Knapsack 12-30

Notes From My Knapsack 12-30-10

Jeff Gill

Putting the Genie Back In the Bottle

___

Where should I begin?

The usual place is at the beginning, I know, but even that starting
point has a number of candidates.

Symbolically, they all loop through a little Christmas tree ornament
that for twenty years has been the one ornament that never gets put
away, and is sitting right now in our kitchen window.

It's from a series of "matchbox" ornaments that reveal a miniature
scene when you slide them open. The scene is of a couple sitting in a
booth at a diner, holding hands.

My wife and I had driven through Granville a time or two before the
Christmas walking tour in 1989, but that was about it. We came over
from where we'd just moved into apartments on the west end of Newark
a couple months before, walked around the four corners' churches,
watched the snow fall on the luminaries, and ended the evening with
yum yums at Aladdin's Diner, holding hands about like that little
ornament I saw the following week.

By a long and winding road, as Mr. Lennon & Mr. McCartney would say,
we live here now. I walked along these last two years with our son,
setting out and lighting and then taking in the luminaries that give
the candlelight walking tour its name, in between eating home cut
fries with grilled cheese at Aladdin's, pickles on the side.

When we sat there first, we hoped, we dreamed, we prayed that we
might yet have a child; we spoke of many things. Some of them have
come about, a few have had to be set aside, and others turned out
differently but in the very best possible way.

Dreams, hopes, prayers, wishes – in today's world, a genie,
especially a genie cutout in plywood with peeling paint, has little
enough to do with such plans and intentions. Health inspections and
nutritional recommendations and food pyramids (or dodecahedrons or
whatever they are now) have not been kind to diners in general.

I know that there are those who have had their magical family moments
at inns and pubs and other hostelries in the area – and we have our
list for those spots, as well – but for this family, at least,
there's a special alchemy, a particular vibe that only goes with a
diner. And that we got from Don and the crew in this particular
diner, the one we're about to lose tomorrow, with the end of 2010.

Perhaps the genie will do a phoenix, and rise from the ashes, or the
grease trap. There's more than just this couple, now with a charming
child, who want the kind of atmosphere that only a diner can provide,
and I hope we number enough to make up a market niche.

However the last few years have wearily worn down on the old
Aladdin's, there's a brightness to the memories my wife and I have
focused there. We may have to abstractly polish them just as
memories, and store them in a matchbox on the kitchen windowsill, and
wait for the Fourth of July to get our fresh cut French fries. I know
that I could do with a break from country omelets, at least for a
little while.

Whatever establishment takes up the spot on the north side of
Broadway where, for a little while longer, the genie still hovers
benignly, I just want to say thank you for every server and cook, for
Don and his mom, for the days and nights and in-between seasonal
moments when Aladdin's was the only place to go.

Last winter my son and a couple friends spent a frigid afternoon
sledding off the front of Bryn Du. When it was time to thaw them out
and take them home, the road there had to go the long way, through
Aladdin's for hot chocolate and grilled cheese and fries.

I will never forget those fries, and those booths, and the
conversations that ranged from the ridiculous to the sublime within
them, and had an import far beyond ringing up the tab and leaving our
tip.

We probably never quite left enough of a tip, but I hope this helps.
Good night, Aladdin's.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around
central Ohio; he ate far too often and not often enough at Aladdin's
Diner. Send him restaurant recommendations at knapsack77@gmail.com.

Faith Works 1-01

Faith Works 1-01-11

Jeff Gill

 

Out of Egypt, Up From the Depths

___

 

 

One of the quirks of the Christmas story that's often overlooked is the immediate aftermath.

 

There's the well known if rarely retold "massacre of the innocents," instigated by the great villain Herod, quisling Jewish leader on behalf of the Roman Empire. He fears the loss of his position, and craftily getting a sense of the story from the "wise men from the East" as told in Matthew 2, he quickly moves to forestall any member of the legitimate royal house of Judah from gathering a following, ordering a general slaughter of all the boy children under two. That age range hints at the idea these "magi" came along in the wake of the birth in Bethlehem, perhaps months or even years later, not on the heels of the shepherds as our manger scenes tend to show.

 

That part of the story is known, but more intentionally edited out than overlooked; how do you include that in a children's pageant?

 

What is clearly described in the story, but rarely touched on other than as a closing aside, is that to escape the clutches of Herod's minions, Joseph and Mary take their little baby boy child and flee into Egypt.

 

Some argue that this is a fabrication of Matthew's own agenda, with an interest in cobbling together proofs of Jesus' messiahship by creating from whole cloth neatly fulfilled Old Testament prophecy, such as where Hosea says in chapter 11 "Out of Egypt have I called my son."

 

You could convene a series of academic conferences just on Hosea 11 and whether or not we're talking about a reference to the people Israel coming out of Egypt (see the Book of DeMille, chapter "Ten"), or if this is meant as a foretelling prophecy about the messiah to come.

 

What is really not much of a stretch, though, is that in the era when Jesus and Mary and Joseph lived, there was a great deal of traffic between Egypt and Israel. The Elephantine papyri, the Gospel of Mark itself, and many other specific textual and archaeological proofs show that Jewish people were a large and vital community in Egypt in general and Alexandria in particular.

 

People went back and forth across a challenging, but not impossible caravan route, especially those in skilled trades, and that would surely describe Joseph, a "tekton" or highly skilled worker in wood – carpenter doesn't quite translate the word in Greek, which tells us Joseph was no casual chopper of cedar.

 

But what's the point? Why do we even care? Well, there's that prophecy in Hosea that a trip to Egypt will check the box for, but more to the point, it tells us something about Jesus' background and experience of the world.

 

Jesus spends an important part of his childhood across the Nile, and later in his adult ministry he is at ease going north of the border into Syro-Phonecia, modern day Lebanon. For an average Galilean, it's like saying about an otherwise everyday Ohioan "she's been to Mexico and Canada!" A Frenchman might sniff at said Buckeye's knowledge of the world, but for any of us hereabouts, we'd know that this is a person who's at least left Licking County and seen a little more than just German Village or Napoleon, Ohio.

 

"Out of Egypt have I called my son," says the prophecy, reminding Israel that the one who is the sign of God-for-us, Emmanuel, may come from a place where we're used to assuming otherness, even enmity. It's like Woody Hayes leaving behind a letter telling us "My future chosen QB will come from the State-Up-North."

 

From the heights of Mount Zion, the metaphoric peak of Jerusalem itself, you go down, down to the Dead Sea, down to the Jordan, but also down to the Negev desert, down into the Sinai wilderness, even further down to the depths of the Nile Valley itself. From the banks of the great river through the pagan, polytheistic, perilous provinces of Egypt, there's nowhere to go but up, and to the pinnacle of worship and promise is where God is wanting to lead us.

 

Every step of the way, from the depths of down-ness all the way up to the top of Zion, to Calvary, God sends someone who knows the path, all the way from the bottom to the top. In that sense, it only makes sense for Jesus to get his start in Egypt, and work his way back up. It's a necessary part of his whole life story.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him about your trips up out of the depths at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 12-25

Faith Works 12-25-10

Jeff Gill

 

No One Is Ever Really Ready For a Baby

___

 

 

There are books and videos and websites, all telling expectant parents what to expect, how to prepare, and the stuff you need when a baby is on the way.

 

Plenty of advice and counsel and even some cultural assumptions (color of nursery, having mother come stay with her daughter and new grandchild, rituals at the door), but in the end, it comes down to this: they send you home with the kid, and you think to yourself "I have no idea what I'm doing."

 

This may be a guy thing, but I've talked to enough women about their first day home experiences to know it's pretty common for mothers themselves – although men may find it easier to forget about what's about to happen than does the expectant mother.

