The Church Window
Hebron Christian Church newsletter – August 2004

Notes From My Knapsack

With the closing weeks of July, I’m thinking about the Armstrong boys.  As I write this before we go to Lake Michigan and a visit to Valparaiso, Lance Armstrong is looking like he will win the Tour de France for a record sixth time, and the world recalled the 35th anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s “one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind” July 20, 1969.

They aren’t related to each other (as far as I know) and they aren’t related to anyone in Hebron (ditto), but the connections to us are real and all around.  Lance is winning his big number 6, all coming after recovering from a very aggressive form of cancer and going through chemo.  How many do we know in our congregation and community who have or are about to face such a battle, and we can give thanks for such a public witness to how much quality living can come after a malignant diagnosis.

Neil is an Ohio boy, one we can be proud of in many ways.  But there’s something that happened on July 20, 1969 that few are aware of.  Armstrong’s associate in the Lunar Module, Buzz Aldrin, was an active layman in his Houston area Episcopal congregation.  Few knew until his published memoirs and then through Tom Hanks's Emmy- winning HBO mini-series, “From the Earth to the Moon” in 1998, that one of the first acts performed on the Moon’s surface was his taking communion prepared for him by his home church and carried in his personal allowance.  "The First Communion on the Moon" is also significant as the most far-flung act of worship ever, done 235,000 miles from Earth, shared by the only two occupants of that entire world.

Colonel Aldrin, with an earned doctorate in astrophysics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), was acknowledged as the most highly educated of the first astronauts; he was a "true scientist," yet respected by peers as an unabashed Christian.  Michael Collins, the pilot of the Command Module circling the Moon, had taken communion along with him from the Episcopal National Cathedral for that day as well.  To have recalled the importance of including communion in their risky venture, and prepared carefully to allow the possibility of having communion amidst all the other mass of detail:  that’s heroism of a very special sort.

“HeroQuest” was the theme for our Hebron Community VBS hosted at the Methodist Church this year.  Last week, young and old were reminded of “heroic virtues,” versus the qualities of celebrity.  With “strength, courage, determination, daring, and love” a new view of what a hero can be was taught and shared and shown.  Names like Esther and Phillip came to life.

We will always need heroes; the only question is what kind of hero will we choose to follow, to imitate – what kind of hero others will see us honor.  Which is what our weekly worship in the name of Jesus Christ is all about!

In Grace & Peace, Pastor Jeff

PS – Don’t forget that the first day of school this year is August 23; it can sneak up on you.

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Youth Activities

The day leading into the opening VBS session Friday night, July 30, all 6 to 12th grade youth are invited to join at the church at 10 am to help paint the garage doors off Cully St.  They’ll go on to a quick lunch and a pool party at McNichol’s Mtn., and those not off to Band at 5 pm are welcome to assist with VBS.

Friday, Aug. 6, we’ll head off to Wyandot Lake for a day of aquatic fun and intensive hydrotherapy for pregnant youth advisors.  More details will go out on the phone tree or at the painting day.

And Tues., Aug. 10 there will be many of our younger church youth up at the Cloverbud Barn Tour with the Hartford Fair, starting at 3 pm.  Many of our families will be up there all or part of Aug. 8 through the 14th.  Those who aren’t, may well be at Band Camp the same week!

Then there’s the Sweet Corn Festival. . .

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Outdoor Worship and Picnic

“Rally Day” marks the return of a regular schedule of one Sunday service and multiple church school classes at 9:30 am (instead of the other way around!).  On Sept. 12, the first Sunday after Labor Day, we will gather for worship on the north side of the building, with straw bale seating (or what you bring to sit upon) and some special music for the occasion.

A potluck picnic will follow right after the benediction, so bring your basket one more time before you pack it away for the fall, and be ready to eat hearty!

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Note to Editor:  For general notes, Sharon Scheidegger was Troop 33 unit leader for the week at Camp Falling Rock, along with Scouts from Kirkersville, Pataskala, Newark, Granville, and Utica.

Pastor Jeff will be teaching a class for eight weeks in Reynoldsburg on Saturdays through late Aug., Sept. & early Oct. on “Disciples’ Theology of Worship” to our regional licensed lay ministers.

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Hebron Crossroads 8-01-04
By Jeff Gill
 
35 ThingsThe latest internet infection isn’t a computer virus, it’s a game inviting webloggers (or “bloggers” in web parlance) to answer these questions for themselves, post ‘em on yer blog, and send to friends. . .or enemies, as the case may be.
With http://knapsack.blogspot.com not quite a blog as much as a dumping site for my text materials, I’ll still while away a lazy summer day and threaten to waste part of yours with “35 Things,” starting. . . now!
 
1. WHAT COLOR ARE YOUR BEDROOM WALLS? Colonial white.2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING NOW? N.T. Wright's The New Testament and the People of God. Have I mentioned I’m a pastor?3. WHAT'S ON YOUR MOUSE PAD? A Columbus Zoo menagerie.4. FAVORITE BOARD GAME? Bored by such games, I am, but “Candy Land – Pooh edition” has been a favorite with the Little Guy.5. FAVORITE MAGAZINE? Atlantic Monthly, followed closely by National Geographic.6. FAVORITE SMELL? Fresh-brewed coffee.7. FAVORITE COLOR? Forest green.8. LEAST FAVORITE COLOR? Blue-green institutional wall paint.9. HOW MANY RINGS BEFORE YOUR ANSWERING MACHINE PICKS UP? Four. 10. MOST IMPORTANT MATERIAL THING IN MY LIFE? Material? Our house, I suppose. We love it.11. FAVORITE FLAVOR OF ICE CREAM? Vanilla with fresh fruit on top.12. DO YOU BREAK THE SPEED LIMIT DAILY? Possibly; who’s asking?13. DO YOU HAVE A STUFFED ANIMAL IN YOUR ROOM SOMEWHERE? Nowadays, we’re more a hard plastic humanoid figure underfoot household.14. STORMS - COOL OR SCARY? Cool, way cool.15. FAVORITE DRINK? Starbucks red-eye with a shot of hazelnut flavor (it’s a coffe drink, people). 16. WHEN IS YOUR BIRTHDAY? August.17. FAVORITE VEGETABLES? Green peas, just like Thomas Jefferson – although the resemblance ends there. 18. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY JOB, WHAT WOULD IT BE? Columnist and book reviewer, which describes being a parson pretty well, too.19. IF YOU COULD HAVE ANY COLOR HAIR, WHAT WOULD IT BE? Sandy brown is fine, thanks.20. HAVE YOU EVER BEEN IN LOVE? Yes.21. TOP THREE FAVORITE MOVIES (IN ORDER)? Ow.....I can't rank them. Three of my favorites would be Holiday Inn, Casablanca and Local Hero. 22. DO YOU TYPE WITH YOUR FINGERS ON THE RIGHT KEYS? No, especially recently. 23. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED? Nothing; my Lovely Wife is a neat fre. . .tidy person.24. WHAT IS YOUR FAVORITE NUMBER? 5.  Or 4.  Maybe 3.  1 is fine, and 2 is nice.  How do you have a favorite number, anyhow?25. FAVORITE SPORT TO WATCH ON TV & IN PERSON?  Baseball in person. On TV, very little; golf if the course looks nice and they turn up the bird noise.
26. WHAT IS YOUR SINGLE BIGGEST FEAR? Leaving my son behind somewhere (no, not yet, thanks for asking).27. FAVORITE CD OF ALL TIME & RIGHT NOW? Auugghh.  Why did I start this?  There’s a Michael W. Smith praise music CD called “Worship” that I play too much these days, and of all time is probably a Mahler symphony, but don’t ask me which one.  Or Billy Joel’s “The Stranger.”28. FAVORITE TV SHOW OF ALL TIME & RIGHT NOW? Fawlty Towers, all time, or “Northern Exposure.”  (“Twin Peaks” on Prozac, high dosage).  Currently, “Weather on the Eights” at The Weather Channel. 29. HAMBURGERS OR HOT DOGS? Hamburgers, unless Hebrew Nationals are available.30. THE COOLEST PLACES YOU'VE EVER BEEN? Colonial Williamsburg, and the Mount of Olives at sunset over Jerusalem.31. WHAT WALLPAPER AND/OR SCREENSAVER IS ON YOUR COMPUTER RIGHT NOW? Rembrandt’s “The Old Philosopher At His Studies.”
32. DOES MCDONALD'S SKIMP ON YOUR FRIES & DO YOU CARE?  To quote a colleague:  “A counter guy tried it once. They buried him at dusk.”33. FAVORITE CHAIN RESTAURANT(s)? Olive Garden gets so much abuse for Italo-hokery, but it works for us.  We loved Eat n’ Park in western PA; perhaps they’ll expand west someday.34. IF YOU HAVE A BOY (OR HAVE ANOTHER BOY) WHAT WOULD YOU NAME HIM? Nathaniel (see “Little Men” for background).  35. IF YOU COULD LEARN TO PLAY ONE INSTRUMENT OVERNIGHT, WHAT WOULD IT BE? Oboe. Guitar would be more useful, but what a great space-filling sound an oboe solo is.
 
Now YOU play. . .
 
Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and also a believer in the phrase “de gustibus non disputandum.”  If you have quotes from Horace or news of local interest, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

To all whom it may concern -- Greetings in Christ's Name!It was a quiet week in Badger Camp, my hometown. . .Here are the less narrative-driven details summing up the week, but be ye forewarned that any further questions are likely to evoke a lengthy monologue filled with colorful characters.Badger Total:   94*Camper total:   74DoC campers:    58UCC campers:    16male campers - 29; female campers 43Staff total:    20*3 director/resource; 10* counselors; 7 CITsmale counselors - 5; female couns. - 5*male CITs - 2; female CITs 5*Badger used a staff counselor, female, who was a lifesaver,as you can tell by the skew female-to-male in registrations.Even so, we had two cabins with doubled CITs, which was marginally acceptable to me as we had some 2nd year CIT ladies.Badger Camp occupied 11 cabins; 5 male & 6 female,in 4 family groups.Our average camper # per cabin was 6.7; however, it was6 per cabin male, vs. 7.3 for female cabins.  Two more cabins'worth on our two hills, or about 14, would still be feasible, but the gender skew and difficulty in getting counselors who arebetween 18 and 50 means staff planning will still mean totalratios of staff to campers like our 20 to 74, which may seem high until you break out the figures.  Our dependence on under18 staff, a point of serious concern to me, is mitigated by theincreasing interest in the program, which means Jeanelle and i can pick and choose.  Given that i believe we will be requiredin the near-future to have two adults (however defined) in eachsleeping area (Camp Christian, please note!), this is at least apartial step in a good direction.We continue to work towards a goal of 85-90 campers in 13 cabinsand 6 family groups; but 19 registrations coming in two to four days before i drive down Honeycreek Road makes it hard to plan --highly punitive late fees are more and more imperative for the Partnership Camp system to work!  $305 for registrations arriving less than two weeks before starting day strikes me as perfectly fair, especially when you consider the amount of overnight mailing, phone calls in midday, and other *actual expenses* (including needing to overload your CIT count in anticipation of last-minutefolk).
And that's what happened at Badger Camp, where all the female staff were strong, all the male staff good-looking, and the children were assuredly above-average!In Grace & Peace,Jeff GillHebron, Ohiohttp://go.to/Hebron_Christianhttp://knapsack.blogspot.com

Hebron Crossroads 7-25-04By Jeff Gill
This is turning into quite a summer for Ray Bradbury fans, and I hope a good one for Mr. Bradbury himself.Mars has not one, but two rovers exploring the planet and sending back pictures from a place that will long bear the imprint of “The Martian Chronicles.”  NASA and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory have a great deal to be proud of with those devices working now over twice their rated life-span, and the Cassini probe successfully passing through Saturn’s rings on the way to Titan.But Ray Bradbury is known for not only science fiction set on distant worlds, but for imaginative fiction set on a planet that may be ours, around a twisted corner or down a dark future, oddly lit by brightly ominous sunshine.“Something Wicked This Way Comes” is written across the top of the newest Harry Potter movie poster, and since it comes from Shakespeare by way of Macbeth they have every right to borrow that line. Those words, though, will always make me think of Bradbury’s tale of the dark day that the circus --- Cooger & Dark's Pandemonium Shadow Show --- came to the village of Green Town, Illinois. Set in a Midwest not unlike the area around our own Hebron Crossroads, two boys find their lives taking dramatic and terrifying turns on the edge of adolescence.And then there’s the fairly unoriginal “Fahrenheit 9-11,” swiped not too cleverly and without permission from “Fahrenheit 451,” a title taken in turn (and brilliantly) from the burning point of paper, describing a dystopian future with a bright glimmer of hope set into the ending, the sort that Stephen King has to learn to write if he’s ever gonna make a reader of me.Bradbury himself has protested the admittedly legal, if somewhat unethical title sideswipe of Michael Moore’s movie, with only deafening silence in response. Too bad, because if Moore really wanted to both scare people and make them think, he could make no better friend than Ray Bradbury. “S is for Space” (which has almost no stories in that collection taking place in outer space) left a mark on my youthful imagination that remains to this day, admitting and looking directly at the darkness in everyday life, gazing calmly through it to the possibility of further horizons beyond.Preacher note: Bradbury was, in a younger day himself, part of the crew of screenwriters on “King of Kings,” a cheesy Biblical epic of about 40 years back, but with one of the best endings of any Bible pics I know out of Hollywood. It delighted me no end to learn that the ending came from Ray, who had an idea when the veteran scriptwriters got bogged down in how to wrap up their tale of Jesus: let’s use one of the endings from the . . . ummm . . . Bible!  The others were underwhelmed by the idea, so he went home, got out a Bible, wrote an ending from the close of John’s Gospel, and came back to the studio, not telling them where he got it.They loved him, said it was a brilliant solution to the finale, and told him he had a bright future in the bizness. Bradbury decided to commit to writing books and short stories instead, and we’re all lucky he did.
“Something Heroic This Way Comes” could be the title for the Hebron Community Vacation Bible School on Friday, July 30 from 6 pm to 8:30, and Saturday, July 31 from 10 am to 4 pm. The title selected by the host church this year is actually “HeroQuest,” with stations looking at the heroic virtues of strength, courage, determination, daring and love. Hebron United Methodist Church on East Main Street is the site, and Hebron Christian Church is assisting.Children Kindergarten through 5th grade are invited to participate, while older youth can be group escorts through the activity stations, where the young people will learn through story, song, and activity about the Biblical figures who make good examples for those five heroic virtues.From the VBS materials, HeroQuest is "designed to give children an understanding of what makes an ordinary person a hero. ... Children will come to know that being a true hero has nothing to do within the super heroes they read about in comic books or see in the movies. What makes an ordinary person a hero is that person's heart." Sounds like a message that any of our children would benefit from!If you want more info, call or drop by either Hebron United Methodist (928-2471) or Hebron Christian (928-4066), or just e-mail me at disciple@voyager.net.

Hebron Crossroads 7-18-04
By Jeff Gill

Mandatory; zero tolerance; banned; across the board; no exceptions.
Y’all were quite tolerant of my rant a few weeks back about the trend to social developments like smoking bans in all public spaces or mandatory sentencing guidelines in criminal cases. To repeat: I loathe cigarette smoke, physically and personally, and think court judgments should be swift, certain, consistent, and grim. But without human judgment, however flawed, we pre-empt common sense anywhere by penalizing folks for not using common sense everywhere.
But an interesting question was raised with me about something like “universal service.” What did I think about that?
Actually, the interesting dilemma I have here is that I think it would be great if absolutely everyone did it, and the best way to ruin universal service is to. . .yep, make it mandatory.
For instance, a public service requirement for high school graduation has been popular in some areas recently. May I say that spending time on a work trip, mission experience with a church, or service project at home or away is one of the most life expanding, uplifting and enlightening things a young person (or old: remember Miz Lillian in the Peace Corps in her 80’s?) can do.
But making it an obligation for absolutely everyone carries the seeds of decay for the entire ideal. First off, the sense that one chooses to do something they don’t have to do is lost. Remember how you felt when you went to the closet to get out the vacuum unasked and use it, and a voice comes around the corner “Oh, would you run the sweeper while you’re in there?” You have this crestfallen moment of losing that chance to be seen as doing something “over and above.”
And not everyone serves usefully in the same context. The match of one’s gifts to need can be a tricky recipe to cook up; universal service programs, of necessity due to the scale of numbers and projects, tend to lapse into a “hole and peg” kind of mentality. Putting someone to work in a context they regret and resent can create the opposite of what voluntary service does in a person’s heart, narrowing and embittering their view of others in the world.
Many folks with very good intentions have said that the country and our young would be well served by requiring a term of mandatory service, a year or two in the military, in urban or rural teaching, in medical assistance with hospitals or trail clearing and repair in our parks. My own view is that we should have such a program, for Ohio or nationally, to promote and facilitate such service, and could add meaningful incentives without making it paid make-work as opposed to volunteerism.
But mandatory? No. Ask any sergeant about the differences between a draftee army (bless ‘em all!) and the all volunteer services of today. I’ve supervised work crews of volunteers who had some sad sacks (usually drug along unwillingly by a friend) and a crew of court-ordered public servers which had a participant who loved the work and stayed late: but generally, mandatory makes for mopes and malcontents.
Do I wish everyone wanted to volunteer to help others? Sure do. Let’s encourage that, not require it, and set the first example ourselves.

Next week, a few VBS notes in Jacksontown and Hebron (I’ll bet they still need some volunteers!) and some updates on the Hartford Fair (Aug. 8, starting late this year), band camp (same day), and the dreaded words “Back To School.” Well, dreaded by some, anyway.

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and does a little volunteering himself; if you have service opportunities to promote or news of local interest, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

Hebron Crossroads 7-11-04
By Jeff Gill

Next Saturday, July 17, Licking Baptist Church on Beaver Run Road will hold a “Summer Fun Festival” for the community. From 9 am to 5 pm they plan games, music, food, door prizes, and activities for all ages at their new worship center west of Canyon Road on the south side of Beaver Run Road.
A craft show will be part of the event, says Mark King, and you can call him at 928-4618 for more info. Lonnie Aleshire is pastor, and I’ll bet he’d love to see you at church on Sunday, too! But this “Summer Fun Festival” is simply an event open to all for fun and fellowship.
As you drive out to Licking Baptist, it’s time for my annual note about “corn corners” in the Hebron Crossroads area. “Knee high by the Fourth of July” long ago became a bit of an anachronism in this modern age of hybrids and early planting; knee high on a giraffe, maybe. As high as an elephant’s eye? You got it now, and not just in Oklahoma.
For all of us, farmers and non-farmers particularly, this means that some stretches of road and a number of intersections will suddenly undergo a dramatic change in visual terrain. A spot where you could see for miles can be a blind spot, screened by a thick curtain of corn stalks, even as our mind still thinks “bump the brake and floor the gas.”
Since it happens just a few weeks a year, most of us don’t remember well how this can shape our landscape. Keep it in mind, and be careful out there, OK?

Recuperating from my combo elbow fracture/surgery/ghastly flu bug, coffee has spent some time off my list, an experience normally restricted to alternate Lenten seasons.
What my stomach has more happily tolerated is tea, and Earl Grey in particular has hit what little spot I still had. Twinings Earl Grey (I’m sure the brand Jean-Luc Picard drinks on the Enterprise, lo these many centuries ahead) is still in the dull yellow and dark brown trimmed box I first saw in a college care package decades ago. There was some measure of comfort just in seeing that yellow rectangle and particular typeface.
It got me to thinking about colors and packaging and food, and how we’ve gone from making our mental food associations with particular strong individual colors – rich green corn stalks, deep blue blueberries, bright red tomatoes – to packaging choices of more elaborate color schemes.
Brown wrapping with orange accents says Heath bar from across a room, and makes my tongue think of toffee. Honey yellow and bright yellow on a tall box says Cheerios, and you can almost taste the oats before you open the box, but white background with red says to me, anyhow, Special K.
Particular color pairings have been so effectively conditioned into some of us that. . .well, it doesn’t matter if the ad meant something else or if I’m looking into a toy box for blocks, but if I see turquoise and orange, I think fried clams at HoJo’s: don’t you?
Do you have color/food associations? Is this a quirk of the Gill hardwiring, or do certain flavors leap to mind when you see certain color combos? Zip off your thoughts to disciple@voyager.net, and we’ll print a few.

