Faith Works 1-23-2026

Faith Works 1-23-2026
Jeff Gill

Faith, politics, and compromise in this America 250 year
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We are celebrating as a country the semi-sesquicentennial of the Declaration of Independence this year.

1776 was the year, and during the summer a committee of five was called to work on a draft for the Continental Congress to declare their intentions towards Great Britain. Some few still hoped for reconciliation, Samuel Adams wanted a clear and clean break, but all wondered how a collection of colonies could justify their "separate and equal station" to the mother country, and independence from their King.

Of that committee, Roger Sherman of Connecticut and Robert Livingston of New York fade quickly into the background, not because of their lack of interest in the subject, but because of the press of other business the assembly had to deal with.

Thomas Jefferson of Virginia was quickly elected chair and chief drafter, some say at the strong encouragement of John Adams from Massachusetts, while Benjamin Franklin of Pennsylvania anchored the group with his notable wisdom, and relatively speaking, great age (I sigh to note the "elderly" Franklin was 70, which doesn't seem that old to me these days).

Obviously, they represented different parts of the emerging United States of America, and they also represented different perspectives, on politics and about faith.

Walter Isaacson has been speaking for years about the drafting process in June of 1776, and just released a book titled "The Greatest Sentence Ever Written," about the Declaration of Independence's key line, "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."

Jefferson's original draft had early on the phrase "we hold these truths to be sacred and undeniable." Franklin, ever the pragmatist, suggested the truths they were describing were "self-evident," the result of reason and wisdom more than from revelation.

But the more religious Adams said after "all men are created equal," where Jefferson states "from that equal creation they derive rights inherent & inalienable" the Massachusetts Unitarian asked him to put instead "are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights."

All of this talk of inherent & inalienable rights stems from a document almost a century old when the Declaration was being drafted in 1776. John Locke wrote "Two Treatises of Government" in 1689, in part to defend Great Britain's "Glorious Revolution" of the preceding year, where William and Mary ascend to the throne, deposing King James II (second son of the late King Charles I, who was executed in 1649, Great Britain having had a pretty tumultuous second half of the Seventeenth Century).

John Locke was a major influence on the Founders' generation, as he articulated views of how the social contract between the governed and the government should work, including the assertion that legitimate governments will always be "deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed" — a line which goes directly into the Declaration.

Locke's fundamental rights for every individual in a properly governed state in 1689 include "life, liberty, and estate" which becomes "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" in our 1776 telling of the tale.

Locke and the Founders argued for the essential starting point of free and equal persons under the law, whose roots could be found in Nature, and in Nature's God. Franklin eased back Jefferson's assertion's about the sacred, while Adams leaned into our Creator's endowment of creation, while Jefferson used Locke's formulas to describe how the consent of the governed brought this new nation closer to divine intentions.

In 2026, we weave history and theology and political philosophy into our more immediate understandings of how we vote, and what we expect of our elected officials. There may be compromise in our common work to those ends, which is not a concession when it brings clarity of purpose.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been looking forward to 2026 and America 250 for some time. Tell him your perspectives on history at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.

Faith Works 1-16-2026

Faith Works 1-16-2026
Jeff Gill

A message for anyone & everyone to hear
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Imagine we had a fellow going around door to door, talking fast and smiling large, claiming to be a cousin of Prince William who had a plausible if unlikely argument for why you needed to loan him a few hundred or thousands of dollars.

And that this hypothetical person had done this scam successfully not dozens, but hundreds of times, perhaps upwards of some thousands of fleecings, always getting away and never getting caught.

We'd be asking hard questions of law enforcement and the prosecutor's office, who would have done something (in all fairness) after just a few repetitions, but in the case I have in mind are still helpless to respond.

Because I'm talking about messaging or text or email scams, and the perpetrators are almost without exception in Russia or Myanmar or Nigeria and the like. Overseas criminals with a talent for electronic larceny.

We have pages for crime and legal matters, and this sort of thing has been covered by the Advocate and Dispatch before. What I'm most exercised about though is the way faith communities get targeted by these approaches. They're nauseatingly similar in all their forms, but if this is news to you, or at most a vague recollection, let me spell it out.

Somehow, these vile malefactors get ahold of email rosters, cellphone records, or just cull membership lists and are adept enough in online skills to correlate the names of a church's most active members to the correct phone numbers.

They then send emails or texts, but texts are most common, and the frightful characters are well up to speed on how to make the incoming message appear to be coming from a local phone number by area code and even exchange (email scams often can be caught by simply hovering your cursor over the name, and finding the address for what claims to be Spectrum or Amazon or CVS is suffixed "btzplk54.com" or the like).

What is truly vile to me is how they all say they're your minister. They play on your desire to help, to be of service, and use just the right whiff of urgency mixed with a smidgen of how they're busy doing good themselves, so if you could just…

Friends, let me speak as I rarely do for ALL my fellow faith community leaders, whether priests or parsons, rabbis or imams, evangelists or bishops: we are NEVER going to ask you to buy a gift card denominated hundreds of dollars, then scratch the foil off and take a picture and send it to us. NEVER. Not once. It ain't us. Period, end of report.

Then the impostor-criminal will often ask us to only get, say, $200 on the gift card, but then get three or four or eighteen of them. They know the amount which triggers the manager to come out, or loss prevention to step up to our frantic tapping on the kiosk. But never mind all that: texts asking you to buy gift cards and then photograph numbers off of them and send back? THOSE AREN'T US. I promise you. If you get a text asking for an emergency pound of ground coffee, maybe. But gift cards? IT IS A SCAM.

But a bright spot. I was recently near a person who said at a gathering they were in the middle of one such scamming-in-process. I was immediately aware (don't even whisper "gift cards" and "minister" within 50 yards of me), rudely intruded into the conversation, and here's the hope. These scams are industrial scale in size wherever they are being done. We called the person's credit card company, and the numbers hadn't been processed, and the transaction was blocked. Once they do, you can't get the money back, but they get backlogged. We moved just barely fast enough.

Better yet? Don't get sucked in. Your minister is not texting you for gift cards. Tell your friends.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's rethinking his opposition to the death penalty for this particular offense. Tell him about scams you've avoided at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.

