Faith Works 12-24-11 & 12-31-11

Faith Works 12-24-11 & Faith Works 12-31-11

Jeff Gill

 

The Tree on the Porch

___

 

Grandma's hospital bed had been in the front room for two years now.

 

When she got to the point that she couldn't make the steep stairway to the second floor, Mom made up the front room for her, and got a better pair of drapes to keep out the cold and the light. Grandma slept mostly, even during the day. You could hear the psst of the oxygen even upstairs at night, every half-minute or so.

 

They'd put the TV in the kitchen, and tried the first year to wedge the Christmas tree in next to the dinette, sticking out into the opening to the front room. After the umpteenth person had brushed against it, knocking ornaments to the floor, Mom had said that was it, and the tree went out on the side porch.

 

Actually, it was kind of cool, and his friends liked the look of it, lights glowing, as you drove by in the busy alley alongside the narrow house. You could see it clearly through the big window behind the dinette, which was where they ate when it wasn't a meal over the sink, and Grandma could see a bit of it out the narrow window opposite her bed. The side door opened into the kitchen, and they rarely used it, mostly coming in the long hallway from the back into the other end of the kitchen. That was now the tree door, getting the most use when for twenty-five days they dashed out to plug in the tree each evening and the last person to bed dashed out to unplug it.

 

The three of them made it through the year fairly well, with Grandma's social security and Mom's job, but it was never easy. At Christmastime, Mom always went down to the Salvation Army and signed up for an Angel Tree gift package for him, but he was getting kind of old for that.

 

He'd gotten some good clothes and a few fun little toys, even one year a bike that he rode way past where the frame really suited him. Other times you could tell that either the people who'd picked his card hadn't read it, or (he figured) were older people who didn't know what a nine or ten or eleven year old boy would like, putting a stuffed bunny or craft set in with the sensible clothes.

 

Most of his friends at school had experience with Angel Tree gifts, and the ones with older brothers and sisters had ruefully pointed out that as you got to twelve and thirteen or fourteen, you generally got a gift card if you were lucky (because it didn't get picked, they guessed) or a bottle of cologne you'd never heard of. The game cartridges were usually not for a game he or his friends had, but you could trade them in downtown.

 

Mom was pretty smart about watching at Dollar General or Big Lots for the fall months, and she could usually pull out something kind of cool to add to the Christmas pile: a gadget to take apart and put back together, a radio control car in an odd color, or a dvd they'd watch together, joking about the bad acting. To tell the truth, those gifts he liked best because they came from her, not that they were better than what came from the nameless people who got his name off the Angel Tree.

 

Grandma, when she talked more, would tell him that when she was a girl there was no gift under the tree, but an orange in the stocking and a new toothbrush hanging from a branch with red ribbon. Mom would whisper to him "that wasn't her, that was her mother, your great-grandmother; she got toys and such just like you did, just no batteries." He'd saved up some money, and got her a tube of body lotion and silk flower in a vase from Big Lots; Mom thought that was wonderful he wanted to do that with his money, but warned him "don't feel bad if she doesn't react much when you give it to her. She knows, it's just hard for her to show much. Feelings are hard work for her with all the medications and all."

 

It looked to be a good Christmas, with a pie in the freezer they'd been given at the food pantry, and a little turkey that came with the Angel Tree gifts. He wondered what they were, but not too much. Expecting too much just led to disappointment, he'd figured that much out. They were together, the tree on the porch, the bird in the oven.

 

And he had a package for Mom. It wasn't much, but it was something, and he knew she'd love it. It might even be a pleasant surprise. She could use some joy this Christmas, and he wanted to give that to her.

 

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

 

 

 

*  *  *

Faith Works 12-31-11

Jeff Gill

December 31, 1945

George hung up the phone and looked up at the picture of his father.

Just beneath it was the cross-stitch his mother had made for him of his dad's favorite quote – 'All you can take with you is that which you give away.'

He looked past them to the window, where the snow was still falling outside. The building whose owner had just been speaking to him was sifting into invisibility behind the mist and growing dark.

Potter wanted him to know they had "found something of interest to both of them." It was the much-searched for $8,000, in an envelope left in a deposit slip rack. A good-hearted customer had discovered the crumpled packet and turned it in to a teller; they had given $50 of it to the finder, which he was sure George would approve of.

Sure, said George. He was surprised how little excitement he felt at the return of the prodigal deposit, although he was amused at Potter's generosity with George's money. For a moment, he thought about asking "If I had found $10,000 of yours, and had given $20 as a reward, would you have been fine with that?" But he just added "Thank you for thinking of that, Mr. Potter."

There was a peculiar tone to the rest of the call, though. Potter sounded positively wistful, asking him about his children's Christmas day, and how the aftermath of that already fading Christmas eve had gone, with half of Bedford Falls crowded into his house on Sycamore Street.

It was true that the hall carpet was essentially ruined, but he didn't tell Potter that.

Harry had left yesterday for Pensacola, where he would be training new pilots. "Watch out for that Potter," he said at the train station, adding "he's got something he wants to prove, and you're in the way of it."

So it was with an extra sense of unease George had heard the words "Why don't you and that charming family come over to my house for dinner tonight, and toast a new year, and the prosperity of peace?"

There was silence on both sides of the line, long enough to punctuate with a couple of Potter's carefully controlled wheezes, just enough sound to indicate listening silence.

"I'll have to check with Mary first, Mr. Potter; to tell you the truth, things have been so busy I'm not sure what our plans at home might be."

"Of course, of course my boy, you do that; wouldn't want to upset the missus. Just give me all call when you get home out here to Beech Grove."

Potter's father had begun a large rambling Georgian home on a knoll well out of town, and built barns and a pond and trails for horseback riding around the wooded acreage. It was along those, everyone knew, that a young Potter Junior had been thrown by a spooked horse, and been paralyzed ever since. There were stories about a young woman and a broken engagement, but all that was before George was even born.

The current Mr. Potter had added wings and grey stone and a high iron fence, but the few who had been on the grounds reported back food that was excellent, cooked in Continental style by a chef who it was rumored spoke no English. George said "I will certainly call as soon as I get home."

"Excellent, excellent. George, we have much to talk about. My best to your Mary," followed by a decisive clunk.

Should he go out there, he wondered? Should he even mention the invitation to Mary? She would wince and shake her head, but then say sternly, "We ought to say yes, if only to find out what he's up to."

And just how would it be, with his children, no doubt in danger of breaking a priceless object at every turn, sitting there about to say things they'd heard at home? There was no way it would be a pleasant evening.

Yet there was something in the old man's voice, or in that silence as he chose not to wheedle or plead ingratiatingly, as was his usual style. Something *was* up, that's for sure.

George reached for his hat, and thought "at the very least, I'll have a story for Harry the next time he calls." And then stopped and read for the millionth time those words of his father, neatly stitched by his mother - 'All you can take with you is that which you give away.'

Well, I'll always have this evening then, thought George.

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

Faith Works 12-17

Faith Works 12-17-11

Jeff Gill

 

Walking down the sidewalk, hand in hand

___

 

Christmas eve, and in a light snow, they pulled up to the church.

 

It was such a joy to see the lights shining through stained glass, the full parking lot, the children's heads bobbing in the basement windows. He had helped dig that basement out fifty years ago, one coffee can at a time to start, crawling beneath the sanctuary. Now it just seemed to everyone there had always been a fellowship hall below the church, including them.

 

He picked his way across the asphalt carefully, recalling when it had been gravel. Safer, when his step was surer, but it certainly helped keep the carpets! Opening the car door, she swiveled to get out, as he opened up the walker.

 

They made their way to the elevator, another thing that wasn't part of the building when he'd been a trustee; she'd been president of the women's fellowship when they raised the money to put it in, one pie at a time.

 

In a way, there were no secrets between them. He knew about the early marriage she'd had that no one else who knew her even suspected; she knew how he wept each year watching "It's a Wonderful Life," not at the end of the movie when the basket full of money comes in, but when Clarence tells George that Harry Bailey didn't save the troopship from an enemy fighter crashing into it, because George wasn't there to save Harry.