This Sunday night, on PBS, “A Thief of Time” airs on Mystery. It marks the third time an attempt has been made to film a Tony Hillerman novel. Proof that movie making is an art, not a science, the wonderful mysteries Hillerman has written set in some of America’s most beautiful landscapes, the desert Southwest, and with a central role to two Navajo Tribal Police officers giving a natural conflict between modern and traditional life, have been in their first two movie versions. . .awful. “The Dark Wind” was almost unwatchable, and “Skinwalkers” had to be inexplicable to someone who hadn’t read the book.
The trailer on WOSU looks good, but we’ve all been burned by those, haven’t we? I recommend giving it a chance, though, since the material – book and setting – is so rich and marvelous, and the actors starting with Wes Studi as Joe Leaphorn look well cast and intriguing.
Better yet, if you haven’t built up a backlog on your summer reading pile yet, may I recommend a few Tony Hillerman mysteries? If you’ve never read any, I envy your ability to read them for the first time; I can assure you that they reward re-reading, too.

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and would love to visit the Colorado Plateau again; if you have other books to recommend as substitutes for vacations away or news of local interest, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

Licking District Trailmarkers Aug 2004

Our Scouting year, like the school year, starts in September, which really means August if you want to stay on top of your game – and not end up behind all year long!

We have some great planning and training events coming up in the next few months; don’t miss these opportunities to not just keep up, but get ahead.

* * * * * * *

Fall Program Kickoff
Newark Public Library Mtg. Room
Tues., Aug. 17 – 5 to 7 pm

This event, for all Cubmasters, Scoutmasters, and unit program chairs, includes Popcorn Sale info, leadership training updates, and a chance to meet people with programs from all over Licking County who want to help your Scouts succeed.

The Membership team, led by Bill Acklin, will offer a training break with a sample “model boy talk” for those going into elementary classrooms and community groups to offer Scouting through an invitation to a School Night for Scouting.

Also included are activity options from Buckeye Lake, Flint Ridge & Newark Earthworks State Memorials, Licking Park District to Dawes Arboretum and the Ohio Nature Education folks. At the Kickoff you can reach in one place people from one end of our district to the other. . .plus talk to almost any of our district leadership as the fall program year gets started.

Drop by, have some coffee or pop, and tour the tables, ask questions, and best yet get some answers, whether on charters, youth religious awards, or how to tie a one-handed bowline. See you there!

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Popcorn Kernels On Call!

Tressa Kroll, our long-serving District Kernel (Colonel? Commander?), has been joined by an assistant kernel, Mary Rose Lewis of Pack 75. They will offer a Unit Popcorn Kernel training at the next Roundtable from 6:15 to 7:15, before the RT starts.

“Show & Deliver” popcorn has to be ordered by Sept. 20 (info also available at the Fall Program Kickoff), with pick-up Oct. 2 from 8 am to Noon.

The Council Wide Popcorn Sale is officially Oct. 1 to 29, with publicity support for your unit sales in media all over central Ohio. It’s a great fundraiser for your Scouting program and helps the entire council support our camps and activities!

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Membership Recruitment Schedule

“School Night” training was moved earlier to Aug. 3 from the 10th due to the later date of the Hartford Fair (starting Aug. 8 this year!), still at the Alltel Building, with pizza at 6 and training from 6:30 to 8 pm.

August 24 - September 2 -- Boy Talk “Warm Up—Information” fliers sent to boys’ home from school in their beginning of the school year packets.

August 24 - September 9 -- Boy Talks and School Night rallies to be held

September 2 & 11 -- Packs turn in new boy’s applications and new leader’s applications (turn-in night locations TBA)

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Cub Day Camp & Scout long-term Camp report

Almost 300 Cub Scouts went to Camp Falling Rock in June for Cub Day Camp. There was plenty of water for the creek walks, and enough sunshine to help make the program a success for packs all over Licking District and some from beyond.

If troop and crews have reports of their time at any long-term camp this summer, please send info to disciple@voyager.net, and we’ll share that next month (remember the Scouter deadline is the first Thursday of each month). Some digital photos may be usable as well!

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Encouraging Scouting News From Iraq
(full story at http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=38761)

On the shores of the Tigris River sits 40 acres of prime real estate which recently was home to a compound used by Saddam Hussein's secret police. . .Now, a retired U.S. Navy commander is leading the charge to turn the remnants of the police camp into a first-class camp and training facility for Boy Scouts in Iraq, and have Scouting flourish once again in the region.
Chip Beck, a former Scout himself and father of one, accepted the Pentagon's call to serve in Iraq as a civilian advisor with the Coalition Provisional Authority, and found in Baghdad a large number of fellow workers who also happened to be involved with Scouting.
"Scouting is perceived with tremendous excitement and receptivity, because it's been here for 50 years. It's got its own Iraqi face to it," Beck said . . . "We in America sometimes tend to think that the Boy Scouts of America [is] the only Scouting organization in the world, when in fact it is one of 217.
The Boy Scouts originally were established in Iraq in 1954, but suffered repression with Hussein in power.
"Under Saddam, he had restricted their independence and movement. They couldn't travel outside the country to go to other jamborees, and international Scouts couldn't come here," Beck said. "Saddam didn't control the Scouts the way he wanted to. He started his own youth movement which was really corrupt."
But Beck says older Scout leaders, men in their 50s and 60s who had been trained with international Scout standards, kept their honor and dignity in the wake of deterioration caused by Saddam.
"They came through it kind of battered and tattered, I'd say, but with their head held high. Now we're trying to get 80 young leaders under the age of 35 – 40 men, 40 women from all over the country – to go to Cairo and be trained in a two-week professional Scouting leadership and program-management course. They're all excited about this!"
Beck says there's been no resistance to his effort, as he works with the Iraqi Center for Reconciliation, which includes leaders from the region's diverse ethnic and religious backgrounds.
"All of them agree that Scouting is good for their young people, their communities, themselves, the country. It promotes what I call universal values. It doesn't have to be American or British or Jordanian or South African or anybody's beliefs. It's something every decent person in the world can agree on. These are the values of right and wrong."
Beck is hoping to raise some $4.5 million dollars to rebuild the damaged secret-police camp as the national headquarters of the Iraqi Scouts.
And while he admits there is still violence afoot throughout the nation, he's optimistic it can be quelled.
"We can do it. There's more people out here in Iraq that want to see their own society succeed and need our help than there are those who want to destroy, but those with guns can also make a loud statement. It's the quiet ones that need to do the work more effectively."
(Editor's note: Those wishing to donate to the Iraqi Scouting effort can make checks out to: World Friendship Fund, PO Box 152079, Irving, Texas 75015 Include the notation "Iraqi Scouting" in the memo.)

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President Reagan, born the year after Scouting began in the US, was never a member of BSA as a youth, but as a leader there was never any doubt of his support for the ideals we shared. At the Reagan Library during the initial public procession past the flag-draped casket, even CNN couldn’t be cynical about a whole Scout troop, standing and saluting.
Quoted from the New York Times of 8 June 2004:
“Also filing by his coffin on Tuesday were members of Boy Scout Troop 316 of Santa Clarita. Nick Jarvis, an 18-year-old Eagle Scout, said that he admired Mr. Reagan based on what he had read and heard about him.
"He had the courage to step up and lead us as a nation," Mr. Jarvis said. "All this makes me feel that my vote counts if we elect the right people to office."”
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Hebron Crossroads 7-04-04
By Jeff Gill

John Adams, writing to his beloved Abigail from the Second Continental Congress in 1776, said of the resolution declaring America’s independence from Great Britain, that this day should in future years “be celebrated by pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations from one end of this continent to the other. . .”

He was talking, of course, about July the. . .Second. The resolution was signed by most of the delegates on July the. . .Eighth.

But on the Fourth of July, the document was read in public for the first time: good enough! Let the pomps and illuminations freely fly along with our flags!


A few drips of news, then a flood of opinion.

Locally, we’ve had some unexpected and tragic deaths, including a few young adults and children. As a help to Lakewood area parents, teachers, and family members, the school district will hold an evening event this Tuesday, July 6, at 7:00 pm in Lakewood Middle School on “Helping Students Cope With the Loss of a Friend/Classmate.” If you would like to hear more about how to help students deal with the loss of someone they knew, then this panel discussion is for you.

This professionally led program is free and open to the public. Like the Monday morning reading program at Hebron Elementary, this is another reminder that your Lakewood School District staff is working year-round for you, even when school itself is not formally in session.

Good news for Buckeye Lake Village, and they’re due some: Congressman Bob Ney has asked for $350,000 in federal funds to help the village water project move to the next level. Congratulations to Mayor Frank Foster and others who did the leg work and put forward a coherent proposal that made it possible for Mr. Ney to pull the ends together and tie them up in a bow.

Our entire area will benefit from an economically healthier Buckeye Lake, and municipal water is a vital next step to that kind of stability and solid development.

And from the subterranean to the cosmic. . .if you find space at all fascinating, then you want to point your web browsers for the next week at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov for the ongoing updates on the Cassini/Huygens spacecraft and probe.

The unmanned scientific craft will be going “up” through a gap in the rings of Saturn as you receive this, and then will loop ‘round and ‘round the planet making close approaches to the moons of Saturn like Titan and Enceladus. Cassini is already so close to the solar system’s second largest planet that it can no longer take pictures of the entire sphere, but only segments across the viewfinder.

Now, back to earth, and on into the treacherous vast wastes of. . .my opinions.
Columbus, that neighbor of ours to the west you may have heard of, recently made a controversial move through their board of health and city council. Smoking is now banned in all public places, plus within 20 feet of entrances.

To what I suspect will be the amazement of many of my friends and acquaintances, I think this is ridiculous. Really.

A word of background: I am horribly allergic to cigarette smoke, and not only do not smoke, but feel my sinuses slamming shut like a bank vault (a bank vault with a severe drainage problem, that is) and my eyeballs protruding from their sockets just on getting a goodly whiff downwind of a smoker’s exhalation. As a pastor, I’ve spent way too much time praying with families who are watching a beloved family member die by inches and half-drawn breaths. I’ve listened to folk in tears as they admit their shame and disgust in not being able to stop smoking. More recently, I’ve heard nurses tell me as my shattered elbow was inspected post-surgery that smokers usually take twice as long to heal in skin and bones, aside from the illnesses they obviously cause.

Hear where I’m comin’ from?

Nevertheless. To ban smoking from public buildings, yes. To ban or severely limit smoking in public spaces where large numbers of people come and gather, and where folks likely have little choice about coming occasionally or bringing children, OK. (I’m thinking grocery stores, banks, large retail outlets, etc.)

