Notes from my Knapsack 7-7-22
Jeff Gill
Preservation one step at a time
___
How can we preserve the best of our village?
That's the question of the year. This time next year, if you think the last six months have been dramatic, just you wait.
Purchase prices are already up some say around 40% for homes, and for undeveloped land to the west of Granville, depending on the where and the which way, it's beyond that.
New builds and parcels changing hands are what's top-of-mind for many, but I think if the question is about how we preserve something of value in our community and region, step one is to get to know it.
When the Intel project was announced, I drove out there and meandered a bit. I was curious that next day if I'd be part of a parade, but it was just me driving down Green Chapel and Miller and Jug Street. I'm told by nearby residents the looky-lous did increase, but not so much. Not as much as the bulldozers and backhoes did to start widening roads and demolishing already purchased houses, within weeks, months at most.
What I wanted to do, though, was see what was being lost, and to consider it. I observed at the time that in fact, for much of the land in question, you could see the giant warehouses and spec builds already going in along the expressway to the south. Much of the reaction I got from that was to say "yes, but that's as much as we thought would go in."
I'm curious as to how well we know what it is we're mourning the loss of here, closer to my own home, with a slight bit more cushion than they have west of Mink Street. Charing the Board of Zoning and Building Appeals, I have to note that it's still surprising to me how often a person brings in a request for a variance (our primary stock in trade along with conditional use permits), and when I ask "have you spoken to your neighbor about this?" the most common response is a baffled "uh, no…"
Of course, those are worse when the neighbor has come to object and is sitting right there. I not infrequently introduce them, and regularly try to defer our action until — wait for it — they've actually spoken to each other. Sometimes, and sometimes with a little third party assistance, a solution can be found to mutual satisfaction.
So while our days are still warm, and long, I have a request of all of my neighbors writ large: go take a walk. Stroll the sidewalks. Look around, at the trees, the surrounding hills, maybe even saying hello to passers-by. See what we've got.
What I think will work much better is if we get a very specific, even granular sense of what we want to keep, to hold onto, to not lose. A general sense of alarm is understandable, but not helpful. Some losses are inevitable: no tree is forever, and homes get remodeled, even as we're all aging and some moving on.
A goodly series of strolls might help us all get a clearer sense of what's at stake, and what we want to maintain. As I keep saying, freezing the whole place in amber isn't an option, and really never was.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he likes a good saunter and should take more of them. Describe your favorite walks at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Wednesday, June 22, 2022
Faith Works 7-1-22
Faith Works 7-1-22
Jeff Gill
Huzzah for the Fourth (or the Second)
___
John Adams, our second president, was perhaps the most openly religious of our early American politicians.
When it came to the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, approved by the Continental Congress in no small part due to his efforts, Adams had strong feelings, often expressed.
It was actually on July 2, 1776 that the Continental Congress ended debate and approved the resolution initially proposed by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia on June 7 and seconded by Adams:
"Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."
In terms of parliamentary procedure, that's the motion on the floor. It was approved by the body, and the chair asked a committee of five members to draft a more formal declaration explaining this dramatic and drastic action. That's how we get the Declaration of Independence, largely written by Thomas Jefferson, with editorial assistance from Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Except the delegates as whole debated the draft, took out passages critical of the English people and of slavery, and then approved the revised Declaration on . . . July 4. Most didn't end up signing the official document until a month or more later.
It was the enabling action, though, the motion which created the authority to declare the United States as an independent nation, which Adams felt was the true cause for celebration, and indeed, for thanksgiving. And when the motion passed, later that day he wrote his wife Abigail, and said:
"The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.—I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."
John Adams, like his cousin Samuel, believed that God was in the movement towards independence. Baptist preachers like David Jones, a key figure in the pioneer settlement of Licking County, had been run out of pulpits and threatened by Loyalist mobs for saying God was engaged and interested in the American experiment towards self-government and honoring the rights of (ahem) man. (Saying "all men" had inalienable rights was a big step for 1776…)
In my own religious tradition, the Irish immigrant Alexander Campbell quickly picked up a definite reverence for the movement of the Holy Spirit as he saw it around the events of the 1770s on this continent, and in preaching during the 1810s & 1820s he always marked the Fourth of July, and when he founded Bethany College his practice until his death in 1866 was to hold over commencement ceremonies until . . . July 4 of each year.
Joseph Smith, Jr. who, in that same era was to establish the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, made much of the Fourth of July, and pointed to the events and the documents of the founding of this nation as having divine inspiration at work in them. We recently heard a witness at a Congressional hearing speak of this belief as a core principle of his faith, that the Constitution is in its own sense divinely inspired, looking back to Smith's prophetic statements.
Congregations and clergy today still wrestle with the proper relationship between church and state. For any church to simply casually celebrate nationalism is a step into deep and murky waters. Yet there are events, coming long after the Biblical witness, which seem to speak to us today about God's intentions, how divine design is at work in the world.
When John Adams says "solemnized" in his letter to Abigail, he doesn't mean being solemn. He's talking about the legal and civic act of firmly establishing and passing along traditions and understandings, just as we speak today of "solemnizing a marriage" in the ceremony. John wants us to have fireworks and "shews" and a good time to mark our deliverance in 1776 for every year forward.
At the same time, I think we all would benefit from some "Acts of Devotion to God Almighty" to reflect on how it all worked out, from John's day to our own.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he likes a good shew or an illumination as much as the next fellow. Tell him about your bells and bonfires at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
Huzzah for the Fourth (or the Second)
___
John Adams, our second president, was perhaps the most openly religious of our early American politicians.
When it came to the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, approved by the Continental Congress in no small part due to his efforts, Adams had strong feelings, often expressed.
It was actually on July 2, 1776 that the Continental Congress ended debate and approved the resolution initially proposed by Richard Henry Lee of Virginia on June 7 and seconded by Adams:
"Resolved: That these United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent States, that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain is, and ought to be, totally dissolved."
In terms of parliamentary procedure, that's the motion on the floor. It was approved by the body, and the chair asked a committee of five members to draft a more formal declaration explaining this dramatic and drastic action. That's how we get the Declaration of Independence, largely written by Thomas Jefferson, with editorial assistance from Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Except the delegates as whole debated the draft, took out passages critical of the English people and of slavery, and then approved the revised Declaration on . . . July 4. Most didn't end up signing the official document until a month or more later.
It was the enabling action, though, the motion which created the authority to declare the United States as an independent nation, which Adams felt was the true cause for celebration, and indeed, for thanksgiving. And when the motion passed, later that day he wrote his wife Abigail, and said:
"The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America.—I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding Generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn Acts of Devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."
John Adams, like his cousin Samuel, believed that God was in the movement towards independence. Baptist preachers like David Jones, a key figure in the pioneer settlement of Licking County, had been run out of pulpits and threatened by Loyalist mobs for saying God was engaged and interested in the American experiment towards self-government and honoring the rights of (ahem) man. (Saying "all men" had inalienable rights was a big step for 1776…)
In my own religious tradition, the Irish immigrant Alexander Campbell quickly picked up a definite reverence for the movement of the Holy Spirit as he saw it around the events of the 1770s on this continent, and in preaching during the 1810s & 1820s he always marked the Fourth of July, and when he founded Bethany College his practice until his death in 1866 was to hold over commencement ceremonies until . . . July 4 of each year.
Joseph Smith, Jr. who, in that same era was to establish the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, made much of the Fourth of July, and pointed to the events and the documents of the founding of this nation as having divine inspiration at work in them. We recently heard a witness at a Congressional hearing speak of this belief as a core principle of his faith, that the Constitution is in its own sense divinely inspired, looking back to Smith's prophetic statements.
Congregations and clergy today still wrestle with the proper relationship between church and state. For any church to simply casually celebrate nationalism is a step into deep and murky waters. Yet there are events, coming long after the Biblical witness, which seem to speak to us today about God's intentions, how divine design is at work in the world.
When John Adams says "solemnized" in his letter to Abigail, he doesn't mean being solemn. He's talking about the legal and civic act of firmly establishing and passing along traditions and understandings, just as we speak today of "solemnizing a marriage" in the ceremony. John wants us to have fireworks and "shews" and a good time to mark our deliverance in 1776 for every year forward.
At the same time, I think we all would benefit from some "Acts of Devotion to God Almighty" to reflect on how it all worked out, from John's day to our own.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he likes a good shew or an illumination as much as the next fellow. Tell him about your bells and bonfires at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Monday, June 20, 2022
Faith Works 6-24-22
Faith Works 6-24-22
Jeff Gill
Visiting a church on the way
___
July is peak vacation season, and we're hearing about new records of vehicles on the roads, reservations along the highways, and people waiting at airports for connections (and for cancellations, a different sermon indeed).
If you've been reading me for a long while, you've read variations on this before, but it's been a few years, and I think it's time to go there again: visit a worship service on vacation. You will gain much from the experience.
Some folks like to check with their minister to find out if a congregation of their tradition is located in the area they're visiting. That's an option. Going to the "same" church and seeing how different it is can teach us something about assumptions and expectations that really come home for us when we return, and see our familiar worship space in new ways.
What can really expand horizons is to let the Holy Spirit, or serendipity if you like, govern where and how you find a place to pause during a week or so away. Look for a sign or a reference in the brochures or any other nudge you might get, whether in a vacation community or just visiting family or friends on the road. Some place is likely to poke a steeple up in your field of vision, or post a sign right where you're looking for something else.
I've mentioned before the delightful experience we had in Deadwood, South Dakota, when a series of nudges led us to attend the church Seth Bullock helped build a century and a half ago (and if you don't know who Seth Bullock is, you don't know Deadwood). The priest of that Episcopal church couldn't have been more welcoming, and the congregants gave us some great hints about where we might go in the days we had left. They also noted that for as close as they were to the main tourist district, they didn't often get visitors from out of town like us. We talked about that after worship over coffee and cookies, and I think we all benefited from the conversation.
Plus, we had the experience of stopping to give thanks, to commune with believers, to share prayers and time in song and silence together. The sounds of the building, let alone the musical instruments, were different, the light in the windows and the feel of the seats, yet the Bible was familiar and the liturgy similar if different. I can only say: it felt right to be there, and it also made me value getting home, too, all at the same time.
Some people kick it up a notch, and intentionally attend a completely different kind of service than they normally do when they go on vacation. If they go to a traditional service, they visit a whole hog contemporary worship style church, just to remember what it's like; contrariwise, some (I think wise) contemporary preferring people go to a quiet, contemplative, liturgical service in their time away to keep the contrast in mind.
Either way, this can help you get off of the overly simplistic "right way/wrong way" model of thinking about worship styles. They are indeed different, and they each have a place; you might find your own feelings about them landing differently on your heart if you experience them in a different place.
But I would argue that however you do it, going to church on vacation is not about the question of not-not-going. We can debate the moral and theological merits of a weekly worship obligation at length, but I'm really talking about not missing out on the opportunity to attend a service where you don't know anyone, where your expectations and assumptions are set to one side, and when you are as truly choosing to attend as might be true any other day or week of the year.
It can be a transformative experience, in ways every service tries to be, but which you can help make possible for yourself and your family.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he may have a higher tolerance for feeling out of place than most. Tell him where you fit in at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
Visiting a church on the way
___
July is peak vacation season, and we're hearing about new records of vehicles on the roads, reservations along the highways, and people waiting at airports for connections (and for cancellations, a different sermon indeed).
If you've been reading me for a long while, you've read variations on this before, but it's been a few years, and I think it's time to go there again: visit a worship service on vacation. You will gain much from the experience.
Some folks like to check with their minister to find out if a congregation of their tradition is located in the area they're visiting. That's an option. Going to the "same" church and seeing how different it is can teach us something about assumptions and expectations that really come home for us when we return, and see our familiar worship space in new ways.
What can really expand horizons is to let the Holy Spirit, or serendipity if you like, govern where and how you find a place to pause during a week or so away. Look for a sign or a reference in the brochures or any other nudge you might get, whether in a vacation community or just visiting family or friends on the road. Some place is likely to poke a steeple up in your field of vision, or post a sign right where you're looking for something else.
I've mentioned before the delightful experience we had in Deadwood, South Dakota, when a series of nudges led us to attend the church Seth Bullock helped build a century and a half ago (and if you don't know who Seth Bullock is, you don't know Deadwood). The priest of that Episcopal church couldn't have been more welcoming, and the congregants gave us some great hints about where we might go in the days we had left. They also noted that for as close as they were to the main tourist district, they didn't often get visitors from out of town like us. We talked about that after worship over coffee and cookies, and I think we all benefited from the conversation.
Plus, we had the experience of stopping to give thanks, to commune with believers, to share prayers and time in song and silence together. The sounds of the building, let alone the musical instruments, were different, the light in the windows and the feel of the seats, yet the Bible was familiar and the liturgy similar if different. I can only say: it felt right to be there, and it also made me value getting home, too, all at the same time.
Some people kick it up a notch, and intentionally attend a completely different kind of service than they normally do when they go on vacation. If they go to a traditional service, they visit a whole hog contemporary worship style church, just to remember what it's like; contrariwise, some (I think wise) contemporary preferring people go to a quiet, contemplative, liturgical service in their time away to keep the contrast in mind.
Either way, this can help you get off of the overly simplistic "right way/wrong way" model of thinking about worship styles. They are indeed different, and they each have a place; you might find your own feelings about them landing differently on your heart if you experience them in a different place.
But I would argue that however you do it, going to church on vacation is not about the question of not-not-going. We can debate the moral and theological merits of a weekly worship obligation at length, but I'm really talking about not missing out on the opportunity to attend a service where you don't know anyone, where your expectations and assumptions are set to one side, and when you are as truly choosing to attend as might be true any other day or week of the year.