 

He was a quartermaster's mate during the war (no further label needed for them as to what war), and piloted an LST across the Pacific. It had no name, just a number, even though she displaced 5,000 tons, more than many cocky ships that cruised past her with a name on the stern. They had names for their ship, but few worth repeating, or remembering. She'd heard them all, though.

 

She'd also heard him tell of when a Japanese Betty drilled into the starboard bow, not quite sinking the nameless Landing Ship Tank, but killing hundreds of soldiers who were helplessly waiting, and never landed on their island. She'd gotten letters from him out of Evansville where the ship was built, from Fort Knox, Kentucky, where he joked about how joining the Navy meant seeing the world, but the Midwest first (they were drilling on a mockup LST constructed in a vast building deep within the encampment, for security).

 

Then the long silence, the fears, and then a letter cryptical in wording, and even so half blacked out by a Navy censor. But she could tell something had happened, something changed. He told her all about it when he came home, once. And wept at that scene in the movie.

 

They had no secrets. He hadn't told her how bad the doctor had said the congestive heart failure was getting, but she knew; she hadn't told him that she suspected the breast cancer might be back, but he knew she'd asked if he could take her to the doctor, "after the holidays."

 

When the elevator got to the sanctuary floor, it stopped with a thump, and the door slowly slid open, revealing the Christmas decorations and the line of children now waiting to enter, holding small battery-powered candles. They both smiled, having spend hours (years?) on their knees with irons, paper towels, and wax paper cleaning candle wax out of the carpet after Christmas.

 

Their pew was marked, in a way, with a cushion that always sat there. New custodians would bring it to the office on Monday (once), and it would go back to her spot. Both hips had been replaced "back when they used hickory and pot metal" she joked, and the doctor had gently said it probably wouldn't be a good idea to go under anesthetic again.

 

No children had ever been raised in their home, "God had other plans for us" they both quickly answered whenever someone would ask. But here at church, they had helped raised hundreds (thousands?) over the years, and it was a family reunion more than anyone knew when everyone came together for Christmas Eve.

 

They had no secrets, but few knew all their sorrows; everyone knew, though, about  the joy they shared, with each other, and in being at worship. They smiled, and a light shone round about them, and no one was afraid to sit next to them.

 

It was Christmas Eve, and they were at home.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; if you think you know who this story is about, I'm sure you're right, all of you! Tell him your story of Christmas joy at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Knapsack 12-15

Notes From My Knapsack 12-15-11

Jeff Gill

 

Just south of Granville

___

 

There is something about this time of year that makes you think about times gone by, the "auld lang syne" of pioneers and predecessors. The nutmeg and allspice and cloves we use so infrequently the rest of the year mingle with cinnamon and maple to create a memory-rich atmosphere with but a single whiff of seasonal scent.

 

Some of these memories are ones we can only know second-hand, but are often no less vivid for their distance. I think it right and meet for us to reflect at Christmastide on how the holiday preparations once felt, and looked, and smelled.

 

In 1881, N.N. Hill wrote a history of Licking County, Ohio, and he included as part of the book a lengthy reminiscence where "Samuel Park, esq., of Marshall, Illinois, a former resident of Union township in this county, writes:

 

"I was born in Union township, November 21, 1810, and at four weeks old, in midwinter, was taken into a green beech cabin, without floor, door, or chimney, which, however, was soon made comfortable by the industry of my, then, young parents. Nor did I enjoy the luxury of a nice baby-crib set on rockers. I was cradled in a sugar-trough, and often lulled to sleep by the notes of the owl and the howl of the wolf. But, even then, the sweeter songsters of the forest, such as the mocking bird, the nightingale and the whip-poor-will, sang just as sweetly from our wild forest surroundings, as they do now from the fancy groves of our finest villas. The attempt to resurrect and place upon record the history of our pioneer fathers and mothers, has caused me to live much of my life over again. The scenes and associations of my youth have many of them been brought vividly before my mind, as in other years.

 

The old fashioned log cabin with puncheon floor, clapboard door,

wooden chimney, warmed by a massive log fire at one end,

and lighted by oiled paper windows;

the chimney corners hung full of jerk;

the rich, juicy, fresh venison, broiled on the end of a sharp stick;

the noble wild turkey, roasted for Thanksgiving and Christmas;

the occasional feast upon a fat coon or opossum;

the johnnycake, baked on a board;

the rich and healthy coffee and tea;

the product of the garden, the field and the forest,

and made doubly palatable by rich cream and maple sugar.

 

The pleasant social gathering of our fathers and mothers around the cheerful log fire,

relating the incidents and anecdotes of their lives;

the hilarity sometimes produced by the exhilarating effects of egg-nog or warm toddy;

the happy associations of the young folks;

the trippings to the charming notes of the violin;

the cabin-raisings, the log-rollings, the corn-huskings, the wood-choppings, flax-pullings;

the sentimental songs;

the jumping, hopping, wrestling and foot-racing exercises of the young men;

the quilting parties of the ladies; the buzz of the spinning-wheel in the cabin;

the whack, whack of the flaxbreak at the barn;

the guns, the dogs and the chase;

all, all of these have been brought freshly to our mind,

and we are in a great degree permitted to live over again

the happy days of our innocence and youth;

and that, too, with the most happy reminiscences of those youthful associations.

But amidst these pleasant reflections there are some sad thoughts.

These revered fathers and mothers have all passed away;

more than half of our youthful associates are numbered among the dead,

and those that are left have lost the vigor and elasticity of youth

and are blossoming for the grave.

The school children of to-day greet us as grandparents,

and we, too, must soon be numbered with the dead."

 

And Hill concludes this section by simply adding: "It is pleasant to record the fact that Mr. Park is yet living in Marshall, Illinois."

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; it is pleasant to record the fact that Mr. Gill is yet living in Granville, Ohio. Tell him your favorite seasonal scent at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 12-10

Faith Works 12-10-11

Jeff Gill

 

A Simple Twist of Wire

___

 

Every year about this time, I think of them.

 

In a modern American home, you find the approach of the commemoration of Our Lord and Savior's birth coming when days get short, and nights lengthen to where they start shortly after lunch. This time of year, darkness wraps itself around you like a cheap rain poncho in the wind. You gotta do something, and that something is go to [insert big box store name here] and shop for Christmas lights.

 

They come in green wire or white wire, the latter a prayerful hope for a proverbial White Christmas, with tree-colored wire for wrapping around, well, trees, both indoor and outdoor.

 

They are white or multi-colored, and now they're LED or old-fashioned: although for me, an old-fashioned Christmas light is a bulb the size of what you plant as tulips, a proper bulb. (Of incandescents and CFLs we will not speak.) I'm told there are those who shop for all blue bulbs or other such specialty displays, but those are further back in the towering aisles than I ever get. Green wire, white wire, white bulbs or multicolor, LED or regular – all confusing enough for me.

 

Especially when there are 50 light, 100 light, 150 light strands, even 250 to 500 of 'em. There are probably 1000 light strings back with the blue bulbs. Each January, when the lights come down after Epiphany, some have died, some are flaring with a manic intensity that bodes ill for us all, and others are fine, but the blue spruce insists on growing, so more are needed.

 

Each year, I stow and toss and make notes for what I need next December 6 (St. Nicholas' Day, as Epiphany is January 6, a tidy frame for décor rituals in our house). And each year I struggle to remember what my note from eleven months previously was getting at.

 

So it's the odd year that I don't end buying a few more boxes or reels of Christmas lights. They have to be unsealed from their secure packaging which insulated them from the shocks and strife of being shipped across oceans, dropped on docksides, heaved into trains, and tumbled from trucks into loading zones before being carefully shelved by the guy down the street in his blue or red or orange apron.

 

You slit or gnaw the tape off the plastic or cardboard, and get down to the strings of lights themselves, but there's one last step. The twist ties.