But if a business wants to test the market for ash-befouled goods or blue-hazed atmosphere, whether eating, drinking, bowling, or any other such establishment where you or I could go our whole lives and never enter if we choose not to, I stand concerned if not outright in opposition. Somewhere south of this new ordinance, a line got crossed. I’m not certain where I’d put that line, but. . .

The problem is basically one of zero-tolerance, mandatory, no exceptions thinking, which I believe is actually a phenomenon of not thinking. The ages old complaint “there’s no common sense anymore” isn’t new (Hammurabi, Cicero, and John Adams all complained of it), but there’s also a chicken-and-egg side to the problem. If we start acting and judging and regulating on the assumption that no one can use judgement and common sense, then people will continue living down to that expectation, and past it a bit.

I disagree with mandatory minimum sentencing: not because I think we have a surplus of restrained, reasonable judges (far from it), but because you change the entire courtroom dynamic of trial and sentencing (or plea bargain and probation) when the final phase is simply a checklist for the functionary in black robes to follow.

I disagree with almost every schoolhouse zero tolerance protocol I’ve ever heard of: not because every school superintendent or administrator is a paragon of Solomonic wisdom (ask Licking Valley), but because some kids need the book thrown at them, and others need a book handed to them during a judiciously applied suspension, and we need to back up our administrators when they try creative ways to redirect what is often high spirits and hormonal overload. Will some parents threaten lawsuits if penalties aren’t cookbook identical across the board? Sure, and that’s where we need school boards with common sense and steel vertebrae as well.

And I disagree with mindless universal protocols for medical care overseen by a clerk with an MBA on a phone three states away, versus the wisdom of an MD who has my broken arm and X-rays right in front of their face. Oh, you thought I forgot about HMO’s from last week’s column, did you? Youbetchabuddy I remembered!

A person, with multiple fractures through bone (yes, it was stabilized, and yes, it was a closed fracture, meaning I wasn’t bleeding on the carpeting) confirmed by X-ray and an ER doc, has to go to their PCP before visiting the OS who immediately schedules you for an OR PDQ? You know we’re talking about HMO’s when there are that many acronyms in a couple of paragraphs.

I also vocally disagree with no exceptions to “may I have your phone number” when making a purchase or “please provide your home address” when purchasing tickets for performance events or “enter your household income” registering for access to web sites (I get “why” the zip code question, and will comply with that, but no further!). If there’s no room in the computer system for sales clerk discretion for customers who don’t want to share personal information to see a movie or buy a cable, I owe it to that business to keep my economic activity from overburdening their oddly prioritized time.

For all of these situations, what I welcome are choices that allow the market to shape policy in tandem with the public good, but with the public good defined as starting with individual freedom, not ending with liberty as a luxury we get to keep if it doesn’t conflict with an assortment of other “expert defined” goods.

Personally, if I never have to enter another smoky bowling alley or nicotine stained eating establishment, the better. And if packs o’ smokes were taxed to cover the actual measurable costs of the medical care associated with cigarettes, we’d likely have fewer smokers and less cost-shifting insurance bureaucracy.

But telling Ma’s Diner or Choo-choo’s Pool Hall to ban smoking starts to edge over into territory that in turn is way to close to a land where a friendly government official asks to review my Sunday sermons for their “positive thoughts quotient.”

Let’s use some common sense and know when we’re free to just stay out of each other’s airspace, without any enforcement or officialdom needed. Keep your cancer sticks downwind, I’ll avoid smoke-filled businesses while going about with the Little Guy, and if you don’t want to listen to me preach, you can just turn the p. . . . .

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and observer of Saturn’s rings and Jupiter’s moons; if you have an astronomical question for these clear, cool summer nights or news of local interest, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

The Church Window -- July 2004

Notes from my Knapsack

Camp and VBS are the usual themes for July, after the fireworks of the Glorious Fourth (and the depressing sight of back-to-school supplies right after the bunting comes down).

After my recent bone-crushing experience, a few folks assumed I’d take this summer off of camp directing. Nope, and let me tell you why.

First, I’m healing up very well says Dr. Quimjian, and if he had said “no” then “no” it would be, since I want to be picking up grandkids when I’m in my 70’s and that means doing my therapy and following instructions now.

Second, because the reason we’re here is to transform lives through an encounter with Jesus Christ. That’s the point, folks! We expect, we stand on God’s promises that radical change and healing of mind, body, and spirit can happen when people meet the living Christ. The maintenance mode of most Sunday worship can dull our expectation of what can and does happen – which is why I believe in camp and retreat experiences so much.

There is nowhere else in church life where I so often see that kind of transformation, and follow lasting effects from those changes, than out of long-term Christian community such as you find in a camp setting. Hopelessness and despair and anger and lostness are exorcised, and in their places comes the Spirit of the Living God, and the fruits of that Spirit: hope, peace, joy, and unity of purpose.

For those who suspect I regularly try to sneak bits and pieces of camp into our regular Sunday worship. . .guilty as charged! Because I wish for all of us the kind of life-changing transformation that comes so often through the dining halls and cabins and paths of that place we call camp, but is indeed for many “holy ground.”

In Grace & Peace, Pastor Jeff

PS: Look for some praise choruses in worship at 10:30 in August! jbg

* * * * * * *

Hebron Community VBS
Fri. July 30 & Sat. July 31

Our shared VBS effort with Hebron United Methodist will rotate down to their location this year, which will also give us a chance to welcome their new pastor, Rev. Penny Drenton. A Friday evening rally and registration will lead to an all day program Saturday of Bible stories, songs, and shared experience.

More details will come out in the weekly bulletin on times and themes. On Aug. 1, we hope to hear a VBS song from our kids who attended and Mike McFarland of HUMC will share the message.

* * * * * * *

Board Meeting Delayed a Week

The July General Board meeting, which normally would be Monday, July 12 at 7:30 pm in the church basement, will go back a week to July 19. At least three officers will be unavailable (including the pastor at camp!) on July 12, and we preferred not to cancel for the month. As always, anyone is welcome to attend as church business and working policy is formed at these meetings; the Board in Jan., Mar., May, July, Sept., & Nov., and Finance working group in Feb., Apr., June, Aug., Oct., & Dec.

* * * * * * *

Outdoor Worship & Picnic

Sunday, August 8, Hebron Christian Church will worship at 10:30 am out on the grass in a straw bale amphitheater; following the service we’ll join in a potluck picnic together. The Hartford Fair begins that day, but band camp leaves the next Sunday as folks make their weary way back from Croton, and school the next week, so we’ll picnic before we run into the Sweet Corn Festival and the rest of Labor Day!

Another picnic and activity will come on Sun., Sept. 12

* * * * * * *

Stewardship, National & Local

First, the wider perspective:

“Americans' charitable giving rose in 2003 over 2002, and marks only the fifth time since
1971 that charitable giving in America topped 2 percent of gross domestic product, reported the New York Times.

Americans gave an estimated $240.72 billion in 2003, a slight increase from the previous
year, according to an annual survey of charitable contributions compiled by the Center on Philanthropy at Indiana University.

Estimated giving in 2003 equaled roughly 2.2 percent of the nation's gross domestic product, the fifth year since 1971 that charitable contributions exceeded 2 percent of the total output of goods and services.

"This occurs despite rather unsettling times," said Henry Goldstein, chairman of the foundation that oversaw the survey.”

Now, on our local scene: the Finance working group, meeting in the months between board meetings, has looked at giving patterns for Hebron Christian. Giving to the general fund of the church has steadily increased, from 1988 to 2003, around 7% a year. This is not including capital giving such as to Camp Christian, parsonage repair, roof replacement, elevator installation, or organ memorials, let alone our 2000 property purchase (which will be down to $50,000 of principal left on the mortgage at year’s end!).

Our stewardship has been strong and responsive through the financial downturn of the last few years, and we’re proud of the commitment of our members. We plan to fulfill the remaining $6000 we pledged to Camp Christian’s new buildings over the next two years, as well.

Hebron Crossroads 6-27-04
By Jeff Gill

So on a Saturday afternoon a few weeks back, I’m out in the driveway playing with the Little Guy, trying to keep him a) amused, b) interested, and c) out of the house while the Lovely Wife does vital and necessary housekeeping activities. Simple, no?
No. In trying to distract and amuse a tired and disgruntled six year old, I flip off a scooter onto the driveway. The concrete driveway. The hard, over six feet down from my eyeballs, very hard driveway; right onto my left elbow and nothing else.
Rolling over to my right, I grasp my left arm with right hand and feel a variety of things moving about that God did not intend to be moving loosely beneath the skin of my elbow, ironically barely scraped.
My first thought: this is not good. My second thought: this is gonna hurt. My third thought: I can get a column out of this!
OK, so the last two might be in reverse order.
Heading towards LMH in the passenger seat, iron grip on left elbow maintained by right hand, I divert the waves of pain and nausea with the thoughts: Who can preach tomorrow at early service? What about second service leadership? And: I’ll bet I could get a whole bunch of columns out of this experience! (Again, sequence open to dispute; it was gonna be a good sermon, though.)
You might have gotten the column on heartless, inefficient staff at the ER. But no, they were fast, caring, and even more extremely compassionate after they saw my x-rays.
You might have gotten the column on foolish, unprofessional behavior in the Fast Track area and Radiology late on a summer Saturday afternoon. But no, they were calm, considerate, and very good at explaining and answering questions. (My fellow patients, most of whom were not (patient). . .could be a column someday. Or a novel. Stay tuned.)
You might have gotten the column on fee-gouging, rapacious pharmacies that prey on those needing off-hours drugs. But no, after handing over a prescription sheet and some very basic data and a reasonable wait, I got pills that made my arm stop throbbing. A good deal, compared to chewing on yarrow shoots and lighting candles. Did I pay money for that? You bet, and my arm stopped hurting (some).
You might have gotten the column on pre-surgery as a humiliating, depersonalizing, alienating experience which precedes pain and terror with isolation and depression. Not at LMH, where friendly staff were helpful and responsive at every turn, and I got back everything I put in the lovely floral plastic bag (hello, the 60’s are so over) and had the LW with me as long as she could stand my brand of gallows humor. . .even had a fellow pastor come and pray with me before surgery, which felt very odd, given that I’m supposed to be the fully clothed one standing up doing the praying in that situation. Hmm, probably good for me to have that role reversal.
You might have gotten the column on opening child proof containers with one hand, but that is sooooo overdone (has that stopped you in the past? - internal editor's note). Yes, the Little Guy opened them for me, how'd you guess? Oh, you saw someone else's column on that. . .
You might have gotten the column on recovering from surgery with said six year old in house and both of you coming down with a stomach flu at the same time, but this is a family paper, so we shall draw a curtain across those grim days when the pain meds did not stay down, nor did anything else, including the Little Guy.
So many column possibilities, ruined by cheery competence, general professionalism, and a small amount of discretion. Since I’m typing with one hand until a further exam determines my next disposition in re metal pins, cast, etc., we’ll keep this short, but. . .
You might have gotten a column on the essential stupidity of the very concept of an HMO, and you will my friends, you will. A whole column, with plenty to say, none of which has to do with the Little Guy or staples or viruses.
But for everyone who aided in my medical care, emergency and otherwise, located in Licking County, who actually had anything to do with pinning together my shattered left elbow and bruised pride and sense of indispensability: thank you! I am, as so many cards, flowers, and ominously hovering balloons command, obeying the order to “Get Well Soon!”
HMOs, I’ll get to you soon.

