who it was rumored spoke no English. George said “I will certainly call as soon as I get home.”
“Excellent, excellent. George, we have much to talk about. My best to your Mary,” followed by a decisive clunk.
Should he go out there, he wondered? Should he even mention the invitation to Mary? She would wince and shake her head, but then say sternly, “We ought to say yes, if only to find out what he’s up to.”
And just how would it be, with his children, no doubt in danger of breaking a priceless object at every turn, sitting there about to say things they’d heard at home? There was no way it would be a pleasant evening.
Yet there was something in the old man’s voice, or in that silence as he chose not to wheedle or plead ingratiatingly, as was his usual style. Something *was* up, that’s for sure.
George reached for his hat, and thought “at the very least, I’ll have a story for Harry the next time he calls.” And then stopped and read for the millionth time those words of his father, neatly stitched by his mother - 'All you can take with you is that which you give away.'
Well, I’ll always have this evening then, thought George.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
December 31, 1945
George hung up the phone and looked up at the picture of his father.
Just beneath it was the cross-stitch his mother had made for him of his dad’s favorite quote – 'All you can take with you is that which you give away.'
He looked past them to the window, where the snow was still falling outside. The building whose owner had just been speaking to him was sifting into invisibility behind the mist and growing dark.
Potter wanted him to know they had “found something of interest to both of them.” It was the much-searched for $8,000, in an envelope left in a deposit slip rack. A good-hearted customer had discovered the crumpled packet and turned it in to a teller; they had given $50 of it to the finder, which he was sure George would approve of.
Sure, said George. He was surprised how little excitement he felt at the return of the prodigal deposit, although he was amused at Potter’s generosity with George’s money. For a moment, he thought about asking “If I had found $10,000 of yours, and had given $20 as a reward, would you have been fine with that?” But he just added “Thank you for thinking of that, Mr. Potter.”
There was a peculiar tone to the rest of the call, though. Potter sounded positively wistful, asking him about his children’s Christmas day, and how the aftermath of that already fading Christmas eve had gone, with half of Bedford Falls crowded into his house on Sycamore Street.
It was true that the hall carpet was essentially ruined, but he didn’t tell Potter that.
Harry had left yesterday for Pensacola, where he would be training new pilots. “Watch out for that Potter,” he said at the train station, adding “he’s got something he wants to prove, and you’re in the way of it.”
So it was with an extra sense of unease George had heard the words “Why don’t you and that charming family come over to my house for dinner tonight, and toast a new year, and the prosperity of peace?”
There was silence on both sides of the line, long enough to punctuate with a couple of Potter’s carefully controlled wheezes, just enough sound to indicate listening silence.
“I’ll have to check with Mary first, Mr. Potter; to tell you the truth, things have been so busy I’m not sure what our plans at home might be.”
“Of course, of course my boy, you do that; wouldn’t want to upset the missus. Just give me all call when you get home out here to Beech Grove.”
Potter’s father had begun a large rambling Georgian home on a knoll well out of town, and built barns and a pond and trails for horseback riding around the wooded acreage. It was along those, everyone knew, that a young Potter Junior had been thrown by a spooked horse, and been paralyzed ever since. There were stories about a young woman and a broken engagement, but all that was before George was even born.
The current Mr. Potter had added wings and grey stone and a high iron fence, but the few who had been on the grounds reported back food that was excellent, cooked in Continental style by a chef who it was rumored spoke no English. George said “I will certainly call as soon as I get home.”
“Excellent, excellent. George, we have much to talk about. My best to your Mary,” followed by a decisive clunk.
Should he go out there, he wondered? Should he even mention the invitation to Mary? She would wince and shake her head, but then say sternly, “We ought to say yes, if only to find out what he’s up to.”
And just how would it be, with his children, no doubt in danger of breaking a priceless object at every turn, sitting there about to say things they’d heard at home? There was no way it would be a pleasant evening.
Yet there was something in the old man’s voice, or in that silence as he chose not to wheedle or plead ingratiatingly, as was his usual style. Something *was* up, that’s for sure.
George reached for his hat, and thought “at the very least, I’ll have a story for Harry the next time he calls.” And then stopped and read for the millionth time those words of his father, neatly stitched by his mother - 'All you can take with you is that which you give away.'
Well, I’ll always have this evening then, thought George.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
Faith Works 12-20-08
Jeff Gill
A Scrap of the Pageant
She sat in the back of the now darkened sanctuary, watching the first few children come onto the lighted platform. It is Christmas Eve, and the beginning of the service tonight is a Christmas pageant, with costumed young people acting out the Christmas story.
Mothers with cameras filled the front pews, so she was content to be further back, even her grandchildren now adults, and mostly far away. The story was as familiar to her as her own life, from engagement to wedding to childbirth, though she didn’t have the memory of being Mary herself when she was the age of the kids on stage.
That old country church so long ago didn’t have the tradition of a Christmas pageant, but she’d gone to this church since her marriage. She’d been on the altar guild and with the mission circles and helped in the kitchen, and she’d made most of the costumes now appearing in the front of the church.
Hardly anyone here tonight would know that, she reflected. It’s been a long time since most of those were made, and they’ve held up well. Her gift for the Christ child, and he gets the honor, so she was content.
The angels were in wings that had been made more recently – angels are always hard on their wings. It looked like that foam sheet material, with sparkle edging, which made her think about what a sturdier set might be made from with materials available now. Her first set was wire frame with cheesecloth covers, and they lasted about four years, even with patching.
This year’s Mary walked to her place next to the manger, and set herself down on the stool that normally sat behind the pulpit for shorter speakers. The blue of her cowl was a bit faded, but the woman in the back row knew that you’d have to have seen it new to realize that the color had changed. Or maybe it was her eyes.
Either way, the flow of fabric and the gather at the waist still looked good, although she couldn’t help a small internal wince at seeing the young lady dressed as Mary had a black turtleneck on. Ah well!
Then they came out, and she squinted just a bit to watch for it. The magi, the “wise men three” as the hymns and carols say, if not the scripture. Three unique, brocaded, bejeweled, shining costumes. And for each, a unique headpiece, each not quite a crown, all seeking an eastern exoticness. Turban and fez and flared hat that her grandson accused her of stealing from the third Star Trek movie, but was a picture stuck in her memory of a great-aunt’s manger scene on a coffee table from years ago.
