Knapsack 6-2

Notes From My Knapsack 6-2-11

Jeff Gill

 

The Nature Center is all around you

___

 

Next Monday aside, school pretty much ends this week.

 

(Yes, yes, I'm sending my son to school on Monday. I do other pointless things without complaint, so why not that . . .)

 

Ahead of us all stretches the summer. We hope and pray that the storms have passed, that blue skies will be the new normal, and that we who have school age kids can get them to play outside sometimes.

 

The legendary seventh grade science wildflower project is now behind us, and I'm curious to see how personally handling the Peterson Guide for Wildflowers and learning how to see, to notice, to consider the easily overlooked life in our own yard and nearby fields – I'm wondering if much of that will stick, or thinking about how I can incentivize keeping the examination of nature going through the summer.

 

The Lad went from anxiety over the rare and mysterious "dame's rocket" to realizing that, for a few weeks, it's everywhere; he now knows that bloodroot is effectively gone and won't be back 'til next April along with Trillium (we saw trillium flowers, but never where we could pick it). Checking out the field guide, he learned that his dad's old favorite, ironweed, is something he points out in August because that's the only time you can find it.

 

Birds are starting to be "seen" in his world, as opposed to just being "birds" (other than the dreaded mourning dove lurking on our front porch mornings), and he's figured out that the savant who created the Pokemon franchise built it on a pre-existing hobby of insect collecting. So there are some carry-overs already.

 

With the Lovely Wife having planted Ohio wildflowers on two sides of Sycamore Lodge, after watching the ravening deer packs chew through anything not evolved to mock their depredations, we had quite a bit right around the house for the class project. Add in that Dad quixotically hand-pulls dandelions and avoids all but the barest trace of chemical treatment on the lawn, and it's been fun watching the Lad shift focus to see that "lawn" is not a homogenous green mass (OK, later in the summer, brown), but an ecosystem of sorts with a vast assortment of plant species and even a range of insects and a few mammals.

 

Bill McKibben, the noted essayist and nature-writer, is passionately interested in the environment, concerned about global climate change, and when he's home in New England, a Sunday school teacher at his neighborhood Methodist congregation. He was on the NPR faith and culture program "On Being (with Krista Tippett)" last August, talking about everyday life and ordinary people and a personal faith.

 

He made one remark that's stuck in my head since last summer: "The suburbs are a device for making sure that you don't notice nature."

 

Cars and air conditioning and big box stores and no sidewalks and . . . yep, I think he's got a point. I could talk about programs and plans and lessons, but the corrective is perhaps no more complicated than – Notice nature.

 

And help the children around you notice it a bit more, too. It's right outside your door.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter. 

Faith Works 5-28

Faith Works 5-28-11

Jeff Gill

 

Prepare For Sudden Stops

___

 

 

If you watch video on a slow internet connection (is there any other way?), you are well familiar with a certain awkward reality.

 

Take anyone, no matter how handsome or lovely, well spoken or practiced in public presentation, and then stop the video at a random moment.

 

They will look silly, or worse.

 

If you take any one of us, and pause at a point in time, you will see eyes closed (or one eye half closed), mouth askew, or hands flapping oddly. The fine photographers of the Advocate know this all too well, too, which is why they love digital technology – take hundreds of pictures, and only one or two are recognizable and useful. You don't have to squint at rolls of film by red light to figure out which to develop, and toss most of even that selected set.

 

In a grim sort of way, death is like that. Most of us will not have lots of advance knowledge (it's why ministers joke about scheduling funerals), and even those who have an inkling are usually not expecting that unwelcome guest when it arrives.

 

So it's not usual to have to sort through pockets and drawers and in-boxes of people who have recently passed and find yourself feeling a bit embarrassed for them. You just know they were not planning on having anyone see this aspect of their life, or deal with their flaws and foibles, and figured they had a bit more time to arrange their public presentation for a general audience.

 

You could call it "the end times," if only for that person.

 

Last week, there was quite a bit of jovial mockery, some of which I willfully participated in, about the fringe pastor out west who had declared a set day AND time for the Rapture, or "ingathering of believers to God" with the End of Days, aka Eschatological Apocalypse, scheduled for Oct. 21.

 

As you may know, the world did not see (as far as we know) a taking up into the air of Christ-followers, and there was an all-too brief silence from this gentleman who became a media celebrity.

 

Apparently overlooking Deuteronomy 18:22 (let alone vs. 20), he's taken up his notes, peered through them, and decided to double down on dumb and assert that Oct. 21 is the day of departure, not of destruction, and later events will follow in due time.

 

Summer vacation spots no doubt breathed a sigh of relief.

 

Let's be clear: I'd never heard of this guy before his end of the world pronouncement, and neither had just about everyone. He got lots of attention when plenty of minor preachers and prophets labor in anonymity because he set up conservative Christians perfectly for abuse and derision. Seriously, you could do this story every month in this country alone, daily if you combed Africa and Asia for end-times predictions, but the key was a major purchase of billboards and ads which made this story both unavoidable and irresistible to general media.

 

Do I think he's sincere? I don't even know enough about him to answer that. He's 89, which tells me one thing: with all due respect, he's got a judgment day facing him soon. Personally, he's got the odds on his side for predicting an end to it all one day that's sooner than later.

 

What we're in danger of losing in all this mess is that each of us, relative to time and eternity, have a full stop coming not too far down the track. It's not always well marked, and while the point is very much to enjoy and make use of the journey, the end is a summing up, at least for others to make if not for us to witness.

 

The life of faith says we have a perspective on that final review, and we can face it with confidence because God wants us to expect it, to not fear it, and sent Jesus to show us with his life, by his death, and through his resurrection that it's all gonna be OK. We've played our part, made our faces, missed our cues, and stumbled on our entrances, but it's not our show to ruin, so be of good cheer.

 

Our lives, this world, time itself will end. Knowing that shouldn't give us despair or cause us to chase ever more desperately after satisfactions that won't last anyhow; an awareness of our end should guide our todays, with one another.