Jeff Gill is the fractured pastor of Hebron Christian Church and veteran of many hospital visits, usually on other people. If you have tales of healing and hope to share, or scores to settle with HMOs, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

Hebron Crossroads 6-20-04
By Jeff Gill

Sunrise is now before 6 am; ‘tis Midsummer Night’s Eve made famous by the antics of Titania and Oberon in a Grecian wood, the magical time of the longest days of the year.

Tomorrow is the astronomical first day of summer, June 21, and with or without Shakespeare's influence they are turning out to be strange days, indeed. (If sprites and fairies are afoot in Dawes Woods, now celebrating a 75th anniversary as Dawes Arboretum, it would not surprise me in the least.)

More on just how strange life can be in coming weeks, but now, a long overdue look backwards, to a near-magical weekend in Canal Park.


From my point of view, the Crossroads Festival began with two boys on bikes, stopped and leaning forward on their handlebars, watching with rapt attention as the crew from Calliope Productions set up the Giant Slide on Friday.

Setting up the parking area provided by the Bowmans and Coughlin Chevrolet, I saw walking in from the bridge behind Hayman’s three young girls, high stepping through the grass, picking their way toward becoming the first “official” visitors to the carnival grounds.

Not far behind them, Helen Artz and Jean Houston came across the still bright white bridge, painted on Patriot’s Day last Sept. 11, walking past the Ohio outline flower bed also painted and recently renewed by Mary Alice Dernberger, who came along just after to shoot some pictures for her scrapbook of the Hebron festival back again from a long recess.

Scott Walters and his son Josh came by to offer a hand, and we fell to talking about the still-visible outline of the old interurban power plant in the ground nearby, and the near archaeological character of the lot, with dim traces of foundations and lanes just below the grown-over surface.

And I got another chance (not the last of the weekend!) to tell the story passed along to me by the McDaniels about the Madden girls climbing the smokestack, a hundred feet high with their long black skirts fluttering in that long-ago breeze.

Either the lights got brighter, or the day was darkening, when couples hand in hand started to appear with greater frequency; some couples looking too young to be in love and others old enough to know better, but all glad to be together on a cool night under starry skies.

Mrs. Weaver and her stalwart Student Leadership Council members from Hebron Elementary wove in and out of the rides and stands and booths, swapping out new trash bags for full ones from their containers. The roar of the main generator off the midway left many shouting their questions to each other; “Did you get that one?” “Which one?” “No, that one,” but they merrily kept up with their messy but necessary work.

As the clouds broke up with the setting of the sun, landing patterns at Port Columbus changed, bringing a steady parade of jets right across the sky over the crossroads, just under the waxing half moon from the southeast.

From Conestogas down the National Road in the same direction the airplanes echoed, crossed by the trickled tracing of the once important canal route, that feeling of intersection, of past and present crossing, even interrelating, was as visible as it was felt.

Some of those jets no doubt brought home returning soldiers, veterans newly minted, hoping like many vets before them that they might be the last to carry that proud title, hoping that their work overseas might bring us closer to the day when wars are no more.

I hope they looked down as evening fell on May 28, saw the spinning and rotating lights of a simple village festival, and remembered the boisterous peace and contented happiness of carnivals and circuses and cotton candy, a multicolored reflection of all they fought to protect, and to offer to others.

Life and liberty are blessings we know to cherish, but the pursuit of happiness can often confound us. Watching a family walk away from the grounds as night fell, Dad carrying a stuffed animal larger than either of the kids (and almost as big as Mom!) it seemed like Hebron had relearned what it meant to pursue happiness. . .and might even have caught it.

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and a proud officer of the Hebron Elementary PTO, which sponsored the Hebron Crossroads Festival. If you have news or stories about the pursuit of happiness in the Lakewood area, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

Hebron Crossroads 6-13-04
"These Are the Boys of Pointe Du Hoc"

With thanks to www.whitehouse.gov, at the Crossroads this week we read the words of Ronald Reagan on June 6, 1984:

WE stand on a lonely, windswept point on the northern shore of France. The air is soft, but 40 years ago at this moment, the air was dense with smoke and the cries of men, and the air was filled with the crack of rifle fire and the roar of cannon.

At dawn, on the morning of the 6th of June, 1944, 225 Rangers jumped off the British landing craft and ran to the bottom of these cliffs. Their mission was one of the most difficult and daring of the invasion: to climb these sheer and desolate cliffs and take out the enemy guns. The Allies had been told that some of the mightiest of these guns were here and they would be trained on the beaches to stop the Allied advance.

The Rangers looked up and saw the enemy soldiers - the edge of the cliffs shooting down at them with machine guns and throwing grenades. And the American Rangers began to climb. They shot rope ladders over the face of these cliffs and began to pull themselves up. When one Ranger fell, another would take his place. When one rope was cut, a Ranger would grab another and begin his climb again. They climbed, shot back, and held their footing.

Soon, one by one, the Rangers pulled themselves over the top, and in seizing the firm land at the top of these cliffs, they began to seize back the continent of Europe. Two hundred and twenty-five came here. After two days of fighting, only 90 could still bear arms.

Behind me is a memorial that symbolizes the Ranger daggers that were thrust into the top of these cliffs. And before me are the men who put them there. These are the boys of Pointe du Hoc. These are the men who took the cliffs. These are the champions who helped free a continent. These are the heroes who helped end a war.

Gentlemen, I look at you and I think of the words of Stephen Spender's poem. You are men who in your "lives fought for life . . . and left the vivid air signed with your honor."

Forty summers have passed since [that] battle. You were young the day you took these cliffs; some of you were hardly more than boys, with the deepest joys of life before you. Yet, you risked everything here. Why? Why did you do it? What impelled you to put aside the instinct for self-preservation and risk your lives to take these cliffs? What inspired all the men of the armies that met here? We look at you, and somehow we know the answer. It was faith and belief; it was loyalty and love.

The men of Normandy had faith that what they were doing was right, faith that they fought for all humanity, faith that a just God would grant them mercy on this beachhead or on the next.

It was the deep knowledge - and pray God we have not lost it - that there is a profound, moral difference between the use of force for liberation and the use of force for conquest. You were here to liberate, not to conquer, and so you and those others did not doubt your cause. And you were right not to doubt.

You all knew that some things are worth dying for. One's country is worth dying for, and democracy is worth dying for, because it's the most deeply honorable form of government ever devised by man. All of you loved liberty. All of you were willing to fight tyranny, and you knew the people of your countries were behind you.

Something else helped the men of D-Day: their rock-hard belief that Providence would have a great hand in the events that would unfold here; that God was an ally in this great cause. And so, the night before the invasion, Gen. Matthew Ridgway on his cot, listening in the darkness for the promise God made to Joshua: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."

WHEN the war was over, there were lives to be rebuilt and governments to be returned to the people. There were nations to be reborn. Above all, there was a new peace to be assured. These were huge and daunting tasks. But the Allies summoned strength from the faith, belief, loyalty, and love of those who fell here. They rebuilt a new Europe together.

We in America have learned bitter lessons from two World Wars: It is better to be here ready to protect the peace than to take blind shelter across the sea, rushing to respond only after freedom is lost. We've learned that isolationism never was and never will be an acceptable response to tyrannical governments with an expansionist intent.

But we try always to be prepared for peace; prepared to deter aggression; prepared to negotiate the reduction of arms; and, yes, prepared to reach out again in the spirit of reconciliation.

We are bound today by what bound us 40 years ago, the same loyalties, traditions, and beliefs. We're bound by reality. The strength of America's allies is vital to the United States, and the American security guarantee is essential to the continued freedom of Europe's democracies. We were with you then; we are with you now. Your hopes are our hopes, and your destiny is our destiny.

Here, in this place where the West held together, let us make a vow to our dead. Let us show them by our actions that we understand what they died for. Let our actions say to them the words for which Matthew Ridgway listened: "I will not fail thee nor forsake thee."

Strengthened by their courage, heartened by their [valor], and borne by their memory, let us continue to stand for the ideals for which they lived and died.

Thank you very much, and God bless you all.

Jeff Gill is a pastor of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), the denomination that helped raise and baptized both Lyndon Johnson and Ronald Reagan, and shares his ministerial standing with James Garfield, the only US President to be an ordained clergyman. To share your stories, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

Hebron Crossroads 6-06-04
By Jeff Gill

School ended this week for pretty much everyone within ear and eyeshot of this column; I will not insult you by assuming you drive recklessly by day through the school year, and will slow down by hearing that more kids are on the streets.
But they are, and you should.
Perhaps it would help to get the kids off the streets and into Vacation Bible Schools, which start as soon as the summer begins. Here are the VBS’s that many in the Lakewood region enjoy and benefit from, and you may still send info if there are any I’ve missed for our general area.
In order that they happen:

Heath Church of Christ (on Hebron Road)
June 21-25 9 am to Noon
"Camp Creation"
info: 522-8402

First Community, Buckeye Lake
June 21-25 6 to 9 pm
"Lava Lava Island"
info: Maggie Blade, 928-4615

Jacksontown United Methodist
July 19-23 6:30 to 8:30 pm
"Lava Lava Island"
info: 323-4429

Hebron Community VBS
at Hebron United Methodist, E. Main St.
(with Hebron Christian)
July 30 eve. & 31 all day
info: 928-2471

Our Lady of Mt. Carmel, Buckeye Lake
July 19-23 5:30 to 8 pm
“Jesus Expedition”
info: 928-3264

Stacey Hoffman, the director of the last listed VBS, made a delightful sign that stood in the play area of Canal Park for the Crossroads Festival that showed all these dates.
Stacey, Kim Gowdy, and many others with Hebron PTO and the village staff have much to be proud of, and this column will share more next week about the festival.