 

For me and my wife, we were both a little later-in-life parents, and with a fair amount of experience with other people's kids, plus I'm an oldest of four, so we felt pretty prepared. Even prepared for the feeling "Whoa, this is happening now" before it happened, thinking of it akin to the first day on a new job or sliding down your first solo rappel rope.

 

What we hadn't considered was, of course, what happened. There were a few complications, and my wife had to go back into the hospital . . . and I had to go home with the baby. Alone. Well, he was there, but you know.

 

It wasn't the stuff you had to do that was daunting: strapping into the car seat, feeding the bottle of breast milk to him, bathing, diapering, diapering, putting him down to sleep, diapering, and so on. That was familiar from my own siblings and other experience, and it wasn't the very first day, anyhow. (Did I mention diapering?)

 

The frightening part was when there was nothing that needed to be done. Thought one: I'm forgetting something that should happen next. Check, check, diaper check, no. Thought two: is the baby still breathing? If you've never had children, you have no idea how much time a parent spends at first checking that simple fact. The absolute unreality of a new life, where there were just kicks and ultrasound pictures before, and then the amazing rugged fragility of a baby – you just can't quite comprehend it all, and you respond by checking to see if it's still breathing. Often. (And the diaper.)

 

I got through those days just fine, but never without a vague sense of unease when the tasks were done, and the child was sleeping. Because the next thought, after breathing and diapering, was "What next?"

 

My vision of the next few decades ahead, and even beyond my own appointed span on the earth, had a different focus. A little bit longer view to the horizon, a tiny bit sharper in some places, and surely a wider field of vision. It takes some getting used to, and I'm not entirely there yet. It only took me four months to get used to bifocals, but having a baby is an orientation changer that keeps you squinting.

 

Christmas is a celebration about a baby being born; born then, and born now, "in your heart" as the pious phrase has it. If that doesn't work for you, think of it this way: for Christians, the birth of that Bethlehem baby changes our view of everything as far as the eye can see. We can't look at anything in our world the same way after that baby came into it.

 

In a sense, that's true, or should be, about any baby, though we tend to only really feel it when the baby is "our own." The infant Jesus is a baby for all of us, and he's offered into our arms, our care, our lives . . . our hearts, if you will.

 

Take him to yourself, and then look up, and look out. What do you see?

 

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

Faith Works 12-18

Faith Works 12-18-10

Jeff Gill

 

Scrooge Was Right

___

 

Scrooge was right, you know.

 

When he said "Bah, humbug," he had a point.

 

Humbug was a stock phrase of the day, 1843 that is, one that got attached in this country to P.T. Barnum.

 

A humbug was a hoax, a fraud, a scam perpetrated on a gullible public to get their money and leave them only semi-satisfied, whether in having seen a freak show or simply following the sign "This Way to the Egress."

 

Humbug was a commercial scam pulled off with the almost willing cooperation of the sucker, tugging at their heartstrings and gnawing at a vague sense of nostalgia for something they'd never actually known.

 

When Scrooge said "Humbug," he meant that the Christmas season, as far as it impinged on the storefront offices of "Scrooge and Marley" was just another ripoff. Sure, the churches may have their well intended aims to celebrate the birth of their leading figure, but if you weren't interested in those liturgical ends, the means of Christmas were just another mean and low plot to pick the pocket of those who had a few coins to spare.

 

Scrooge even hated to see his overworked and underpaid clerk, that Cratchit fellow, get pulled into the cultural demands to spend money. It was wrong, and Scrooge felt the need to call "Humbug" on it.

 

Oh, there were some charitable initiatives tied up with it all, but they could be done more effectively and efficiently in a more consistent, and ordered sort of way.

 

And Scrooge was right when he had a chance, in his mind's eye if not through some late night drowsy indigestion – "an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of underdone potato" – to reflect on his childhood.

 

The past was over and done, and those who have passed on into that "undiscovered country" are to be cherished, but not dwelt upon. What good does it do to wallow in the memories of bygone days, those mostly sad and painful?

 

To imagine the lot of those who walk this unquiet earth alongside of us: now there's an unproductive mental activity. Even if you could fly through the air, or peep unseen through windows, even stand invisibly inside someone else's family room, can any of us know what the actual inner life of another is, as it is felt?

 

Then there's those darkest hours just before the dawn, when even your own death is a well-lit possibility in your imagination. What will people think of you when you're gone . . . what will you think, at all? Exactly.

 

Scrooge was right. He was right in his sense of "humbug" about so much of the Christmas seasonal celebration, and in his resistance to letting the sentiment of the season slosh around and easily move him to current conformity.

 

Scrooge was also right in the end, to repent. Not so much to turn away from the stern stuff that was at the heart of his make-up, his hard-earned stoicism in the face of disappointment and tragedy. No, not that sort of repentance, the turning away *from* something.

 

Scrooge was right to turn towards something; he turned (the core meaning of "repent") towards hope and happiness and joy and a restored sense of self by finding your purpose in serving others. That warm and steady source of light is what Scrooge turned towards, and he was absolutely right to do so.

 

We all have some Scrooge in us, and we are mostly right to feel that way during this mixed and muddled time of year. We are also well advised to repent right along with old Ebenezer, for "it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge. . . he became as good a friend, as good a master, and as good a man, as the good old city knew, or any other good old city, town, or borough, in the good old world.  Some people laughed to see the alteration in him, but he let them laugh, and little heeded them; for he was wise enough to know that nothing ever happened on this globe, for good, at which some people did not have their fill of laughter in the outset; and knowing that such as these would be blind anyway, he thought it quite as well that they should wrinkle up their eyes in grins, as have the malady in less attractive forms.  His own heart laughed: and that was quite enough for him."

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he's had his Scrooge moments often enough. Tell him your stories of Christmas past, present, and future at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 12-11

Faith Works 12-11-10

Jeff Gill

 

A View From the Steeple

___

 

 

Teetering out along the gable end, he took each shuffling step a little bit more carefully. Each movement was half as far and twice as hesistant as the last.

 

This can't continue indefinitely, he thought with a touch of amusement.

 

Finally both feet were perched in the spot where he had ended up every year for more decades than he cared to recall, lifting the string of lights over the nail he had pounded in place as a much younger man.

 

They had been those big bulbs. with the paint making the different colors slowly flaking off, then smaller ones, just as bright, with colored plastic shells, then narrow tiny bulbs, and now these LED lights. Saved energy, or so they said.

 

Didn't look quite right, he felt, but he also remembered that his grandmother hadn't liked electric bulbs at all.  "We had candles on our tree, lit 'em just for Christmas Eve, looked like God's own tree that way in the glow of the flames, just like the burning bush," she said.

 

There had been some discussion when the church first started putting lights up on the steeple. A few old-timers felt it was too worldy, just a little tacky to have colored lights on the house of the Lord. Now he was an old-timer, but he was still crawling out the hatch, behind the tower, through the attic roof, to get to the steeple.

 

A couple of pastors back, one had told him that one of the symbolisms of a steeple was that "parallel lines intersect in eternity, so a pointed steeple hints to us of the ultimate destiny of us all.' That had stuck with him. In many ways, a church steeple gets you closer to God.

 

Right now, the goal was to not suddenly find yourself going in the opposite direction. He reached, and at the very furthest extension of his arm, the line of Christmas lights hooked over the last nail along the gable.

 

The hardest task done, he looked up and down the street below. Each streetlight had an ornament affixed just below the lamp itself, a star or lantern or holly leaf in outline. In between the posts, houses stood both decorated and unornamented.