 

The fact that we might get caught looking foolish, in a last photo, or like the preacher in California, isn't really the problem; not living thankfully in the time we're given might just be the real embarrassment.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 5-21

Faith Works 5-21-11

Jeff Gill

 

Utilitarianism and Faith, Together and At Odds

___

 

Just a couple of weeks ago, there were levees along the Mississippi that were literally blown up, near where the Ohio joins the Big Muddy, and where some of our local runoff and outflow ultimately joins rainfall from across the Midwest.

 

The decision was made to flood some 100 homes to relieve pressure that threatened 3,000 people in and around Cairo, Illinois. Two hundred some people take a hit, so more than twelve times as many people can be protected.

 

Is that fair?

 

Most of us would work to avoid that word, and fall back on "logical." It makes sense to us, a kind of sense that philosophically gets called "utilitarianism," or "the greatest good for the greatest number."

 

It makes sense, but is it enough? Utilitarianism, that is.

 

Last weekend, the Morganza floodgates were opened, releasing through a planned pathway a torrent of water from the still rising Mississippi, again reducing the pressures building up on levee walls, some of which date back to the great floods of 1927 where hundreds along the lower Mississippi died.

 

Not only levee failure, but over-topping is feared, where the maximum height is reached by rising water, which can quickly start to cut gaps in earthen structures, or simply undermine from behind other kinds of built floodwall.

 

If the massive flows of water continued unabated to New Orleans, there was great concern that they might do again to that city from the north what Hurricane Katrina and levee failure did from the south in 2005.

 

Might.

 

You can see where utilitarian arguments that look so straightforward and elegant in some settings can get complex and confusing in a big hurry. So we know, if we open the Morganza, that 3,000 square miles, 11,000 buildings, and at least 25,000 people will be flooded out, for sure.

 

If we don't, there might be flooding in Baton Rouge or New Orleans, which could be sudden and relatively unpredictable, leading to possible loss of life, and the probability of tens of thousands of homes and businesses hit again as they were not very long ago.

 

What's the right thing to do? You can still do a number of pragmatic utilitarian calculations as to just how probable the damage will be if nothing is done, and in this case it looks very high. Not for sure, but high. How do you do the math for deciding just how probable probably has to be in order to definitely impact someone else?

 

And what is the math for a sense of the justice in giving New Orleans a little extra consideration? Does the recently repaired devastation from Katrina mean that we should go out of our way, even to the detriment of others, to protect the Crescent City from repeated horrors?

 

Then there's the counterbalance in that all of the people in the areas being affected this week through Louisiana are regularly reminded by civil and federal authorities that they've built or located in an area which can be chosen for "protective flooding." If you've wondered at why so few folks in the Cajun country watching waters rise have pitched a fit, that's a major reason why.

 

Information, then, plays a role: as does compassion. Some of the folks interviewed in the flooded zone have said flat out "better us than those poor folks in N'Orlins." I doubt they've all said it, but some have. How do you put that sentiment into a formula?

 

I raise these issues as the floodwaters rise, at least on our TV screens if not nearby, to partially address a point. Those who are unhappy with or even outright hostile to a public role for faith & religion in civic affairs usually comment on "reason" and their dislike of "unreason" getting a voice in decision-making.

 

Their implication is that there is, close at hand, an entirely reasonable and rational way to make choices about things like floodwaters and health care, military action and relief operations, or public policy in general.

 

During these sorts of events like the Mississippi floods, utilitarianism looks, from a distance, like it's head and shoulders up out of the muck, making clean and crisp decisions on the mathematical merits.

 

Up close, on an individual and communal basis, utilitarian options drown in the fast moving tide of minutiae. Faith isn't a shortcut for hard choices, either, but it can give you a solid place to stand while you make them.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio. Tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 5-14 edited

Faith Works 5-14-11

Jeff Gill

 

On the Beauty of Chastity

___

 

We're heading into the heart of commencement season, with advice and counsel freely provided to captive audiences.

 

You'll hear some good ones, you'll hear some bad ones, all of them well-intended and some ("Use sunscreen") quite brief, as well as helpful.

 

The late David Foster Wallace gave what is considered to be one of the best commencement speeches of the last few decades, just up the road at Kenyon College in 2005. It's been turned, since his recent tragic death, into a book ("This is Water"), and the text of the basic address itself is easy to find online.

 

If you consider yourself rather old school about things like graduation ceremonies (say, you'd never imagine bringing an airhorn in your pocket for when your relative crosses the stage), it starts off rather ramblingly, and fairly typical commencement fare for all that.

 

Then Wallace makes a sharp pivot in his talk to say this: "There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship."

 

Whoa. Outside of a private Christian high school or a denominational college, that's a bit unusual. He goes on in this vein, with a nod to the variety of traditions honored or deferred by his audience in Gambier on that sunny day:

 

"An outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things -- if they are where you tap real meaning in life -- then you will never have enough."

 

"Will eat you alive." I read a blog post where one of the graduates that day said he paused there, and repeated it, to rapt silence.

 

"Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you."

 

A commencement speech that is unlikely to be heard much of anywhere is an address "On the Beauty of Chastity." Like David Foster Wallace struggling with the question of what (or Who) to worship, there are some subjects even in these days that are not fit for polite company. Chastity would be one of them.

 

If you had John Milton, or C.S. Lewis come back to speak, or St. Catherine of Siena and St. Teresa of Avila (maybe even old St. Joseph himself), they'd surely find chastity a good starting point for their talks to graduating students, even as they might be baffled by airhorns.

 

It's not so unlikely a subject for moderns as you might think, given that chastity doesn't mean the Punch-n-Judy caricature most people think of hearing the word. Chastity is purity in the sense of self-discipline; as Kierkegaard said "Purity of heart is to will one thing."

