Knapsack 2-18

Notes From My Knapsack 2-18-10

Jeff Gill

 

Haiti Today, Granville 1886

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When I look at Haiti today, whether just before the catastrophic earthquake, or now in the tragic aftermath, it seems all somewhat incomprehensible, and nearly beyond incredible.

 

Terence, the Roman playwright, said "Nothing human is alien to me." OK, Latin fans, he actually said "humani nil a me alienum puto," and for Black History Month, he was born some 2200 years ago in Africa before coming to Rome, almost certainly as a slave but ending his life as an acclaimed freeman.

 

We look at Haiti, the first free "black-led republic" in the world after the 1804 slave rebellion from France; their freedom in the wake of the American example opening a door for the rest of Latin America, but one that took long years to enter for most of the rest of their neighbors.

 

So when Granville was being staked out by the first official settlers in 1805, Haiti was just beginning as well; not settlement, which had been going on for nearly 300 years on their end of Hispaniola, the island they share with the Dominican Republic, but establishing a free & independent government, and autonomous economy both trace, in the Caribbean and in the Midwest, to almost the same year.

 

Of course, the differences are significant, but not beyond understanding. Looking a little more widely, to understand the size and population of Haiti, take Ohio, and divide it in quarters. Take one-fourth of Ohio, and shove all of our population, Cincinnati & Columbus & Dayton, into that part, say around Cleveland and Ashtabula County and down to Canton, maybe over to Elyria. But put all 11 million Ohioans into that quadrant, and you would have about the same population density; Haiti is estimated to have a bit over 9 million residents, with a fourth of the square miles, so there you go.

 

What does take a painful imaginative leap is to go from an average household income of $46,000 to one of $1,000. Not having Ohio winters is a help for Haitians, but not so much as to counterbalance that. There is no comparison that helps those numbers ring anything but hollow.

 

Where the echoes do resonate for me is in looking back at Granville, and back to 1886. A distant time, but not beyond our records, our photos, our collective memory.

 

In 1886, a well-educated young community leader, a pharmacist of 37 named Charles Webster Bryant, asked his community some questions. Granville was busy and energetic and filled with educational institutions and fledgling industry, with horses on the streets and animals in backyards, often destined for the dinner table, pecking around garden plots that filled most of the property. Outhouses were the norm, and wells for each house.

 

As the population grew, Bryant noticed the increase of infectious illness, sickness that he knew, as a pharmacist, could be prevented. The trees had all been cut down for firewood years before, the hills eroded away in each rainstorm, and there was an annual increase in diseases like cholera and typhoid.

 

Bryant had already helped organize the new Granville Historical Society, and was in the middle not only of recording the eroding tombstones in the Old Colony Burying Ground, but of helping incorporate the Ohio Archaeological & Historical Society. He was a doer. So he said to the community: why not a municipal water system? Let's tend our sewage and pump our water safely, and work together in the interest of health and well-being. If each paid a bit for every property, Granville could have a system as a few cities had begun earlier in the century: so Bryant suggested.

 

But the famous "pump handle" cholera outbreak in London was just 32 years earlier, and "miasmal" theories of contagion were still common, and Bryant's suggestion was ignored.

 

Then, at the end of August, 1886, Bryant fell ill: with typhoid. There in his house, which still stands at the corner of Pearl & College, he died. Soon after, a chastened community decided to begin a public waterworks, and to plant trees and tend some public parks. Electricity and interurbans and the automobile all had their own effects in the next century.

 

My point is that Granville in that summer of 1886 was visually and economically and socially not too different from even Port-au-Prince itself today, or at least just before the quake. 124 years later, Granville is quite different. With some shared effort, this time in collaboration with more distant partners, what might Haiti be like in 2110?

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.com.

[The following is likely to be printed in the Feb. 4, 2010 Granville Sentinel; my Feb. 6, 2010 Newark Advocate companion piece for the Scouting 100th birthday is a bit further down the page -- Pax, Jeff]

Notes From My Knapsack 2-4-10
One Hundred Years of Adventure, Safely Guided
Jeff Gill
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To be perfectly candid, I can’t be in any way unbiased or objective about the Boy Scouts of America.

Anyone who knows me knows that right behind my faith and my family is my love of Scouting, the World Scouting Movement, and the BSA. It has been the biggest single influence on my life outside of my parents, and yes, I’m including the church I grew up in as taking second place, which may be unfair because they were the chartering organization for Troop 7, the Boy Scout troop I joined in 1972 in which I earned Eagle, and my Court of Honor for that was held in First Christian Church, Valparaiso, Indiana, which still is the chartering organization for the unit, and which still has the same Scoutmaster, Mr. Bill Eckert, and long may he hike.

But before that I was a Cub Scout, starting in 1969, and I’ve been registered to one Scouting unit or another from Pack 20 at the Presbyterian Church to Troop 65 today as an assistant scoutmaster at Centenary United Methodist Church, though the charter for our troop and Pack 3 which my son and I just moved through is held by the Granville Kiwanis, long may they wave!

Scouting in the United States began right on the heels of the development of the Scouting Movement by Robert Baden-Powell in the summer of 1907, at Brownsea Island off the southern coast of England. The legend is that William Boyce, just two years later, met a young Scout in London and got help in finding an address, as a foreign businessman far from his Illinois home, but the lad would take no tip. “I’m a Scout, sir,” said the boy, still the Unknown Scout to this day, but his Good Turn held in honor by American scouts throughout the years since.

Boyce was a magazine publisher, and saw a business opportunity and also a need that could be filled, as industrial cities and boys cut off from nature might find a structured way to get back into the outdoors. He quickly found YMCA allies like Edgar Robinson, other youth group organizers like Dan Beard of Cincinnati and Ernest Thompson Seton of New York, and they got a Congressional charter in Washington, DC on February 8, 1910.

For lack of a better date, the BSA continues to celebrate the charter date as our “birthday,” even as some copies of Baden-Powell’s book had already crossed the pond and some scout troops claim to be older than the BSA itself, which may be.

Scouting in Licking County was born at Trinity Episcopal Church and perhaps a dozen other places, but Rev. Franklin and others had units and camping and activities in full flower by the close of the 1920s, so strongly that even the Depression couldn’t end it.

The Licking County Council is now a district within the Simon Kenton Council, the umbrella organization for 40,000 scouts from Maysville, KY up through Delaware, OH, and down in Chillicothe we’ll have a centennial camporee this spring.

But on Feb. 7th, which is traditionally a “Scout Sunday” for congregations that have a chartered unit, Cub Scout pack or Boy Scout troop or Venture crew, this will be a special year and time for some special acknowledgements. One hundred years of American Scouting, and a century ahead that looks pretty inviting.