 

After this many years, he knew which house was whose, and he had some idea about why certain homes had no lights or decoration, and why others were almost excessively so. Marriages in trouble, happy homes, widows who turned aside all assistance, mothers whose sons and daughters were happy to help and then some. There was one house where he knew it was time to go by and knock, and offer again. There'd be a "no, I'm fine" at first, but if he sat down in the front room, and drank some tepid coffee, ate some cookies, he'd probably be able to get her to let him put out her lighted deer and a few strands of multicolored lights over the bushes.

 

Or get permission to send his grandson over to do it, he smiled to himself.

 

Up here, all looked tidy and squared away. Down at street level, along the sidewalks, the house numbers and backyards told a different story, but there weren't any tales that couldn't find their way to a happy ending with a little help. That's what a church was for, you know.

 

It was nice to look around the area from up here, but cold aside, it was time to come down, to go along door to door and talk face to face. As the snow started to fall, the view was lovely, but you couldn't stay.

 

Slowly, but steadily, he inched back along the peak to the hatch, and the warm glow of the single bulb in the attic below. Time to work back down the ladders, into the sanctuary, and lock up behind him, going out into the streets to talk to his neighbors.

 

That was the real view of Christmastime, he thought. At the door, in the house, under the tree. But it sure looks nice from up here.

 

Sooner or later, though, you have to come down.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio. Tell him about your unique viewpoint on Christmastime at knapsack77@gmail.com, or Knapsack @Twitter.com.

Knapsack 12-16 (or 12-9)

Notes From My Knapsack 12-16-10

Jeff Gill

Twelve Years Old in Granville  --  1850

[This is fourth in a series of stories called "Twelve Years Old in Granville," each set in a particular year from the perspective of a twelve year old, based on our local history with a bit of literary license to help the narrative along.]

 

The fortress was impregnable, of that they were all certain.

 

Perched on a spur of Prospect Hill, glowering over towards Mount Parnassus, the walls had steadily risen, lunch hour by lunch hour, during this last week of nightly snows and bright sunny (if frigid) days.

 

The boys of the upper form in the village school house said to each other that they were no colder out on the hillside, looking over Granville, than they were inside the gloomy brick chambers of the aged structure that peered south down the Lancaster Road.

 

Even the face of the sun, they said, the one carved into the keystone over the central arch of the lower market level, looked pinched with cold. They were happy to hoot past his stony, warmthless gaze, running outside after flying down the stairs from the third floor (the youngest scholars being on the second), and clambering along the hillside, working up behind the row of homes they now looked down the chimneys of.

 

Their mothers had called out "Dinner is ready!" over and over, echoing across the snowdrifts and backyards, finally giving up and eating their own luncheons in peace and quiet. Their boys would rather play than eat, and it wasn't as if they had anywhere else to get a bite before supper and bed.

 

Today, though, would be different. The week was ending, and while all the town could see their commanding location, that included the sworn foes of the public school lads: their counterparts enrolled at the Academy. Each considered the other faction beneath their notice, and either could not stop noticing the others' antics.

 

All week, the young men of the Academy on Elm Street looked up at Prospect Hill during their all too short (as they saw it) dinner break, and they had been planning.

 

No sooner had the dinner hour been declared than the Academy boys trotted quietly, but in a body, along Elm over to Pearl, then up the road until they were even with the heights the public school lads had fortified.

 

They worked their way along the slope on the east, just as the builders had side-stepped from the west to begin their redoubt. A fusillade of snowballs announced the public opening of hostilities, with the winner being the final resident of the fortress.

 

Flocks of flying snowballs all at once pelted the interior of the icy enclosure, and sharpshooters kept up a more targeted spatter of individual shots.

 

A rush of bodies from below, and the Academy crew suddenly filled the embrasures and openings, vaulting into the sacred precincts themselves. Those who built this stronghold were soon cruelly forced to retreat, under fire, uphill.

 

This state of affairs did not last long. The public boys plotted behind a handy hickory close to the brow of Prospect Hill, and shortly they charged down in two files, attacking with pockets filled by pre-made snow (or ice) balls.

 

Their pincer assault was not only successful, but continued on down the hill. Volley by volley the public school lads pressed their social so-called betters back, step by step, until they made their final stand on the public square itself.

 

One o'clock, then two o'clock passed, with even the teachers as well as parents watching with smiles that almost seemed to indicate approval.

 

By three o'clock, the lack of lunch, the presence of ice fragments within the snowy spheres, and general weariness began to slow down everyone. Suddenly, as if by a prearranged plan, a number of parents and pastors emerged from behind the broader tree trunks nearby, and declared "a truce." The occasional bloody cheek or brow bore witness to the prudence of this enforced diplomacy.

 

Four hours of snowball warfare may have seemed too short to some, but it was as long as such an epic could unfurl, for a crowd of twelve year olds who really needed to get home and help get ready for supper.

 

 

[This tale of the greatest snowball fight the village may have ever seen is from Dr. Horace Bushnell's "History of Granville, Ohio," while the keystone from the school can be seen in the Granville Historical Society museum.]

Faith Works 12-4

Faith Works 12-4-10

Jeff Gill

When Someone Says "I'll Pray For You"

___

There's an interesting aside in a number of congregational histories
along the Ohio River Valley in the late 1840's, which is picked up
here in Licking County with the following note in the First
Presbyterian Church of Granville records:

"In 1851, the innovation of sitting in time of prayer began to show
itself."

That's right. Before this period, the standard Protestant practice
during the pastoral or congregational prayers was for everyone to
stand. In some settings, people might turn, kneel, and pray with
their elbows on the pew benches, or kneel on cushions in churches
with box pews.

But that was it, standing or kneeling. To sit with bowed heads was
an . . . innovation.

It caught on. File that with the long list of things we think have
always been that way, but haven't.

Prayer, though, is a common thread in worship, and certainly
Christian worship. In the core verse on community gatherings at Acts
2:42 (ESV), "And they devoted themselves to the apostles' teaching
and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers."

Today we continue to have readings from the Bible and interpretation
(sermons), plenty of fellowship, communion where the bread is indeed
broken, and we certainly offer up our prayers.

There are set prayers, such as the "Lord's Prayer" outlined from
Matthew 6 & Luke 11; prayer books in some traditions with prepared
prayers such as the Episcopal "Book of Common Prayer,"; and many
traditions value spontaneous, or impromptu prayers, whether spoken as
an invocation, a dedication over the offering, or in benediction.
Many "pastoral prayers" are a mix of planned phrases and words, from
the heart, in the moment.

Even those of you who don't regularly attend services are familiar
with these prayer forms. But for many unchurched people, there's a
little puzzlement over the statement "I'll pray for you!"

What does that mean?

For various traditions, they might undergird such a statement in
different ways. In Catholic practice, a prayer intention can be the
"holding" of a person's name in one's mind while praying the prayers
of a rosary (which includes the Lord's Prayer and other repeated
short standard prayers). In many Protestant churches, you may be
prayed for by having your name included in the pastoral prayer, or
simply by having your name "lifted up" before the prayer itself is
said, again as a sort of prayer focus for all those gathered. In both
traditions, there may be a "prayer chain" where names are shared,
usually just with first names or even just with a description of the
situation in question, allowing people to offer up their own private
prayers for your health or well-being.

Some believers set aside a set period of time for what's called
"intercession," an intense focus on praying for the needs and
concerns of others, which they may do on their own, or also in prayer
groups that meet regularly. Most churches have at least one prayer
group that meets each week (or should, he editorialized!), and
there's always someone who's known to all as a real "prayer warrior,"
a label given to someone uniquely committed to praying for others.

If someone says "I'll pray for you," they may mean an extended
conversation with God where they ask for something on your behalf;
they could be planning to focus their intentions for blessing and
guidance towards you, through God; they might plan to include you in
their own private devotions where they seek the growth of goodness
and beauty and hope in the world in general through prayer, and for
your needs as a particular.

