Notes from my Knapsack 2-6-20

Notes from my Knapsack 2-6-20

Jeff Gill

 

My voice, public and private

___

I've been asked about this enough in the last few weeks I thought I'd write a bit about the situation regarding my voice, and the spasmodic dysphonia (SD) that is affecting it.

Yes, I still have SD. It's not something that goes away, you just have to learn how to work with it. It's a neurological disorder, not organic/physical damage to the vocal cords. In fact, my vocal cords are just fine! It's the response of the muscles that work the vocal cords, the spasms of spasmodic dysphonia, which is my disability.

In normal functioning, it comes and goes. SD is most problematic in the normal speaking voice. Ironically, singing -- which uses a different neural pathway -- is almost entirely unimpaired. So I can sing, and I can hyper-project (also known as bellowing) in a normal vocal tone. But there's a price to pay, as normal as it sounds, once I'm back to speaking in a softer tone of voice. In fact, the quieter I try to be, the more likely the spasms will take over.

SD is very in keeping with something you might have heard of: spoon theory (you can look it up on Wikipedia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spoon_theory). In spoon theory, you have a finite number of spoons or spoonfuls you can use during the day. I have received some training in how to work around the SD, after the spectacular failure of the Botox treatments injected into the vocal cords that marked the last two years of my vocal recovery. I can with attention and effort make my voice fairly normal . . . up to a point.

But after I use up enough "spoons," even the vocal therapies I've been taught run into the wall of the spasms that are the issue in having SD. I can sing, but it uses up some of those spoons; I can shout and call out loudly, but it burns through spoons. And the total amount of speaking, plus the amount of stress in the day, uses up spoons to where I'm out of options, and the spasms are most of what you hear.

As I've said to many who've asked: the great thing about SD is that in the entire medical history of the world, no one has ever died of spasmodic dysphonia. So it's poorly understood medically, and has few treatment options. That may change in the future, but I'm told not to get my hopes up. I just have to balance out my use of my voice, and how, as well as manage stressors to mitigate the impact on my vocal cord muscles.

Compared to many other disabilities, I am very blessed. This is a small price to pay for age and exertion and likely overuse. But it creates its own problems: foremost being people worrying, when my SD is in full flower, that I'm sick and contagious with something. Sometimes it's that people get the impression I'm getting choked up about something, even though we're just talking about casual matters.

I am scaling back, and making choices, day by day. My speech therapist says it's not likely to get worse, and I'm not doing damage to my vocal cords (even if it sounds like I must be), so I can carry on. It's not painful as much as it is simply uncomfortable to speak sometimes, and that itself is a reminder to be careful, to be cautious, to count my spoons and use them wisely. For everyone who has asked how I'm doing, thank you; for those who catch me in a good moment and assume it's cured, sorry but no; and for those who are helping me deal with this unexpected complication in a highly verbal life, bless you all -- I have more to say, I just have to think through how to say it, and when.

 

Such as in columns such as this one!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's saying "no" a little more often, and hopes you don't take it personally! Tell him how you deal with limitations at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 2-1-20

Faith Works 2-1-20

Jeff Gill

 

Where the news is not the news

___

 

"Rattlesnake on the path."

 

When I was hiking with our Philmont crew in the New Mexico mountains, our lead person shouted back down the trail those four chilling words.

 

Fortunately, he'd seen the snake before stepping on it, and stayed to help the rest of us heading up the steep and rocky path give the rattler a wide berth.

 

Except we didn't. The people ahead of me, and myself, I walked away from the rattlesnake, but not as far as I could have. I wanted to get a good look at it, but stay safe. So I edged around, in a tight circle, looking it over from darting tongue to faintly buzzing rattles.

 

That's kind of how I feel about discussing the story recently all over social media about a Methodist church up in Minnesota. The initial story was that the wider church was closing down the congregation and telling the old people to go away, so they could re-open a few months later as a re-launched congregation, in the same building.

 

It came out in a local paper, then the state capital media picked it up, and then . . . it caught fire. Every online platform, it seemed, picked up the story and intensified the pain and injustice, upped the indignation, and passed it along for two, four, sixteen, 256 blogs and webpages to continue the story. It went viral, as the phrase goes.

 

And like so many viral stories, it turns out to have another side. A couple days after the initial eruption (65,536 and so on of posts and tweets), a few major news outlets sent reporters in to dig deeper, and found out there was more to the story. Also worth noting: in the Methodist church, unlike many other traditions, the local congregation does not own their building, nor pick their pastors. Lots of misunderstandings around that subject, as well.

 

But I'm not as interested in the sad, not surprising "rest of the story," a narrative which I kind of guessed at, as I read the first fifteen messages I got asking "what do you think about this?" And I've been fairly low key on social media and in the church where I serve in my reactions to the story.

