Notes from my Knapsack 3-31-22
Jeff Gill
Going on a trip, returning home
___
Spring break is back after a two year hiatus, and if my social media is any guide, there's a great deal of traveling going on.
As it turns out, I've traveled a great deal through COVID times, mostly back and forth to a single house in the Indianapolis suburbs. I can't account for supply chain problems, but I'd assure you that if I-70 is any guide, the trucks have not stopped running, and that's in both directions.
Outside of the "resort" (as my wife and I joke in our texts, about arriving at "the resort" where there's no tipping, but the laundry & housekeeping is definitely self-service) we have been making pre-dawn runs to stock up when there's few others at the stores, and mostly otherwise going to hospitals where masking and precautions are still considered reasonable, given that (unless you're a patient's escort) most of those arriving are in a risk category.
To be honest, we were never world travelers, unless you count a lap or two of EPCOT. We had hopes. And online, there are some interesting options if you can't travel, but would like to engage in a little creative self-distraction.
Which is how I've become a regular pedestrian in Paris, with a few ventures in London, Edinburgh, and Dublin. Google Street View is a pleasant way to meander around a strange place, and while I can't test this out anytime soon, I have a definite sense that if you dropped me off by taxi from the airport in downtown Anyoftheabove, I could get around at least a bit to places I hope to see in person some fine day.
It started with some professional reasons to check out addresses before I drove to the location, all here locally, and I found that a quick scout-around online could help me do what I needed to do in person later. Yes, things can change a year or two or four later, but in general it's a useful lay of the land. And then I retraced some steps in midtown & downtown Manhattan through my laptop, and developed a sense of what reality looks like versus the admittedly limited window of my computer screen.
One fun break I've taken a few times in a moment of stress: walking the embankments of the Seine in Paris, or the Thames in London. Just type in the city, click the map on the right that is a usual search option, then zoom into a riverbank until [plop] you leave the aerial view to a click-by-click, one arrow at a time, online opportunity to wander past Notre Dame or Parliament. Like most computer games, there are limits to how far you can go: it's not an "open world" by a long shot. But I think of what touristing I've done in my life, and how often I end up bustling from one place to the next, not seeing much or as much in between as I might have. This ain't bad, I have to say.
April in Paris, anyone? I think we have some ripples of virus still to endure for another year or two, and I've still got a person to be cautious on behalf of, so it's going to be one click at a time for a while yet.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's not been everywhere, man. Tell him where you've virtually been at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Thursday, March 17, 2022
Faith Works 3-26-22
Faith Works 3-26-22
Jeff Gill
Lent and a world of glass and sand
___
Fragile and robust, or cracked yet whole.
Our smartphones (irony alert) are, for many, expensive appliances we treat casually, and broken tools which still work until they don't.
I'm noticing how for more and more people the tablet is more a device the better-off use, and phones are the go-to computer for everyday use. Younger adults can go days, weeks without working on a traditional keyboard or using a desktop, let alone laptop computer. Phones are getting bigger, and use of online materials, whether documents or applications or websites, is mostly handled in one hand, not on a screen.
Maybe this is just the folks I'm working with these days, but I talk and assist large numbers of parents of school age children now, and telling them on the phone (a device on my desk with a handset I can crunch into my shoulder while typing on a computer workstation) to check a certain website will often get me "okay, I'm looking at it on my phone."
Not to tell the digital age something it already knows better than me, but a web page on a 15 inch screen (or paired screens) is a very different interaction than a smartphone browser's rendition. So I've learned when I need to walk someone through a registration or updating or revising of online information, I look at it on my phone first.
It's a function of age and long-ailing eyesight, but this lesson took me a while because a complex form online of any sort would normally cause me, if say I learned I needed to use it by an email on my phone (hold that thought) I'd still wait until I got home, for a larger view and more fingers on the keyboard — maybe not ten, but definitely not all with one finger or two thumbs. Not so most people I'm learning. The internet is becoming a landscape viewed more through the porthole of a phone screen than a wider window as I prefer.