This is my 41st year as a Scout, now a “scouter,” an adult leader for a movement that has inspired young men, and now young women 14 and up in Venturing, to go on in life as leaders and doers and citizens with a clear sense of their place in the world, and in their nation. Friends of mine in Scouting over the years have gone on to be liberals and conservatives, religious leaders and spiritual skeptics, avid outdoorsfolk and committed scholars with an aversion to getting their feet wet – but they are all engaged, and hopeful.

Look back over the last century, and ask the question: what other organization has grown and responded and survived and maintained its core values, while also maintaining relevance to the needs of youth in a new era? Not too many other candidates come to mind. Plenty have started and grown and crashed and vanished over those 100 years, but today, Baden-Powell and Boyce and Beard and Seton would recognize much of what makes for a troop meeting or campout. (They’d also love Thinsulate and Goretex!)

Here in Granville, and around Licking County, a salute to all my fellow Scout leaders who make the program possible, and a prayer for all the young leaders who really do run most of the units above the Cub Scout level, that they may feel our support and affirmation as they learn by doing, and see themselves making a difference that might just last for a hundred years . . . or more.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s a holder of the Silver Beaver award for volunteer service to Scouting. Tell him your Scouting story at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.com.

Faith Works 1-30 & 2-6

Faith Works 1-30-10

Jeff Gill

 

Where To Sit: A Disorienting Question

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Last week we talked about the trend to lateness, and whether latecomers to worship are a problem or an opportunity. I come down on the latter, but got some friendly e-mail & comment response both ways.

 

There were a few very emphatic statements saying "yes, not being ready to talk to people is exactly why I arrive after the service starts; thanks for getting it, and no, if you move the time back a half hour I'm still going to come late."

 

Which leads me to my next question: Where to sit?

 

This is a subject on which I had little direct information on until the last few years. When you're the preaching pastor of a parish, you get there early to adjust the thermostat, practice your sermon in an undistracting empty sanctuary, pray over the space and for those who will enter in, and (whoops! should have done this first…) unlock the doors. So you're not late, and you sit up in the front, when you sit down at all.

 

As a more frequent worshiper, and even as a supply preacher who may move about from place to place, I'm now a little more in tune with the challenges of figuring out where to sit.

 

At first, I went down to the front row, since that's always open (and that's a whole 'nother subject of a future column). But since I'm five foot seventeen inches, that gets awkward because I feel like I'm either in the way or way too much on display.

 

You can slide over to the side, but then latecomers (ha!) arrive and you end up scooting to the middle of the front, which is where you were avoiding being planted.

 

So then I started scouting out spots where I could nail down an end seat, further back; there you run into the infamous "look." The look that says "hey, we aren't telling you not to sit there, but the Jones-Smith family always sits there, and that's going to get awkward when they arrive in a few minutes." It's somewhere around the eyebrows, and it's very clear.

 

You go around the back and to the other side, but you get "the look" on behalf of the Smith-Jones family.

 

Adding to this is the usual situation I'm in nowadays, where my wife is up on the platform at the church where she does worship leadership, so even when I attend there, I'm solo. Single adults looking for a seat are less easy to fit into a sanctuary than you'd think. There's the spacing proprieties to observe, and a solo has to have a gap on either side, while a family squeezes up in between. You really start to become aware of how you affect the seating dynamics of a whole section.

 

Ends are the best, but then when latecomers arrive, do you slide in, or scootch back and make them sidle past you to the middle? Which can get you another sort of "I'm smiling because I don't want to look like this annoys me" look.

 

All of which means I've found the joys of sitting . . . yep, all the way in the back. My big giant head is not in the way of the screen for anyone, no one wants to shift me over, and in most churches the chairs against the back wall are understood to be "non-claimable" by family history – they're all "first come, first seated."

 

Some churches have clearly done heroic work in arranging space, training greeters, and simply creating a culture of welcome for both new visitors and returning members (hint: starting with "where've you been?" isn't a winning approach). Others have some work to do.

 

How does seating work at your church? Keep in mind that the average new visitor makes up their mind in the first fifteen minutes whether they're coming back for a second time to your church. Good preaching is important, but it's not the key factor. Feeling at ease and sensing that you might come to feel at home in a worship space in less than five years – those are the components of a successful evangelism approach with Sunday visitors.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he usually sits in the back unless he's seated behind the pulpit. Tell him where you like to sit at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.com.

 

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Faith Works 2-6-10

Jeff Gill

 

A Hundred Years of American Scouting

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This is an event for me that is very like what 2000 was for many adults: it's filtered through remembering when as a kid it dawned on you that you'd see this day, and wondered then what it would be like now.

 

As a Cub Scout back around 1970, hearing that the Scouting Movement first officially began in the United States in 1910, I did the math in my head and realized I wouldn't even be fifty years old when the Boy Scouts of America would have their centennial. Assuming good health and other decent breaks, it was a given that I'd see that day, but from what perspective?

 

Well, it's now 2010, and the chartering date with the U.S. Congress of Feb. 8, 1910 has served as the official "Scouting birthday" ever since. And given that most Scout units – Cub Scout packs, Boy Scout troops, Venturing crews – are "chartered" to religious institutions (not all, but a strong majority), the Sunday nearest Feb. 8 is usually a Scout Sunday or that Saturday a Scout Sabbath.

 

From a purely personal perspective, this is a very meaningful anniversary to me. My call to ministry came through my work on a summer camp staff, and I learned that I had a gift to teach and preach in vesper services out under the trees and by the lakes before I ever had a chance to really feel comfortable in a church sanctuary.

 

The church I grew up in chartered the troop where I earned my Eagle rank, and they get that credit for sure, but it was in Scouting where I developed my sense of where God was at work in Nature and everyday life. The Scouting priority on youth leadership through outdoor education meant that my first chance to lead others in completing a task – and failing! – was as a patrol leader and troop quartermaster, shopping for food under the watchful, but gently detached eye of an adult leader whose restraint I only now appreciate.

 

If your faith community sponsors, or charters a Scouting unit, you may have some of them with you, in uniform, this weekend. The uniform is one way to put all members on the same footing, without brand-name competition or status; the only way to gain status on your uniform is to earn it, and every bit of Scouting insignia is available to anyone. There's no competition for rank or awards for one to win and another to lose, no struggle for completion other than with yourself; in theory, every Scout can make Eagle and that would be a wonderful thing.

 

Of course, not all do; one in a hundred or so earn that rank by age 18.  40,000 youth, male, as well as female in Venturing for 14 to 21 year olds, make up the Simon Kenton Council of the BSA, stretching from Delaware, Ohio to Maysville, Kentucky, and from Licking County over to London.

 

There will be tree plantings and Cub pack "Blue & Gold" banquets and spring camporees yet to honor this centennial year for the BSA. But this weekend we note that central element of the Scout Oath, the only "joining requirement," if you will –

 

"On my honor, I will do my best, to do my duty, to God and my country."

