Faith Works 11-3-18

Faith Works 11-3-18

Jeff Gill

 

A strident season, in faith and life

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Checking a couple of dictionaries, I find that the word "strident" has only been in use from the mid 17th century: it was created from the Latin verb "stridere" which means "to creak." 

 

So a creaking, croaky sort of vocal tone, a quality of sound that's harsh and discordant, became "strident" as it was first used; it's only been since the mid-1800s that we took it to be equally useful as a description of political speech, which is the main way it's used today.

 

Which is interesting to me, having been through a second round of treatment for my vocal cord muscle problems. The injections for spasmodic dysphonia have left me sounding now for weeks what can only be called "strident," which of course no one is calling it. After about three weeks of little volume and much raspiness (but the spasms did go away, it's just that the cure is in many ways worse than the problem), I can be heard fairly normally, but at a higher pitch than normal, and with a strident edge to my voice.

 

In the last couple of weeks I've done a wedding, a funeral, preached twice and taught twice, and apologized I don't know how many times. Everyone has been very kind, extremely gracious, and kept saying "oh it's no problem at all." Perhaps that's true, but there's a difference, and I feel the need to give an account for myself, even if you've never heard my voice before. In a way, I'm saying "this is not me."

 

Stridency in the more common modern meaning is all around us. It's a fascinating historical parlor game (does anyone play parlor games anymore?) to debate how much worse it has been in the past. Abe Lincoln was called an ignorant ape by leading newspapers, and it got worse from there during the Civil War; Thomas Jefferson and John Adams didn't exactly play patty-cake in 1800 (do kids still play patty-cake?), and the hard feelings at the Congressional resolution of the election by Alexander Hamilton led a few years later to him and Aaron Burr resolving their dispute with pistols at dawn.

 

I certainly notice and give silent thanks every time there's an ad on TV where a candidate speaks about their own hopes, plans, and qualifications; most of them are commercials to promote the worst qualities, so called, of their opponents. It gets downright . . . strident.

 

As in any escalation, the question is who stops ratcheting up the stridency? Who stops first? And if you cease going negative, and your opponent continues, there's plenty of evidence that's a winning strategy: and whose fault is that? If we reward that behavior, we'll get more of it. That's a parental commonplace, and if moms and dads know it, then voters should, too.

 

Does a strident tone in politics tend to creep out into other forms of communication? I think it does. I dreaded the coming of this season for some time, and the last few weeks have reminded me I did so with reason. Yes, in church life, in community conversations, in personal communications, I believe the overall tone of interactions is getting more strident. And there's little sense that anyone seems to feel they need to give an account for themselves before launching into a strident statement. Is that because they're not aware of what they are sounding like? Is it that they believe their stridency is self-evident, and self-explanatory? I do not know, I just know that there's a tension in the air, and a loss of individual identity and empathy, as a general strident tone has taken over much of our dialogue.

 

So of course, I simply pray for peace, and seek to give an account of my own strident voice when it sounds different from how I usually speak.

 

Speaking of peace, next Sunday (a week from tomorrow) is the centennial of the end of World War I, Armistice Day years ago, and more recently transformed into Veterans Day. But it was at "the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month" in 1918 that "the war to end all war" came to an end. It is appropriate to ring bells at 11 am on November 11, and especially so this year. I plan to interrupt our second service for bell ringing and silence at 11:00 am, including this solemn remembrance in our worship. Newark's Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1060 hopes that any church with bells could ring them for two minutes at 11:00 am next Sunday, and I join them in this invitation.

 

But tomorrow, don't forget to fall back one hour!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about your ways of coping with stridency at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 11-1-18

Notes from my Knapsack 11-1-18

Jeff Gill

 

Shared responsibility, shared benefits

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Over the last couple months, I've shared with you all some stories from the earliest days of formal education on the Ohio frontier.

 

From the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 on to statehood in 1803, public education was a priority for American settlement. The mechanisms for providing this in a newly pioneered area ranged from set-aside tracts of land in the first surveys for the placement and support of schools, to a planned process of mutual aid through community construction of the buildings, and the support of what were in the earliest days seasonal teachers.