 

This is when I think about them. If you open up enough boxes, even of outwardly identical lights, you start to realize that the twist ties are where you see the mark of an individual, actual person, someone in China, because yes, they all (as far as I can tell) come from the People's Republic of China now. Somewhere along the Huangpu or Yangtze Rivers, or up Suzhou Creek (as far as I can tell online, most of these lights are coming out of the Shanghai area), there's a vast factory in the middle of a sea of vast factories. Last summer, or earlier, the shop floor retooled to turn out the pre-tangled strands of Christmas tree wire, and throngs of basic laborers stood along lines to place bulbs in sockets and wind handfuls of seasonal joy into proper lengths after the outlets are snapped into place.

 

All of this among dozens of boxes or reels looks exactly identical across the packages, with a monotonous, almost inhuman sameness. You think only of machines and an acres-wide roof in a desolate landscape.

 

But then I get to the twist ties. They're always a little bit different. Year by year, you sense the encroachment of the bean counters, with less and less excess on the ties that are themselves snipped off a no doubt large reel, a few inches at a time. The work of squeezing the bundle of 150 or 250 lights tightly enough, then anchoring it in place with a flick of the wrist, a spin of the fingertips. It can't be terribly rewarding work, and I suspect is the lowest job on the totem pole.

 

Still I see in each box the particular mark of a fellow human being, the loop or knot or bow last touched literally around the world, next unwound by me, here in Ohio. What do they think of us, and what we're doing with these things? What does it mean to them?

 

I think of them, as persons, and I say a prayer, and touch an infinitesimal part of their lives, in contact with mine.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he no doubt will need just one more trip for lights. Tell him where you come into contact with "the other" this Christmas season at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter. 

Faith Works 12-3

Faith Works 12-3-11

Jeff Gill

 

Everyone, have a wonderful Advent

___

 

What should everyone do?

 

Once you get past the Ten Commandments, there's not much agreement on what choices or decisions are right for every-everyone.

 

We live in an individualistic age (I'm sure you needed me to point that out), and blanket solutions or one-size-fits-all answers are rarely heeded.

 

Still, we created, finite persons have quite a bit in common. I was doing a program that touched on this subject for Monday Talks, and a good doctor of the community rose to observe that after having performed surgery on all sorts of people with a wide variety of skin tones, they all had the same red blood and general arrangement of internal organs once you got past the subcutaneous layers.

 

And I've been to three different churches' potlucks in the last couple weeks, and saw almost the exact same assortment of casseroles and desserts at each one, so there's that.

 

I got to thinking about this because we preachers can fall into the trap of saying, almost as an aside, things about what Christians should do that are heard as "what everyone should be doing," with the implication, intentional or no, that if you aren't or don't, you're not a good person. Or at least not *as* good as those who do.

 

Which may be more message than we intend, but if that's what people hear, then . . . we have to take that into account.

 

Take the Bible (please! *rimshot*) – I just read in print a fine Baptist columnist just sort of toss off the observation that every believer should have the practice of reading the Bible through every year. It wasn't his main point, but it kind of stuck out as one.

 

Should's and ought's aside, I am quite certain that it is a vanishingly small fraction of even regular churchgoers who do this; leaving me to suspect that the vast majority hear such exhortations not as a spur to Bible reading, but as reason for a bit more guilt in their ditty bag of life.

 

Let me suggest this: every practicing Christian should read a book of the Bible, all the way through, preferably a Gospel (Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John) every year. Yes, some will cheat even on that and go with Ruth or Philemon, but that's their call.

 

Or prayer – if you read anything that's focused on the subject, you're likely to run into the off-handed comment that a person with solid spirituality spends at least an hour a day in prayer. They're likely to concede that you could start slowly, with thirty or maaaaaaybe twenty minutes a day, and then work up.

 

Again, I think the bulk of truly striving churchfolk read that and just give up. They don't see it happening, and they don't want to start knowing they'll fail. Can I offer an olive branch to the rest of us? If each of us just made space for five uninterrupted minutes of prayerful quiet, focused on God, at the start of each day, I think we'd all be amazed at what could happen.

 

Ditto tithing. I know the Scriptural citations, and have preached the sermons, but seriously: most people don't even have a household budget. So what does 10% mean when you don't know what your 100% is? How's this: people of faith, please sit down this very day, and figure out a) what you earn per annum, b) what you take home (pause for a drink when you see what percentage of your gross income goes to taxes), and c) calculate honestly what percentage of your income you give to mission, outreach, your church. That's your total giving divided by your takehome times a hundred.

 

Yeah, not pretty, is it? So what would it take to push that percentage up by one?

 

Then there's small groups. They're the catnip of church growth these days, and they are much more important & nutritious than catnip, but it does have the same deranging effect on some consultants. Look, some people just are not comfortable in a small group per se, and making it a universal (let alone accountability groups for everyone) is just an incitement to guilt, and guilt doesn't grow anything, let alone a church.

 

How about this: every person who regularly worships in a church should be committed to making a personal connection with people they don't already know each year? If it's just one family, one new couple, even one older person you've never talked to before – that could be so powerful.

 

Four ideas. They may be lowered expectations, but if they really represent what we all could do, and we did them, I think it might leave all the more room for God to do something even greater in our midst.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he has generally found low expectations to be highly rewarding. Tell him to up his game at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Knapsack 12-1

Notes From My Knapsack 12-1-11

Jeff Gill

 

A December to remember

___

 

The candlelight walking tour is upon us!

 

Some leave town, some just lock their doors and settle in with a stack of movies (or stream a night's worth through their widget), and the rest of us embrace the insanity with open arms.

 

C'mon, we all know it's insane. The kids most of all, and bless 'em, they aren't yet sold on the value of sanity and sensibility, so they are most ready to run forward with arms open wide.

 

They glory in the red-suited fellow and his soft-spoken wife, elves on duty all around; they run to the kettle corn copper pot and the cocoa urn; they try to be more restrained in Monomoy House, but even the Lad still loves to count the number of Christmas trees and report back the census to President Knobel.

 

Older youth get to walk about more dignifiedly with candle-lighters to keep the luminaries burning, or shuttle cookies from inside to outdoor tables; many of this community's young people put their talents to good work in church chancels and other performance venues, with plays and recitals and concerts from the elementary school's daytime craft fair on the east side of the village, to Pilgrim Lutheran and the Newark High School strings in the evening where Cherry St. points to Broad Street and the west.

 

Everyone gets to share their talents; my afternoon challenge is that my friend Mary Borgia is singing & strumming at the United Church of Granville in the afternoon while the Lovely Wife is playing at the Robbins Hunter Museum (sorry, Mary!). Andy Carlson and some bluegrass desperados will be holding up Park National Bank, even as Spring Hills Baptist's musicians will be trying to make connections with passing audiences in Windstream Park.

 

And the hardest choice of all: St. Luke's Episcopal offers a sing-along "Messiah" at 8:00 pm, just when the Denison University Concert Choir performs atop College Hill in Swasey Chapel.

 

There are certain family traditions about where to go and what to do, but they can't be set in stone. Monomoy is only open every other year, certain groups in various churches come and go, and through the years there are new, changing responsibilities (setting out those luminaries, helping erect sets at Centenary, shoveling snow in front of the Avery-Downer House). We used to always start the evening, just before Santa & Mrs. Claus' arrival, with Don Snelling making the Lad a grilled cheese – times change, people pass, memories endure.

 

There's the walk through the Christmas lights behind the Buxton Inn, and the admiration of ice sculptures in front of the Granville Inn (weather permitting, of course). I see that the Soup Loft will have bean soup & cornbread: a new tradition, perhaps?

 

We can't dawdle, because Common Thread is starting down the street, and we might just get them in before the "Hallelujah Chorus." As I will always remember, thinking of the Granville Candlelight Walking Tour, the sound of a child's voice that might be my own, but is just as likely to be someone else's son or daughter:

 

"C'mon, let's go!"

 

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

Faith Works 11-26

Faith Works 11-26-11

Jeff Gill

 

Think faithfully, shop locally

___

 

Tomorrow is the First Sunday in Advent.