Notes from my Knapsack 1-15-2026

Notes from my Knapsack 1-15-2026
Jeff Gill

America 250 in Ohio has much to celebrate
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In 1976, President Gerald Ford oversaw a grand national celebration of our Bicentennial, the two hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.

People then pointed out we had begun to act independently before the document was approved by the Second Continental Congress in Philadelphia, and long after Thomas Jefferson had left the country to represent us in France, the Constitutional Convention in 1787 really established our nation.

You could even get bogged down in John Adams writing down that July the Second would be the future celebration of national independence, after the bulk of signatories had put their, um, John Hancocks onto the formal declaration he had helped Jefferson and Ben Franklin to draft. But no matter.

July 4, 1776 has long been the day we celebrate as our nation's birthday. The centennial was an occasion all over the still not-quite coast to coast country; our 38th state, Colorado, came into the union in the middle of the year 1876, though after the Battle of the Little Big Horn in June. Licking County's new courthouse still has tall bold numbers on four sides to hearken back to the founding even as we celebrated the centennial that year.

And yes, I remember the bicentennial quite well. (Sigh.)

So we come to the Semiquincentennial, or Quarter Millennial observation, if you are willing to be that optimistic about our future. 250 just looks significant, and while I like to celebrate history all the time, in any quanta, a 250th feels right. Denison University has a 195th anniversary coming in December of 2026, and a bicentennial in 2031 I trust we'll mark in Granville.

The America 250-Ohio effort has been present and active in Licking County, and around the state, for some time; their executive director Todd Kleismit has been at various meetings in Granville to help encourage us to prepare for this year, and so we have. In the village, we've been working with the Licking County Historical Society on a 250 Passport project that Howard Long has put good work into, and he's been present as Billie Zimmers has helped chair our community efforts, which you'll hear about all year and then some.

The Newark Earthworks nearby got to be one of Ohio's earliest events around America 250 on January 2nd, and with the Granville Historical Society, I get to talk a bit about the interesting question of what was going on here 250 years ago, in the years directly leading up to 1776. Wyandot and Shawnee and Delaware indigenous people were here, and a few others you might not have expected, but I'll talk about that on Wednesday, Jan. 21st in the Granville Historical Society Museum at 115 E. Broadway. Please consider attending!

They will be distributing some of the materials our Granville group for America 250 have developed for this entire year, with special themes and programs each month, with January about "firsts" logically enough. In June, I get to offer some programs about our history with parks and preservation, and you'll hear more about that soon enough, along with all our other monthly themes in 2026.

Like the best history, it will be both fun and educational!


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he has a deep and wide love of history in many forms. Tell him what times past most interest you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on X.

Faith Works 1-9-2026

Faith Works 1-9-2026
Jeff Gill

More questions than answers as a new year starts
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January 9th is the 113th birthday of Richard Nixon; my brother Brian shares the date, if half the years with him.

Brian also often reads my columns to our mother, which gets complicated if I write about her and the living situation we're working with, so I find myself trying to put a signal in pretty early that this isn't one you want to be reading to her. Like this one.

Mom had been living with our sister Debbie for almost five years when one year ago we teamed up to move her into a memory care facility. It was a difficult decision, but a necessary one. We knew from the start that our mother was having cognitive issues after our father's death in 2020, and one of many things I've learned about the last few years is how the horizon between cognitive decline and outright dementia is a jagged and trackless landscape.

Over the last two years, I went from my father-in-law's last decline, which included a fair amount of visual and auditory hallucinations, to my mother's slide into mental hallucinations of facts that are demonstrably not so, but firmly held by her. Yes, the conventional wisdom is to agree at almost all costs, but some assertions are harder to agree with than others.

What's morbidly fascinating is how our mother's particular form of dementia is convincing. If you don't know her, she can still convince people she's still teaching classrooms full of children, under the direction of her father as school principal (my mother is 90, so do the math), and driving. Sadly, she's also convinced she can catch a bus or train right outside that door, the door over there, if you'll just hold it open one moment…

In some ways, I've been more ready to deal with the oddities of cognitive issues because of some forty years of pastoral ministry. I've had all the conversations, about whether someone should still drive, when you continue treatment, how to handle care provisions in various forms of insurance and benefits, Medicare or Medicaid. Yet it's different when you are dealing with your own parents, no matter how familiar.

And the fact of the matter is that many of these frameworks themselves have changed over the last few years. I knew enough over time to check in with trusted doctors and nurses about what "everyone knew" about how long you could stay in rehab, or what was covered by which; by the time I had to leave full-time ministry in 2020, some of those wise advisors were saying to me "I can't answer that, it changes so quickly now."

I've talked about pieces of all of this through the previous year, and I know it has a certain quality of repetition to it, but I wanted to walk through this to make the same point, especially to the many readers I know I have who attend worship services and look to ministers for answers about practical matters. It's not just them: none of us are entirely clear about how this all works. Hospitalization and rehabilitation and palliative care and hospice, insurance coverage and Medicare options and Medicaid involvement: it all changes so quickly now.

So what's the answer? First, leave assumptions go for the most part. Second, listen closely to what you're being told. Third, keep notes (in whatever form works for you, but a small notebook & pen are invaluable). Fourth: ask questions, ask questions, ask questions. And when caregivers or staff get impatient with your questions? Ask more.

This subject isn't going away, and not just because I'm in the middle of it myself. We all need to learn how to be people of faith working within often blind and unhearing systems. Clergy and church leaders don't have answers, but we can and must help ask questions.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in central Ohio; he's got questions, as you can tell. Tell him what your questions are at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow him @Knapsack on X.

Faith Works 1-2-2026

Faith Works 1-2-2026
Jeff Gill

What you've envisioned might be the problem
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Well, here we are.

2026 is upon us, and if last year was any indication, it will come along quickly. Let's climb aboard.

There's a tricky maneuver I need to engage here: I'm about to quote a scene from a television program that I am not, in any way, shape, or form recommending you watch. Not from this platform, anyhow!

If you want profanity and violence and the occasional dash of adult content, there's plenty of it out there. And I'm not often thinking I need my entertainment, broadcast or streaming, to give me of it than the world already provides.

However. I ended up watching the opening a year or so ago of "Landman" with the always interesting Billy Bob Thornton, and it sucked me in good. Based on a podcast series I'd heard parts of called "Boomtown" it's set in Midland, Texas and it's about the oil business, and the economy, and family life in these United States in all its brokenness and possibility.

