Faith Works 4-10-21

Faith Works 4-10-21

Jeff Gill

Relics in the modern world

___

In Jerusalem deep beneath the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and in the west of Ohio at the Relic Chapel of the Maria Stein Shrine, I've been in the presence of what are believed to be fragments of the cross on which Jesus was crucified. These relics, actual objects directly associated with Christ or a saint, are considered by many faithful to be an aid to devotion.

American nineteenth century writer Washington Irving, on the other hand (he of Rip Van Winkle and Sleepy Hollow fame), wrote that if all of the splinters he'd seen in Europe said to be taken from "the one true cross" were put together, you'd have enough lumber to construct a ship on which to sail back across the Atlantic.

Relics are not something that makes much sense to the modern mindset. A rationalistic, scientific world view isn't ready to call a scrap of cloth or a lock of hair from a long deceased holy person a means through which we can learn how to live today.

Or is it?

You may have heard in the last few weeks about the latest NASA rover to land on the surface of Mars, some 140 million miles away (depending on where our respective orbit put each planet). The NASA Perseverance rover carries with it the Ingenuity helicopter, a four pound piece of carbon fiber and titanium and aluminum, with bits of copper and foam holding it all together. Weight is at a premium, and the flying experiment is about four pounds total.

To have and use a working helicopter on surface of Mars is certainly a "Wright Brothers moment." And in honor of that, 118 years after the world's first powered and controlled heavier-than-air flight at Kitty Hawk, a piece of history, a piece of the 1903 Wright Flyer itself — a piece of Ohio I might add — is attached to the Ingenuity flyer, just below the solar panel on the top of it.

Not unlike a holy relic, a scrap of cloth from the Wright brothers's wing covers is adding to the weight, however modestly, of the Martian aircraft. And it turns out this isn't the first time: a fragment of Wright Flyer wood and fabric flew to the moon with Apollo 11 and Neil Armstrong in 1969. A swatch of 1903 muslin was also with John Glenn when he flew with space shuttle Discovery in 1998. Both astronauts, I hope you notice, were from Ohio. (Another swatch went to the International Space Station in 2000.)

NASA representatives explained they felt that this move honored "A deep connection in history." As a person with a deep connection to spirituality, I respect their intention around marking the historic aspect of this first flight on a different planet, but I think the potential contrast with science here makes the decision interesting. On a device where every decision about its construction is about saving weight for an un-precedented experiment in flight, adding even a modest scrap of cloth is an odd choice. If you're cutting everything you can to ensure success, why add a piece of anything that's not mission critical?

Which is the point, or so I infer. It makes no "sense" to do, yet the impulse is strong. Deep, even. To find that connection beyond electronics and wiring and torque, from past to future, between what once was, and what is about to become. Those sorts of connections are mysteries when they happen, and can't always be rationally explained. It's the sort of connection that relics represent as a presumed existing reality. Connection is possible, it's been seen in the flesh before, and it could and surely will happen again.

Over a century ago, Wilbur and Orville Wright bought a roll of plain, unbleached "Pride of the West" muslin fabric at a Dayton, Ohio department store, stitched it into shape using a Singer sewing machine in their bicycle shop, and stretched it across their unprecedented aircraft's wings, rudder and elevator. After years of successes, setbacks, and struggle, the Wright brothers finally made controlled flight a reality on this planet, and a piece of that struggle is now part of humanity's attempt to do so on Mars.

This is what relics are about in a personal and spiritual sense, to connect us to how what seems impossible to us now has happened before, and can happen again. As amazing as flight on Mars, the idea that we might indeed love one another here on Earth.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he was called a space cadet in elementary school and didn't even mind. Tell him where you find inspiration in our modern world at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Photo: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/images/mastcam-z-gives-ingenuity-a-close-up

Notes From My Knapsack 4-1-21

Notes From My Knapsack 4-1-21

Jeff Gill

Won't Get Fooled Again
___

Whether this column runs, in print or online, April the First, we all know that there's a trust issue around any announcement or information that comes out around that date.

I've served on panels and committees that have contorted work schedules and release dates just to make sure that a press release or resolution doesn't have the dreaded "April 1" at the top of it, and run the risk of people thinking it's all a joke.

What's been so worrisome in public discourse over the last few months, certainly well before the events on the Capitol grounds in Washington at the start of January, is how many people are thinking it's April Fools Day 365 days of the year.

Not trusting government isn't new. Pete Townsend wrote "Won't Get Fooled Again" in 1971, and "The Who" released it just in time to be echoed by the New York Times with the publication of the Pentagon Papers. Mistrust of the federal government was a thing even before Watergate got rolling the next summer.

