Notes from my Knapsack 5-2020

Notes from my Knapsack 5-2020

Jeff Gill

 

Weeds and viruses and the world

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Every year, there are new spring weeds that dominate the landscape, lawns or gardens alike.

 

There are the regulars, like dandelions, although they too have their ups and downs, depending on the winter past and how spring settles into the soil, provoking the roots and stimulating growth.

 

A mild winter and a damp cool spring, and I know without even going too far off the path that it's going to be a good year for ticks. Beware!

 

What I've not learned to read as well are the plant indications. Garlic mustard is an invasive non-native that's plagued both wild lands and forest understories, but also our un-mulched garden corners.

 

I've read some tasty sounding recipes for a kind of pesto you can make from it, but haven't been that motivated so far. With more time at home, my interest has been to reduce my chemical use to as close to nil as I can, and pluck the little villains before they start to wind around my now fading daffodils and launching tulips. Garlic mustard is like the disastrous oregano experiment I made some years ago: give it a season and it will take over a stretch of garden like nobody's business.

 

Purple deadnettle is not new, but I am surprised by just how much of it I'm seeing this year. Something about the soil temperature and sunlight has been good for it, and it's giving garlic mustard a run for its money. A friend said on Facebook that it is edible as well, but I'm going to work through more canned ravioli before I take that step. Worth knowing, I guess.

 

What most of these have in common, though, from dandelions since 1607 to garlic mustard and purple deadnettle more recently, is that they "come from away." They are non-native invasives, like zebra mussels in Lake Erie or the emerald ash borers and more recently infamous "murder hornets" out of Asia.

 

The challenge of a global economy is that what used to be a barrier, like an ocean, is now a pathway and an open door. The arrival of European colonists in the Americas brought bacteria and viruses into this continent which had not been dealt with by human immune systems for millennia, and Native American Indians died in horrific numbers. Medicinal plants like the dandelion (yes, a medicinal plant!) became a plague across disturbed soil in a few generations after Virginia became a colony; the weed we know as plantain in the Midwest was known to native people as "Englishman's foot" because it followed the agriculture and settlements of those newer arrivals.

 

So I pluck purple deadnettle from my garden after having pulled all the garlic mustard shoots, and I reflect on our home restrictions which have made this intensive weeding possible due to the arrival of a new virus from somewhere in the heart of Asia. The adjustments to Old World viruses involved mass death; now the Western Hemisphere looks for a more adaptive response that includes killing the virus, not people, through restrictions of movement and tracing of infectious paths through the population.

 

We are not done, in other words, even when we learn what to do about coronaviruses. Nature around the world has bugs and bats and bacteria which are themselves evolving and changing every day, sometimes for the better, and occasionally to become more lethal. Our lessons and actions now are going to become part of an adaptive response we are likely to need again and again as the world turns, and our ecosystems thrive.

 

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's not an epidemiologist or even a biologist, but he finds life fascinating. Tell him how you're adapting to the vitality and mobility of life and living things at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 5-9-20

Faith Works 5-9-20

Jeff Gill

 

Tech support as pastoral care

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"No, the cursor. The blinking thing. On your screen. Okay, do you have a mouse or a touchpad? Right, a computer, but how do you control things on the screen? I know, you don't feel like you're controlling anything, I know. But when you -- right, a keyboard, but when you . . . okay, that's a touchpad. So when you touch it, the thing that moves around on the screen? Right, now, move that down to the bottom of the window you have open, and . . . it went black?"

 

In the past, as someone with a measure of comfort and familiarity with computers and HTML and online stuff, I've found the role of "tech support" mixed in with ministry.

 

Tech support is that number you call, or the department at work you contact, and they often ask "have you checked to make sure it's turned on?" Because it's often the heart of the problem. Tech support extends to "you'll need to replace your AE-35 unit" but more often it's a series of instructions over the phone or video link that helps you, the inexperienced, make your complex technology work the way you want it to.

 

Right off the top, I want to say that doing tech support for many, many church members (not always older ones, either) through these last few weeks has been a wonderful spiritual discipline for me. As I've said in this space before, patience is not always my strong point; God has in many ways worked with me on this need. Cultivating patience as I walk someone through a series of steps that I do almost unconsciously, and so find hard to describe in stages, and help another person learn how to do it on their terms: it has taught me patience.

 

Not enough, but I'm getting there.

 

And once we've gotten the video conference link to work, and the mutes off (or on, as needed) and the chat box under control; as people get used to how videos work in a browser window with a separate set of nested controls from their computer's controls for volume and screen size; as more church members have gotten used to doing worship at home, together online – in all of this, there have been some definite upsides.

 

There are people in our congregations that have never felt more connected to their church, and more included in their involvement, than they do right now. It's not that they asked for this or want it to continue, but it's just as true that they feel less like shut-ins or outcasts than they have in years. We have people dealing with illness and chemo and disease who are not "those people" when they're not in the building, they're "one among us" now as we've always intended. This should make all of us in church leadership think hard about how we can maintain the work of connection without needing stay-at-home orders to accomplish it.

 

And I will admit, as a minister, I've known these people for years: they have anxiety issues and agoraphobia, neuropathy and low blood pressure. They are older couples with complex health problems, but they are also single parents who work late Saturdays and sometimes Sundays. A recording of the sermon whether delivered on a CD or available online is a solution for some, but the wider experience is something they're blocked from on multiple levels. Right now, the worship field is level.

 

Gathered worship is still our goal and what I think of as a best practice, scripturally and personally. But the experience of online worship has led me to reflect on why I believe that, how it works in practice, and what we can do in the future. As we get closer to some form, however limited, of being present in a worship space, I don't want to lose sight of some of the new angles I've started to see through these severe limitations, which actually have made some new relationships and inspiration possible.

 

And I promise to share them with you as I reach a little better understanding of those opportunities!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's still working on that whole patience thing. Tell him how you've done or experienced tech support as pastoral care at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.