 

There are probably more people in general (if not reading this) who are aware that yesterday was "Black Friday" than know what the First Sunday in Advent is, or means.

 

A new liturgical year begins, and the lectionary cycle of Scripture readings turns; we'll now be in Year B, with a special emphasis through the year on the Gospel of Mark (A=Matthew, C=Luke, and John gets heavy rotation in special seasons like Easter, but not his own year in the cycle).

 

I've talked about Advent before, but not so much about Black Friday. Not that I really want to do that now.

 

There is a small push on to declare today "Small Business Saturday," It's an interesting idea, with some major retail interests behind it, ironically, but the concept has more than just merit.

 

Some would suggest that a truly faithful, and particularly Christian few should be to consume, to shop, to buy stuff less. I think there's something worth considering there; why would committed Christians buy consumer goods in volume and type and brand indistinguishably from the community around them? Not to be different for difference's sake, but if your faith commitment doesn't change your shopping habits, I think it might be fair for an outsider to wonder: what does it change, then?

 

You can also take this line of reflection too far. Some claim that Christmas shopping and gift-giving is "the problem," and a kind of neo-Amish retreat from commercial society is what our beliefs should lead us to.

 

Consumer society can be a big, big part of "the problem" (my departure from most such rants is that the problem is "sin" and not shopping isn't "redemption," but save that for later). How we shop, though, might also be part of a solution to finding a form of faithful living that proclaims what we believe.

 

I find a small business emphasis, not just for today, but in general, one that appeals to my understanding of "the beloved community," the new creation that God is seeking through Christ not just "in our hearts" but in our shared reality, right now. A sign of the Kingdom, if you like.

 

Giving gifts can be a blessing, and where or how you get them can bless in multiple directions. Everyone knows there's a certain wonderment in handmade gifts.

 

And many of us quake in fear and trembling at the idea of crafting anything at all.

 

Do we have to jump from home-made offerings to objects, entombed in plastic, shipped from overseas, bought in big box stores? Is there no middle ground here?

 

Buying locally is an affirmation of community, of common ties. Even buying internationally rooted consumer goods from a local, nearby retailer, says something if only to that business and their employees with whom you interact.

 

I wonder what would happen if, as part of the Christmas season, more churches spent a moment or some bulletin or newsletter space to promote, not as an advertisement, but as a gift itself, those in their fellowship who make gift items? What I'm not so crazy about are so-called "Christian businesses," in whose name I've seen too much incompetence and opportunistic profit taking be done. What I mean is a purchase that has some relationship in it. A local artist's CD, jewelry made by LICCO, preserves from the farm just a township over.

 

There's also the next circle of connection, where faith & practice mean not an endorsement, but just a gracious hint. My wife & I give a number of out-of-town gifts through Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky, a Trappist monastery whose emphasis on prayer & work I value, and whose products are handmade on the grounds. There may be better fruitcakes, but not only do I think they're tasty, I like what the gift says, and what I'm supporting by giving through them.

 

So shop as you discern that you must, and wrap away for the celebrations of month's end, but think a bit about from whom, and where, and how you buy – and see what you can do to bring the gift a little closer to the life and living you would affirm.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; yes, he does like fruitcake, some do! Tell him about a Christmas gift at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 11-19

Faith Works 11-19-11

Jeff Gill

 

Communities of Thanksgiving

___

 

One of the best byproducts of the ecumenical movement of the 1960s & 70s was the development in cities and locations all over the country of "community Thanksgiving services."

 

I grew up with one that was always Wednesday night, rotating among churches downtown, which was (to me, at least) always exciting about getting to see the inside of churches I had never been in, and get a taste of how other traditions worshiped God.

 

Wednesday night always had the downside of excluding no small number of women who were, at 7 pm on Wednesday night, literally up to their elbows in a turkey. Over time, most of these have continued, but moved to the Sunday evening before. This also helps draw in the many of us who are traveling on Wednesday, over various rivers and through "Leafy Woods" subdivisions, to grandmothers' or other relatives houses. The horse may not know the way, but we have our pilgrim paths that are part of the holiday.

 

Licking County is no exception, with three that I can tell you about for sure, and I don't doubt there's a combined service or two out there I've not gotten definitive word about.

 

Down by Buckeye Lake, the Lakewood Area Ministerial Association is holding a community Thanksgiving service hosted by First Community Church there, Sunday night at 7:00 pm. Churches from Jacksontown to Hebron and along the north shore are joining together for that gathering.

 

The Newark Area Ministerial Association is gathering at Trinity Episcopal Church, just east of Courthouse Square, also at 7:00 pm Sunday night. Kitty Clausen & Sam Harnish have led an effort to invite folks from all around the Newark area both to participate and come worship.

 

They very kindly invited me to join them, but I was already helping with arrangements for the Granville Ministerium service, Sunday night at (wait for it!) 7:00 pm, hosted by the Church of St. Edward the Confessor on Newark-Granville Road. We will have readings from youth lectors out of a number of the participating churches, and John Ball, an 8^th grader from the United Church of Granville has organized a shoe drive for a mission project their youth group is supporting. The shoes may be used, or if they can't benefit a wearer, they get recycled in bulk and the proceeds drill wells in developing countries around the world. So we're having a shoe offering!

 

Each Thanksgiving service has it's own rhythm and special offering traditions, plus that chance to see inside a different worship space, and hear other voices in both preaching and song. Often there's a combined choir singing at these services, with folks showing up early to rehearse together an anthem and lift up voices in harmony, with unity.

 

That is truly something to be thankful for, whenever and wherever it happens!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio (who gets to preach tomorrow morning at Hebron Christian!); tell him what you are thankful for this year at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Knapsack 11-17

Notes From My Knapsack 11-17-11

Jeff Gill

 

A Thankful Connection

___

 

 

This Sunday, you all are invited to St. Edward's Catholic Church at 7:00 pm for a Community Thanksgiving worship service.

 

Rev. Dwight Davidson of the United Church of Granville will offer a message on "Making the most of the time" from Ephesians 5:16. A community chorus will rehearse together at 5:00 pm for the 7:00 pm service, and a number of young people from different congregations will share the readings.

 

One particular young person, John Ball, from UCG, is organizing a shoe drive which the Granville Minsterium wants to support this year. If you have old, worn shoes, tie or rubber band them together, and bring them to deposit at the service. John and his youth group are collecting them for Edge Outreach, a non-profit ministry which both sends on into the developing world shoes which can be worn, and recycles the others in bulk to earn cash that is then used to drill wells where they're needed, from Haiti to Sudan.

 

The shoes, like the canned goods we often collect in other years at the ecumenical service, are a small token, but a reminder, and one that has its own place. The offering makes us stop and think in a way writing even a fifty dollar check might not; walking into a church with barely useful shoes dangling from our hands gives a sense of the limits of our giving, but a practical insight into what's needed. Hope and healing, and clean water, may just be a few grubby sneakers away.

 

It's this question of how faraway places matter to us, and how we are connected to them, which dogs my question about what kind of "empire" our country, our culture is going to be. As Christians in a country with global impact, we can shape some ends with our actions, and resist some initiatives with our votes, even as we struggle to define which global matters truly do matter to a life of faith, and which means are right and proper to use as faithful people in the world.

 

Sending a check used to be safe, but we've gotten wise to the foolishness that money alone will announce the gospel, the good news. Sometimes you can't buy what God wants to see done; actually, that's usually the case.

 

Overseas mission, along with our local work recently celebrated and supported at places like a concert of gospel music in Newark, needs the kind of support that can only be participated in. Granville is blessed with the fact that most of our churches contain people who have actually gone and been and done in distant places, returning to tell us those stories, to make real to us what good news looks like in Myanmar and Mexico. Participation is more important than contribution, it seems, and even if we can't physically go, we can participate through holy listening, just as a gospel concert isn't complete without an audience softly singing along at times.

