Faith Works 5-14-16

Faith Works 5-14-16

Jeff Gill

 

We Make the Road By Walking

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What Deb Dingus is doing right now is incredibly brave, and terribly important, and worth a little of your time in prayer, if in no other way.

 

In case you've missed the social media fuss around the hashtag #GiveWalkDo50, the stories in this paper and others around the state and indeed around the country, our executive director of the United Way of Licking County, Deb Dingus, is walking a meandering but very purposeful path around this Land of Legend, camping out each night and walking step by step the whole way, some 420 miles and more through all 25 townships and just about every municipality.

 

Yes, she's trying to raise, in events and gatherings along the way these 50 days, about $50,000 for the work of the United Way in our county, but that's not the half of it. Not from where I stand, or walk. She's trying to help weave our county together. To encourage us to be, well, united.

 

Recent years have seen our county, unlike many in Ohio and most in the Midwest, grow in numbers. People are moving in more than moving away, and that's a good thing. But it also means that some of the traditions and connections and community we take for granted are not present, and like any good present, those gifts need to be given.

 

Add in that we have many people moving into the county who come from places like Franklin and Delaware and Fairfield Counties, and who still watch or listen to mostly Columbus media, and we have a bit of a disconnect. A lack of community, a reality that is un-united in Licking County.

 

So Deb is walking, taking it step-by-step, journeying at a slower pace, with a more intentional rate of passage, from place to place and bringing together person after person in conversation, collaboration, and community.

 

Pilgrimage is a solid tradition in many faith practices; Christianity has the Via Dolorosa in Jerusalem and the Stations of the Cross that grew out of that walking practice. Ancient Native Americans whose mark is left on our terrain in earthworks and enclosures appear to have made walks of sixty miles and more to connect their world and their peoples across Ohio, maybe even beyond.

 

Not long ago, a very moving film was made by Martin Sheen and his son Emilio Estevez, "The Way" about the "Camino de Santiago," a pilgrim's journey across the north of Spain to Compostela, and a story about a father and son finding a new connection even beyond this life, simply through the discipline of walking. Driving or flying don't make these connections for us, but walking can take us to a place of peace that endures.

 

Dick Shiels and the staff of the Newark Earthworks Center have led walks from Chillicothe to Licking County, that have inspired both today's Native American peoples and local students and citizens who see their lives now connected in ways they had not previously imagined, all by simply walking together from place to place.

 

So here we are with our own United Way team, board members and staff and all of us who have been supporting our executive director in setting a new pace, a striking example for us all, as Deb Dingus walks and weaves this vast and diverse county into something that is, well, united. For we are, or at least can be, and certainly should be united here in Licking County.

 

Thursday, May 26, Deb will come back to Newark where she began 50 days earlier (a rainy eight mile day to start, which we hope not to repeat at the end!), and somewhere around noon or just before we will celebrate the closing of a circle in the main courtyard of The Works. She will pass through the Canal Market District which will be dedicated the next day with a triumph of its own on the 27th, but on May 26, I hope many of you remember, and perhaps come join us, as we reflect on what Deb has done for us in a journey perhaps without precedent, but not the last such venture in Licking County.

 

We're already talking about walking and working, service and learning, prayer and practice as a model for others: starting here in our Land of Legend. It has been a journey of discovery, no doubt, but it has most emphatically been a circuit of connection. Let's stay united.

 

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about your journey and how you pray your way one step at a time at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes From My Knapsack 5-12-16

Notes From My Knapsack 5-12-16

Jeff Gill

 

It's Just a Day, One You Make

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This week Denison University marks a Saturday commencement, their 175^th.

 

Two more weeks and a day later, Granville High School has commencement, the number of which I'm not sure, except that it's the Class of 2016 and that's a kind of important class to me and mine.

 

A commencement ceremony is, if you break the word down, a beginning, a commencing of something, not so much an ending, even though that's really what's on order. Diplomas are handed over for what has been done, concluding speeches and songs and celebrations mark an end to public schooling or a college career. It has very much a sense of an ending to it.