 

Caleb Atwater led an investigation into what it would take to provide a general, statewide system of free public education in 1822; the effort stumbled in part because the committee assembled by the governor couldn't agree on . . . how to pay for it. Some thought the costs of education could best be borne by the sale or lease of public lands, others argued that a property tax would be the most sustainable method.

 

"Common schools" weren't organized under Ohio law until 1825, and the final decision was to mandate a statewide half-mil property tax. However, the implementation of common schools (mostly just from what we'd call first grade to about seventh grade) was uneven across the state until around 1850 when the legislature started requiring superintendents and school district structures. Attendance, in fact, wasn't mandatory until 1921, which was the first year that state law required that all children from age six to age eighteen attend school. There were still provisions allowing some to leave school at sixteen, mostly for farming, and it included a requirement that a youth had to be at least sixteen to work in industry.

 

So the expectations and funding of public education has been a work in progress over two centuries. I am constantly pointing out to people that as recently as 1970, if 50 percent of all youth in a school district graduated with a high school diploma, that was considered quite good. Those online "look at what it took graduate high school in 1893" memes don't mention that three to four percent graduated twelfth grade back then.

 

And special education, which we take for granted today, was not mandated until 1973. Some areas and districts provided it, but it was not required. Now it's an absolute obligation, and one we'd not want to retreat from.

 

Ohio has been wrestling, in the courts, in the Statehouse, and at the ballot box since 1991 around the formulas and funding of public education. We laid down a marker in the Ohio Constitution of 1851, and we're still trying to figure out how to pay for it. And we've expanded education from being a privilege for some to a necessity for all, with legal requirements pushing school districts and families into sometimes costly mandates.

 

Which brings us to school levies, and the deferred responsibility to the local voter to make sense of the whole. Even in a series of columns, it's hard to figure out what to focus on, and where to gloss over before a reader's eyes glaze over.

 

What I'm certain of is this: schools are like roads and bridges and safe water and street lighting.  You may never cross a certain bridge in a township, but we all benefit from free and open transportation in the economy. I may not walk under a lamppost in one end of the village, but we all benefit from increased safety and security.

 

And having excellent schools, whether I have a child in those buildings or not, is part of building a community that benefits me and blesses us all.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him about how you'd like to see public benefits paid for at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 10-27-18

Faith Works 10-27-18

Jeff Gill

 

Ministerial ethics in a modern age

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For an assortment of reasons, people have been asking me about ministerial ethics recently. What they are, what they should be, how people apply them to certain situations. Events in the news, changes in churches, and local developments have all contributed to a surge of interest in a subject that I'd argue is always important, but not usually "top of mind" with church members until, as they say, stuff happens.

 

For a Christian minister, the story would start necessarily with the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount, and start to expand out with Jesus' great commandments of "love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself."

 

Of course, that's an ethical basis for all Christians to follow, with clergy just a bit more public in their lives and with outside scrutiny. For ministers, though, there's a few different opinions about where you go in particular for that calling and an ethical standard.

 

One of the best known ethical standards is the Hippocratic Oath of doctors, beginning with "First, do no harm." It's not a bad start. And many ethical professional standards start and tend to live in a place of negative guidelines: don't do this, don't do that. "Do no harm" is an interesting ethic to apply: think about surgery, which starts with a knife and cutting, but with a goal to do more help than harm by the time you're done. So a Hippocratic standard would say "don't just cut to be cutting, but if you take something worse out or fix something you have to cut to get to, it's okay if you sew it up well." Or "do no harm."

 

I've become part of a professional field within my years in ministry, that of mediation. In training with the State Supreme Court and other instruction around the practice of mediation, I've learned there is a general ethical benchmark that goes something like this: "never re-victimize a victim." That also sounds like a negative instruction, but mediators I've worked with over the years and I have learned it's a fairly expansive guide to when to mediate, and how, and where you step back and say "this is not a case for mediation."