It can be a transformative experience, in ways every service tries to be, but which you can help make possible for yourself and your family.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he may have a higher tolerance for feeling out of place than most. Tell him where you fit in at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Monday, June 13, 2022
Notes from my Knapsack 6-23-22
Notes from my Knapsack 6-23-22
Jeff Gill
Preservation and conservation
___
So we're all agreed our community is going to change.
Growth is change. No doubt about that. If you raise kids, you know you have to buy pants at certain times with an eye to how quickly they'll be outgrown, fashion trends notwithstanding.
And time is change, with erosion and decay and fading all part of the process; entropy will have its way and stuff has to be painted or replaced or tossed out with the trash.
As far as I can tell with basic internet searches, we're still thinking the human body, most of it anyhow, "turns over" every seven years or so. The material of which we're made today will by 2029 be new stuff, and here's the bad news: it will be made up of the stuff you decide to eat and drink in those intervening seven years. Hmmm.
Plus aging, et cetera, so we have a concept called life spans, generations, and for each of us, we have only so long, and perhaps pass along through children and students and associates what we hold dear beyond our life span, but after that it's the work of another.
If so the human life span, likewise the arc of a community. The material expression of it in buildings and roads and infrastructure, walls and signs and pipes and wires, all have a life span, wearing out and breaking down if you let it go long enough. Newark is going through a cycle of storm sewer replacement where in some places around Courthouse Square they've found brick vaults and ceramic tile going back over a hundred years, all of it starting to collapse and needing renewal if not replacement.
We also have the intangible infrastructure: ordinances and covenants and building code, strategic plans written decades ago based on laws sometimes a century or more in vintage, and not unlike our built environment, it can erode over time, and need renewal if not wholesale replacement. You can do it on a cycle, watch for emergent needs, or wait for a collapse in the pavement, literal or civic, to force everyone to jump into the hole and rebuild.
Similarly, if a body is made up of cells, a community is made up of people, and like those cells turning over year by year, we see certain roles and officials change even as the functions remain the same. Denison University is on its twentieth president; with each administration, some things change while much remains the same. Mayors and council members, village staff and volunteer officials, all partake of the same changing but changeless nature.
When you put an organism under stress, adolescence being one kind of pressure with fast growth and internal changes, the entire system has to adapt. From the immune system to the prefrontal cortex, the long bones extending and baby teeth falling out, just to stay yourself everything has to change.
Or to be very specific, soon we have the annual Fourth of July Parade in Granville. Every year it's the same; every year it is completely different. Some of the banners and vehicles, even a few people persist from year to year, but that same ol' parade? It takes quite a bit of intentional planning and effort to look just the same as it always has.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's got a regular role in certain parades, as well. Give him a wave on the Fourth, or through knapsack77@gmail.com as well as on Twitter @Knapsack.
Jeff Gill
Preservation and conservation
___
So we're all agreed our community is going to change.
Growth is change. No doubt about that. If you raise kids, you know you have to buy pants at certain times with an eye to how quickly they'll be outgrown, fashion trends notwithstanding.
And time is change, with erosion and decay and fading all part of the process; entropy will have its way and stuff has to be painted or replaced or tossed out with the trash.
As far as I can tell with basic internet searches, we're still thinking the human body, most of it anyhow, "turns over" every seven years or so. The material of which we're made today will by 2029 be new stuff, and here's the bad news: it will be made up of the stuff you decide to eat and drink in those intervening seven years. Hmmm.
Plus aging, et cetera, so we have a concept called life spans, generations, and for each of us, we have only so long, and perhaps pass along through children and students and associates what we hold dear beyond our life span, but after that it's the work of another.
If so the human life span, likewise the arc of a community. The material expression of it in buildings and roads and infrastructure, walls and signs and pipes and wires, all have a life span, wearing out and breaking down if you let it go long enough. Newark is going through a cycle of storm sewer replacement where in some places around Courthouse Square they've found brick vaults and ceramic tile going back over a hundred years, all of it starting to collapse and needing renewal if not replacement.
We also have the intangible infrastructure: ordinances and covenants and building code, strategic plans written decades ago based on laws sometimes a century or more in vintage, and not unlike our built environment, it can erode over time, and need renewal if not wholesale replacement. You can do it on a cycle, watch for emergent needs, or wait for a collapse in the pavement, literal or civic, to force everyone to jump into the hole and rebuild.
Similarly, if a body is made up of cells, a community is made up of people, and like those cells turning over year by year, we see certain roles and officials change even as the functions remain the same. Denison University is on its twentieth president; with each administration, some things change while much remains the same. Mayors and council members, village staff and volunteer officials, all partake of the same changing but changeless nature.
When you put an organism under stress, adolescence being one kind of pressure with fast growth and internal changes, the entire system has to adapt. From the immune system to the prefrontal cortex, the long bones extending and baby teeth falling out, just to stay yourself everything has to change.
Or to be very specific, soon we have the annual Fourth of July Parade in Granville. Every year it's the same; every year it is completely different. Some of the banners and vehicles, even a few people persist from year to year, but that same ol' parade? It takes quite a bit of intentional planning and effort to look just the same as it always has.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's got a regular role in certain parades, as well. Give him a wave on the Fourth, or through knapsack77@gmail.com as well as on Twitter @Knapsack.
Faith Works 6-17-22
Faith Works 6-17-22
Jeff Gill
A pastoral word for times of division
___
If you are called a "person of faith," regardless of your religious tradition or membership, it probably means one of a few things.
Faith is often referenced as a shorthand for "believes there is more to life than physical existence," whether an afterlife or heaven or a subjective awareness of self beyond death. Our local shorthand is "heaven or hell, you pick."
There are aspects of personal faith that may hold to no more than a sort of objective immortality — our good deeds endure, perhaps the elements that make up our existence last, like the carbon from the heart of ancient stars forming the essence of life as we know it. Reincarnation is not something I've studied, but it seems to carry pieces and parts of both the objective and the subjective.
And there are people of faith who believe that there are most certainly things that endure and God who is everlasting reigning over all, but don't think much about their later judgment or status in eternity. As I said, being a "person of faith" can refer to people with viewpoints about the divine and the eternal that might not track exactly with your own, and that's been one of the delights of writing this column over the years is the chance to learn how others believe and to test my own faith against the propositions of another. (Note to fellow Christians that I Peter 3:15 is always relevant!)
To be a preacher and teacher of Christian faith requires you both be more willing than most to state your assumptions in public, and be ready to respond to contrary opinions (again, I Peter 3:15). Sometimes that might be from non-believers or outright atheists, or it might be coming from near at hand, as a fellow believer in your particular tradition disagrees with how you are presenting or explaining the faith you at least outwardly share.
For anyone who thinks debating let alone discussing faith with an atheist or agnostic is a waste of time, I invite you to hunt up online one of my favorite stories about how "The Great Agnostic," Robert G. Ingersoll, ended up in a train compartment with another former Civil War officer named Lew Wallace. Wallace was raised in church, but as an adult was unaffiliated yet thought himself a Christian of a generic sort. On the way home from a political convention where they both had played a role, Wallace challenged Ingersoll's agnosticism as a barrier to his advancement in politics, and in return Ingersoll asked Wallace to defend the faith he claimed to hold.
The result of Wallace's reflections on why he believed what he did was a book, entitled "Ben-Hur." The full title is "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ" and we have "The Great Agnostic" to credit, in no small part, for having that story, since transformed into a stage play and multiple cinematic renditions.
Disagreements about subjects for which there is little objective evidence are inevitable. And there's a tragic human tendency — one could almost call it sin — to separate and divide groups over such disagreements. II Corinthians 6:17 gets used all too often as a basis for calling on the like-minded to "come out" and separate themselves from unbelievers.
There's one discussion to be had about whether a persons whose beliefs don't precisely track with yours is really to called, Biblically or otherwise, and unbeliever. But I also find myself pulled to consider along with verse 17 the earlier statement in the same passage by Paul to the church in Corinth, at verse 14: "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers." Right, don't put yourself in a place where someone whose views are at odds with yours can control what you do. That's what being yoked together, put in harness side-by-side, can impose.
What I worry about is the tendency to want to separate any divergent view far enough away to where we never have to spend time arguing with each other. The impulse I understand: it's nice to sit and talk with people who already feel and think and work just as you do. Colleagues and friends and family, when you're all on the same page, are great company.
But I don't believe our faith is strengthened, let alone advanced, by only being practiced in the midst of the like-minded. When iron sharpens iron, a little friction helps both edges stay sharp.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he dislikes divisions of all sorts, and perhaps enjoys a good argument all too well. Tell him what's what at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
A pastoral word for times of division
___
If you are called a "person of faith," regardless of your religious tradition or membership, it probably means one of a few things.
Faith is often referenced as a shorthand for "believes there is more to life than physical existence," whether an afterlife or heaven or a subjective awareness of self beyond death. Our local shorthand is "heaven or hell, you pick."
There are aspects of personal faith that may hold to no more than a sort of objective immortality — our good deeds endure, perhaps the elements that make up our existence last, like the carbon from the heart of ancient stars forming the essence of life as we know it. Reincarnation is not something I've studied, but it seems to carry pieces and parts of both the objective and the subjective.
And there are people of faith who believe that there are most certainly things that endure and God who is everlasting reigning over all, but don't think much about their later judgment or status in eternity. As I said, being a "person of faith" can refer to people with viewpoints about the divine and the eternal that might not track exactly with your own, and that's been one of the delights of writing this column over the years is the chance to learn how others believe and to test my own faith against the propositions of another. (Note to fellow Christians that I Peter 3:15 is always relevant!)
To be a preacher and teacher of Christian faith requires you both be more willing than most to state your assumptions in public, and be ready to respond to contrary opinions (again, I Peter 3:15). Sometimes that might be from non-believers or outright atheists, or it might be coming from near at hand, as a fellow believer in your particular tradition disagrees with how you are presenting or explaining the faith you at least outwardly share.
For anyone who thinks debating let alone discussing faith with an atheist or agnostic is a waste of time, I invite you to hunt up online one of my favorite stories about how "The Great Agnostic," Robert G. Ingersoll, ended up in a train compartment with another former Civil War officer named Lew Wallace. Wallace was raised in church, but as an adult was unaffiliated yet thought himself a Christian of a generic sort. On the way home from a political convention where they both had played a role, Wallace challenged Ingersoll's agnosticism as a barrier to his advancement in politics, and in return Ingersoll asked Wallace to defend the faith he claimed to hold.
The result of Wallace's reflections on why he believed what he did was a book, entitled "Ben-Hur." The full title is "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ" and we have "The Great Agnostic" to credit, in no small part, for having that story, since transformed into a stage play and multiple cinematic renditions.
Disagreements about subjects for which there is little objective evidence are inevitable. And there's a tragic human tendency — one could almost call it sin — to separate and divide groups over such disagreements. II Corinthians 6:17 gets used all too often as a basis for calling on the like-minded to "come out" and separate themselves from unbelievers.
There's one discussion to be had about whether a persons whose beliefs don't precisely track with yours is really to called, Biblically or otherwise, and unbeliever. But I also find myself pulled to consider along with verse 17 the earlier statement in the same passage by Paul to the church in Corinth, at verse 14: "Do not be unequally yoked with unbelievers." Right, don't put yourself in a place where someone whose views are at odds with yours can control what you do. That's what being yoked together, put in harness side-by-side, can impose.
What I worry about is the tendency to want to separate any divergent view far enough away to where we never have to spend time arguing with each other. The impulse I understand: it's nice to sit and talk with people who already feel and think and work just as you do. Colleagues and friends and family, when you're all on the same page, are great company.
But I don't believe our faith is strengthened, let alone advanced, by only being practiced in the midst of the like-minded. When iron sharpens iron, a little friction helps both edges stay sharp.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he dislikes divisions of all sorts, and perhaps enjoys a good argument all too well. Tell him what's what at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Tuesday, June 07, 2022
Faith Works 6-10-22
Faith Works 6-10-22
Jeff Gill
Hate crimes on a very personal level
___
There are so many directions the debate over guns and evildoers and crime and restrictions and liberty are going right now.
As a Christian minister, a preacher of the Gospel, I don't tend to find political guidance to be terribly useful in seeking faithfulness. And there's no getting around a great deal of political infighting over how the national conversation is being staged, one "side" versus another.
But as I said last week about securing one's firearms, there are certain guidelines that I believe preach quite well in a simple plea for holiness and godliness. There are faithful teachers and preachers who say guns are part of Christian living, and equally honorable ones who point to Jesus in the garden as he was betrayed (among other texts) as suggesting that non-violence or at least not owning weapons is closer to walking in the Lord's footsteps.
Either way, being careful of endangering others, taking steps to protect the innocent, and accepting responsibility even when you didn't create the problem . . . that all sounds pretty Christlike to me, and I can preach that.
There's another aspect of the debate that I'd reframe from a pastoral angle. Because the common private possession of guns, especially handguns, has been a factor in my attempts to provide pastoral care on a number of occasions, most of which never made the evening news. They did become major episodes in trying to help counsel and pray and minister to hurting persons who needed to find their way into a better place.
These were suicides, and the pastoral pain was in talking to someone who had given or sold or loaned a pistol or revolver or semi-automatic handgun to a friend or acquaintance who then used it to take their life.
You see, we may have an unconscionable 45,000 or so gun deaths in the US each year, but year by year a majority, sometimes up to over 60% of all of those deaths are suicides. Having so many of these kinds of guns laying around all over the place makes suicide easier, more certain, and I cannot but think more common.
In our country, hate crimes are indeed heinous, and 50 or so deaths due to bias and hate are horrible (there are perhaps thousands of acts deemed hate crimes each year, but as best as I can tell from Pew Research and other fairly reliable sources the deaths from hate crimes rattles around 50 — we'll see how 2022 turns out). But 24,000 and more deaths are due to self-hate. Self-hate, in the sense of wanting to extinguish one's self.