Like the costumes, the hats for the wise men were a bit over the top, with trim and edging filled with gold thread and fussy embroidery – she noted with satisfaction that all three looked as good as they had when new, even after (as she knew) they had been tossed about in the church hallway before the service began.
The turban had an alternating series of diagonal panels, all curving into the topknot. Half of the panels were a particular fabric of light blue and grey stripes, with just a touch of silver thread woven through a black line between the stripes.
When her husband died, she took months to finally sort through his clothes and set aside some for Goodwill, some for the family as mementos, and throw out much of the rest. There were a few items she kept for herself, and there was one shirt in blue and grey stripes that she couldn’t stand, so of course he wore it almost every Saturday. Now she couldn’t bear to part with it.
That year, now long past, they asked her if she could make new headpieces for the wise men to go with the costumes she had made earlier; there were crowns that had been used that went back to who knows what, but they were crumbling and shabby looking. Could she knock something together?
As she planned out her design, she saw that shirt in the closet, and then she saw it in the turban, on a young man, coming out each Christmas onto the platform at the church. Without hesitation she took it off the hanger and began to cut.
It was Christmas Eve again, and there he was again, the young man she married memorialized in a way no one but that one elderly woman in the back row would know . . . that woman, and the young man grown old and now sitting waiting for her, in a Pageant that began in Bethlehem.
She gazed on the scene, and that turban, and sat back content. Tomorrow was Christmas, and she had her gift already.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
A Scrap of the Pageant
She sat in the back of the now darkened sanctuary, watching the first few children come onto the lighted platform. It is Christmas Eve, and the beginning of the service tonight is a Christmas pageant, with costumed young people acting out the Christmas story.
Mothers with cameras filled the front pews, so she was content to be further back, even her grandchildren now adults, and mostly far away. The story was as familiar to her as her own life, from engagement to wedding to childbirth, though she didn’t have the memory of being Mary herself when she was the age of the kids on stage.
That old country church so long ago didn’t have the tradition of a Christmas pageant, but she’d gone to this church since her marriage. She’d been on the altar guild and with the mission circles and helped in the kitchen, and she’d made most of the costumes now appearing in the front of the church.
Hardly anyone here tonight would know that, she reflected. It’s been a long time since most of those were made, and they’ve held up well. Her gift for the Christ child, and he gets the honor, so she was content.
The angels were in wings that had been made more recently – angels are always hard on their wings. It looked like that foam sheet material, with sparkle edging, which made her think about what a sturdier set might be made from with materials available now. Her first set was wire frame with cheesecloth covers, and they lasted about four years, even with patching.
This year’s Mary walked to her place next to the manger, and set herself down on the stool that normally sat behind the pulpit for shorter speakers. The blue of her cowl was a bit faded, but the woman in the back row knew that you’d have to have seen it new to realize that the color had changed. Or maybe it was her eyes.
Either way, the flow of fabric and the gather at the waist still looked good, although she couldn’t help a small internal wince at seeing the young lady dressed as Mary had a black turtleneck on. Ah well!
Then they came out, and she squinted just a bit to watch for it. The magi, the “wise men three” as the hymns and carols say, if not the scripture. Three unique, brocaded, bejeweled, shining costumes. And for each, a unique headpiece, each not quite a crown, all seeking an eastern exoticness. Turban and fez and flared hat that her grandson accused her of stealing from the third Star Trek movie, but was a picture stuck in her memory of a great-aunt’s manger scene on a coffee table from years ago.
Like the costumes, the hats for the wise men were a bit over the top, with trim and edging filled with gold thread and fussy embroidery – she noted with satisfaction that all three looked as good as they had when new, even after (as she knew) they had been tossed about in the church hallway before the service began.
The turban had an alternating series of diagonal panels, all curving into the topknot. Half of the panels were a particular fabric of light blue and grey stripes, with just a touch of silver thread woven through a black line between the stripes.
When her husband died, she took months to finally sort through his clothes and set aside some for Goodwill, some for the family as mementos, and throw out much of the rest. There were a few items she kept for herself, and there was one shirt in blue and grey stripes that she couldn’t stand, so of course he wore it almost every Saturday. Now she couldn’t bear to part with it.
That year, now long past, they asked her if she could make new headpieces for the wise men to go with the costumes she had made earlier; there were crowns that had been used that went back to who knows what, but they were crumbling and shabby looking. Could she knock something together?
As she planned out her design, she saw that shirt in the closet, and then she saw it in the turban, on a young man, coming out each Christmas onto the platform at the church. Without hesitation she took it off the hanger and began to cut.
It was Christmas Eve again, and there he was again, the young man she married memorialized in a way no one but that one elderly woman in the back row would know . . . that woman, and the young man grown old and now sitting waiting for her, in a Pageant that began in Bethlehem.
She gazed on the scene, and that turban, and sat back content. Tomorrow was Christmas, and she had her gift already.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Friday, December 12, 2008
[Scroll down past two columns/posts to see the pictures from the Candlelight Walking Tour last weekend, which are much more worth looking at that reading these columns . . . really!]
Notes From My Knapsack 12-18-08
Jeff Gill
Toys In a Less Than Playful Time
With the economic downturn, and retail sales down five months running, I know stores and shop owners are nervously watching their sales this Christmas season. That three percent growth that we keep hearing is a baseline for a healthy economy makes me wonder what a healthy economy is by their definition.
Still, there’s that whole tradition of gift giving that the Magi got started with their dratted myrrh, gold, and frankincense, and the children expect something under the tree.
Between the recession on steroids and a kind of retreat into nostalgia that times like these promote, we’re seeing less of the hip, cutting edge, high tech look for what is the ad world’s normative seasonal atmosphere, and more knit mufflers and carolers and even the stray top hat and lantern.
What would happen if we got really all throwbacky about Christmas for the kids? The Granville Historical Society had a set of old-timey tools out for the Candlelight Walking Tour which generated a great deal of conversation on the streets about rug beaters and sugar shears and all those things labor saving devices were invented to save us from. But what about toys?
Somehow the standard street scene meant to holler out to us “olden times” in movies has come to include a lad in knickers with a hoop and stick. Currier and Ives put this young fellow in a number of their atmospheric scenes, and whether in old engravings or today’s TV programs, you get the impression that this was all the rage at some indeterminate point, long ago but recently enough to have metal barrel hoops.