When I do my own private, personal prayer time in the morning, I
regularly include those who read this column as a group, as a set of
individuals which I ask God to bless, and to help me serve them
(you!) well in showing faith at work in the world around us.

So I can say, quite honestly, to you – you! – that I have, and will
pray for you. Among other things, that you have a blessed & joyful
Advent season!

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around
central Ohio; he's praying for you! Pray for him, or send a message
to knapsack77@gmail.com.

Knapsack 12-2

Notes From My Knapsack -- Granville Sentinel 12-2-10

Jeff Gill

___

[This is third in a series of stories called "Twelve Years Old in
Granville," each set in a particular year from the perspective of a
twelve year old, based on our local history with a bit of literary
license to help the narrative along.]

1841

Jane knew that her mother didn't want her near any crowds, not after
the last year.

Even adults here in Granville had been pulling pranks and doing
tricks on each other, since the huge rallies for Tippecanoe and Old
Kinderhook, Harrison and Van Buren, had so riled up all the Whigs and
Democrats.

Horses lost their tails, and well-aged eggs flew when crowds pushed
close, protecting the names of people who would never want to be seen
clearly doing such mischief. It had gotten so bad, when the Whigs
announced their nomination of the Hero of Tippecanoe for the
presidency, that young women had to fear for getting jostled and
bumped on the street, even if only by accident.

But last fall Jane had climbed out onto the roof of the buttery that
extended from the house below her bedroom window, and swung down the
branches of the maple tree out back, so she could walk up Bowery and
down to a vantage point where she could see the Grand Illumination:
all of Broadway and most of the streets adjoining were lit with
candles in every window. Trundling along, pulled by cheering young
men of the Literary and Theological Institution, were carts with
broad sheets of parchment nailed to staves along the outer edges, and
a row of oil lamps inside projecting profiles and puppets in sharp
black outline onto the warm brown panels.

Every window was lit, except in a few houses known to support the
Sage of Kinderhook, president for the last four years. Some of those
houses lost panes to thrown hickory nuts, to the general disapproval
of all but the most political in the village.

Now Mr. Harrison had been elected, had died after a month, and Mr.
Tyler was sworn in, of whom it was now realized: he came from
Virginia. The slavery question flared all the brighter, as both sides
suspected the other of ill-dealing, and no one asked the slaves what
they thought.

The Atwell house had never seen a slave, but people from the South
would occasionally pass through with their African servants, exciting
no little discussion. What had Jane sneaking out the back fence and
down Pearl to Fair Street, lined with elms, and over another two
blocks, was a loud discussion in the Academy building, one you could
hear many blocks away.

Crossing the Lancaster Road, she saw the crowd of men in profile,
like the illumination, inside against the windows, and a larger crowd
outside, the boys clambering up on the sides of a sea of wagons
nearby, trying to see in.

Then suddenly, there was a stir throughout the crowd, a silence
within that spread without, and then dimly, from inside, a loud voice
calling "There'll be no shackles here! Make way for Liberty."

In silhouette she saw a man being lifted up and passed over the heads
of the crowd inside, a few hands grasping for him and being beaten
back by others. Then the actual person, a black man, came feet first
out the top of the door, and was gently set on the ground.

Mr. Hillyer she knew, and he pushed through the crowd at the door
leading two horses; he leapt on one after helping the African fellow
onto the other, and together they galloped up to the Broadway
crossing, disappearing to the west beyond Sugar Loaf.

She was glad she had snuck out again, but marveled at what she had
seen; heading home, it occurred to her that she couldn't, this time,
ask her mother to explain it all.

[The slave known only as John escaped, with much local assistance,
after a habeas corpus hearing presided over by Judge Samuel Bancroft
in the Old Academy Building in 1841.]

Faith Works 11-27

Faith Works 11-27-10

Jeff Gill

 

Meditation By Any Another Name

___

 

 

An overheard comment led to this column, when someone said that they couldn't understand hunting, because it was just a walk through the woods punctuated by gunfire.

 

Well, starting Monday at dawn the gunfire part would be correct. Over the next week, and for one more weekend in December a bit further along (18^th & 19^th) Ohio is in deer gun season.

 

Approaching a half million folk will tromp the woods of the Buckeye State, looking for bucks and taking not a few does. Those 420,000 hunters will harvest around 125,000 deer, and the youth deer gun season brought in another 10,000 last week.

 

The point I wanted to make in a "Faith Works" perspective was the gibe about "a nice walk in the woods," and the implication that hunters stroll along, idly taking potshots hither and yon at rustling bushes.

 

Full disclosure: I've never hunted, myself. I've been along on some hunts, and count many hunters my friends, which is the basis for what I want to share. But I'm not defending an activity of my own.

 

What is not well understood by the other 11 million or so of the rest of us Ohioans who don't hunt is that there is an element of hunting that is very still, quite reflective and thoughtful, that is often recounted as downright meditative, even prayerful.

 

Like most spiritual disciplines, when around 3.5% of the state has tried it directly, the other 96.5% of the population may have more misconception than information in mind, but let me try to balance that picture out.

 

To hunt, almost all deer gun hunters, let alone bowhunters with broadhead arrows and compound bow, have to find a place to wait and watch from. The tree stands which seem to cause as many casualties most years as the weapons themselves are an expression of that.

 

But your first step is to, yes, walk the woods you will hunt, and scout out a place where forage and shelter and animal sign mean that the desired prey will walk by.

 

These familiarity and research walks can happen multiple, even dozens of times. When your "stand," tree or otherwise, is selected, the goal is to come back on your intended hunting day, and bring with you no scent, no tell-tale indication of human clanky or jingly presence.

 

The preparation for hunt day itself can be downright ritualistic, but that's not my main point.

 

What has to happen for hunting to occur is usually this: when your clothes and gear and self are ready to roll in the predawn hours, and you drive to the pre-selected parking spot, then walk with minimal flashlight to your stand (ground or tree), the next step is to settle in and be still.

 

Very still.

 

If you do that correctly, what happens next is what many hunters say is the main reason they love hunting: the forest comes back to life. Your movements having stopped, and the human scent or equipment odors not in the air, the creatures all around you return to their usual activities.

 

Small mammals scurry about, birds drop onto nearby branches and sing out, and each slight breeze becomes a moment of dramatic interest. You are both a more included part of nature, and you stand (or sit, more likely) at one remove from the dynamic environment around you.

 

This personal pause, your hunter's freeze, may last for hours, but even when it's just fifteen minutes: there are no phones, no TV, no boss, no other interruptions, just where you are and the moment you are in. A quick shift of a leg, and the woods suck in their breath, with all activity suddenly coming to a halt . . . then you watch everything slowly shift back into regular activity, into life.

 

A different sort of shift in tone comes when a large creature, a deer, or a bear, or . . . something! . . . starts to move.

 

Without turning your head, your eyeballs track it. A buck, tall and strong, not quite at an angle where you can bring your rifle to bear. Once it moves a bit more into your field of view, and of fire, you wait for the deer to look away, then to lift your weapon in stages.

 

The aim is set, in a way, and if the deer chooses a different way out of the forest, they will not be yours today. If the buck starts to walk across your gently cleared and subtly marked field of fire, then your finger starts to tighten on the trigger.

 

You are aware of your breath, the stillness gathered around you, and the detonation you are about to unleash. The deer draws closer, closer, and your finger starts to tighten.

 

Pulling it will change everything.

 

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

Faith Works 11-20

Faith Works 11-20-10

Jeff Gill

Another Thanksgiving Week, With Pie

___

Tomorrow night I have the pleasure of preaching the message for the
Granville community Thanksgiving worship, at 7:00 pm Sunday night in
First Baptist Church.

