Faith Works 5-19

Faith Works 5-19-12

Jeff Gill

 

A pastoral prayer for us all

___

  

Dear Lord:

 

We gather here today in thankfulness for another Saturday, another newspaper, another summer afternoon ahead. You are our creator and our life-giver, and while we may think you are overdoing it in that department in regards to the grass, even as we mow we reflect on the sweat of our brow, and the story of how you have been at work to save and redeem us through the years.

 

Lord God, in this time we set aside to reflect on your will and your Word, or for some of us just to open up the Advocate and flip past the "Your Faith" page in Section C, we are blessed to know that our prayers, individually, are welcome to you. We also know, loving Lord, that like Jesus asleep in the boat during a storm, we can find ourselves thinking you are not listening, that you don't care. Grant us the calm of spirit and ease of heart that gets us through the storm, and even gives us the boldness to step out of the boat when you call.

 

We also pray together, Eternal One. There are words from our fathers and mothers in the faith which we use, some of us from missals and prayer books, and even with the words of hymns. Some of us worship where much of the service takes that form, and we honor the respect of our forebearers such prayers and praise show.

 

Others of us are more familiar with a style where the prayers are new each week, whether we call it impromptu or extemporaneous or "filled with the Spirit." Lord, I've been asked if I could explain what a "pastoral prayer" was to those who are of a more liturgical and formal experience, and to those who are unchurched. I pray that this approach in print, but very like how I pray as a pastor in such a moment (even supply preachers get asked to do pastoral prayers ofttimes), is both respectful to You, and is understandable to those who were wondering.

 

And Gracious God, you already know the names of those who are ill, whose health is failing, people who are simply waiting for test results, or our friends and family and fellow worshipers who are painfully working through rehab and recovery. But it is our practice to lift up names, sometimes just first names, sometimes a situation without even a name to it, but "lifted up" in the pastoral prayer as a way to remind us all to be persistent in prayer on their behalf.

 

God of forgiveness and grace, we ask that you keep us from using those prayer concerns as an occasion for gossip or speculation, as well; our sinful nature can lead us down that path from time to time.

 

Yet we would be specific in our prayers, and that's the great impact of this part of our services, because we have been told by your Son that we should be bold, and be persistent, and ask that you may answer…even when the response may be "No," or even worse (to us) "Not now."

 

And Lord of life and light, it is part of the power of this moment, these petitions, as we lay them before your throne in heaven, which becomes more real, almost visible to the eyes of faith as we (mostly) bow our heads and close our eyes; the cosmic nature of what we are called by You to share in means that there is a sense and a sensibility to praying for others far away, even unknown to us. We lift up missionaries at a city dump in Honduras, soldiers on patrol where this Sunday is already dark and done in Afghanistan, and friends who travel towards the setting sun on a long-awaited, deeply-anticipated trip.

 

All of this we ask in the name of your Son, whom we call by many names, who is our Lord and Savior, and whose prayer is often prayed together to close this time. But since this pastoral prayer is in the paper and online, I'll leave those reading to conclude as they will, while I ask your special blessing on all those readers who are shaking their heads and thinking "these are empty words, prayed into nothing, to no one." May they know both our love and yours, and presence made real in prayer.

 

And all God's people said: Amen!

 

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

Faith Works 5-12

Faith Works 5-12-12

Jeff Gill

 

God is not busy

___

 

While the universe is a strange and wonderful and complex place, filled with the possibilities of string theory and Higgs bosons and dark matter, those of us in the "theist" camp are fairly certain that the Creator, or Divine Providence, or God (the list continues, but you know of Whom I speak) has a place in the grand plan.

 

Post-World-War-II theologians, with the rise of nuclear physics and complex chemistry, atom bombs and nylon stockings, warned us not to believe in a "God of the gaps." Their point, briefly stated and doubtless mangled, was that if religious folk accepted science as-is, and kept nudging God into the places that science couldn't explain, they'd find themselves soon backed into a corner.

 

Maybe.

 

Actually, over the years I've gotten pretty comfortable with a generalized "God of the gaps" understanding, because the further out and deeper in science goes, the bigger the gaps get. Plenty of room for God and divine activity in the universe even as described by Scientific American.

 

It is true, and I'm thinking about this as we see Denison commencement this weekend, and plenty of high school graduation parties as far as the calendar can see, that science and faith continue to live in an uneasy relationship. Faith is based on assertions, and science on data, or so the standard model says.

 

That's not quite right in either direction, because science takes facts, assembles theories, and tests them, based on a firm belief in the reliability of the universe not to play tricks on them from one experiment to the next (did you see what I did there? shame, shame…). And faith carries forward assertions that have been screened and sifted through history, and the development of holy tradition in what's often called "the teachings of the church." There's a different time scale, and clear variations on admissibility and authority to validate outcomes, but I sniff some similarities here.

 

What we do want to share and show our students, as they mature in their faith, whatever your church tradition, is that faith has nothing to fear from careful consideration. Faith is challenged by life itself, every day, starting with the morning traffic report and pounded at by our chronic inhumanity to one another. Science makes certain claims and offers particular challenges to how faith interprets life, and we don't do our young adults any favors if the first time they really wrestle with those realities is when they get to college.

 

It can be equally harmful to a developing mind to have always heard of God as a vaguely distracted, generally loving, but very busy (busy busy) being who is "out there," somewhere not in particular but with a mail drop marked "Heaven."

 

If I had one thing to share with college or high school graduates, as they face whatever their own particular "next" is in life, it would be this: God is not busy. We think of God as having so much to do, and so involved, that we unconsciously channel our cultural foible of confusing busyness with significance. We say to important people "oh, I know you must be so busy." Saying "I'm so busy" is often a passive-aggressive way to say "I'm so darn important." It actually may say "have you tried using a planning calendar?"