I can’t find a reference that tells me if children got a hoop with a special stick for a present, or if it was more like kids playing with the cardboard box Christmas afternoon. A found toy, perhaps, but what an interesting toy for today, promoting getting outside, aerobic activity, and hand-eye co-ordination? (The Lad says “No, it isn’t.”)
Those of you who loved “A Christmas Story” (25 years last month, with the house in Cleveland now a delightfully kitschy shrine – see www.achristmasstoryhouse.com, and you can search my knapsack.blogspot.com site for photos from there, see archives at right, scroll down) remember the Red Ryder BB gun, which I still can’t recommend: you’ll shoot your eye out!
But there was a prequel made later, with a different cast yet the same names, Jean Shepherd narrating, and filmed at that house again, called “My Summer Story.” The plot anchor here is not an air rifle, but a fighting top.
Yes, a greatly desired and fondly hoped for gold painted top that you tossed with a pull string. If it looks easy, try it sometime; cracking a whip is easier. I played with one, with grim intent, over at Ohio Village years ago, and the movie makes group play with them look like marbles with attitude.
Dolls are a whole ‘nother category of then vs. now. In keeping with laws first outlined in “Brave New World,” no new toy can be released, apparently, without being more complicated and feature-ridden than their predecessor.
Try to find a doll that is warm, soft, well stitched, and without any Velcro pockets for batteries, voice recorder devices, or embedded aliens to burst from Betsy-Wetsie’s chest (you thought excreting baby dolls were bad). They do exist, but they are well hidden. If the voice and posture and activities are to be supplied by the owner from her or his own imagination, you’ll not find them on the front shelves in the larger stores.
This isn’t just to idealize corn husk dolls – my brother and I loved to play with some rubber figures with internal wires in what was a high-techy play set for the late 60s, Maj. Matt Mason and Sgt. Storm. I looked on-line to see if I could recover a bit of our childhood for both of us, and wow . . .
If we still had ours, and they were in good shape, let alone in original packaging, they . . . just go look at eBay and marvel. They’re worth something, but apparently (gulp) as antiques. Our guys lived full and active lives before vanishing into wherever their tattered bodies and plastic parts ended up. (I didn’t buy him any; he couldn’t let his girls touch them for what they cost now anyhow.)
But for those few fellow astronaut toy fans out there, consider this – Jeff Long just beat Matt Mason for President!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; send him a word at knapsack77@gmail.com.
PS - If you're having trouble remembering Major Matt Mason, but think it rings a faint bell, here's the line's 1969 Christmas ad, which has it all (i think my brother and i had about half of it all between us):
Notes From My Knapsack 12-18-08
Jeff Gill
Toys In a Less Than Playful Time
With the economic downturn, and retail sales down five months running, I know stores and shop owners are nervously watching their sales this Christmas season. That three percent growth that we keep hearing is a baseline for a healthy economy makes me wonder what a healthy economy is by their definition.
Still, there’s that whole tradition of gift giving that the Magi got started with their dratted myrrh, gold, and frankincense, and the children expect something under the tree.
Between the recession on steroids and a kind of retreat into nostalgia that times like these promote, we’re seeing less of the hip, cutting edge, high tech look for what is the ad world’s normative seasonal atmosphere, and more knit mufflers and carolers and even the stray top hat and lantern.
What would happen if we got really all throwbacky about Christmas for the kids? The Granville Historical Society had a set of old-timey tools out for the Candlelight Walking Tour which generated a great deal of conversation on the streets about rug beaters and sugar shears and all those things labor saving devices were invented to save us from. But what about toys?
Somehow the standard street scene meant to holler out to us “olden times” in movies has come to include a lad in knickers with a hoop and stick. Currier and Ives put this young fellow in a number of their atmospheric scenes, and whether in old engravings or today’s TV programs, you get the impression that this was all the rage at some indeterminate point, long ago but recently enough to have metal barrel hoops.
I can’t find a reference that tells me if children got a hoop with a special stick for a present, or if it was more like kids playing with the cardboard box Christmas afternoon. A found toy, perhaps, but what an interesting toy for today, promoting getting outside, aerobic activity, and hand-eye co-ordination? (The Lad says “No, it isn’t.”)
Those of you who loved “A Christmas Story” (25 years last month, with the house in Cleveland now a delightfully kitschy shrine – see www.achristmasstoryhouse.com, and you can search my knapsack.blogspot.com site for photos from there, see archives at right, scroll down) remember the Red Ryder BB gun, which I still can’t recommend: you’ll shoot your eye out!
But there was a prequel made later, with a different cast yet the same names, Jean Shepherd narrating, and filmed at that house again, called “My Summer Story.” The plot anchor here is not an air rifle, but a fighting top.
Yes, a greatly desired and fondly hoped for gold painted top that you tossed with a pull string. If it looks easy, try it sometime; cracking a whip is easier. I played with one, with grim intent, over at Ohio Village years ago, and the movie makes group play with them look like marbles with attitude.
Dolls are a whole ‘nother category of then vs. now. In keeping with laws first outlined in “Brave New World,” no new toy can be released, apparently, without being more complicated and feature-ridden than their predecessor.
Try to find a doll that is warm, soft, well stitched, and without any Velcro pockets for batteries, voice recorder devices, or embedded aliens to burst from Betsy-Wetsie’s chest (you thought excreting baby dolls were bad). They do exist, but they are well hidden. If the voice and posture and activities are to be supplied by the owner from her or his own imagination, you’ll not find them on the front shelves in the larger stores.
This isn’t just to idealize corn husk dolls – my brother and I loved to play with some rubber figures with internal wires in what was a high-techy play set for the late 60s, Maj. Matt Mason and Sgt. Storm. I looked on-line to see if I could recover a bit of our childhood for both of us, and wow . . .
If we still had ours, and they were in good shape, let alone in original packaging, they . . . just go look at eBay and marvel. They’re worth something, but apparently (gulp) as antiques. Our guys lived full and active lives before vanishing into wherever their tattered bodies and plastic parts ended up. (I didn’t buy him any; he couldn’t let his girls touch them for what they cost now anyhow.)
But for those few fellow astronaut toy fans out there, consider this – Jeff Long just beat Matt Mason for President!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; send him a word at knapsack77@gmail.com.
PS - If you're having trouble remembering Major Matt Mason, but think it rings a faint bell, here's the line's 1969 Christmas ad, which has it all (i think my brother and i had about half of it all between us):
[For painfully lovely pictures of last weekend's Granville Candlelight Walking Tour, scroll past this blather, which is my Advocate column for tomorrow. pax, jbg]
[seriously, just scroll down! jbg]
Faith Works 12-13-08
Jeff Gill
Your Family May Be Dysfunctional
Just taking a wild shot in the dark, but I’m gonna guess your family is dysfunctional.