 

The promise continues a few phrases, but that's the heart of it. To do our duty to God, as we understand that Presence, whether Jewish or Hindu or Moslem or Buddhist or Christian, since Scouting is a truly interfaith body and has been from birth; and to our country, which means I've met former Scouts of the left and right, as protestors and Peace Corps members and soldiers and pacifists.

 

To do our duty, to God and our country, the best we can. Thank you, Scouting, for giving me those words to live by into a second hundred years.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he holds the Silver Beaver award for volunteer service to Scouting. Tell him your Scouting story at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.com. 

Faith Works 1-23

Faith Works 1-23-10

Jeff Gill

 

Just Calling (or Writing) Because I'm Gonna Be Late

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Thanks to cell phone and texting technology, it's the easiest thing in the world to send a quick message or make a call to say "Hey, I'm running a little late today; be there in a bit."

 

This can be abused, no doubt (and we've all seen it, if not done it), but it's also an outgrowth of increased expectations about productivity and multitasking from work and activities, where people just assume we can cram more into a 24 hour day . . . and this is how we do it.

 

I work a weekday job where people showing up on time for appointments is a sign of either signal interest and attention to detail, or their ride had to drop them off way early for their scheduled time. And quite frankly, we all try not to assume anymore that being late is a sign of disrespect. Yes, I was raised to think and act that way, too, but today being late is "just one of those things," like wearing jeans or having a ring tone go off in a meeting.

 

Which creates some interesting questions in church and for worship services.

 

None of this is entirely a new question: when I was a kid, there was a family that was famously, legendarily, predictably late to each and every Sunday morning service or any special service for that matter. They came with almost punctual precision during the first hymn and nudged their way into a pew front and center.

 

One Sunday there was a city-wide power outage, and all things worked out so that the service began twenty minutes late (something that never, ever happened). And the family in question? They came in during the first hymn, twenty minutes later than twenty minutes late.

 

I'm regularly in a number of services, and so I say cheerfully and freely "this isn't about you" to anyone who wants to know, but – my distinct impression is that over the last five years the percentage of people who come in quite intentionally after the service has begun is on the increase, in some congregations pushing towards a quarter of what ends up being the total worshipping population.

 

Is this a problem? Obviously there are complications from this phenomenon, and not a few would say that late arrival is disrespectful to the worship leadership, to fellow worshipers, and to God. In some ways, this might be true.

 

I also know that it's not that long ago that wearing other than your very best clothes was considered rude and/or disrespectful to all of the above. For good or ill, that has changed. But isn't coming late different?

 

This is something I'm still chewing over. For some, coming late is a coping strategy: they welcome fellowship and interaction, but not right away. Latecoming buffers that. As a married person who often ends up sitting as a single in sanctuaries, I've gained a whole new appreciation for what coming into and joining in worship is like for a single person (short sermon: pews & much else is oriented so much at family groups that singletons feel very much an obstacle & a problem, not a part of the celebration; more to say later). Coming in late eases these issues as a solo.

 

And just as jeans became more accepted in general, lateness in society isn't what it used to be. Is it something the church is called to fight, or work through? Go ahead, look through your Bible for teachings on timeliness: the one note you'll find? Paul chews out some folks for starting before everyone is ready . . .

 

In an age ruled by the clock, and by getting things started on a stopwatch, maybe the "be ye not conformed to this world" has as much to do with worrying about timetables as it does to chastising the tardy.

 

And every preacher knows that some folks are going to leave at a certain time no matter what has happened of worth and value in the service, because "the roast is in the oven."

 

It's fascinating to run into those folks at Bob Evans' later in the afternoon . . .

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he would never say he's never been late. Send your tardiness excuse to knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.com.

Faith Works 1-16

Faith Works 1-16-10

Jeff Gill

 

Healings, Mental and Physical

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I believe in healing, which has gotten me some very interesting e-mail this past week.

 

Some folks (who must not have read on through the column) wanted to know why I would align myself with Oral Roberts and other even less savory characters who began to trade healing promises for requests to send checks.

 

Others were concerned that I didn't say clearly enough that if you pray with sincere faith, miraculous healing is the necessary result for anyone who asks (as long as . . . insert qualification here).

 

What is even more dangerous ground to tread upon, like recently formed pond ice, is mental health, and healing hopes for overcoming illness in that category.

 

After my encounters with medical care last month, and the column last week, I wanted to make one more set of personal comments in relation to mental health. As the saying goes, or should, columnists rush in where angels fear to tread – so here goes.

 

My surgery almost did not come off, and was postponed a week, because of a malady known as "white coat syndrome." Let's call it WCS, which sounds nicely clinical. It means that, for some, going into a health care setting, a doctor's office or more commonly a hospital (let alone an emergency room), one's blood pressure and sometimes pulse rate ratchet up dramatically.

 

Quite sensibly, when my blood pressure on the original day for my oh-so-fun procedure went up and stayed up in pre-op, I was told by the anesthesiologist "go home, go to your doctor, and let's get that number down before we put you under." I was fortunate enough to get into my family doctor that very morning, and an hour after my bell-ringing numbers, in the more familiar surroundings of this doc's office, my numbers were down right normal, average even.

 

The suggestion? "Here, take this prescription." Not for blood pressure meds, but for an anti-anxiety drug I would take the morning of when we got me rescheduled (and just to be safe, we did my BP at the doc's office every day in between – it was fine). My WCS was anxiety, and medicine has anti-anxiety meds, so all's well.

 

Here's my insight, such as it is. I was ticked off. Not at the doctor, but at myself. Keep in mind that as a parish pastor, I've spent more time climbing up and down the back stairs of more hospitals than a pharmaceutical sales rep, in six states over three decades. I know better than to clutch up when I'm facing surgery, I know what's going to happen better than most, and I know . . . ok, it's possible part of my problem is that I know too much about hospitals. Anyhow.

 

What I really had a hard time shaking was the conviction that with prayer and willpower (or willpower and prayer) I should be able to overcome this WCS on my own. Why do I need a pill? This is stupid.

 

Yes, it was. Anxiety, in this case, was an entirely autonomic nervous system response. Like many forms of depression, mania, or other illnesses like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or more loosely understood problems like autism or even fibromyalgia, there is little you can do to "think" your way back to mental health.

 

And medical science has tools you can use to get to a point where you do regain some control over your choices, of both mood & attitude, and of action & movement. Using those tools is not a sign of weakness, and they are often the only way you can return to your strengths. As a person of faith, claiming your gifts and your calling is never something we're expected to do entirely on our own, in isolation.

 

Prayer, in these contexts, can be a healing factor to help us say yes, to accept help from others, even from doctors.

 

So I took my one pill, let it help me overcome my WCS, got the surgery, and healed up afterwards (and still am, a bit) with the help of many prayers, many medical professionals, and much love. There's no one part of that formula I believe God would have me do without.

 

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him about what's healed you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.com.