 

But an essential quality of God, I believe (rooted in the teachings of the church), is that God is NOT busy. God is active, and involved, and present, but not busy. Busy means not really listening. Busy means something more important is about to happen elsewhere. Busy means "too bad about you."

 

God is not busy. God is here. Now. And if God is not busy, then maybe we don't have to be to get something done. Sometimes we need to hurry, finite creatures that we are (who don't always plan the way we should), but we don't need to be busy, either.

 

With God, we just need to be.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he's got this thing about "I am who I am" stuck in his head. Tell him whether you think that's God, or Popeye, at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Knapsack 5-10-12

Notes From My Knapsack – Granville Sentinel 5-10-12

Jeff Gill

Looking up, carefully

___

We have a wonderful collection of ancient Native American earthworks here in Licking County, and most of them seem to have some plan or design in them to relate to the heavens.

Solstices and equinoxes and lunar cycles and the path of the Milky Way: all of these are built into the epic architecture of the two thousand year old and thousand year old works of art and engineering that dot our hilltops and sprawl with purpose across the valley floors.

Humanity has always looked to the sky for understanding, because at the very least, regular recurring cycles place themselves in reassuring contrast to the strangely unexpected fluctuations of the weather. The sun's rise point steadily marches up and down the eastern horizon, and days get longer for half the year, shorter for the other half, and then repeat the whole process again. It's comforting, and a very real point of stability, even as the human body ages, as generations pass, and the output of the land in plants and animals goes from feast to famine.

There's the naked eye observation and recording that any person with a fixed abode and a stick to make marks in, or even to poke in the ground, can keep track of and make predictive sense from. Then there's the higher order record-keeping and mathematics that we see in the lunar observatory aspects of the Newark Earthworks, and specifically at the Octagon.

A further step towards understanding came with lenses, and telescopes, Galileo's observations and Copernicus' insights. It wasn't until the 17^th century that Johannes Kepler began to take this sort of work, done for millennia by attentive sky-watchers around the world, and use the growing power of mathematics to calculate a level of detail about the Solar System that opened up even more insights into the working of the cosmos.

Kepler calculated that the planet Venus should cross directly in front of the blazing solar disc itself, and that a careful observer might be able to bring some scale for the universe down to our planet's surface, with some careful timings and observations from two widely separated locations, in just a very few years. Sadly, he did not live to see that day himself, but his prediction lived on.

From that first prediction in 1631, there was first observation in 1639 that began the process of measuring the vast distances of space through the parallax of two separated viewing points on our planet, leading to the "astronomical unit" from the Sun to Earth. More recently, with the 2004 viewing, we're beginning to calculate how to identify planets orbiting distant stars with what we learn "watching" Venus pass across the solar disc.

The distances, and odd orbits, mean that we can see this at intervals of about 243 years in full cycle, with two shots, eight years apart, in the middle. So the last viewings were 2004 and before that, 1882; in Ohio, our next shot is 2117 but not a good angle here, so we have to hold out to 2125.

So I'm hoping for clear skies (at least in the west) on the evening of June 5. I've ordered my eclipse glasses (they're quite cheap, but utterly necessary), and will drag my family atop Alligator Mound in Bryn Du Woods at about 6 pm. The "show" begins over the next half-hour, and continues, sadly for us, just until sunset. The crossing of the Sun by Venus takes about six and a half hours.

We won't be doing science ourselves that evening, but we – and you? – will be sharing in what I think is a very human endeavor. C'mon up, I may even have one extra pair of eclipse glasses. Kids, don't look at the sun without special protection!

I'll bet they said that 2,000 years ago, too.

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

Faith Works 5-5

Faith Works 5-5-12

Jeff Gill

 

Hungering and thirsting for righteousness, or at least a can of beans

___

 

After two weeks of talking about fasting, you had to figure I'd get around to hunger: and you'd be right.

 

(Oh, and if you're reading this before noon on Saturday, come join me at the Great Circle off Rt. 79 in Heath for a program this morning on the Ancient Ohio Trail, and say hello!)

 

Back to the everyday struggles of today's life, you may have a food pantry in your congregation's building. Licking County is blessed to have a large number of pantries, over 30, located all across our wide geographic reach. In 1981, folks started coordinating their care and their resources, and created the Licking County Food Pantry Network (see www.foodpantrynetwork.net for more info).

 

The LCFPN does Operation Feed, and is helped by groups like Elves in Action, the Granville Turkey Trot, and a number of Scout-led food drives. They also partner with the Columbus area Mid-Ohio Food Bank, and the Mid-Ohio team has been impressed with the scope and co-ordination of what goes on here in Licking County, so they wanted to use us as a testing zone for a model to start community conversations around hunger and helping.

 

One thing we all know: there's need, and it isn't getting smaller. We also know that the total amount of food we're distributing is increasing, so the obvious question is: do we need to do something differently? How are we using the resources we have, and if we need more, it's not just a question of "more" or even Chuck Moore (rimshot), but where do we need what, exactly?

 

Plus the ongoing challenge of public education about hunger.

 

So there've been a series of meetings, largely with those already working at various church & agency food and feeding programs, from the Salvation Army hot lunches on E. Main St. in Newark to regular pantry operations in places like Croton & Utica. We've been meeting at Second Presbyterian in downtown Newark at 11:30 am for a two hour process that includes lunch (we're fighting hunger on many fronts . . .), and the last session is next week, Wed. May 9^th. You are still invited, whether you've been to some or none of our three earlier ventures.

 

One thing we've talked about around our tables, comparing notes and thinking through challenges: many who are coming, at least these days, have never been to a food pantry before. And quite a few come once, and aren't seen again.

 

There's a bit of a stereotype that people who come to a food pantry are all "frequent flyers," long-standing regulars. And the truth is, those are the folks you remember if you work at them, for obvious reasons – they're coming back. But that's not all, or even most of who we are feeding. Did you know that? How does that make you think differently about food pantries?