No?
You’d think pretty much every family is. This Christmas season is cinematically all about “Four Christmases” and now “Nothing Like the Holidays,” along with movies like “The Family Stone” from a couple years ago (telling us that if we only would “fly our freak flag” then all would be well).
Actually, I’m ready to embrace my inner AND outer dysfunctionality, not to mention that of my family. All families are dysfunctional in some way or another, even if we rarely make it to “Momma Mia!” level chaos.
Leo Tolstoy, whose “Anna Karenina” somehow hasn’t made it to film as a heartwarming family holiday classic (the ending needs some work), famously opened his novel with the line “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
That’s a clear signal for a novelist that you want to write about unhappiness as much as possible, because happiness, sameness – yawn. Who wants to read about that?
The uniqueness of unhappiness, though, gives you texture and novelty and a narrative arc to follow.
So we have the uniquely dysfunctional family at the heart of our seasonal story this month. There’s a fellow who had some kids when he was younger, working hard, traveling a great deal to follow the major construction projects contracted by the Romans. His first wife dies, and as time goes by, he is set up to be engaged by concerned family members (he’s a busy working man, remember), to a young woman . . . a very young woman.
She’s of good family, good enough that they probably aren’t exactly thrilled by the workman, skilled though he might be, who is older and rough-hewn and is engaged to their dear one. Who turns out, she says one day, to be pregnant. The circumstances are, from the point of view of most of Nazareth, murky.
Business and taxes and family ties force them to make a trip while she’s pretty far along, making you suspect already that the older half-siblings aren’t exactly excited and supportive of Dad’s late in life remarriage. She gives birth on the road, in a strange town, away from her OB/GYN and neo-natal intensive care unit back home, but everything works out.
They meet some of the kind of folk you expect to meet on the road, dusty and stained by labor and their last meal, not to mention by their work (think herding), accepting the aid and support of this aromatic and picturesque crew -- again, Mary’s family, coming from the lesser aristocracy, can’t have been charmed by all this picturesqueness.
Yet those relatives and in-laws should have been pleased, since they made contact with some minor royalty (so they claimed), exotic celebrities who had been received at court. Herod’s rule might have been shabby and disreputable, but a king’s retinue is nothing to be sniffed at, especially by people with a tendency to sniff at many. Noses wouldn’t have turned up, though, at a house with a hatful of kings in residence. Soon enough they leave, and the image becomes an almost legendary part of neighborhood lore. “Do you remember when there were wise men from the East staying with those two?” It was an unpredictable house in many ways, so soon the story no longer sounded to their credit, but was just more evidence of their peculiar nature.
This non-traditional family finally comes back home with many strange tales of close calls and grim danger, which just makes the neighbors ask each other, after the couple is out of earshot, “What were they thinking, taking a baby into a war zone? When they made such a long jaunt, a side trip into Egypt – did he say he had a dream? – how could that have been a good idea?”
Then they try to get back into the usual groove of life back in the home place, Joseph working up the road in Sepphoris and the family back in Nazareth, tending the shop, baking bread, whittling scraps of wood next to the earth oven. They join the throngs heading up to the Temple for festivals as any prosperous craftsman might, but they keep losing track of their boy – can’t these two keep a sharp eye out on their child? He just roams at will and rules the roost – let me tell you, say some, I’d let that child know who was in charge if I were in that house!
As best we can tell, the older Joseph dies well before the boy gets too old, but seemingly not before his chance to teach a trade, which is a father’s chief role, then and now. If the son became a carpenter, then the father had done well by him.
Is that a dysfunctional family? Is yours? So what?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio, and is part of a gloriously dysfunctional family. Tell him about yours at knapsack77@gmail.com.
[seriously, just scroll down! jbg]
Faith Works 12-13-08
Jeff Gill
Your Family May Be Dysfunctional
Just taking a wild shot in the dark, but I’m gonna guess your family is dysfunctional.
No?
You’d think pretty much every family is. This Christmas season is cinematically all about “Four Christmases” and now “Nothing Like the Holidays,” along with movies like “The Family Stone” from a couple years ago (telling us that if we only would “fly our freak flag” then all would be well).
Actually, I’m ready to embrace my inner AND outer dysfunctionality, not to mention that of my family. All families are dysfunctional in some way or another, even if we rarely make it to “Momma Mia!” level chaos.
Leo Tolstoy, whose “Anna Karenina” somehow hasn’t made it to film as a heartwarming family holiday classic (the ending needs some work), famously opened his novel with the line “Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.”
That’s a clear signal for a novelist that you want to write about unhappiness as much as possible, because happiness, sameness – yawn. Who wants to read about that?
The uniqueness of unhappiness, though, gives you texture and novelty and a narrative arc to follow.
So we have the uniquely dysfunctional family at the heart of our seasonal story this month. There’s a fellow who had some kids when he was younger, working hard, traveling a great deal to follow the major construction projects contracted by the Romans. His first wife dies, and as time goes by, he is set up to be engaged by concerned family members (he’s a busy working man, remember), to a young woman . . . a very young woman.
She’s of good family, good enough that they probably aren’t exactly thrilled by the workman, skilled though he might be, who is older and rough-hewn and is engaged to their dear one. Who turns out, she says one day, to be pregnant. The circumstances are, from the point of view of most of Nazareth, murky.
Business and taxes and family ties force them to make a trip while she’s pretty far along, making you suspect already that the older half-siblings aren’t exactly excited and supportive of Dad’s late in life remarriage. She gives birth on the road, in a strange town, away from her OB/GYN and neo-natal intensive care unit back home, but everything works out.
They meet some of the kind of folk you expect to meet on the road, dusty and stained by labor and their last meal, not to mention by their work (think herding), accepting the aid and support of this aromatic and picturesque crew -- again, Mary’s family, coming from the lesser aristocracy, can’t have been charmed by all this picturesqueness.
Yet those relatives and in-laws should have been pleased, since they made contact with some minor royalty (so they claimed), exotic celebrities who had been received at court. Herod’s rule might have been shabby and disreputable, but a king’s retinue is nothing to be sniffed at, especially by people with a tendency to sniff at many. Noses wouldn’t have turned up, though, at a house with a hatful of kings in residence. Soon enough they leave, and the image becomes an almost legendary part of neighborhood lore. “Do you remember when there were wise men from the East staying with those two?” It was an unpredictable house in many ways, so soon the story no longer sounded to their credit, but was just more evidence of their peculiar nature.