 

But in fact those who complete their stage of education are simply preparing themselves to commence another. Even a college graduate who has no intention of graduate school is going to, on the job, be going "to school." A new computer program or database system, the official workflows or office protocols all have to be learned, mastered, utilized, and it's what you've been going to school for, truly: to be ready to learn how to work with and in that new framework.

 

You commence to learn as you end a form of formal education, and so this is a turning point, a signal day for you whether concluding a college degree or completing a high school curriculum.

 

The rest of what makes a commencement ceremony is ritual and culture and tradition. It is theater of a sort, with a script and acts and a finale.  It is a day, and in one sense it's a day like any other day, except your school district, your family, your community has chosen to make of it a particular sort of day. It's special because we've decided to make it so. It has a sunrise and a sunset and in between the usual number of hours, a day like almost any other.

 

I have a friend who is a woodcarver. He takes a piece of wood and makes something of it, and enjoys pointing out how a particular feature or aspect of the finished product is actually the result of a knot or a twist of grain. That irreducible element of the material is bent to make an ear, a handle, a feather outstretched. It becomes art.

 

Another friend works in sculpture, banging away at a large piece of rock. Cracks and seams in the stone dictate some of the lines, and she makes of them what she can, her vision turning some of the rest of the material where she will.  In the end, the piece of art has its own integrity.

 

And I work with words, myself. Certain subjects come to mind, arise on the calendar, and there's a length and placement I have to keep in mind. Within those parameters, I can create. It is both constrained, and free, all at the same time.

 

Commencement days are very much like those pieces of artisanship. Some is given, and much is not open to adaptation, but in between you can make marvelous connections. In the end, it is what you make of it.

 

For all of the local graduates, college and high school alike, I hope for you that the art of your day be a practice run for work yet to come, taking each day on its own terms, but making of each as you can a thing of beauty. It is just a day, but what a wonderful day.

 

Make of it what you will!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about how you make a day out of the tools at hand at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 5-7-16

Faith Works 5-7-16

Jeff Gill

 

Transformation Isn't Always On the Outside

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Mother's Day weekend, the dogwoods are in full bloom, and spring is ready to turn the page to summer, all solstices aside.

 

Next week begins the local series of commencements (Denison's used to be on Mother's Day for years and years, but they've grown wiser: it's next Saturday), and this is a big commencement season in your columnist's household.

 

It's also bittersweet; my mother and father are coming to town at the end of the month, but my wife's mother passed away this week last year. That's also always a part of Mother's Day, as you experience it in community, in families, through the years. There are those we give thanks for who are with us, and those we remember who have passed on; all that we do is intended, in one small part at least, to pass along models and examples for mothers yet to come into that role.

 

In church life we've learned better than to just focus on the mothers with children on this day. Those who would have had and could not, those who have lost children, those whose circumstances we may never fully comprehend can be excluded and hurt if we're too entirely about numbers and distance and generations, but it's worth a little extra effort to find a way to celebrate the mothers that are, as well as the mothering we all need and have often gotten from many and diverse sources.

 

We are mothered in school by teachers and lunch ladies, mothered by nurses and doctors and caregivers, mothered by Sunday school leaders and even occasionally by ministers. A motherly love was expressed by Jesus looking down from the Mount of Olives over Jerusalem, and we would reflect that particular love as we would all elements of Christ's personality.

 

It is hard, and even in a practical sense impossible to be mothered by institutions – even the institution of the church. One of the reasons I like to lift up Mother's Day in the liturgical year (some do not, and I respect the observation that it's not in the Bible) is that it's really about personal connections in life and faith and family. We can add to our collection of mothers in our lives through interactions and involvements in a number of organizations, the church included, but while we sing and speak this time of year of "Alma Mater," there's no collective that can truly love us with a mother's love. It's the people we meet at Alma Mater who show us that love, that care.