 

And another part of the new model these days is old news to some, but a startling thought to others. They're called "choice pantries," versus what Chuck calls "standard" (or I might call "stereotypical") pantries. The old idea was that you came, checked in, and got handed a bag with three days worth of food for whatever your family size was. If the bag had pasta, black eyed peas, and a canned ham, well, you're hungry, aren't you? No one said take it or leave it, but . . .

 

A choice pantry still checks you in, and you get a bag, but you go among the shelves yourself and you . . . choose. Hence, the "choice pantry" model. For some, a can of black eyed peas is a joy and a reminder of better days and something that gets eaten up right quick; for others, it's a "what's that?" and a shelf-sitter. Canned pumpkin, chickpeas, a jar of alfredo: just think about it for yourself. How would you use a random batch of items to feed your particular family?

 

Sometimes, stuff runs low or runs out, and people (clients, customers, guests, whatever) have to make do. But the choice model makes us reflect on some of our assumptions about who is hungry, why they're hungry, and what they should/must/will do to get by. And for every pantry that's made the shift, there's been a sheepish sort of recognition when, over and over again – it works. It works well. People understand limitations, but a simple, humane amount of respect and autonomy changes the whole atmosphere, to everyone's benefit.

 

There's more to learn. Come join us this Wednesday if you can, and tell your story.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he's going to be at Second Pres this Wednesday. Tell him about your pantry experience at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 4-28

Faith Works 4-28-12

Jeff Gill

 

Justice is rarely fast, but doesn't have to be slow

___

 

 

Some of the feedback from last week, when I wrote about fasting as a spiritual discipline, asked about health and safety matters.

 

My observations were entirely based on my own practice of a one-day a week fast from solid foods, but including juices (while I keep away from dairy, again, just my own personal definition). In other words, not eating "stuff" but including milkshakes and milk and pop as stuff. Me, I like V8 Spicy Hot, plus a little cranberry juice and lots (and lots) of coffee, but YMMV.

 

Anyhow, the whole "fast for a week" or even more (check out Bill Bright and fasting online for where this idea comes from in recent days) is not what I'm proposing, and I'm not even saying I think everyone should skip a day to tune up their prayer life: I'm just reporting what's working for me, and where I trace the precedents for this practice in church history.

 

If you are diabetic or have other health issues, you probably shouldn't even do this much, and it's something you should check with your doctor or health professional especially if you're on medications or have other complicating factors.

 

But for those who ask if any fasting is "Biblical," my answer is actually that I'm appreciating Biblical perspectives, but in no way do I think the Bible calls on us to follow a particular diet, or lack thereof, for holiness. Fasting is Biblical the same way flying is Biblical: it's in there, but I don't think God's telling everyone to do what the swallows do.

 

In fact, there's one very specific Biblical comment on fasting, and it comes in always applicable Isaiah, in chapter 58, starting at verse 6.

 

            "Is not this the fast that I choose:

                        to loose the bonds of wickedness,

                        to undo the straps of the yoke,

            to let the oppressed go free,

                        and to break every yoke?

            Is it not to share your bread with the hungry

                        and bring the homeless poor into your house;

            when you see the naked, to cover him,

                        and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

            Then shall your light break forth like the dawn,

                        and your healing shall spring up speedily;

            your righteousness shall go before you;

                        the glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard.

            Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;

                        you shall cry, and he will say, 'Here I am.'

(Isaiah 58:6-9 ESV)

 

How I read this is that fasting is not about giving something up for the sake of proving something to yourself, let alone to God. Fasting, denying yourself an indulgence or even on occasion a need, should have a purpose, and that purpose should bend towards providing for those without. It isn't about being some spiritual asetic as a personal achievement, but giving up some bread AS PART of making sure someone who has no bread gets some.

 

            Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer;

                        you shall cry, and he will say, 'Here I am.'

            If you take away the yoke from your midst,

                        the pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness,

            if you pour yourself out for the hungry

                        and satisfy the desire of the afflicted,

            then shall your light rise in the darkness

                        and your gloom be as the noonday.

            And the LORD will guide you continually

                        and satisfy your desire in scorched places

                        and make your bones strong;

            and you shall be like a watered garden,

                        like a spring of water,

                        whose waters do not fail.

            And your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;

                        you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

            you shall be called the repairer of the breach,

                        the restorer of streets to dwell in.

(Isaiah 58:9-12 ESV)

 

When you get to know what the source of life is, it can begin with learning that it isn't inside a bottle of pop or a bag of chips, but it doesn't end there. You go on to find the spring "whose waters do not fail."

 

And then you lead others to find refreshment there, too.

 

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

Knapsack 4-26

Notes From My Knapsack 4-26-12

Jeff Gill

 

A Bucket List right in the breadbasket

___

 

Leigh Ann and Marci of the Granville Fellowship asked me last week if I would consider putting together a program for them next fall (sooner than you think!) on a "Licking County Bucket List."

 

That took effectively no "talking-into" time, and they have my "yes." But just a couple of days later I open my Sentinel and see that my colleague and occasional competition in scribbling, Don Havens (first place in the Ohio Newspaper Association's Hooper Awards for column writing among papers of our size, 2011; I got third), is looking for "bucket list" recommendations.

 

A couple of thoughts occurred to me: one, that the Lad who begins high school next year will not experience the tender mercies of Prof. Havens in the classroom, darn it; and two, this works out nicely!

 

For those of you who haven't seen all the movies made by Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson, or have missed this metaphor, a "bucket list" is what you scribble down on a piece of paper of all the places and/or things you want to do before you . . . kick the bucket. See Paris in the springtime, Autumn in New York, all that.

 

What would I put on a Licking County "must see" list, with or without the motivation of mortality? Here's some brief notes, which will be the basis for my Granville Fellowship talk TBA, but for which Don will qualify next fall!