Ecumenical Thanksgiving services are often the first, and for many
the only ecumenical activity people have participated in. In the
1950s they were (I'm told) vaguely exciting in their exoticism, a
worship service where multiple denominational traditions came
together and did something as one.

Today we have Habitat for Humanity, the Jail Ministry, and the
Coalition of Care to mention just a few. Churches and denominations
work together on a variety of fronts, a good thing indeed.

There's still a very important place for each of us to affirm our
uniquenesses, even when that might infer that other groups are, um,
wrong. Politely stated, our civil society has plenty of space in
which we can disagree and dispute our essentials and fundamentals,
while maintaining a civic common ground where work can be shared.

The largely uncommitted world (keep in mind close to 80% of Licking
Countians attend nowhere for corporate worship, or no more than once
a year, if that, so there's plenty in this category) is curious as to
why we Sunday-time or Saturday or Friday worshipers do what we do,
and place our values where we do.

Community and communal worship, let alone projects, show a watching
world where our priorities play out. Competition, as the business
world understands it, is not really what we're about. We're not here
to sell the same product at a better price or from a more convenient
location, we're here to tell you that what you want is pie, home
made, and not a pre-packaged snack cake.

The challenge in this market driven age is that a cheap and
convenient snack cake, or processed food item close at hand with a
quick buzz, may well "do better" in a dollars and sense sort of way
than a recipe for rolling out the dough and mixing up your own
pumpkin filling. We all use canned filling these days, even when we
make our own pie, and home made pie is getting harder to find.

Churches, even ones I don't always think are on the right set of
recipe cards, are trying to show people how to make pie. In one
sense, that's always going to be a hard sell. Making a pie is work,
buying a box o' Dingolingos not so much.

What goes beyond sales is the experience of happening onto a table in
a place where you get served a bite of home made pumpkin pie after
long weeks of plastic wrapped "treats." You eat a bite, and then
another, and have a second piece, and you realize you want more of
where that came from. And all that comes with it.

Community Thanksgiving services are a chance for many of us in a
variety of locations to serve up some pie. It might be mince, or
cherry, or pumpkin, and it could come with a side of vanilla ice
cream or whipped cream or even, God help us, a squirt from a can.
Whether it's served on good china, household plates, or disposable,
the heart of the matter is whether we're serving our communities from
the heart, out of who we are.

When we're serving from the heart, you can taste it. It might be the
nutmeg, I'm not sure.

Consider attending your local Thanksgiving service, and invite
someone to go with you. There's going to be pie enough to go 'round.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around
central Ohio; he likes pie. Making it, eating it, doesn't matter.
Send him your pie recipe at knapsack77@gmail.com.

Knapsack 11-18

Notes From My Knapsack -- Granville Sentinel 11-18

Jeff Gill

[This is third in a series of stories called "Twelve Years Old in
Granville," each set in a particular year from the perspective of a
twelve year old, based on our local history with a bit of literary
license to help the narrative along.]

1839

When the three of them had decided to head home after a long morning
of fishing in Raccoon Creek, two went up to the town spring on the
back side of Sugar Loaf, and one took off across the lower slope to
cut up through the Burying Ground.

There was a creek that looped behind the tombstones, and he hoped to
mess around a bit there rather than end up stuck inside churning
butter until his arms ached. His older sister was spinning yarn off
their neighbor's sheep, and Uncle Frank was sure to have brought by a
crock or two of rich fresh cream and a jug of milk as he passed
through town from grandfather's farm on Loudon Street down towards
the woolen mill at the end of Clouse's lane. Any pair of hands that
passed the kitchen door were likely to end up wrapped around a churn
handle, and he didn't want those to be his.

So he swung around the wall and up angling through the cemetery,
until he saw someone sitting at the base of a young, but fast growing
oak tree just at the crest of the slope.

"Good day, sir," the boy said, touching the brim of his straw hat.

"Good day to you, young sir," answered the man, who was anything but
young himself.

"Are you well, sir?" asked the youth.

"It is kind of you to ask. My soul is well, my heart is heavy, and
the years weigh me down, but it is all to the good."

At twelve, he didn't quite know how to answer that, but a thought did
occur to him.

"Are you Mister Benjamin? They say you are a hundred years old."

"That I am, all of that and a year more. How old are you?"

"I am just twelve years old, myself."

"Do you know, when I was not much older than you, I was fighting
alongside the British in the French and Indian War?"

"That I had heard, sir, and that you were in the Continental Army
during the Revolution?"

"As a sergeant, indeed I was. And then a pioneer, and now an old man
sitting under a tree."

His new friend considered this, and felt secure enough in the
confidence shown him to say "Most people say you keep to yourself out
at your place on Ramp Creek and talk to no one."

The weathered face creased with a small but distinct smile, and he
replied "But I am speaking to you, am I not?"

"Yes, sir."

"I speak when something needs to be said. There is much said in this
world that could easily be done without. And I come here to talk to
my wife, Margaret," he said gesturing to a stone rising out of the
grass just beyond the old man's feet, "and my daughters," pointing
both up and down the hill in turn.

"I didn't mean to interrupt you, sir," nodded the young man. "Not at
all," was the ancient's reply; "you may sit down and join me." As he
did so, Benjamin added, "You're sitting on my grave."

Since his own elderly relatives often spoke this way, he merely
nodded, and went on to ask if Mr. Benjamin had ever seen George
Washington. They sat and talked until long after the last of the
butter had been drawn from the churn.

[Jonathan Benjamin died at 103 on Aug. 26, 1841, the oldest person in
the Old Colony Burying Ground; he and his wife Margaret were married
67 years.]

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

Faith Works 11-13

Faith Works 11-13-10

Jeff Gill

 

Doctrinal Teaching and Reasoned Responses

___

 

Anwar al-Awlaki doesn't like you.

 

Well, maybe not "you," but if you are an American, a pretty safe generalization for these parts.

 

American-born, this Islamic clergyman has said some pretty awful things from the safety of Yemen, arguing that killing Americans requires no extra theological justification as Islam normally requires of its adherents when considering defense or warfare.

 

It's us or them, says al-Awlaki about us, of whom he once was, and says that we, which I gather he isn't one of anymore, are devils.

 

Let's just establish right off the top that Islamic teachers and interpreters, often known as "Imams" (roughly equivalent to calling clergy Reverends), have said around the world that this fellow is wrong. He represents Islam about as well as Fred Phelps represents Baptists (let alone Christians).

 

Now, we've all heard the saying "one and God make a majority," first said by Frederick Douglass when the abolitionist movement, before 150 years ago, knew they didn't have the votes but were certain they were right.

 

Some ask if al-Awlaki might actually be representing Islam more accurately than the large numbers of imams who say he's an angry man in error. I suppose it's a fair question to ask, but there's an answer in what's generally known as doctrine.

 

Islamic doctrine is not hard to find and research, and tells even a casual reader that the weight of Islamic teaching is towards self-mastery and submission to the Muslim understanding of God's will. Is there a history of conquest and imperial expansion tied up in that? Sure, and we Christians have the Crusades and Manifest Destiny to account for, but it doesn't overwhelm the clear teaching from Christ in the Gospels down through the mainstream of the church against violence and killing.

 

Doctrine is very much out of vogue in mainstream American society today, and most US faith communities have tended to follow that fashion. Doctrine is kept in the background, de-emphasized, and often mentioned only to say "oh, but you really can make up your own mind about that."

 

One very immediate problem with the "downsizing" of doctrine is that it makes it much harder to argue against your own radical dissenters. When a Fred Phelps says "I'm a Christian," is there any coherent argument, other than a passionate and emotional one, that you can quickly deploy to make the case that he's not who he says he is?

 

And for a Muslim, it really helps to have a consistent, sensible body of teachings to which one can appeal to show that an al-Awlaki is not only outside of the heart of your tradition, but actually not telling the truth about it by arguing that you can commit terrorist acts as a legitimate struggle against "devils."