 

We stand in awe as basketball players sink three-pointers, knowing the tens of thousands of practice shots that led to that game winning moment; we watch, rapt, at footage of Navy SEALs in grueling training in ice cold water, preparing for feats only possible with intense focus & discipline; we listen in delight to singers & instrumentalists who practice, practice, practice to give a fluid, easy performance on the day of the show.

 

That's what chastity is, as the saints knew. It's not NOT having sex outside of marriage, but it's the life practice of discipline, self-discipline, a learned focus that allows us to achieve that which truly leads to happiness. A happily married couple is chaste, a single person who hopes to marry and prepares for that relationship until it begins is chaste, and chastity is as much what you do, when, much more than it is what you don't do.

 

Chastity is deferring some satisfactions now to gain a greater joy and peace later, and can be practiced by anyone.

 

Anyone, that is, who worships a vision and a goal somewhere beyond their own fleeting pleasures; who can accept short-term pain for long-term gain. Exercise and diet and study, as well as sex, are all tools for a life well-lived if used in a disciplined, which is to say chaste, manner. Tools flung about without intention or plan are dangerous, to self and others.

 

Chastity, on the other hand, can make something beautiful. May all those who commence this graduation season become craftspeople of their own lives.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio. Tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Notes From My Knapsack 5-19-11

Jeff Gill

Where It All Can Be Found

___

One of the early and best indications that my little series of "Twelve Years Old in Granville" had struck the mark I was aiming at has been people asking me where they can read more about the background and history of the stories I've been telling.

Yes, they are an outgrowth of the fact that my own son is twelve (but not for much longer!), and to some degree, they are a reflection of the hard fact that school tours and field trips are fading from the landscape, even as young people and families feel more and more distant and alienated from the landscape in which they live.

So, being a storyteller, I decided to address this by telling stories, ones that I hope children and parents can read and hear together, putting themselves in the shoes or boots or moccasins of the previous inhabitants of these valleys and hilltops.

It begins, without a doubt, in the pages of "Wild Turkeys and Tallow Candles," the wonderful 1920 memoir by Ellen Hayes, still available at the Granville Historical Society and at Reader's Garden. Anyone who has read through her recollection of growing up in the house still standing, just west of St. Edward's, can tell you what a wonderful piece of writing that is.

Even if you have no knowledge of or history with Granville, it is a delight to read about a childhood in the years mostly just before the Civil War. I've tried to write in the spirit and sense, if not exactly the style of Professor Hayes' first person masterpiece.

The Robbins Hunter Museum preserves a number of fragments about the builder of the Avery-Downer House, our 1842 Greek Revival marvel that stands in such bright and hopeful contrast to the hard life Alfred Avery knew back in Granville, Massachusetts and in the first days of the colony here. Ann Lowder wishes someone would write a longer piece about the fatherless boy who grew up to become a mercantile marvel, and yes, I get the hint!

To go back to the earliest residents of Raccoon Creek's banks, I am as always indebted to Brad Lepper, and particularly his award-winning "Ohio Archaeology," still in print, with wonderful artist's depictions of what life among the artifacts we have today would have looked like more fully back then.

There is much detail that can be gleaned from books hard to find on shelves, but easy to peruse online: Henry Bushnell's "The History of Granville, Licking County, Ohio" from 1889, and N.N. Hill's "History of Licking County, Ohio" of 1881, both of which owe an obvious debt to Henry Howe's "Historical Collections of Ohio," originally written in 1847 & revisited in 1888.

And again at the Granville Historical Society, they not only have a few copies still for sale of William Utter's "Granville – The Story of an Ohio Village" from 1956, but will be happy to sell you copies of their bicentennial achievement: "Granville, Ohio: A Study in Continuity and Change."

Isaac Smucker, Mary Hartwell Catherwood, Minnie Hite Moody, Charles Browne White and other writers long ago; Dee Ann Wymer, Bill Dancey, Tony Lisska, Dale Knobel, Flo Hoffman, and of course Dick Shiels have shared generously of their ongoing researches and knowledge of this "most eligble part" of Ohio.

There is much more one could learn about this valley nestled below Mount Parnassus, and the service of the Muse Calliope does not allow just sipping at her wells: "A little learning is a dang'rous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring."

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 5-14

Faith Works 5-14-11

Jeff Gill

On the Beauty of Chastity

___

We're heading into the heart of commencement season, with advice and counsel freely provided, not only the useful or highflown, but the mundane and inspirational all equally available.

in other words, you'll hear good ones, you'll hear some bad ones, all well-intended and some ("Use sunscreen") quite brief as well as helpful.

The late David Foster Wallace gave what is considered to be one of the best commencement speeches of the last few decades just up the road, at Kenyon College in 2005. It's been turned, since his recent tragic death, into a book ("This is Water"), and the text of the basic address itself is easy to find online.

If you consider yourself rather old school about things like graduation ceremonies (say, you'd never imagine bringing an airhorn in your pocket for when your relative crosses the stage), it starts off rather post-modern and elliptical, and fairly typical commencement fare for all that.

But I'd love to have been there to see the reaction when Wallace makes a sharp pivot in his talk, and then says "There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship."

Whoa. Outside of a private Christian high school or a denominational college, that's a bit unusual. He goes on in this vein, with a nod to the variety of traditions honored or left behind by his audience in Gambier that sunny day:

"And an outstanding reason for choosing some sort of God or spiritual-type thing to worship -- be it J.C. or Allah, be it Yahweh or the Wiccan mother-goddess or the Four Noble Truths or some infrangible set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things -- if they are where you tap real meaning in life -- then you will never have enough."

Will eat you alive. I did read a blog post where one of the graduates that day said he paused there, and repeated it, to utter silence. Because of disbelief, or complete comprehension of what Wallace was getting at?

"Worship your own body and beauty and sexual allure and you will always feel ugly, and when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally plant you."

There's a commencement speech that is unlikely to be heard much of anywhere tomorrow or in the next few weeks, and that's an address "On the Beauty of Chastity." Like David Foster Wallace struggling with the question of what (or Who) to worship, there are some subjects even in these days that are not fit for polite company. Chastity would be one of them.