And just to further belabor the obvious, all kinds of former viewscapes are clamping down to three or four inches by five or six: movie theaters are celebrating a return to seats that are clearly fewer in number than we once had, and that's not all due to COVID times, and even home theater large TV screens may be secondary to what people are looking at in their lap, cradled in one hand.
There are people I think very well of indeed who have said, without irony, that they believe we should ban all social media until people hit age 18 or so. I can understand where they're coming from without entirely agreeing with them. And in a separate but somewhat parallel line of thinking, some wise heads have voiced a belief that faith communities should quit providing online worship, to promote attendance and fellowship and engagement with one another. I can only agree with the goal, the ends, while I'm skeptical of the means.
Now we have a factory complex coming our way which takes silicon, sand in essence, and fabricates from it a vast house of data. I'll save 500 words and let you mull over that sermon illustration right there (house, sand, build, hmmm). The ironies get richer when you think of how a century and a half ago we had glass factories to the east of Newark, today a brilliant Heisey Glass Museum in the heart of the city, and a silicon transmutation complex going up to our west.
The chips more and more go into devices, we still call them phones, which are as the interface a pane of glass, both window and mirror for us. Honestly, for anyone, let alone a Christian preacher, it sets us up for an embarrassment of homiletic riches.
Looking into our world of glass and sand, reading about the radical, transformative changes that are coming to our area, are we seeing our reflection, a distorted window, or are we getting a clear view of what's to come? I hear fear, I hear joy, I see excitement, and I see dread as I've talked to various community leaders and local residents these last few weeks.
What we should remember is that we're getting most of our impressions through accidentally cracked glass, artfully fused sand, semiconductors which can only transmit semi truths, if that's what's put into them.
Or from the earliest days of computers: garbage in, garbage out. That's a phrase worth contemplating, over halfway through this Lent of 2022.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; his screen is cracked, too. Tell him how you keep your perceptions clear at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
Lent and a world of glass and sand
___
Fragile and robust, or cracked yet whole.
Our smartphones (irony alert) are, for many, expensive appliances we treat casually, and broken tools which still work until they don't.
I'm noticing how for more and more people the tablet is more a device the better-off use, and phones are the go-to computer for everyday use. Younger adults can go days, weeks without working on a traditional keyboard or using a desktop, let alone laptop computer. Phones are getting bigger, and use of online materials, whether documents or applications or websites, is mostly handled in one hand, not on a screen.
Maybe this is just the folks I'm working with these days, but I talk and assist large numbers of parents of school age children now, and telling them on the phone (a device on my desk with a handset I can crunch into my shoulder while typing on a computer workstation) to check a certain website will often get me "okay, I'm looking at it on my phone."
Not to tell the digital age something it already knows better than me, but a web page on a 15 inch screen (or paired screens) is a very different interaction than a smartphone browser's rendition. So I've learned when I need to walk someone through a registration or updating or revising of online information, I look at it on my phone first.
It's a function of age and long-ailing eyesight, but this lesson took me a while because a complex form online of any sort would normally cause me, if say I learned I needed to use it by an email on my phone (hold that thought) I'd still wait until I got home, for a larger view and more fingers on the keyboard — maybe not ten, but definitely not all with one finger or two thumbs. Not so most people I'm learning. The internet is becoming a landscape viewed more through the porthole of a phone screen than a wider window as I prefer.
And just to further belabor the obvious, all kinds of former viewscapes are clamping down to three or four inches by five or six: movie theaters are celebrating a return to seats that are clearly fewer in number than we once had, and that's not all due to COVID times, and even home theater large TV screens may be secondary to what people are looking at in their lap, cradled in one hand.
There are people I think very well of indeed who have said, without irony, that they believe we should ban all social media until people hit age 18 or so. I can understand where they're coming from without entirely agreeing with them. And in a separate but somewhat parallel line of thinking, some wise heads have voiced a belief that faith communities should quit providing online worship, to promote attendance and fellowship and engagement with one another. I can only agree with the goal, the ends, while I'm skeptical of the means.