And how many of the mass shootings we are locked in heated public arguments about are to one degree or another an act of intended suicide, as much as aimed at any particular death toll or target?
There's a grim calculus around what's more awful: to kill one person then yourself, or a public space filled with people taken down and then yourself? The utilitarian mathematics says two is less terrible than, say, twelve, but it's the essential desire to kill yourself after killing others that feels like a black hole of dreadful mystery that is functionally equivalent. In either case, many of us ask "why not just kill yourself if that's your goal?" And I don't know anyone who has a clear understanding of what drives a person one way, or another, because even self-hate imposed only on one's self is a deep mystery and rippling sorrow all on it's own.
Numbers don't tell us much, then. But the tens of thousands of deaths by gun, by one's own hand, along with a couple tens of thousands shot by another, have brought us to this place as a community. How do we lift up the depressed, protect the innocent, ensure common rights, and preach good news, all without one stepping on the other?
The reality is that the public marketplace is a loud and jostling space where toes get tromped on and people continue to confuse volume with accuracy in a shouted conversation. What I want to speak up for, in the name of gentle Jesus, are those struggling with mental illness and personal pain to where they become convinced the world is better off without them.
How to sort out those who decide to kill others on the way from those who are intent on a more personal departure is beyond me. But I doubt we'll figure much more out about it until we start taking mental health more seriously as a health need for everyone.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's not a doctor or a clinician, not that it keeps him from having opinions. Tell him yours at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
Hate crimes on a very personal level
___
There are so many directions the debate over guns and evildoers and crime and restrictions and liberty are going right now.
As a Christian minister, a preacher of the Gospel, I don't tend to find political guidance to be terribly useful in seeking faithfulness. And there's no getting around a great deal of political infighting over how the national conversation is being staged, one "side" versus another.
But as I said last week about securing one's firearms, there are certain guidelines that I believe preach quite well in a simple plea for holiness and godliness. There are faithful teachers and preachers who say guns are part of Christian living, and equally honorable ones who point to Jesus in the garden as he was betrayed (among other texts) as suggesting that non-violence or at least not owning weapons is closer to walking in the Lord's footsteps.
Either way, being careful of endangering others, taking steps to protect the innocent, and accepting responsibility even when you didn't create the problem . . . that all sounds pretty Christlike to me, and I can preach that.
There's another aspect of the debate that I'd reframe from a pastoral angle. Because the common private possession of guns, especially handguns, has been a factor in my attempts to provide pastoral care on a number of occasions, most of which never made the evening news. They did become major episodes in trying to help counsel and pray and minister to hurting persons who needed to find their way into a better place.
These were suicides, and the pastoral pain was in talking to someone who had given or sold or loaned a pistol or revolver or semi-automatic handgun to a friend or acquaintance who then used it to take their life.
You see, we may have an unconscionable 45,000 or so gun deaths in the US each year, but year by year a majority, sometimes up to over 60% of all of those deaths are suicides. Having so many of these kinds of guns laying around all over the place makes suicide easier, more certain, and I cannot but think more common.
In our country, hate crimes are indeed heinous, and 50 or so deaths due to bias and hate are horrible (there are perhaps thousands of acts deemed hate crimes each year, but as best as I can tell from Pew Research and other fairly reliable sources the deaths from hate crimes rattles around 50 — we'll see how 2022 turns out). But 24,000 and more deaths are due to self-hate. Self-hate, in the sense of wanting to extinguish one's self.
And how many of the mass shootings we are locked in heated public arguments about are to one degree or another an act of intended suicide, as much as aimed at any particular death toll or target?
There's a grim calculus around what's more awful: to kill one person then yourself, or a public space filled with people taken down and then yourself? The utilitarian mathematics says two is less terrible than, say, twelve, but it's the essential desire to kill yourself after killing others that feels like a black hole of dreadful mystery that is functionally equivalent. In either case, many of us ask "why not just kill yourself if that's your goal?" And I don't know anyone who has a clear understanding of what drives a person one way, or another, because even self-hate imposed only on one's self is a deep mystery and rippling sorrow all on it's own.
Numbers don't tell us much, then. But the tens of thousands of deaths by gun, by one's own hand, along with a couple tens of thousands shot by another, have brought us to this place as a community. How do we lift up the depressed, protect the innocent, ensure common rights, and preach good news, all without one stepping on the other?
The reality is that the public marketplace is a loud and jostling space where toes get tromped on and people continue to confuse volume with accuracy in a shouted conversation. What I want to speak up for, in the name of gentle Jesus, are those struggling with mental illness and personal pain to where they become convinced the world is better off without them.
How to sort out those who decide to kill others on the way from those who are intent on a more personal departure is beyond me. But I doubt we'll figure much more out about it until we start taking mental health more seriously as a health need for everyone.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's not a doctor or a clinician, not that it keeps him from having opinions. Tell him yours at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Tuesday, May 31, 2022
Faith Works 6-3-22
Faith Works 6-3-22
Jeff Gill
A change of subject
___
Recently I'd been talking in this space about race, and how we discuss racism both as public and private issues.
I'm certainly not done with that subject, because I don't believe we are anywhere near done with it as a community. My hope is to add more opportunities for us to work on mutual understanding and increase conversations about this difficult topic.
But hey, let's stop for a moment talking about race and consider for a moment guns. Good transition? No?
Did you hear, though, about the mass shootings last weekend? No, not that one, the other ones.
No matter which you were thinking of, there's a hatful of others I could have meant. In our most recent fusillade of firearms being discharged at people in schools, parks, malls, and other public places, we had over the Memorial Day weekend eight people killed and 55 more injured in a dozen mass shooting events, as defined by GunViolenceArchive.org, which calls any incident where four or more people are hurt or killed by gunfire (not counting the shooter) as a "mass shooting." Since the Uvalde school shooting, not just the weekend, through Memorial Day, it's eleven killed, 67 injured; as we all know now, in Robb Elementary there were 22 killed, 17 injured.
And the day before Uvalde, five were wounded in a mass shooting in Cleveland. This past weekend in Columbus a person was found shot on the Statehouse grounds; they look to be the 51st homicide in our state capital this year.
I will confess: many ideas occur to me. Some are practical, some are political, and a few are just plain angry. Speaking pastorally, which is my impulse whether I'm serving a particular congregation or not, I am acutely aware of the strong feelings in our community and county, let alone nationally, around where and how one speaks about the issue of guns.
What I am certain I can say with complete confidence, both as a minister of the Gospel and as a voice in our area, is this: gun owners, you must secure your firearms. Now. Please. You must do this.
In Ohio, as I understand this, a seller must offer a locking or securing mechanism. That's it. There are no state laws about how you secure your private, personal firearms. If you have a weapon in your car, there are laws about the how and where I won't try to summarize (reminder: I am not a lawyer), but as best as I can tell, and I've asked quite a few law enforcement and official people, there are no laws about how you must secure firearms in your home.
For those who know me, this is less obscure than it might be to everyone else, but I am in a great many homes in an average year. Not often much past the entryway, which is part of the point I want to make, usually in a doorway, but from there, I see quite few living spaces, often where children reside.
Readers, I have gotten altogether too accustomed to seeing unsecured firearms in people's living rooms and kitchens and mud rooms. Handguns, rifles, shotguns. Just sitting out. It's not a strange sight to me.
What I am in the habit of doing, though, is to ask politely, as courteously as I can while being clear and emphatic: you must secure your firearms. Especially if young people are regularly in your house. Please, do it now.
Since I ask nicely, I often end up in conversations. That helps, but I will admit is discouraging at times. Often the reply is "that's usually locked up." Okay, well, just be more careful. (Hmmm.) But usually it's "doesn't do me any good if it's locked in a cabinet in the backroom." So we talk about security and where it could be placed, and how. I don't make much headway.
That's my contribution to an admittedly complicated subject. Gun owners, whom I know to be very on edge about the possibility of losing their rights around firearms: secure them, please. Especially if young people are able to gain access to those weapons. Because whatever else I might think, I am certain that if we let casual access continue, we will see more tragedies, and ultimately, those rights will be called into question.
It's not the only way to keep firearms out of the hands of those who shouldn't have them, but it's one we can all agree on. Take care, please.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher around central Ohio; he owns guns and knows how to operate and secure them. Tell him how you think about security at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
A change of subject
___
Recently I'd been talking in this space about race, and how we discuss racism both as public and private issues.
I'm certainly not done with that subject, because I don't believe we are anywhere near done with it as a community. My hope is to add more opportunities for us to work on mutual understanding and increase conversations about this difficult topic.
But hey, let's stop for a moment talking about race and consider for a moment guns. Good transition? No?
Did you hear, though, about the mass shootings last weekend? No, not that one, the other ones.
No matter which you were thinking of, there's a hatful of others I could have meant. In our most recent fusillade of firearms being discharged at people in schools, parks, malls, and other public places, we had over the Memorial Day weekend eight people killed and 55 more injured in a dozen mass shooting events, as defined by GunViolenceArchive.org, which calls any incident where four or more people are hurt or killed by gunfire (not counting the shooter) as a "mass shooting." Since the Uvalde school shooting, not just the weekend, through Memorial Day, it's eleven killed, 67 injured; as we all know now, in Robb Elementary there were 22 killed, 17 injured.
And the day before Uvalde, five were wounded in a mass shooting in Cleveland. This past weekend in Columbus a person was found shot on the Statehouse grounds; they look to be the 51st homicide in our state capital this year.
I will confess: many ideas occur to me. Some are practical, some are political, and a few are just plain angry. Speaking pastorally, which is my impulse whether I'm serving a particular congregation or not, I am acutely aware of the strong feelings in our community and county, let alone nationally, around where and how one speaks about the issue of guns.
What I am certain I can say with complete confidence, both as a minister of the Gospel and as a voice in our area, is this: gun owners, you must secure your firearms. Now. Please. You must do this.
In Ohio, as I understand this, a seller must offer a locking or securing mechanism. That's it. There are no state laws about how you secure your private, personal firearms. If you have a weapon in your car, there are laws about the how and where I won't try to summarize (reminder: I am not a lawyer), but as best as I can tell, and I've asked quite a few law enforcement and official people, there are no laws about how you must secure firearms in your home.
For those who know me, this is less obscure than it might be to everyone else, but I am in a great many homes in an average year. Not often much past the entryway, which is part of the point I want to make, usually in a doorway, but from there, I see quite few living spaces, often where children reside.
Readers, I have gotten altogether too accustomed to seeing unsecured firearms in people's living rooms and kitchens and mud rooms. Handguns, rifles, shotguns. Just sitting out. It's not a strange sight to me.
What I am in the habit of doing, though, is to ask politely, as courteously as I can while being clear and emphatic: you must secure your firearms. Especially if young people are regularly in your house. Please, do it now.
Since I ask nicely, I often end up in conversations. That helps, but I will admit is discouraging at times. Often the reply is "that's usually locked up." Okay, well, just be more careful. (Hmmm.) But usually it's "doesn't do me any good if it's locked in a cabinet in the backroom." So we talk about security and where it could be placed, and how. I don't make much headway.
That's my contribution to an admittedly complicated subject. Gun owners, whom I know to be very on edge about the possibility of losing their rights around firearms: secure them, please. Especially if young people are able to gain access to those weapons. Because whatever else I might think, I am certain that if we let casual access continue, we will see more tragedies, and ultimately, those rights will be called into question.
It's not the only way to keep firearms out of the hands of those who shouldn't have them, but it's one we can all agree on. Take care, please.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher around central Ohio; he owns guns and knows how to operate and secure them. Tell him how you think about security at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Tuesday, May 24, 2022
Notes from my Knapsack 6-9-22
Notes from my Knapsack 6-9-22
Jeff Gill
Making choices on a changing menu
___
In case it hasn't been clear, I think the advent of Intel on our immediate horizon is an amazing piece of news which is the culmination of many hopes and even prayers for the economic future of our county, a place which saw as much industrial decline as most anywhere in the Midwest between 1980 and the early 2000's.
And I'm equally certain that there are going to be huge challenges, major problems, and for certain individuals, harm and pain, as a result of this impending development. Both can be true, the good news and the bad, at the same time.
Let's not forget, a new baby is a joy and cause for celebration, and that same child will cause the loss of a great deal of sleep, incur expenses, and limit parental options for some time to come. Both at the same time!
The greatest concern I hear is the idea that having a few tens of billions of dollars of investment landing with a mighty thud in our county, adjoining our school district, resounding through our community, will obliterate everything we're used to, all that we love about this village we call Granville. It would be foolish in the extreme to pretend that's not part of what's coming.
Which is why I want us to speak out loud, to each other, around the town, about what we love so much we're willing to make some sacrifices to save, to preserve, to maintain as it is.
There's an old line in conservatism, politically and culturally speaking, that I believe comes from G.K. Chesterton, about how conservation of anything, material or spiritual, civic or personal, is not passive. You don't preserve things by just sitting there, standing pat. The example is a white post on a busy street corner (and G.K.C. was writing in the horse and buggy days). If you want to preserve it as it appears, it takes regular painting and occasionally putting it back up, as dust and mud and little kids with sticks bashing at it and horses brushing against it means it's constantly in danger of becoming not a white post on a corner but a splintered piece of wood lying horizontal in the mud.
St. Luke's cupola, a fixture of our Broadway streetscape? That's completely new. Avery-Downer House down the road? Some of the pillars may be replaced for what I believe is a third time. To keep Broadway looking "the way it always has" takes regular investment in upkeep, painting being the least of it.