 

The Newark Earthworks, obviously, but in particular, to see a moonrise along the northerly end of its 18.6 year cycle, unfortunately not until 2024 (and a few near approximations in 2023 & 2025). Stay healthy, my friends! Until then, if you get a chance to watch a sunrise at the Great Circle, standing near the eastern tip of Eagle Mound inside about June 21, looking along the left side of the Grand Gateway about 6 am. Awesome. (Or just come at 10 am on May 5 to the Great Circle for an intro!)

 

Also in the awesomeness category is the West Courtroom on the second floor of the County Courthouse in Newark. Paintings, stained glass, mosaic, woodwork, brass and gilt and just a feast for the eye, with the majesty of the law all around. Call in advance for permission to enter.

 

Naturally speaking, the glory of Blackhand Gorge is a geological peculiarity that just sort of sneaks up on you until you get there. The water line is the lowest spot in Licking County (highest is west of Fredonia), with towering sandstone walls where once petroglyphs from millenia past peered down at the canoe, train, or interurban passenger.

 

South of there, atop Flint Ridge, not just for the precious prehistoric mineral and state gemstone, but to wander back in the woods of the State Memorial, sprinkled with the "redwoods of Ohio," tulip poplar; their orange and pink and salmon and blossoms falling in May from their sunward perch a hundred feet above in the canopy. If you are blessed, you might see a pileated woodpecker flash past, white and black and slash of red.

 

Then to the unnatural nature of Cranberry Bog, open to all one day in June, slowly disappearing, a floating island of pre-glacial bog on the southern shore of Buckeye Lake. Walk along the path with a guide from your boat, feel the "earth" shake beneath you, see the meat-eating (well, bug-eating) pitcher plants.

 

Then motor slowly across the canal-era waters that forced up this bog from the bottom as it filled; see the sunset over the waters, and dock at any one of a number of places where a meal and music can wrap a bucket-worthy day.

 

It's not all, but it's a start!

 

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

Faith Works 4-21

Faith Works 4-21-12

Jeff Gill

 

Slow down a little by fasting

___

 

 

Christians are still in the season of Easter; Lent leads up to it, and we're still celebrating the Resurrection through Pentecost for 50 days.

 

It's a good time to look back across our Lenten journeys, and ask "what worked? what helped? what built up the Body of Christ for my faith community?"

 

On a purely personal level, I tried something different this year, but something that is in fact very old. I tried fasting.

 

Most of us have heard of "giving up" something for Lent, as a way to refine our prayer life and discipline our thoughts and impulses and reactions. Some choose a sweet or treat, and for years I'd give up my beloved coffee every other year.

 

One of those in-between, "let's not make an empty ritual of the coffee thing" years, I gave up French fries. When I would have had fries with that, I didn't, and made those cravings a reminder to pray for those without (fries or more than that, of course), and saved some money to add to the special relief offering that year. $50, in fact.

 

What I learned was that I really didn't "need" French fries, and while I'm in no way a total abstainer, I mostly don't order them anymore. I'm not saying it's a God thing, just that I learned and my doctor seems to agree I've benefited from that step of living mindfully.

 

So this year, having had friends and fellow clergy talk about the discipline of fasting, I decided to try it. One day a week, through Lent.

 

The day ended up being nudged about a bit, because there's always the challenge of social eating and meetings, and my goal was not to draw attention to what I was doing (said the guy who's now writing a column about this, but still), and so I moved back and forth between Tuesdays and Wednesdays. Tuesdays were a good day also for the home front, because those evenings are often either leftovers or sub sandwich for the Lad, and the Lovely Wife usually has a prayer group she's at. Through Lent, I only ended up fasting through a family meal once – again, by design, because I didn't want them to feel pressured by my choice.

 

And some might dispute my approach, but for me, fasting was not eating "stuff." I drank fruit and vegetable juice each morning, more late in the afternoon, and all through consumed the finest organic suspension ever invented, as Capt. Janeway once said of coffee. No Gandhi-esque water only for me (though Gandhi usually balanced in some juice when he fasted, too, but not always).

 

Did I feel it? Sure. Not eating, intentionally, is a real attention getter inside your own head, at least at first. You start really, REALLY noticing every time you DON'T eat.

 

But the other thing I noticed, and let's be fair, I'm a 6'5" male with plenty of excess stored energy, was that mostly, I wasn't all that hungry. I wanted to eat, yes, but even towards evening, I wanted to eat mainly because . . . I wanted to eat.  The time seemed right, it was a moment I often checked the pantry for a bite anyhow, or circumstances had me thinking "oh, let's just eat something now rather than deal with this next thing."

 

Once you move past, or perhaps I should say "move along with" the impulse to eat, you still feel the nudges, but much less anxiously. And then you're able to look much more critically at WHY you want to eat when you do, and that can be instructive [koff*snackfood*koff].

 

Did this practice, which John Wesley observed every Wednesday and Friday of his life as a minister (note to all clergy, Methodist or otherwise: never try to out-anything John Wesley did, he's always going to be out there ahead of you), help my prayer life? Yes it did. It made me aware, conscious, mindful of many habitual behaviors I didn't even know I had.

 

It went beyond "the day," too; the day before, I was more healthily attentive to what I ate (gonna fast tomorrow), and the day after, I found I wasn't waking up wanting to wolf down mass quantities, and was very content with easing back in.

 

Will I continue? Right now, yes. Two more weeks, two more fast days, and I think I like what I'm realizing, how I'm becoming more mindful of my choices and expenditures and compulsions. All of which does just what we've heard for generations is why we talk about "prayer and fasting." They're a good team.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he is neither a vegetarian nor health food fanatic (all things in moderation!). Send him recipes at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 4-14

Faith Works 4-14-12

Jeff Gill

 

Down With the Old Canoe

___

 

One hundred years ago tonight.