This non-traditional family finally comes back home with many strange tales of close calls and grim danger, which just makes the neighbors ask each other, after the couple is out of earshot, “What were they thinking, taking a baby into a war zone? When they made such a long jaunt, a side trip into Egypt – did he say he had a dream? – how could that have been a good idea?”
Then they try to get back into the usual groove of life back in the home place, Joseph working up the road in Sepphoris and the family back in Nazareth, tending the shop, baking bread, whittling scraps of wood next to the earth oven. They join the throngs heading up to the Temple for festivals as any prosperous craftsman might, but they keep losing track of their boy – can’t these two keep a sharp eye out on their child? He just roams at will and rules the roost – let me tell you, say some, I’d let that child know who was in charge if I were in that house!
As best we can tell, the older Joseph dies well before the boy gets too old, but seemingly not before his chance to teach a trade, which is a father’s chief role, then and now. If the son became a carpenter, then the father had done well by him.
Is that a dysfunctional family? Is yours? So what?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio, and is part of a gloriously dysfunctional family. Tell him about yours at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Tuesday, December 09, 2008
Just a few more assorted images from the Granville Candlelight Walking Tour, starting with a view of the front of the Avery-Downer House (1842), and the Mower House next door (1824), followed by the interior of Centenary Church (1894, founded 1810) where the 6 pm youth musical was getting started --
Christmas in Hogsmeade
Call this little sequence "Christmas in Hogsmeade" if you like (we do like!); they're from last Saturday's Granville, Ohio Candlelight Walking Tour. It was even more beautiful than usual, and as the evening settled into darkness, the snow began to fall. The inn at the end isn't the Three Broomsticks, but the Buxton Inn, built in 1812; the white pillared building is the Avery-Downer House & Robbins Hunter Museum, with an odd little folly built onto the very back, an octagonal study that Mr. Hunter would go into at night to play one of his three organs, much to the discomfiture of the neighbors.
That may not go on anymore, but it still is the kind of town where the volunteer fire department brings Santa Claus in with Mrs. C and an elf all in the bucket of their big truck, down past Sugar Loaf and stopping at village hall where they were gently lowered to earth amid cheering throngs of children. It's quite a town, Granville is.
Call this little sequence "Christmas in Hogsmeade" if you like (we do like!); they're from last Saturday's Granville, Ohio Candlelight Walking Tour. It was even more beautiful than usual, and as the evening settled into darkness, the snow began to fall. The inn at the end isn't the Three Broomsticks, but the Buxton Inn, built in 1812; the white pillared building is the Avery-Downer House & Robbins Hunter Museum, with an odd little folly built onto the very back, an octagonal study that Mr. Hunter would go into at night to play one of his three organs, much to the discomfiture of the neighbors.
That may not go on anymore, but it still is the kind of town where the volunteer fire department brings Santa Claus in with Mrs. C and an elf all in the bucket of their big truck, down past Sugar Loaf and stopping at village hall where they were gently lowered to earth amid cheering throngs of children. It's quite a town, Granville is.
The church down towards the bottom is Centenary UMC, where the Little Guy did essentially the same part Linus did in his Christmas program as his part of the Walking Tour, and it made the whole evening for his mother and me, snow and all.
This is one of the walls of the former stable of the Buxton Inn, which is now the Tavern in the cellar -- in this space, if Johnny Appleseed spent a night in any building still standing in Ohio, it was here. These walls, and the timbers overhead, are what were put in place in 1812.
Thursday, December 04, 2008
Faith Works 12-6-08
Jeff Gill
A Baby and The Scandal of Particularity
When I was in high school, the movie “Oh, God” was out in theaters and my church youth group went to see it. The trip had the result no doubt hoped for by our advisors, with a long and specific conversation about theology happening at Mickey D’s that we didn’t know was theology.
In our conversation, we kept coming back to a conversation where the character played by John Denver (yes, that John Denver), a grocery store manager in Tarzana, CA is asking questions of God, played by George Burns (he did God before Morgan Freeman cornered that market).
Our mild-mannered manager asks if Jesus was God’s son. George played the moment with a moment of serious gravity, looking and sounding quite sad and sincere. “Yes, Jesus was my son.”
Pause. Then, gravely, “Buddha was my son. The man who said, 'There's no room at the inn'--he was my son, too. Let’s move on.”
The characters went on with other questions (“What about Judgement Day?” God: “I’m not looking forward to it.”), but our group didn’t. We were wrestling with it right on through our fries long after the movie had ended and we were waiting for parents to come pick us up, and some of us wrestle with it still.
Leslie Newbigin was a Christian thinker and leader through the 20th century, whose writing on Christian mission is very powerfully active in the “missional church” movement today. Newbigin is one of those rare figures as appreciated in evangelical circles as in liberal seminaries, but a real sticking point for some on the theological left is what Newbigin called “the scandal of particularity.”
Bishop Newbigin’s point was that the universality of Christ was made all the more effective by the particularity of who Jesus was; he argued passionately to Western culture after his years in leadership in South India that “the scandal of particularity” was a uniquely western problem, where our secularizing desire to see Jesus as “one of” God’s children eroded the impact of how Jesus came as embodied “Good News” for all. The particular and the universal had, for Newbigin, a very direct connection, while general categories lead us to the selective and the approved.
So for Lesslie, the idea that God’s love had a unique embodiment in a particular child in a certain village at a precise point in time was absolutely necessary to making the case that God’s saving love was offered to absolutely everyone – even those who came before that moment, let alone long after.
Which is why, when I look at a manger scene, I think of Lesslie Newbigin and Francis of Assisi more than I do George Burns or Avery Corman (the fine author who wrote the script for “Oh, God”). To make Jesus one of the many “sons of God” starts us down the road of who is, who isn’t, and who can’t even be considered as one of the One.
To proclaim the child born in Bethlehem as the “Prince of Peace,” to sing “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus,” means not that I’m emphasizing who isn’t included in the grandeur and sweep of God’s grace, but that this baby born in a stable, laid down to sleep in a feeding trough, is a reliable sign for not only the religious and observant, but for the lost and seeking, the struggling and starving.
