Notes from my Knapsack 2-22-24
Jeff Gill
Public health and politics, an unhealthy mix
___
At the end of January, something I'd been dodging for almost four years hit me square and knocked me down.
Yep, I got COVID; used one of the test kits I still had around (if you think yours are expired, note that the printed expiration date may be extended, which you can find through some simple internet searching). All the symptoms were there, plus the line on the sample under the control line told me for sure. I got it.
Being someone who lives at least a large portion of my life online, I posted that, and promptly heard from a wide range of people asking me if I was now ready to admit the whole vaccine and public health effort around COVID was a scam by Big Pharma and/or the Deep State.
This is a conversation (I hesitate to say dialogue) I've been in since COVID first erupted, in early March of 2020. I had a more "public facing" job then, and even before the national alerts and lockdowns were announced, I learned quickly that just talking about mitigation and precautions in the first days of March provoked a strong pushback.
Yes, the politics got tricky and weird after mask mandates and calls for vaccination went national. But I'm talking in those days before all of that, when we were less sure about what a coronavirus was, or how vectors worked, and even before Tom Hanks was announced as having it or NBA games shut down before the final whistle.
Me, I've gotten a fall flu shot since forever. I did not realize until after we got into the controversies around COVID vaccines that Ohio has a history of running around 40% of all adults getting a flu shot.
And I note wearily that right now in Licking County it's just under 60% have had even one COVID shot, ever, falling to 14% even as current as the bivalent booster.
Meanwhile, there's some very real concern that basic flu shots are less popular than they had been, what with the political controversies around vaccines in general, and even childhood vaccines are falling behind to where measles are on the upswing.
My sincerest sympathies are with public health officials in general, and the Licking County Health Department in particular. I've worked with past and current leadership there for many years, and I would say they are about as political as a "Yield to Oncoming Traffic" sign. They are working on addressing our health on many fronts: we still have 17% of adults in this county smoking regularly, 20% binge or heavy drinking, and STDs on the march. They walk a fine line on COVID issues, I know.
So let me just say for myself: I think being fully vaccinated kept me from getting sicker than I was, and I appreciate my doctor's care which was supported by my vaccine status. Talk to your doctor, and consider taking protective steps for your health.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's gotten the booster, and is glad he did. Tell him how you take care of yourself at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads.
Monday, February 12, 2024
Faith Works 2-16-24
Faith Works 2-16-24
Jeff Gill
Perceptions are challenging, and all we have
___
"Why was all the music new and strange?"
I know I'm not the only minister to have heard this.
If you are a member of a contemporary worship style church, it comes in a slightly different flavor, but the complaint comes even there, I'm told. "Were those all new songs today?" With the inevitable raised eyebrow.
In a more traditional church, it's interesting to hear it when out of three hymns, there was one old standard, a newer hymn the congregation has heard before, plus one admittedly new song, along with familiar tunes and words for a "Gloria Patri," the "Doxology," and a choir anthem sung many times before. But that line-up can still get you "what was the deal with all new music?"
Now that football season is over, it's interesting to look back over the phenomenon that is Taylor Swift, whose fortunes became entwined with the Kansas City Chiefs. Her relationship with a player (Travis Kelce already famous in his own narrower right) got her into a skybox with his mom, and being even more famous, she was shown in TV coverage on occasion. Football fans began to erupt on social media over how much Taylor Swift was displacing the old fashioned NFL football coverage. "Too much of the female singer! We're here for football!"
But ESPN personality Colin Cowherd put some interns to work clocking Swift on screen time, and found that on average viewers saw her for . . . 24 seconds out of three and a half hours of coverage. That's 12,600 seconds total, so she was seen 0.2 of 1 percent of the time.
Super Bowl sightings of Taylor Swift: 55 seconds (51 seconds before the score that ended the game) out of a broadcast that was four hours and 18 minutes long. This is counting her sightings from kickoff until the game coverage ended. That's 15,480 total seconds, so she was on screen more, to be fair: 0.35 of 1 percent of the game coverage.