Now we have a factory complex coming our way which takes silicon, sand in essence, and fabricates from it a vast house of data. I'll save 500 words and let you mull over that sermon illustration right there (house, sand, build, hmmm). The ironies get richer when you think of how a century and a half ago we had glass factories to the east of Newark, today a brilliant Heisey Glass Museum in the heart of the city, and a silicon transmutation complex going up to our west.
The chips more and more go into devices, we still call them phones, which are as the interface a pane of glass, both window and mirror for us. Honestly, for anyone, let alone a Christian preacher, it sets us up for an embarrassment of homiletic riches.
Looking into our world of glass and sand, reading about the radical, transformative changes that are coming to our area, are we seeing our reflection, a distorted window, or are we getting a clear view of what's to come? I hear fear, I hear joy, I see excitement, and I see dread as I've talked to various community leaders and local residents these last few weeks.
What we should remember is that we're getting most of our impressions through accidentally cracked glass, artfully fused sand, semiconductors which can only transmit semi truths, if that's what's put into them.
Or from the earliest days of computers: garbage in, garbage out. That's a phrase worth contemplating, over halfway through this Lent of 2022.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; his screen is cracked, too. Tell him how you keep your perceptions clear at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Tuesday, March 15, 2022
Faith Works 3-19-22
Faith Works 3-19-22
Jeff Gill
Righteous anger might be an oxymoron
___
If we start with a Biblical and New Testament perspective, it's hard to support the concept of righteous anger. To wit:
"My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires." James 1:19-20 (NIV)
Pretty much closes that door, at least for those of us wanting to affirm Biblical authority in a statement that precise, that clear.
It's still a temptation.
And when it comes to temptation, I call on God to help me resist it, to save me from the time of trial, and in Jesus trust in grace when I fail. Which is not infrequently.
Last week I was escorting an elderly relative in his 90s through a medically ordered heart test; he has a pacemaker and some other symptoms that had us wanting to check out some basic questions. So we made our cautious, careful way inside, and back to the suite where we checked in and waited our turn for the exam, and both he and I were masked, as not only makes sense for a hospital setting but is clearly required for entry at the main door, in the hallway, and signage reaffirming all of this on entry to this part of the (did I mention this?) heart hospital.
Just as we were getting my charge seated, and it was busy enough there were not seats enough for such as me, which was fine but tells you how relatively crowded the room was, a nurse came out of the back and walked up to a man seated right next to us. Clearly a request had gone into the clinic from (I assume) one of the registry clerks behind their windows before we walked in.
The man next to us had his mask on, but pulled down below his chin. And let's exercise compassion early on here: he's alone, while most of the patients had someone escorting them. He looked about my age, but heavier, and obviously he's waiting on a heart test of some sort himself, and may be on edge, not at his best.
Nonetheless.
The nurse in scrubs, mask on face, leaned over the man and said as nicely as one could wish that he needed to put the mask on over his face, mouth and nose both. Without going into the whole sad dialogue, the seated man told the nurse that he was stupid, the policy was stupid, and it was stupid to make him wear a mask when it was his risk to take. At this point, I'll simply add that words came to my mind, phrases and sentences I was tempted to speak.
With grace and firmness, the hospital staffer persisted, stating stupid or not, this policy was for the protection of everyone, and he needed to put the mask on or he would have to leave. He pulled up his mask, and told the kindly staff member they were stupid and they'd done their stupid thing so they should leave now.
After the door closed behind the nurse, he pulled the mask down below his nose, and turned to look right at me. And cocked an eyebrow. I stood there, standing over my responsibility, a 93 year old who can barely hear and is easily confused on a good day.
"Lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil."
I thought that, and say it, not because the sad silly man glaring at me was evil, but because of my own temptation to respond in anger and hostility. I didn't speak, in part out of prudence, and in large part because I feared what I'd say if I did, and even more what I'd say next if his defiance continued, as it likely would have in the moment.