 

It is in the relationships we build with people, face to face, personal and connected, that we come to know just why Mother's Day is such an important day to so many. On the Fourth of July we celebrate that "Columbia's the gem of the ocean," but on Mother's Day we give thanks for the individuals who have shown us what love really is.

 

And if you're looking for someplace to take Mom, or one of the motherly influences in your life, this weekend, you really should come to downtown Newark and check out FAMFEST. Again, "The Works" is a unique and wonderful museum, about to celebrate a 20^th anniversary that includes, quite frankly, a whole lot of love, but you can't love a big brick building. It's the people who manage it and run it and volunteer for it who put the love inside of all the hard edges and factory exterior.

 

They tell us "Newark FAMFEST was founded on the belief that experiences in Film, Art and Music can be a catalyst for personal, social and economic transformation." That's true, but that truth only is communicated through the interactions with the artists and creators and curators at work on what they have to share. Come on down to the LeFevre Courtyard at "The Works" to celebrate Film, Art, & Music in our community.  (See www.newarkfamfest.com for more info.)

 

We need those connections now, it seems, more than ever. When labels and speeches and social media are full of tension and fear and anger, that's when we need a mother's touch the most. Not only our own mother, but the mothers and fathers and caring adults and visionary youth of our community to create spaces where those personal encounters can happen: and FAMFEST looks to be exactly one of those, perfectly fitting into this Mother's Day weekend.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about the relationships that have transformed you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

Faith Works 4-30-16

Faith Works 4-30-16

Jeff Gill

 

Topless trees and bottomless wisdom

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"Spring is nature's time to get people outdoors where the plants seem to be," said Al Cook in these pages some thirty years ago.

 

Chief horticulturist and finally director of extended services at Dawes Arboretum, Al worked there for 24 years, retiring in 1994 to be replaced by Luke Messinger, who would later become executive director. There are many of us still around Licking County who remember Al, who died in January at 91.

 

He outlived many of his friends and family, leaving his wife Margaret and daughters Sandy and Jenny and son Toby and their families to mourn his passing, but we knew as we laid him to rest that we had a great deal to celebrate about his life. And even if you never knew Al Cook, I suspect he's touched your life, and that's also if you've never been out to Dawes (and if not, this is the perfect month to get out there this afternoon, and I do mean today: the arboretum is having an Arbor Day Festival on the grounds from 10 am to 4 pm, free and open to the public).

 

I'd make the case that you've known or been influenced by Al in two ways. One, if you see flowering trees gracefully accenting homes or commercial buildings in Licking County, and if you know long-time gardeners who are out working the soil and even starting their own plants (or hazarding a few in the ground just ahead of the frost-free date for our area); if you think that both in nature but also in the landscaping of Licking County there is beauty around us, I think Al can be given some credit for that.

 

Al didn't just want to improve Dawes Arboretum as a horticulturist and arborist, he wanted to influence all of Licking County, and beyond. In this area, he was consulted and advised on all manner of plans for large scale landscape projects, such as for Cherry Valley Lodge when it was built. He was a tireless public speaker, to garden clubs and outdoor organizations, for Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts, to his own beloved Rotary and even on occasion to Kiwanians and beyond.

 

And he wrote a newspaper column for this publication for over a decade. In these pages, he was a fixture through the Eighties and Nineties, sharing both wit and wisdom in equal measure, giving helpful tips of immediate application to nervous homeowners and community leaders about what to plant, and where.

 

"Topless trees are indecent" was a common refrain; Al was passionate against the practice of "topping" trees which had all sorts of myth and legend (and tree service salesmanship) behind it – again and again Al would try to explain and exhort Licking Countians to avoid this unnecessary and unsightly act, shearing across the top of a tree's canopy, leaving an odd broom-like profile through seven leafless months of the year.

 

 "People soothed by vegetation are less likely to worry, to over- or under-eat, to steal, kill, go crazy, and indulge in other talk-show topics." That's the sort of wisdom Al Cook shared with our area in his daily work, his speaking, and in his column writing.