Anyhow, a ways into the first season, Thornton's character Tommy is getting back together, maybe, with his ex-wife Angela, who moves into the oil company rented home that already had some other staff living there, including Nate, a corporate lawyer, whose background appears a bit more buttoned up and middle class than the Norris family.

As part of this attempt at reconciliation, Angela makes a very fancy dinner for her husband, two adult children, plus Nate and Dale, another oil rig supervisor living in the house. No one gets home at the time she had announced, but finally everyone is assembled around the dining room table, and she launches into a prayer which, I have to admit, had me thinking "I need to use this in a column" pretty early on. It was sincere, heartfelt, and incredibly inappropriate as well as longer than a preacher's grace.

Just as I was thinking about that, Nate leans over to Dale and whispers "First time I've heard blasphemy in a prayer."

Look, Nate wasn't wrong. But I have to admit, my thinking was actually how Angie's self-absorption is less unusual than it seemed to Nate. She was being pretty upfront about it, but I have heard my share of at least self-centered blasphemy-lite in prayers before.

Which becomes clearer as the meal proceeds, as Angela displays increasing anxiety & frustration with the reality that things around the happy family table were not turning out the way she had envisioned. Before she has a complete meltdown, Tommy follows her out into the kitchen, and frankly does a remarkably good job of laying out for her that while she had a very clear picture in her mind how that dinner was supposed to go, they didn't all see the same vision.

The point being, not sharing the vision in every detail is not the same as disrespecting the person who holds it tight, even when it might feel that way. They liked her meal, they said so, and asked for seconds, which as Tommy points out is the highest praise Dale knows. They just kept calling it spaghetti and not "bolognese."

What Tommy was trying to tell her was she was being appreciated, but her vision was getting in the way. And — remember I am NOT suggesting you run out and watch "Landman" — what it made me think of was how prayers that are focused on our wishes, our desires, can get in the way of being in communication with God, which should be the actual point of prayer. How we want things to go can blind us to what God is already doing.

Which is not a bad thought for heading into Epiphany. Like the wise men, be ready to return home by another way. (You CAN look up that reference. Matthew 2.)


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he thinks about how all sorts of things can fit into columns & sermons. Tell him where you hear God nudging us at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Xwitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 1-1-2026

Notes from my Knapsack 1-1-2026
Jeff Gill

Welcome to a new year, he said grimly
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My, my, my.

The first time I submit copy with the new year on it, things get real. It's usually a ways before the New Year's Eve celebrations, deadlines being what they are and all.

But 1-1-2026. Yikes.

Here's to a new year, and I say that knowing that like many of us, I really don't have that much to complain about, but like Joe Walsh famously said, "Sometime I still do." (You can look it up.)

My home is warm, my vehicle runs, my family is doing fine, all things considered. There are too many who have inadequate shelter or worse (hey, any are too many, but a few dozen at minimum in our area alone), and there are all sorts of ways life could be non-ideal, let alone worse. Worse is a relative thing, right?

I could get into details; I have friends and associates of long-standing who have lost loved ones in the 2025, had dire diagnoses and/or surgery from which they're still recovering, seen workplace issues snowball for some. None of that is my lot, and I'm at a point where I just don't feel superstitious about saying so.

Yet I admit to not looking forward to 2026 as much as I know I should. Not hunting for sympathy here; again, there are plenty who deserve it and need your direct and practical support.

2026 is the year of our nation's 250th anniversary of independence, and there's much to celebrate, no matter what your political orientation. I get to do some fun things as part of this year-long celebration. Wednesday, Jan. 21st, I will talk at the Granville Historical Society about our county in 1776, which is more interesting a time than you might realize, even if the evidence is scattered and piecemeal. In June, on the 17th and 20th, we celebrate our national history around parks and preserves, starting at Opera House Park in our historic center of Granville, and for those willing and able, a bit of mountain climbing. (Okay, a hike to Sugar Loaf…)

We have a full slate of events shaping up at the Octagon Earthworks just west of our village limits, and plans for more at the Munson Springs Preserve just inside of them. History, heritage, community, and I'm already looking forward to a return of the mile-long picnic at summer's end, let alone the usual Fourth of July that won't be too usual given the 250th.

I plan, God willing, to write more columns in 2026 about John Locke. Yeah, John Locke. Because Locke is there in the notes and edits and final draft of what Franklin and Adams and that Jefferson fellow wrote, which has become marked with July 4, 1776. Don't worry, I'll make it interesting, and there's no test. There's a whole range of history over our 250 years of independence to date that I plan to share with you, and I enjoy that.

So plenty to look forward to. Which is good, because there's a few things I worry about looking ahead. None of us are getting any younger, and some situations are just gonna get worse before they get better. Sound familiar? Yeah, I know.

Balance. That's the key. I'll keep looking for it in 2026, and I hope you'll join me in the search. Onwards!


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's not saying he's unbalanced, not exactly anyhow. Tell him how you keep your equilibrium at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Faith Works 12-26-2025

Faith Works 12-26-2025
Jeff Gill

Summing up, looking ahead, holding to hope
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One of the stock themes a columnist has to consider every December is the year-in-review piece.

It's a classic. You mull over what's been, recycle a few thoughts you've already expressed (hey, it's the end of the year, take a break), and voila, there's a column.

More risky is the predictions schtick for 2026. You can offer your most profound, or trivial ideas, or both, for what the new year has to bring. You can stick with evergreens ("Ohio State will make a strong run at the national championship…") or try for some revelatory insight ("…their sixth in pistol shooting!"); there's the global angle, which may not play well in central Ohio if you talk too much about geopolitical trends, or stick with local forecasts on getting a Culver's in Heath, that kind of thing.

Or you could wax profound about Intel, which no one really knows about for sure.

But this is "Faith Works," a column which is supposed to engage the eyes and minds of those interested in religion, whether of an organized sort or not. And too many of us rise up to say about our own religious heritage "organized religion it ain't!"

Ryan Burge, the noted scholar and analyst about religious trends, has a new book coming out in January titled "The Vanishing Church." I don't have a review copy, but I subscribe to his Substack, and can tell not only that I'm sure to read it, but it's basically about a subject near to my heart as a fellow pastor: Ryan expresses some concern about the erosion if not outright disappearance in many places of small to medium sized churches with moderate views on faith, life, and politics.

