Notes From My Knapsack 5-4-17

Notes From My Knapsack 5-4-17

Jeff Gill

 

Second nature, maybe even first

___

 

We are an addicted, not to say addictive society.

 

Addictive behavior is general considered to be a problem, even a bad thing, but in fact it can also be rewarded, encouraged, even promoted.

 

Our culture is in many ways bound up with the addictive side of human nature, which is a natural tendency run amok, just as growth is good, but uncontrolled growth is the logic of the cancer cell.

 

When we experience some substance or experience as good, we want more of it; when we want something to the exclusion of any other good, to the point where it's bad for us to want the one thing, it's bad. That's addiction. That's how you sell stuff to consumers, how you market products to customers. It's also how you survive in nature, looking for good food, safe places to sleep, and the right way to live for yourself and your family.

 

But as one addict to many, many others: do you see it? Can you feel it the way I'm trying to describe, that we're all tending to addictive behaviors? If you've ever opened a box of Girl Scout cookies, and shortly after unexpectedly found your fingers touching cardboard bottom, you might have some addictive tendencies.

 

Have you meant to eat a little ice cream, then scraped the carton? Thought "I won't have more chips" and soon finished the bag?

 

And our most common social addiction: much of the sleep shortage we're known to have in this country, a physical ailment that may well have its own influence on other more recognizable addictions, is due to the shocking hours we all put in watching screens. Big ones on the wall and little ones in our hands, bingeing on series TV and snacking our way through myriad short videos. Hours and hours that largely come out of our growing sleep deficit. We say we won't watch one more show, and then shake out of a doze an evening lost, far into the night.

 

"I can stop any time." Sound familiar? Yeah, addict-speak.

 

We're in the middle of "Turn Off Your Screens" week, which the Granville Recreation District and the Granville Public Library and some 15 community organizations promote each year for our own good. Yes, you may be reading this column on newsprint, or it may well be on a screen, but the message is the same.

 

You see, there are few substances out there that are bad in and of themselves. It's the how and the when and the how often (and why) that make a habit into a compulsion, a problematic addiction. Even morphine has its place, rightly used.

 

So no one is saying smash your smartphone or shoot your TV like Elvis (and he bought a new one the next day anyhow). But can you turn them off? We're not calling for a ban, but for that blessed boon of self-control. Of course, self-control is not just about will power. Any of us needs nudges, tools to help us leverage better choices. Look around this week, and you'll find a whole bunch of outdoor activities and indoor programs to distract us and turn us aside from the screens of our lives, to a different sort of living.

 

I like that this comes each year at spring. The leaves are opening out, flowers blossoming, warblers in the trees, summer constellations starting to show. It's a good time to see and live differently, to partake of "the better angels of our nature."

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's prolific on social media, but on speaking terms with "tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything." Tell him your tale at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 4-29-17

Faith Works 4-29-17

Jeff Gill

 

I read the news today, oh boy…

___

 

Along with preaching and social media and, well, this column, I've got a church sign that I can use to express myself.

 

The purpose, of course, for that sign is to a) help our congregation communicate the Gospel to the world, b) share information about upcoming events or special announcements, from births to deaths or the dates of our clothing bag sale, and c) to let public programs use our sign for awareness and promotion if they don't conflict with our church need to keep a) and b)  before c).

 

As I've said in this space before, a church sign is a challenge that makes Twitter look loquacious. No 140 characters, it's more of an informational haiku of three lines but less than 90 characters, which limits your expression and forces some creative rephrasing. "God is love" is eleven characters, but anything more complex gets tricky, fast.

 

Sometimes, we do a favor for outside groups who ask nicely and when there's not a church need, and put up a few words and dates about noodle dinners or plant sales or outside service opportunities.

 

What makes that choice a rare one is that once you do it, there's an expectation that you'll always do it. Answering "well, we have a church event this year that's the same week" gets a testy response; telling someone "yes, I changed it, because what you sent me won't fit" turns into an odd discussion of "what do you mean you only have 90 characters?" And yes, even my own church folk sometimes ask why I can't cram more on the big board.

 

All of which I recount to explain that I understand all too well why the "powers that be" or "the suits" (not that many people in the news biz these days wear suits, or even ties) or whomever has decided to bring the feature "Church Notes" to an end.