 

Overseas, counterinsurgency against violent threats is being rethought as well. Apparently we can neither bomb nor drone our way to a lasting peace, who knew? And "existential threats" may be best fought in a struggle that begins before the first IED is set, when skills and talents are better spent in building a life with hope & promise, rather than building bombs and booby traps.

 

I don't entirely know how we help others make that choice. I'm guessing learning more about why people make the choice to blow people like me up (or their own folk) is going to be one part of it. Figuring that out doesn't excuse their choices for evil acts, but it does give people like me a starting point to figure out what could be done. You don't have to concede terrorism is our own fault to realize that there may have been something we could have done sooner to prevent it.

 

And far enough back, it might have been as simple as a pair of shoes. Given with love.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he hopes to see you at the ecumenical Thanksgiving service! Say hello at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 11-12

Faith Works 11-12-11

Jeff Gill

 

The More Things Change

___

 

"The Lord be with you"

 

"And . . ."

 

Those statements are familiar, as far as they go, across many Christian traditions.

 

They have long taken the form, in America, of "The Lord be with you" from the priest, preacher, or presider, with a response from the people gathered of "And also with you." It comes from the Mass in English after the great transition of the Vatican II conference for the Roman Catholic Church, and sets the worship service rolling.

 

Those responsive statements are so effective that actually in the vast majority of Protestant churches you could step up to the platform or pulpit and say "The Lord be with you," and count on the majority of worshipers to respond in booming tones "And also with you."

 

This will get a little complicated come the end of the month.

 

Nov. 27 is the first Sunday of Advent, which is, for liturgical churches (and to some degree for any congregation which follows the lectionary cycle of Scripture readings), the beginning of the year. Everything resets, from the texts in weekly worship to the colors of pulpit covers and table paraments (purple for Advent).

 

Catholic Christians will find on that day, and I presume in the "vigil masses" on Saturday evening before, a bit more of a change. Well, more than a bit.

 

It turns out that the Mass translations from the Latin many of us have heard for years have been provisional, awaiting a more carefully considered effort from an international commission on worship texts. They've been provisional for over 40 years, but Rome likes to remind people that they don't think in terms of years, but of centuries (and wags would add, "yes, the fourteenth century").

 

After some politick-ing that I've read about but can't claim to understand (there was a draft worked on for some 30 years that was liked by many, but pitched at the last minute and reformulated under different management to reach the new, final translation), this new liturgical year ushers in an official, non-provisional "Missal of the Roman Mass" for use in worship among Catholics throughout the English-speaking world.

 

With this first Sunday of Advent, you will hear the priest say "The Lord be with you," and your response will be "And with your spirit."

 

Is that all, you might ask? Oh no, there's much more. The form and sense of the whole is really not much changed at all, but some have said that a certain preference for Latinate constructions is what most marks this translation, with words like "consubstantial" likely to trip up unsuspecting tongues.

 

I've spoken to two priests and a few church musicians about the coming change, and the consensus is that the adjustment for the congregation should be relatively simple & straightforward (watch the card that's going to be in the pew!), but the real problem will be for priests and musicians who have been putting off wrestling with their parts, where the largest number of changes in wording have been made (I'm told). Some have begun already "saying the Mass" in this form in their private devotions, even practicing it in front of the bathroom mirror ("like being back in seminary!" one said).

 

But all agree the rumors and worries are a bit out of scale with what's actually going on. When you read the Latin text the 1970 translation was based on, you don't have to know the language to see why the 2011 adjustment makes a certain sense: Priest: Dominus vobiscum.  People: Et cum spiritu tuo. You can see it: "And with your spirit."

 

There is also returned from traditions of an earlier day a practice which is behind the common idiom "breast-beating": instead of what the 1970 version asks the people to pray as "that I have sinned through my own fault," the new translation returns, in English, to the Latin mass usage of inviting worshipers to tap their chest three times while saying "that I have greatly sinned in my thoughts and in my words, in what I have done and in what I have failed to do, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault," from an original Latin "mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa."

 

Meanwhile, for all us Protestants, the question now arises: do we change, too? Or does the sacramental meaning of acknowledging the Holy Spirit at work in the presider, reclaimed with "And with your spirit," mean that most of us would do well to keep "And also with you"?

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he hopes that the Lord is with you! You may respond as you prefer to knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 5-5

Faith Works 5-5-11

Jeff Gill

 

Just a knock on the door

___

 

So, you all know where to show up tomorrow, right? No, after church.

 

Sunday, 3:30 pm, Midland Theatre in downtown Newark, Gospel Celebration, a concert for the "Coalition of Care" helping congregations serve those in need around Licking County (www.coalitionofcare.net). Lots of great choirs, ensembles, & soloists, with the ticket just $20. Come help us pack the house!

 

With that, I've asked you to come where I'll be at (and it's a sincere invitation). But if I come to where you are, especially if I'm your pastor or clergyperson of any sort, it's a "call."

 

Pastoral calls have been the single biggest thing that's changed in ministry over the last thirty years. Some would argue that it should be technology, which has changed greatly, but it hasn't transformed the work of ministry in the same way . . . yet.

 

And others might say that the rise of contemporary Christian music and the worship style that goes with it is the biggest change, but even there, it's one of those things where your congregation has either done it, or not. Many are still relatively untouched by contemporary worship, or have never known any other style.

 

Pastoral calling, on the other hand, has really changed right across the board for anyone who's been in a ministry position since the 1980s. One aspect of that is the explosion of hospitals, and the shortening of stays. Thirty years ago, a pastor in Newark rarely went to Franklin County to pray with a parishoner before surgery, while now it's a regular event (some might even say weekly). And if you don't get right over there, you might just arrive to find them dismissed already.

 

While many folks still have some of the same expectations today that they did then, which most clergy I know try to meet.

 

That's actually not what I'm thinking about, though. It's the other side of pastoral calls, the "home visit."

 

It came to mind because I was recently reading in the annals of Rev. Jacob Little, the legendary Granville pastor at First Presbyterian there, who served from the end of the pioneer period to the Civil War, and left a large amount of written material along with the general church records.

 

Apparently, what Parson Little did each Sunday was post, in the vestibule, two lists. One was of those who had not paid their pew rents (long story, but just call it "their pledge"), and the other was a list of those families he intended to visit that week.

 

These weren't social calls, either. Little would quiz the children about their studies in Scripture, invite the parents to discuss doctrine, and generally inquire about the state of their souls and fitness to receive communion.

 

The posted list helps to explain why the Reverend would often come to the door of a home and hear the head of the household loudly already at prayer, with special blessings asked for the pastor. Old Jacob had very little sense of irony, so I'm not sure he got what was going on, since he would report these incidents with great approval.

 

Anyhow, Rev. Little would call on parish families three or four days a week, between the noon meal and supper, two or three families each day. Apparently he could count on arriving at a house, on a weekday afternoon, and find the entire family, father included, there waiting for him.

 

Today, catching people at home? You'd have to call in the evening, if then, and quite frankly, there aren't many people who like having visitors at home in the evening. The new reality is that most pastoral home visits tend to be associated with crisis and bad news, which warps the sense of having a minister at the door even more.

 

We are still coming up with what a new model can be for pastoral calls on a good day, when there's not a problem to be dealt with, and maybe even for a relaxed but serious conversation. Most clergy are really interested in the state of your soul, the condition of your heart, and welcome a chance to talk and pray with you about things of the spirit.

 

We do have those conversations with people in assisted living, nursing homes, and yes, even in hospitals when the stay isn't measured in hours but there's a day or two at hand. For everyone else – should we try going back to posting lists?

 

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

Faith Works 10-29

Faith Works 10-29-11

Jeff Gill

 

I am homeless

___

 

I am homeless.

 

I am also blessed to have a place to live; some might say "that is Jeff's house," and they aren't entirely wrong. My wife makes more than I do, so the whole question of how we saved the down payment over the years past and who covers the mortgage payments each month we will draw the gentle shroud of "community property" over.