Newark Moonrise reconstruction by Steven Patricia

Adena Pipe











Other purposes for the Octagon?

Dr. James Salisbury and his 1862 map

Great Circle wall profile 1992


Great Circle - Civil War reunion 1878

Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show, 1884

Amazon Basin new discoveries

Faith Works 1-02

Faith Works 1-2-10
Jeff Gill

Healings May Just Be the Everyday Supernatural
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I believe in healing, not that this represents a solution to the ongoing health care debate.

Over the last month, I've had some pretty unpleasant surgery. Not the sort that carries deep and momentous consequences for the future (i.e., no cancer involved), but to deal with some health issues that have been impairing my well-being, functioning, and general upkeep for some years now.

The aftermath, part of what the medical team calls "the healing process" had its own particular elements of nasty, but as Dr. Shakespeare says, "all's well that ends well." This particular surgical intervention has worked, the medications were effective, and I'm feeling healthier than I have for literally years and years.

What the doctor and nurses and staff would all agree about is that healing, per se, is made possible in some cases by surgical intervention and by medications both prescription and off-the-shelf; but, it really happens within the person of the patient, which is to say, not even just with that one individual.

Healing requires the active support of family and friends, and of your state of mind, which is dependent on your surroundings as much as your interior life. Healing demands that you be in a community of concern, as opposed to being surrounded by those who just want you to go back to old and often self-destructive ways.

In other words, you can't heal a person with a pill and a scalpel, and no one knows that better than medical professionals.

Which is why, I suspect, you find so many highly trained, totally professional health care folks who value prayer as a key element in healing. They won't impose it, but they do ask if you have "personal or spiritual practices that aid in pain management" and other such oblique queries. Prayer is there, all the time, often right where you least expect it.

Because if a drug alone, or just an incision and poking about would cure people, they'd know it. They'd see it. And they don't.

Prayer and spiritual healing means different things to different people. Oral Roberts, who died a few weeks ago, did a great deal to both renew interest in the intersection of spiritual and physical healing, and also to cloud the issue. God be good to him. His excesses in aid of a TV ministry may have given a peculiar cast to the light in which many people view his work and that of his many successors, who make promises that imply God's favor is tied to checks put in the mail.

What can't be obscured is that the human body is an amazingly complex physical organism, "fearfully and wonderfully made." The very best of medical science does not always know what is going on, whether it has to do with allergic reactions, vertigo, heart rhythms, or brain waves.

The very best of religious thinking, or theology, says (at least in the Christian tradition) that miraculous cures are not given as rewards or in response to our efforts or worth, but that those inexplicable moments of grace are meant as signs. The whole Gospel of John is tied up with this awareness, that healings do not come to the deserving or even to those to whom they might be expected, but that each miracle is meant to point beyond itself to the fullness of God's purposes.

So we pray for cures, but what prayer is most fruitful in is healing. That nearly mysterious and very poorly understood process whereby the strange device called a body continues to express thoughts and ideas and hopes and dreams. To endure and continue and cope, to recover from the wounds of this world and to keep on keepin' on – that takes a little bit of healing every day.

Which is a downright miraculous phenomenon that happens all around us, every day. Do we overlook the power of that kind of healing because it isn't dramatic enough, isn't big enough to impress us with our own significance? Or might appreciating and valuing the sort of everyday miracle of healing, physical and spiritual, that gets most of us along our journey actually do a better of job of giving God the glory on a daily basis?

You could pray about it!

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a healing tale at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.com.

Notes From My Knapsack 12-24-09
Jeff Gill

And Everything Changed



The baby was born, and everything changed.

I talked to a mother this week, here in Licking County. She and her husband began the paperwork for an international adoption, reaching out to a country where poverty and social norms combine to generate a disturbingly large number of babies without homes.

They will need two to three years to complete the whole process, and their plan is to request not a newborn, as so many do, more than are available, in fact, but to pursue a child who is already a few years old. A child who has not been adopted.

Which means, of course, by simple math and painful reality, that this child is born this week, or thereabouts. Already, but unknown, unknowably distant; God willing, as this all works out, a child is born to them in a land far away, but just now come into the world with tears and smiles and hope.

For this family to take in another child, since they have some of their own already, they will have to make adjustments. Some have already been made, others are in the works, a few more are contemplated. As experienced parents, they know the biggest adjustments are yet to come, for each child is unique, even if the experience of diapering is mindlessly the same.

When the baby enters your life, everything changes.

There’s something deep within almost everyone that makes the cry of a baby pull our attention and focus away from the most compelling reality show, off of our favorite activities, out of ourselves, and shift to asking “what does the baby need?” Even childless “civilians” know that tug, at the mind and in the heart. For some it is merely an irritation – “why doesn’t someone do something about that crying baby?” but for most it becomes a question – “what could I do to help?”

In an international adoption such as the one I heard about, there is a response to a cry not yet heard, by the prospective parents or indeed by anyone. It is, you could say, a hypothetical cry, of a child needing love and care and devoted attention. The idea that a child, anywhere, is lacking any or all of those things is hard to ignore; so hard to ignore, we mostly have to block out such awareness altogether, since to dwell on those ongoing forlorn cries is too much for any heart to bear.

Yet when you pick up a child and it stops crying, not necessarily because of anything you did (just as some of us pick up happy babies and they start crying because sometimes, that’s what babies do), that contented armful is the whole world for you in that moment. Peace, and love, and joy: and hope.

When you let a baby enter your life, everything will change.

A baby is the center of both the religious and secular celebration we all share, in certain ways, this week, because a baby means something, even when that child has no genetic or genealogical connection to us. A baby means promise and commitment and the future, even when those who should deliver on all those things walk away. And they do, sometimes.

A baby, not even born yet, can change your life; a baby, born long ago & far away, can change the world, your world, right now. In either case, it happens when you decide that your life is connected to something beyond yourself.

Then, everything changes.

Christmas 2009
Dear Friends and Family,

As 2009 comes to a close, our family has many things to be thankful for. Home, health, work and community are among the many blessings we count. Joyce will soon finish six years as Chief of Staff in the President’s Office at Denison University and Jeff continues his busy schedule of supply preaching and speaking, freelance writing and consulting, and work as a mediator for the county juvenile court system. In these uncertain times we are blessed by work that both meets our needs and fulfills us.

We still stay busy with community involvement, Jeff with scouts, transitional housing and financial literacy issues, and local archaeology and Joyce as an officer of the Environmental Education Council of Ohio (EECO) and as worship leader (music director) of New Life Community United Methodist Church. After starting out as a new church five years ago, New Life chartered as an official United Methodist church this fall and just opened a community center in the show room of an old car dealership. Needless to say, the young ministry is blossoming.


