Faith Works 3-17-23

Faith Works 3-17-23
Jeff Gill

Where we are from, which is elsewhere
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Halfway through Lent, with St. Patrick's Day and St. Joseph's Day marking the turn.

I've checked out some fish frys on Fridays, even as the Protestant in me prefers baked steak dinners.

A preacher in a Catholic church is no strange scene today, but there are still those alive who recall when it was much more unusual, unlikely, improbable.

Not so terribly long ago, Protestants casually walking into a parish hall and handing their money to a member of the Knights of Columbus: not a thing. Seriously.

My point being: times have changed. Hurrah! We include more people in the circle of "us." This is a good thing, and in general we all agree on this.

The question is who, now, is "them." This where we get into tricky territory. By tricky territory, I mean politics. And this is meant to be a column about religion and faith and churches, broadly defined. By broadly, I mean both Protestant and Catholic, even Orthodox or heterodox.

I've been writing this column weekly for not quite twenty years (since Jan. 2005, anyhow). When I was given this opportunity, a preceding regular faith columnist in these pages frequently made comments about Catholicism as if it was alien to Christianity. One request, not a requirement, that I heard when being considered for this page as a regular contributor, was asking if I could not refer to a major sector of local Christianity as heretical.

This was the beginning of my exploration of our local history back into a time when Catholics were targeted by the Klan, when southern Germans and northern Italians and Austrians in general were a "minority group." When even after fifty to seventy years in Licking County, such people were called aliens and immigrants, because of their church affiliation and not their citizenship. And their annihilation, literal or metaphorical, was called for in publications for sale on the streets of Newark.

As I said last week, we have come a long, long way, and that's a big part of what I want to say by retelling these stories of hate and hostility from a century ago. It is encouraging and hopeful that we have stopped saying awful things about long-time neighbors, and encouraging discrimination against groups whose identity is tied to their church attendance more than anything else about them.

How did we do that? What can it teach us today as we work on expanding that circle of "us"? And yes, we can even discuss questions about where the edge of the circle really needs to be clearly defined.

But that's where I feel the most uncomfortable today. When we talk about homelessness, the argument keeps getting made: they aren't from here. We're attracting the wrong sort of people here by the services and supports we offer. "Those" people come to be homeless from "other" places. And when those of us who work with people who are homeless say most of our conversations and interactions are with people with obvious and concrete connections to this county, those statements get dismissed in favor of "no, homeless people are other than us, different than we are, from somewhere else."

Again and again and again I find as I read and review the history of Licking County, from 1802 on into the present day: we are all from somewhere else. We all came here, bringing certain gifts, even some challenges, from other places. And the outside, external, other-ed interests in trapping or farming or sheep herding or glass making or whatever . . . become part of our present picture of who "we" are.

The Wehrles were once other. The Heiseys, ditto. The Moraths, the Dilles, even the Joneses . . . and my did we have a bunch of them! . . . were once not just neighbors to keep up with, but others, who came here.

And are now us.


Jeff Gill is writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he came here from Indiana, and I hope that's okay. Tell him about where you come from at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.