What should not change? I'd like to keep a mix of longtime residents and new arrivals both living in and active in town. I love our public spaces and how we use them, including the occasional closure of Broadway itself for events. Fourth of July street fair plans are proceeding apace (huzzah for Granville Kiwanis), Pelotonia, Bluesfest. Parades from Memorial Day to July 4th itself, sidewalk cafe life…
I could go on for myself, but the civic question is two-fold: how long the list, and how much will we pay to keep things "as they are"? And beyond that, how will we adapt to the major changes that are sure to come all around us?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's got all sorts of lists. Tell him what's at the top of yours at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
Making choices on a changing menu
___
In case it hasn't been clear, I think the advent of Intel on our immediate horizon is an amazing piece of news which is the culmination of many hopes and even prayers for the economic future of our county, a place which saw as much industrial decline as most anywhere in the Midwest between 1980 and the early 2000's.
And I'm equally certain that there are going to be huge challenges, major problems, and for certain individuals, harm and pain, as a result of this impending development. Both can be true, the good news and the bad, at the same time.
Let's not forget, a new baby is a joy and cause for celebration, and that same child will cause the loss of a great deal of sleep, incur expenses, and limit parental options for some time to come. Both at the same time!
The greatest concern I hear is the idea that having a few tens of billions of dollars of investment landing with a mighty thud in our county, adjoining our school district, resounding through our community, will obliterate everything we're used to, all that we love about this village we call Granville. It would be foolish in the extreme to pretend that's not part of what's coming.
Which is why I want us to speak out loud, to each other, around the town, about what we love so much we're willing to make some sacrifices to save, to preserve, to maintain as it is.
There's an old line in conservatism, politically and culturally speaking, that I believe comes from G.K. Chesterton, about how conservation of anything, material or spiritual, civic or personal, is not passive. You don't preserve things by just sitting there, standing pat. The example is a white post on a busy street corner (and G.K.C. was writing in the horse and buggy days). If you want to preserve it as it appears, it takes regular painting and occasionally putting it back up, as dust and mud and little kids with sticks bashing at it and horses brushing against it means it's constantly in danger of becoming not a white post on a corner but a splintered piece of wood lying horizontal in the mud.
St. Luke's cupola, a fixture of our Broadway streetscape? That's completely new. Avery-Downer House down the road? Some of the pillars may be replaced for what I believe is a third time. To keep Broadway looking "the way it always has" takes regular investment in upkeep, painting being the least of it.
What should not change? I'd like to keep a mix of longtime residents and new arrivals both living in and active in town. I love our public spaces and how we use them, including the occasional closure of Broadway itself for events. Fourth of July street fair plans are proceeding apace (huzzah for Granville Kiwanis), Pelotonia, Bluesfest. Parades from Memorial Day to July 4th itself, sidewalk cafe life…
I could go on for myself, but the civic question is two-fold: how long the list, and how much will we pay to keep things "as they are"? And beyond that, how will we adapt to the major changes that are sure to come all around us?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's got all sorts of lists. Tell him what's at the top of yours at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Faith Works 5-27-22
Faith Works 5-27-22
Jeff Gill
Keyword searches and trigger warnings
___
When I started writing about critical race theory, I learned something rather interesting.
It was the start of a loosely connected series of columns with the overall destination made clear at the start: I believe most of the political and social complaints and criticism about "critical race theory" is really a desire to see less discussion of race and racism in the public arena, and that it's not a prudent goal for educators or churches or politicians to try to eliminate such conversations.
And I've certainly heard from a fair number of educators who agree with my take about how conversations about racial issues are called "indoctrination." Teachers and administrators affirm that if they actually could indoctrinate students, they'd start with getting them to have a good night's sleep, turn in assignments on time, and use less strongly scented personal grooming products. Seriously, those three are where they'd start.
Yes, a conversation started by a teacher carries a certain weight, and I think teachers are almost without exception very careful about how they wield that responsibility, but race is still a vexed issue for us even if you argue — as I would — that we have come a very long way from 1962, let alone 1862, in this country and in our community.
My learning was that in the initial column, I got some rather vehement feedback and from a very wide range of correspondents, by which I don't mean across the county, but from across the country.
By way of experiment, one of my subsequent columns I made a point of talking about critical theory specifically, not mentioning the word "race" at all, and I got zero emails back on that one. The ideas were in the same neighborhood, but I wasn't ringing the same bell.
So I suspect there are folk who have internet alerts set up keyed to the phrase "critical race theory" and when that bell is rung, they charge out of their own personal fire house to pour some water, or maybe kerosene, on my incendiary ideas. This column will be a good test of that, since I think I've now said critical race theory four times, twice in quotes and twice without. We shall see.
As for talking about race, as a preacher of the Gospel, as a minister of God's grace, I think we have work to do in this country just as Germany is still working on anti-Semitism. It's a sign of the remarkable progress they've made there in Europe that Ukrainian Jews are happy to find refuge in places like Berlin and Nuremberg. Yes, a little ironic, but irony is the seasoning of history. The point is that Jews fleeing war and oppression can see Germany as a safe place: that's a huge sign of progress in 77 years. But I think few Germans would say they are done.
For me, as a person who came to Licking County by invitation, with a passion for history and an interest in building community, I have long known we have some work to do in this area around race and reconciliation. As a parish minister and community leader, I'm not sure I've done enough in the past, and we'll see what time I have left to serve and witness, but I know that our racial divisions still need a hand of healing and words of renewal.
When I was helping bring some organizations together in Newark after I first arrived, in 1989, and setting up community meetings, there were times when I was cautioned "Black people do not feel comfortable coming downtown after dark." Eddie Mae Scott pulled me aside to let me know she knew many African Americans who could recall vividly when you'd better be on the right side of the East Main bridge when the sun went down.
I had the chance to converse online, and later in person, with the late historian James Loewen, who wrote "Sundown Towns" about the widespread pattern in the Midwest of having both unspoken and sometimes official rules about who could go where, many of which lasted well past the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Loewen liked to say "Telling the truth about the past helps cause justice in the present; achieving justice in the present helps us tell the truth about the past." We have work yet to do, and not talking about race and justice won't help us get closer to getting it done.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's got a long way to go himself. Tell him where he should go, if you're of a mind to, at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
Keyword searches and trigger warnings
___
When I started writing about critical race theory, I learned something rather interesting.
It was the start of a loosely connected series of columns with the overall destination made clear at the start: I believe most of the political and social complaints and criticism about "critical race theory" is really a desire to see less discussion of race and racism in the public arena, and that it's not a prudent goal for educators or churches or politicians to try to eliminate such conversations.
And I've certainly heard from a fair number of educators who agree with my take about how conversations about racial issues are called "indoctrination." Teachers and administrators affirm that if they actually could indoctrinate students, they'd start with getting them to have a good night's sleep, turn in assignments on time, and use less strongly scented personal grooming products. Seriously, those three are where they'd start.
Yes, a conversation started by a teacher carries a certain weight, and I think teachers are almost without exception very careful about how they wield that responsibility, but race is still a vexed issue for us even if you argue — as I would — that we have come a very long way from 1962, let alone 1862, in this country and in our community.
My learning was that in the initial column, I got some rather vehement feedback and from a very wide range of correspondents, by which I don't mean across the county, but from across the country.
By way of experiment, one of my subsequent columns I made a point of talking about critical theory specifically, not mentioning the word "race" at all, and I got zero emails back on that one. The ideas were in the same neighborhood, but I wasn't ringing the same bell.
So I suspect there are folk who have internet alerts set up keyed to the phrase "critical race theory" and when that bell is rung, they charge out of their own personal fire house to pour some water, or maybe kerosene, on my incendiary ideas. This column will be a good test of that, since I think I've now said critical race theory four times, twice in quotes and twice without. We shall see.
As for talking about race, as a preacher of the Gospel, as a minister of God's grace, I think we have work to do in this country just as Germany is still working on anti-Semitism. It's a sign of the remarkable progress they've made there in Europe that Ukrainian Jews are happy to find refuge in places like Berlin and Nuremberg. Yes, a little ironic, but irony is the seasoning of history. The point is that Jews fleeing war and oppression can see Germany as a safe place: that's a huge sign of progress in 77 years. But I think few Germans would say they are done.
For me, as a person who came to Licking County by invitation, with a passion for history and an interest in building community, I have long known we have some work to do in this area around race and reconciliation. As a parish minister and community leader, I'm not sure I've done enough in the past, and we'll see what time I have left to serve and witness, but I know that our racial divisions still need a hand of healing and words of renewal.
When I was helping bring some organizations together in Newark after I first arrived, in 1989, and setting up community meetings, there were times when I was cautioned "Black people do not feel comfortable coming downtown after dark." Eddie Mae Scott pulled me aside to let me know she knew many African Americans who could recall vividly when you'd better be on the right side of the East Main bridge when the sun went down.
I had the chance to converse online, and later in person, with the late historian James Loewen, who wrote "Sundown Towns" about the widespread pattern in the Midwest of having both unspoken and sometimes official rules about who could go where, many of which lasted well past the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
Loewen liked to say "Telling the truth about the past helps cause justice in the present; achieving justice in the present helps us tell the truth about the past." We have work yet to do, and not talking about race and justice won't help us get closer to getting it done.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's got a long way to go himself. Tell him where he should go, if you're of a mind to, at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Tuesday, May 17, 2022
Notes from my Knapsack 5-26-22
Notes from my Knapsack 5-26-22
Jeff Gill
Community and consumerism in tension
___
I live in a place where we often say it's small town values we celebrate, and a sense of community is what we want to preserve.
That's what we say.
Yet I think it's beyond questioning that we wouldn't be as healthy and economically vital a community as we are if we didn't have big city amenities just a short drive away. There are charming towns and villages about our size in other parts of Ohio, with even more scenery and history woven into the landscape, but they're a long way from a metro area, and it shows.
It can be hard to find professionals to consult, shops to frequent, few restaurants other than the obligatory drive-thru fast food smack in the middle of the remaining historic downtown. Lots of good hearted small cities all over the Midwest like that. To have a full spectrum of services that a wide range of incomes wants in the neighborhood requires a city be close, even if not too close.
Even within the village, though, I am baffled by some of the conversations I have in a place where people keep saying "we came for the small town feel." They also say showing up at a meeting or program "I had to walk all the way around the block from my parking place!" I've said it before and I'll say it again, we don't have a parking problem we have a walking problem.
Sure, it's a delightful surprise to find an open space right in front of where you're going, but I don't think it's the job of village staff or the chamber of commerce to ensure one. Plus there are precious few of us who couldn't benefit from a (gasp!) two block walk.
I've also written before about a circumstance I try not to see as a problem, but also wonder if there's a solution to it, problem or not. A startling, to me, percentage of school-age parents come here for the schools, and leave with remarkable briskness once the commencement music fades. The argument is that our taxes mean it's an economic decision to only spend ten or twelve years resident in the village; I could debate the actual size of the increase here versus elsewhere (if you downsize when you move, that's a different discussion than taxes per se), but I do wonder if we should as a community do more to work towards getting people to WANT to stay after their kids graduate.
Because isn't having a supply of seniors still active and resident in the village part of that small town appeal?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been attending a few graduation related events lately. Tell him about your ideas of community at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
Community and consumerism in tension
___
I live in a place where we often say it's small town values we celebrate, and a sense of community is what we want to preserve.
That's what we say.
Yet I think it's beyond questioning that we wouldn't be as healthy and economically vital a community as we are if we didn't have big city amenities just a short drive away. There are charming towns and villages about our size in other parts of Ohio, with even more scenery and history woven into the landscape, but they're a long way from a metro area, and it shows.
It can be hard to find professionals to consult, shops to frequent, few restaurants other than the obligatory drive-thru fast food smack in the middle of the remaining historic downtown. Lots of good hearted small cities all over the Midwest like that. To have a full spectrum of services that a wide range of incomes wants in the neighborhood requires a city be close, even if not too close.
Even within the village, though, I am baffled by some of the conversations I have in a place where people keep saying "we came for the small town feel." They also say showing up at a meeting or program "I had to walk all the way around the block from my parking place!" I've said it before and I'll say it again, we don't have a parking problem we have a walking problem.
Sure, it's a delightful surprise to find an open space right in front of where you're going, but I don't think it's the job of village staff or the chamber of commerce to ensure one. Plus there are precious few of us who couldn't benefit from a (gasp!) two block walk.
I've also written before about a circumstance I try not to see as a problem, but also wonder if there's a solution to it, problem or not. A startling, to me, percentage of school-age parents come here for the schools, and leave with remarkable briskness once the commencement music fades. The argument is that our taxes mean it's an economic decision to only spend ten or twelve years resident in the village; I could debate the actual size of the increase here versus elsewhere (if you downsize when you move, that's a different discussion than taxes per se), but I do wonder if we should as a community do more to work towards getting people to WANT to stay after their kids graduate.
Because isn't having a supply of seniors still active and resident in the village part of that small town appeal?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been attending a few graduation related events lately. Tell him about your ideas of community at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Faith Works 5-20-22
Faith Works 5-20-22
Jeff Gill
Socially constructed reality, ethical decisions
___
It's hard to sum up anything of consequence in 750 words, but that's what a columnist is supposed to do.
Where I had been going was to ask some questions about a way of looking at the world called "critical theory." It's many things, but at the core is the idea that reality is largely a social construction. Different theorists will concede various amounts of irreducibility to the hard sub-stratum of non-negotiable reality, but critical theory is known for making some pretty dramatic claims about just how much of what we see and sense and know is created for us by social structures.
And let me be clear: critical theory is at minimum a very useful challenge to lazy assumptions. A favorite example is your left leg. Assuming you still have yours, you probably haven't thought about it most of the day until you read that sentence. Now you are conscious, you are aware of your left leg. Previous to your consciousness, you had a left leg, it was there, you might even have used it to walk to the coffee pot, but you probably didn't take it directly into account.