 

Yes, I've gotten your emails. I try to answer, even if briefly, every email I get, but this was a busy time (Easter, etc.) and lots and lots of unhappy people. "Church Notes" as page 2 or 3 of the "Your Faith" D section of the Saturday Advocate has been around for decades. MANY decades. As in, back when the "news hole" was big, and ads sold easily, and we had printing presses in the basement.

 

The presses are gone, there's a smaller paper, and frankly, fewer people backstage. Trust me on this. I'm just an outside contributor, but I've been contributing a long, long time, going back to when the newsroom was a long narrow flight of steps from Main St. that just got torn down a few weeks ago. There's just not many people all doing many more things working to put this paper out.

 

And I'll say what they'd rather not: church folk sometimes thought they had a right to that space, and were rather unhappy at having their paragraph edited. Like community groups unhappy with me about not getting the signboard this year, it really is frustrating to be accused of an event's lack of success "because you didn't give us the free space."

 

This is, I have to say, and I'm not paid to say it, an opportunity. As a pastor and church communicator, I have to speak the truth, and say it clearly: putting something in "Church Notes" was a way of pretending to publicize an event. It really was mainly something our own people looked at to make sure our own church was "there." It was not, has not been an effective way to reach unchurched, non-churched, de-churched people. And that's the goal, right?

 

If the end of "Church Notes" means that congregations will have to be more intentional, more anticipatory, more targeted in our communications, with social media and mailings and ads and church signs and, yes, purchasing ads in the Advocate from time to time, then it will be a positive step in our outreach and engagement. Let's be candid here: as newspapers get tighter, why would they give away the space and the editing time to material that they've got other churches paying for?

 

There's a part of me that will miss that weekly discipline of the Wednesday 3:00 pm deadline, but just as most bulk mail newsletter operations are now history, let us bid a fond farewell to "Church Notes" . . . and look honestly around us at how we as faith communities can reach and communicate with our ministry context.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him how you like to tell your faith story at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Granville schools drug testing 2017

Dear Granville Board of Education members:


I am not able to attend the Granville Exempted Village School District Board of Education meeting tonight. My understanding is that you will discuss as part of their 6:30 pm agenda today the question of drug testing and students.


The developing controversy in our village echoes the larger debates playing out across the country. At its heart, the question being asked by you as board members, by concerned parents, and by active local residents is "how can I/we best protect our school-age children from the impact and influence of drugs?


But where we lack consensus starts with that last word. Are we talking about illegal substances, prescription drug misuse, legal substances that are not legal under certain circumstances for juveniles to use, or even legal but questionable substances with a more complicated status (performance enhancing supplements, etc.)? Some say "this is about pot and opiates, c'mon" but there's no discussion on this subject where other ingested materials don't quickly, and reasonably, become part of the debate.


Let me say what I think we can and should have consensus on: we live in an addictive culture. Look at our consumption of media as a starting point. You would be hard pressed to find anyone who can completely and honestly say they've never meant to watch less and ended up wondering where the hour, evening, or day went. Our sleep deprivation as a modern American culture (a driver I would argue for much of the rest of this subject) is clinically and clearly tied to the astronomical increases in time spent consuming media.


You may think "that's pretty far afield, Jeff," but that's where it starts. We can't control our media consumption, our social media use (hi, Facebook! Irony, anyone?), and the time or money or both we spend on movies and interactive games. We are an addictive culture.


Pain relief? We live in an era when fewer and fewer of us work on physical labor or do heavy lifting as a part of just maintaining our homes, but the US consumes 95% of all opiate medication made in the world. Stop and think about that for just a moment. And stepping gingerly past the opiate crisis for a moment, there's another $2 BILLION a year spent on over-the-counter pain relievers, just the ache-and-pain stuff.


Then add in steroids -- and I'm talking about adults, in our community, not kids in locker rooms, for which I have skimpy anecdotal evidence (but persistent tales, to be sure) -- millions of American adults spend billions to increase muscle mass, reduce body fat, to look good, with worrisome implications for future medical costs. But can I just say I know steroid use for cosmetic purposes is not unknown in this area?


If a parent or adult sibling in a home is using substances to manage their lives, the children will see that, and come to their own conclusions. For concision's sake, I'm not even going to talk about cigarettes and tobacco in general -- which juveniles can't use, but the entire village essentially affirms every year after commencement, just for starters -- or alcohol, which is a legal, addictive substance which is easy to get and often used, consuming all of aisle 1 at Ross Market (if you don't count produce, which most of us walk briskly through, anyhow).