Whatever your opinion about masks & precautions, in a heart hospital, surrounded by fellow patients clearly of whom most were what you might call immunocompromised, it's beyond question that simple human decency means you follow house rules and wear your mask, even if it's only a partial protection. He chose not to, and to echo a certain cinematic scene, he chose poorly.
I'm still working on my choice. My choice in the moment, my choices now, my choice of words writing this column. "Deliver us from evil," from righteous anger, from selfish defiance, from my own sin.
We are not done looking out for each other, and that's not just about masks. Let love prevail, and grace abound.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's still working on some issues himself. Tell him how you exercise prudence, restraint, and godly defiance at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
Jeff Gill
Righteous anger might be an oxymoron
___
If we start with a Biblical and New Testament perspective, it's hard to support the concept of righteous anger. To wit:
"My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires." James 1:19-20 (NIV)
Pretty much closes that door, at least for those of us wanting to affirm Biblical authority in a statement that precise, that clear.
It's still a temptation.
And when it comes to temptation, I call on God to help me resist it, to save me from the time of trial, and in Jesus trust in grace when I fail. Which is not infrequently.
Last week I was escorting an elderly relative in his 90s through a medically ordered heart test; he has a pacemaker and some other symptoms that had us wanting to check out some basic questions. So we made our cautious, careful way inside, and back to the suite where we checked in and waited our turn for the exam, and both he and I were masked, as not only makes sense for a hospital setting but is clearly required for entry at the main door, in the hallway, and signage reaffirming all of this on entry to this part of the (did I mention this?) heart hospital.
Just as we were getting my charge seated, and it was busy enough there were not seats enough for such as me, which was fine but tells you how relatively crowded the room was, a nurse came out of the back and walked up to a man seated right next to us. Clearly a request had gone into the clinic from (I assume) one of the registry clerks behind their windows before we walked in.
The man next to us had his mask on, but pulled down below his chin. And let's exercise compassion early on here: he's alone, while most of the patients had someone escorting them. He looked about my age, but heavier, and obviously he's waiting on a heart test of some sort himself, and may be on edge, not at his best.
Nonetheless.
The nurse in scrubs, mask on face, leaned over the man and said as nicely as one could wish that he needed to put the mask on over his face, mouth and nose both. Without going into the whole sad dialogue, the seated man told the nurse that he was stupid, the policy was stupid, and it was stupid to make him wear a mask when it was his risk to take. At this point, I'll simply add that words came to my mind, phrases and sentences I was tempted to speak.
With grace and firmness, the hospital staffer persisted, stating stupid or not, this policy was for the protection of everyone, and he needed to put the mask on or he would have to leave. He pulled up his mask, and told the kindly staff member they were stupid and they'd done their stupid thing so they should leave now.
After the door closed behind the nurse, he pulled the mask down below his nose, and turned to look right at me. And cocked an eyebrow. I stood there, standing over my responsibility, a 93 year old who can barely hear and is easily confused on a good day.
"Lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil."
I thought that, and say it, not because the sad silly man glaring at me was evil, but because of my own temptation to respond in anger and hostility. I didn't speak, in part out of prudence, and in large part because I feared what I'd say if I did, and even more what I'd say next if his defiance continued, as it likely would have in the moment.
Whatever your opinion about masks & precautions, in a heart hospital, surrounded by fellow patients clearly of whom most were what you might call immunocompromised, it's beyond question that simple human decency means you follow house rules and wear your mask, even if it's only a partial protection. He chose not to, and to echo a certain cinematic scene, he chose poorly.
I'm still working on my choice. My choice in the moment, my choices now, my choice of words writing this column. "Deliver us from evil," from righteous anger, from selfish defiance, from my own sin.
We are not done looking out for each other, and that's not just about masks. Let love prevail, and grace abound.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's still working on some issues himself. Tell him how you exercise prudence, restraint, and godly defiance at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
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