If you've been reading me a while, you know I come back to this subject often. My own experience is that of a moderate, and I've pastored small and medium sized churches. Mega I ain't. (Okay, I'm tall, but like Dick Van Dyke, I'm not as tall as I once was.)

I may focus too much on that space, but I think it's still the heart of American religious experience, and Ryan Burge looks to be saying much the same. As I keep trying to point out, the logic of "big contemporary churches are growing and smaller traditional ones are dying" being a causal relationship has some holes in it. We are adding big box type non-denominational worship centers, but the net percentage almost anywhere, including our corner in the center of Ohio, attending worship any given weekend is down, drastically.

In this new year, I will be talking about this subject, and not just to review Ryan's new book. Traditional worship is definitely declining in absolute numbers, even if there are individual bright spots; contemporary services are growing, but they are not only catching fewer in sum than faith communities are losing, they are tending to shuffle the sheep. I grant that approach gets more unchurched people in the doors than hymnals and choirs, but they aren't getting many of them. The Nones are continuing to grow.

My atheist friends say "this is a healthy sign, Jeff, of rationality and free choices." I will continue to look closely at that answer, I pray with a fair and open mind, but looking around me, I wouldn't say our culture is getting healthier. So it's complicated, you know?

But I pray I have something to say in 2026 that's worth your time to read, and consider. Happy new year, one and all!


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's never been good at forecasting. Tell him what you expect in 2026 at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Faith Works 12-19-2025

Faith Works 12-19-2025
Jeff Gill

Hearing the hope of heaven in certain sounds
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Christmas joys are a taste of our hope of heaven.

That's an experience many of us see and even smell in these holiday weeks, with lights on the snow, mace and cardamom in certain recipes, scents in the air unique to the season.

There are also sounds which carry us far above and beyond our immediate circumstances. Handbells in church, steeple bells heard from a distance; choirs singing in majestic harmonies, even the sudden shock of silence ringing after a hard cutoff from a closing note, before the applause begins.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow nearly lost his son in the fierce battles that followed the better known Gettysburg campaign, as Meade's Army of the Potomac pursued the Confederate troops south over the Potomac, and to their stand along the Rapidan River. Lieutenant Charles Longfellow was shot trying to cross Mine Run with his troops in November, but December brought word to Boston that he would survive his wounds. The poet sat down and wrote these words:

"I heard the bells on Christmas day, their old familiar carols play; and wild and sweet the words repeat, of peace of earth, good will to men."

He continued to speak of war, of sorrow, of fear and doubt. Then he admitted in verse "And in despair I bowed my head; 'There is no peace on earth, I said; 'For hate is strong, and mocks the song, of peace on earth, good-will to men!'"

But a sound he knew well from the streets of 1863 Boston turned the page, as it were. The poet went on: "Then pealed the bells more loud and deep: 'God is not dead, nor doth He sleep; the Wrong shall fail, the Right prevail, with peace on earth, good-will to men.'"

I've invited readers to consider a different, but more ancient pattern for Advent devotions, to reflect each week in turn on what the historic church called "the four last things: death, judgment, hell, and heaven." Heaven is our goal, our destination, in that outline, as it is for us.

Modern times have asked, sometimes harshly, if Heaven is just a cop-out, an excuse, to not worry or work on injustice or troubles in our own time. The usual phrase is "pie in the sky in the sweet by-and-by." If Heaven is justice deferred, it would be much less than it is; the hope of Heaven can be used in that way, but that's far from all it is.

In First Peter's opening, the apostle greets readers with "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you."

A living hope, an inheritance, a promise for a final reckoning which can help us in current struggles: that's what is "kept in heaven for you" according to the scriptures. Some we know have experienced it in full already, we call them saints. The reality of a place, a circumstance, an experience we call Heaven is something we catch glimpses of like a peaceful valley through fog far below, as we descend a dangerous mountain path. The lights are on, we are expected, but we aren't there yet.

The destination leads us on, though. We look forward to being at home there, even if only seeing it from a distance. Or tasting it, scenting the place, its smoke in the air from far off.

Or hearing the bells ring on ahead, a joyful celebration we look forward to joining.

May you hear those bells this Christmas, and may they give you hope.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he has heard those bells from far off. Tell him how you catch a sense of what is yet to come at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Notes from my Knapsack 12-18-2025 replacement

Notes from my Knapsack 12-18-2025 replacement
Jeff Gill

My Christmas wish list for you
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Here we are on the final stretch to Christmas Day, Christmas joy, Christmas packages and presents and dinners.

Shopping is pretty much a done deal, right? I know there's a thought we could all go out and cram the stores and shopping malls on the last weekend before Christmas Eve, but that seems almost as quaint as roasting chestnuts or lighting candles on the tree.

We all have Christmas lists of one sort or another. Shopping for those holiday parties and meals, gifts to purchase for family and friends, and if you're fortunate, you have someone who wants you to make a list for them of what you want for Christmas. Mostly that's a childhood thing, but you can do it as an adult, as well.

What I'd like to do is give you all a Christmas list, but not of what I want you to get for me (that'd be non-sequential bills in bundles of a thousand, unmarked), but what I wish for you. Maybe my Christmas wish list is in line with what you'd like to get, maybe it won't be, but it's sincere on my part, and perhaps worth considering as what you could want to receive this holiday season.

For you, I wish for a good walk in a warm coat on a crisp night, snow all around, moonlight overhead, and going long enough to see a variety of lights and decorations not just on the outside of houses, but also the trees in the window lit up and ready to do. Don't trespass, don't be a stalker, but who doesn't like to see a Christmas tree from the street? Walking is something we all could do with a bit more of, a great deal more frequently. To start, I wish for you a Christmas season stroll. Add miles as you see fit.

May your stove have some activity this holiday season. If you store stuff in there, take it out, put it on the porch or something, and make cookies. Not your thing? You know, they sell cookie rounds with faces and trees and such on them that you take out of the package, put on a cookie sheet (or sheet pan), and bake in the oven. Warm cookies, I wish for you. Cookie dough is not that hard, though. And you might be surprised at how easy it is to bake bread. In any case, good warm food from your oven I wish for you.