 

Because I think the real story here is how so many people all over the country leapt directly into the anger and angst and worry over small churches with mostly older worshipers getting closed, or worse (note: #irony) having contemporary worship forced upon them. The original narrative of the viral story was a perfect combo of those horrors: old people pushed out AND the new church having contemporary worship.

 

Look, I am all too aware of how in cases right in my neck of the woods, an organist of thirty years service (and a good one, I would note) meets the new pastor and is told over the first (and last) handshake "thank you for your years of faithful service, and you can enjoy worship now from the pews because we're going in a new direction." I've picked up new members that way. Also by people having their familiar worship overnight becoming very loud and extremely unfamiliar. It's painful at best, and at worst it can be very badly handled . . . though I will say in some ministers' defense that after you've learned there's no upside in a cautious approach, the temptation is there to rip the bandage off in one quick rip.

 

What is leading to this sorry state of affairs, though, is that traditional worship is struggling in this country. I see various statistics, depending on who's making their case, but it's well known: more churches are having to shut down their pipe organs for lack of players at any price, going to keyboards and simpler music; choirs are more rare, whether in frequency or if they exist in a church at all; outside of liturgical traditions, informality has become its own rigid orthodoxy.

 

Full disclosure: the church where I serve is hybrid "relaxed traditional" but clearly the latter, with hymnals (yes, I've gotten the post about keeping hymnals, only forty-eleven times) and a choir and bulletins with the service outline across two pages. We've held steady in attendance over the last five years, which is good compared to many of our peers, but not something I'm comfortable with entirely.

 

The truth, though, is that in general traditional worship has seen staggering losses in attendance over the last decade or two. Yes, there are exceptions, and usually it doesn't take long to figure out the exceptional circumstances at work. And if you want to reach younger people (yes, I know there are exceptions, rare but they exist) you need contemporary worship.

 

This has created over the last few years a huge tension in churches of all sorts and denominations and non-denominations alike. They don't want to die as a church, but if growth looks like that, then…

 

Which is where, God willing, I'll pick up next week!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's been mostly a traditional kind of guy for most of his life, but he's curious, too. Tell him what you've wondered about worship at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

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Faith Works 1-25-20

Faith Works 1-25-20

Jeff Gill

 

When home and church are the same set of rooms

___

 

Preaching is, if you'll allow me to say this in a hard working community, work.

 

I know, the joke is we work one hour a week; well, we have two services on Sunday mornings at my church, so I work at least two hours a week. What I mean, though, is that the simple physical act of preaching a sermon is physically more than just standing around talking.

 

Our choir director is stepping back to the organist part of her worship responsibilities, and to help her celebrate this transition, the choir asked to do an "anthemfest" where I didn't preach, but they would sing a bunch (it ended up being eight) of their favorite choral anthems.

 

It was a hit with everyone, and I believe the word was preached, and I heard from a number of choir members that just doing three anthems in a row left them physically spent, so we spaced out the service so they only did that many at a time. A couple said "I see why you are worn out at least a bit after the service is over!" which I appreciated. There really is a spiritual as well as physical transfer of energy in delivering a strong message and speaking of matters of the spirit in front of a group.

 

The most rewarding and challenging pastoral experience I have each month is trying to create a worship experience in an assisted living facility. The dozen residents who come are so incredibly attentive to what's sung, what's said, and hungry for the contact and interest Pastor Karen (our associate minister) & I bring when we come.

So we delight in that ministry, we really do -- and yet we worship at a busy intersection, if you will, with other residents crying out at intervals walking back and forth through the middle of our group, another group of residents just a few feet away talking to each other as only the hard of hearing can, and even a wall between us the staff cleaning up from lunch and shouting at each other . . . bless 'em, often coming out the door in mid-holler, always looking startled and abashedly apologizing and backing through the door, and I feel bad that they feel bad for just doing their jobs. The PA often has an announcement of some sort, and the front door has a buzzer and staff bustling through to code them in or code them out, and usually the visitors come in chatting and often talk right through the middle of the 14 or 15 of us gathered together, singing, praying, me preaching.

I've done chapel services in prisons, jails, swim meets, and Scout camps -- they're all easier to manage and deliver at than being a regular Sunday afternoon service provider in a care facility, and that's at any assisted living center I've ever done it at. You can talk to staff in advance (if you can catch them) but they forget that it's going on, or they have what they have to do; there are arguments for different locations but the centrally located spot is usually best for residents, while aurally the hardest to make work. Each place I learn how to turn off or down the ubiquitous TVs (and put them back in service before I go), and where the controls are for the overhead piped-in music (whether I'm supposed to turn it off or not). But the ambient situation is always tricky, and your audience is always hard of hearing.