 

For clergy, many denominational bodies have a "statement of ministerial ethics." Most of these I've seen are long, and wander off into exhortations of best practices, with most including a few negative guidelines about when not to offer pastoral care. A common ethical question is about when a former pastor can do a wedding, baptism, or funeral.

 

My own tradition has a pretty strong stated restriction on this, and I've backed into it by way of saying to an elderly surviving spouse at the graveside, in response to a direct question, "yes, I will do your funeral." Of course, they lived longer than I think they expected, and when that day came the church was not only no longer where I was serving, they had an interim pastor, who was not happy I'd even implied I would do that service when the time came. After some awkward discussion, the person said "but honestly, I'd rather not make an extra trip up there in the middle of the week, so you go ahead." It's an area where I'm not sure sweeping prohibitions work as well as they look on paper . . .

I've had many conversations over the years with fellow preachers about when and how you can "borrow" sermons. My feeling is that if you preach a message as if it's the result of your work in the previous week, you need to state clearly "most of today's sermon is taken directly from Fred Craddock, and I don't think I can improve on his thoughts on this passage." But if I take a general outline of ideas and two illustrations? If I just liberate the title, but go in a different direction? How much is plagiarism, and what is homage? There are differences of opinion here, though I am adamant that if you tell someone else's story and put yourself into the pronouns directly, I think you've got a problem.

 

In general, I think ministerial ethics boil down to this: don't be a jerk. Seriously. Be kind, be humble, be honest and clear. Keep the confidences you've promised to keep, and don't make promises you can't. And when in doubt, apologize. Do the loving thing, even when it's hard. Especially then.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's learned that the loving thing is often harder than it looks but still has to be done. Tell him about your interactions with ministerial ethics at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 10-20-18

Faith Works 10-20-18

Jeff Gill

 

A long obedience in the same direction

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Eugene Peterson is in hospice care; as "Christianity Today" aptly headlined, this beloved pastor and author is nearing the end of his "long obedience in the same direction."

 

His family shared this news on social media last Saturday; it has been quietly but well known in Christian circles that a combination of heart failure and dementia have led to his withdrawal from public speaking for the last few years.

 

Peterson was never a Billy Graham, had not filled arenas or spoken to mass meetings. His was a more pastoral ministry, rooted in spending the majority of his professional life at a single congregation in Maryland, all the while writing and sharing his insights in book after book. He began teaching and speaking at workshops in the last twenty years of his life, at a seminary in Vancouver, British Columbia following his retirement from the parish, but his preference was always to the personal interaction, the closeness of one on one, or at least author to reader.

 

"The Pastor" is his memoir that cemented his reputation as a minister's minister, but it was the 1980 "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction" based on the Songs of Ascents recorded in Psalms 120-134 where I first "met" Peterson. It was not, as were many of his later works, aimed directly at clergy, but it spoke to me in seminary, and after my ordination in 1989, it became a touchstone for my own teaching of the Bible to congregational groups.

 

You may know him best as the translator of "The Message," a contemporary language rendition of the entire Bible from the Hebrew and Greek. Here, too, Peterson was less concerned with academic respectability and acceptance as he was application and effectiveness in the congregational setting. In interviews, he was quick to point out that his translation was not a paraphrase, it was laboriously worked out from the original languages of scripture into everyday language, but that as such it was limited to our time. It was the sort of project he would argue is called for by the church in every era.

 

At 85, it was never realistic to hope we'd have Eugene Peterson with us for decades to come, but like any mentor in ministry, he is a hard example to let go of. I've grown accustomed, as have many of us in church leadership roles who never met him in person, to regularly being recharged, refilled, renewed by his latest writings.

 

Truly, I can commend to anyone seeking a sense of his work almost any book he's written: I looked around online, and it appears he's written over 30 books, but I couldn't find a hard number. Since finding that first copy of "A Long Obedience" in the seminary bookstore back in 1985 or so, I've always been able to count on a new Peterson work every year or so, to inspire me, motivate me, and open me up to how the Holy Spirit is at work in the everyday acts of pastoral ministry. Re-reading will be a blessing still in the future, but it won't quite be the same as re-reading in between the expectancy of new reflections and insight.