11 year old Chris is in sixth grade and seems to get noticeably taller by the day.
He crossed over into boy scouts last spring and has already been on several campouts with Granville Troop 65. He joined the band this year as a beginning clarinet player and is loving it. He’s also becoming quite the young thespian (can you say chip off the old block?), recently drawing rave reviews as “Boomer” in Christmas from Scratch at Centenary UMC here in Granville. His youth group puts on two mini-musicals each year, so we’ll have another to look forward to this spring.

A highlight of our year was a week spent in Disney World this summer. It was Chris’s first visit, and I think it’s safe to say that it exceeded his expectations. He especially liked getting autographs from his favorite Disney characters. It was great fun, but not exactly relaxing. We learned later that the average family at Disney World walks 7 miles a day. We’re pretty sure we did at least that much.


We hope you are well and happy, and we wish you a
blessed Christmas.

Love,

Joyce, Jeff & Chris

Knapsack 12-31

Notes From My Knapsack 12-31-09

Jeff Gill

 

A Summing Up At Year's End

___

 

 

Jacob Little was the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Granville from 1827 to 1865. For these thirty eight years, he not only preached for his flock, but he tried to lead the entire community through both example and exhortation.

 

The Granville Historical Society has just published an attractive and wonderful volume titled "Jacob Little's History of Granville." It includes not only Rev. Little's early attempt at a summary of the first decades of this community, but an assortment of other writings, not only by the parson but from a number of local historians (your columnist among them).

 

Laura Evans is well known to readers of these pages in the Sentinel, and was the presiding eminence over the effort to not only republish these early essays on Granville, but to help bring some historic context to these documents that are very much of their time.

 

At some future date, slighting asides about Sarah Palin, angry commentary about the DeRolph ruling, or rude jokes about Bill Kraner may be utterly incomprehendible, and it will take a meticulous historian or twelve (or 14!) to make sense of current observations, as it has with Jacob Little's work. Not to take anything away from Parson Little, but the lasting value of this book may well be the assembly of framing essays and inserted articles which helps the reader along in understanding what Little was making much of.

 

Most infamously, Rev. Little would issue a "New-Year's sermon" which would be presented both from the pulpit on that day, and usually found its way into print. These sermons were intended to be an assessment of the town as a whole, not just of "Congregationalist Presbyterians" in his own congregation.

 

As Dick Shiels says in an introductory essay for the volume, "Jacob Little aspired to be the pastor for the entire town." His was probably the last era of American life where that aspiration was even imaginable; there have since been a variety of movements and organizations that claim to speak theologically for a majority, silent, moral, or otherwise, but no one imagines that any pastor could really serve as chaplain to an entire community.

 

Little knew there were those in opposition to his stands on subjects such as temperance (for it) and dancing (agin' it), and not everyone was as passionate as he about education for all and even more for those pursuing clerical status, but he truly believed that through a mix of inspiration and shame he might well draw the entire village into his beliefs, if not into his church building.

 

What does unity in community mean today, when diversity and multi-everythingism is the single standard all are expected to salute? Is there any "unum" to which all us "e pluribi" should aspire to? And what would happen to any person, let alone a pastor, who tried to name in public the people whom they saw as breaking down the moral fiber of the community? Even before the defamation lawsuits were filed, can you imagine it at all, or even what categories would be described?

 

In the 1840s, listing who owned a household Bible, or specifying the drinking habits of elected officials down to the quart, or naming those who (gasp) danced last month – it wasn't necessarily popular for Little to do (ultimately, he was forced out of his position, albeit after 38 years), but it was imaginable. Today we fall back on broad, generic survey numbers that safely wag their percentages at how many spouses cheat in their marriages, or poll how many parents purchase alcohol for their children's parties.

 

It was different over 150 years ago: that may seem incredibly obvious, but sometimes I think we forget how different a place, how foreign a country the past really is, even when that place is right here.

 

If you'd like to take a quick trip to that distant nearby land, you can drop by Reader's Garden in the heart of the village, and plunk down $27 (tax included), or go to the website of the Granville Historical Society at www.granvillehistory.org and follow the instructions there for ordering by mail.

 

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he is very proud to be in the distinguished company that was assembled by Lance Clarke and Laura Evans to produce this book. Write him at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.com.

Knapsack 12-24 -- Granville Sentinel

Notes From My Knapsack 12-24-09

Jeff Gill

And Everything Changed

___

The baby was born, and everything changed.

I talked to a mother this week, here in Licking County. She and her
husband began the paperwork for an international adoption, reaching
out to a country where poverty and social norms combine to generate a
disturbingly large number of babies without homes.

They will need two to three years to complete the whole process, and
their plan is to request not a newborn, as so many do, more than are
available, in fact, but to pursue a child who is already a few years
old. A child who has not been adopted.

Which means, of course, by simple math and painful reality, that this
child is born this week, or thereabouts. Already, but unknown,
unknowably distant; God willing, as this all works out, a child is
born to them in a land far away, but just now come into the world
with tears and smiles and hope.

For this family to take in another child, since they have some of
their own already, they will have to make adjustments. Some have
already been made, others are in the works, a few more are
contemplated. As experienced parents, they know the biggest
adjustments are yet to come, for each child is unique, even if the
experience of diapering is mindlessly the same.

When the baby enters your life, everything changes.

There's something deep within almost everyone that makes the cry of a
baby pull our attention and focus away from the most compelling
reality show, off of our favorite activities, out of ourselves, and
shift to asking "what does the baby need?" Even childless "civilians"
know that tug, at the mind and in the heart. For some it is merely an
irritation – "why doesn't someone do something about that crying
baby?" but for most it becomes a question – "what could I do to help?"

In an international adoption such as the one I heard about, there is
a response to a cry not yet heard, by the prospective parents or
indeed by anyone. It is, you could say, a hypothetical cry, of a
child needing love and care and devoted attention. The idea that a
child, anywhere, is lacking any or all of those things is hard to
ignore; so hard to ignore, we mostly have to block out such awareness
altogether, since to dwell on those ongoing forlorn cries is too much
for any heart to bear.

Yet when you pick up a child and it stops crying, not necessarily
because of anything you did (just as some of us pick up happy babies
and they start crying because sometimes, that's what babies do), that
contented armful is the whole world for you in that moment. Peace,
and love, and joy: and hope.

When you let a baby enter your life, everything will change.

A baby is the center of both the religious and secular celebration we
all share, in certain ways, this week, because a baby means
something, even when that child has no genetic or genealogical
connection to us. A baby means promise and commitment and the future,
even when those who should deliver on all those things walk away. And
they do, sometimes.

A baby, not even born yet, can change your life; a baby, born long
ago & far away, can change the world, your world, right now. In
either case, it happens when you decide that your life is connected
to something beyond yourself.

Then, everything changes.

Faith Works 12-19

Faith Works 12-19-09

Jeff Gill

 

When a story can't be told too often

___

 

Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" has been filmed over and over again since the very dawn of photography, starting in 1901 (less than 60 years after the tale was first told!), and Disney has taken another crachit at it.