 

It's a disaster that some might argue has gotten attention far out of scale with the magnitude of the suffering and death involved.

 

Thousands have died in many other occasions around that time, and with more direct documentation by survivors and even from victims just before their passing: the Galveston hurricane of 1900, the 1906 San Francisco earthquake & fires, the Mississippi floods of 1927.

 

But when the RMS Titanic went down on the night of 14-15 April 1912, resulting in 1,514 deaths, a story began that continues to the present day. We keep retelling it, and analyzing it, and considering it. The story of survival, and the narrative of sacrifice, woven into a fabric of inevitability and avoidability.

 

2,224 souls were aboard her when she sailed from the Irish coast into the icy Atlantic, so 710 lived to tell the tale. As is well known, there were only lifeboats for about half the total complement, not out of sheer indifference to human life, but because the assumptions around Titanic's solidity did not focus on her being "unsinkable" (one of many popular assumptions that don't hold water, if you'll forgive the phrase, on close consideration), but that she was at least durable enough that in an emergency, she would float long enough for aid to come, and the boats would casually shuttle the passengers and then crew to the waiting vessels.

 

One iceberg disproved that theory, and one telegraph officer wanting to get to bed on a nearby ship closed off that option. Does anyone not know these stories?

 

But here's what we don't know, and the reason why Titanic isn't and won't be going away anytime soon.

 

What would we do?

 

The tale of the Titanic is unique simply in that you have a broad arc of the human condition (steerage, second class, first class; stokers, pursers, officers), and a need for swift decisions, yet in a context that takes just enough time for few to say they were rushed, at least until the very end.

 

Two and a half hours, from impact to sinking, and the question: what would you do?

 

For years I've had a variety of occasions to preach on the Four Chaplains (and written about them here in this column). The USAT Dorchester was torpedoed on the night of Feb 3, 1943, and swiftly sank. 230 of 904 on that troopship survived; the four chaplains traveling with the troops supervised handing out lifejackets, and when the supply ran out, they gave soldiers their own, supervised the loading of the lifeboats (again, not enough for all) and were seen standing together, praying with linked arms, as the Dorchester sank.

 

It's a moving story, and yet it's what we expect in many ways – not that all of us clergy can always be certain that our commitment to Christ will be that complete. The Four Chaplains deserve to be remembered, but their story doesn't quite grasp everyone the same way Titanic does.

 

Because male or female, young or old, in love or standing alone, the circumstances of those last moments in April 15, 1912 force any one of us to ask: what would we have done? Or more terrifyingly: if the moment of decision comes, what would we do? To give up our seat on a lifeboat, to hand to a younger person our lifevest – or simply to keep our heads while all about us are losing theirs. What would we do?

 

Titanic is now a movie and a traveling blockbuster exhibit and really, now, a brand. Yet I think the week after Easter makes it a fit subject for reflection and consideration: if we are called upon to sacrifice for another, would we? When should we? If everyone on the Titanic had refused to get into a boat until everyone else could, you would have had a macabre game of "After you, Alphonse," and a killing chaos all its own. But the answer can't be "devil take the hindmost," either.

 

When are we called upon to sacrifice? When the water is rising, when the pressures of life are upon us, when choices need to be made?

 

And does it help to make that choice in the knowledge that one's heart, one's soul, does indeed go on?

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he doesn't much like ships in the first place. Tell him your nautical tales at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Knapsack 4-12

Notes From My Knapsack 4-12-12

Jeff Gill

 

We should have a sing along

___

 

 

Karen Loew wrote a fascinating article for "The Atlantic" magazine online recently about "communal singing."

 

She's working on a book, provisionally titled "Alone in the Valley," about small town life a few valleys over in Virginia.

 

As she's had a chance to reflect on community ritual in general, and singing in particular, she realized that while it's not dead, large group singing is surely not well.

 

Beyond the obvious examples of the national anthem and "Take Me Out to the Ball Game," there's not much; Loew did introduce me to the fact that at Fenway Park there's a tradition around "Sweet Caroline" that I'll have to participate in someday. At Wrigley Field, it's more traditional to listen to a celebrity singer, often half in the bag, sing during the seventh inning stretch a mangled rendition of "Take Me Out."

 

"Amazing Grace," "God Bless America," maybe "The Battle Hymn of the Republic," and right there you've run out of what's a safe bet as a standard repertoire for a crowd of average Americans.

 

With regular church attendance rates down around 20%, if you started singing "Old Rugged Cross" or "How Great Thou Art" in a crowd you might hear some distant voices join in, but not the full-throated roar of a plurality jumping in from memory. Patriotic songs used to run the gamut, but equally few would be the voices accompanying you if you ventured into the second verse of "America the Beautiful" or tried out "Battle Cry of Freedom." "This Land is Your Land" should be on everyone's lips, but it would be a shaky rendition even in the first stanza.

 

Loew also taught me something else I didn't know; the National Association of Music Education noticed the anti-trend in community singing, and tried to promote back in the 1990s a list of songs that they said ought to be a shared repertoire for Americans. Their 88 included everything from "Down By the Riverside" to "I've Been Working on the Railroad," "Shenandoah" and "You've Got a Friend." (I'd add "Your Smilin' Face" to their list, but we all have favorites.)

 

You can see their whole selection at http://www.nafme.org/resources/view/get-america-singing-again. [Chuck, keep or delete, depending on what the current policy is on links!]

 

I've been a songleader for over 35 years now, and I can report that Loew's concern is well-founded. Getting a crowd to sing together is more work than it used to be, if it can be done at all. When she notes with sorrow that, as you watch on TV or attend candlelight vigils or various communal gatherings, the absence of singing together is felt, I believe she's right. There's a time for speeches, and places where only silence will do, but there are also times, happy & sad, when singing together can bind us as one like nothing else.

