Notes from my Knapsack 7-23-20

Notes from my Knapsack 7-23-20

Jeff Gill

 

Ants, roots, and time

___

 

Many of you reading this have been where I am now. My father died in March, and we're working on a much delayed, extremely limited memorial service this month, over in Indiana where I'm from.

 

He died in Texas, and of course he was cremated; I drove his ashes back as my sister flew my mother home from where they had been used to spending almost half the year, down on the Rio Grande. Mom's with my sister and her family, and up nearer Chicago where we all grew up, we have a house.

 

This is the house my three siblings were brought back to from the hospital; I came to that town six weeks old, and my earliest memory is being not even three years old, and visiting the construction site where my dad worked weekends building that home.

 

So all six of us have had since 1963 to fill the house, and the addition Dad built some years later after the youngest was born, with stuff. And now we get to sort and sift and recycle and pitch that stuff. Mom is situated where she neither needs nor can have much more stuff than we brought back from Texas (and there was some hasty sifting and sacking down there), so this is it. We need to sell the house to give Mom some options moving forward, as well. She can't live on her own in it without Dad, and it's just too far from any of the four of us to make that work in any case.

 

I've been back three times so far, with the fourth ahead for Dad's memorial. I sit on the front stoop, and watch the sun set and the streetlight down on the corner come on, the time honored signal to be home. The front walk since 1963 curves from the front door to the intersection of the sidewalk and driveway, down a modest slope.

 

At the midpoint of that arc, there's a slab that's not quite true, and a patch of grass to the right that's a bit thin. For nearly sixty years, my dad fought a losing battle with ants. I think he used some of the insecticides you'd expect, but it was never a major issue, and he tended to try to low key his chemical use. He wasn't averse to them, but in this as in many things he was a moderate. But last summer he bemoaned to me as we stood on the front porch, leaving for what would be my next-to-last visit with him in residence, that the ants kept coming back, and their colony was slowly but steadily moving that cement panel in the sidewalk.

 

Ants live a few years at most, many only weeks. Dad was 85 at his passing, and had outlived many individual ants; the dang colony, though, was ticking along nicely. They'll be the next owner's problem. Dad also worried about the maples we'd planted years after moving in, and how their roots were infiltrating annually the drainpipes. He worried correctly, and now my sister and I are conferring on how we've moved from usual quick fix to needing to trench across the yard and replace the pipe entirely. Which might go right through that recurrent ant colony.

 

I watch the ants with less worry than my dad did, and think about the root problem with a level of resignation. The streetlight has come on, and it's time to go home. But it isn't here anymore.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's sorting out many things these days. Tell him how you keep your priorities sorted out at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 7-18-20

Faith Works 7-18-20

Jeff Gill

 

To everything there is a season, and a time

___

Next Saturday, I will be helping conduct my father's memorial service in Indiana. Like so many people, it's been over four months since his passing, and there's a strange quality to the processes of grief and mourning and so-called closure in these stuttering and stammering steps through the valley of the shadow of death.

 

In fact, before coronavirus upended everyone's applecarts, this stately sequence was already getting interrupted and spread out. The increasing prevalence of cremation, and less of a sense of sacred time and liturgical guidelines in many traditions, and the fact of fewer households having a church connection in the first place, has led to dramatic changes that preceded and will only intensify after the times we are now in.

 

As a serving parish minister, there was a rhythm to how it once was. At least for a couple of generations, you got "the call." Aunt Sadie died. Perhaps you expected it, maybe it was a complete surprise; Sadie might be at the hospital, or at home, but before smartphones and texting she would probably be at the funeral parlor before you even heard.

 

As a pastor, you'd find out who was where, what presence was needed, and as you discussed their immediate needs, in the back of your head you'd begin a series of calculations: today is Tuesday, meet with the funeral director on Wednesday, obituary appears in the paper Thursday, calling Friday and funeral Saturday. The sequence was inexorable, but consistent. Maybe an extra day, depending on the time of day when the passing and "the call" was made (late in the day pushes things back one more), possibly two but even that was unusual. Sundays were never a day for a memorial service, period. No one asked, and both churches and funeral homes didn't offer. And even Saturday services were rare.