And now we have different branches of state government arguing about trust, with the legislature overruling a veto by the governor of a restriction on his ability to declare public health emergencies. Were businesses hurt more by Mike DeWine's policy decisions, or the reality of an infectious agent rumbling around our communities? Did the citizens of Ohio listen more to an inaccurate state leader, or to the evidence of their own eyes and experiences?

I have been baffled by the actions of Statehouse Republicans to make it a mark of party loyalty to not wear masks on the floor of the two chambers while in session; I have Republican friends and associates who have tried hard to convince me that their data about mask wearing is more reliable than the information the state health department is using, and that Dr. Fauci's initial statement a year ago is more reliable than what he said later as the pandemic developed.

To say the least, I am not convinced. But there's the whole problem in a nutshell: I have information sources and data analysis I trust, and they have different ones. My suspicion is that they are picking the inputs that get them the outcome they want — not having to wear masks and telling people to go on about their lives — and they suggest I am preferring studies which . . . and this is where it falls apart, I think, because I honestly don't see how anything about this past year suits me or has helped me or mine. If you know me personally, you can fill in about a thousand words of confirmation of that understanding.

When it comes to public policy, we've beaten to death the late Daniel Patrick Moynihan's apothegm: "You are entitled to your opinion. But you are not entitled to your own facts." The challenge for us all is that, in fact, people do pick their own preferred facts. The opportunity we have in public policy is in figuring out what irreducible facts are relevant to our common life.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been fooled before, and wouldn't say he never will again. Tell him how you ascertain facts you live by at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 4-3-21

Faith Works 4-3-21

Jeff Gill

Following Jesus to Heaven

___

Then Jesus says "Follow me."

To the cross, to the tomb, and to resurrection. "Christos anesti," "Christ is Risen" is the ancient greeting of Christians, one to another, on Easter day and after. "Alithos anesti, alleluia!" or "Christ is risen indeed, alleluia!" we reply.

Getting to this greeting, reaching the confidence of faith affirmed on an Easter morning, we do best to follow Jesus all through Holy Week, as long and as far as we can, for everything we have been put into this world to learn and share and comprehend. It takes a Lent to make an Easter, you could say. Following is the preparation we need for arriving.

Tim Keller's essay in "The Atlantic" that I've quoted before in this space (which is easy to find online), all-too-aptly titled "Growing My Faith in the Face of Death," has been a tool for me in cracking open John 21:18-19, to get at the good material within those two verses. 

After learning alongside of his wife that he has cancer, this Manhattan pastor writes: "Since my diagnosis, Kathy and I have come to see that the more we tried to make a heaven out of this world—the more we grounded our comfort and security in it—the less we were able to enjoy it. To our surprise and encouragement, Kathy and I have discovered that the less we attempt to make this world into a heaven, the more we are able to enjoy it."

Some say this world is all the Hell we need, all there is. That's a subject for another day. But certainly the sorrows and torments of this world don't take a great deal of description by me to convince you or anyone that it's far short of any kind of adequate Heaven. Just check out the last few weeks in this paper.

But part of the revelation of Easter is that resurrection takes place both in this world, and the next. I know the rejection of any hope or idea that there IS a next world, beyond the one immediately available to our senses or mental understanding, is what pushes some away from the Christian gospel. What Easter I believe opens a door for, whatever your present faith perspective, is the awareness that there is in THIS world the beginning of many of the promises of heaven. This sometimes hellish world also contains wonderful and mysterious hints of a heavenly hope, available to anyone.

The caterpillar and the chrysalis, the spring blossoming out of winter, discovering in a box full of letters something a century old that speaks to us today: the Easter moments are all around us. And if we can take some of our anxieties and set them aside in the present moment, there are immediate joys available to any of us.

Keller went on to say about this world, in the light of his deeper hope: "No longer are we burdening it with demands impossible for it to fulfill. We have found that the simplest things—from sun on the water and flowers in the vase to our own embraces, sex, and conversation—bring more joy than ever. This has taken us by surprise."

This world is not heaven, but it can point the way to it. And if we don't confuse the map for the territory, the sign for the destination, there are joys in simply seeing the marker, the milestone come into view, saying "Columbus 21, Cumberland 236." Kirkersville may not be heaven, but you can find the way from there, just as it isn't Columbus, either. 