 

So I wonder, if we can't quite figure out how to afford the infrastructure costs of a community-wide picnic: maybe we just need a big old singalong on the green at summer's end. A sort of informal Eisteddfod on the grass, echoing our Welsh history and current need for a little more unity than is in the air.

 

We need a song in the air. "And a star in the sky; a mother's deep prayer, and a baby's low cry…" You see, for some of us, everything makes us think of a song. And there's a song for everything.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; one of the high points of his year is getting to lead the Midland Theater in singing together. Tell him your favorite group song at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 4-7

Faith Works 4-7-12

Jeff Gill

 

To Be Someone, Whatever the Cost

___

 

 

Here's the thing.

 

Pilate wanted to be somebody.

 

He was Roman procurator, but the job could be revoked by the Emperor at the drop of a toga. There had been rebellions, and a Roman ruler in the provinces of empire was judged by how briefly such rebellions lasted, and how many were killed in retaliation.

 

(The "how many killed" part was a feature, not a bug, from the point of view of systems administrators back in Rome.)

 

Peter wanted to be somebody.

 

He'd just been another Simon back on the lakeshore in Galilee, but with his new nickname of Cephas in Aramaic, Petros in Greek, (Rock in English), he had a new sense of himself as strong and reliable, maybe even central.

 

Saul wanted to be somebody.

 

The Sanhedrin student in Jerusalem who had to have heard the ruckus in the streets, but never came out of his studies enough to see who the fuss was all about; he'd come down to the spiritual capital of Judaism because from Tarsus out in the sticks, this was where you came to make your mark. He'd get a new name soon, too, shifting into gentile Greek and getting called Paul.

 

Mary Magdalene wanted to be somebody.

 

Her reputation has morphed and been mangled over the generations, most recently by "The DaVinci Code," but her role in those last days is second only to Mary herself. She was as much of a leader as her time and place allowed, and maybe more so; she sees things sooner, more clearly than even the men who were called visionaries in that early group of Christ-followers.

 

The centurion at the cross wanted to be somebody.

 

You didn't just earn the rank of centurion by correspondence course. It took being seen at the front of the fighting, known as a leader among the enlisted and the conscripts by the officers, the equites looking down from their horses and their social prominence. If they saw you as one who could serve their thirst for conquest, you might be plucked from the ranks of private soldier and made a commander of a hundred, a centurion. Of course, you also got the duties that the officers didn't want to dirty their hands with.

 

That man in Florida wanted to be somebody.

 

You know the fellow I mean, who was riding around for years, calling the police frequently, carrying a gun always, wanting to protect his neighborhood and be acknowledged by law enforcement as a peer. His goal was something just a bit beyond safety, but also to be seen as someone who was bringing safety to his community.

 

And the teen he shot, that young man wanted to be somebody.

 

He'd been talking to a girlfriend on the phone, which always makes a male want to be someone in a strong and certain way. Running down to the store during a break in a basketball game, he'd had a tough week for a youth, struggling at school and with his separated parents to establish who he was, what kind of man he could become … which now he will never do.

 

We all want to be someone. And those desires and intentions push out into the world, and run up against the "someone-ness" of others, who are trying to shape the world's view of them by forcing the impress of their image, their character, their (our?) qualities into the material around them.

 

The problem is that the world isn't all that soft; it doesn't take impressions easily, and when we're up against someone else, they tend to push back.

 

Jesus, the story of this week reminds us, was someone. The story of the church tomorrow is that Jesus IS someone, but hold onto that until sunrise. During the events of what we call "Holy Week," Jesus was someone, but he did relatively little to push that image onto anyone.

 

Day by day, the agendas and concerns of those surrounding him tried to push Jesus into a mold of their own making.

 

There are miracles of Easter beyond even the resurrection, although that is the central celebration, the key mystery. But when Jesus took the cross, and made it his own, a sign of his true self and a symbol of triumph – that miracle makes us look at all the ways we seek ourselves, and see them as broken molds.

 

To die to self, and live for others. Is that someone we can be? I hope you hear an answer to that tomorrow.

 

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

Knapsack 3-29

Notes From My Knapsack 3-29-12

Jeff Gill

 

Easter blossoms and bitter herbs

___

 

Passover meals always have bitter herbs along with the sweets and salt; good quilts need the dark colors arranged to help the bright squares pop.

 

Visual art pays close attention to negative space, and any musician or actor knows that silences are a crucial part of what we listen to, and how everyone hears.

 

Even if John Cage took that idea about 4'33" too far for some of us.

 

Easter needs Good Friday. No crown without the cross, goes one old saying, and if you try to leap from Palm Sunday's kingly procession to the glory of the resurrection a week later, you're likely to fall hard into the valley of the shadow of death.

 

As Winston Churchill liked to point out, the 23^rd Psalm says "though I walk *through* the valley . . ." not "as I stop and sit a spell in the valley."

 

So we make our way from the rented rooms and furtive, yet fraught with significance meal, a scurry through the Kidron Valley to Gethsemane to a betrayal, and an imprisonment, a scourging, a crucifixion.

 

You've seen the movie.

 

Maybe you don't want the whole Technicolor visual, but if you don't "go there" in some way, you'll lose the contrast that helps make sense of the raucous, gleeful, incredulous joy of Easter Sunday. At Centenary UMC, we're going to try to wrap up the Maundy Thursday service next week, for those who are game, with a footwashing.

 

John's Gospel skims the communion story of that Holy Week Thursday, the usual heart of why Christian churches do a Thursday night service, and tells a story his predecessors skip past themselves: Jesus gets down on his knees, wraps a towel around his waist or neck, and washes people's feet.

 

This, in a society where that was not only a social no-no, but where many wore no shoes, most who did had but sandals, and the streets were filled with camel droppings. Foot washing was a real humiliation.

 

We just have to warn the women who want to participate not to wear hose. Do women still wear hose? We'll warn 'em anyhow, just in case.