If you had John Milton, or C.S. Lewis come back to speak, or St. Catherine of Siena and St. Teresa of Avila (maybe even St. Joseph himself), they'd surely find it a good starting point for their talks to graduating students, even as they would be baffled by airhorns.

It's not so unlikely a subject for moderns as you might think, given that chastity doesn't mean the Punch-n-Judy caricature most people think of hearing the word. Chastity is purity in the sense of self-discipline; as Kierkegaard said "Purity of heart is to will one thing."

We stand in awe as basketball players sink three-pointers, knowing the tens of thousands of practice shots that led to that game winning moment; we watch, rapt, at footage of Navy SEALs in grueling training in ice cold water, preparing for feats only possible with intense focus & discipline; we listen in delight to singers & instrumentalists who practice, practice, practice to give a fluid, easy performance on the day of the show.

That's what chastity is, what John and Jack and Cathy and Teresa knew. It's not NOT having sex outside of marriage, but it's the life practice of discipline, self-discipline, a learned focus that allows us to achieve that which truly leads to happiness. A happily married couple is chaste, a single person who hopes to marry  and prepares for that relationship until it begins is chaste, and chastity is as much what you do, when, much more than it is what you don't do, let alone ever.

Chastity is deferring some satisfactions to gain a greater joy and peace, and can be practiced by anyone.

Anyone, that is, who worships a vision and a goal somewhere beyond their own fleeting pleasures; who can accept short-term pain for long-term gain. Exercise and diet and study, as well as sex, are all tools for a life well-lived if used in a disciplined, which is to say chaste, manner. Tools flung about without intention or plan are dangerous, to self and others.

Chastity, on the other hand, can make something beautiful, May all those who commence this graduation season become craftspeople of their own lives.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio. Tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 5-7

Faith Works 5-7-11

Jeff Gill

 

Among the Bits and Pieces in the Stairwell

___

 

 

When you sit up in the front of a church, whether behind the pulpit or the communion table or wherever, you find that there's always . . . stuff.

 

Matches or lighters for candles, stray bulletin inserts and cards from stewardship campaigns years ago, tissues new and used.

 

No matter how neat and tidy and tucked away the sanctuary space is, the view from behind is usually a bit more pragmatic, practical, functional.

 

You see the cords for the sound system, the half-full box of candles, the other set of vases, maybe a case for the altar cloths in seasonal colors.

 

In the same way, when you duck through the doors opening into the chancel or worship center or the platform, however you call the front of your church, you go from a well-appointed, clean and orderly world, into what theatre folk just call "backstage."

 

Backstage has old props and sets and costumes, and in the vestry or sacristy or baptismal space of a church, it's much the same.

 

You walk more carefully, as parts of the sanctuary furnishings lean against the walls, rolls from nave runners, spears from Roman soldier outfits in the Easter pageant all lean against the narrowly spaced walls. There are generally crosses, various sizes, suitable for your life or mine, a large Jesus or a youthful one with a glued on beard, and they make an interesting arrangement in their corner, one you try not to bump into.

 

There are often restrooms, or "a" restroom, but those usually have an old wardrobe or hand-built closet filled with costumes for Mary and Joseph and Kings from the east. You can find rocks from a garden scene in a box, next to a large stone made from chicken wire and papier mache, painted grey.

 

In the tradition my wife and I grew up in, there's also always a pair or two of fishing waders. Some clergy would step, suit and socks, right into such a rig to baptize a new convert right off, which believer's baptism by immersion would call for. You also find a few baptismal gowns of various sizes, all white, symbolizing the spiritual intent of the act, washing the new Christian's sins away in the waters of life.

 

Myself, as a minister, I've not baptized as many as I've buried, an all too common situation and something I'm not pleased about, but there it is. Many of us clergy in the Midwest have walked along leading a casket to its place in the earth, on more occasions than we can count (well over 200), but are all too sure how many people we've baptized. (About 42.)

 

What makes each occasion even more memorable for me is that my ridiculously large feet (size 15) means that I've never even tried waders. I just put on swim trunks and an old white shirt like the candidate for baptism wears, and over that a retired black preaching robe with weights sewn into the hem so it doesn't poof up around my waist. The robe sinks down as I walk down, barefoot, into the baptistery to offer the blessing prayer and scripture reading from Matthew 28: 18-20, our warrant for baptism from Jesus himself.

 

The trick usually is to complete the baptism, then rush past the newly baptized person (or persons; one Easter I got to baptize eight people at the start of the service, a truly wonderful day); they're usually still rubbing the water out of their eyes and drying their hair in the hall by the time I come back out. If I dry off and change fast, I can get back out before the opening hymn is finished. Done it a million times . . . or at least a few dozen.

 

It wasn't that fast last Sunday. There at Central Christian Church on Mt. Vernon Road in Newark, at the start of the 8:30 service, I waded into the baptistery, faced the smiling congregation, offered the usual words to begin, then turned to the door at the top of the steps and held out my hand as I always do, to help the candidate walk down the steps into the water.

 

This time, my son took my hand, and stepped into the water with me. And I baptized him, "in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit."

 

And they had to sing two hymns before I made it back up into the sanctuary from backstage, but no one seemed to mind.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he had a good weekend last week. Tell him about your good news at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 4-30

Faith Works 4-30-11

Jeff Gill

 

John Paul, the People's Pope, the People's Saint

___

 

 

Tomorrow, in the Roman Catholic Church, Karol Wojtyla will be declared a saint. That's the birth name of the Polish priest who became known to the world as Pope John Paul II.

 

Sainthood is a category recognized in various part of the larger Christian world on various levels. The Orthodox Church of the east recognizes saints, more by common consent than by any official process of the church, and they consider "a saint" to be those who are undoubtedly in the presence of God.

 

Most Protestant bodies consider anyone who is part of the gathered community a saint, but only exemplary examples are referred to as such – "oh, she's a saint" – but you do often hear in hymns and sermons "all the saints, on earth and in heaven" spoken of, including any committed member of the body at worship.