 

For the Lovely Wife and myself, there is the fact that the bank which holds the mortgage owns more of it than we do. Can we sell it for what we paid for it? Maybe, probably not. If we could sell Sycamore Lodge, we'd be able to pay off the mortgage, but then we wouldn't have a home, would we? We are at least thankful that we're not, in the all-too-current phrase, underwater.

 

There are a few in the neighborhood who know it as the "BLANK house," blank being the family who lived here before us, and who sold it into our care. When we leave, someday, as we all must, it will likely be "the Gill house" for many years across the early ownership of the next occupants. Hope they don't mind.

 

And my family, my parents, still own the home I grew up in, and live there, at least for a chunk of the year that isn't ice-encrusted blown down off of Lake Michigan. That's unusual among my peers, I know. I can call the phone number I learned for kindergarten, and it still rings to a place where people who know me pick up. But my dad is starting to make noises about stairs, and downsizing, and . . .

 

I am homeless. We all are, in a way, because the place we call home is not certain and secure in any ultimate sense. Odd occasions of chance and ill fortune, a shift in the land itself, and my place is . . . not assured. There's a historic home near me, with many indirect connections that I still feel as personal, going back to the very first Anglo settlers of Licking County, over 200 years of history. But the soggy ground is shifting, and hand-made bricks have their weaknesses after a couple of centuries, plus a doorway cut into a foundation wall perhaps a century ago turns out, in the long run, not to have been the best of ideas. This – this landmark, a stable point in a changing village, is very likely soon to be no more, only a photograph, and a fading set of memories.

 

We are all homeless. There's a saying among housing advocates that "we are all three paychecks away from being on the street." That's true for more people than will easily admit it, but I suspect there's too much room for people to excuse themselves from such an analogy. I'd say it's true right now: we are homeless, in that we have a place to sleep tonight because of many factors, quite a few beyond our direct control, and the care and consideration of so very many others. I have friends who got down payments from parents, there are an assortment of mortgage interest deductions, and so on and so on. Plus that whole "three paychecks away" thing.

 

Why do some people miss the leap from ice floe to ice floe that we're so proud to have made safely, and instead slip into the icy water of homelessness? It may be they weren't looking closely, they might even have not taken care to lace their shoes carefully or had a bit too much to drink for warmth and lost their balance by their own fault.

 

No matter. I could have fallen in, and if I did, I'd want someone to reach out and pull me up onto the next stable spot, help me dry out and warm up properly, then we'd all venture on. That's what I should do.

 

This week you'll see the shoes set out along the edges of Courthouse Square. The Licking County Coalition for Housing will offer "Shoes on the Square" along with some signs telling stories of how particular folks (names changed) ended up in the water, if not under. Noon on Wednesday, All Souls' Day, Nov. 2, we will have a gathering at the gazebo on Courthouse Square, to reflect briefly together on what it means to help someone get back on their feet. Come join us, would you?

 

Then on next Sunday, Nov. 6, at 3:30 pm in the Midland Theater, just across from the gazebo in Newark, the Coalition of Care will hold their annual Gospel Celebration, which helps support their prayerful and face-to-face work with individuals and families in need around Licking County. Ticket info can be found at MidlandTheatre.org or likely at your own church tomorrow.

 

My home is somewhere on ahead, and we all will be welcome there. Let's all be willing to pause and help people get up, get moving, and head for home, finding secure stopping places along the way. Places warm and safe enough that for the time being, we can just call them "home."

 

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

Knapsack 10-27

Notes From My Knapsack 10-27-11

Jeff Gill

 

Yes, an Election Year. Oh Joy.

___

 

Tuesday, Nov. 8 in this year of 2011, begins a twelve month period of more politicking than the human eye, ear, and mind can truly comprehend.

 

Let's not look past this next week to over-anticipate the balloting of 2012; we will have no small number of charter amendments for Granville, and some pretty significant voter initiatives for Ohio, in the Nov. 8 plebiscite.

 

Already, though, we're considering the choices and decisions for this election in light of the national debate over which party will hold the executive branch, aka the White House, and control (if that word makes any sense in this context) Congress.

 

Our local concerns, for water and sewer rates, for the quality of our schools, intersect with federal mandates and guidelines, that themselves are funded or cut back based in part on some of the budgetary stresses of our overseas expenditures, such as for Predator drones and the occasional carrier task force sortie. So they all connect.

 

In response to a village council question about personnel cost increases, the answer was "a recent rise in the cost of employee benefits, driven in part by action on a federal level." All of which is to say that the cost of being a global empire has a way of trickling down to the local level.

 

That's why I want to keep asking the question: if an empire, by any other name, would smell as . . . much, then is that the scent we want to wear? Or is the idea of empire something that hangs in your nose like a middle school boy wearing far too much Axe body spray?

 

The debates, among GOP candidates and ultimately between incumbent President Obama and whomever the Republican nominee ends up being, will tend to talk about the economy on the surface – but I'm convinced the substance will be about empire.

 

Some of the "Occupy This-n-that" protesters would protest that the point for America should be to not be an empire at all, but I just don't see that as an option. Short of ceding a huge amount of sovereignty to the United Nations by many countries, not just the US of A, and US'ns outsourcing much of our global armed reach to the blue helmet crew, we are now and will be in the foreseeable future a global empire.

 

That's where I think permeating the coming year of electoral wrangling, in the media and on the floor of Congress, will be the question: "what kind of empire are we going to be?"

 

As more comes out about Khaddafy's endgame, and forty year lifestyle, and as it causes us to consider even more closely what's going on in Syria and Iran, without even getting into North Korea, it is clear that there are some scary people running governments in the world, with the ability to project power narrowly, but across great distances.

 

Then there's the relative instability of oligarchical systems like Saudi Arabia, Russia, and yes, even China. Being an empire means not only military obligations, but a certain degree of social and cultural self-interest for long-term stability woven into economic concerns.

 

So what's a self-respecting, even moral (or morally aspiring) empire supposed to do? Claim sovereignty over energy sources in distant lands directly or indirectly, or figure out how to power an economy without depending on overseas commodities? Buy up and control raw materials half a world away, as China is actively trying to do in Africa as most Americans still are baffled at the question "where is North Katanga, Alex?" Or shift consumption to products that can be grown, generated, or gathered within our own geographic neighborhood?

 

Empire. Some call it an ugly word, and history doesn't help pretty it up, but what it means and will look like is going to be a key factor in the American political landscape of 2012, even if you rarely hear the word itself used.

 

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he has no imperial ambitions even over the back seat of his own car. Tell him your tales of empire at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 10-22

Faith Works 10-22-11

Jeff Gill

 

Is it a church, or something…else?

___

 

There's a place where people go, often as a family.

 

It's a place where they go to confront both fears and doubts, but also to laugh and celebrate, passing along family traditions that go back generations while generating a few new ones every year or so.

 

There is symbolism aplenty all around, and other people who gather with much the same intention, all gazing intently at the images, some subtle and amazing, others crude and startling, but all making young and old think about death, and what lies beyond.

 

Every year, a larger and larger portion of the family income goes to this place and the observance at home of the special day that everyone who passes through those doors celebrates. Even as the economy struggles, it's a priority to spend a chunk of what you earn not only for this event, this gathering, but also to share it back with many, mostly strangers, so they can know the odd mix of joy and awe that lies ahead for us all.

 

I'm speaking, of course, about the Hallowe'en store. Did you think I meant somewhere else?

 

Sure, it's just one day a year, but the fastest growing American holiday as measured by consumer expenditures. One date on the calendar, but another civic date called "Beggar's Night" just to keep everyone satisfied, and the lights and lawn décor and window clings and even tastefully arranged pumpkins on the porch go up earlier and earlier each year. Oct. 1 to Oct. 31, 'tis the season.

 

Do I overstate to compare it to a religion, a belief system? Well, there are plenty of people who claim a faith perspective who observe it in a church building maybe 2 days of the year, and there are lots of people who make at least that many trips (pilgrimages?) to the Hallowe'en store during the now six weeks the storefronts are "temporarily" open.