In Bethany, West Virginia, which is not on the way to anywhere, actually, there is a sign. It tells you on arrival in that Northern Panhandle hillside town: "This is the center of the universe. You can get anywhere from here." Likewise, you could say that the kingdom of God is in the midst of where you are; the realm of heaven is very near us, indeed.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been seeking to follow Jesus more closely this Lent now ending. Tell him about your journey and temporary destinations at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 3-27-21

Faith Works 3-27-21

Jeff Gill

The Jesus I want to follow

___

And after saying this he said to him, "Follow me."

John 21:19

Palm Sunday is tomorrow, and Holy Week is ahead, a journey from the Mount of Olives into the valley of Hinnom to the Temple courtyards, a way of sorrow through Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, a week of strong emotions and painful episodes before we reach the joy of Easter. We dress it all up with Latin and labels, "Via Dolorosa" and Passiontide, but the reality behind it all is hard.

A hard journey, with a solid hope at the end: Resurrection. That promise redeems a great deal of suffering, but the suffering comes first. And in a way continues, since the passage we've been gnawing at all Lent takes place in the light of resurrection, by the Sea of Galilee, with the Risen Christ speaking to Peter.

There Jesus talks to his leading apostle about what is to come, and after calling on him (redemptively) to take on the challenge of tending the flock of his Lord, he cautions him that everything will not be in his ability to command, even where he is to go. Specifically not always Peter getting to decide where he wants to go.

And then says "Follow me."

Palm Sunday marks a strange day where almost any of us can easily imagine joyfully and happily following Jesus. The crowd proclaims him king, and we shout out loud and in public the ancient formula of salvation "Hallelujah!" which is simply archaic Hebrew for "Praise God!" There's a parade and children and families and both Rome and the oppressing local authorities are safely at a distance, even if frowning. The Jesus movement is heading for the Temple, and we are all celebrating the Messiah together. "Follow me"? Sure!

Yet there is more to come. And still Jesus says "Follow me." The mystery of the supper in the upper, rented room. Darkness in the garden, then confused battles and betrayals; a trial, a whipping, humiliation, pronouncement of sentence. And Jesus says "Follow me."

And the way of the cross, through the streets, to the knoll overlooking the dump and civic garden and road towards the port and the world, to nails and spears and pain and death. And Jesus says "Follow me."

Yes, if you've read ahead like a good student, you know there's more to come. But there's also no short cut, no "skip a step" here. You want to follow Jesus in the Palm Sunday procession, and you want to follow Jesus into resurrection and life eternal, you will be following Jesus on the path in between to get there. Following Jesus when its convenient, when we want to, when it feels good and everyone is right there with us — that means ducking into the parade and out of it. The great thing about Jesus is he's always going to want to let you come back on board the bandwagon; the problem with sin and separation is that the more time we spend out of the parade, the more likely it becomes we won't find our way back into the procession.

The kingdom of heaven, the realm of God, is a street fair with a conga line that makes some strange turns along the way, into neighborhoods far from the temples and palaces and "good people," which can suddenly become a nervous, frightened line of children holding the hand of the one in front and the person behind us, walking down narrow alleys closing in on either side, the streetlights far behind and the doorways looming and ominous. Jesus knows what he's doing, but we wonder what happened to the band, the shouting, the joy. We recall something said earlier about parks and picnics and green grass and music on ahead, but why are we here you think, as you step into a puddle and rats scatter. You hold onto your faith in Jesus our leader, no longer on a donkey but still up ahead of us as always, and you're glad you didn't step out of the parade anywhere sooner because you'd never figure out this stretch of the path on your own, but you wish you were somewhere else. 

"Follow me," Jesus says.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been in a few parades. Tell him about your path following Jesus has taken you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 3-20-21

Faith Works 3-20-21

Jeff Gill

Following Jesus when you can't move

___

This Lent I've been inviting you to reflect with me on where Jesus tells Peter in John 21:18 that: "…another will…carry you where you do not want to go." And as I said before Ash Wednesday, when Lent began, the path to Easter this coming April 4 takes us from verse 18 to verse 19, when Jesus concludes his teaching to Peter and to us by saying "Follow me."

Except, Jesus has been talking about not being in control; he's not telling him or the disciples about good decision making, or what acts are to be honored in his name. Yes, he's spoken just before about feeding the sheep and tending the lambs as the work all who love Jesus are called to share in together, but then he turns to Peter and cautions him that all this is, in a way, preparation for a time when others will carry him where he does not want to go . . . and it is in response to that situation that Jesus tells him "Follow me."