Critical theory wants to ask these kinds of questions about many aspects of conventional wisdom, and especially about social roles and power and control. The assumptions we make about who is in charge. When I was young, in the 1960s, I got a book about the U.S. Capitol which was fascinating to me. Looking back at it years later as we took apart our family home, I noticed that all the men in it were, of course, men, and mostly pretty old looking Caucasian males, wearing dark suits and serious expressions. The only exception in the book full of pictures was one where Jackie Kennedy in a bright pink dress stood in the middle of a group of Congressmen, her exceptionality almost affirming the idea that people like her didn't really belong there.
That's critical theory at work, friends. As a child, I just absorbed the silent message of this book: elderly white males in suits and ties are the leaders of the nation. Women in pink are decoration who talk about decor. As an adult, I thought differently, questioned assumptions, challenged received wisdom, critically viewing how power and authority are distributed. At eight or nine I didn't see what was right in front of me, and now I see different messages on the page and draw very different conclusions.
I'm a bit more on the fence about an aspect of critical theory called "the hermeneutic of suspicion." Again, to boil down harshly what's meant here, the point is that power tends to protect itself, and that's almost conventional wisdom, isn't it? Where it can get into overkill for me is that the hermeneutic of suspicion asks us to assume there is always oppression, always injustice, always an attempt to exclude someone, and so to aggressively interrogate every social structure and cultural form.
In college and in seminary, I found critical theory to be a very interesting test of my Christian faith. In part because they share assumptions: about the unexpected role that the weak and dispossessed play in God's intention as seen in scripture, regarding how Jesus and his followers were condemned for trying to turn the power structures of the world upside-down, and even correlating interestingly to the idea that we are all of us sinners in need of redemption.
Yet I think there's a place to offer some critical thinking about critical theory, and to apply the hermeneutic of suspicion to being suspicious of everyone's motives all the time. Keeping everyone uneasy and off balance all the time carries certain agendas that I am not comfortable with, and in sum I wouldn't call myself a critical theorist, even though I believe it has taught me much.
Would I ban critical theory, in favor of a consistent, chipper, upbeat narrative, with all questions about who's been left out and what's being ignored left for office hours and private reflection? No. For me, bans of certain theoretical perspectives is like trying to make atheism illegal. It doesn't work that way, and that's me as a preacher talking.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's always interested in the margins of a story. Tell him where you see things being missed in the big picture at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack77 on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
Socially constructed reality, ethical decisions
___
It's hard to sum up anything of consequence in 750 words, but that's what a columnist is supposed to do.
Where I had been going was to ask some questions about a way of looking at the world called "critical theory." It's many things, but at the core is the idea that reality is largely a social construction. Different theorists will concede various amounts of irreducibility to the hard sub-stratum of non-negotiable reality, but critical theory is known for making some pretty dramatic claims about just how much of what we see and sense and know is created for us by social structures.
And let me be clear: critical theory is at minimum a very useful challenge to lazy assumptions. A favorite example is your left leg. Assuming you still have yours, you probably haven't thought about it most of the day until you read that sentence. Now you are conscious, you are aware of your left leg. Previous to your consciousness, you had a left leg, it was there, you might even have used it to walk to the coffee pot, but you probably didn't take it directly into account.
Critical theory wants to ask these kinds of questions about many aspects of conventional wisdom, and especially about social roles and power and control. The assumptions we make about who is in charge. When I was young, in the 1960s, I got a book about the U.S. Capitol which was fascinating to me. Looking back at it years later as we took apart our family home, I noticed that all the men in it were, of course, men, and mostly pretty old looking Caucasian males, wearing dark suits and serious expressions. The only exception in the book full of pictures was one where Jackie Kennedy in a bright pink dress stood in the middle of a group of Congressmen, her exceptionality almost affirming the idea that people like her didn't really belong there.
That's critical theory at work, friends. As a child, I just absorbed the silent message of this book: elderly white males in suits and ties are the leaders of the nation. Women in pink are decoration who talk about decor. As an adult, I thought differently, questioned assumptions, challenged received wisdom, critically viewing how power and authority are distributed. At eight or nine I didn't see what was right in front of me, and now I see different messages on the page and draw very different conclusions.
I'm a bit more on the fence about an aspect of critical theory called "the hermeneutic of suspicion." Again, to boil down harshly what's meant here, the point is that power tends to protect itself, and that's almost conventional wisdom, isn't it? Where it can get into overkill for me is that the hermeneutic of suspicion asks us to assume there is always oppression, always injustice, always an attempt to exclude someone, and so to aggressively interrogate every social structure and cultural form.
In college and in seminary, I found critical theory to be a very interesting test of my Christian faith. In part because they share assumptions: about the unexpected role that the weak and dispossessed play in God's intention as seen in scripture, regarding how Jesus and his followers were condemned for trying to turn the power structures of the world upside-down, and even correlating interestingly to the idea that we are all of us sinners in need of redemption.
Yet I think there's a place to offer some critical thinking about critical theory, and to apply the hermeneutic of suspicion to being suspicious of everyone's motives all the time. Keeping everyone uneasy and off balance all the time carries certain agendas that I am not comfortable with, and in sum I wouldn't call myself a critical theorist, even though I believe it has taught me much.
Would I ban critical theory, in favor of a consistent, chipper, upbeat narrative, with all questions about who's been left out and what's being ignored left for office hours and private reflection? No. For me, bans of certain theoretical perspectives is like trying to make atheism illegal. It doesn't work that way, and that's me as a preacher talking.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's always interested in the margins of a story. Tell him where you see things being missed in the big picture at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack77 on Twitter.
Tuesday, May 10, 2022
Faith Works 5-13-22
Faith Works 5-13-22
Jeff Gill
Trying to get some perspective on the precipice
___
This was going to be a three column series, but it sure just grew to four after the feedback I got from last week's initial offering.
Starting out to try to outline some of the problems with critical race theory, and nodding to my intended course of inviting you all to think about critical theory, I got a torrent of reaction which kind of made my point by making a completely different one.
What I heard in different forms from literally across the country (the internet is a wonderful thing) was this: Jeff, you need to understand something. Liberalism is being taught in our schools and institutions and churches, and we are tired of feeling dismissed and demeaned.
And that's the point I was trying to get at, actually. The legislative let alone rhetorical excesses in trying to find a way to ban critical race theory, so-called, are all intended as a means to build a wall against the perceived influx of progressive viewpoints.
It's always risky to generalize from online reactions. As is well-known, but can't be repeated too often, Pew Research did a deep data dive in 2019 and found Twitter users on political topics were 6% of all US adults, and within that small segment they tended to the extremes, ideologically. I think you can extrapolate that in a variety of directions. So reading my inbox and messages may not be a fair sample of American thinking.
What I do suspect is that the emphatically aligned in politics line up fairly closely with the intensely engaged in social debates, religious or civic. And before I get done here, I plan to reassert what I keep banging my little drum about, which is that the vast broad wide open middle ground may not be as prominent in these online debates, but in terms of living our way into how to be a functioning community, the annoyingly squishy moderates need to have some kind of a voice.
If you're thinking "he's just asserting that, he can't prove there are that many in the middle," my immediate and crushing retort is that this is how I see everyone on either end of the spectrum talking, so I'm just taking my turn. My strong suspicion is that extreme views, left or right, that insist they speak for multitudes, or history, or invisible multitudes, are also just asserting things. We will see how this all actually plays out.
But I am not angry, nor am I arguing any bad faith per se, when I want to point out after skimming my inbox: critical race theory is not the actual motivating issue. It's the debate over expanding views and perspectives, which has been going on in one form or another since the Enlightenment got rolling, just in a particular set of terms today.
For most of my life, which relatively speaking is a wisp and a vapor and a flickering light on the stolid granite rock face of history, during that possibly short time in human terms, I've been temperamentally a conservative. Some may laugh reading that, but it's true. Conservatism, to be sure, is about conserving things. There are certain values and priorities we've developed over time that we should be cautious about casting aside just because there are new points of view. Affirming the place of faith in God, a God who is good, whose goodness has a human expression to which we can turn: I'd like to conserve that.
Conserving doesn't mean imposing, though. It does mean preserving a space where people can freely continue with views which may be out of step with modern innovations. That extends from conserving wilderness when we can — think the conservation movement, which has a history all its own — to conserving space for the Amish and dissenters and believers of even peculiar faiths. That's conservatism in essence.
So when people say "I want to support legislative initiatives which hold back the tide of radical change and resist an insistence on inclusivity even of views I reject" I don't think they're wrong, per se, I just think the political agenda may be at odds with the religious priorities we should affirm.
Or to put my cards on the table, if theocentric believers are a minority, I think we need to look differently at the landscape, culturally and politically, than we did when we had or presumed we were the majority.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's trying to take the long view, which isn't always a political let alone practical winner. Tell him how you see things at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack77 on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
Trying to get some perspective on the precipice
___
This was going to be a three column series, but it sure just grew to four after the feedback I got from last week's initial offering.
Starting out to try to outline some of the problems with critical race theory, and nodding to my intended course of inviting you all to think about critical theory, I got a torrent of reaction which kind of made my point by making a completely different one.
What I heard in different forms from literally across the country (the internet is a wonderful thing) was this: Jeff, you need to understand something. Liberalism is being taught in our schools and institutions and churches, and we are tired of feeling dismissed and demeaned.
And that's the point I was trying to get at, actually. The legislative let alone rhetorical excesses in trying to find a way to ban critical race theory, so-called, are all intended as a means to build a wall against the perceived influx of progressive viewpoints.
It's always risky to generalize from online reactions. As is well-known, but can't be repeated too often, Pew Research did a deep data dive in 2019 and found Twitter users on political topics were 6% of all US adults, and within that small segment they tended to the extremes, ideologically. I think you can extrapolate that in a variety of directions. So reading my inbox and messages may not be a fair sample of American thinking.
What I do suspect is that the emphatically aligned in politics line up fairly closely with the intensely engaged in social debates, religious or civic. And before I get done here, I plan to reassert what I keep banging my little drum about, which is that the vast broad wide open middle ground may not be as prominent in these online debates, but in terms of living our way into how to be a functioning community, the annoyingly squishy moderates need to have some kind of a voice.
If you're thinking "he's just asserting that, he can't prove there are that many in the middle," my immediate and crushing retort is that this is how I see everyone on either end of the spectrum talking, so I'm just taking my turn. My strong suspicion is that extreme views, left or right, that insist they speak for multitudes, or history, or invisible multitudes, are also just asserting things. We will see how this all actually plays out.
But I am not angry, nor am I arguing any bad faith per se, when I want to point out after skimming my inbox: critical race theory is not the actual motivating issue. It's the debate over expanding views and perspectives, which has been going on in one form or another since the Enlightenment got rolling, just in a particular set of terms today.
For most of my life, which relatively speaking is a wisp and a vapor and a flickering light on the stolid granite rock face of history, during that possibly short time in human terms, I've been temperamentally a conservative. Some may laugh reading that, but it's true. Conservatism, to be sure, is about conserving things. There are certain values and priorities we've developed over time that we should be cautious about casting aside just because there are new points of view. Affirming the place of faith in God, a God who is good, whose goodness has a human expression to which we can turn: I'd like to conserve that.
Conserving doesn't mean imposing, though. It does mean preserving a space where people can freely continue with views which may be out of step with modern innovations. That extends from conserving wilderness when we can — think the conservation movement, which has a history all its own — to conserving space for the Amish and dissenters and believers of even peculiar faiths. That's conservatism in essence.
So when people say "I want to support legislative initiatives which hold back the tide of radical change and resist an insistence on inclusivity even of views I reject" I don't think they're wrong, per se, I just think the political agenda may be at odds with the religious priorities we should affirm.
Or to put my cards on the table, if theocentric believers are a minority, I think we need to look differently at the landscape, culturally and politically, than we did when we had or presumed we were the majority.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's trying to take the long view, which isn't always a political let alone practical winner. Tell him how you see things at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack77 on Twitter.
Monday, May 02, 2022
Notes from my Knapsack 5-12-22
Notes from my Knapsack 5-12-22
Jeff Gill
How we got where we are
___
There's a quote often passed around credited to Ed Deming or Peter Drucker, that appears to go back to a Procter & Gamble executive named Arthur W. Jones. It fits all of the above, and is useful to think about.
"All organizations are perfectly designed to get the results they get."
In other words, if you don't like your outcomes, you need to change your processes, your operations, even your leadership.
This gets trickier with communities and even, I'll venture, cultures. But I think it's a truth, or at least a truism, we should engage with. If our community is perfectly designed to create the results we're getting, what does that mean?
One thing I keep coming back to is the continued eruption of "self-storage facilities" across the country. We have so much stuff (and yes, I could use a different word for stuff) that we pay people a deceptively small amount to build a cheap enclosure with a lock on the door and let us use it by the month or year. If you have a storage unit, I invite you to multiply your monthly rental times twelve and contemplate it. I can wait.
Yeah, that's more than you thought? Wait until you multiply that figure times five or ten. Then compare that amount to the value of the stuff. Hey, I'm not saying storage units are a scam, I'm not blasting the rates charged, I'm asking about the outcomes we're creating.
Our culture is perfectly designed to cause us to purchase and hold onto more stuff (ahem) than we can keep in our living quarters, which themselves are on average double the square footage of the generation before us. Interesting to consider, no?
Likewise, as I shuttle frequently between Columbus and Indianapolis, I see the expansion of vast inhuman structures all along our expressways. I'm not saying the businesses in them are inhumane; I don't know enough to have an opinion. But the lack of human scale along our highways, the building of vast expanses on concrete pads with tip-up concrete walls with steel supports propping up trusses and light metal roofing, each with a small somewhat human scaled habitation of sorts wedged into one corner . . . oh, I get it! Way stations for stuff, on its way from manufacture to sales to consumption.