 

And the truth is, if you're just now discovering Eugene Peterson, the Christian author, as his earthly life is coming to an end, I would probably point anyone, lay or clergy, to "A Long Obedience in the Same Direction." It speaks from early in his career to the path he was already on, and the calling to which he calls us all, of faithfulness, and persistence.

 

Godspeed, brother Eugene.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he hopes you'll read some Peterson as well as the Bible this week. Tell him what your favorite Peterson work is at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 10-13-18

Faith Works 10-13-18

Jeff Gill

 

Spiritual disciplines online

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An oxymoron is a phrase, usually two words, which at least seem to contradict each other.

 

"Jumbo shrimp" is a common candidate for oxymoron status. Perhaps unfairly, so is "military intelligence." (Hey, some of my best friends have been G-2s…)

 

Online spiritual disciplines can be considered a modern oxymoron. Much of what I read about spirituality tends to start with telling people to put down the phone, shut down the computer, get away from screens of all sorts.

 

Ironically, I usually read that sort of stuff on a laptop.

 

Once upon a time I subscribed to a number of periodicals that included spiritual readings and reflections and prayers. "Weavings" was a publication from the "The Upper Room," which was discontinued in 2017. "The Upper Room" still puts out a monthly daily devotional booklet that's popular at the church I serve; "Our Daily Bread," "These Days," "Today in the Word," "Give Us This Day," "Our Sunday Visitor," and of course "Guideposts" all still exist in print form.

 

But like "Weavings," the print format is getting shakier and shakier in terms of financial viability. More websites and apps for smartphones are taking the place of the little booklet or magazine, and instead of debating when it's time to shift to the large print edition, you can just take your thumb and forefinger and make the typeface bigger right there on your tablet or device.

 

I certainly hope they don't all go away; there's something to be said for the tangible, the carried around, the object on whose pages you can scribble notes and inspirations. They are diminishing, though, and the move to virtual publications is well-nigh inexorable.

 

What I want to do here is not to endorse any particular format or website online for spiritual growth. There are too many of them, and more are going to a subscription format where, like this paper, you can look a bit, but beyond a few clicks you'll have to pay something. I have my preferences, but they may not be yours.

 

For anyone, I think the key to a spiritual discipline using social media or online tools is the same as an old breviary or prayer book, leather covered and cherished with bookmarks and funeral cards tucked into the pages. None of them work without some form of regularity, a pattern or practice of prayer.

 

If you have a schedule and a standard cycle of prayer, I doubt if it matters much whether you use a book, a magazine, or your phone. If you tend to give God and the cultivation of your soul what's left over, when you feel like you can get to it, what would it matter if you had the latest app with special ringtones to remind you? A prayer corner in the home, cherished and tended but never sat down in, gathering dust, isn't going to do the spiritual growth for you.

 

Mornings are common; in most Christian traditions and many other faiths, morning and noon and night, a three-fold pattern of intentional pausing for prayer, is a benchmark. As is now well-known, Muslims pray five times a day; Christian monastics have a "liturgy of the hours" that marks seven times in each twenty-four hour day.

 

For many of us, a good start is simply prayer at meal times. You can't evade that necessity, and a fast food burger is as worthy of your thankfulness as a Thanksgiving turkey. Prayer at each mealtime can be a framework on which to build.

 

Bedtime prayer depends on the person, and how tired you are when you head off to sleep. Some pray on their commute, a long twice daily time of reflection and intercession.

 

However you do it, find a pattern you can stick with. Starting with the liturgy of the hours and seven times a day is probably like telling a couch potato to start fitness by running a marathon. Mealtimes and on waking up? Find your benchmarks to nudge yourself into regular, patterned prayer, whatever they might be.

 

And then you can work into your prayer life that which feeds you. The last forty days I've been posting a different prayer each day from a variety of people, eras, and traditions, on behalf of my wider church body that needs a boost. Many have told me they look forward to reading those, and working some of each into their own prayers.

 

You know where I found forty good prayers worth sharing? Online.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he prays a great deal, and not enough. Tell him about your prayer practices at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.