Following Jesus, in this Lent, in our lives, at any time, is not all about what we do. Our acts of faith, our service in Jesus's name, our living out of being sisters and brothers in Christ, is not what following Jesus comes down to. How we respond is a reflection of how we have chosen to follow, but it's not the heart of the following, of the follower-ship, the discipleship of the Christian journey. The work of faith that is the rock on which Jesus promises to build a community of faith is something you can do, in obedience, as following him, when you no longer have any control over external events.

Recently, Tim Keller had an essay in "The Atlantic" which you can find easily enough online, titled "Growing My Faith in the Face of Death." He wrote it because he's dying. He wrote it, as a noted Christian preacher and teacher, because we all are. It's the one most externally obvious thing we all have in common. Rich and poor, whatever our color or ethnic loyalty or personal orientation, and yes, even old or young, we are dying. This is an element of much pastoral work, whether you're a minister in a medium-sized Ohio city or a celebrity preacher in New York City: helping people confront and deal with the reality of death, when much of our culture is deeply invested in the denial of dying and decay and endings.

Keller has written a number of books on Christian themes, one titled "On Death." At the doctor's office when he learned he had pancreatic cancer, he writes how as he waited he "caught a glimpse of 'On Death' on a table nearby. I didn't dare open it to read what I'd written." It's one thing to counsel others, and another to come to terms yourself with this in your own life.

His essay, which I hope you'll seek out yourself, speaks of how his faith had to work through some "head" and some "heart" issues around death and dying. His story continues, for now, and he talks about how putting his immediate existence in the light of eternity, how seeing today's gifts as reflections of God's more lasting promises, makes the current moment more precious, not less.

And I caught an echo of this passage, John 21:18-19, in his reflections. How we find in our hearts the way to "Follow me" when Jesus calls is a turning which starts in there, within our selves, between our heart and his, before the idea rattles through our heads and gets turned into acts and movements and deeds.

A good Calvinist, Keller quotes a great Puritan writer of Colonial America in saying "As the early American philosopher Jonathan Edwards argued, it is one thing to believe with certainty that honey is sweet, perhaps through the universal testimony of trusted people, but it is another to actually taste the sweetness of honey."

How do we follow when we can't go anywhere? This is what Jesus is talking to Peter about, there on that long-ago lakeside. And to us.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's listening closely to a few things this Lent. Tell him about your lakeside conversations at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 3-18-21

Notes from my Knapsack 3-18-21

Jeff Gill

What do I have to do?

___

Whether it's a stop sign or a face covering, there is law and there is consensus.

Ohio Revised Code or Village Codified Ordinances alike, we have a body of law that can be enforced, but few of us have read those source documents, and we work from a day by day basis on a set of understandings that are part of our local culture, perhaps a result of our upbringing, and frankly can carry with them a wide variety of misunderstandings.

When I spent a long stretch in the honorable duty of homeowner association president, I had many conversations where people were certain that certain things were law that were not. Usually, it was because a certain practice or rule or guideline was true in Santa Barbara, CA or Easton, MD but not in Granville, OH. And I work across the county with school principals who will tell me things that I have the sad obligation of telling them are not true, even if they're correct for Beavercreek or Parma in other school districts of Ohio.

Local option is a very big thing in Ohio, and where in some states a policy in one county is true for all, you'd better not assume that here. Which makes state gatherings of all sorts of professions a challenge, as we share wisdom and best practices that often simply can't be carried across county lines. Townships and judges and school boards have autonomy in a wide variety of areas, and that's how we seem to like it.

So the governor and other state boards and panels have less sway over community decision making than you might think, especially if you came here from somewhere else. And the year of health orders in many states that we've recently experienced, or as some wags say "the first anniversary of 14 days to slow the spread," now behind us, leaves many legislatively minded people wanting to further limit the authority of governors and health commissioners from issuing instructions that can be enforced, which is the basic definition most of us have for a "law." You can call them administrative code or county status announcements, but if a law enforcement officer can enforce it, with fines or force or both, most of us just call it a law.

And understandably, the legislature wants to protect their prerogative to make law by limiting the law-like actions the chief executive officers of the state and cities and counties can issue, certainly when they're for longer than it takes for snow to melt or floodwaters to fall.

Pandemics represent a new challenge for the usual legal perspective on emergency orders. Can you have an emergency that lasts a year and more? Arguably, yes, we just had or are still having one. It's not permanent, even the most worried and cautious will concede that, but 14 days and 30 days and 100 days are now well past 365. How do we govern ourselves in an ongoing emergency? This is the discussion we're in the middle of right now.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's mindful of the old saying about what not to do if you appreciate either law or sausages. Tell him what you think we need in the mid at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 3-13-21

Faith Works 3-13-21

Jeff Gill

Belief in God, and how to get there

___

Jesus tells Peter in John 21:18 that: "…another will…carry you where you do not want to go."