For the Licking County Food Pantry Network, St. John’s United Church of Christ on the south edge of Newark on National Drive is sponsoring a “Festival for the Christ Child” tomorrow afternoon, Dec. 7, in their sanctuary. It’s a concert, made up of a number of acts from around the county, with prelude music from 1 to 1:30 and the formal program starting at 1:30 pm, and your scribe is honored to serve as the emcee. Tickets can be reserved in advance at 323-2407, or you can buy them at the door for $10. All proceeds go to the area food pantries, who need to be a sign of hope in a dark time themselves. St. John’s is well known for their “Bethlehem Marketplace,” which is held every other year, and they didn’t want to wait until next year to make a particular, specific stand on behalf of our community’s hungry.
However you choose to proclaim the Christ Child in your life, spending a little time and money at this gathering can be a real gift to someone for Christmas. You may never know who that particular person you helped is, but they will know that their whole community has not forgotten them.
And what might grow from that one particular act of kindness, a point of grace?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; share your particular joys or concerns with him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
A Baby and The Scandal of Particularity
When I was in high school, the movie “Oh, God” was out in theaters and my church youth group went to see it. The trip had the result no doubt hoped for by our advisors, with a long and specific conversation about theology happening at Mickey D’s that we didn’t know was theology.
In our conversation, we kept coming back to a conversation where the character played by John Denver (yes, that John Denver), a grocery store manager in Tarzana, CA is asking questions of God, played by George Burns (he did God before Morgan Freeman cornered that market).
Our mild-mannered manager asks if Jesus was God’s son. George played the moment with a moment of serious gravity, looking and sounding quite sad and sincere. “Yes, Jesus was my son.”
Pause. Then, gravely, “Buddha was my son. The man who said, 'There's no room at the inn'--he was my son, too. Let’s move on.”
The characters went on with other questions (“What about Judgement Day?” God: “I’m not looking forward to it.”), but our group didn’t. We were wrestling with it right on through our fries long after the movie had ended and we were waiting for parents to come pick us up, and some of us wrestle with it still.
Leslie Newbigin was a Christian thinker and leader through the 20th century, whose writing on Christian mission is very powerfully active in the “missional church” movement today. Newbigin is one of those rare figures as appreciated in evangelical circles as in liberal seminaries, but a real sticking point for some on the theological left is what Newbigin called “the scandal of particularity.”
Bishop Newbigin’s point was that the universality of Christ was made all the more effective by the particularity of who Jesus was; he argued passionately to Western culture after his years in leadership in South India that “the scandal of particularity” was a uniquely western problem, where our secularizing desire to see Jesus as “one of” God’s children eroded the impact of how Jesus came as embodied “Good News” for all. The particular and the universal had, for Newbigin, a very direct connection, while general categories lead us to the selective and the approved.
So for Lesslie, the idea that God’s love had a unique embodiment in a particular child in a certain village at a precise point in time was absolutely necessary to making the case that God’s saving love was offered to absolutely everyone – even those who came before that moment, let alone long after.
Which is why, when I look at a manger scene, I think of Lesslie Newbigin and Francis of Assisi more than I do George Burns or Avery Corman (the fine author who wrote the script for “Oh, God”). To make Jesus one of the many “sons of God” starts us down the road of who is, who isn’t, and who can’t even be considered as one of the One.
To proclaim the child born in Bethlehem as the “Prince of Peace,” to sing “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus,” means not that I’m emphasizing who isn’t included in the grandeur and sweep of God’s grace, but that this baby born in a stable, laid down to sleep in a feeding trough, is a reliable sign for not only the religious and observant, but for the lost and seeking, the struggling and starving.
For the Licking County Food Pantry Network, St. John’s United Church of Christ on the south edge of Newark on National Drive is sponsoring a “Festival for the Christ Child” tomorrow afternoon, Dec. 7, in their sanctuary. It’s a concert, made up of a number of acts from around the county, with prelude music from 1 to 1:30 and the formal program starting at 1:30 pm, and your scribe is honored to serve as the emcee. Tickets can be reserved in advance at 323-2407, or you can buy them at the door for $10. All proceeds go to the area food pantries, who need to be a sign of hope in a dark time themselves. St. John’s is well known for their “Bethlehem Marketplace,” which is held every other year, and they didn’t want to wait until next year to make a particular, specific stand on behalf of our community’s hungry.
However you choose to proclaim the Christ Child in your life, spending a little time and money at this gathering can be a real gift to someone for Christmas. You may never know who that particular person you helped is, but they will know that their whole community has not forgotten them.
And what might grow from that one particular act of kindness, a point of grace?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; share your particular joys or concerns with him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Monday, December 01, 2008
Notes From My Knapsack – 12-4-08
Jeff Gill
Making Memories, Creating Experiences
This is the week when you start to almost get used to the unusual sight of trees, trussed and tied down to car and van roofs, whizzing around the village.
Some go off to the pick and pay lots, while others, quite a few others in fact, go further afield to Walsh’s Tree Farm or up to Timbuk, where they can set out into the carefully managed forest to cut down their own. (Those places will just sell you one, too.)
Other than giving a family material for later Clark Griswold stories about dad severing an artery, or the flying squirrel jumping out onto Mee-maw’s towering blue wig, why? Why would you go out to do such a thing on a cold day, when the last thing you cut down was three inch tall grass blades?
Because it makes a memory. Creating experiences is a powerful part of what this time of year is about, from roasting an entire bird when your usual poultry option is take out stir fry, to carefully mitre-folding shiny decorative paper around a box already impregnable by most country’s special forces untis, so children can shred your handiwork in less time than it takes Michael Phelps to swim a pool’s length.
Spending your money on making experiences that last in the memory may be the smartest expenditure you can make for the holiday season. With planned obsolescence making your laptop out of date in a year and inoperative without cracking open the motherboard in three, with materials from overseas saturated in lead and melamine, and that’s the sturdy part of some purchased goods, memory may be more durable than you think.
Age and ailments can take a toll, but the memories that last have a shelf life that stands up pretty well next to consumer goods, and you can pass those memories on to your children and grandchildren – who knows which stories they actually listened to while they were typing on their iPhone screen?
An Advent wreath on the dinner table, in observant Christian homes, can create a focus for remembrance that also is good for many years, with just a set of new purple candles needed to start again. Advent calendars, at least the ones not focused on chocolate behind each little paper hatch, can return and be passed down through a family, creating layers of memory.