 

Less dramatically, but I'd say almost as significantly, the loss of doctrine makes it hard to enter into dialogue with a different group. I'd assert that one of the big challenges for the modern Christian ecumenical movement is that for most worshipers, it's hard to figure out what we even have to discuss, since we all pretty much believe the same thing, right?

 

I'd want to say, cheerfully and non-anxiously, no, that's not true. Most of the religious traditions active in Licking County today have some central, dare I say doctrinal propositions that are not the same as the church down the street. Discussing these teachings, these doctrines, help us understand what we believe versus what we just prefer, or want, or like. Faith is a superstructure that stays put, even as the shingles and siding get swapped out over the decades and centuries.

 

Does doctrine build barriers, or does it help us figure out where we can put doors and windows? I think it's very useful to do just that, and sometimes, it helps us put a wall where one belongs.

 

A wall which lets folks like Phelps and al-Awlaki know exactly where they stand, which is outside in the cold.

 

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

Faith Works 11-6-10

Jeff Gill

 

A Comma Can Change Everything

___

 

Who doesn't like a panda?

 

And any of us can describe their gentle feeding habits. They mean no creature harm, vegetarian browsers that they are, right?

 

Which is where the infamous description comes from, "eats shoots and leaves." Because if you just add one little comma, the kindly herbivore becomes an armed robber in the feeding area: "eats, shoots and leaves."

 

A comma can say quite a bit. This may be, in part, why the noted American theologian Gracie Allen said "Never place a period where God has put a comma" – although I'm not sure, given that sentiment, how to end the quote properly!

 

That phrase has become a theme statement for the United Church of Christ (UCC) over the last few years. The descendant church body from the Congregationalists who grew from the original Pilgrim settlers in Massachusetts, plus the German immigrant bodies called the Evangelical and Reformed Church (E&R's as we called them where I grew up), the UCC is a progressive denomination with a number of affiliated congregations in Licking County and nearby areas. I preached down in Fairfield County last week for St. Michael's UCC northwest of Baltimore, out in the country on Bickel Church Road.

 

Right on the historic "four corners" in Granville is First Baptist Church, affiliated with the American Baptist Church USA, but having also connected to the UCC recently. There's an interesting irony in that connection, since of the four churches around the intersection of Broadway and Main, First Baptist is chronologically the youngest, but the oldest, First Presbyterian, was originally a . . . Congregational church, started with the migration from Granville, Massachusetts. Their affiliation shifted to the local presbytery in the first half of the 19^th century.

 

Now there is again, near the center of the county, another UCC affiliated church, and with that connection, they are joining in an effort to draw forth from history the simple evangelism of "Bring a Friend." Not only are they asking their members to "Bring a Friend" tomorrow to their 10 am worship, but after services they plan to (after refreshments, of course) form a giant human comma out on the lawn, to photograph from above.

 

The picture will be used as part of First Baptist's participation in the UCC "God is Still Speaking" initiative, which is a nationwide media campaign of awareness and invitation around the denominational priorities of openness and inclusion.

 

“Since our name hasn’t changed, we’re looking for ways to get the word out,” says church member Patti Burkett. The event on November 7th aims to do both this, and also to welcome a new element of their outreach. The church has just hired Mary Kay Beall Carter, well-known church musician and UCC interim pastor to lead them while they complete their search for a permanent pastor. MK, as she’s known, is a familiar name to those of us who have sung choral anthems by her and her husband, John Carter, and she looks forward to getting to know the Granville and Licking County community a bit better.

 

The congregation at FBC already engages in outreach and compassionate programs such as their "Lunches on the Square" program on the fourth Sunday of each month, where the entire congregation works together to make meals and take them to people who need them on and around Newark's courthouse square. Their next door annex also hosts a Saturday morning "Farm and Craft Market" that picks up in the winter where the outdoor Farmer's Market leaves off, but still supporting sustainable and local food and art.

 

In the words of the StillSpeaking effort, echoed heartily by FBC: "No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you are welcome here!"

 

Let me add a personal note: everyone is also welcome to come to the Midland Theater tomorrow at 3:30 pm, where I again get to emcee the annual "Gospel Celebration" concert for the Licking County Coalition of Care. To be perfectly candid, you're all welcome, but it's a fundraiser, so you have to pay $20 to get in.

 

We'd still love to see you!

 

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

Knapsack 11-4

Twelve Years Old in Granville -- Granville Sentinel 11-4

[This is another in a series of stories set in and around Granville,
told mostly from the point of view of a twelve year old in each era,
based on actual incidents recorded in our history...with a bit of
literary license to make a narrative.]

1833

She felt, rather than heard the rumble of feet through the frame of
the house itself. Her sister slept, just six years old, in the bed
across the loft from her, and their three month old brother was
gurgling downstairs in the corner of their parents' room, closer to
the hearth and the last glowing embers of the evening fire.

Living in a fairly new frame house, you could tell without even
opening your eyes if someone had on their boots, or was padding about
in their wool stockings. The vibrations traveled across the floor
planking, into the wall joists and up to the loft, along the puncheon
floor, up the lathe-turned legs and through the cords that wound
under the ticksack mattress.

It was full dark outside this November night, but there was a glow,
coming and going oddly through the heavy, rippled glass of the one
window at the gable end. Late as it was, to feel booted feet walking
about downstairs was unusual, so she slipped on her shift and moved
over to the head of the steep ladder down.

There was a creak of the door hinges, and a chill draft blowing up
from below, then a distant sound of muttering voices, punctuated by
the baby's muted cries. She turned, and slid down the ladder,
catching the last wide rung with her bare feet and stepping down
gently to the floor.

Her mother was not in bed, either, but standing near the front
window, which had a set of city glass panes which were thinner and
more transparent.

"What's going on, Mother?" the girl asked.

Mother jumped, then strode over to where her daughter stood and
wrapped an arm around her tightly.

"The world is ending, dear; we must be brave."

Even for a twelve year old, accustomed to the oddity of adult
conversation, this was strange, but not as terrifying as it might
seem. She had been worrying that the strange lights outside were a
neighboring house with a chimney fire, as so often happened,
endangering their own snug home. Somehow, the world ending didn't
sound quite as bad.

"How do you mean?" Before the older woman could form an answer, the
door swung open again, and Father stood there, shaking his head.

"That fool Humphrey boy is just laying out there in the Broadway
watching the show; he's going to get himself run over by a farmer
coming home late." As he spoke, the church bell downtown began to
ring steadily.

"Is it the . . ." the girl began to ask.

"No, darling," he answered, his glance taking in both wife and
daughter with the endearment. "The Good Lord Almighty seems to be
having us on a bit, for his own purposes."

The three of them walked out on the front step, and before looking
up, saw that lamps were flickering into life through windows all
along Equality Street, and people, mostly barefoot, stood outside as
they did.

Above, the skies were filled with streaks of fire, bursts of golden-
orange light shooting from a common point overhead, burning to the
horizon in all directions. They were mostly all the same, and each
one different.

Except to go in and pull on stockings, and check the baby, they sat
there all night, until dawn overwhelmed the still flaring falling
stars. "We may never know what that was, but it was surely glorious,"
said Father as the sun rose, and Mother went back inside to make them
all a hot breakfast.

[The "Night the Stars Fell" on Nov. 12, 1833 was seen all over the
eastern US, today known every year as the Leonid meteor shower, but
never yet again as amazing as in 1833. Perhaps this year?]

Faith Works 10-30

Faith Works 10-30-10

Jeff Gill

 

VITA Could Be Vitally Important

___

 

In the spirit of the spooky season, let me offer a few thoughts about a truly scary subject.