Then we store it in a vast distribution of units as well as attics and basements and garages around the country. Our society is perfectly designed to cause us to consume and squirrel away and . . . hmmm. If this isn't the outcome we want, how do we change it?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's thinking out loud is all. Tell him about your relationship with stuff at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
How we got where we are
___
There's a quote often passed around credited to Ed Deming or Peter Drucker, that appears to go back to a Procter & Gamble executive named Arthur W. Jones. It fits all of the above, and is useful to think about.
"All organizations are perfectly designed to get the results they get."
In other words, if you don't like your outcomes, you need to change your processes, your operations, even your leadership.
This gets trickier with communities and even, I'll venture, cultures. But I think it's a truth, or at least a truism, we should engage with. If our community is perfectly designed to create the results we're getting, what does that mean?
One thing I keep coming back to is the continued eruption of "self-storage facilities" across the country. We have so much stuff (and yes, I could use a different word for stuff) that we pay people a deceptively small amount to build a cheap enclosure with a lock on the door and let us use it by the month or year. If you have a storage unit, I invite you to multiply your monthly rental times twelve and contemplate it. I can wait.
Yeah, that's more than you thought? Wait until you multiply that figure times five or ten. Then compare that amount to the value of the stuff. Hey, I'm not saying storage units are a scam, I'm not blasting the rates charged, I'm asking about the outcomes we're creating.
Our culture is perfectly designed to cause us to purchase and hold onto more stuff (ahem) than we can keep in our living quarters, which themselves are on average double the square footage of the generation before us. Interesting to consider, no?
Likewise, as I shuttle frequently between Columbus and Indianapolis, I see the expansion of vast inhuman structures all along our expressways. I'm not saying the businesses in them are inhumane; I don't know enough to have an opinion. But the lack of human scale along our highways, the building of vast expanses on concrete pads with tip-up concrete walls with steel supports propping up trusses and light metal roofing, each with a small somewhat human scaled habitation of sorts wedged into one corner . . . oh, I get it! Way stations for stuff, on its way from manufacture to sales to consumption.
Then we store it in a vast distribution of units as well as attics and basements and garages around the country. Our society is perfectly designed to cause us to consume and squirrel away and . . . hmmm. If this isn't the outcome we want, how do we change it?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's thinking out loud is all. Tell him about your relationship with stuff at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Faith Works 5-6-22
Faith Works 5-6-22
Jeff Gill
Worrying about the wrong thing wrongly
___
First, let me just lay some scripture down as a marker: "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." That's in Matthew.
Also, "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes." That's in Luke.
Then there's Paul in Second Timothy: "Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels."
Yeah, I know.
What I am willing to stick my oar into is the maelstrom around "critical race theory," or perhaps you say "Critical Race Theory" but we can all just save me the typing and put CRT. We're being told we should worry about CRT. It's become a topic for legislation and educators and preachers and churches, and that's kinda in my wheelhouse. So here goes.
Before I got right with God, if not with seminary, I spent some time in college wandering in the wilderness of pre-law courses and over the years around a great many lawyers, most of whom are lovely and charming individuals. Likewise for judges. And I'd say anyone thinking about theological study in particular or ministry in general would be blessed by a couple of classes in Constitutional Law. It's a marvelous discipline, and a model for theological thinking except I believe the influence actually runs the other way. Anyhow.
There is, emphatically, a field of study called "critical legal theory." CRT is a subset of that concept; critical legal theory looks at matters of legislation and jurisprudence and asks (or interrogates, if you're being all academical about things) where we got ideas like the three-fifths compromise, and how those adaptations, while void in strict application today, are still playing a role in our governance and social interactions through the practice of law.
No shock here, race plays a role in stuff like how the Constitution (salute!) got written the way it did, and how it has played out with amendments and the stray Civil War and various Supreme Court rulings. Hence, critical legal theory has produced a stream of thought called critical race theory. Or, CRT.
In the contentious politics of our day — and I'm writing this is what I anticipate will be a blessed interlude after the primaries are over, but before the fall midterms get roiling in a boiling — CRT has become the cart into which we put all our preferred dislikes. If we don't like it, says a hearty contingent of conservative elected officials, it's CRT, so let's ban it. As many wiser than I have already tried to outline, the big problem is making almost any discussion of race or racism equal CRT is just asking for trouble. Likewise, if you want to argue that racism is over (we elected Obama, etc.) I think that's simply not going to hold up. Nor would I agree with someone who says racism is "worse than it ever has been in this country," a discussion in which I tried not to spit out my coffee.
What I worry about as a Christian preacher and leader is actually not that churches or schools might talk too much about race and racism, let alone about CRT however defined. Our problem is that as CRT is derived from critical legal theory, critical legal theory is itself a subset of critical theory, and there's the real problem.
Critical theory has been around quite a while, plenty of simple primers online you can read to sum it up, and I ran smack into it during college myself which was (off) a few decades back. In brief, critical theory says that reality is socially constructed. Yeah, just about all of it. How we see everything is entirely artificially generated by the Matrix, and . . . wait, different topic. BUT: those movies are riffing on this set of ideas, that we are perceiving differently than things actually are, and by changing language we change perceptions on one level, and reality on another.
Here's the thing. I worry about critical theory, but I do not want to ban it. I want to argue with it. I dispute both its epistemology, and its application to life in general. More to come!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's working on interpreting reality like we all do. Don't we? Tell him how you refute Bishop Berkeley at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
Worrying about the wrong thing wrongly
___
First, let me just lay some scripture down as a marker: "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own." That's in Matthew.
Also, "Do not worry about your life, what you will eat; or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothes." That's in Luke.
Then there's Paul in Second Timothy: "Don't have anything to do with foolish and stupid arguments, because you know they produce quarrels."
Yeah, I know.
What I am willing to stick my oar into is the maelstrom around "critical race theory," or perhaps you say "Critical Race Theory" but we can all just save me the typing and put CRT. We're being told we should worry about CRT. It's become a topic for legislation and educators and preachers and churches, and that's kinda in my wheelhouse. So here goes.
Before I got right with God, if not with seminary, I spent some time in college wandering in the wilderness of pre-law courses and over the years around a great many lawyers, most of whom are lovely and charming individuals. Likewise for judges. And I'd say anyone thinking about theological study in particular or ministry in general would be blessed by a couple of classes in Constitutional Law. It's a marvelous discipline, and a model for theological thinking except I believe the influence actually runs the other way. Anyhow.
There is, emphatically, a field of study called "critical legal theory." CRT is a subset of that concept; critical legal theory looks at matters of legislation and jurisprudence and asks (or interrogates, if you're being all academical about things) where we got ideas like the three-fifths compromise, and how those adaptations, while void in strict application today, are still playing a role in our governance and social interactions through the practice of law.
No shock here, race plays a role in stuff like how the Constitution (salute!) got written the way it did, and how it has played out with amendments and the stray Civil War and various Supreme Court rulings. Hence, critical legal theory has produced a stream of thought called critical race theory. Or, CRT.
In the contentious politics of our day — and I'm writing this is what I anticipate will be a blessed interlude after the primaries are over, but before the fall midterms get roiling in a boiling — CRT has become the cart into which we put all our preferred dislikes. If we don't like it, says a hearty contingent of conservative elected officials, it's CRT, so let's ban it. As many wiser than I have already tried to outline, the big problem is making almost any discussion of race or racism equal CRT is just asking for trouble. Likewise, if you want to argue that racism is over (we elected Obama, etc.) I think that's simply not going to hold up. Nor would I agree with someone who says racism is "worse than it ever has been in this country," a discussion in which I tried not to spit out my coffee.
What I worry about as a Christian preacher and leader is actually not that churches or schools might talk too much about race and racism, let alone about CRT however defined. Our problem is that as CRT is derived from critical legal theory, critical legal theory is itself a subset of critical theory, and there's the real problem.
Critical theory has been around quite a while, plenty of simple primers online you can read to sum it up, and I ran smack into it during college myself which was (off) a few decades back. In brief, critical theory says that reality is socially constructed. Yeah, just about all of it. How we see everything is entirely artificially generated by the Matrix, and . . . wait, different topic. BUT: those movies are riffing on this set of ideas, that we are perceiving differently than things actually are, and by changing language we change perceptions on one level, and reality on another.
Here's the thing. I worry about critical theory, but I do not want to ban it. I want to argue with it. I dispute both its epistemology, and its application to life in general. More to come!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's working on interpreting reality like we all do. Don't we? Tell him how you refute Bishop Berkeley at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Tuesday, April 26, 2022
Faith Works 4-30-22
Faith Works 4-30-22
Jeff Gill
Again and again (and again)
___
There are things you just have to keep doing.
Saying good morning, washing your hands, taking out the trash.
There are acts which are never ending, in a way: cooking dinner, doing the dishes, putting everything away . . . waking up to more dirty bowls in the sink. If you have babies, diapers; if you have older children, conversations & suggestions once made and twice and now to be again (and again).
If you are married, saying "I love you" isn't out of fashion because you've said it before; asking "what's wrong" or saying "you look happy" are the sort of rituals that circle past again and again.
And if you happen to be the possessor of a body for the time being, you know that exercise isn't something you can save up, let alone put off for too long. Your need to stretch and loosen up and then get your limbs in motion is something that will continue; God willing, for a very long time. But again and again for all that.
As any preacher will tell you, and probably has, many are the parallels between the physical and the spiritual. They are not exactly the same at all, but the comparisons are often instructive. Your spiritual muscles need to be used, stretched a bit and put to useful exercise. If you get out of the habit of testing your assumptions, of forgiving those you find in opposition to you, or perish forbid you lose the knack of thankfulness, you'll find it hard to get those impulses in motion again later when you really need them.
Driving cross-country and listening to some podcasts, I heard a minister of a multi-ethnic congregation talk about how so many churches fear conflict, and avoid disputes, because they're out of shape. Not quite his words, but they landed on my ear that way. If a faith community gets slack and repetitive in assuming that all right thinking people believe as they do, and avoid anyone in disagreement as obviously wrong thinking folk, you get flabby and loose thinking.
Then an unavoidable conflict comes out into the open, and people go "Ow!" That hurt, to stretch my thoughts and assumptions and yes, my beliefs a bit. One response is to snuggle down into the easy chair and vow not to end up working those muscles again. Limit the sphere of debate, reduce your contacts with those who aren't already clearly with you, and stay sedentary, recumbent, slothful.
Or, you realize "hey, that discomfort reminds me I'm out of practice putting my beliefs and commitments to the test" and that's a reminder to work those fibers of the spirit more frequently.
Many church discussions can run the risk of only being "questioned" by someone asking if we are all agreeing in exactly the correct way. The idea that direct opposition could even be considered by the light of day, in a classroom or chapel, even a sermon . . . that pushes us. We can push back, with love indeed, with forbearance and gentleness and care, but learn how to push back, or we can retreat into a safely padded zone.
Resistance training is something I know, physically, much more secondhand than perhaps I ought. But it seems a common physical therapy practice, and it doesn't mean someone hits you upside the head, just that you learn how to press on against a weight or force or obstacle set against you. I'd have to say as a preacher and a theologian, I've been blessed to put my beliefs into dialogue with people who do not share my assumptions, and while it's not always comfortable, I find I learn as much about my own faith as I do the other. Talking about spiritual practices and essential worldviews with followers of Islam, Buddhists, agnostics and yes atheists (absolutely atheists!) has been a blessing to me.
If you've not had the experience, I commend it; if you dive in headlong, it's like going into a weight room and just starting to try to pick up dumbbells at random. You can stub your toe or pull a muscle. Find a guide, but test yourself. I dislike the term "step out of your comfort zone" as a bit of a cliche, but I think our call is to expand our comfort zones, and be willing to again and again explore how our faith is at work in our life.
Word is, you'll never end in so doing.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's had both fruitful and pointless arguments over the years, and the trick is knowing when to let it go. Tell him how you know at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
Again and again (and again)
___
There are things you just have to keep doing.
Saying good morning, washing your hands, taking out the trash.
There are acts which are never ending, in a way: cooking dinner, doing the dishes, putting everything away . . . waking up to more dirty bowls in the sink. If you have babies, diapers; if you have older children, conversations & suggestions once made and twice and now to be again (and again).
If you are married, saying "I love you" isn't out of fashion because you've said it before; asking "what's wrong" or saying "you look happy" are the sort of rituals that circle past again and again.
And if you happen to be the possessor of a body for the time being, you know that exercise isn't something you can save up, let alone put off for too long. Your need to stretch and loosen up and then get your limbs in motion is something that will continue; God willing, for a very long time. But again and again for all that.
As any preacher will tell you, and probably has, many are the parallels between the physical and the spiritual. They are not exactly the same at all, but the comparisons are often instructive. Your spiritual muscles need to be used, stretched a bit and put to useful exercise. If you get out of the habit of testing your assumptions, of forgiving those you find in opposition to you, or perish forbid you lose the knack of thankfulness, you'll find it hard to get those impulses in motion again later when you really need them.
Driving cross-country and listening to some podcasts, I heard a minister of a multi-ethnic congregation talk about how so many churches fear conflict, and avoid disputes, because they're out of shape. Not quite his words, but they landed on my ear that way. If a faith community gets slack and repetitive in assuming that all right thinking people believe as they do, and avoid anyone in disagreement as obviously wrong thinking folk, you get flabby and loose thinking.
Then an unavoidable conflict comes out into the open, and people go "Ow!" That hurt, to stretch my thoughts and assumptions and yes, my beliefs a bit. One response is to snuggle down into the easy chair and vow not to end up working those muscles again. Limit the sphere of debate, reduce your contacts with those who aren't already clearly with you, and stay sedentary, recumbent, slothful.
Or, you realize "hey, that discomfort reminds me I'm out of practice putting my beliefs and commitments to the test" and that's a reminder to work those fibers of the spirit more frequently.
Many church discussions can run the risk of only being "questioned" by someone asking if we are all agreeing in exactly the correct way. The idea that direct opposition could even be considered by the light of day, in a classroom or chapel, even a sermon . . . that pushes us. We can push back, with love indeed, with forbearance and gentleness and care, but learn how to push back, or we can retreat into a safely padded zone.