And while I know Christmas cards are largely lost in the flurry of email and internet communications, and Christmas letters are an easily mocked genre of humble-bragging, I wish for you a note. A note you write, with pen (or pencil, or crayon, or Sharpie if that's your jam) and paper, and you put in the mail with a stamp (they sell them at the Post Office, still a deal when you think about it), and send it to… someone. I don't care who. But there's someone you can send a note to. Not a card, sorry, but a note. A note in a card if you want, but at least three sentences, written without AI, to someone you have something to say to.

Those are my Christmas wishes, for you. May all your wishes of the holiday season be fulfilled, whatever they are!


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's got his own list, and is checking it twice. Tell him if you've been naughty or nice at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Notes from my Knapsack 12-18-2025

Notes from my Knapsack 12-18-2025
Jeff Gill

"We done all for your husband we could"
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Theresa Reid was born in Madison Township, east of Newark, in 1841. By all accounts, she was familiarly known as "Thersey," likely a childhood nickname that stuck.

When she was eighteen she married Evan Jones, a Welshman about the same age who had emigrated with his family to Ohio in 1853; they had three children, two sons and a daughter, in fairly short order, and possibly even before the third child was born Evan Jones went off to war with the Thirty-first Ohio Volunteer Infantry, his younger brother John Paul Jones serving in the same unit.

Their regiment was part of the Army of the Cumberland in the west; history tends to center the Army of the Potomac and the Civil War closer to Washington & Richmond, but the western campaigns from Shiloh to Vicksburg, from the Cumberland valley to the gates of Atlanta, were where a majority of Licking County soldiers served.

Evan and John fought across Tennessee, at Chickamauga where both were wounded, and in the siege of Chattanooga before the push into Georgia. Most of us know about the burning of Atlanta from "Gone With the Wind," and then the famous "March to the Sea" under General Sherman's command, local lad that William Tecumseh Sherman was. The march was an attempt to decisively sever the Confederacy's supply lines, burning a swath of farmlands and plantations all the way to Savannah, and it is generally noted as a complete Union victory, and devastation for the South.

There were, however, some Union casualties. Thersey Jones, 161 years ago this week, would get a letter from a relative stranger, just before Christmas 1864.


MILLEDGEVILLE, GEORGIA, December, 17, 1864.
     Mrs. Thersay F. Jones:  It is under peculiar circumstances that I drop you a line.  On the twenty-fourth of last month, while Sherman's army (or a part of it) was in this place, Mr. John Jones came to my house and desired me to take his sic brother (Evan Jones) and take care of him, as he was very sick and not able to be carried any farther.  In humanity, my wife and self agree to take him and nurse him the best we could, though we were badly situated to do so, for the army had taken everything we possessed, except our dwelling house.  They killed every chicken, every hog, and drove off every cow, took all my corn, and eat up every potato, pulled down and burned all the out-buildings; but notwithstanding all this, we done the very best we could for your husband, and we don't think he was in want of medicine, food, or attention, that he did not get.  He had camp diarrhœa and fever, and died on the twenty-ninth day of November, 1864.  He was prepared to die, and only regretted leaving his wife and children.  The day before he died, some of the medicine his physician left for him gave out.  I went immediately to see the Confederate post surgeon, Dr. Bratton, who is a nice man and good physician; he came forthwith to see him, and left medicine with directions, and gave every necessary attention, but told us he was too near gone to be saved.  Our town was so badly used up and everything destroyed it was with difficulty I procured his burial.  The post surgeon sent me help and buried him not far from my house near where Sherman's army buried some of their dead.  You may never know with any certainty, but I say to you as a truth, we done all for your husband we could.  I would write more if it was allowed to pass.

Respectfully,
W.  A.  Williams

It is perhaps no surprise that, following the war, Thersey married her husband's brother John, and they had a child themselves as they raised Evan's three. They had almost forty years together; Thersey outlived John, and had a third marriage to a Knox County widower whom she also survived, finally buried next to John in 1913 on her death at age 72.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's fascinated by these insights into everyday life long ago and hopes you are, too. Tell him what tales intrigue you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Faith Works 12-12-2025

Faith Works 12-12-2025
Jeff Gill

Advent's third week in an ancient way of reflection
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This is perhaps the most challenging part of my attempt to commend an ancient model for observing Advent, this third week.

The old recommendation of the church is to reflect in Advent on the "four last things" which is to say: death, judgment, hell, and heaven. Which means we've come to deal with Hell.

Yes, that may seem utterly un-Christmas-ish in theme, but is it? Are the consequences of life misspent and ill-used, outside of the comforts of faith and hope, really outside of a Christian's Christmas consideration?

The answer is no if only because of Charles Dickens. Some of the most vivid evocations of Hades and hellfire I know come from that most Christmasy of tales: "A Christmas Carol."

It's in the book, from 1843. We hear a terrifying warning from the ghost of Jacob Marley:

""I wear the chains I forged in life. I made it link by link, and yard by yard; I girded it on of my own free will, and of my own free will I wore it. Is its pattern strange to you?"

Scrooge trembled…"

Recall that? And how the Ghost cautions Scrooge about "the weight and length of the strong coil you bear yourself? It was full as heavy and as long as this, seven Christmas Eves ago… It is a ponderous chain!"

The theological perspectives of Dickens can be debated at length, but it's clear there's a warning beyond just this life intended in the lines he gives the cautionary spirit to speak to Ebenezer Scrooge:
 
"Oh! captive, bound, and double-ironed," cried the phantom, "not to know, that ages of incessant labour by immortal creatures, for this earth must pass into eternity before the good of which it is susceptible is all developed. Not to know that any Christian spirit working kindly in its little sphere, whatever it may be, will find its mortal life too short for its vast means of usefulness. Not to know that no space of regret can make amends for one life's opportunities misused! Yet such was I! Oh! such was I!"

Of course Scrooge, flustered, tries to counter this grim depiction by telling him "you were always a good man of business, Jacob…" Marley's response is worth recalling in full:

"Business!" cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business. The common welfare was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The dealings of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!" (Scrooge goes on to see other phantoms, all in grief, bemoaning their inability to do now what they could have done when in life. It sounds very much like… Hell.)