 

For all the cultural distance, there's something strikingly counter-cultural in 2012 to wash someone's feet. It's a situation and position whose essential humility can still be felt, and it's hard to lord it over someone while you're holding onto their foot while sitting on the floor.

 

So towards the end of the 7:30 pm service, as the sanctuary lights darken with the reading of what is to come, and under our willful forgetting of what will be brightly unveiled, just beyond that night on the coming Sunday morn: some will choose to leave through a side door, and sit in a circle in Shepherd Hall, and take off their shoes.

 

That's what Moses had to do first, too. Barefoot on the soil, the humus, humility, on holy ground; standing to look into the depths of the darkest night, before the coming dawn, waiting for a place of promise to be revealed.

 

May this spring fulfill some hoped for promises in your life!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he wears size 14.5s, so you don't want to have to wash his feet, it will take longer. Tell your spring story to him at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 3-24

Faith Works 3-24-12

Jeff Gill

 

Let the Games begin

___

 

As someone already said on Twitter, "It's beautiful outside, so let's all go indoors, sit in darkened rooms, and watch children kill each other."

 

For the three or four of you who haven't had the pleasure, I'm giving you the major plot device of a book and now, this weekend, a movie called "The Hunger Games." These "games" are a bread and circuses sort of gladiator ritual in a dystopian future USA called "Panem" (and all the one-time Latin students nodded their heads sagely).

 

Panem has a Capitol which is the Roma Eterna of this nation, the pagan heart of the culture where simple folk living close to the land are in "districts" of which there are 12, though rumors of a 13th will crop up in the books to come (there are three in total). The Capitol has all the money, all the power, all the fun, and apparently neither taste nor morality. To make their authority absolute, every year there's a drawing (Shirley Jackson, call your agent) and two teenagers from each district are picked as "tributes," to compete in a . . . yes, that's right, a battle to the death. Think Survivor, but no walk out of tribal council with an extinguished torch. Your lights get put out, and by one of your peers. Permanently.

 

If you're not exactly thinking "oh joy" at this bullseye shot into the heart of the young adult publishing marketplace, I have little comfort for you, except the observation that there are no vampires involved. Or 104 year old guys who look like teenagers wooing and winning a sixteen year old girl. That's the story arc of the "Twilight" series, after all.

 

Do we live in a world where teenagers kill each other, whether on mean streets close to home, or in isolated battlefields under jungle canopies far away? Yes, horribly so. Is it good for young people to get a message about the potential evils of absolute power, and the need to hold onto your core values even under severe stress? Certainly. Does "The Hunger Games" communicate these concerns effectively? My definite answer is: maybe.

 

In a vacuum, the answer would be "no." These stories don't stand on their own; their internal inconsistencies and implausibilities make the "Star Wars" saga look like documentary filmmaking. But for their teen audience, and for most of us adults uneasily looking in over their shoulders, we know they aren't intended to stand on their own. These narratives are islands of their own reality, surrounded by the ocean of everyday experience, just like any allegory or parable.

 

You can make the case all too well that middle and high school feels like "The Arena," just that the backstabbing is literal. When young people see characters like Katniss still trying to figure out who she is inside, but having to work out a persona at the same time to make the right impression on those around her, they feel very, very close to her. You can tell kids (and their parents) that acceptance and achievement in school isn't a life or death battle, but they might not believe you.

 

This is why parables are so effective: they echo reality, and intensify it, even as they allow you to try it on or set it aside. You can listen and choose to step inside, or not, but if the storyteller is compelling enough to get you to enter into the story of your own volition, the impact is so much stronger than any amount of instructive preaching.

 

So what is "The Hunger Games" a parable of? The jury is still out. Many note that you have to look at the trilogy it begins as a whole, but I will hint that the end of the first story and the grim games is not with just the one traditional survivor, and there is not, as Walter Wink would warn against, "a myth of the redemptive blow" so common in Western visual arts, where a justified punch in a villan's face or bullet in a bad guy's heart changes everything for the better. There is sacrifice, early and late, and of course there is the power of love.

 

So my son will go see the movie, and we will have some long conversations about it when he comes home. It's a starting place. For us adults, may I recommend coming next Wednesday over to the Bryn Du Mansion at 7:00 pm to watch "A Canterbury Tale" from 1944, filmed in wartime Canterbury starring a onetime Granville resident who passed away just last year, John Sweet. He played himself, a young man caught up in a war beyond his comprehension.

 

Sound familiar?

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he really, really loves "A Canterbury Tale." Tell him your movie obsessions at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 3-17

Faith Works 3-17-12

Jeff Gill

 

When God speaks to me

___

 

There are probably few statements that unnerve non-believers more than when someone says "God speaks to me."

 

We've let an idea gain credence in everyday discourse that the belief God "speaks" to someone almost inevitably leads to violence, oppression, and cruelty.

 

Well, I call BS on that one. Blessed Suspicion, that is, that those saying so have actually spent even five minutes talking to religious people.

 

My own personal Blessed Suspicion meter says that the problem begins with the idea that there's anyone Out There to hear from, hence the strong negative reaction.

 

Also, I'll freely admit: I don't hear God talk. The whole "auditory phenomenon" isn't in my experience base. There was once a time when I strongly felt, in the dark, wondering about a very important question, that I internally heard a voice clearly speak to me . . . but the pronouns made it clear it was me, speaking to myself (hopefully my better self, telling my everyday self how things should be).

 

For those who are not in support of the idea of a Divine Being, or at least one that actually pays any attention to us puny humans (as opposed to say, Cthulhu), this is what they think any of means when we say "God told me [blank]." They argue: we're hearing what we want to hear, or maybe our subconscious is masquerading as a separate entity to make a point, but God isn't on the telephone line.