Resistance training is something I know, physically, much more secondhand than perhaps I ought. But it seems a common physical therapy practice, and it doesn't mean someone hits you upside the head, just that you learn how to press on against a weight or force or obstacle set against you. I'd have to say as a preacher and a theologian, I've been blessed to put my beliefs into dialogue with people who do not share my assumptions, and while it's not always comfortable, I find I learn as much about my own faith as I do the other. Talking about spiritual practices and essential worldviews with followers of Islam, Buddhists, agnostics and yes atheists (absolutely atheists!) has been a blessing to me.
If you've not had the experience, I commend it; if you dive in headlong, it's like going into a weight room and just starting to try to pick up dumbbells at random. You can stub your toe or pull a muscle. Find a guide, but test yourself. I dislike the term "step out of your comfort zone" as a bit of a cliche, but I think our call is to expand our comfort zones, and be willing to again and again explore how our faith is at work in our life.
Word is, you'll never end in so doing.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's had both fruitful and pointless arguments over the years, and the trick is knowing when to let it go. Tell him how you know at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Tuesday, April 19, 2022
Notes from my Knapsack 4-28-22
Notes from my Knapsack 4-28-22
Jeff Gill
The Natural History of Granville
___
In 1789, an Anglican priest serving in a small rural community in the south of England called Selborne published a book.
It had the straightforward title "The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne," and with the help of his brother in London, Gilbert White offered up what had been in part a series of letters he'd written to fellow naturalists in London and Wales. In fact, some of the letters were never sent as such, but White used letters he had written and sent as a literary device, a framing tool for over a hundred installments in the natural history portion and a few dozen about the antiquities of his district in Hampshire.
Some have said that Gilbert White helped create what we call today "ecology," and his acute awareness of a local environment, along with precise observations, recorded over time, contributed to much of the evolutionary and environmental science that was to follow in the 19th century.
And for subsequent generations, "The Natural History of Selborne" became a benchmark for the growing field of nature writing. The "antiquities" as a second volume often were left off, and "The Natural History" has not gone out of print for over 230 years. Selborne has changed, but not drastically; what has changed is the environment, and Gilbert White started a sequence of both precise and poetic observations which can be added to more modern scientific data for modern climate change evaluations.
If you've lived in a particular place for any amount of time, you have your own "natural history" in the back of your mind. Did the daffodils come up earlier this year than previous blossoms? When did you start seeing sparrows nesting, and is it in the same bush as last year? How many snows after the forsythia? Basically, that's what Gilbert White was up to, just in greater detail.
I've often wished since we moved to the village in 2004 that I'd kept a sort of naturalist's calendar, as did White, to record on paper or in pixels, not just in unreliable memory, when certain trees first budded out, bulbs sprouted, birds returned, frost last struck (in our part of Ohio, Mother's Day in general and May 15 more specifically is considered our frost free date). I'm just not that disciplined.
What the recent news of development on our western borders has made me think (among other things) about is how we have a great deal of natural resource that we're about to lose, how our environment is likely to change as habitat is reduced, and how species will no doubt adapt or move on, increase or decrease. Modern development has been bad for some wetland creatures, for instance, but raccoons thrive (that's why they call them trash pandas, after all.
All of which has me thinking about working on "A Natural History of Granville." We live in a dynamic ecosystem which has already seen great changes in the last two hundred years (look up "The Famous Wolf Hunt" of 1823 in Harrison Township online). Perhaps it's time to start recording our present landscape before it becomes what was.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's kind of into the idea of a parson-naturalist. Tell him how you observe the wildlife in your domestic settings at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
The Natural History of Granville
___
In 1789, an Anglican priest serving in a small rural community in the south of England called Selborne published a book.
It had the straightforward title "The Natural History and Antiquities of Selborne," and with the help of his brother in London, Gilbert White offered up what had been in part a series of letters he'd written to fellow naturalists in London and Wales. In fact, some of the letters were never sent as such, but White used letters he had written and sent as a literary device, a framing tool for over a hundred installments in the natural history portion and a few dozen about the antiquities of his district in Hampshire.
Some have said that Gilbert White helped create what we call today "ecology," and his acute awareness of a local environment, along with precise observations, recorded over time, contributed to much of the evolutionary and environmental science that was to follow in the 19th century.
And for subsequent generations, "The Natural History of Selborne" became a benchmark for the growing field of nature writing. The "antiquities" as a second volume often were left off, and "The Natural History" has not gone out of print for over 230 years. Selborne has changed, but not drastically; what has changed is the environment, and Gilbert White started a sequence of both precise and poetic observations which can be added to more modern scientific data for modern climate change evaluations.
If you've lived in a particular place for any amount of time, you have your own "natural history" in the back of your mind. Did the daffodils come up earlier this year than previous blossoms? When did you start seeing sparrows nesting, and is it in the same bush as last year? How many snows after the forsythia? Basically, that's what Gilbert White was up to, just in greater detail.
I've often wished since we moved to the village in 2004 that I'd kept a sort of naturalist's calendar, as did White, to record on paper or in pixels, not just in unreliable memory, when certain trees first budded out, bulbs sprouted, birds returned, frost last struck (in our part of Ohio, Mother's Day in general and May 15 more specifically is considered our frost free date). I'm just not that disciplined.
What the recent news of development on our western borders has made me think (among other things) about is how we have a great deal of natural resource that we're about to lose, how our environment is likely to change as habitat is reduced, and how species will no doubt adapt or move on, increase or decrease. Modern development has been bad for some wetland creatures, for instance, but raccoons thrive (that's why they call them trash pandas, after all.
All of which has me thinking about working on "A Natural History of Granville." We live in a dynamic ecosystem which has already seen great changes in the last two hundred years (look up "The Famous Wolf Hunt" of 1823 in Harrison Township online). Perhaps it's time to start recording our present landscape before it becomes what was.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's kind of into the idea of a parson-naturalist. Tell him how you observe the wildlife in your domestic settings at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Faith Works 4-23-22
Faith Works 4-23-22
Jeff Gill
So what has changed?
___
Alleluia, Christ is risen!
And?
I'll avoid the more caustic "so what?" which implies a more negative angle on the question. Let me deploy the conjunction, the question mark, the punctuation which implies a consequence.
Easter Sunday is when Christians, a majority perspective in our area, celebrate the epochal event of human history as we understand it: Christ is risen!
Mary Magdalene, a hesitant Peter, a frightened John, a doubting Thomas and then many more besides gave witness: Christ is risen! A couple came running back from Emmaus with further confirmation: Jesus is alive, we ate dinner with him! Groups in Jerusalem, a multitude on the Mount of Olives, a gathering by the Sea of Galilee would all agree that their eyes and awareness all conclude: He lives.
And?
There's the post-Easter question, and just to offer some wider context, there's this book called "Acts" which offers 28 chapters of reply to "and" and "so what" and "what then?" You could start there.
But that would safely contextualize the event and the answer both into a foreign location, to a couple of millennia and a safe ocean of distance far away. What about right here, in our neck of the woods?
Christ is risen, and that means I should . . .
Do you have an answer to that? Because we really should take our celebration and our rejoicing and our ham and colored eggs and baskets full of candy and use all of that holiday energy to get us going on the implications of what we're claiming. Christ is risen, and that means God is good, the Good News is for thee and me, and we'd best be sharing it with others who need a word or two of hope. Jesus is alive, and if he could do it, his teaching appears to have been setting up all along that it will be possible for us, too. Resurrection may not play out exactly the same way for each and all, but Paul's talk of "the first fruits" of resurrection in Jesus is saying to us that death is not a final answer, but a pause, a semi-colon, a period through which we pass, but there is more.
And if there is more, then what we do with our now might just need to change. If age and infirmity and human limits are just one part of a wider longer broader arc, then we are not just winding up but getting ready. If our mistakes and missteps in this life that the world says will permanently mark us are not, in fact, the defining character of eternity and our future with God, then we may need to live with hope even when everyone around us says we're done.
God, unlike downtown Granville or Newark's Courthouse Square, allows U-turns. Unexpected U-turns are a traffic hazard, to be fair, but in living our lives and dealing with consequences, the record of divine activity in scripture, which Jesus rising from death to life would seem to validate, says God is fine with U-turns, even favors them somewhat. (The streets in the Holy City, we're told, are paved with gold, but the signage must be something…)
Christ is risen! And? This is what the churches of Christian belief and believers of a Christian perspective can and should be wrestling with between now and Pentecost. It had to be what Phillip and Andrew and Stephen, Martha and Mary and Lazarus, and all those disciples and apostles had to be dealing with in the days after the resurrection, before the ascension. Jesus is alive and now: we have to think through what he said to us, realize that some of the implausibilities he casually spoke have more import than even the practical advice he gave us. Christ is risen and now: we have to reflect on what this event tells us about the words of the prophets and the priests and the lamentations we have from those waiting generations before us. He lives, and I need to live as if that means something to me. Not that I'm marking time until my own death, but I have a place in a plan, a story, a heavenly banquet being prepared.
You know, the one Jesus kept talking about. Turns out he really meant it.
Do we?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's glad to know he has a seat at the table. Tell him about your Easter blessings at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
So what has changed?
___
Alleluia, Christ is risen!
And?
I'll avoid the more caustic "so what?" which implies a more negative angle on the question. Let me deploy the conjunction, the question mark, the punctuation which implies a consequence.
Easter Sunday is when Christians, a majority perspective in our area, celebrate the epochal event of human history as we understand it: Christ is risen!
Mary Magdalene, a hesitant Peter, a frightened John, a doubting Thomas and then many more besides gave witness: Christ is risen! A couple came running back from Emmaus with further confirmation: Jesus is alive, we ate dinner with him! Groups in Jerusalem, a multitude on the Mount of Olives, a gathering by the Sea of Galilee would all agree that their eyes and awareness all conclude: He lives.
And?
There's the post-Easter question, and just to offer some wider context, there's this book called "Acts" which offers 28 chapters of reply to "and" and "so what" and "what then?" You could start there.
But that would safely contextualize the event and the answer both into a foreign location, to a couple of millennia and a safe ocean of distance far away. What about right here, in our neck of the woods?
Christ is risen, and that means I should . . .
Do you have an answer to that? Because we really should take our celebration and our rejoicing and our ham and colored eggs and baskets full of candy and use all of that holiday energy to get us going on the implications of what we're claiming. Christ is risen, and that means God is good, the Good News is for thee and me, and we'd best be sharing it with others who need a word or two of hope. Jesus is alive, and if he could do it, his teaching appears to have been setting up all along that it will be possible for us, too. Resurrection may not play out exactly the same way for each and all, but Paul's talk of "the first fruits" of resurrection in Jesus is saying to us that death is not a final answer, but a pause, a semi-colon, a period through which we pass, but there is more.
And if there is more, then what we do with our now might just need to change. If age and infirmity and human limits are just one part of a wider longer broader arc, then we are not just winding up but getting ready. If our mistakes and missteps in this life that the world says will permanently mark us are not, in fact, the defining character of eternity and our future with God, then we may need to live with hope even when everyone around us says we're done.
God, unlike downtown Granville or Newark's Courthouse Square, allows U-turns. Unexpected U-turns are a traffic hazard, to be fair, but in living our lives and dealing with consequences, the record of divine activity in scripture, which Jesus rising from death to life would seem to validate, says God is fine with U-turns, even favors them somewhat. (The streets in the Holy City, we're told, are paved with gold, but the signage must be something…)
Christ is risen! And? This is what the churches of Christian belief and believers of a Christian perspective can and should be wrestling with between now and Pentecost. It had to be what Phillip and Andrew and Stephen, Martha and Mary and Lazarus, and all those disciples and apostles had to be dealing with in the days after the resurrection, before the ascension. Jesus is alive and now: we have to think through what he said to us, realize that some of the implausibilities he casually spoke have more import than even the practical advice he gave us. Christ is risen and now: we have to reflect on what this event tells us about the words of the prophets and the priests and the lamentations we have from those waiting generations before us. He lives, and I need to live as if that means something to me. Not that I'm marking time until my own death, but I have a place in a plan, a story, a heavenly banquet being prepared.
You know, the one Jesus kept talking about. Turns out he really meant it.
Do we?
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's glad to know he has a seat at the table. Tell him about your Easter blessings at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Friday, April 08, 2022
Faith Works 4-15-22
Faith Works 4-15-22
Jeff Gill
Telling the story, again and again
___
Even in Easter week, people are talking about Intel. And most of us don't know the half of it.
Their arrival will forever transform the look and feel and population of Licking County, or at least for as much forever as any of us will have on this side of the soil. Farmland will be converted to factories, open land will become subdivisions, and new people will arrive.
The jobs we hear about won't all go to Ohioans, let alone Licking Countians: Intel is going to send many of their own employees here at least to start, those who already know how to build a chip factory, a "fab" as those in the know like to say. But that doesn't mean the talk of employment for ourselves, our friends, our children and grandchildren, is untrue. Some work to build means many more reliable jobs in construction, and the facilities and amenities and infrastructure will all pull in our local workforce.
And however many people end up working inside the fabs, the tens of billions of dollars just to open them up, all of this will draw in ancillary businesses. Anything from suppliers who want to locate nearby to needing more gas stations and schools where the houses will be sprouting like squarish mushrooms in the springtime.
Hey, preacher, it's Easter week — enough with the economic development talk, okay? Right, I know, but hold on. Because this is a macro version of the micro challenge for every Christian preacher of the gospel this time of year. We see on Easter morning full pews, added seating, and many unfamiliar faces. They may in large part be family coming to make grandma happy, or those who traveled who once lived in your parish and used to attend, but are now many states away. Are lots of the visitors on Easter complete strangers to your church? Probably not.