Oh, and something I'm sure the NFL knows: their viewership is already 46% female. I'm not saying all women like Taylor Swift, nor that all men do not, but I think there's a very rational justification for showing a bit of successful, famous women cheering on their teams during game broadcasts. Men who expect things to stay the way they've always been, with crowd shots mostly of former players and the stray (male) politician? Nope. Things aren't changing: they've already changed.
Marva Dawn was a very articulate theologian of worship and Christian practice, and her work took her into the middle of what was called for decades "the worship wars." One of her often told stories was about a person who came up to her after church to complain about one of the hymns they just sang as being strange and unfamiliar. "It's okay," she told them. "It wasn't really about you anyway."
In fact, Dawn suggested it should worry us at least a little if we, long time church goers, love and are delighted by every last piece of music and verbiage we hear in worship. If it works SO well for us, she asked, then how is it working for newer, less familiar people coming to church for the first time, who are still working on their faith and understanding of who God is and what God is doing? Maybe it isn't a good sign if we feel perfectly at home with all the service from beginning to end.
Of course, can you have too much of a good thing? Perhaps. But when we think it's "all" new and different, it may just be our expectations that were unfulfilled, and not God's intention for the service.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's willing to admit he's terrible at picking hymns for worship. Tell him what strange song caught your spiritual attention at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads.
Jeff Gill
Perceptions are challenging, and all we have
___
"Why was all the music new and strange?"
I know I'm not the only minister to have heard this.
If you are a member of a contemporary worship style church, it comes in a slightly different flavor, but the complaint comes even there, I'm told. "Were those all new songs today?" With the inevitable raised eyebrow.
In a more traditional church, it's interesting to hear it when out of three hymns, there was one old standard, a newer hymn the congregation has heard before, plus one admittedly new song, along with familiar tunes and words for a "Gloria Patri," the "Doxology," and a choir anthem sung many times before. But that line-up can still get you "what was the deal with all new music?"
Now that football season is over, it's interesting to look back over the phenomenon that is Taylor Swift, whose fortunes became entwined with the Kansas City Chiefs. Her relationship with a player (Travis Kelce already famous in his own narrower right) got her into a skybox with his mom, and being even more famous, she was shown in TV coverage on occasion. Football fans began to erupt on social media over how much Taylor Swift was displacing the old fashioned NFL football coverage. "Too much of the female singer! We're here for football!"
But ESPN personality Colin Cowherd put some interns to work clocking Swift on screen time, and found that on average viewers saw her for . . . 24 seconds out of three and a half hours of coverage. That's 12,600 seconds total, so she was seen 0.2 of 1 percent of the time.
Super Bowl sightings of Taylor Swift: 55 seconds (51 seconds before the score that ended the game) out of a broadcast that was four hours and 18 minutes long. This is counting her sightings from kickoff until the game coverage ended. That's 15,480 total seconds, so she was on screen more, to be fair: 0.35 of 1 percent of the game coverage.
Oh, and something I'm sure the NFL knows: their viewership is already 46% female. I'm not saying all women like Taylor Swift, nor that all men do not, but I think there's a very rational justification for showing a bit of successful, famous women cheering on their teams during game broadcasts. Men who expect things to stay the way they've always been, with crowd shots mostly of former players and the stray (male) politician? Nope. Things aren't changing: they've already changed.
Marva Dawn was a very articulate theologian of worship and Christian practice, and her work took her into the middle of what was called for decades "the worship wars." One of her often told stories was about a person who came up to her after church to complain about one of the hymns they just sang as being strange and unfamiliar. "It's okay," she told them. "It wasn't really about you anyway."
In fact, Dawn suggested it should worry us at least a little if we, long time church goers, love and are delighted by every last piece of music and verbiage we hear in worship. If it works SO well for us, she asked, then how is it working for newer, less familiar people coming to church for the first time, who are still working on their faith and understanding of who God is and what God is doing? Maybe it isn't a good sign if we feel perfectly at home with all the service from beginning to end.
Of course, can you have too much of a good thing? Perhaps. But when we think it's "all" new and different, it may just be our expectations that were unfulfilled, and not God's intention for the service.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's willing to admit he's terrible at picking hymns for worship. Tell him what strange song caught your spiritual attention at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads.
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