Notes from my Knapsack 3-17-22
Jeff Gill
A month of whipsaw weather
___
March means spring in central Ohio.
That doesn't mean it also can sneak up on us with a wicked fall of snow, or worse yet the black ice of early morning, especially on north-facing slopes where the higher sun angle isn't putting heat into the pavement all day to keep it clear overnight.
Melt and rain dancing on either side of freezing, which is still a feature of every March here, means you can expect dawns with a dollop of danger on bridges and overpasses. Our frost-free day in this neighborhood is around May 15, so the tomatoes can wait (unless you're starting seeds up on top of the refrigerator).
But daffodils, our heritage and inheritance in the Granville area, are popping up and right behind come other bulb-rooted flowers, hyacinths and tulips and more perennials on the way. Baseball players may not be at spring training, but our local lads are selling mulch and delivering it just as the weeds are rustling up out of sleep.
March means spring in central Ohio, and the trees start budding and bursting and casting more debris down on lawns and parked cars. Maples are especially good at this. Lawnmowers need checked, and I hope you didn't leave the gas in it all winter; the more conscientious among us sharpen with files the edge of spades and shovels or whet the shears and trimmers. The last of the ornamental grasses need to be cut back before the new green shoots poke up among the midst of them, and there are loads of brush and downed limbs to tend to.
Keep the scraper in the car, and the spare coat and extra blanket in the back, but soon it will be June and you'll realize you can stow them away for next November. Not yet, though. Frost in the morning, chills yet to come.
As a young Scout, I still remember our troop's biggest setback, but most lasting lesson. This is back when scout troops could still own and operate their own secondhand school buses, and ours was painted purple, with the back third converted to a quartermaster's store of shelves and stowage. We were an every month camping troop, and our leaders were steelworkers along Lake Michigan who knew the outdoors and taught us well.
But it was a March campout that caught us. It had been warm and sunny for weeks, the grass was already growing strongly by mid-month, and this was a few hundred miles north of here. The forecast was mild, and the weekend dawned balmy, the Friday night gathering and trip to our campsite mostly in t-shirts and shorts. In mid-March.
Saturday, after a mellow morning, a shift in the wind, a drop in the temperatures. People dug in backpacks for coats and found windbreakers; more than a few of us as we set out on an afternoon hike realized digging into our pockets that there were no gloves. We'd thrown them weeks before onto the hall closet upper shelf.
Back at camp, the snow started. Heavy, wet, steady. Fires were lit for supper, but they offered too little warmth; the adults made a circuit of the three patrol sites, and assessed our (gulp) preparedness for a winter night. And for perhaps the only time in Troop 7 history, we went home early.
March means spring, but it can still bite. Be prepared!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he learned about what "Be Prepared" really means that weekend. Tell him about your outdoor education at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Wednesday, March 02, 2022
Faith Works 3-5-22
Faith Works 3-5-22
Jeff Gill
Crutches and healing and strength
___
Last week we had Garrison Keillor in town for a show at the Midland Theatre. I had the opportunity to interview him in advance for this paper, and on the phone he was generous with his time and spoke at length about a variety of subjects, much more than I could get into the article I wrote earlier.
Keillor is known best for storytelling, and his renown in that field on the radio was already growing when I was in seminary in the 1980s. Many of my peers in preaching found his approach to narrative and public presentation to be a healthy corrective to the sometimes overly academic model we were getting in class, focused on a manuscript and a systematic presentation, controlled and cautious.
On "Prairie Home Companion," when Keillor moved into the portion of the radio program called "News from Lake Wobegon," for this listener it often seemed as if he was a high wire walker on stage, working without a net. There was both a spontaneity and a sense of carefully crafted speech in what we would listen to, leaning in even sitting in the car as he would pause and in many small subtle ways communicate that he was thinking out loud. And for me, at least, it was impossible to hear his delivery and observe the effect that kind of narrative had on other listeners, and not think about preaching the Gospel, which deserved careful preparation but also seemed to call for a mutual humanity in how the Good Story is told and re-told.
Mind you, I'm not saying this is the only way to preach, but for me it felt like an approach worth investigating. And it shaped my time in the pulpit. So I was interested in talking to the man about church and faith and preaching.
He was more than willing to speak on those subjects, but his observations kept coming back to his local parish, the church he clearly attends regularly in Manhattan. When I would ask about narrative theology and preaching as storytelling, he would respond with a comment about how the sermon works in a wider context, and it was more as a parishioner than as a preacher he spoke.
In talking about some of his own personal journey, and internal struggles after some public controversy he experienced, he came back a few times to his church's healing service, a weekly part of their cycle of worship which is focused on prayer as a congregation, and the opportunity to come forward and be prayed for by the ministers fo the church.