But we all know that there are large numbers of people who come for Resurrection Sunday as a way station on the way to ham and Easter candy, who are in worship rarely if at all the rest of the year. Maybe not even for Christmas Eve. Yet here they are.
Unchurched? Let's say lots of de-churched, functional agnostics, uncertain fallen away gone-fishing people who'd say "Christian" on a survey but are unclear in their own minds what it means to claim that name.
Your task, as an Easter preacher, is to tell the story. The Story, that is, for Christians. Liturgically, we take at least a week to do it right, from Palm Sunday to Easter morning, but for plenty of your guests, you have this one chance to plant seed and nurture some growth and pray for the Holy Spirit to blow even before Pentecost. The every week attenders are there, too, looking forward to singing "He Lives" and all that, but they might just need to be reminded of The Story.
And this is what I hope and pray devoted and committed Christian leaders are thinking about this Easter, 2022, before everything changes, and indeed it will. It's going to be Easter writ large, because friends, there are a lot of people coming to Licking County who do not know our story, or The Story. Unchurched? How about a big contingent of Never Churched? Oh, you've never met or talked to someone who has never been to a church service? May I suggest you think about what that might be like, from both perspectives?
Because this is, in at least one important and even eternal dimension, the great opportunity coming to our communities thanks to the Intel announcement. For a completely different set of reasons, maybe, than Easter Sunday morning in a crowded church, we will have a large number of guests coming our way. Some are interested in what we have to say about ourselves and how we give an account of the faith that is in us, some are quite cheerfully disinterested, and I don't doubt there are a few who will arrive hostile. That's fine: Saul was pretty hostile, too, but on the way to Damascus he encountered The Story in a new way, and his story changed.
How will we tell our story, The Great Story, the old, old story, of Jesus and his love? Guests, visitors, seekers, inquirers are coming. Are we ready to greet and welcome them?
Haste, for dawn is coming.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he has mixed feelings about change, too. Tell him how you plan to welcome strangers and angels unawares at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
Telling the story, again and again
___
Even in Easter week, people are talking about Intel. And most of us don't know the half of it.
Their arrival will forever transform the look and feel and population of Licking County, or at least for as much forever as any of us will have on this side of the soil. Farmland will be converted to factories, open land will become subdivisions, and new people will arrive.
The jobs we hear about won't all go to Ohioans, let alone Licking Countians: Intel is going to send many of their own employees here at least to start, those who already know how to build a chip factory, a "fab" as those in the know like to say. But that doesn't mean the talk of employment for ourselves, our friends, our children and grandchildren, is untrue. Some work to build means many more reliable jobs in construction, and the facilities and amenities and infrastructure will all pull in our local workforce.
And however many people end up working inside the fabs, the tens of billions of dollars just to open them up, all of this will draw in ancillary businesses. Anything from suppliers who want to locate nearby to needing more gas stations and schools where the houses will be sprouting like squarish mushrooms in the springtime.
Hey, preacher, it's Easter week — enough with the economic development talk, okay? Right, I know, but hold on. Because this is a macro version of the micro challenge for every Christian preacher of the gospel this time of year. We see on Easter morning full pews, added seating, and many unfamiliar faces. They may in large part be family coming to make grandma happy, or those who traveled who once lived in your parish and used to attend, but are now many states away. Are lots of the visitors on Easter complete strangers to your church? Probably not.
But we all know that there are large numbers of people who come for Resurrection Sunday as a way station on the way to ham and Easter candy, who are in worship rarely if at all the rest of the year. Maybe not even for Christmas Eve. Yet here they are.
Unchurched? Let's say lots of de-churched, functional agnostics, uncertain fallen away gone-fishing people who'd say "Christian" on a survey but are unclear in their own minds what it means to claim that name.
Your task, as an Easter preacher, is to tell the story. The Story, that is, for Christians. Liturgically, we take at least a week to do it right, from Palm Sunday to Easter morning, but for plenty of your guests, you have this one chance to plant seed and nurture some growth and pray for the Holy Spirit to blow even before Pentecost. The every week attenders are there, too, looking forward to singing "He Lives" and all that, but they might just need to be reminded of The Story.
And this is what I hope and pray devoted and committed Christian leaders are thinking about this Easter, 2022, before everything changes, and indeed it will. It's going to be Easter writ large, because friends, there are a lot of people coming to Licking County who do not know our story, or The Story. Unchurched? How about a big contingent of Never Churched? Oh, you've never met or talked to someone who has never been to a church service? May I suggest you think about what that might be like, from both perspectives?
Because this is, in at least one important and even eternal dimension, the great opportunity coming to our communities thanks to the Intel announcement. For a completely different set of reasons, maybe, than Easter Sunday morning in a crowded church, we will have a large number of guests coming our way. Some are interested in what we have to say about ourselves and how we give an account of the faith that is in us, some are quite cheerfully disinterested, and I don't doubt there are a few who will arrive hostile. That's fine: Saul was pretty hostile, too, but on the way to Damascus he encountered The Story in a new way, and his story changed.
How will we tell our story, The Great Story, the old, old story, of Jesus and his love? Guests, visitors, seekers, inquirers are coming. Are we ready to greet and welcome them?
Haste, for dawn is coming.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he has mixed feelings about change, too. Tell him how you plan to welcome strangers and angels unawares at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Wednesday, April 06, 2022
Notes from my Knapsack 4-14-22
Notes from my Knapsack 4-14-22
Jeff Gill
The epistemology of Easter
___
Epistemology is just a fancy word for asking the question "how do we know what we know?"
I was at a program at Denison University with a panel of Pulitzer Prize winning journalists talking about how their discipline has changed, and how the means of delivering news has meant many changes in methods. But their emphasis was on the reality that we now can get information, news, data, from a wide variety of sources.
Online, many of those sources are questionable at best. So the panelists talked about how each of us, journalist or not, has to make decisions about what kinds of knowing count for us as knowledge. They discussed, in my words, not theirs, how we each have our own "mattering map" for sorting out the influx of ideas and information.
Most of us are perfectly aware in general that a fact or a story or a message can be shared into our social media feed by thousands of people, and still be wrong, incorrect, false. Mistakes get made, and especially in a highly stressful context, an error of fact can take on a life of its own: a misplaced identification, an assumption based on a particular video angle, a confusion of cause and effect.
One well-studied example is that in plane crashes, it is very common for eyewitnesses to report the aircraft was in flames before the fiery impact with the ground . . . even when videotape evidence can show clearly there were no flames until the moment of the crash itself. It's so common as to likely tell us something about how the brain processes and stores memories. And investigators know that eyewitness accounts of a plane in flames have to be taken into account very carefully.
The media angle here is that for many of us, there's the social media (Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc.) story, but until we see it in a mainstream or legacy media platform, like the Washington Post or CNN, we're not sure. Has Russia invaded Ukraine? Social media was flooding our feeds with information, but there's a point at which we can start saying "yeah, that really must have happened" when we see the same or parallel info in more traditional outlets.
Some spin or interpretation comes out about cultural events that we may, in Ohio, know little about if it begins in LA or Orlando or Europe. Did it "happen"? We check our sources, some of us have a preferred set of sources. I like to triangulate and check "National Review Online" and "Mother Jones," rather than believe one or the other. There's an epistemological triangulation we can do to pin down the intersection of fact and truth.
History can be as slippery as current events. Nations and cultures have agendas and shape how we look at slavery, western expansion, economic growth; how do we know what we know about what was right, who was correct, which group is honored?
Then there's 2000 years ago. Unlikely events catch our attention, inflame our imaginations: could someone have risen from the dead after a cruel execution? Whose account do we trust? On what basis do we decide which story we believe?
Easter is a story we have to make a decision about, an epistemological choice between alternative accounts. Either someone went from death to life, or it's always a one way journey the other way. How do we decide?
May light shine for you as we all ask ourselves these questions, every day.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's made his choices, and is simply inviting you to make yours. Tell him how you know what you know at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
The epistemology of Easter
___
Epistemology is just a fancy word for asking the question "how do we know what we know?"
I was at a program at Denison University with a panel of Pulitzer Prize winning journalists talking about how their discipline has changed, and how the means of delivering news has meant many changes in methods. But their emphasis was on the reality that we now can get information, news, data, from a wide variety of sources.
Online, many of those sources are questionable at best. So the panelists talked about how each of us, journalist or not, has to make decisions about what kinds of knowing count for us as knowledge. They discussed, in my words, not theirs, how we each have our own "mattering map" for sorting out the influx of ideas and information.
Most of us are perfectly aware in general that a fact or a story or a message can be shared into our social media feed by thousands of people, and still be wrong, incorrect, false. Mistakes get made, and especially in a highly stressful context, an error of fact can take on a life of its own: a misplaced identification, an assumption based on a particular video angle, a confusion of cause and effect.
One well-studied example is that in plane crashes, it is very common for eyewitnesses to report the aircraft was in flames before the fiery impact with the ground . . . even when videotape evidence can show clearly there were no flames until the moment of the crash itself. It's so common as to likely tell us something about how the brain processes and stores memories. And investigators know that eyewitness accounts of a plane in flames have to be taken into account very carefully.
The media angle here is that for many of us, there's the social media (Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, etc.) story, but until we see it in a mainstream or legacy media platform, like the Washington Post or CNN, we're not sure. Has Russia invaded Ukraine? Social media was flooding our feeds with information, but there's a point at which we can start saying "yeah, that really must have happened" when we see the same or parallel info in more traditional outlets.
Some spin or interpretation comes out about cultural events that we may, in Ohio, know little about if it begins in LA or Orlando or Europe. Did it "happen"? We check our sources, some of us have a preferred set of sources. I like to triangulate and check "National Review Online" and "Mother Jones," rather than believe one or the other. There's an epistemological triangulation we can do to pin down the intersection of fact and truth.
History can be as slippery as current events. Nations and cultures have agendas and shape how we look at slavery, western expansion, economic growth; how do we know what we know about what was right, who was correct, which group is honored?
Then there's 2000 years ago. Unlikely events catch our attention, inflame our imaginations: could someone have risen from the dead after a cruel execution? Whose account do we trust? On what basis do we decide which story we believe?
Easter is a story we have to make a decision about, an epistemological choice between alternative accounts. Either someone went from death to life, or it's always a one way journey the other way. How do we decide?
May light shine for you as we all ask ourselves these questions, every day.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's made his choices, and is simply inviting you to make yours. Tell him how you know what you know at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Monday, March 28, 2022
Faith Works 4-2-22
Faith Works 4-2-22
Jeff Gill
Answered prayers are two edged tools
___
"More tears have been shed over answered prayers than unanswered ones."
This saying has been attributed to St. Teresa of Avilá, and it certainly sounds like her, but it's not found in her writings, at least not that pithily.
Truman Capote used the line for his last novel, but his relationship with facts was always a creative one. Let's just call it folk wisdom of a sort.
We think we know what we want, and when we get it, things don't always work out as we might have hoped. Our unanswered prayers, the times we knew what we wanted and didn't get it, can end up opening doors we never knew we could go through. Sometimes it takes a closing down of options before we can narrow things down to the one thing we really ought to choose.
But answered prayers? Those really can be tricky. Especially if it's the culmination of a long held hope, a plan much anticipated. Our fondest wish is granted, and then . . . as certain fairy tales point out, both ancient or modern, there's what happens after happily ever after.
At the risk of sounding cavalier about some sincerely voiced concerns, I think much of the reaction to the Intel announcement for Jersey Township (or New Albany) in Licking County fits into the category of answered prayers evoking some weeping and wailing.
We've all said that it's too bad so much industry and manufacturing has closed, and how good it would be to see new production facilities open up in our area. It's a commonplace in political campaigns not just to say they're going to create jobs but to make opportunities for our young people to stay nearby. Economic development has been the core of most of the community planning and visioning I've been privy to since I first moved here in 1989.
Twenty billion dollars is quite a lot of economic development. I had to look that up just to make sure I was remembering it correctly, and saw Kent Mallett's reminder that Intel has suggested it could be $100 billion by the time they're done. And that's not counting the affiliated businesses that undoubtedly will move in next door. Economic development? The question isn't about calling in the wave now, it's learning how to surf it as the wave washes over us.
This is a dramatic and region-wide version of what happens in a faith community, to a congregation that wishes and plans and prays for growth, and then reacts awkwardly to new people and different practices and the dynamics of larger numbers, let alone a significant percentage of strangers. Thom Rainer talks about "the berry bucket" and what happens at a certain moment for clergy when the number of people in a church shifts from everyone having been there before you came, which is always the case at the start, to the tipping point that comes when after enough losses and departures and funerals versus new members who came since the preacher arrived, you have a new equilibrium.
Rainer actually notes that it's often not an equilibrium that comes when the older berries are equalled by the new pickings (and I don't love the metaphor, but it's a well known one). Sometimes the previous critical mass reacts against the new cohort, both consciously and unconsciously, to reassert how things "used to be" or even "should be."
The problem for a church in a time of change is that the existing congregation can, at least for a while, stop it. Now, the outcome is usually not for a different sort of growth, but to freeze it in place, if not roll things backwards. Leaving the question of God's vision for growth to one side for the moment, we'll just stipulate that congregations can halt growth when it gets uncomfortable.
Our region can't do that. The floodgate is already open, and the changes are already happening. No amount of angst will alter the short-term reality, which is growth. New people, new jobs, new buildings, new traffic, new money.
It's what we wanted, right? Yeah, we can say now "but not quite like this" or even "not this much!" for all the good it will do. Growth, and fairly dramatic growth, is coming. How will we be good stewards of this opportunity?
I believe this is an opportunity for faith communities, and hope to share more about how our impending future can bless both our existing religious landscape, and the one that is coming into being.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's never seen anything like this, either. Let's share our ignorance and scraps of knowledge through knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