In our Advent mediations, it's worth taking into account that even a relatively secular saint, Charles Dickens, saw a bit of Hell as one of the perspectives woven into the season. The 1938 film version with Reginald Owen, like most visualizations of the story, puts a clear hint of brimstone in the scene at Scrooge's own tombstone.

But the 1983 Disney animated "Christmas Carol," with Mickey as Bob Cratchit, puts Scrooge McDuck appropriately enough in the key role, and when confronted with the grave and what lies beyond, there's outright flame and fear enough for any hardshell preacher.

Disney's point, like anyone's intention, I believe, in evoking the prospect of future consequences is to turn someone's heart to reform, to redemption, to being saved from such an outcome, and saved for a better day not just on earth but in heaven as well.

That's how Hell already has a place at a modern Christmas table, through "A Christmas Carol." Perhaps the old ways are not gone, but working under the surface in ways we have to look at closely, to see as still relevant today.

And to get us on the path to heaven, which is our theme next week!


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he remembers being scared by the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come as a child. Tell him how you work through your fears in this happy season at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Faith Works 12-5-2025

Faith Works 12-5-2025
Jeff Gill

Advent continues week by week
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Advent, the season leading up to Christmas, is a time of preparation for the arrival of Christ child in many Christian churches.

There are four weeks, four Sundays of Advent, and this Sunday is the second.

While a more contemporary pattern of observance has the second Sunday theme as "Peace," there's an ancient model for using the Advent season as a penitential discipline I find interesting. Not the more familiar "hope, peace, joy, and love" but an older pattern, challenging us to spend time in reflection through Advent of "the four last things." These last things are death, judgment, hell, and heaven. Sounds Christmasy, right?

Or perhaps not so much, but this is the challenge of Advent. Not just a countdown to Christmas, but a true preparation of the heart for a new beginning, a fresh start, an end to what was for allowing what might yet be.

We talked about death last week. In this second week, what of judgment?

In my interactions with people about faith, one objection I often hear is how religion is blamed for the experience of guilt. Do religions traffic in guilt on occasion? I would be foolish to say it doesn't happen.

But as an advocate for faith and belief and reflection on last things for the opportunity to turn to God's new creation, I would suggest this in response: is it really the case that, if all religion were to disappear, no one would experience guilt? Or regret? Second thoughts about what has been, and how we should be?

I would argue that there's an aspect of judgment which is part of the human experience. We know what we should do, and we don't. We're aware of better choices than the ones we've made, and when we think about why we made the ones we did, there's something that arises in us that can only be called guilt. We could have done better, and we didn't. Now what?

One of the reasons the ancient church commended reflection on "the four last things" is because we need to see clearly what God is up to in matters such as judgment. Christian faith doesn't teach that we get to skip judgment, or say it doesn't matter; rather, it tells us that we need not fear judgment. In fact, we should welcome it. Because with judgment comes clarity, and perhaps even resolution.

There are guilts and sorrows and secrets that can only be relieved by confessing them, and then knowing they do not have to define us or control our destiny. Maybe they are small and stupid; as a pastor, I know not a few of us have deeper, more tragic reasons to grieve our past choices. In Advent, in worship in many ways, we have a chance to set those burdens before God, who has promised in Christ Jesus himself to carry them away for us, and let us enter our future, our forever even, without having to hold onto them.

The classic phrase in scripture, from Psalm 103, is that our sins are removed from us "as far as the east is from the west." What a beautiful image. As far as we can imagine, and then some. This is what judgment is, in faith. We acknowledge our guilt, and let God take it away "as far as the east is from the west."

Judgment is not to be feared. Advent's reflection on judgement is about how God has promised to resolve, not create, our guilt. The gift of forgiveness and hope is Christmas gift we might all hope for.

If we've considered death and judgment, though, in the ancient model for Advent, that means next week asks us to contemplate… Hell. In the Christmas season, no less. Seems hard, doesn't it? But if I can get ahead a bit, think about "A Christmas Carol," or that modern echo of it, "Scrooged." It might not be such an odd fit after all.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's a big Dickens fan along with the Bible. Tell him how you prepare for Christmas joy at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Notes from my Knapsack 12-4-2025

Notes from my Knapsack 12-4-2025
Jeff Gill

Munson land and Granville heritage
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Jesse Munson has long intrigued me.

One of the first stories of Granville I happened to hear caught the agricultural side of my soul. It had to do with the arrival of wagons from Granville, Massachusetts and neighboring Connecticut in November of 1805.

A party of wagons drawn by oxen arrived about Nov. 2 and camped on the open space, sheltered by the Welsh Hills, now called the Munson Springs Preserve. It was the Jones cabin area at the time, the blue ash logs of the Jones & Cunningham cabins still standing, though Lillie Jones had died, her husband and children now residing far to the south, and Patrick Cunningham a resident of the newly laid out Newark just east of them.

The Jones cabin was about where Longford and Galway Drives meet; the Cunningham cabin just up the slope into the nature reserve, below the springs then without a name in English. On the level ground, dozens of wagons drew up in a vast circle, in the center "night was made lurid with a great burning log heap," according to Bushnell's 1889 history.

Lieutenant Jesse Munson, always honored with that title for his service as a leader of men in the Revolutionary War, had come because almost all of his nine children with Miriam were coming to Ohio. He was of the advanced age of (your author gulps) 64, and when he realized his whole heritage was heading for Ohio, he threw his lot in with them.

Still quite spry (ouch: yes, I'm 64 too), he was a great help along the way; he knew wagons and carpentry, and when a bolt broke, he whipped out a piece of hardwood and made a replacement part that lasted to their destination, arriving at the area of what we now call Munson Springs on Nov. 12. The next day, some hundred first settlers would make their way across Clear Run to today's Four Corners, chop down their first tree, and establish Granville.

But on Nov. 12, 1805, effectively arriving at their destination, Jesse jumped down as legend tells it, grasped a handful of the soil, squeezed it, smelled it, and tasted it. Yes, tasted the soil. He liked the flavor, and told his sons "I should have that farm."

On Dec. 10, there was an auction for the right to choose lots for purchase. Lt. Jesse Munson obtained much of the land on either side of what we now call Newark-Granville Road, from today's Jones Road to Cherry Valley Road, including the springs just up the slope into the hills which now bear his name.