Loss of control is part of faith. If everything is in our control, and clear in front of us, it's not faith. It's simply work. We might need to develop some faithfulness to keep at it, but faith is about wider narratives and how our immediate steps are on a path whose end we do not know.

The things I have the most control over, the paths that are most familiar to me, are reassuring, but they neither challenge me nor give me a deeper hope. They have a place: running laps can be good for the heart and even the mind, but the journey of faith asks me to make a turn off the track, and into what can appear at first to be darkness.

Some trips, I have to be willing to let someone else drive. At some point, I may even need to get into a wheelchair and allow someone else to push. And I've known a few times that queasy feeling of laying back on the gurney and having the attendant wheel me down the hall to a place where I know I'm going to sleep, and then . . . well, I have a rough idea, but I'm not sure.

Those are the times I need faith.

I believe in God. This is my most fundamental faith stance, that I believe there is a divine reality beyond and behind the immediate reality I experience, which knits together past and future, my life and someday my death, lives which I've never met in life who have played a role in my own, and the deaths of others who are with me in one moment and in another . . . gone. Gone somewhere, or nowhere? I believe in God, which is a faith that in one dimension extends into believing that those who die go somewhere, in some part.

This is not a universally held way of looking at the world. You can argue that in the decades of my youth and maturity it held sway in American life, but I can both look back and do research today to show that it wasn't a definite majority view even in 1961, let alone in 2021. Oh, you can find surveys over the last sixty years of a vague, diffuse "86% of Americans believe in God" but it's generally of a very loose, uncertain, deistic sort of belief when you get into any details at all. Regular worship attendance on any given weekend has declined in that period from an optimistic 40% at best to something south of 20%, and as I've written about in this space before, a quick objective check of the numbers will bear that out, with no more than 15% of Licking County attending any service at all each weekend when you add everyone up and even round things in a favorable direction.

I believe in God, creator of heaven and earth, who loves and cares about what has been created, who desires to redeem and save it for a new and more wonderful dawn, and who has promised to come down into the muck and mess and complication of life as it is to show by example and patient teaching what it could yet be. I believe, in fact, in God who is with us, which is the same divine creator we know as Father because he sent a Son, a human form of that divinity into the everyday world. And we still have a Spirit with us and in us and working through us to understand how the everyday and the eternal intersect, cross-wise if you will.

And I have to admit that my faith is not entirely my own. I did not get here by my own efforts. I was picked up and carried on the first stages of the path of faith by my father. He taught me, mostly by example, occasionally when necessary with words, though words were not his strong point. He did. And he didn't look over his shoulder often. He just did what his faith led him to do, and expected that God would lead others to follow. Which we did.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's on a journey of faith this Lent. Tell him about your path into valleys of shadow at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 3-6-21

Faith Works 3-6-21

Jeff Gill

Everybody wants to clean up, but…

___

When Jesus is talking to Peter, at John 21:18, he says to him: "Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go."

And "where you do not want to go" is where much of this past year, and this Lent, is taking me. With apologies, I'm taking you with me, because as with most of scripture, I think what Jesus is saying is for us as well.

Yes, he's talking about death, but only in part. The prophecy implicit in the verse above is Peter's martyrdom, but it's also about aging, and limitations, and endings.

I've also found that it's about dumpsters.

This coming week is the one year anniversary of my father's death, and to be blunt how it came as a crescendo for the losses that began in the Christmas season of 2019, of losing people important to me and whose passing left a mark on my spirit, of nearly a dozen in the span of ten weeks. Yes, I'm still sorting through that.

But Dad's death opened up a giant dumpster lid that I'm still flipping back and forth. My sister and I had a house in Texas to sort quickly (which had twice as much in it as you'd think looking at this little winter home from the outside), a childhood home in Indiana my brothers and others helped with clearing at a modestly more leisurely pace, and then a church office and its storage long shoved aside, needing some final attention as I stepped down from pulpit ministry. 

As I've noted before, this past year I was sifting and sorting and discarding, of necessity (please, no helpful comments at this point about where I could take it or who could use it, it's pretty much all behind me and as COVID hit, everyone was clearing out basements to where many places that took in stuff had to stop doing so), not just my own piled up notes and outlines and memorabilia, but that of five or six other lives in my family going back into the earliest years of the 1900s, and of church history to boot, both of the congregation I was serving and in my church tradition's region. 