Yet we can't stop doing this. It's important. We've cut back from two a month to just doing this one, and the requests still come in a few a month to add them, as activity directors plead and our members and friends move to facilities where the word goes out to "ask your pastor if they'd just consider doing only..." I cannot imagine doing none -- I've done at least one a month like this somewhere for over thirty years now. What I worry about is how new assisted living and care facilities are popping up, and the need for those rooms and beds are real, but the number of churches and clergy who will bring a message and a prayer to them continues to shrink. Of all the community losses a decline in church presence creates, this could be the most subtle, the least widely noticed, but I think it could also be one of the most tragic.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he'd be happy to tell you who to contact, but any care facility would probably be happy to hear from you! Tell him about your worship experiences in a different sort of space at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 1-18-20

Faith Works 1-18-20

Jeff Gill

 

What Joe's Thank You Meant To Me

___

My first two years in college, I worked in residence hall food service.

 

I wore the mustard colored jacket, the "smock" which only the managers called it. They were industrially washed and you got one clean smock per week unless you had more than four shifts in the dorm cafeteria. They were pretty nasty after one shift, especially if you were on dish room duty, "Hobie's Helpers" after the giant Hobart dish machine in the back. But front line or roving could get messy in a hurry, shifting trays to the warming stations up from the kitchens, pulling empties that of course never quite were empty, filling ice cream machines, all the usual joys of food service in cafeteria style set-ups.

The coveted spot in Cary Quadrangle was to get tapped for training table, over in East Hall, for the football and basketball teams. Training table meant a number of things. One, you got fresh smocks every shift, and you could count on finding one that fit -- there were plenty. Two, the food was better. Look, I worked our dorm cafeteria, and I worked catering, and I worked training table. The difference was obvious. We didn't get dog food, but training table got quality. And third, once the players were through, you ate your fill.

So if you could line up your shifts right for post-practice slots, the goal was to be in the line of fire for the finger of selection to get sent over to work training table. It was less messy, a shorter if more intense shift for the same hours paid, and you got more and better food. Everyone wanted it, and it was a reward of sorts to get it, and keep getting tapped.

The players and coaches, however, did not see you. I mean, they could have, in theory, but they didn't. We were invisible. And that's how it was. Back in the dorm, we'd see friends and roommates and banter across the steam tables or chat out on the cafeteria floor, wiping tables or emptying trash -- on training table, we were furniture. Nobody that I recall across two years made any conversation with us, and I don't recall anyone telling us not to talk to the players, it just didn't happen. They talked to each other, and after the players went through the coaching staff came through in a big intense clot of polo shirted men talking with great energy to each other about the blocking and tackling and drills and such, but they didn't talk to us, and for the most part they didn't make eye contact.

There was a guy on the team who went to my high school, a couple years ahead of me, and he would nod, and once did pause and ask me something about back home, but it was quiet and kind of furtive. And hey, we weren't friends, it was cool that he acknowledged my existence at all. Other noticed and said "hey, he talked to you" and I explained why -- mystery solved.

That was training table, and it was what it was. The football program in the fall and the basketball team on their heels (smaller group, fewer of us needed to staff it, less often an experience for me) had their needs, and we all were pretty matter of fact about how they worked more, ran more, lifted more, and they needed calories to burn they wouldn't have gotten in the regular cafeteria line. We got to gather in a little excess of our own in their wake, and it was our "brush with greatness."

I'd almost forgotten those days until Monday night, when Joe Burrow in thanking his teammates, the coaching staff, and everyone else who helped make the LSU program great started getting specific beyond "teammates, coaches, family, & friends" which is usually where it stops. He went on to name trainers, managers (I was once one of them, too), team doctors, and he said the words "dining hall staff" on top of thanking the chefs . . . which meant he was specifically trying to recall and appreciate the folks in the mustard color jackets.

I don't know if that's the color they wear at LSU. Doesn't matter. And it was forty-plus years ago I last handed a plate of steak and fries across a stainless steel counter to a student-athlete. But I felt the appreciation from Joe Burrow, from a QB to the people on the serving line, as a personal gift. That was a class moment from a class act. In any case, he's made a fan for life of me. I saw him play on a cold night in Athens as he led his team to pound the Granville Blue Aces in a playoff game six years ago, and caught others saying "that kid goes to Columbus next year, and we're going to hear great things from him" as he showed the kind of passing then he's still doing today. Well, I heard great things from him Monday night, and I thank him for that kindly attention to us dining hall staff. It's truly appreciated in return.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's got a few other food service stories to tell, not all quite as uplifting but all educational. Tell him what you've learned from customer service at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.