 

Smash cut to the present. While some church traditions have firm (and I would add understandable) rules about no services on Sundays, for most of us it's just a tradition . . . and funeral homes are not against it at all. Many cemeteries have an extra charge for weekend committals, but families can work around that with a Sunday service and a private committal on Monday on the way out of town.

 

And in fact, with cremation now rocketing up past 70% with no sign of slowing, there's really no pressure. Unless you want a viewing, which many no longer request, it's quite common for cremation to happen almost immediately, and the services to be held . . . later. And the placing of the remains even later.

 

So not only is the old pattern broken, it's spread out. There's caring for the loved ones immediately after the shock of death, no matter how expected. Then there's the arrangements, which are now commonly a swift cremation but the formal meetings and signatures and payments that go with that. Weeks, even months later, the service, and committal weeks or months after that. A quick sequence of three or four days is now, for immediate family and for the ministry leaders involved, a complicated schedule that stretches across a season, or a year.

 

Dad died in Texas over four months ago. Cremation was pretty much obligatory (you don't want to know what it costs today to ship remains cross country), and before I got there, of necessity. I drove his ashes and a vanload north while my sister flew our mother home. And while yes, it's coronavirus shaped, our multi-month arc is not and will not be unusual. And yes, we're doing a Saturday service because that's ideal for other family traveling, not that as many will be able to come as might have been in other times. But clergy and funeral directors quietly converse about what we do as almost everyone starts to want Saturdays . . . there's only 52 of those!

 

And committal? Honestly, it will probably wait until a later day, and different circumstances. Mom and Dad have a plot and a plan and that plan isn't quite completed yet.

 

In all of this we have a former pattern of grief and support and recovery that's shattered and swept away, and frankly as a pastor myself, I can't yet make sense of it. We congregations and clergy need to rethink how we do many things, and the grieving process is one of them. I'm taking notes, of a sort, as I work out my own.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's sorting out many things these days. Tell him how you keep your priorities sorted out at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 7-11-20

Faith Works 7-11-20

Jeff Gill

 

How are we doing, friends?
___

Count me in among those wanting to ban the word "unprecedented" from public statements for some time to come.

Strange days, indeed, and a time we look forward to seeing done and gone, but Colossians 4:5 bids us make the best use of the time we are given. So let's not "kill time" by wishing it past too soon.

 

For faith communities and gathered worship, the times are twisted and warped and bent entirely out of shape. As one of the few in my congregation in and out of the church building, it's strange to see flyers still up for March events (I keep meaning to take that down), and in the fridge downstairs are items which I need to . . . yeah, I put that off, too. Grape juice is really all we need to keep handy.

 

Yes, grape juice. We can have the fermentation debate some other time. Call ours a modern form of new wine, very new. But since we've gone from video worship to drive-in, I like to keep the visual element in our shortened service, of a poured stream of life-giving grace out of a pitcher into a chalice. Can they see the purplish-red glow in the back of the parking lot? Perhaps not, but on a crowded Sunday in former days, in the back rows inside, could they?

 

We're doing drive-in, on an FM low power broadcast, along with video devotions. It's extra work to keep uploading the video version of home worship, but in our case at least, it's certainly needed for those who don't or won't or can't come in a vehicle. I'm pleased with the response and how it's gone, but I have to admit we don't get much more than half our usual number of people we did in the "regular" worship indoors. Maybe 60%.

 

Video has been, dare I say it, seductive . . . Facebook likes to imply to us that we're now suddenly reaching many hundreds, even thousands, when practical analysis tells us not so much. YouTube can tell you harsher truths, about how long people watch your video, and even where and in what point of a program they click away. That's been instructive, even if some of what I've been learning isn't what I want to hear.

As a congregational minister, with video I enjoyed knowing that now my mother could watch messages (we were one of the churches that had not had any video content online before March and COVID), or have friends and colleagues many states away listen to my preaching – but the question always came back to how many of the flock, the local church, our own congregation was watching and staying connected.