 

Using "motion capture" animation, Jim Carrey does for multiple characters, starting with Scrooge, what Tom Hanks did in "The Polar Express." The computer animation, tied to human acting while wearing "mo-cap" suits, continues to amaze, and makes set builders weep. The virtual camera swoops around St. Paul's Cathedral and through the City of London, perching a moment on the Tower itself, never filming a bit of tangible reality.

 

Dickens' story touches hearts in every form, from Mickey Mouse as Bob Crachit in an earlier Disney cartoon venture, or the classic old black and white Hollywood versions.

 

Or you could read it, out of a book or even on your computer screen.

 

What makes this cast of characters and particular plot so affecting is the change of heart, the transformation of the unseen center of Ebenezer Scrooge from the cold and unmoved façade against the outside world to an equally mysterious, but outwardly apparent celebrator of Christmas, of whom "it was always said of him, that he knew how to keep Christmas well, if any man alive possessed the knowledge."

 

The question for Scrooge, and for all of us traveling in company with old Ebenezer on his nightlong journey, is whether in fact he *can* change. To quote the reforming miser himself:

 

[blockquote] "Before I draw nearer to that stone to which you point," said Scrooge, "answer me one question. Are these the shadows of the things that Will be, or are they shadows of things that May be, only?"

Still the Ghost pointed downward to the grave by which it stood.

"Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead," said Scrooge. "But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me."

The Spirit was immovable as ever. [end blockquote]

 

Dickens was too good a storyteller, and perhaps enough of a theologian, to tell us directly whether "certain ends" are inevitable. There are inevitabilities in this world, and there are things very hard to change indeed, and then there are those moments of transformation where only a Spirit can account for the change that results.

 

As much as Americans enjoy their Scrooge, our complement to "A Christmas Carol" is a story that began and really only exists as a movie, "It's A Wonderful Life." George Bailey, too, is haunted by supernatural beings, the angel Gabriel and a Joseph who may or may not be the fellow with relatives in Bethlehem. And Clarence Oddbody.

 

Mr. Bailey wants to know, and doubts, whether his life has changed anything. The weight of predestination, of inevitability, weighs equally heavily on George as it does on Ebenezer.

 

Can one life make a difference? Can small choices make a change, or are we just pawns to "an undigested bit of beef, a blot of mustard, a crumb of cheese, a fragment of an underdone potato," as Scrooge tried to account for Marley's apparition by means of his indigestion?

 

[blockquote]"Spirit!" he cried, tight clutching at its robe, "hear me. I am not the man I was. I will not be the man I must have been but for this …. Why show me this, if I am past all hope?" [end blockquote]

 

Jim Carrey plays not only Scrooge in the new "Carol," but also all three Spirits. It's an interesting approach, hinting at not only the acting prowess of the human beneath the animated pictures, but also at a modern attempt at explanation. The three Spirits of Christmas are simply psychological expressions of Scrooge's own interior desire to change.

 

Perhaps. Many want to change, and cannot, but continue to try. This we see all around us every day, and sometimes in the morning mirror. Could it be that it is inevitability itself that is the Ghost, a persistent haunting imposed from within; and to change, to be transformed, requires a nudge from without, from beyond, from Another?

 

Might something as faint, as distant as a baby born in a backwater, thousands of years and as many miles away, be the external, even the supernatural influence that moves us where all our wishes and desires cannot take us?

 

Could the Christmas child make all the difference?

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him about a reason to change you've experienced this Christmas at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.com.

Faith Works 12-12

Faith Works 12-12-09

Jeff Gill

 

Working On the Daily Grind, With Love

___

 

 

Four floors of rumbling kept a fine sift of flour shimmering through the setting sun.

 

The mill was a century and a half old, and today was working in full flow, the millrace off the creek turning the wheel, whose gears and belts and grindstones were in motion, parallel and perpendicular, all through the open frame structure.

 

With the leaves off the trees, the light of sunset slanted directly through the windows on each of the three levels above the entrance. Late fall and harvest meant that wagons filled with whole grain had been pulling up with great regularity, and everyone working around the mill had taken a turn pulling sacks of corn up to the peak.

 

What wasn't powered by the water wheel or elbow grease was moved, through the mill, by gravity; many of the first steps of the milling process started on the top floor.

 

But the grain, as it ground down to floury powder, would rise up again through the floors, lifted by slats on long leather belts through wooden boxes called elevators, since they elevated the grain to a higher level through their constant turning, powered by an axle which in turn rotated off of the mill wheel itself.

 

The miller worked by ear, and feel, more than by sight, which was a good thing when the dust off of the milling process filled the air and the sun caught each mote so as to blind you more than a creekside fog.

 

Tap, tap, he gently rapped the planking of the elevator, one which his ear and the soles of his feet told him had shifted a bit with the creaking of the building itself, built of black walnut timbers in 1849 – some of those timbers starting as young seedlings in 1609 before cut and seasoned and built into this mill.

 

Now, 160 years later, a voice came up to the second floor from below: "Honey, the router went out again, and I can't get the internet on the cash register."

 

The miller looked thoughtfully at his large wooden mallet, and then laid it on a beam nearby and walked downstairs, brushing dust and flour off his jacket and jeans.

 

Coming through the door into the gift shop, another man walked inside at almost the exact same time. He looked cheerful, if a bit grim.

 

"Hello," offered the miller. "My wife is in the back just now, can I help you?"

 

"You sure can," said the visitor. "I'm looking for something for my wife, and this mill's gift shop, people tell me, has no end of unique stuff. That's what I need, unique," he nodded vigorously.

 

"Alright," said the miller. "So, you want to get her something that she wouldn't already have, or . . ."

 

"Something none of her friends already have, and something that will really 'wow' her," answered the man, placing his hands on the counter next to the register.

 

"What does she most want for Christmas?" asked the miller. "Has she given any hints about anything?"

 

The well dressed visitor laughed. "Hints? You must be married, too; I get nothing but hints, every day. Get home earlier, go to church with her, just sit on the sofa with her. But not a clue on what to get for Christmas for her."

 

"Really? It sounds like she's told you already what she wants," replied the miller. "Is that out of your price range?"

 

"No," and he shook his head, "I'm interested in whatever you've got. Some of that art pottery, maybe? Or a sculpture. Price is no object."

 

The miller laughed, gently but easily. "I can tell that. What I meant was if the cost was a bit too much to give her what she wants. My wife wanted to get this mill running again, and we could afford the property, but I wasn't sure I could cover the cost, if you know what I mean."

 

"I think I do," the visitor replied. "This is hard work, isn't it?"

 

"Not as hard as you might think, but long, and steady. You have to know how you intend to finish to even get started. I didn't know if I could do it, but when I knew she wanted to with all her heart, that set me on the path that led me here."