Today, June 6, is the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, the beginning of the end of World War II.
Memorial Day weekend brought many memories to the fore around the dedication of the new National World War II Memorial in Washington, and a concert program on PBS included a harrowing and moving first person recollection of the day from the actor Charles Durning, who was there with the initial landing.
Some of you may have heard other stories from Omaha Beach, or the parachute landings behind the coastline and into the deadly hedgerows.
Two stories that weave through the D-Day narrative for me come from very unusual perspectives that I had the honor to hear firsthand.

One comes from sixth grade, when we had a month studying various countries, with art and recipes and guest speakers. When we came to Germany, a classmate had an uncle now living in town who grew up there, and he was invited to speak to us.
It was years later that I came to appreciate how carefully he chose his words, and explained the situation, as he told us of the late night knock at the door, the three men in the “draft party,” and his forced enlistment in the German Wehrmacht.
But even then I understood that there was something quite unusual about hearing of a person’s fears and doubts and unwillingness to be there on Normandy’s beaches: looking down on the sands through a pillbox slit. How long did he fight, and how hard? All this was, as I think I recall, quite vague; there was nothing indefinite about how over thirty years later he was thankful to be captured, humanely treated, and to end up an American citizen.

My other D-Day memory comes from an elderly woman with a thick Dutch accent, who had helped care for a parishioner of mine in West Virginia, lying in the bed next to hers in an extended care unit of our local hospital. She did not know this woman, but simply wanted to care for someone very near the end of her life.
So it was no surprise that Antje, years before, had been part of the Resistance in her native Netherlands. I continued to come and visit her long after the neighbor had passed away, and she told me stories, many sad, some tragic, a few precious happy ones.
When the 50th anniversary of D-Day came along, I asked Antje on one visit if she recalled D-Day. “Oh yes,” she said, “I never forget it. I was on a streetcar in Rotterdam, carrying a message of a drop coming that night of ammunition. My pocketbook was in my lap, and I was very nervous, very nervous indeed. But then from one of the storefronts, the word was shouted out of the landing in France, that the radio said the Allies were coming, that Americans had entered Europe. And for the rest of the ride, as more passed the word along, I was not nervous, all the way to the edge of the city; not nervous at all.”
Antje is gone now, but not her story. And now you know it too.

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and a collector and teller of stories; if you have one to share, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net. That goes for VBS tales, too!

Sat. May 29 Advocate Church Page message
“Memorials take many forms”
Rev. Jeff Gill, pastor
Hebron Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

This Memorial Day weekend, many Licking County communities like Hebron conduct solemn ceremonies marking this time-hallowed and sacrifice-marked day. But a few veterans and others who normally are present will be somewhere else.
Washington DC always attracts many with monuments and memorials, from the Iwo Jima Memorial across the Potomac in Alexandria to Washington Monument itself. At the foot of that obelisk is the capitol’s newest place of memory, the World War II Memorial. This year’s “Rolling Thunder” with thousands of motorcycles passing the Vietnam Veterans’ Memorial in review will now come to a plaza facing the Reflecting Pool leading to the Lincoln Memorial, a plaza with twin towers marked Atlantic and Pacific for the two theaters of the globe-spanning war. Between the towers is a wall of 4,000 gold stars, just a token representation of the 400,000 lives this nation lost as over 50 million died worldwide between 1939 and 1945.
This oceanic, continent-hopping war brought 16 million Americans into service. Too few of them lived to see this day, and this long-overdue monument in our nation’s heart. My own family echoes the impact of the war and its aftermath: my dad’s two older brothers served overseas, one in the infantry fighting across Europe to Berlin itself, the other in the Army Air Corps keeping bombers in the air over enemy naval bases. My dad’s nickname as the child he was then, “Butch,” even graced the nose of a bomber over the Pacific theater. Just among my two uncles, the lesson of those two towers is made real. And one is gone, while the other is still with us.
It is well less than half of those WWII vets are still here, and we lose a few more everyday, but they continue to shape our communities and institutions, not the least in our churches.
One of the great privileges of ministry is the chance I have, in homes and hospitals, in living rooms and nursing homes, to learn small pieces of this story that so shaped all our lives.
Without knowing it, I’ve found myself suddenly in the middle of conversations with holders of the Navy Cross and Silver Star, of submariners on diesels under the Pacific and deckhands in the cold North Atlantic. I’ve been given nuggets of the tale that held freedom together by Marines and Air Corps pilots, Coast Guard sailors and Seabees, holders of the CIB and Ranger tabs.
My own WWII memorial consists of recollections not my own from Camp Lee and Fort Hood, of wave top views in Leyte Gulf, vistas across North African sands, and tunnel vision through island jungle roads. And much more.
In some way, I believe that those memories have an essential character that will endure long past the life span on Vermont granite or Hoosier limestone. My prayer this Memorial Day is that our thankfulness for their service will last as long as well.

Hebron Crossroads 5-30-04
By Jeff Gill

There is so much to keep up with around these busy crossroads; your correspondent missed the spring Choral concert, and heard too late about the Economics Fair (which had an incredible turnout, where much learning was had by all) and the Renaissance Day last weekend where everything from jousting to trebuchets was on view, but not by me.
Whatever day you get this, there will be elements of the Hebron Crossroads Festival going on, from Canal Park’s amusements Friday through Saturday until 10 pm, the Gazebo entertainment Saturday afternoon, or the Symphonic Band Pops Concert at the basketball courts near the entrance to Evans Park on Refugee Road at 3 pm on Sunday.
For Saturday afternoon at Canal Park and Sunday 3 pm at Evans, bring your lawn chairs!
Karaoke is still planned for the evening of Saturday after some jazz, Christian contemporary, and other music from 2 pm on. I will be taking donations to Hebron PTO, our sponsor for the festival, to not sing. Pay up now (he threatened).
Last year we dedicated the Evans Park veterans’ monument, and this festival year we still focus Monday, Memorial Day, on the parade down Main Street along the old National Road from Basin Street and the former Ohio & Erie Canal turnaround spot to the east edge of town.
There facing the sunrise is our village cemetery, and the parade will end there with solemn ceremonies marking this day of remembrance going back to the Civil War. There are veterans of that war taking their final rest in the Hebron Cemetery, along with those of conflicts since.
For many of us, our thoughts will also be with a number from the community who have made the long ride to Washington DC as part of the annual “Rolling Thunder” of motorcycles past the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. They will see this year the newly dedicated World War II memorial just around the corner, at the foot of the Washington Monument and facing the Reflecting Pool leading to the Lincoln Memorial.
A great plaza about a pool with fountains, bracketed by low towers marked Atlantic and Pacific, with a wall of Gold Stars symbolize the gold stars marking those who died in service, 4,000 each standing in for a hundred, representing the 400,000 who died from this country of the 50 million who perished worldwide in the war. Bas relief tablets line the entry, showing everything from the home front on the farm to many other forms of service along with combat itself.
I look forward to seeing this marvel for myself. Along with growing up seemingly surrounded by those who fought and worked and served in each of the branches of our armed forces, my dad’s two older brothers served overseas, one in the infantry fighting across Europe to Berlin itself, the other in the Army Air Corps keeping bombers in the air over enemy naval bases. My dad’s nickname as the child he was then, “Butch,” even graced the nose of a bomber over the Pacific theater. Just among my two uncles, the lesson of those two towers is made real. One is gone, the other still with us.
This long overdue memorial already prefigured by salutes in marble, granite, and bronze all around the country in towns large and small, is a tribute to those 16 million veterans of an ocean and globe spanning conflict that still marks our modern civilization, not the least among the hundreds of thousands of WWII vets still helping shape our world.
May our thanks to them endure longer than carvings or sculpture.

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and a nephew of veterans of the Atlantic and Pacific theaters of WWII. If you have a story from your family to share or news of local interest, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