 

There, too, we could figure out that we were reaching a majority of our church by uploaded video – but nowhere near all of them. Maybe . . . 60%. Which is much better than 0%, but still far from 100%.  That's gone down a chunk since we added drive-in service, so together, online & parking lot, we figure we're reaching something around 80 some percent of our fellowship. Maybe 90.

 

As we look at where a number of churches have already gone, to indoor, "gathered" but distanced worship, I'll say here what I've said online and in person to many: there's no one right answer for every church. So much depends, frankly, on architecture and seating and layout, and that varies widely from building to building. Add in worship style and demographics and you have a formula with many variables. That's why I salute some who are carefully and responsibly back inside doing services, and shake my head at others. 

 

For our church, we would probably have a hatful indoors at best, a few who are currently drive-in attending, a few who have been hungry for the video offering, and maybe a couple who've been "left behind" by all of this since March 15. But we'd need to probably keep low-power broadcasting for some who'd be staying in the parking lot out of personal prudence, and the video congregation has taught us some things about worship and connections we didn't know before as a church were needed.

 

So there's no obvious, simple path forward. We will do all we can for everyone we can as long as we can, but the challenge will be how many of the various platforms we can support sustainably. And may the day of jubilee come soon when this all is over!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he never expected to become a televangelist! Tell him how you're proclaiming good news through your church at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

Notes from my Knapsack 7-9-20

Notes from my Knapsack 7-9-20

Jeff Gill

 

Get your kicks, here in Licking County

___

It was a Native American trail, known by the earliest written records as Nemacolin's Path.

 

Across mountain passes from Maryland to the Forks of the Ohio, Christopher Gist followed it west, and introduced a young George Washington to this path through the woods, which took him on a mission to the French at Fort Duquesne in 1753, and in the 1754 campaign to call for its demise. A year later Gen. Edward Braddock widened the Nemacolin Path to allow his army of over 2,000 men, 200 wagons, and artillery to travel west, changing the name of it to the "Braddock Road."

 

Braddock's Defeat left the general's body buried in the roadway, and young Lt. Washington learning lessons about white crossed belts over red coats in the middle of deep forest, lessons he would apply at Trenton and Princeton and around Valley Forge twenty-some years later.

 

In 1802 Washington's recalcitrant officer and Jefferson's Secretary of the Treasury, Albert Gallatin, proposed the use of the "Old Braddock Road" cut by Daniel Morgan and Daniel Boone and others back in 1755 as a path for developing a main route to the west. The National Road was created in 1806 by action of the U.S. Congress, and it began construction in 1811, one of the nation's very first public works projects.

 

While known in turn as the Cumberland Road, only later the National Road, its most common name was the National Pike, traveled by thousands of settlers heading west in Conestoga wagons. Stagecoaches, too, made their circuits across the National Pike and back, which in the Twentieth Century became U.S. Route 40.

 

Now the "National Road," US 40 is the original "Mother Road." Route 66 has exceeded it in fame, the post-war connection from Chicago to Los Angeles through the desert Southwest of 1926, and the Lincoln Highway, US 30, was envisioned in 1912 and spanned the continent from Times Square to San Francisco, but Licking County's US 40 has roots all the way back to well before the 1750s.

 

Bobby Troup might be remembered by those of my age and older on "Emergency!" in the 1970s, but it's a shame that in 1946 all he had in mind was "Get Your Kicks, On Route 66"  -- because Route 40 deserves a song of its own. Wikipedia claims Bobby meant to write a song about 40, but his then-wife said "what about 'Get Your Kicks on Route 66'?" . . . and a song was born.

 

"If you ever plan to motor west, travel my way, take the highway that is best. Get your kicks on Route 66." It does sound better than "let's go party on good ol' Route 40."

 

Some have suggested that there's a correlation between the latitude of 40 degrees north and the numerical designation of US 40, but that appears to be a happy coincidence. Somewhere between Deeds Road and Blacks Road on Rt. 37 is where that invisible designation runs east to west across the globe in our neck of the woods.