The parcel we now call the Munson Springs Reserve, ironically, was purchased by Levi Hayes, often called Deacon Hayes for his role in the establishment of the Congregational Church in the village, now First Presbyterian. He built a log tavern which in 1808 would host the founding of Licking County, and the first meeting of the county Common Pleas Court. This first "courthouse" would be replaced in 1810 by a large two-story frame house, built with the output of the Munson saw mill built on Raccoon Creek just west of where Arby's sits today. The 1810 House was unique in having a single central chimney and five fireplaces built into it between the two stories and basement; it stood until the 1980s across from Fackler's in what is now the small woodlot facing the road. Each spring, a few clusters of heirloom daffodils mark the location of its front door.

Today, this parcel and the Great Lawn of the Bryn Du Mansion are the only acreage on the east side of the village which are covered with the good soil Jesse Munson tasted. Modern development bulldozes off the topsoil down to clay subsoil before starting construction, then at the end imports a thin layer of topsoil or rolls out sod to begin life again.

At Munson Springs, our history still goes deep.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he does not, as a rule, taste dirt to assess real estate, but he's not a farmer, either. Tell him your favorite history tale at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.


If it needs to go under 600 words, remove this:
…though Lillie Jones had died, her husband and children now residing far to the south, and Patrick Cunningham a resident of the newly laid out Newark just east of them.

The Jones cabin was about where Longford and Galway Drives meet; the Cunningham cabin just up the slope into the nature reserve, below the springs then without a name in English.

Faith Works 11-28-2025

Faith Works 11-28-2025
Jeff Gill

Advent themes past and present
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Here we are on the doorstep of Advent, the weeks of preparation before Christmas Day.

For those who make use of the liturgical calendar of the Christian year, this Sunday is New Year's Day, sort of. The cycle of lectionary readings reset, and churches around the world in worship live out the story of Jesus in texts and themes.

That cycle begins with Advent, a time whose name reminds us of the coming of the Messiah in ages past, and a promise to come (or "ad venio" in Latin) at the end of days.

You may be getting the sense here that Advent is not intended as just a countdown for Christmas. To be fair, I loved the old custom on the front page of the local paper of a small block with cartoon figures telling us how many "shopping days 'til Xmas" (especially the Peanuts gang taking over the job one year). You don't see those anymore, of course, because when shopping is increasingly online and 24/7, what do "shopping days" mean? Reverse spoiler alert: it was a device to help us recall how many days minus Sundays were left to Dec. 25, because stores used to be (ahem) closed on Sundays. Anyhow.

In worship, one common pattern for many years has been to use an Advent wreath, candles, and themes of "Hope, Peace, Joy, and Love" for the four Sundays before the day of Christmas itself, and a Christ candle in the center. The third, Gaudete Sunday, marks joy with a pink candle in some chancels.

Why a break for "joy" and pink in the middle of Advent's purple or royal blue? Because the older tradition was for Advent to echo Lent as a time for prayer and reflection, even a bit of penitence. Gaudete was joy breaking out of deeper season of contemplation.

In that spirit, I don't want to get too Lenten, but would offer an intention to look back into an older Advent pattern. Not hope, peace, joy, and love as the themes, delightful as they are.

An ancient discipline of Advent is to use each week to reflect on what the church has called the "four last things." Yes, those. Death, judgment, hell, and heaven. The "quattuor novissima" which come for us all.

If you're saying "Jeff, that's not very Christmas-y," you have my point precisely. The purpose of Advent is to prepare us for a joyful arrival, but the clearing out of heart, soul, and mind for the coming guest may take some gritty work. I'm not an Advent absolutist, where some say "no Christmas carols until late on the 24th!" But how about calling on an ancient tradition to guide us in complicated times?

Which means we would start, on the first Sunday of Advent, in due consideration of… death. Let me clue folks in who don't already know: one of the great challenges of Christmas for many is how they fit together death that has come with the happiness we're socially obligated to feel. Death arrives whether we're ready or not, near us, if not in the midst of life as we know it.

As a pastor, I've done a few hundred funerals, to where they blur a bit, I'll admit, but those I've helped do right around Christmastime? They stick with me. A funeral a few days before or after Christmas? They happen all the time. Most of us tend to overlook them.

So let's consider death as a landmark of life, a monument to navigate by. How many Christmas seasons do we have to work with? And how does that knowledge mark what we want to have happen in the Advent we're in, right now?

If that's not bracing enough, next week is judgment! Like so much in life, it will get harder before it gets better. But it will get better, in due time.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's thinking just four last things at least keeps the list manageable. Tell him how you prepare for Advent at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Faith Works 11-21-2025

Faith Works 11-21-2025
Jeff Gill

A reflection on authority and abuse and our response
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For anyone who might be hurt by reading about abuse, the story I want to tell here does not get into any details, but certainly can evoke the circumstances around such events for some. It's not about abuse that happened to me; it's about how we've tried as a society to change how we respond to suspicions of abusive behavior over the last fifty years or so. Perhaps we're in a better place; I think so.

Just over forty years ago, I was 22 and in a position of responsibility at a summer camp. I would turn 23 just as the summer ends, heading back to college and with a growing sense I would enter seminary soon after graduation.

It would have been about this week in November, 42 years ago, I returned home from college to a surprising message. The chief executive of the organization which ran the summer camp, where I had been program director for three summers at that point, wanted me to call him.

In truth, I rarely talked to this person. There was a camp director over me on site, but as a full-time professional himself in this youth serving organization, he was out of camp more than present, but he reported to the chief, not me. I had seen him in person maybe half a dozen times, spoken less, called him never. We all knew he flew B-17s over Europe in World War II, and was a man of few words; we had spoken last in the middle of the previous summer.

He called me at camp after I fired a staff member for violating youth protection guidelines. This staffer was new to us, about my age, already in seminary, and our chaplain. He was seen bringing a young staffer into his cabin, was warned, and he did so a second time. I spoke to the camp director, as I had other concerns with this person. I was told the chief had personally asked we hire this staffer as chaplain, because the head of his seminary was a friend who had recommended him.

The next weekend, before the new week's worth of youth arrived, he was reported to me as having again violated the "two-deep" rule for adults and youth in his cabin. The camp director was off site; I got a senior member of staff to witness with me a conversation where the young man in question, the chaplain, admitted he had again violated a guideline he had been warned about previously, saying "but it was a minor infraction, I wanted to show him something." I told him he was fired, and to pack.