The important stuff, I kept. Or tried to. But my sister and I have already had a few incidents of learning that something we pitched was important. All in the "there's no way we could have known that had value" category, a special pencil or a drab brown dress among dozens (hundreds) that had a particular meaning. If you let that haunt you, then you keep everything just in case, and I am here to tell you, that way lies madness.

And overstuffed basements and closets and cabinets.

Our lives produce more meaning than we can save, just as our culture produces more stuff than we can use. Keep one piece out of a hundred, and you still end up with thousands in no time.

So this is not Marie Kondo, or what brings you joy to posses, or any magic clue to how to downsize and sort, except for this: there is a spiritual discipline to accepting the need to put stuff into dumpsters. It's not joy, and it can produce waves of anxiety, but it can also bring peace.

At a certain point, you get into a space of saying, to God, the universe, to your future self, whomever: I can't keep it all, and this is what I am casting aside. Sure, recycle or take for reuse or hand along to others what you can, but I've noticed in both self and others over the years that those idealistic proposals can just be further means of evasion of the reality — most of our lives are junk, trash, detritus, debris. An awful lot of it can be safely thrown into dumpsters. And the regrets over a few stray pieces has to be seen in relation to the impossibility of keeping it all.

Letting it go brings clarity, and yes, peace. Throwing out the trash starts with admitting that's what it is, which is often a place we don't want to go. But there we are called.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's done dumpster diving before, but this is different. Tell him about your spiritual disciplines around taking out the trash at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 3-4-21

Notes from my Knapsack 3-4-21

Jeff Gill

Consensus, coercion, & community

___

Even when we don't all agree on much, our consensus as a community is clear every time you stop at a stop sign.

That red octagonal warning is an instruction, a reminder. It also can be seen as an expression of the law, and we're used to thinking of "the law" as an objective reality, but it's really much more of our community consensus that at certain places, you should stop, and we concur by so doing. We stop.

Okay, sometimes, we roll. Tapping the brakes and slowing, looking back and forth, and not quite stopping. Am I saying too much? Is this just me? No? Didn't think so. Late at night, in a quiet neighborhood, when… well, when no one is looking. And we think, when it doesn't matter much.

Circumstances alter cases. The central intersection in Our Fayre Village, Broadway and Main, has a stop light, and no one would breeze through it, even at midnight… I think. But the stop instruction encoded in the red-yellow-green is enhanced with a "no right turn on red" instruction which means you can't do so before 7:30 pm. But I've been behind more than a few who did so, and I've been in the right turn lane there at 5:15 pm and been honked at while the light is red.

You see what I mean? We have laws, and reminders of said laws, but our community is governed primarily by consensus. If the consensus breaks down, we lose much of the reliable substructure of law and ordinance and policy, even if the written law and technical enforcement remains unchanged.

I'm sure both time of day and distance from the center of town, as well as the amount of traffic nearby all weigh heavily on compliance, because once violated, a law about stop signs is less than the paper it's written on (I'm staying away from the traffic camera debate here entirely). Zoning and building, though, take us into a different category, one I work with regularly with our community board for that. If you are given a variance to build within eight feet of your lot line, and you actually put in your porch or patio to two feet away, it's concrete (sometimes literally!) and visible long after the act. But if you don't make a big deal out of it, and your neighbors don't mind, we might not catch it, especially if it's small. The problem is if a while later a new neighbor moves in, and does care, and the evidence of your breach of consensus is still sitting there, a violation.

So we've got two basic categories here: the passing event or behavior, and the permanent impact in physical or fiscal terms. And in each, you have the big violations, and the small. Small breaches of the social consensus in terms of impermanent acts are those most likely to slide by.

Which brings us to masks, and the policies around them. Did you have a mask on yesterday indoors with strangers, and who's to know? Most of these are like rolling through a stop sign at midnight. But if you say "the consensus is silly" and make a general habit of not sharing in it, day after day, it starts to become a concrete and un-ignorable fact.

How do we build a consensus around behavior, to support personal acts in public spaces?

(To be continued)

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's gotten a few speeding tickets in strict enforcement zones. Tell him what kind of consensus you're hoping we can reach as a community at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 2-27-21

Faith Works 2-27-21

Jeff Gill

When it's not about what you want to do

___

Second Sunday of Lent tomorrow. Easter is coming April 4th, but first we prepare to make the journey with Jesus to the cross. There's more to Easter, but all roads go through Calvary. That's why Lent is a penitential season, even a sacrificial season. 