 

"It looks wonderful," said the man, looking around.

 

"And it is, but you have to believe in what you're doing. We started in church, and that's where we remember why we keep going, like that wheel out there, turning in the stream."

 

The miller's wife came out of the back room, saw the visitor and smiled. "Do we have here what you're looking for?"

 

Looking back at the miller, the man said "Yes, I think you do."

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he thanks Bear's Mill in western Ohio for inspiring a story this Christmas. Tell him about your search for a gift at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.com.

Faith Works 12-5

Faith Works 12-5-09

Jeff Gill

 

Happy Holidays To You, & You, & You!

___

 

My e-mail box and Facebook page all tell me, with the best of intentions, I'm sure, that there are retailers who are "officially" informing their employees to say "Happy Holidays," and not "Merry Christmas."

 

No doubt.

 

Yes, we've been here before, haven't we? The so-called "Christmas wars" are right up there with Black Friday, extended warrantees, and heart-plucking tales of seasonal reunion as the Greatest Hits rotation for December.

 

Speaking purely as a Christian and as a pastor, I'm delighted that places of commerce, businesses with goods to sell and no time to spare, shops and stores and malls and merchandisers are all wanting to help make a very important point.

 

With all due respect to Caspar, Balthazar, and Melchior, buying gifts has not a thing to do with the birth of Christ Jesus. Nothing. Nada.

 

Shopping, gift cards, exchanges, layaway, and most emphatically cashback credit card transactions are all activities which are near to the heart of our culture, but having little or nothing to do with spiritual growth. Catch me in a truly Scrooge-y mood, and I might observe they can erode and undermine the development of healthy spirituality.

 

So the news that stores are NOT saying "Merry Christmas" bothers me not at all. Good for them. And for those who say they won't shop at a store which says "Happy Holidays," good on them, too. If you want to make your retail line up with your religion, good luck with that, and I hope it goes beyond season's greetings (good luck with *that*).

 

Meanwhile, for all the militant secularists who are quite delighted at the faux culture war over "Merry Christmas," and are pleased that a misreading of the Constitution leads schools to ban instrumental versions of "Ave Maria" and want no one outside of a church building to say "Merry Christmas" –

 

What was that alternative you wanted to use? Oh, right, "Happy Holidays." Fine, except . . . nah, I'm sure you already know that.

 

Huh? No, I'm talking about "Holidays." It's a word derived from "holy day." A holiday is a day that is set apart, beyond the secular, everyday, a day marked as sacred, or "holy." A holiday.

 

Not liking "Happy Holidays" so much? Sure, there are other options. Some municipal celebrations have shifted over to "Winter Carnival."

 

Except the whole concept of Carnival comes from a church season still a ways down the road, the season of Lent, preparing for Easter. You fast and pray in Lent, so before the fasting begins, you feast on all the meat and fat and animal flesh you are supposed to avoid in Lent – in Latin, "carne," or "flesh." A carnival season is when the flesh is shared out and enjoyed to then shift focus to the spirit and the spiritual.

 

Carnival seems too churchy, then? How about a "New Year Festival"? That seems as safely, blandly generic as you could hope for.

 

Golly, though, it turns out . . . well, do you want to know? OK. A festival is a feast, a meal shared together by many. You can sort of see the word "feast," right? But the word itself, working back through Middle English to Old French and back to Latin once again is derived from "fanum," or temple precinct. In the fanum, a sacred meal was set apart for divine purposes, opened to all, and this is where the word "feast" comes from, out of the fanum. And then festival.

 

You almost get the idea that avoiding the holy or the sacred or the divine in celebrations is almost impossible, except maybe in Esperanto. By the way, according to the internet, Santa Claus in Esperanto is "Avo Frosto." Ah, Grandfather Frost. That worked out so well for the Soviet Union, didn't it?

 

Anyhow, if someone wants to wish me "Happy Holidays," I'll recall that this is indeed a time in which we should seek the holy. If the school calls it a winter carnival, that puts me in mind of the larger church calendar and that ultimately the flesh, the "carne" must be set aside, that the shopping will end.

 

If a festival is what we must have in whatever setting, my prayer is that we find that sacred space within which all may gather and feast on the goodness of God's gracious gift.

 

Or as a rabbi I once knew liked to say this time of year, to all us Goyim after the Hanukah celebration, "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!"

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him how you'd like to label the season at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.com.

Faith Works 11-28

Faith Works 11-28-09

Jeff Gill

 

"Tinsel" Tells Us Our Story, But Will We Recognize Us?

___

 

Imagine reading a story about a train wreck.

 

There is massive damage not only to the train, but to the neighborhoods all around the track. Many people on board are hurt, none severely (at least, in the immediate aftermath, as far as the triage staff can tell), and the story not only communicates to you some of the camaraderie and good will that takes place in the midst of the wreckage, but it makes you laugh. Not at the people in the wreck, but with them.

 

Even though you get the sense that, as you read, the train wreck was caused less by whoever was driving the train up in the cab than by the actions of the passengers themselves, plus a lack of roadbed maintenance by the railroad itself.

 

And yet you still think, reading this story, "I'd go on a train ride with those people."

 

That's how I would be tempted to sum up "Tinsel," except it isn't about a train wreck, it's about . . .Christmas.

 

Hank Stuever, the award-winning Washington Post reporter & essayist, literally moved from the DC area to a north Dallas suburb, Frisco, Texas. He spent the holiday season for three years in Frisco, with a few other visits from time to time, following a number of families and ultimately focusing, in this book, on three.

 

He follows them into a train wreck that happens every year, at about the same time, on the same dangerous curve, with these families and all their friends and neighbors alternately pulling on the emergency stop cord while hollering over the train's intercom to "pick up the pace!"

 

The subtitle of "Tinsel" is "A Search for America's Christmas Present," and the searching part is present for both the featured families and for Hank himself. He grew up a Catholic altar boy, and his mother is now a nun, but he refers to himself as an "unbeliever" today. He takes a sort of wry anthropological view of the placing of the décor on and around and in the vast McMansions of Frisco, the shopping trips that are both daily and endless. He watches, and listens, and clearly succeeded in becoming, as he explains was his intention, part of each family, in an unofficial Uncle Hank sort of way.

 

As a gay man from an East Coast capital in the heart of megachurch country, he asks questions about motivation and intention that might not even have occurred to a full participant in all the festivities, in worship services and special programs and even in observing the rituals around "visiting Santa" at the mall.

 

Given all that, I really think that church Sunday school classes and family home groups would gain some self-understanding in spending some time reading and discussing "Tinsel." Hank Stuever has all too accurately described the hollow center of many of our current Christmas cultural obligations, and the sweet vanilla crème filling inside. The thing about that kind of confection is that it isn't actually hollow – there is something inside, and it may not be nutritious or healthy, but we love it, or at least love the experience of eating it.