 

It's in the Catholic Church that you hear the most about sainthood, and where there's an official process for declaring someone a saint. More to the point, the Roman Catholic hierarchy has a process of "canonization," with four steps to it, through which an individual's case goes to be declared "a saint."

 

You could say five steps, because almost without exception you have to die first (Aaron, Moses' brother, is called a saint, the only one in the Bible, and that may just be a question of translation).

 

When you die and popular or general opinion says "that person had the qualities of sainthood, a special example to the faithful for closeness to God," the official Church will decide to call some "Servant of God." That's step one, the beginning of what is really called the "recognition" of a saint, since the Catholic Church would say they don't "make" saints, they simply discern who has been one.

 

That can be done by a local bishop, or by the Vatican and the Pope if there's a special circumstance, such as asking for recognition sooner than within five years of the death (as has happened for Mother Teresa and John Paul II).

 

Moving to the next stage, and the title "Venerable," requires the involvement of the Vatican Curia. When that designation is given, you can't name churches and such after them, but their "cause" starts to move forward, and prayers are offered to ask for intercession.

 

"Blessed" is the next-to-last step, and a person is declared Blessed So-and-so by the Vatican when a miracle is declared as the sign of that person's intercession (or if the person was martyred for their faith). They can be honored on a local basis, and their cause is much more an effort of the larger church, with a "devil's advocate" assigned to look into the person's background and activities to see if a case can be made to NOT declare sainthood.

 

If a second miracle is confirmed as being due to the intercession of the "Blessed," then the path is open for sainthood, or "canonization." The key point here is that when a person is declared a saint, it is intended to be a recognition by the church of something that was true all along, and an affirmation of the absolute certainty of the church in the world that this person is undoubtedly in the presence of God.

 

When the church reaches this level of assurance, then the title "St. So-and-so" is given, churches can be dedicated in their name, and a date is assigned for the particular "feast day" of that saint, usually on the anniversary of their death.

 

Given that there are thousands of saints, the date thing is sometimes adjusted a bit, and not every "saint's day" is an official event in church life, but their name does go into the liturgical calendar for that day and any worship that happens then. St. John Paul II's feast day will be October 22^nd, in honor of his installation as Pope on that day in 1978.

 

For me, May 1 will be a special day for an entirely different reason, but I'll tell you all more about that next week! Blessings to all you saints out there . . .

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he is not known to be a saint on any official calendar. Tell him about people special to your faith journey at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 4-23

Faith Works 4-23-11

Jeff Gill

 

Taking the Spices They Had Prepared

___

 

When Luke begins what we now call the twenty-fourth chapter of his account of Jesus, he walks us with three women heading for the tomb where Jesus' body had been laid out in a borrowed niche, behind a heavy stone, "taking the spices they had prepared."

 

John speaks of a hundred pounds of spices, a mix of myrrh and aloes. The aloes are a grim reminder of what they expected to find when the women had gotten someone to help roll back the stone – rot, decay, putrefaction. Aloe would mask and compensate for the stench with enough freshness and bright scent to allow them to finish their work, an anointing of the body that normally would have happened earlier.

 

Myrrh was simply the usual outer application for a dead body, a hint of Temple incense and a scent of the divine in the midst of the most earthly. More for the wealthy, a faint hint for the poor, but always there.

 

The rush of the crucifixion and the impending restrictions of the Sabbath meant Jesus' body had been hastily wiped off and wrapped in a shroud, but not properly treated with the spices and oils that normally attended the funeral of a beloved family member or friend. In most cases, the press of circumstance would mean that it was just too bad, "but we did our best", and the body would be left to the work of a dry climate and natural processes of decay. With any luck, the family whose burial site had been borrowed would not have need of it again, until the remains in the niche had crumbled to a dry outline which could be swept into an ossuary, a bone box, and set into a smaller niche while the bench was again used for a new corpse.

 

These three women were made of both faithful and stern stuff. They were not going to assume they had done their best, and they were steeled to face the unpleasant realities of their beloved friend and rabbi on the third day after his grotesque execution. No smell, nor expense would be spared, and they were likely the women who had tended dying family members, births, and everything up to and including the spring lambing, so dealing with a decayed body was something they did not flinch from.

 

In fact, from Matthew's account, an anointing of sorts had been done by a woman, perhaps one of the three, but probably not, just before the fateful final trip into Jerusalem proper. An alabaster jar of nard, a very fine (and expensive) ointment, from Nepal or somewhere from the uttermost east, had been poured out on him and rubbed into those travel-worn feet, just up from Jericho along the steep, winding path to the Holy City.

 

For the everyday and always for the poor, olive oil would do, but myrrh in the temple, aloes in the countryside, and various scents in healing ointments were a vital part of life in such a dry and weary landscape. It was soap, it was refreshment, it was renewal and restoration, for the skin and much deeper. Anointing was important, in life, and in death.

 

So it was that the women had gathered and prepared a hundredweight of spices and incense and oil. More than thirty pounds apiece to carry, across the Kidron Valley, through the awakening city, out the other side and around into the mix of garden and garbage dump where the Romans executed prisoners and where a few of the upper classes kept their family tombs.

 

They had no expectation of anything other than death, and decay. There was no plot, no plan, no illusions, no delusions: they had done the hard work of preparing burial spices for a silent corpse, and were going at dawn the first day they could, the third day after the Passover's deadly conclusion, the last thing they wanted to do.

 

They knew what they would find, and could not even imagine any other outcome, as the sun rose over Jerusalem on the first day of a new week.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him an unexpected outcome at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 4-16

Faith Works 4-16-11

Jeff Gill

 

A Week That Changed the World

___

 

 

This Friday, in a variety of ways and at a number of locations, the events of some two thousand years ago in a Roman backwater outpost, putting down a possible popular rebellion, will be remembered.

 

That's remarkable in and of itself, right there.