We don't tend to want to make sacrifices, not on our own. Our tendency to self, our general orientation to me first, you second, has to receive a divine corrective, a grace from without to transform the struggle within. It takes an openness to God's activity in the world, and a willingness to work with choices that aren't always apparently to our benefit, to make that first step into holiness, and wholeness.

Jesus says to Peter that the time will come, for him as for all of us, when he will have to go where he does not want to go. And as is so often the case in scripture, Jesus is speaking to us. That passage is for the one spoken to, and it speaks to the audience of faith. "Where you do not want to go."

One year ago, I had no intention of resigning from pulpit ministry. I had some short and long term goals in mind for the church I was serving. There was a vision I was still struggling to speak clearly, and invite others to follow, for the community as a whole. There were obstacles present, but they were fairly typical ones for a church of this area. In the extended church family, we had six funerals since Christmas Eve and had another clearly coming in hospice. Times I'd hope to pivot to a new stage of ministry would turn back to loss and grief and memorialization. Our losses included some pillars of our church which involved the mourning and sorrow of much of the congregation, so momentum tends to stop when everyone has to turn in that direction.

Then my father died. His loss, along with other family complications back in Indiana, suddenly meant I was gone for weeks just as the pandemic was announced March 11, and I was gone or in transit pretty much through Easter. I tried to get back into the online rhythms we were establishing, but it quickly became clear that my family needed me to be away every other weekend, and that this would be the case for a long time. After brief consideration of some kind of leave, and seeing the open-endedness ahead, I gave my notice, and concluded my ministry to that church in August.

For a preacher, there are certain rules, guidelines in some church traditions and canon law in others. One is that you stay away for at least a year. There's a cold logic to this, and the roots of it go back to the 1950s and 60s when in many traditions some of the first diverse clergy candidates came into parish ministry. Without a clear and sweeping guideline like this, parishioners would go back to the retired or former minister, often male and white, rather than turn to the new pastor to allow them to care for them and enter into a ministerial role in their family, for baptisms and weddings and funerals.

Generally, a preacher and their family finds a different church a ways away and goes there. But a strange and disturbing part of the COVID circumstances that helped force me to this choice is that we can't go to another church, either. Caring for an elderly father-in-law regularly means we have to be twice as cautious, so after 40 years of pretty much unbroken church attendance, we're part of the online congregation… of many churches. Like many of you.

This is not where I ever wanted to be; it's not where I wanted to go a year ago. But it is beyond a doubt where God has put me. And I'm learning from this dislocation. I'm experiencing things many of you have and are experiencing, things that having a settled and regular church home, even by video, insulate you from. I'm learning, and I'm getting chances to share perspectives and counsel with a surprising number of fellow clergy still in the thick of things.

This is not where I wanted to go. But it is where I am, and I'm learning this Lent how to be at peace with that. Which is what Lent is for.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's not preaching much these days, except in text and print and posts. Tell him how your faith has been forced into new paths at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 2-20-21

Faith Works 2-20-21

Jeff Gill

Where you do not want to go

___

We are now into Lent, the period leading up to Easter, which falls as it does on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox, also known as April 4 this year.

I will admit to a certain holy impatience with a tendency to make Lent all about what we don't do, what we do without, and this year especially. Disciplines can and should include sacrifice, and practice in making willing, even cheerful sacrifices can be good for any of us, but Lent can't just be about avoiding "Alleluias" and giving up some dietary treat for 40 days (not counting Sundays, since they're feast days and hence a time to celebrate at any season, each a little Easter).

Yet this is also a good year for a penitential turn, particularly if you've not wrestled with that side of your faith very much. We've been wrestling and resisting and yes, even resenting all that we've given up since last March, and our attitude towards such things can also be a spiritual weathervane whose predictions we perhaps should attend to with care.

A couple of cautions these next seven weeks, for regular readers here. My commission many years ago, and the responsibility I still feel, is that "Faith Works" is meant to be open to how faith is part of the lives of all of us, in many and various ways. The religion column, in a generic sense, almost left these pages when previous writers here used the space to bash on denominations and practices not their own. I was asked, when I inquired about picking up the opportunity to write here, "can you write about faith without telling over 90% of my readers they're idiots?" Beyond that initial request, I've never been told what to write about or what I can't cover, and I appreciate that. And I respect the need for a place to invite seekers and non-believers to hear discussion of faith which is inclusive.