 

Taxes. (Boo!)

 

It may not be scripture, but we all know that nothing is certain but death and taxes.

 

The problem is that there are quite a few people here in Licking County who are certain that filing their income tax return is a fate worse than death, and more to be avoided.

 

As it turns out, that is not always true.

 

The Licking County Coalition for Housing, in their ongoing attempts to do preventive work in helping individuals and families from ending up in homelessness, has worked with the IRS in something called VITA.

 

Standing for "Volunteer Income Tax Assistance," it's a system of training for volunteers and electronic support for tax filing that is aimed at low-income working families. Those families often qualify for something called the EITC (if I didn't scare you with the "Boo," how about a frightening mass of acronyms?), which is the "Earned Income Tax Credit."

 

Last year, almost 500 returns were filed around Licking County through VITA work, leading not to payment of additional taxes, but actually bringing back home nearly $700,000. About a third of that were EITC payments that working families had earned, but were unsure how to claim; two thirds of it was withholding that was rightfully that person's earnings.

 

Without VITA, that's hundreds of thousands of dollars that were brought back to Licking County and largely spent here, that otherwise would never have "come home."

 

And the median household income of VITA filers? Around $14,000.

 

What the Housing Coalition folks are concerned about is that most of the planning and coordination of this was done through the IRS by AmeriCorps members, and that program has been one of the casualties of the still struggling economy. Some volunteers were crucial to making VITA work in the last couple of years, but the program will need to be essentially ALL volunteer to move forward again.

 

The staff at LCCH – www.lcchousing.org -- have told me as their board president, and other community leaders, that they are willing to make some extremely generous over-and-above efforts to keep VITA going: it's that important to reducing the number of households running the risk of homelessness. They really want to do this in 2011.

 

What they will need over the next few weeks is a body of volunteers who can commit to a) some 16 hours of training to be "certified" as a volunteer tax aide, and b) at least four hours a week from mid-January through (of course) mid-April. The training is probably going to be set for two Saturdays, and the sites will be at the LCCH offices in downtown Newark, Opportunity Links on East Main, the OSU-N/COTC campus, and ideally (if there's enough volunteers) some other sites.

 

This is a wonderful way you can directly help working poor families, the county as a whole, and be a friendly, caring presence to people who often wonder if anyone out there care about their struggles. I immediately thought of the faith communities of Licking County as this need was described.

 

If you, members of your Bible study group, outreach committee, women's fellowship, men's breakfast crew, whosoever will, are interested in getting this training (and the very complete legal protection it offers the volunteer preparers), and doing the work, call 345-1970. Let them know at LCCH that you are interested in VITA, and I can guarantee you'll hear back soon from them.

 

Your offer of time and interest could be the difference between 50 returns done in Licking County, and 500; between nearly a million dollars to this county that belongs here in our economy, or next to nothing back; between a working hourly head of household convinced that they are alone, and that person finding a smiling face that helps them earn back what they'd already worked hard for to start with.

 

Call 345-1970. I truly pray that you will.

 

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

Faith Works 10-23

Faith Works 10-23-10

Jeff Gill

 

Saved, a Wretch Like Me

___

 

You might be saved.

 

For almost two months, you've been trapped in a place that left you few options, minimal choices.

 

Early on, you were in complete darkness and near panic, but now you can see and hear and understand your plight even more clearly, making darkness and uncertainty seem not so bad.

 

Signs of hope mix with indications of new danger, and you know just enough to be able to imagine additional challenges, while having no concept of how you can be pulled out of the hole you are in.

 

It does sound like the Chilean miners, doesn't it? And they are a spur to reflection, not only because of the happy ending we all shared with a watching world, but because they were a more dramatic, starkly outlined sketch of how many people feel every day, walking around here in the autumn sunlight.

 

You don't have to be stuck in a mine to feel trapped, and you don't have to be in jail to sense the bars and locked doors that keep you where you do not want to be.

 

Addiction is the easy and obvious category, but there are compulsions and habits and circumstances that defy a clinical diagnosis, but from inside . . .

 

The Apostle Paul said "For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing." (Romans 7:18-19, NIV)

 

That may or may not sound like being in a stony chamber half a mile underground, but how is it all that different?

 

Then in verse 24, having reflected on his plight a bit more, Paul cries out "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"

 

During the final stages of the attempt to reach and save the 33 miners in Chile, I wondered about the problems of even success: if they can drill down to them, and come up with a way to get them safely to the surface, who has to be left down there as the last man out? Who turns out the lights, so to speak?

 

Then I literally sat up straight in my chair, with a shock of startled recognition, when a TV commentator explained how that part of saving the trapped miners would work.

 

In order to get them out, the rescuers up above would have to send someone down; to explain how the procedure would work, to help them into the unprecedented escape vehicle, and to guide them one by one to their salvation, that one would stay behind until all were safe.

 

OK, to be fair, it ended up being six rescuers going down to manage the medical and technical process, but you get what I mean.

 

In order to save them, someone had to go down there from the surface, to freely choose to take on their hazards, in order to ensure that they all might be saved.

 

The man who took the first ride down in the rescue capsule (and huzzah for NASA's assistance in crafting that elegant solution) was also the last man to leave the mine. His name is Manuel Gonzalez, and may his name be long remembered along with those he helped save.

 

It would have been a bit much, I guess, if that mine rescuer who had gone down was named Jesus Gonzalez.

 

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

Faith Works 10-16-10 -- Newark Advocate

Jeff Gill

 

Life Is Like a Box of Chocolates

___

 

 

Forrest Gump had a number of interesting fundamental beliefs, one of which was that "life is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you're gonna get."

 

His momma told him that, and who am I to argue with a mother?

 

The next month for churches and people of faith in the Licking County area has a distinct resemblance to a box of chocolates, Gump-style, or so it looks to me.

 

Tomorrow afternoon, from Noon to 4 pm a number of us will be leading tours around the Octagon Earthworks, this Sunday being one of the four "open house" days at this magnificent piece of 2,000 year old ritual architecture. Enter at 33^rd St. and Parkview where the signs say both Octagon State Memorial and Moundbuilders Country Club (and happy 100^th anniversary to those tenants of the site, as well).

 

It's likely to be a beautiful fall day to enjoy creation in general, and to wonder at how the first people who lived on this landscape reflected on their place in the world under the sun, moon, and stars. Often a few Native American folk will have a singing and prayer ceremony of their own on Observatory Mound at the southwestern corner of the site, as well as next to the public access area near the entrance.

 

Political season means that many churches put on Election Day dinners, a tradition going back to when taverns and pubs were legally required to close for the day (so as not to facilitate the easy bribery of "I'll buy you a round if you . . ."). Fast food and more stay open on Tuesday, Nov. 2, but some of those Election Day dinners not only offer good home cooking for very reasonable prices, many offer a public good by delivering meals to hard working pollwatchers in precincts around their area.

 

You can vote early downtown at the County Administration Building, which more and more people do these days; you don't have to make up an excuse anymore, you can just come in and say you need to vote early. If there's any doubt in your mind about getting to a polling place between 6:30 am and 7:30 pm on Nov. 2, why not get 'r done?

 

Tickets are also available early for the Coalition of Care Gospel Celebration, scheduled on Sunday afternoon, Nov. 7, at 3:30 pm. Once again, the kindly board members of that church based co-operative organization have chosen to allow me to frolic and play on the vast stage of the Midland Theater, which is no small treat (for me). Along with leading everyone in singing "Tell Me Why," I get to introduce acts like the Licking Valley High School Concert Choir, The Calvaliers Quartet, Karrie Miller, Bound for Glory, Frosty Morning, and The Gospelife

Choir.