Can I say it now? We live in an addictive culture, and we all know it, and feel faintly uneasy about it. (Nota bene: Neil Postman's "Amusing Ourselves To Death" is 30+ years old and never more relevant.)


So when adults want to protect kids from bad things, it's hard to criticize, let alone complain. But I persist in my sense that the drug-testing plans I've heard so far sound like they are jam-packed full of likely unintended consequences. Weed is rampant at GHS, I don't doubt. Relative to other central Ohio high schools? I'd be skeptical of anyone who says they have hard numbers, but while I'm sure it's "worse" in other districts, that's not really the point. Weed and hash oil and edibles are easy to get. I work for the juvenile court, and I have a child who graduated last year from GHS: 'nuff said. But what shall we do about it? That's a different question. I don't think proving the proposition "illegal substances are too common at and in our schools" immediately validates "therefore we must test kids to the fullest extent law and federal guidelines allow."


And yes, I think much of this has to happen in the home. The discussions, the guidelines, even the consequences. And if the home is really fine with steroids and cigars and weekend juvenile drinking (which is not illegal in general under a parent's supervision, I'm not endorsing, I'm clarifying) and lots of pills for a variety of purposes, then you're not going to see any proposal help the kids who need it, or change behavior for most of the kids heading for problems.


In other words, and I could have started with this and saved the whole lengthy (but in my mind inadequate and brief) essay -- I don't believe Granville has a juvenile substance abuse problem. We have a community substance abuse problem, and need to be talking openly and honestly about this, but we can't force much short of law enforcement matters onto adults . . . so we're going to jam tests and implications and complications into children's lives, because we can.


And I humbly suggest that, if we push through the plan (as I've seen it, for parking and non-academic extra-curriculars, etc.), we will be like the drunk searching for his lost car keys under the streetlight, because the light is better there. The darkness is in homes and among adults who don't want to talk about this at all, and are already figuring out how they can help their kids evade this. I hope the plan does not pass; I hope the conversation about our addictive culture and its impacts DOES continue, because it should.


Pax,
Jeff Gill
120 Bantry St.
Granville OH 43023

http://www.facebook.com/Knapsack
http://twitter.com/Knapsack

Faith Works 4-22-17

Faith Works 4-22-17

Jeff Gill

 

Healing and wholeness start somewhere

___

 

Easter weekend is perhaps the most joyful celebration in the Christian calendar. Christmas is full of happiness and good feelings, but somehow I see and hear and experience more pure unadulterated joy among the worshipers at an Easter service.

 

James Lileks made an interesting point in his namesake online blog that, in pop culture, Christmas seems to always be in danger, but Easter not so much. Just as emotions are always vulnerable to the events of the hour, Christmas feelings can be swept away by tragedy or crisis or even sheer frustration and disappointment. So we get the fictional narratives of someone (Jack Frost, Burgomeister Meisterburger, Scrooge, the Grinch) trying to take the holiday away.

 

Easter? It's not even clear anyone else wants it. You don't have animated or musical or variety show specials on TV, and who was the last pop star who put out an Easter album? Easter décor is spring-influenced, to be sure, but Spring as a season is an inexorable force, pushing weeds through last year's mulch and sprouting all over where we don't even want it.

 

So too is resurrection. Whether you call yourself a Christian or not, a seeker or a skeptic, a non-theist or Ron Reagan, Jr. militant atheist, there's something about the force of the story we worshipers just "lived" through that carries you along. Crisis and sorrow and set-backs don't hold the story back because they are part of the story itself, up to and including the crushing loss of death. How you feel about the proposition that death is not the final word probably says something about the faith commitments you carried into the weekend, but it's a story that has washed many a questioning heart right into currents that flow into an ocean of belief.

 

"Christ is risen!" "He is risen, indeed!" That call-and-response have been a part of Christian Easter observances in church and on the street for millennia, and they echo still in our ears the week after. Culturally, we move on past Easter even faster than stores take down the Christmas decorations late on Dec. 24^th, but in worship churches still have a bit more to say about the journey we assert Christ Jesus made from life into death into life.