 

A handful of revolutionaries and agitators getting their leaders snatched and executed, as any imperial functionary knows, usually disappears back into the woodwork or woods or wood and plaster hovels from whence they came.

 

A few years later, even their closest associates have forgotten the names of the leaders, the disappeared, those who were cut down. If they are remembered, it's more for trying to figure out what they did wrong so the next attempt at revolution can succeed. The person themselves becomes a lost note played on an uncertain trumpet, whipped away on the wind.

 

Not in Judea under Pontius Pilate, though. At least at one time.

 

Pilate is one of the few – OK, only – Roman procurators known to the general public today. He was like any Roman official worth his salt (or "salarium," soldiers in imperial service being paid in the fungible commodity of salt, which could get you a drink or a quiet upstairs room in any corner of the Roman world).

 

There were quite a few rebel leaders and charismatic figures whose blood was already on Pilate's often-washed hands. The Galilean was by no means his first, probably not even his first slaughtered Galilean. Quick, name one other. No, thought you couldn't.

 

Processions in Jerusalem were no new news, either; claimants to the wobbly post-Herod Jewish throne often gathered their adherents and marched in with the Passover crowds, hoping to co-opt the tourism excitement for their own cause. Sometimes the Roman legionaries clipped them off in the deeps of the Kidron Valley, occasionally as they passed through the eastern gate, hedged in before and behind, hustled into a tower room of the castellation, not always emerging (or at least emerging chastened, sometimes beaten).

 

A parade that built on the energy of a Passover pilgrimage might enter the city itself, but the first turn was directly below the walls of the Antonia, the fortification guarding both the Temple courts to the south, and the pilgrim way along its north. Soldiers could apprehend a claimant right at the convenience of their own gates.

 

For a troublemaker out of the sticks, to get all the way into the Temple porticos, let alone to pitch over the stalls and tables of the financial branch offices, still escaping intact back into the teeming city – that was unusual. But to keep one's hide, let alone one's name alive, you then needed to get out of town. If you stayed in the general reach of both Roman and Sanhedrin authority, your arrest and disposition was simply a matter of time.

 

What was, and is, the key point is that when the powers that be apprehend and execute you, that's oblivion. Your story ends there, whether shot by dark out in the desert, flown over the ocean in a military transport and pushed out miles from the coast, or assassinated by death squads in broad daylight. These horrible dramas play out regularly around the world here in our present, civilized day, and in dimmer times, longer ago, the death toll was no less savage. The obliteration was no less complete.

 

Yet this "Good Friday" there will be a contingent gathering at 10:45 am to walk from St. Edward's Catholic Church in Granville up to Denison's Swasey Chapel, a solemn drum and carried cross leading them. St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Newark will host a service from Noon to 3 pm, marking the "Seven Last Words" of a condemned man, commemorated by seven different pastors reflecting on the meaning of that day. In the evening, a 7 pm service at Lakewood High School will bring a number of churches together in remembrance and prayer.

 

In all those places, and many more, the death on a cross of a man from Nazareth will be remembered, with great clarity and distinctness. Before we consider the radical claims of Easter, it's worth recalling how revolutionary it is that we know who this man is at all, someone whom the vast Roman Empire wanted both dead and forgotten.

 

This time, they got neither. Just to say the name of the one who died on that cross is a great miracle all by itself. He is not forgotten; you might almost say, in a way, that he lives.

 

His name is Jesus.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him something that shouldn't be forgotten at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 4-9

Faith Works 4-9-11

Jeff Gill

 

Religious, But Not Very Spiritual

___

  

Spirituality is a word that won't get you thrown out of too many respectable establishments.

 

Cultivating a sense of the spiritual is a welcome topic even among the largely secular and unchurched, whether through exercise classes or martial arts or even spending your money to join a "ghost hunt" which is largely sitting around past midnight in a darkened, unfinished room with a digital thermometer and audio recorder.

 

"I consider myself spiritual, not religious" is a cliché which can be counted on to travel well in many circles, where it won't even be called cliché . . . more like conventional wisdom.

 

That's how all the cool kids feel, right?

 

This is the big weekend for the "Church of the Great Outdoors" and the "I Meet God on the Golf Course" denomination thereof, where the High Mass is held at its Vaticanesque enclave of Augusta, Georgia. The Memorial may be a source of civic pride in central Ohio, but ah, The Masters (there should probably be a copyright circle-c there, but the commercialism takes away from the spiritual cachet, don't you think?).

 

The Masters draws in even agnostics & atheists like me, for the sweet bird song in the background of the broadcast (never mind that CBS piped in augmentation in previous years; they promise they've stopped); the gentle arc of the bridge over some point on the course named for some saint or significant figure in the history of private golf clubs, framed by early spring flowering trees, and the steady, vibrant greens of the stage the drama acts out upon – it's quite a display.

 

You may not golf, but you get a feeling out of watching it play out; Jan Fink does a marvelous job of giving you a Newark-eye view of being in the middle of the ceremonies and circumstances, and I always eagerly read his tales, having never golfed a round in my life.

 

Is this an example of "spiritual, not religious"? Likely so, especially when one key imputation of the phrase is "I don't have to go to some gathering of people at set times and days to have a spiritual feeling." That's part of the whole "I can encounter God better at Amen Corner than I do in Sunday services," or "Worship, for me, is being out under the trees…as long as my ball isn't too far under the trees."

 

To which I always say "don't doubt it for a minute: but do you? Do you pause and thank God for life that day, beauty in that place, a plan for the future beyond the eighteenth hole?"

 

Some probably do. Most probably mutter curses at heavy dew on their cart seat, let alone louder imprecations when a soaring drive finds a lovely end in that beautiful pond, fringed with picture perfect lily pads. Anyhow.

 

Speaking purely for myself, I want to admit that, for the most part, I'm someone who is more religious than spiritual. No, that's not a typo. It also feels vaguely like making a public admission of something slightly embarrassing.