 

However you number it, though, The National Road is the beginning of our country's romance with travel, and travel west, and the open road, frontiers both internal and continental. Get your kicks here in Licking County, and take a drive from the Muskingum border to the edge of Etna. It's quite a kick.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's enjoyed some stretches on Route 66 out west, as well. Tell him about the roads you enjoy traveling at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

 

Faith Works 6-27-20

Faith Works 6-27-20

Jeff Gill

 

Future's so bright, gotta wear shades

___

In the heart of the summer, whether out for a walk or driving down the highway, it's the right time for sunglasses. "The Boys of Summer" sing about brands and sport stars display logos, and all the wiser folk have them on when the sun is out.

 

Not me, though.

 

At least for a very long time, I resisted wearing them. It didn't help that I started wearing prescription glasses in grade school, which in the Sixties meant you'd need either clip on shades or there were these plastic sheet sunglass inserts you dropped behind your regular glasses, hanging on your frame.

 

I hated them.

 

Outdoors, whether hiking and camping as was most of my summer, or later on in life driving, I just disliked the feel of them and thought they obscured my view as much as they helped, and I just wouldn't wear sunglasses. "Don't need 'em" I'd say when a fellow passenger in a vehicle would say as we drove west in the afternoon "can I loan you a pair of sunglasses." "Don't need 'em."

Convenience, more than a little pride, and a certain amount of denial. Sunglasses were fine, but for someone else. Not me. Years going by, and seeing older folks after eye surgeries and procedures wearing the giant wrap-around blocky ugly sunglasses. Nope. Didn't want to wear them.

My eyeglasses became bifocals, and the optometrist notes some faint yellowing starting to hint at procedures to come, and on a long drive I realized my eyes got tired faster than they used to, and an offer of sunglasses was made, and . . . well.

 

Yes, the world, from clouds overhead to the road angling into the distance, looks different. Not as "real," perhaps as seeing with the naked eye, but hey, what can a guy say about seeing reality straight-on through bifocals and a windshield to start with? And I realized "my eyes are not getting tired now."

 

Wearing sunglasses suddenly began to feel like a relief, a self-protection, and frankly it made my driving safer for others, too. For my vision down the road, and for my overall alertness and awareness, sunglasses turn out to be a pretty good deal all around. Yes, one more thing to keep track of (wallet, phone, glasses, handkerchief, coffee travel mug, sunglasses) but a part of what keeps me going, not just today but further down the road.

 

For the time being, as with sunglasses, so with masks. I get the resistance. They are one more dang thing. They can be inconvenient, like sunglasses in different settings, when to take off, when to put back on. And sometimes you feel the pressure differently than other times, as with sunglasses, if you've had them on for a long time, masks or shades. And you want to take them off.

 

The worst reason, though, to avoid masks is to say "they're no guarantee of anything!" No one said they were. They reduce risk. Seat belts don't prevent all accidents, nor help you in one avoid any injuries. But they do keep you from becoming a projectile, protecting others in your vehicle at the very least. (I do wonder: is mask wearing in public an index of seat belt use? Ah well.)

 

Reducing risk is a good thing. And the risk reduction is fairly significant, even if it isn't 100%. If we all did something that mutually reduces risk 85%, that's better than half of us doing something that's 100% guaranteed and the other half saying "I'm taking my chances."

 

And the reality is that face coverings just aren't that bad. In fact, I could suggest that there's a certain kind of spiritual discipline at work here. Like fasting, like intercessory prayer, like service or mission projects, when we do something largely for the sake of others, that is inconvenient or not immediately helpful to ourselves, working through our own resentment and resistance is a good thing. Learning how to set ourselves aside, our own preferences, and accepting the blessing of doing for others.

 

If you're painting a house for someone else, and think the whole time "I'd rather not be doing this" I don't believe the spiritual value settles in the same way. If you focus on wishing you didn't have a mask on, you'll just irritate yourself.

But if you let yourself rest in the awareness that this is a small sacrifice you're making for others, you're likely to stop noticing the darn thing altogether, and be at peace.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he still has to work at not fiddling with his face covering. Tell him what your mask wearing makes possible at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.