Notes From My Knapsack – June 2004 “The Church Window”
Sitting on my front stoop a few weeks ago was my writer’s copy of “Religion in Ohio – Profiles of Faith Communities.” This volume, edited by folks with the Religious Experience Advisory Council of the Ohio Bicentennial Commission, took a little longer to assemble than the Interfaith Committee had anticipated, so here we are post-bicentennial, but the book will be a monument and resource for the next fifty years just as the last version was from 1954.
Hebron Christian Church, near the “historic crossroads of Ohio,” has the distinction of having authors of two sections in their fellowship, myself for the Disciples of Christ, and Herb Hicks, still serving an interim up at Somerset, PA with an UCC parish, wrote the Society of Friends (Quakers) section, having dual standing and family history with that denomination. There are churches with co-authors in them, but I’m betting nowhere else has two different section writers in them!
By the time you read this, the first/renewed “Hebron Crossroads Festival” Memorial Day weekend will be history. I trust that the success of the event, the enjoyment of the participants, and the opportunity for groups like our church to engage the public will make this an annual tradition. . .again. Donna Braig, Maribel Neel’s sister, has written elsewhere of the delights in the 30’s and 40’s of greased pigs & poles, and massive parades (ungreased). We have high hopes for where this festival for our community might develop in the future.
Our reading of “The Purpose Driven Life” is history of a sort, but like all the best sort of historical understanding, it continues to have a life among us. Summer program ideas, mission experiences like what Jennifer McNichols will have later in the month in Nicaragua, and the commitment we share with the new Camp Christian dedicated June 12 (see elsewhere in the newsletter for more on each) with state CYF co-pres Josh Halter participating, all are signs of the vision and mission we seek to build together at Hebron Christian.
How is your vision for what God is doing in the Lakewood area developing? Tell someone about it this summer. . .
In Grace & Peace, Pastor Jeff
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Jennifer McNichols to Nicaragua
Along with some fellow education students at OSU-N, Jennifer McNichols will spend the latter part of this month in the Central American country of Nicaragua. This is a poor nation, with many simple needs more easily met by direct in-kind giving than by mailing cash. Jennifer has been asked by the trip leaders, who will supervise their time spent living and working among the campesinos (tenant farmers), to bring items easily transportable with their luggage allowance, like soccer or volleyballs that can be deflated for storage, or [blank blank blank]; also they have some allowance for carrying small children’s clothes, which in many cases are the right size for Nicaraguan adults, as well.
Contact the McNichols at 323-4600 for questions of if you have items to get to her before June 8. We look forward to sharing her story when she returns at the end of the month.
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Camp Christian Dedication & Camps
Magnetic Springs, Ohio has been a center of Disciples of Christ activity since 1949, when Camp Christian sprang into being. We’ve upgraded and built new a few times since then, but no period has seen as much change on the property, just west of Delaware in Union County on Rt. 37, as this past year.
Dedication ceremonies for the “new” Camp Christian are on Sat., June 12, at 11 am, with registration and social time preceding and a sack lunch to follow. Come join the celebration!
The very next day, our first crew of around 20 campers and counselors from Hebron Christian will move into camp for Hocking Chi Rho (middle school). At print time, Alan Cook, Susan Jones, Josh Walters, and Tracy Wildermuth are attending. Send them a greeting at Camp Christian, Hocking Chi Rho Camp, (Name), Magnetic Springs OH 43036 by June 12 to guarantee arrival.
July 4 starts Phyo CYF (high school), with Amy Brown, Crystal Damron, Sonya Ford, Josh Halter, Chris Jones, Sean Jones, Whitney Mason, Kalee McCord, Mattie McCord, & Julie McNichols [ed note - David Scheidegger still a maybe]. Same address, and send by July 2 for arrival that week.
And Templed Hills is our Badger 3-4-5 gr. Camp, with Jared Halter a camper, and Dory Smathers, Crystal Damron, and Josh Halter counseling, with Jeff Gill as co-director. Mail them at Templed Hills, Badger 2137, Box 575, Bellville OH 44813. July 9 is a good date to mail by for them.
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Graduate Recognition Sunday, June 2 in worship
We recognize LHS seniors Amy Brown, Sonya Ford, Nick Mason, and Julie McNichols (our youth group co-pres), along with Dennis Neel at Lakewood (Maribel Neel’s grandson), Robert Love at JVS (Helen Parker’s grandson), Austin Dernberger at Newark (Ralph & Mary Alice Dernberger’s grandson), Beth Wickizer at Worthington (Rev. & Dr. Wickizer’s daughter), Kyle Rogers at Hilliard (Rev. Hutchings’ grandson) and Jason Bartlett and Ronnie Hodges at Fremont Ross (Charles & Wanda Slater’s gr-grandsons) [ed note – and Tashina Jenkins ???, got note but don’t have referent]; our prayers and congratulations go with you through this new stage in your life and walk with God.
Commencement at Lakewood High is June 2, where Pastor Jeff will deliver the invocation; seniors will perform their final numbers with the band and choir during the ceremony, which begins at 2 pm in the main gymnasium.

Hebron Crossroads 5-23-04
By Jeff Gill

Got cicadas?

That won’t be an ad campaign anytime soon, but it is an interesting question around the Hebron Crossroads, especially given that the dividing line between “broods” seems to run right up the old Ohio & Erie Canal, or Rt. 79.
The 17 year cicada is just what it sounds like: a bug that comes out every 17 years and screams, in a buglike way, until dark (the reverse of a horror movie, I guess); after mating, they plant eggs in slits through the bark of tree limbs, and over the next 17 years they develop living off of tree sap, grow and drop to the ground, burrow in deep and change and grow some more, until 17 years have passed when they burst forth in all their red-eyed, Edsel-faced glory, bug-screaming their way through another summer day.
But not all 17 year cicadas all across the US bust loose on the same timetable. One brood, the infamous “Brood X” (actually, that’s just the Roman numeral ten, but it looks cool, doesn’t it? Like a movie title, “Brood X Screams By Day!”) is over much of Ohio including the Columbus area. Licking County is half Brood X and half another brood that doesn’t hatch ‘n holler until 2008, from here over to Zanesville.
That’s what the maps say, but I was recently up at Flint Ridge and saw a new cicada looking very much at home, though still finding his singing voice. Do you have ‘em yet where you live?

Much more beautiful music last weekend at the Lakewood District Band Festival on Sunday afternoon. It is a very good plan to have one long concert instead of three or four on different nights. . .at least for those of us who have in the family or want to hear and support a bunch of kids from fifth grade right through the graduating seniors. The Band Boosters made this work even better with their cafeteria operation that ran through the afternoon, and the Little Guy loved the shredded chicken. To play with. Oh well.
“Hang On Sloopy” was nicely done by the fifth graders with some help from the high schoolers, like Sonya Ford and Josh Halter, which I thought was a very nice touch for their last number.
And Scott Coffey had a great speech at the start of the high school Symphonic Band portion about a local resident, Frank Robison, who had shared with him about the Hebron and Buckeye Lake tradition of circus bands in our area. They then opened with a march, not a military march but a circus march, and the difference was clearly discernable. “Broadway One Step” was a great piece and also a piece of our local history.
Thanks to all, and also Lauren Houck and Rob Caldwell, who did such a great job with the kids in teaching and directing all year.

Over at Hebron Elementary on Monday, the Spring Arts Program by the third graders (first grades traditionally do Christmas, and so on each year) was a musical presentation called “Child Of The World.” Mrs. Clark has had some health adventures this year, but really wanted the third graders to get their chance. With other teachers and family members helping (including a grandson, who helped, sort of!) the stage looked international and the kids were world class.
Under flags of the US, Israel, Austria, Great Britain, Mexico, Japan, and France all handmade, and over themes of Respect, Honesty, Courage, Compassion, and Responsibility, ditto handmade banners, they shared what it meant to be a “Child of the World.”
Solo pairs in the show were performed by Brianna Ames and Yves Amornyard, and by Mary Gilbert and Courtney Baker. Many other kids delivered lines and bits of song with great aplomb (they were calm and cool, too).

Village of Hebron Crossroads Festival info, including pre-sale tickets at the elementary school, can be found on the front page; suffice it to say that the excitement grows with each passing day! We do still need some parking helpers. Lakewood women’s softball and men’s baseball were continuing their winning ways as these paragraphs were typed; for breaking news, watch our sister publication The Advocate, or go to newarkadvocate.com.

That’s the interesting stuff for now; if you still want to read (or if Editor Amy has room), some of you have shared other observations about the “DaVinci Code” craze and my comments about the book. For what it’s worth, thanks to a “blogging” friend online, Amy Welborn, who has written a book on this phenomenon, here’s a look at how even Dan Brown, the author, has had to back off of some of his more outlandish claims. . .and you can check it out yourself at http://www.danbrown.com/novels/davinci_code/faqs.html:

Early version:
HOW MUCH OF THIS NOVEL IS BASED ON FACT?
All of it. The paintings, locations, historical documents, and organizations described in the novel all exist. Photos of the paintings and locations can be viewed in art books or on my website.
A somewhat later version:
HOW MUCH OF THIS NOVEL IS BASED ON FACT?
The paintings, locations, historical documents, and organizations described in the novel all exist. Photos of the paintings and locations can be viewed in art books or on my website.
Most recent version:
HOW MUCH OF THIS NOVEL IS TRUE?
The Da Vinci Code is a novel and therefore a work of fiction. While the book's characters and their actions are obviously not real, the artwork, architecture, documents, and secret rituals depicted in this novel all exist (for example, Leonardo Da Vinci's paintings, the Louvre pyramid, the Gnostic Gospels, Hieros Gamos, etc.). These real elements are interpreted and debated by fictional characters. While it is my belief that the theories discussed by these characters have merit, each individual reader must explore these characters' viewpoints and come to his or her own interpretations. My hope in writing this novel was that the story would serve as a catalyst and a springboard for people to discuss the important topics of faith, religion, and history.

Jeff in closing: Interesting evolution, no?

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and he hopes he looks good in an orange vest Memorial Day weekend; if you’d like to help or have news of local interest, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

A Weekend To Remember
Community Booster 23 May 04
By Jeff Gill

Renewing the tradition of a community festival after a twelve year gap can be a big job, but the Hebron Elementary Parent Teacher Organization is ready, with more than a little help from their friends.
May 28 – 31, Memorial Day weekend, the Hebron Crossroads Festival will start with a carnival in historic Canal Park on Friday, May 28. Michael’s Amusements will open their rides at 4 pm that day, running until 10 pm each of the next three days. Saturday rides open at Noon, Sunday at 1 pm.
The Hebron PTO is offering pre-sale tickets, 5 for $5, saving you up to .50 per ride. 25% pre-sale proceeds got to the PTO. Officers will have the tickets at the elementary school outside the office on Tuesday, May 25 and Wed., May 26 from 9 to 10 am and 2:30 to 3:30 pm, and outside the main entrance on Thursday, May 27 from 5:30 to 7:30 pm.
But fundraising really isn’t the purpose of beginning again this Hebron tradition.
“We’re just excited to be able to offer some things to bring the community together around,” says Kim Gowdy, PTO president. “We saw this as a chance not only to give back to the community on behalf of the school, but also to give children and families a way to see that they don’t have to travel a long distance and spend a whole bunch of money to have a great time. They can come right down the street or around the corner, to the Crossroads Festival.”
Along with the rides, Canal Park will offer a variety of family entertainment on Saturday afternoon and evening, from jazz to gospel, along with storytellers and other family entertainment. Bring lawn chairs or blankets and hang out at the Gazebo for some special Saturday night musical guests.
Between the rides and the Gazebo is a community area with booths from a number of non-profit groups. “Right now we have Girl & Boy Scout troops, Hebron Lions, the Hebron Historical Society, a couple area churches, and others who will offer a variety of goods and activities,” says Stacey Hoffman, PTO vice-president. “Invitations went out to over 40 service oriented groups who were offered the space for free, and if spaces aren’t used, we’ll have a couple businesses or crafters who will rent a space as well.”
The booth area is open through Saturday afternoon and evening, with a pavilion sponsored by Action Pest Control giving a shady spot to eat between the booths and carnival concessions. The carnival rides will open again from 1 to 10 pm, with some of the ClownTown clowns joining the fun in and around the area.
Sunday some of the focus also shifts to Evans Park out on Refugee Road, where the Lakewood Symphonic Band will hold a concert at 3 pm. Bring your lawn chair or blanket and join us out on the fields as we enjoy an open air year-ending offering from Scott Coffey and the gang.
Monday, May 31, is Memorial Day, and the rides and activities close down to allow the entire community to share in the 10 am parade from the American Legion Hall down Main Street to the Hebron Cemetery for a wreath-laying program. Following is an auction at the village firehouse on Basin St. next to the Legion Hall to support the volunteers’ association with the Hebron Fire Department.
“The village is very happy to see this tradition coming back,” affirms Mike McFarland, village administrator. “We’ve enjoyed working with the PTO on this and want to help in any way we can.” Hebron Police and Fire will have booths at the Festival Midway Saturday, and will be active around the carnival and parade all four days of the Crossroads Festival.
Scott Walters, village councilmember for the Parks Committee, offers that “this is a great step back for our community. We’ve really missed having this in our town, and the village appreciates the work the PTO has given to get things rolling again.” Parks and Streets employees have already started preparatory work all around the sites of the Festival, at Canal & Evans Parks, and at the village cemetery.
All agree that this is not a one shot event, but a new beginning of an ongoing tradition for the Hebron Crossroads, with additional events and activities already being considered for 2005. The Hebron Crossroads Festival really looks like it is here to stay.