"I went forward," Keillor said about one such service, "and the deacon at the front put her hands on my shoulders. It meant so much, I can't tell you, to go forward and say it out loud. I said to her 'I hurt,' and she looked right at me, and I felt listened to. I felt the burden of anger lifted from my life."
That was not about preaching, but it was about a minister being truly present to someone. He didn't have to make the connection for me. Effective communication is about that kind of presence and openness to someone who is hurting, who is in need. Sometimes it happens in sermons, sometimes in other acts of pastoral ministry.
A few decades ago the governor of the state of Minnesota, Keillor's home, said "Christianity is a crutch." He said it was for "weak people." I've always appreciated the clarity Jesse Ventura brought to this conversation. I think he's right, even if we come to different conclusions on what that means.
Only a person who's sure they'll never need a crutch can laugh at them. If you are confident you'll never want to have a commode chair handy, I guess you could find one ludicrous, worth a chuckle. But if we all are likely to need a crutch, a place to find relief, or even hope to find a healing hand on our shoulder, then we probably should be careful about making fun of weakness, before we find we're just mocking ourselves.
In Lent, we have forty days to reflect on our own weakness, our own needs, and the promises of God to lift us up, and sometimes even to carry us. To say to the Lord "I hurt" and know we are heard, and in that knowledge find healing.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's had his weak moments in and out of the pulpit. Tell him where you find the crutch you need to carry on at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
Crutches and healing and strength
___
Last week we had Garrison Keillor in town for a show at the Midland Theatre. I had the opportunity to interview him in advance for this paper, and on the phone he was generous with his time and spoke at length about a variety of subjects, much more than I could get into the article I wrote earlier.
Keillor is known best for storytelling, and his renown in that field on the radio was already growing when I was in seminary in the 1980s. Many of my peers in preaching found his approach to narrative and public presentation to be a healthy corrective to the sometimes overly academic model we were getting in class, focused on a manuscript and a systematic presentation, controlled and cautious.
On "Prairie Home Companion," when Keillor moved into the portion of the radio program called "News from Lake Wobegon," for this listener it often seemed as if he was a high wire walker on stage, working without a net. There was both a spontaneity and a sense of carefully crafted speech in what we would listen to, leaning in even sitting in the car as he would pause and in many small subtle ways communicate that he was thinking out loud. And for me, at least, it was impossible to hear his delivery and observe the effect that kind of narrative had on other listeners, and not think about preaching the Gospel, which deserved careful preparation but also seemed to call for a mutual humanity in how the Good Story is told and re-told.
Mind you, I'm not saying this is the only way to preach, but for me it felt like an approach worth investigating. And it shaped my time in the pulpit. So I was interested in talking to the man about church and faith and preaching.
He was more than willing to speak on those subjects, but his observations kept coming back to his local parish, the church he clearly attends regularly in Manhattan. When I would ask about narrative theology and preaching as storytelling, he would respond with a comment about how the sermon works in a wider context, and it was more as a parishioner than as a preacher he spoke.
In talking about some of his own personal journey, and internal struggles after some public controversy he experienced, he came back a few times to his church's healing service, a weekly part of their cycle of worship which is focused on prayer as a congregation, and the opportunity to come forward and be prayed for by the ministers fo the church.
"I went forward," Keillor said about one such service, "and the deacon at the front put her hands on my shoulders. It meant so much, I can't tell you, to go forward and say it out loud. I said to her 'I hurt,' and she looked right at me, and I felt listened to. I felt the burden of anger lifted from my life."
That was not about preaching, but it was about a minister being truly present to someone. He didn't have to make the connection for me. Effective communication is about that kind of presence and openness to someone who is hurting, who is in need. Sometimes it happens in sermons, sometimes in other acts of pastoral ministry.
A few decades ago the governor of the state of Minnesota, Keillor's home, said "Christianity is a crutch." He said it was for "weak people." I've always appreciated the clarity Jesse Ventura brought to this conversation. I think he's right, even if we come to different conclusions on what that means.
Only a person who's sure they'll never need a crutch can laugh at them. If you are confident you'll never want to have a commode chair handy, I guess you could find one ludicrous, worth a chuckle. But if we all are likely to need a crutch, a place to find relief, or even hope to find a healing hand on our shoulder, then we probably should be careful about making fun of weakness, before we find we're just mocking ourselves.
In Lent, we have forty days to reflect on our own weakness, our own needs, and the promises of God to lift us up, and sometimes even to carry us. To say to the Lord "I hurt" and know we are heard, and in that knowledge find healing.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's had his weak moments in and out of the pulpit. Tell him where you find the crutch you need to carry on at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