 

If that doesn't sound worth $20 for a ticket, I can't imagine how you'd get better use out of President Jackson's face. Reserving your ticket for the Gospel Celebration might just make the crusty old duck smile. Call 670-9700 for more info, or www.coalitionofcare.net.

 

Then the following week, beginning at Noon on  Tues., Nov. 9, the Licking County Coalition for Housing will invite us to see the invisible plague of homelessness with their "Shoes on the Square" observance. As the old Indian prayer suggests, we always benefit personally, spiritually, and in our community when we try to walk a mile in someone else's moccasins, even if it's only imaginatively. Learn more at www.lcchousing.org.

 

Faith is a matter of the heart, mind, hands, and feet. Plus, it ought to make you sing!

 

Or leave you as content as someone with a brand new box of chocolates, so full and complete and overflowing you can't help but want to share.

 

 

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

Faith Works 10-9-10 -- Newark Advocate

Jeff Gill

 

Environmental Hot Water Is Easy To Get Into

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Last week was "Walk To School" Day in Granville, and I was invited to MC again.

 

This was the fifth (we think) time a lovely fall day was picked to organize a group walk from the main downtown intersection to the elementary school, and like most lovely autumn mornings, rain threatened, but held off just long enough to let us ring the old village bell, thank a few supporters, and stroll down the sidewalk a few hundred strong.

 

We're unusual in Granville in that the school and a large number of elementary age children are located where walking is even feasible. When the school is out on the edge of things, and often there aren't even sidewalks leading to it, walking or bicycling just isn't a option anymore.

 

And to be fair, the action is largely symbolic.  Some of us drove to downtown, walked to the school, and then walked back to our cars where we drove off to work. Many of the kids who walked will possibly never walk to the building again all year, but get dropped off or ride the bus the other 179 days.

 

Yet some will take away from this community mini-rally a realization that walking to school (or cycling) is more feasible some days, at least, than they realized, and the kids who participate at least get a sense of walking as an option – if not always to school, at least sometimes to some places.

 

Faith communities know that symbolic actions are deeply meaningful, and can impact behavior and choices far beyond the immediate contact of a gesture, ritual, or presentation. Baptism for cleansing, weddings for marriages, communion as a core element of Christianity – you can see them as "just a symbol," but as Paul Tillich said, "Never say 'just' a symbol." Symbols have power, as a conduit from the everyday to a wider context, even the eternal.

 

I was thinking about all this as I've been part of an adult study at a church near where the "Walk To School" journey began. Sunday evenings, a few of us have been meeting to talk about Christian faith and "Creation Care," and what environmental issues say to us as we talk about our core beliefs.

 

One thing that struck us is that, in this short series for adults and kids, we begin the evening with a meal. Being good 2010 Americans, we all eat it off of disposable plates, using disposable utensils, drink from disposable cups, and wipe off our fingers with disposable napkins . . . then we go off into our four adult classes to talk about "that which endures forever."

 

Cognitive dissonance, anyone?

 

Meanwhile, there are cabinets in the kitchen full of ceramic plates with a fine blue etching under the glaze, in a classic font saying "Centenary UM." As a traveling preacher who occasionally ends up looking for a cup or spoon, I know that such dinnerware is not hard to find in most churches around the Midwest, but I also know it gets rarely used.

 

Am I volunteering to wash dishes, I can hear some older (women) folk ask, who remember quite well having to stay long past the end of every food-based gathering, hand washing and drying the cutlery and putting it all up in the cupboards?

 

I can claim truthfully that I have, and I would, but it's not as simple as that.  Hygiene issues, impaired immune systems, all kinds of factors drive us towards disposability. Even bringing our own "pitch-in plates" from home, the kind that let you take a really big pile of potato casserole and broccoli salad, is a complication that people simply look at differently.

 

But what would it take to make a point of, once in a while, using that which is not disposable for a church dinner? You won't change the climate or save a koala bear with it, but how many ways might our thinking, even our hearts, be changed by getting those blue edged plates out, or carrying home our dirty dishes that can be reused?

 

Which would probably be in a plastic bag that you can't recycle after getting food goo all over it. So you'd have to hot rinse everything, which takes energy, too  . . .

 

Many angles to this question, but for believers, and particularly Christians, I wonder how often we think about the symbolic meaning of our common meals and our stewardship of the earth, right down to the stuff we're eating there and where it comes from.

 

Tell me about how your church talks about this, would you?

 

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

Notes From My Knapsack -- Granville Sentinel

Jeff Gill

 

Twelve Years Old In Granville – 1850

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The fortress was impregnable, of that they were all certain.

 

Perched on a spur of Prospect Hill, glowering over towards Mount Parnassus, the walls had steadily risen, lunch hour by lunch hour, during this last week of nightly snow and bright sunny (if frigid) days.

 

The boys of the upper form in the village school house said to each other that they were no colder out on the hillside, looking over Granville, than they were inside the gloomy brick chambers of the aged structure that peered south down the Lancaster Road.

 

Even the face of the sun, they said, the one carved into the keystone over the central arch of the lower market level, looked pinched with cold. They were happy to hoot past his stony, warmthless gaze, running outside after flying down the stairs from the third floor (the youngest scholars being on the second), and clambering along the hillside, working up behind the row of homes they now looked down the chimneys of.

 

Their mothers had called out "Dinner is ready!" over and over, echoing across the snowdrifts and backyards, finally giving up and eating their own luncheons in peace and quiet. Their boys would rather play than eat, and it wasn't as if they had anywhere else to get a bite before supper and bed.

 

Today, though, would be different. The week was ending, and while all the town could see their commanding location, that included the sworn foes of the public school lads: their counterparts enrolled at the Academy. Each considered the other faction beneath their notice, and either could not stop noticing the others' antics.

 

All week, the young men of the Academy on Elm Street looked up at Prospect Hill during their all too short (as they saw it) dinner break, and they had been planning.

 

No sooner had the dinner hour been declared than the Academy boys trotted quietly, but in a body, along Elm over to Pearl, then up the road until they were even with the heights the public school lads had fortified.

 

They worked their way along the slope on the east, just as the builders had side-stepped from the west to begin their redoubt. A fusillade of snowballs announced the public opening of hostilities, with the winner being the final resident of the fortress.

 

Flocks of flying snowballs all at once pelted the interior of the icy enclosure, and sharpshooters kept up a more targeted spatter of individual shots.

 

A rush of bodies from below, and the Academy crew suddenly filled the embrasures and opening, vaulting into the sacred precincts themselves. Those who built this stronghold were soon cruelly forced to retreat, under fire, uphill.

 

This state of affairs did not last long. The public boys plotted behind a handy hickory close to the brow of Prospect Hill, and shortly they charged down in two files, attacking with pockets filled by pre-made snow (or ice) balls.

 

Their pincer assault was not only successful, but continued on down the hill. Volley by volley the public school lads pressed their social so-called betters back, step by step, until they made their final stand on the public square itself.

 

One o'clock, then two o'clock passed, with even the teachers as well as the parents watching with smiles that almost seemed to indicate approval.

 

By three o'clock, the lack of lunch, the presence of ice fragments within the snowy spheres, and general weariness began to slow down everyone. Suddenly, as if by a prearranged plan, a number of parents and pastors emerged from behind the broader tree trunks nearby, and declared "a truce." The occasional bloody cheek or brow bore witness to the prudence of this enforced diplomacy.

 

Four hours of snowball warfare may have seemed too short to some, but it was as long as such an epic could unfurl, for a crowd of twelve year olds who really needed to get home and help get ready for supper.

 

(This is the fifth of a series of stories, each called "Twelve Years Old in Granville." Some will be based in fact, as with this tale of the greatest snowball fight the village had ever seen, from Bushnell's "History"; others will require a bit more creative guesswork and imagining. I hope you find them all informative and intriguing.)

 

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