 

And look at the displays: they all, in one way or another, danse macabre-ly around the idea that beyond death is . . . something. Something unpleasant, something awful, or something awfully funny? We put on the whole armor of disguise and humor to fend off that which we spend money to shove in our own, let alone others' faces; a Raggedy Ann costume skipping past a skeleton sitting up from a Styrofoam tombstone.

 

What does it all mean?

 

Don't count me among the nay-sayers of Hallowe'en and Christianity mixing. Look to the roots of the word itself, the traditions of All Saints, the fiesta of Mexican Day(s) of the Dead with sugar skulls and graveside visits. There is a place for laughing at death, at the Devil himself, because everyone – churched or un-churched – knows that Satan hates being laughed at. No sense of humor at all, that one.

 

But in absence of any other belief system, Hallowe'en can awkwardly suggest one on its own merits, and a flawed structure it is, muddling zombies and vampyres and various undeads with magic spells and attributing power to wands and purloined skulls and twisted phrases usually stolen from the Mass anyhow.

 

Hallowe'en isn't necessarily a church, but it can become one if it's all you've got. I enjoyed visiting the Haunted Mansion at Disneyworld, but I wouldn't want to go there every Sunday.

 

What does how you observe the end of October (or the whole month) tell others about what you believe about death? Ask yourself that; the answer may surprise you.

 

Boo!

 

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

Faith Works 10-15

Faith Works 10-15-11

Jeff Gill

 

We make the road by walking

___

 

Walking.

 

We travel, one step at a time, swinging out our bodies, off balance, into space. If we don't lean forward, push ourselves just beyond where we're stable and secure, we can't stride forward with a leg out to catch us.

 

Walking. There's a rhythm you have to find, a steady pace, a consistent passage from here into just ahead that becomes a thing in and of itself, the journey.

 

Antonio Machado, the Spanish poet, wrote "Se hace camino al andar," or "We make the road by walking." That's part of what the community CROP Walk is about, gathering tomorrow at First Baptist Church in Newark at 1:00 pm. "We walk because they walk" is the running theme for this ecumenical effort to respond to the challenge of hunger and famine and under-development for people around the world; local hunger needs are addressed as well, with a quarter of the amount pledged to walkers going to Licking County food programs.

 

There's also a walk concluding around 2:00 pm at Octagon State Memorial on Sunday, the final mile of the "Walk with the Ancients" which has gone from Chillicothe to Newark now with a third group of pilgrims on the way.

 

Sunday is the fourth of four "open house" dates annually at the part of the Newark Earthworks found at 33^rd St. and Parkview Rd. Leased for a century to Moundbuilders Country Club, the Octagon and attached circle will be open to the public for general access, and tours from noon to 4 pm.

 

The walkers of the 60-plus mile trek actually returned to Newark and the OSU campus here in town a few weeks ago, where most of this group are students. Their "final mile" of the actually 72 they travel was saved until tomorrow, when they could enter the Octagon along the path traveled by pilgrims 2,000 years ago. You may help welcome them around 2:00 pm at the Octagon Open House.

 

From where all did these original builders and pilgrims travel? Some hints come from the archaeological record, and a new exhibit opens this weekend in Columbus at the Ohio History Center which emphasizes both the Ohio Middle Woodland period, also called the "Hopewell Culture," and Newark's place in that cosmos 2,000 years ago.

 

"Following in Ancient Footsteps" is the theme of this exhibit, and a series of "Faces From the Past" gaze calmly back at you at the entrance to the new area – including the Wray Figurine, also known as the "Shaman of Newark." A person, male or female we don't know, in a bearskin costume, looking into . . . the future? Even as we look closely back through the glass of the display case, trying to see more clearly into the past.

 

And as we have all these journeys and pathways and stories unspooling around us, there is a movie coming to this area in another week which I hope to see, and I hope you do, too. It's called "The Way," and is a labor of love by Martin Sheen and his son (no, not that one) Emilio Estevez, who has returned to his father's pre-acting family name.

 

Father and son have gone to Spain, and made a movie about a pilgrimage, to Santiago de Compostela. Sheen plays a man who decides that he needs to make this pilgrim's journey by foot, from the Pyrenees to the Atlantic coast, and into the shrine church that is the goal of those who walk this path, "The Way." He didn't plan on the journey, isn't really sure he wants to do it, but he finds that he must, and he does.

 

Truly, while I know more about the plot, I'd rather just invite you to go on the trip in your own way, and find out for yourself. But it's double delightful that these events occur all together, for as my friend Brad Lepper has been working as curator of archaeology for OHS and the new exhibit, and on the study of the "Great Hopewell Road" between Newark & Chillicothe these last many years, the metaphor we've both used in trying to explain what the journey might have been for the Hopewell culture has been: Santiago de Compostela.

 

Wherever your weekend takes you, may you be blessed by the journey, and remember: "Se hace camino al andar," "We make the road by walking."

 

Or "the Way."

 

 

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

Knapsack 10-13

Notes From My Knapsack 10-13-11

Jeff Gill

An Empire By Any Other Name

___

For Christian believers, the challenge of living out your life day to day according to the principles you affirm is called "discipleship." A disciple is a follower of someone, and for a Christian, Jesus is whom you are following.

Let me say right up front that the most straightforward response to living in a violent world as a Christian is pacifism. The examples are there, the teachings are there, and frankly, while living it may be a "heavy lift," the discipleship of pacifism is an easy defense.

There are places, though, where it seems soldiers are not told they must quit their jobs in order to follow "the Way" of the early church, where John the Baptist just tells them to be content with their pay and not use their authority to extort more from civilians. Peter after the Resurrection, in the earliest life of the church, deals with Roman soldiers without ever telling them to quit.

Perhaps the point is that a Roman centurion was as much a public servant in certain settings as he was a warrior. Which is true in today's US armed forces, as well. At any rate, there is Christian tradition & teaching around a cautious acceptance of a role for the military life.

St. Augustine, around the year 400 AD, as the Roman Empire was falling to pieces around him in North Africa, developed something called "Just War" theory. This leading teacher and preacher of the developing Christian faith believed there were circumstances when going to war (jus ad bellum) was justified: if a legitimate authority declares war; if there is a just cause (such as self defense, defending third parties, or to restore order); and for the right intentions, both objectively (to restore peace) and subjectively (from a position of love for those oppressed, and for enemy).

 

Just war theory also has guidance for when to go to war: It must be a last resort; you must listen to sincere offers to sue for peace; the effort must be winnable; you should exercise proportionality in damage and reaction to enemy damage; your side shall respect treaties and law; and ultimately, you should be sincerely convinced that your side is just.

 

While in war itself there are guidelines (jus in bello), says Augustine: you shall observe an absolute immunity for the innocent; weapons must be used so as to distinguish between combatants; your methods must be proportional to the threat posed; and finally all the necessary means to this end in the terrible eventuality of war shall respect human dignity to every extend possible in that situation, which practically speaking includes - no torture, no slander, no rape, no poisoning of wells.

That last point about wells reminds us that these guidelines were written 1600 years ago.  How might Augustine have changed his outline if he saw airplanes, battleships, remote drones with missiles that strike an enemy from halfway around the world? Proportionality and discrimination in the means of war are both aided at times, and obliterated at others by the technologies of modern war. Some would argue that modern war can never be just by these standards.

What would Augustine have thought about our American empire? Because, like the description or not, that's what we are. In reach beyond our borders, in the projection of power, in the extension of our trade and our culture around the world, I don't think Augustine would find any argument credible to say this country is not, in most meaningful ways, an empire. We can argue that we are a kinder, gentler empire than any that has ever bestrode the earth, but we project power to defend our economic interests and national safety at home by acts of violence abroad.

So what are the ethics of empire? Can just war theory be extended to define what a just empire would look like? I will admit to being pragmatic enough in my theology & philosophy to be very impatient with an argument that says it is impossible to be an ethical empire, just as politically I'm very unimpressed by a starting point of "bring all the troops home." That would only make sense if you simultaneously say "and we're going to end all trade beyond our national borders."