 

The hollow feeling comes later, and the hunger for something substantial.

 

"Tinsel" is not a mere rant against consumerism, although conspicuous consumption is laid out in painful detail. It isn't a mockery of faith, though some of the less savory aspects of contemporary praise & worship style Christianity is described fairly, if not to anyone's credit. Stuever doesn't have a specific agenda about "what should be done" about Christmas as it's currently practiced in America, nor does he have a list of recommendations at the end of the book.

 

What may end up being prescriptive is that the economic implosion of the past year closes the book. Frisco is one of the epicenters of the foreclosure meltdown, and a way of life that some of the interviewees actually refer to as "recession proof" is made to wobble, if not actually fall over, like an inflatable Santa sculpture half collapsed into the snow.

 

Why would church groups want to discuss "Tinsel"? Well, because I think Frisco is just far enough away to let us safely discuss whether or not this is actually about us, and ask what we would want to do about that if it's true.

 

And by the way, I'm told that as Stuever was making his final decision on where to go, the north Columbus, Ohio suburban area was in his final three.

 

I'm not sure if we would be able to read that book as honestly, but I don't think it would have been a bit different, other than the names.

 

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him about your views on seasonal excess at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.com.

Faith Works 11-21

Faith Works 11-21-09

Jeff Gill

 

Or On the Other Hand, Maybe Not

___

 

If I were to hazard a guess that there were some readers of the Advocate today who weren't feeling too terribly thankful, it wouldn't be going out on too shaky a limb.

 

Given the state of the national, regional, and local economy, the odds that there are some people turning pages (actual or virtual) who are looking more for the Help Wanted pages than sprightly opinion & comment are pretty good, almost a certainty.

 

The parson's usual dodge, said the parson, is to suggest that everyone, no matter if they've lost their job, even if they're short cash or feeling the sting of already-burned-through credit coming due, should still feel thankful for something . . . or other.

 

You still have your health, even if no health insurance, says the optimist; you have the breath of life itself, says the faithful believer, which is a gift; the pragmatist points out that you aren't in jail. (Except for all our faithful jail readers – hey there, folks, hang in there!)

 

Thankfulness is technically something you can feel no matter what your circumstances, unless you're a corpse or at least catatonic. Medical science declares that feelings of thankfulness lowers blood pressure, supports your immune system, and promotes general well being.

 

Does that include forced or insincere thankfulness? Or is it one of those categories of thought and action where if you believe something, you'll start to live so much as if it's true that it will effectively become true. You can't think yourself tall, but thinking self-confidently can start to straighten your spine enough to actually add both height and the impression of height.

 

There's anecdotal evidence enough that if you decide to speak and act and claim to be thankful, thankfulness for yet another day, for a few basics, and for the promise of maybe something more at some possible point later, you really do end up feeling thankful right down to your ungrateful appendix.

 

"Give thanks, with a grateful heart" says the well-known praise song, and it's a piece of wise counsel, but what about just giving thanks, and asking for a grateful heart to warm up inside you as a result? Sometimes, you just don't feel thankful for anything, including, not just starting with, the fact of having woken up that morning. You may even be particularly displeased about that. You know you shouldn't, but it's been that kind of week, OK? (You think, grumpily.)

 

Which may be so, but can you concede that there is a reason, any reason at all in your life, to offer thanks: to God, to your higher power, to something or Someone beyond your own abilities and actions?

 

And then could you be open to feel it, to feel the effects of that decision to present a thankful attitude in the general direction of the cosmos? It would be a start.

 

Most areas around the county have a community Thanksgiving service, usually on Sunday night, since so many travel on Wednesday or Thursday of this week. Granville & Hebron churches band together for a 7:00 pm service, while Utica, always a step ahead, has one at 6:30 pm Sunday night, and there are no doubt others.

 

If you're feeling particularly un-thankful this year, my heart and sympathies are with you. There are some real challenges out there, and I wouldn't want to even hint that they are anything other than demoralizing for anyone feeling alone and pushed aside.

 

What I'd also like to offer is to come join one of the community Thanksgiving worship services, since there's probably one very near you, and since they include multiple congregations, it's a great time to drop in and not feel like the only stranger in the building.

 

And for that hour of music and singing and prayer, take a shot at being thankful, even if only for very little. It might just grow.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him what you're thankful for at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.com.

Knapsack 11-19

Notes From My Knapsack 11-19-09

Jeff Gill

 

Give Thanks With Heart and Hands and Voices

___

 

Sunday evening at St. Luke's Episcopal Church the entire community is invited to start a week of Thanksgiving with a Community Thanksgiving Service at 7:00 pm, planned by the Granville Ministerium.

 

The Rev. Thom Lamb of First Presbyterian will preach, and The Rev. Stephen Applegate of the host church has arranged a number of us clergy folk from many different denominations in a worship service that can help raise up and focus our reasons to be thankful, as a village, as families, and as individuals.

 

Our offering at the service will go to the Coalition of Care's ongoing work, and a community chorus will sing for us.

 

That chorus is another expression of an impulse that's visible over on Newark's East Main Street, just past the big blue steel bridge, opposite the Licking County Justice Center. Right now, the "Church Build" Habitat for Humanity house is wrapped in blue material around the first floor framing, but sheathing will go on shortly, and then a crane will help lift the roof trusses into place.

 

Centenary UMC is celebrating a bicentennial year in 2010, and one of the ways they wanted to mark the occasion, along with the usual plates and such, was a gift to the community. A few members took the lead in the idea of pulling together county Christian churches, and got around twenty participants to commit to the idea, but Granville churches are strongly represented in both contributions and construction crew. The last day I was on the site, there were workers from Centenary, St. Luke's, Spring Hills, and St. Edwards.

 

The work will continue on Saturdays and Wednesdays through the holiday season; also coming right up – Thursday, Dec. 3, at 6:00 pm, is the Newark "Sights and Sounds of Christmas" guided tour of downtown churches. $5 per person, all for the Licking County Food Pantry, is a wonderful experience to see and hear some real county history, and great live music. Check out www.sightsandsoundsofchristmas.org for more info.

 

Of course the first Saturday of December is . . . time to leave town? Yes, I know there's a few Scrooges who feel that way, but this is the 20^th anniversary of the Lovely Wife and I first stumbling into downtown Granville as evening settled around the Four Corners, the Scouts lighting the luminaries, music echoing out of the churches, and a light snow fell all around. We were captivated and entranced and whatever else the thesaurus says about that, and if you'd told us that night we'd be living in this village fifteen years later we would have laughed and laughed.

 

If you'd have told us in 1989 we'd have a son in twenty years who would be lighting those luminaries, we might have cried, just a bit, with happy tears. And laughed.

 

Both of which we'll no doubt do on Dec. 5 at the Candlelight Walking Tour. See you there!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story about your favorite anniversaries or events at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.com.