In your Christmas season shopping, we’ll all spend some money, recession or not, but one way to maximize minimal dollars is to think “how can I buy a gift that makes a memory” for the person or family you’re shopping for? That helps us get off the treadmill of stuff (What stuff do they already have? What stuff can I afford for them? Is this stuff in style?) and reduces questions of storage or even usefulness, questions all the more nagging for the fact that we hate to ask them of ourselves as we shop for others.
Restaurant gift cards or certificates are easy to mail and always can fill a niche, but what about getting someone a chance for a meal somewhere different? Wherever they don’t often, or ever eat, try that as a present and as a provocation. Help people get out of their rut, which is usually less to do with actual tastes and more to do with habit. Take a chance, get ‘em to eat some hot Thai spice or at an Italian restaurant they didn’t even know existed.
Books are my favorite gift to give or receive, but it’s true that not everyone welcomes reading as a present (it feels like a homework assignment, the Lovely Wife tells me). A picture book can take you somewhere cheaply without assuming they want to commit to a sit down readthrough.
And a cookbook with a few interesting spices wrapped into the package can be a fun way to invite some adventure right in your own kitchen.
Does anyone out there have any other ideas for helping people make memories out of this Christmas season? Write me at knapsack77@gmail.com and I’ll use ‘em here for last minute ideas . . .
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; write him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Making Memories, Creating Experiences
This is the week when you start to almost get used to the unusual sight of trees, trussed and tied down to car and van roofs, whizzing around the village.
Some go off to the pick and pay lots, while others, quite a few others in fact, go further afield to Walsh’s Tree Farm or up to Timbuk, where they can set out into the carefully managed forest to cut down their own. (Those places will just sell you one, too.)
Other than giving a family material for later Clark Griswold stories about dad severing an artery, or the flying squirrel jumping out onto Mee-maw’s towering blue wig, why? Why would you go out to do such a thing on a cold day, when the last thing you cut down was three inch tall grass blades?
Because it makes a memory. Creating experiences is a powerful part of what this time of year is about, from roasting an entire bird when your usual poultry option is take out stir fry, to carefully mitre-folding shiny decorative paper around a box already impregnable by most country’s special forces untis, so children can shred your handiwork in less time than it takes Michael Phelps to swim a pool’s length.
Spending your money on making experiences that last in the memory may be the smartest expenditure you can make for the holiday season. With planned obsolescence making your laptop out of date in a year and inoperative without cracking open the motherboard in three, with materials from overseas saturated in lead and melamine, and that’s the sturdy part of some purchased goods, memory may be more durable than you think.
Age and ailments can take a toll, but the memories that last have a shelf life that stands up pretty well next to consumer goods, and you can pass those memories on to your children and grandchildren – who knows which stories they actually listened to while they were typing on their iPhone screen?
An Advent wreath on the dinner table, in observant Christian homes, can create a focus for remembrance that also is good for many years, with just a set of new purple candles needed to start again. Advent calendars, at least the ones not focused on chocolate behind each little paper hatch, can return and be passed down through a family, creating layers of memory.
In your Christmas season shopping, we’ll all spend some money, recession or not, but one way to maximize minimal dollars is to think “how can I buy a gift that makes a memory” for the person or family you’re shopping for? That helps us get off the treadmill of stuff (What stuff do they already have? What stuff can I afford for them? Is this stuff in style?) and reduces questions of storage or even usefulness, questions all the more nagging for the fact that we hate to ask them of ourselves as we shop for others.
Restaurant gift cards or certificates are easy to mail and always can fill a niche, but what about getting someone a chance for a meal somewhere different? Wherever they don’t often, or ever eat, try that as a present and as a provocation. Help people get out of their rut, which is usually less to do with actual tastes and more to do with habit. Take a chance, get ‘em to eat some hot Thai spice or at an Italian restaurant they didn’t even know existed.
Books are my favorite gift to give or receive, but it’s true that not everyone welcomes reading as a present (it feels like a homework assignment, the Lovely Wife tells me). A picture book can take you somewhere cheaply without assuming they want to commit to a sit down readthrough.
And a cookbook with a few interesting spices wrapped into the package can be a fun way to invite some adventure right in your own kitchen.
Does anyone out there have any other ideas for helping people make memories out of this Christmas season? Write me at knapsack77@gmail.com and I’ll use ‘em here for last minute ideas . . .
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; write him at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Friday, November 28, 2008
This is both funny, and not-funny -- having watched a mall die while living in West Virginia, and now watching Indian Mound Mall go on life support (some vital signs, but a few extremities and internal organs shutting down), you see how a downtown can go into hibernation and come back, but a mall is like a shark.
If it stops moving through the waters of commerce, it dies, from the head down, and the rot isn't pretty.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/27/AR2008112702345_pf.html
What are some new business models for a mall? Churches in the former anchor store spaces? Remodeling into senior housing on one end? I'm not kidding -- they need some ideas beyond the newest tchochkey outlet . . . unless Les Wexner figures out how to make us all believe we need another overpriced personal care product in 43 varieties to stave off bankruptcy: "Follicles, Defoliation, and Finance" might do it.
If it stops moving through the waters of commerce, it dies, from the head down, and the rot isn't pretty.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/27/AR2008112702345_pf.html
What are some new business models for a mall? Churches in the former anchor store spaces? Remodeling into senior housing on one end? I'm not kidding -- they need some ideas beyond the newest tchochkey outlet . . . unless Les Wexner figures out how to make us all believe we need another overpriced personal care product in 43 varieties to stave off bankruptcy: "Follicles, Defoliation, and Finance" might do it.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Faith Works 11-29-08
Jeff Gill
Old Fashioned Means Many Things
Last week many of us sang the Thanksgiving classics, “We Gather Together” and “Now Thank We All Our God” and “Come, Ye Thankful People Come.”
These aren’t songs the ad business folks have figured out how to co-opt.
They not only come with a fair amount of theological content, but they swing with a heavy load of archaic imagery – tares cast out, grain put in a garner, “first the blade and then the ear,” before the whole shebang “doth appear” to “lay down in store.”
Huh?
Even those among us who actually live their lives around a harvest season and know what a harvest home looks like (usually needs sweeping daily) don’t call any building on their farmstead a garner, and tare weight is a cryptic label on a scale readout unless you’re in charge of setting pricing.