Hebron Crossroads 5-16-04
By Jeff Gill

We closed the basement door a few weeks ago. No big deal, right?
In the Gill household, we haven’t closed the basement door in seven homes over sixteen years: it’s how the cats got to the litter box.
We moved from seminary housing into a home in my parish in some part because we adopted a grey cat whom we called Gandalf. Actually, he adopted us at the close of a three day revival at the church, showing up each evening to greet arrivals at the door and meow goodbye each night.
The last night he jumped into our car, the last to leave the parking lot. Skipping a few mushy details, he briefly lived an illegal life with a litter box in the half bath until we went to our first home with a basement.
Before we left that house to move to Newark, Ohio from Indianapolis, I brought home another cat, a kitten actually who was about to be put down a well. This was a temporary adoption, until we found somewhere else to place Pumpkin. That was fifteen years ago.
Now they’re both gone, each quietly expiring in the last year from general debility and a final attack of overall collapse. My Lovely Wife and I have been together nineteen years on the 19th, and those darn cats have been one of the few consistent parts of a weird and varied life from Indiana to Ohio to West Virginia to Pennsylvania and back to Ohio again.
At some point, we’ll probably go back to being owned by cats, but for now, we’re closing the basement door and adjusting to black clothing without tufts of cat hair. Those two cats had us to themselves for a decade before we rudely introduced a small child into their golden years, which they accepted with the usual feline hauteur. The Little Guy has chased them into the basement for the last time, and we’ve learned some lessons together about sickness and illness and dying and gone. He’d be delighted now if we adopted the Gahanna Lion, or maybe a lizard. We’ll see.
Sometimes, in church, someone will ask for prayers for a pet, and it usually isn’t a child. Occasionally I’ll get asked about the status of non-humans in heaven, also more often by grown adults than kids.
Pastorally, I know that the love people have for their pets and that they experience, rightly or wrongly, as coming from their “companion animals” is a very real thing to them. Theologically, the comfort I believe we are promised in the Bible where “every tear will be wiped from our eyes and death will be no more” does not rule out cats and parakeets and Labrador Retrievers (though perhaps not in the same room, but if the lion can lie down with the lamb. . .); therefore, I don’t see why I should count them out, either.
What God has made is good, and what shows God’s love is of God. So I offer up the part of our family life these last sixteen years that was Gandalf and Pumpkin, and trust that what God has made, God will preserve. Rest in peace, guys.

Seven days after our thirteenth anniversary, the Little Guy came into this world. A friend pointed out recently that the great thing about “five” is that dad will never be this smart again until age 22 or so. From six on, daddy gets a little dimmer, just a bit dumber and a whole lot less omniscient with every passing year.
Personally, I think we may have gotten a jump on this process, as “Daaaaaaaa-ddeeeee” becomes more and more a declaration of “what part of how I want things to be don’t you understand?” We will celebrate a new year, more big boy teeth, and the blossoming of “I want to do it myself” in everything from getting dressed (a good thing) to lawn mower repair (not so good).
And my pastoral experience tells me it can be a whole lot of fun to be the fount of all wisdom again someday if I can just be patient enough. In between, I’ll just be the amiable goof I am, and stick with embarrassing the dickens out of him. What’s a dad for, anyhow?

Hebron Elementary PTO is getting excited about the Village of Hebron Crossroads Festival. Tickets are going out as a pre-sale for the eight rides that will be available at Canal Park May 28-30, Friday through Sunday Memorial Day weekend. Michael’s Amusements has been very helpful, and their “rainbow posters” are popping up around the area (very attractive, too, Mr. Albanese!); they will make tickets available through the PTO and flyers will go home with kids this week on details.
Many community groups will set up along the “Midway” next to the “Action Pest Control Pavilion” for Sat., May 29, with informational, entertainment, and food item booths between the ride area behind Hayman’s Dairy Bar and the Gazebo/Picnic Shelter end of Canal Park. We can still use some parking aides Friday night and through Saturday guiding folks off Main into the area Coughlin Chevrolet of Hebron is clearing out for us. Contact me if your group is willing to take a two hour block wearing an orange vest and pointing people to parking spots.
And of course: Watch the Booster next week for more details!

Jeff Gill is pastor of Hebron Christian Church and proud member of Hebron PTO; if you have news or notes of local interest, or want to help park, call 928-4066 or e-mail disciple@voyager.net.

Licking District Trailmarkers June/July 2004

Rockin’ the Rock

If we could just get pro wrestler and movie star “The Rock” out to Wilkins Corners for a fundraiser, we’d have “Rockin’ the Rock with The Rock!”

But things are pretty cool as it is: Cub Day Camp booming and, that same week, Staff Training Week under a new summer camp director (good luck, Chris!) in June, and then a solid summer of long-term camping for units from all over Simon Kenton Council, including quite a few from Licking District.

Scouters, remember as you’re thinking about how far to go to get that last kid to go to camp: retention in Scouting more than doubles for kids who have a long-term camp experience. Put another way, the Scout who doesn’t go to camp this summer has less than a 1 in 3 chance in staying active through the next year in your unit.

Thanks to all the Scoutmasters and troop camping chairs who have made the extra effort already! Licking District has an almost 100% amount of troops signed up for a week of camp somewhere, in or out-of-council, and that’s as it should be. Thanks also to Bill Burgess, our DE, and folks like Mike Dalton and our OA chapter officers who are talking up camp around the units.

Our next SKC/BSA “Scouter” will come out in August, which means the next deadline is July 1 for material that many in the district will not see until mid-August, so plan your submitted material accordingly. For instance, we probably should have in this issue info about Scout stuff at the Hartford Fair or Ohio State Fair, but little of that is available in the last week of April! So keep lead times in mind (it helps us plan ahead, anyhow!), and send your news and notes to Jeff Gill at disciple@voyager.net. Thanks!

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Total County Awareness!
Our Goal for School Night for Scouting

Every youth (and parent) in Licking County should, at minimum, know how they could join the Scouting program appropriate to their age level, in their area.

Bill Acklin, chairperson of the Membership Committee for the Licking County District reports that the membership committee is busy with planning efforts for School Night 2004. The district’s goal is to reach out to the boys of Licking County and share the message of scouting, in particular Cub Scouting. The committee plans to divide the area into five zones, each with a School Night Coordinator to work with and support Pack leaders in this recruiting activity, with the Membership Committee providing overall support. Tim Bubb, Newark City Treasurer and candidate for County Commissioner has volunteered to serve as Chairperson for School Night 2004. We are hopeful that this team approach to School Night 2004 will better ensure that the district will achieve the goal of sharing the Scouting program with the youth of Licking County and make School Night 2004 a complete success.

SCHOOL NIGHT 2004
PROGRAM ANNOUNCEMENT

Purpose: School Night is a concentrated effort held each fall to acquaint boys and parents about Cub Scout opportunities and programs and to register new boys and new leaders with existing Cub Packs.

Goal: We have not been reaching as many young perspective Cub Scouts in the area as we would like to share the Scouting message. We need the help of all existing Cub Packs and Scout Troops to reach out to the youth of Licking County to share the Good News about Scouting.

What can Packs and Troops do to help? Begin planning for this year’s program by identifying a School Night Coordinator for your unit. Review dates for School Night with your sponsoring organization and set a date with the local school(s). The following schedule outlines the upcoming District’s program for 2004 for your guidance.

What support will the District Membership Committee provide? The Membership committee will provide program literature and fliers, training for Unit Coordinators, school contact information and other support as needed.

School Night 2004 Tentative Time Schedule

March 2 Roundtable Introduce School Night 2004

March 22 Mailing Mailing to Cub Masters and Pack committee chairs announcing School Night 2004 and request to have units identify School Night coordinator to attend April 6 Roundtable

April 6 Roundtable Organize School Night w/Packs asking Packs to review dates for School Night with sponsoring organization and set date by May 4 RT

May 4 Roundtable Packs advise dates for School Night

May 15 Deadline for Packs to schedule date for School Night w/schools

August 10 School Night training for presenters and units by District Membership Committee

August 17 Fall Program Kickoff (Boy Talk model presentation)

August 24-September 2 Boy Talk “Warm Up—Information” fliers sent to boys home from school with boys’ other paperwork going to the home from school

August 24-September 9 Boy Talks and School Night rallies to be held

September 2 & 11 Packs turn in new boy’s applications and new leader’s applications (site TBA)


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Fall Program Kickoff
Newark Public Library Mtg. Room
Tues., Aug. 17 – 5 to 7 pm

Note in the “School Night for Scouting” lead-in schedule the annual Fall Program Kickoff. This event, for all Cubmasters, Scoutmasters, and unit program chairs, includes Popcorn Sale info, leadership training updates, and a chance to meet people with programs from all over Licking County who want to help your Scouts succeed.

From activity options at Buckeye Lake, Flint Ridge & Newark Earthworks State Memorials, Licking Park District or Dawes Arboretum, and the Ohio Nature Education folks, you can reach in one place people from one end of our area to the other. . .plus talk to almost any of our district leadership as the fall program year gets started.

Drop by, have some coffee or pop, and tour the tables, ask questions, and best yet get some answers, whether on charters, youth religious awards, or how to tie a one-handed bowline. See you there!

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