 

I'm religious, not spiritual. The emphasis on spirituality, in my encounters with that priority, ends up placing feeling before thought, and attitudes ahead of action (if action even makes it onto the menu). "Spiritual, not religious" as a stance comes across like a group of people who love to talk about gourmet food, watch programs on how to make it, buy lots of devices and gadgets for cooking at home . . . and who almost exclusively eat meals handed to them through a car window with a handful of change, or in the living room out of tinfoil TV dinner trays.

 

"Religion" comes from "religare," the Latin for "to bind." Religion is the binding together of community, the drawing together of individuals, the weaving of healing congregations who come together for purposes that cannot be accomplished on one's own. "To bind" not our creativity or to tie down our spirits, but perhaps to stay grounded in what can and must be done, maybe even to "religare" our worst impulses by tying us to models and inspirations which lead us beyond that which would just tie us in knots.

 

Religion is where we can tie those knots of connection which only really hold well when two (or more) are working together. Many hands, light work, all of that.

 

There is much about modern life which feels more than a bit unraveled, unraveling ever more, each moment. Some religion, some knotting and tying and re-linking, re-connecting, re-newing, might just be what we need.

 

I doubt I can get that sitting at home Sunday morning watching The Masters. The Master, though . . .

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; no, he doesn't golf. He has many other flaws, as well. Try to correct them at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Notes From My Knapsack 4-21-11

Twelve Years Old in Granville – Chris, 2011

Granville Sentinel 4-21-11

Jeff Gill

___

[A note from Jeff: I thought this series was done with twelve tales,
from prehistoric days to the view from 1959. As it turns out, there
is, and should be, one more story to round out this experiment in
history and narrative, and both my son and I thank Bernice for her
suggestion. The following is written by my son, Chris, who is (as
many of you have figured out) twelve years old.]

When my dad told me that I had to get a haircut, I was not thrilled.
There is nothing wrong with getting a haircut, it just interrupts my
afternoon.

Once I got there, it really was not so bad. We went to the Village
Barber Shop like we usually do. My dad got his hair cut by Jim, and I
got my hair cut by Susan.

Then we walked past the Granville Post Office where there is the
mural of the founding of Granville. When I look at this picture, I
think about how it would have been like to be twelve years old back
then.

I bet a twelve year old in 1805 would have had to work much harder
and more often, like chopping wood, carrying hay, or maybe even
killing chickens.

We walked to Readers' Garden on the other side of the street and went
in. I went looking for new books around the bookstore, especially the
newest "Wimpy Kid" book.

My dad started talking to Joanne, the owner of the bookstore.
Suddenly, the two of them were introducing me to a lady named
Bernice. She had been reading my dad's stories on "Twelve Years Old
In Granville." Then she turned to me and said that I should write a
story on what it was like to be twelve in 2011.

I thought about what Bernice said as we walked to Subway next to
Elms' Pizza. I felt excited and nervous at the idea of writing one of
these myself. I look to the right, I see the Old Academy Building. I
look ahead, I see the Old Colony cemetery down the hill. I look to
the left, I see Mt. Parnassus. When I think about a long time ago, I
suspect there was much less history to learn back then. There is a
lot more to learn now. It was probably also less fun since more work
was required.

Although, life may have been a little fun back then. Some interesting
things happened, like things that we look at today and say, wow! That
must have been very cool to do back then, when it first started, like
electricity or telephones. And some of the stuff about having farm
animals in your yard, or making food from every step, had to be fun
in their own ways, along with being hard work. At least your parents
already knew how to do all that, and could show you how.

But today, life is very interesting and fun. I cannot wait to be
thirteen.

[With this tale, our "Twelve Years Old" adventure is ended. In the
next column, I'll share with you where you can read a bit more about
our amazing and engaging history here in Granville, Ohio.]

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around
central Ohio; he didn't write most of this one! Congratulate his son
Chris by way of dad's e-mail, knapsack77@gmail.com.

For Spring Quarter 2011 --

http://www.econ.ohio-state.edu/jhm/arch/nrkwrks.gif

http://knapsack.blogspot.com/2010/01/links-for-newark-earthworks-tours.html

http://newark.osu.edu/earthworks

Faith Works 4-2

Faith Works 4-2-11

Jeff Gill

 

Community Celebrations, Rooted in Concerns & Conflict

___

 

 

On E. Main Street in Newark, the Salvation Army has long done good work in Christ's name on all our behalf, providing a major chunk of the civic safety net with emergency shelter and a soup kitchen.

 

Majors Ron & Diana DeMichael are that major bulwark against falling through the cracks for many Licking County residents, and their congregation (remember, they're a church!) and board have done much with our shared support.

 

This past week I had the chance to be present for a community celebration of sorts, the dedication of a larger, renewed gathering space & kitchen for more regular meals at the Salvation Army soup kitchen. There's much more than soup most days when they are open, and the healthy, nutritious meals numbered over 40,000 last year, and that's not counting the summer feeding program for children that is the extension of the school lunch program when classes are out.

 

Add those in, and over 80,000 meals came out of the kitchen and warmed hearts and stomachs – last year.

 

This year is likely to see an increase in need.

 

So celebration is an almost awkward term, given the basis for what we're celebrating. No one rejoices that there are hungry children and adults, and we're not always happy to think about soup kitchens, but the clean, well-lit, brightly painted common room is enough to lift your heart on a grey day.

 

Some 7,500 nights of emergency shelter were provided by the Army and their staff and volunteers last year, with many nights when folk had to be turned away. That's changing, too, with the dedication coming up on May 15 and a "Circle of Hope" planned that afternoon. I'll say more about that prayer gathering in a future column, but Kaye Hartman would like to bring together at least 550 people in prayer that afternoon, to join hands all the way around the new, expanded complex (that's how many it would take, at minimum). Mark your calendars for that afternoon next month!

 

The shelter space is already effectively open, with the night before the soup kitchen dedication having 49 adults and 11 children under their roof. Again, we celebrate the amazing response of Licking County over the last eighteen months to finish this long-dreamt-of plan, but the fact that there is such evident need is cause for sorrow more than celebration.