 

So I think you've seen Al's handiwork blossoming and growing and soothing us, in more places than even his own family could know. He got us to plant things and grow trees and tend them well for our mutual benefit. I'd quote another horticulturist about how Al is still influencing us: it was Nelson Henderson who said "The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit."

 

The second way I'd tell you that you've been touched by Al's influence is something you might have already picked up on. Al wrote a column for years for the Advocate. For four of those years, I lived here in Licking County (in a previous existence), and not only read those columns, but had Al's wisdom available to me on my "pastoral relations committee." What a PRC does is, by nature, confidential, but I can easily share that his wisdom was a great blessing to me in those days.

 

And I feel that I've been given a chance to pay forward some of that debt, and to branch out and grow from Al's roots, in writing this column of my own. I'd like to think that more than a few turns of phrase and ways of looking at our world come from the influence of a fine Christian gentleman who also knew "plants are only as good as the people who care for them; and people who care for plants become better people."

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he has planted a few trees in his time, too. Tell him about the legacy you'd like to help take root at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes From My Knapsack 4-28-16

Notes From My Knapsack 4-28-16

Jeff Gill

 

Conversations at dawn

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Sunrise is not everyone's favorite time of day.

 

There are morning people and night people, we're told, and while I'm skeptical of such a simple dichotomy in all things, let alone nocturnal preferences, it's a general pattern I'll accept for the moment.

 

Some folks are just not set up for an appreciation of the finer things early in the day. They question whether life is worth living for an hour or two after waking, and even coffee isn't enough to change their minds (poor souls).

 

That's fine, it means a little more peace and quiet as the sun rises, and April means I can come out on the front porch with a steaming mug and enjoy the train whistle in the distance down along Ramp Creek, echoing off the Welsh Hills behind me, birds singing overhead, and the occasional jake-brake rumble down on Rt. 16.

 

But I often do have conversations early in the morning, thanks to the complicated blessing of social media. I'll pick up the phone and check texts or e-mail, see which messaging platforms have a "ping" on them.

 

And it's often early in the morning, even more than late at night, I'll find myself advising or reacting or suggesting guidance for a friend or acquaintance who is going through a challenging situation. The full story seems to come out faster in a morning "talk" and the details go right to the bone more directly than they seem to at other times.

 

Maybe it's because it's a new day. Perhaps new light on a situation brings clarity, and a full day ahead gives impetus to honesty. I don't know, but I do know that many similar conversations that come up, in person and online, later in the day more often go in wide, free-ranging circles for some time before we get to where the inquiry or request is going.

 

And for my own prayer life, I think my morning devotions get real and go deeper with God than they do as I'm tumbling into sleep with a simple "thank you."

 

Anyhow, in my more religion oriented column that appears Saturdays in the Advocate, I recently talked about stepping back from social media during Lent. I couldn't call it a fast, really, because in 2016 it's almost impossible for me to do my work without using not only cell phones, but to monitor texts and email accounts and now also messaging services. Different people communicate through different platforms, and if you work in human services of any sort today you're just about obligated to keep up on multiple channels.

 

It was a good thing, though, for me to take on a practice for 40 days of not posting or commenting. That adaptation gave me a chance to use the devices, but also to step back and assess my relationship to how they influence my life.

 

Likewise, the Granville Public Library is again sponsoring "Turn Off Your Screens Week" May 1 to 7, which you can honor in whatever manner works for you, but they support by offering a variety of programs and activities, in the library building and around the community. Look up, get out, and be connected in new ways to the world around you! Check out the library webpage or Facebook for details.

 

And starting with the dawn of the last day of that week, on May 7 – the Great Granville Garage Sale returns, a chance to get stuff out of your house, money into your pockets, but also to support the Licking County Coalition for Housing through your $20 to become an official GGGS sale site and appear on the official map. Locations can still be purchased for $30 downtown; check their Facebook or webpage for info.

 

It all begins officially at 8:00 am, but you know some will be out, coffee in hand, at dawn…

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him what time works best for your coherence at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.