 

Could be. You check out your assumptions about the universe, and I'll live out mine. Here's what I experience myself, though, and it's in line with most believers I end up talking to about this. I'd say: God isn't in the speaking business very often. That's how WE miscommunicate, for the most part, when we aren't sending tweets or texts. We talk, but like my mom, who doesn't do e-mail, God doesn't talk. Much. (Could happen, I guess. Wouldn't want to rule it out!)

 

God communicates with me in a variety of ways, and my real challenge as a person of faith is learning how to rightly hear what's coming across. You can mock that as projection or a highly developed imagination all you want, but it took me almost 24 years to understand what my wife was and wasn't saying about how the dishes should be managed in the sink, too. And she's pretty darn real, and no one would argue with me on that one – of course, you haven't all met her, so maybe I . . . nahhh.

 

There's a process of what we call "discernment," and it starts with a faith stance that God does want to communicate with us, and guide us, and cares for our best outcomes. If you can't get to "Go" on that score, whether because you're adamant that there is no God, or if there is a god, it's a flying spaghetti monster of benign indifference to human concerns, then you're not going to go on to the next step.

 

The next step is learning to "listen," to the urgings and hints and leadings – us evangelical Christians are big on leadings, but we're still pretty bad at explaining them to others – and over time and with practice, you intend to sort out the "devices and desires" of the heart (I want a burger) from the stirrings of the Spirit (go to the Burger Place and talk to whom you meet there). And they can intersect, sometimes pretty interestingly.

 

And you can be wrong. At least, I'm pretty sure I've been wrong; there've been times when I really was sure God was nudging me to do something in particular, with a fair amount of urgency, and in the end, nothing really happened to make me think "this was a God-led, Kingdom-driven moment." Except, maybe my getting that kind of confirmation wasn't the point, at least that day.

 

These are ways that (again) the unbeliever finds unbearably subtle and highly qualifiable about all this. "Wishful thinking and wish fulfillment, Jeff; it's God's still small voice when it works out right, and you just blame your own sinfulness when it turns out you 'heard' God wrong." Fair enough.

 

Except there are these moments, when the cosmos lines up: and it's not always, or often, to my own comfort or personal satisfaction. But you follow the leading of the Holy Spirit, you act in obedience to what you perceive as God's will, and you can find that you are standing on holy ground. Not always a happy place, but a certainty that you are in the Right Place.

 

And that's what keeps me listening.

 

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he talks to God. Yes, sometimes God answers. Tell him what you believe you're hearing at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Knapsack 3-15

Notes From My Knapsack 3-15-12 -- Granville Sentinel

Jeff Gill

 

Be prepared for . . . many things

___

 

You could say we're heading into tornado season if it hadn't already begun, with a vengeance, to our west – and not far west, either.

 

Indiana, my home state, is one of the great dramatic stages for tornado disaster, but I've had the dubious privilege of seeing funnel clouds there, in Michigan, in Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, and Oklahoma (plus a dust devil in New Mexico that sure looked like it wanted to be a tornado when it grew up, but not a cloud in the sky).

 

Not in Ohio, but that's a personal quirk of history, and not a measure of a blessed thing. Even in the Hoosier State we watched the videotape of the aftermath in Xenia, where the downtown area was, not to stretch a point, obliterated. For many of us, that may be in another century, but it wasn't that long ago.

 

Buckeye tornadoes are common, large, and can be devastating. You all know the drill each Wednesday at 12:15 pm, and we've gotten used to the drill: "oh, it must be 12:15" gets said in offices and on street corners every week across the state, with a shrug and a going on about one's business.

 

Schools and newspapers try to help us keep an edge on our awareness, and the disasters in Henryville IN and earlier in Joplin MO & Tuscaloosa AL make many of us check the batteries in the . . . hey, who moved the flashlight? We make some arrangements, consider a few preparations, and then move on.

 

After all, it probably won't happen here. Right?

 

Right. So. Someday, it probably will. Or if not a tornado, perhaps an earthquake. My seat for the 2011 East Coast shaker was next to a floor-to-ceiling glass wall, and wedged at the end of a long table in a narrow room filled with people, and all I could do was look up and out and realize "this building is distinctly moving back and forth, repeatedly, and that's not good."

 

The shaking ended, then we got outside, then we laughed. 30 more seconds of shaking? Uh-huh.

 

So we talk about preparedness, and there's plenty of folk on TV and in the paper to tell you what to do (or ask your household or neighborhood Girl or Boy Scout, they know how to do a family emergency plan). And there's our response, which many churches and civic groups have dealt with nobly, sending monetary aid and traveling work crews from the Gulf Coast to Greensburg KS. Kudos to all that.

 

There's one last piece of preparedness, though, that might be overlooked in all this. It fits nicely, if you'll allow me a brief religious note, into the season of Lent, just over half done, heading for Holy Week and Easter.

 

Are you prepared to accept help? I'm not joking; have you thought about how it will feel, and how you will respond, when you are the one waiting in line for pure drinking water, or getting a fresh change of clothing from a bag? Sitting eating under a vast tent, unsure if your kitchen is even still there (and even in this hypothetical, let's say that it is, but you can't get to it just now).

 

A common challenge emergency workers face is that the proud, strong, individualistic American spirit all too often means that people just can't ask for, or even receive help. "I've never asked for a thing my whole life," they brusquely snap, and walk away, even when there's nowhere to walk to. Their statement is probably true as far as they understand it, but that's the thing: you've never done this, and it's hard. You'd rather be asked to shovel mud for someone else for a day in the hot sun than ask for assistance.

 

Someday, God willing, we all will need help. That's part of life, part of the plan, baked into the cake, if you will. Are you mentally, personally prepared, in an emergency, to ask for, and to get some help when it's needed? Think about it. That skill might just save your life. Like most skills, it takes some practice, or at least consideration before the fur starts to fly.

 

And buy some new batteries, just in case.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he got Emergency Preparedness merit badge as a Scout, but they didn't cover this. Tell him how you feel about help at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.