What you'll be getting the next few weeks, though, will be explicitly Christian. I've always been clear about that being my own basic orientation, and what I preach and teach on my own. These next few columns, though, will be written on the assumption that you share some basic propositions of Christianity: if that's not you, come back after Easter, but I think there's still going to be plenty of interest to anyone as I reflect on the purpose and meaning of Lent.

It's going to be a series of mediations on John 21:18-19. And even more particularly on the comment by Jesus to Peter in verse 18: "Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you used to dress yourself and walk wherever you wanted, but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you and carry you where you do not want to go."

We have in many ways been going where we do not want to go in the last year. Or is that just me? No, didn't think so. Thank you. So "where you do not want to go" is my compass, and in a contradictory way my anchor for this Lent.

And it constitutes my partial answer to the question I ended with last time, asking about how faith community leaders can deal with the mass communication and mass confusion so many people are living with these days: "Is there an answer for preachers and ministers in this misinformation age?" I think we do have an answer for how people can deal with the complex and contradictory messages we all get from the culture around us, but in many ways, that answer is "where we do not want to go." Which is a challenging message to share. In many ways, it won't be popular. It never has been, and is potentially less so now.

If you're willing to think about why we all have to spend some time in our lives "going where we do not want to go" then I invite you to join me here this Lent.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been taken a number of places he did not want to go in 2020. Tell him where you've been at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 2-18-21

Notes from my Knapsack 2-18-21

Jeff Gill

Homeless response is complicated

___

While I appreciate well-intended energy and deep concern to help our community reach every last person who has to deal with homelessness, I believe it's important to keep in mind that every night in Licking County, something over 200 people who would otherwise be homeless are sheltered, either in emergency or transitional housing. It isn't accurate to say nothing is being done, or that the groups doing this work aren't regularly talking and working together. This needed work and supportive services are offered through the Licking County Coalition for Housing, by The Center for New Beginnings, by the Salvation Army, along with at least three faith-based groups which do not receive federal or state funding, so they have different guidelines around how they provide their overnight shelter assistance. The more formally organized housing programs do partner with them to help offer transitional services and housing from emergency shelter to independence and stability. That's not even counting a variety of recovery houses and addiction programs, both evidence-based with federal and state funding, and more informal programs, that might as well be called shelter programs in practical fact. There is also some supportive housing that's done in and around the edges of our mental health providers which has rules and guidelines that can be frustrating to navigate, but again, with federal and state money comes federal and state strings that can't be casually cut. But it all adds up to well over 200 people a night in our county who are housed by programs and projects, receiving funds both federal and state as well as locally raised, which all have very tight controls and scrutiny on how and in what ways and over whom we are serving. 

 

And starting two years ago, a group of people, more recently organized into a Warming Shelter Task Force, put together an additional effort to provide emergency shelter to people needing assistance on very cold nights. This is also a group drawn from most of those already working with homelessness, which also asks questions and invites input directly from people experiencing homelessness on how we can respond to their needs. The reasons any one person might be unsheltered on a night below 10 degrees are many and various, and lack of current shelter capacity is only one of the factors leading to there being a few dozen on any given night in vehicles, in unheated buildings or structures, or "out there" with their belongings, such as they have been able to hold onto. Which is part of why people might choose to stay in a tent or hand-made shelter even when it's terribly cold, for fear of losing what little they have. Many of us believe a winter-long "low barriers" shelter might encourage some of those who are unsheltered to come in, and gain more trust and confidence in the supportive programs and opportunities available. But for now, we can only provide this on nights that are expected to be 10 degrees or lower overnight. So in the recent cold snap, when we had only a few "come in" to make use of the overnight warming shelter, we know that's not everyone out there. We also know some situations aren't even going to be met by a low barriers shelter, but need us to go out to where they are, and start rebuilding trust and responding with care to anxieties and issues that are keeping some out in the cold. In fact, LCCH and Newark Homeless Outreach and other faith-based groups are doing that outreach work already, and we share information and opportunities, also using the daytime warming setting of Vertical 196 to make contacts and start building those relationships that can lead people to try supportive and assistive programs that are available to them.

 

Homelessness is a complex issue. But I regret any time public statements are made that imply no one is doing anything, or that those who are aren't in touch with each other. In fact, the work is going on every day. It is not yet enough, I'd be the first to agree, but we do well to build on the foundations of what is, as we look to building up what may yet be done, to care for those with the most pressing of needs, the need for shelter and housing security.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been working on ending chronic homelessness in our community since 1991. Tell him about what you're thankful for at home by way of knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.