And as Augustine was struggling to describe, there are times when injustice & oppression on a national scale require a response.  What hasn't changed over nearly two millennia is the knowledge that such response takes a terrible toll on the individual combatants, the victors as well as the vanquished.

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

Faith Works 10-8

Faith Works 10-8-11

Jeff Gill

 

Oh, Why Bother. (Here's Why.)

___

 

 

Let's just sell all the churches and worship in living rooms.

 

Seriously, I got a bunch of e-mail and comments that were variations on exactly that from last week's column.

 

Congregations, especially congregations with buildings and staff (clergy and otherwise) and mailing lists, were given a number of ongoing developments to think about last Saturday. Some of you said "Tomaytoh" while others said "Tomahtoe," but a few suggested we call the whole thing off.

 

Before we dismiss our local, loveable cranks as, say . . . cranks, let's think about that. Why not get rid of the cost and bother and misplaced focus on buildings?

 

One obvious answer is size. Even a small, struggling congregations has 25 to 40 people a Sunday, and it's the rare living room which has the capacity for that many.

 

One of the challenges facing church leadership is that not long ago an average Sunday attendance of 70 was enough to sustain a building and a full-time pastor with seminary training. That number has shot up to more like 120 or more if you're talking about a full salary package with health insurance, and that's not even talking anymore about a custodian and secretary.

 

So churches up to 200 a Sunday in the pews are going to part-time jobs for office staff, building staff, and even for clergy. Meanwhile, if you have "only" 175 per week in worship, you sure aren't going to find even a basement rumpus room in a member's house that will fit you all.

 

Your fellowship can duck the whole building deal with renting space in a school auditorium or catering space that isn't used on Sundays; some new church starts find an older congregation which is willing to make a deal for Sunday afternoons, and that's very common in Ohio for ethnic congregations of Korean or Hispanic members.

 

You avoid certain complications with that sort of borrowed space approach, but you pick up new ones. And until you've worked with it, you can't calculate the very real expenditure of leadership & volunteer time spent in setting up and tearing down in gyms or hallways or theaters every weekend. That time and energy comes out of possibilities that you never quite can plumb, but that loss is not nothing.

 

A truly hard-nosed church building skeptic might say "why not keep establishing house churches, and just never have any one get bigger than can fit, but the growth is in an expanding number of home meetings?" You'll not have an organ or stained glass windows, but you'll have none of the limitations of those walls, either.

 

Xenos Christian Fellowship in Columbus is built along that model, with a few of their home groups here in Licking County. They argue that they aren't a large church with home groups, but a connection of home groups that occasionally has large meetings.

 

I have to count myself a rueful pragmatist on church life. You can focus, as a Frank Viola does, on home groups, or you can be a Joel Osteen and celebrate size and expansion as an end in itself. What I see in Christian history are home churches that grew to where they had to purchase a home, keep it looking that way outside, but gut it out inside to create a worship space (you can online search for "Dura-Europos" to see our earliest example).

 

Once you have social approval, such as under Emperor Constantine in the Fourth Century, you find yourself with an option to set up shop in underutilized basilicas or repurposed temples, and next thing you know you're in a giant physical plant and the report of the trustees is half the monthly board meeting.

 

So moving into old pagan temples left vacant, bad idea (you'll have to put a new roof on in no time); putting up something bigger than a residential home but smaller than a blimp hanger, good idea (though some pastors have blimp-like ideas about what is a sustainable size).

 

Rather than wish them gone, I wonder what would happen if we look at our buildings, our real estate, our gathered fellowship -- with all the parking and sanctuary temperature management problems that these imply, and if you consideration led to . . . stewardship.

 

Perhaps a vital personal faith needs to be tied to the vitality that can, that may, that SHOULD grow from taking seriously a shared obligation: to take care of a classic building, or to carefully select and affirm a staff that's right-sized and well-purposed to your particular fellowship's calling?

 

In other words, annoying though they can be, you probably need a church more than you think. Big-C church and small-c church alike, building-church or sense of membership and commitment to a shared vision-church. If irritation helps oysters create pearl, what might going to church help you to do?

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him what (or who) annoys you at church to knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 10-8

Faith Works 10-8-11

Jeff Gill

 

Oh, Why Bother. (Here's Why.)

___

 

 

Let's just sell all the churches and worship in living rooms.

 

Seriously, I got a bunch of e-mail and comments that were variations on exactly that from last week's column.

 

Congregations, especially congregations with buildings and staff (clergy and otherwise) and mailing lists, were given a number of ongoing developments to think about last Saturday. Some of you said "Tomaytoh" while others said "Tomahtoe," but a few suggested we call the whole thing off.

 

Before we dismiss our local, loveable cranks as, say . . . cranks, let's think about that. Why not get rid of the cost and bother and misplaced focus on buildings?

 

One obvious answer is size. Even a small, struggling congregations has 25 to 40 people a Sunday, and it's the rare living room which has the capacity for that many.

 

One of the challenges facing church leadership is that not long ago an average Sunday attendance of 70 was enough to sustain a building and a full-time pastor with seminary training. That number has shot up to more like 120 or more if you're talking about a full salary package with health insurance, and that's not even talking anymore about a custodian and secretary.

 

So churches up to 200 a Sunday in the pews are going to part-time jobs for office staff, building staff, and even for clergy. Meanwhile, if you have "only" 175 per week in worship, you sure aren't going to find even a basement rumpus room in a member's house that will fit you all.

 

Your fellowship can duck the whole building deal with renting space in a school auditorium or catering space that isn't used on Sundays; some new church starts find an older congregation which is willing to make a deal for Sunday afternoons, and that's very common in Ohio for ethnic congregations of Korean or Hispanic members.

 

You avoid certain complications with that sort of borrowed space approach, but you pick up new ones. And until you've worked with it, you can't calculate the very real expenditure of leadership & volunteer time spent in setting up and tearing down in gyms or hallways or theaters every weekend. That time and energy comes out of possibilities that you never quite can plumb, but that loss is not nothing.

 

A truly hard-nosed church building skeptic might say "why not keep establishing house churches, and just never have any one get bigger than can fit, but the growth is in an expanding number of home meetings?" You'll not have an organ or stained glass windows, but you'll have none of the limitations of those walls, either.

 

Xenos Christian Fellowship in Columbus is built along that model, with a few of their home groups here in Licking County. They argue that they aren't a large church with home groups, but a connection of home groups that occasionally has large meetings.

 

I have to count myself a rueful pragmatist on church life. You can focus, as a Frank Viola does, on home groups, or you can be a Joel Osteen and celebrate size and expansion as an end in itself. What I see in Christian history are home churches that grew to where they had to purchase a home, keep it looking that way outside, but gut it out inside to create a worship space (you can online search for "Dura-Europos" to see our earliest example).

 

Once you have social approval, such as under Emperor Constantine in the Fourth Century, you find yourself with an option to set up shop in underutilized basilicas or repurposed temples, and next thing you know you're in a giant physical plant and the report of the trustees is half the monthly board meeting.

 

So moving into old pagan temples left vacant, bad idea (you'll have to put a new roof on in no time); putting up something bigger than a residential home but smaller than a blimp hanger, good idea (though some pastors have blimp-like ideas about what is a sustainable size).

 

Rather than wish them gone, I wonder what would happen if we look at our buildings, our real estate, our gathered fellowship -- with all the parking and sanctuary temperature management problems that these imply, and if you consideration led to . . . stewardship.

 

Perhaps a vital personal faith needs to be tied to the vitality that can, that may, that SHOULD grow from taking seriously a shared obligation: to take care of a classic building, or to carefully select and affirm a staff that's right-sized and well-purposed to your particular fellowship's calling?

 

In other words, annoying though they can be, you probably need a church more than you think. Big-C church and small-c church alike, building-church or sense of membership and commitment to a shared vision-church. If irritation helps oysters create pearl, what might going to church help you to do?

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him what (or who) annoys you at church to knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.