 

And that's a journey that, with no lack of faith in those promises for myself, I'm in no hurry to take. The idea of Heaven, of eternal life, of resurrection hope for us all, doesn't mean the reality of this world is made less meaningful in that light. What it does do, for me at any rate, is make that heavenly light shine out from within things in this world, in ways I don't always stop to see. The connections, the history, the heritage of objects and institutions and traditions and artifacts, which are alive today in ways I might miss if I'm not open to a sense of life that's not just of the moment, more than merely material.

 

So I welcome the idea that God isn't finished with me yet, that there is a purpose and meaning to my life that might be a bit bigger, a whole lot wider and deeper than my senses and recollections can hold onto. I appreciate that even my failures and shortcomings might be a part of learning and development that goes beyond my own three-score and ten, or maybe another ten or twenty if I am so blessed. I could live to be a hundred, yet not exhaust the complete understanding that might yet be mine.

 

Which is why I believe that the best path to inner peace and personal integration is through a wider world view that goes even beyond this world. One's faith and practice of spiritual discernment and direction takes us both beyond immediate concerns, but also helps us look back at those worries with healthier perspective.

 

Belief in a life-to-come isn't a distraction from this life when it gives you confidence to try and fail, to seek and not always understand perfectly. Hope in a God who loves you isn't so much the "opiate of the masses" as it is a way for any individual lost in the crowd to find a joy that endures, without buying a drug to provide it for a passing moment.

 

All of which is why I would love to see you all at the community meeting to be held next week at Newark High School on Wednesday, April 26, at 6:30 pm. Together, we can see past today's problems and identify some practical reasons for hope right now. Come join us!

 

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

Notes From My Knapsack 4-20-17

Notes From My Knapsack 4-20-17

Jeff Gill

 

Dreams, Hopes, and Nightmares

___

 

Next Wednesday, Apr. 26 at the Newark High School auditorium, we are blessed to have the journalist and author Sam Quinones visiting Licking County.

 

His best known book is one that features Ohio prominently, but doesn't quite mention Licking County. Entitled "Dreamland," his investigation begins and ends in Portsmouth, Ohio, and stops by a number of central Ohio communities, but neither Newark nor Granville make it into his narrative, now some years old.

 

Part of why a committee of a number of us in this county are working to bring Sam to our area is that we don't want the Land of Legend to make it into some future "Author's Updated Foreword," and that could yet happen.

 

The scourge of heroin addiction and opiate marketing out of Mexico has brushed past most of us here in Granville and around the county. Not as savagely as that epidemic has struck Portsmouth and Chillicothe and Marion, just work our way due north up Rt. 23, but here a bit to the east of that "mud vein" of prescription abuse cases and cheap black tar heroin for sale, we are starting to see the impact of the marketing and sales expertise that become an unexpected but necessary part of the story Mr. Quinones has to tell.

 

"Dreamland" in the title of Quinones' book was a pool, a community center. Like many community pools, it ultimately closed in the '80s due to lack of funding, but the site was a memory of where the city came together, for relaxation and exercise and a certain measure of joy. That location, as the economics of the Ohio Valley began to push back against funding or hope or any joy at all, turned from a safe family zone to a place where families were destroyed, as the products sold there from out of Mexico insinuated themselves into the relationships and responsibilities of family members around their county.

 

In Licking County, a task force of community leaders have met to say "not here." We don't need heroin or prescription opiates to become yet another factor in the breakdown of functional families. We're already up to around 450 children taken from their homes by the county, not because there's any upside at all to the county doing so, but because there are that many parents so lost in drug abuse they can't even maintain basic responsibilities to their own kids.

 

School officials in districts all across central Ohio, and here in Licking County, are seeing a sharp uptick in the number of grandparents showing up for parent's night programs, as they begin raising grandkids for their adult children who simply can't cope with their addicitions…they may not be legally in their custody (a complication in its own right), but we're hearing about 20-30 per building these days in that situation.

 

And yes, the opiate epidemic has come to Granville. You can get cheap heroin here just like you can in Columbus, some say more easily. Here in "Brigadoon," we can hide our pain and sorrows a little more efficiently, but the damage is here, and spreading.

 

So I invite you to come to Newark High School next week, 6:30 pm in the auditorium, and hear from Sam and some of our county leadership, and join in the conversation. It's going to take all of us to find solutions.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; tell him where you've seen opiates doing damage in our area at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.