Never mind, because this time of year makes singing about grain and corn and sheaves feel right at home in our harvest homes, cornucopia stuffed with fruits and gourds as a centerpiece until the Christmas decorations come out.
Thanks to the election and the near monopolization of the airwaves by political spots, we didn’t start getting slammed with Christmas (koff) Holiday season ads until, oh, Nov. 5. Which is about two months later than it’s been the last couple years.
The Lovely Wife and I have noticed that there’s a bit of a theme to the ads on TV this year, or at least in the tube we’ve seen – nostalgia.
Traditional scenes, and classic music, with a focus on family and fun and snow that seems to us a shift from what had become (in this household’s perspective, at least) a rolling attempt to out-cool the competition during the “Holiday (koff) season.” Edgy music, surrealism with red and green tones, and a general effort to stretch the boundaries of you might still consider “oh, an ad to buy stuff for Christmas.”
What we’re seeing now is a wide range of commericals that all aim at a fairly narrow band of 70’s era musical variety show sets, all of whom have an Andy Williams clone in them wearing a striking sweater (yes, that trend is his fault – age 80, still wearing them in Branson) that stands out against a stark white set, among other colorful people mainly organized into recognizable family groups (young couple, young family, older couple with a teen, elderly couple beaming at them all).
Christmas music for some years now has been “officially” limited to “Deck the Halls,” “Ring Christmas Bells (sans words),” and “Jingle Bells,” so I understand why some ad agencies went with 50’s finger snapping hipness just to get out of that box, but this year we’ve climbed back into the box and put a big honking red ribbon on it.
Is this the economy? If so, how does that logic flow? Are ad buyers less interested in taking risks in a tanking economy? Does the TV ad trend mean that traditional is safe (well, duh), and it pays?
It does seem safe to guess that all sorts of families, traditional and non-traditional, will be looking for safe, cheap, simple ways to celebrate the season in the way they’re used to, or remember being used to, or would like to learn how to do in the first place.
Thursday night is the downtown Newark “Sights and Sounds” tour, which you can learn more about at http://www.sightsandsoundsofchristmas.org A family can learn a little about local traditions around Advent (starting tomorrow!) and the Christmas season for very few dollars and much enjoyment, with the Courthouse Square lights anchoring it all for free.
Also at no cost is the Granville Candlelight Walking Tour, next Saturday Dec. 6 with various events from 1:00 pm through 9:00 pm all over the village – see http://candlelight.webstorefront.net for sites and times of various musical and performance venues. Most all are free, but lots of chances to spend money if you want!
And that Saturday is also “Christmas in the County” down at Infirmary Mound Park from 6:00 pm through the evening, no cost but much merriment for all, including the legendary Christmas pickle.
Is your family thinking along more traditional lines this Christmas season? Are those of other faith traditions doing things differently in their different observances through the end of 2008? Drop me a line and let me know; I’d love to share those ideas with our community.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him your traditions at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Old Fashioned Means Many Things
Last week many of us sang the Thanksgiving classics, “We Gather Together” and “Now Thank We All Our God” and “Come, Ye Thankful People Come.”
These aren’t songs the ad business folks have figured out how to co-opt.
They not only come with a fair amount of theological content, but they swing with a heavy load of archaic imagery – tares cast out, grain put in a garner, “first the blade and then the ear,” before the whole shebang “doth appear” to “lay down in store.”
Huh?
Even those among us who actually live their lives around a harvest season and know what a harvest home looks like (usually needs sweeping daily) don’t call any building on their farmstead a garner, and tare weight is a cryptic label on a scale readout unless you’re in charge of setting pricing.
Never mind, because this time of year makes singing about grain and corn and sheaves feel right at home in our harvest homes, cornucopia stuffed with fruits and gourds as a centerpiece until the Christmas decorations come out.
Thanks to the election and the near monopolization of the airwaves by political spots, we didn’t start getting slammed with Christmas (koff) Holiday season ads until, oh, Nov. 5. Which is about two months later than it’s been the last couple years.
The Lovely Wife and I have noticed that there’s a bit of a theme to the ads on TV this year, or at least in the tube we’ve seen – nostalgia.
Traditional scenes, and classic music, with a focus on family and fun and snow that seems to us a shift from what had become (in this household’s perspective, at least) a rolling attempt to out-cool the competition during the “Holiday (koff) season.” Edgy music, surrealism with red and green tones, and a general effort to stretch the boundaries of you might still consider “oh, an ad to buy stuff for Christmas.”
What we’re seeing now is a wide range of commericals that all aim at a fairly narrow band of 70’s era musical variety show sets, all of whom have an Andy Williams clone in them wearing a striking sweater (yes, that trend is his fault – age 80, still wearing them in Branson) that stands out against a stark white set, among other colorful people mainly organized into recognizable family groups (young couple, young family, older couple with a teen, elderly couple beaming at them all).
Christmas music for some years now has been “officially” limited to “Deck the Halls,” “Ring Christmas Bells (sans words),” and “Jingle Bells,” so I understand why some ad agencies went with 50’s finger snapping hipness just to get out of that box, but this year we’ve climbed back into the box and put a big honking red ribbon on it.
Is this the economy? If so, how does that logic flow? Are ad buyers less interested in taking risks in a tanking economy? Does the TV ad trend mean that traditional is safe (well, duh), and it pays?
It does seem safe to guess that all sorts of families, traditional and non-traditional, will be looking for safe, cheap, simple ways to celebrate the season in the way they’re used to, or remember being used to, or would like to learn how to do in the first place.
Thursday night is the downtown Newark “Sights and Sounds” tour, which you can learn more about at http://www.sightsandsoundsofchristmas.org A family can learn a little about local traditions around Advent (starting tomorrow!) and the Christmas season for very few dollars and much enjoyment, with the Courthouse Square lights anchoring it all for free.
Also at no cost is the Granville Candlelight Walking Tour, next Saturday Dec. 6 with various events from 1:00 pm through 9:00 pm all over the village – see http://candlelight.webstorefront.net for sites and times of various musical and performance venues. Most all are free, but lots of chances to spend money if you want!
And that Saturday is also “Christmas in the County” down at Infirmary Mound Park from 6:00 pm through the evening, no cost but much merriment for all, including the legendary Christmas pickle.
Is your family thinking along more traditional lines this Christmas season? Are those of other faith traditions doing things differently in their different observances through the end of 2008? Drop me a line and let me know; I’d love to share those ideas with our community.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him your traditions at knapsack77@gmail.com.
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