 

There's another celebration with a strained overtone coming up tomorrow, and you might want to come and consider the question yourself. We are having a "commemoration" of the 150^th anniversary of the beginning of the Civil War all across Licking County, which gave so much blood & treasure to that 1861 conflict.

 

Commemoration is a good word, because we can't just solemnly observe the anniversary, but celebration feels a bit awkward. We sent nearly 4,000 men, young and old, off to war from Licking County, with hundreds never returning alive, and thousands of wounds carried back home from the conflict, physical and spiritual.

 

The Civil War shaped our nation, as did the debate over the expansion of slavery before the conflict, and the attempt at Reconstruction which followed. Debates over abolition and slavery had been tearing at the community fabric for decades before the opening of armed conflict, with riots in Granville & Alexandria happening in 1835, 1836, & 1837. Outright disobedience to the laws that came out of Congressional compromises resulted in public furors in 1841 and on into the 1850s with the rise of the Underground Railroad passing through Licking County.

 

Harrison Chapel Wesleyan Methodist Church was one of many congregations that arose out of conflict within older congregations over anti-slavery arguments. Obadiah Nichols was a class leader, a lay leader who kept the church going in between visits from circuit riding clergy, and a committed abolitionist; I will get to portray him Sunday afternoon at 2:00 pm on the lawn of the Sherwood-Davidson House, on Sixth Street in Newark.

 

This is the "official" Commemoration Kick-Off for the Civil War 150^th events through the year, and you'll get to hear everyone from Abe Lincoln to Johnny Clem give their point of view in this gathering. Licking County Historical Society members are free, and general public folk are asked to contribute $5 to join our little historic re-enactment.

 

Will we celebrate the Civil War? Not really, but Obadiah would agree we should prayerfully commemorate how our ancestors responded to the need for freedom and justice 150 years ago, just as we, as a community, have responded today through work like the Salvation Army community center.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he hopes you'll come hear him as Obadiah tomorrow! Tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 3-26-11

Jeff Gill

"I have surely seen the affliction of my people…and have heard their cry"

___

There are not words to describe what has happened, and tragically is still happening in Japan.

Still happening, not so much because of the nuclear power plant situation, but because in the bitter dregs of a Japanese winter, many of the survivors are hanging on to life in the face of damp cold and lack of water or even food. This, after seeing what will likely total tens of thousands of their friends and neighbors and immediate family members get carried away by a wall of water, if they hadn't been crushed by falling buildings at the outset.

To endure all that, and then feel life slipping away as you wait for help, or even to be a hale and healthy relief worker who has too little to offer the living, and overwhelming numbers of the dead staring coldly back at you . . . it is too much.

Then add the atomic anxiety on top of that.

"Theodicy" is the subset of theology that wrestles with the question "How can a good God let evil occur?" Theodicy takes many forms, but it can readily boil down to "Why, O Lord, why?"

We live on the surface of an uneasy Earth. There is nothing stable or timeless about even snow-capped mountains or endless ocean vistas. Certainty is not actually built into bedrock.

You could wish, I suppose, that we lived on a stable, featureless ball made of simple, sturdy, homogenous material, a ball bearing just soft enough to push tent stakes into, and a neat ribbon of water around the middle. Of course, if it doesn't spin, you don't have day and night; if it doesn't orbit the sun, you don't have stability in your distance from the light & warmth it provides. If the earth doesn't have a molten core and vast plates nudging around on the surface of the crust . . . the biology for dummies version of all this is: if we have a planet with no earthquakes and volcanoes and thunderstorms, we have no life, or at least life like us.

Which is a version of taking on theodicy by saying "You wish the world were different, and if you were the Creator, you'd handle things differently? Check out Job, chapters 38-42. You don't understand all the myriad complexities involved, and why some things must be this way."

The more personal dilemma is that you run up against the enduring question, is freedom worth pain? Especially when it's my freedom at the expense of another's pain? Do there have to be tsunamis for human creatures to have free will?

A very unsatisfactory answer is "yes." Because any other fix we imagine to Creation requires another fix and another and another, and you always end up, going that way, with a preordained puppet theater, eminently safe, but horrible in its own claustrophobic way.

So people of faith look on natural disasters with a mix of empathy, and commitment. Whatever this means, however initiated, we're all sure of one thing: we are called upon at such moments to help. In New Orleans we sent help, and went ourselves by the hundreds of thousands, with many now shifting north to Nashville for rehabs and rebuilds.

Overseas relief efforts are for many religious bodies already at work; this is why general giving is really an ideal way to help, since existing funds went out first to help Japan, and who knows what's next?

Whatever your organized religious tradition, there's a group your fellowship works with where your dollars can back up your prayers. My own tradition of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has the renowned "Week of Compassion" program, which was taken up just before the Japan disaster, but supports an office which responds & co-ordinates all year 'round: www.weekofcompassion.org.

They are also part of an effort known as “One Great Hour of Sharing” which is a special offering given in Presbyterian, UCC, and American Baptist churches, and at www.onegreathourofsharing.org you can find your denominational emphasis & opportunity to give at the “Get Involved” tab. Methodists know they can count on their United Methodist Committee on Relief, or UMCOR, which you can contribute to through www.gbgm-umc.org/umcor.

Catholic efforts are largely co-ordinated through Catholic Relief Services, online at www.crs.org while the Episcopal Relief & Development agency is at www.er-d.org.

If you are familiar with the cooperative efforts of Church World Service, such as the annual CROP Walk, check in at www.churchworldservice.org for their ecumenical efforts. Many evangelical Christian groups are working through Second Harvest Japan, www.2hj.org, and of course www.samaritanspurse.org. The Mennonite and other Anabaptist "peace church" traditions have www.mcc.org for their assistance to get across the Pacific.

What ever your beliefs, act on them, and reach out, and heal, in prayer and practical assistance. "Bear ye one another's burdens," which is what it all comes down to.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.