The camp director on returning was furious, and said I couldn't fire any staffer without his consent (though he had me do the firing every year because he didn't like doing it, which was an interesting learning experience). I explained what had happened; next I knew I was on the phone to the organization's CEO, who heard me out, grunted, told me to follow the camp director's instructions, and hung up.

As you've guessed, the chaplain violated the two-deep rule again before the week was out, and he was sent packing… but my boss said "the chief won't like it." However, that was the last I heard about it.

Until November. The chief picked up when I called. He told me his friend from the seminary had called him in tears; the young man I'd fired had been arrested for sexual abuse of a minor at his church. Apparently he called to apologize to his friend, my boss's boss. Who in turn now told me "I owe you an apology. I should have supported you from the start. I was wrong. Thank you for what you did."

We've come a long way in forty years. I hope.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he knows the children services number without looking it up. Tell him how you've dealt with hard situations at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Faith Works 11-14-2025

Faith Works 11-14-2025
Jeff Gill

When thankfulness becomes giving
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This is the time of year when many faith communities, and in truth many non-profits of all sorts, conduct some sort of campaign around stewardship and finances and invitations to give.

As a long-time parish pastor, I've seen many different approaches to this need to prepare and to plan as an institution, because if a faith community has a church building and staff who are compensated on any basis, you are an institution whether you like it or not.

Some congregations have a standard system they've used for years with pledge cards and promotional pieces in the bulletin, perhaps some special sermons in worship about stewardship or other speakers talking about their own experience with tithing as a spiritual discipline, and why they give.

Since most churches have already done theirs for the year by the time you read this, I'll take a risk here and offer my own ideas, which for the record, no church I've served has liked or adopted. So YMMV! (Your mileage may vary.)

I dislike pledge cards, or commitment cards, or estimate of giving cards. It brings up echoes of layaway and club dues and membership in the wrong sort of way. I love fall stewardship campaigns: as education campaigns. Tell your community here's what we intend to do, here's what it will cost. Use your finance team's time to research that, have good answers to it, and refine how to share it with the church community in multiple ways.

If you have a $300,000 projected budget, and a hundred giving units, then you're telling them the work of the church anticipates an average of $250 per month from each giver. Sure, some will give less, some will give more, but almost everyone thinks of themselves as above average. I've heard all the arguments for why a giving campaign should come first, and budget making second, but without getting into too much detail, I'm just not convinced.

I'm also on the fence about how much to talk about tithing. I talk about it, I preach on it, and I've served congregations where it was common conversation, and where it wasn't, and just as an opening comment: the number of tithers wasn't much different in either. The reality is 2-3% of income is common among U.S. Christians of all sorts, and 10% (however you calculate, pre- or post-taxes, another long discussion I'll skip for now) is a heavy lift. What I do eagerly talk about is proportional giving: see Luke 21.

Because at minimum, at bare minimum, people of faith should know a) how much they make, and b) how much they give. You'd be amazed to know how few people know their income. I. Am. Not. Kidding. You may know your biweekly take-home pay and not much else, which is a great way to end up in a hole.

Stewardship starts with clarity and honesty about what you make, what you spend, and what you give. Don't tell me you're a tither if you're unclear what's coming in. And for some, God's call puts much more than ten percent on the table. If you know your situation, and it's 2% and tight, making a firm commitment to 2.5% is something I would honor. You start there, and work up.

Local churches are struggling, and I honor their struggle. The costs of owning a property, grand or humble, and the expenses of staffing, even for part-time positions, are significantly higher than they were in the 1980s. Not just inflation, but there are costs of compliance & operations (starting with insurance!) which are a bigger percentage of church budgets than they once were. My prayer is that we support where we worship, and listen to those dealing with hard questions around finances. If our assumptions are rooted in how we've always done it, we might just be wrong.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's preached quite a few Consecration Sunday sermons. Tell him your views on stewardship at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Notes from my Knapsack 11-20-2025

Notes from my Knapsack 11-20-2025
Jeff Gill

On the reckoning of time
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With this winter, we move out of the lunar northern maximum, a point in visible astronomy which comes around every 18.6 years, thanks to the irregular orbit of the Moon around our lovely Earth.

This is only the second such cycle I have gotten to observe consciously, thanks to the work of professors Ray Hively and Robert Horn, who in the early 1980s published their results from having surveyed the Newark Earthworks in general, and the Octagon Earthworks in particular, with an eye to archaeoastronomy.

Brad Lepper, then site archaeologist, introduced me to their work in 1990, and when we sat down to figure out the cycle in relation to where we were, it turned out we'd just missed it. So we marked our calendars for 2004 when the monthly swing of the moonrises from north to south would start veering close to the lunar maximum again, peaking in 2006 then narrowing back to a minimum range in the fall of 2015; we and many others got to watch both. Now we're back in the maximums, the peak last March, but regular swings still close enough to the center line or "symmetry axis" of the Octagon's enclosures to be worth viewing, just a full moon's diameter or two away from the maximal alignment.

To view a third will require me to make it into my 80s. Not impossible, but getting old enough I want to enjoy the experience as much as I can now, and I have been. The public events at the Octagon Earthworks have maxed out the attendance limits given our logistical issues (as much to protect the site as for the safety of visitors after dark, but both play a role in capping the number allowed entry). Last fall and again this year we've had hundreds of people getting to view a moonrise as the Octagon is set up to emphasize, a total of a thousand witnesses by the time we reach the end of the year.
In some ways, the Octagon Earthworks remind me of a vast, horizontal astronomical clock. The pendulum is the line between the viewer, whether on the axis in the middle of the enclosure, or perhaps originally atop the Observatory Mound to the southwest, and the rise point of the moon. That "pendulum" swings back and forth, "ticks" the seconds, except the seconds are lunar months. Imagine a clock face laying flat, and not marking twelve hours, but 18.6 years.

Europe has some historic astronomical clocks in public squares, of great antiquity even if less than half the age of our earthworks. They contain multiple dials on them, one tracking the zodiac, another the seasons, another the days of the week, the day's time the largest dial and hands sweeping around. Cinderella's castle at Disney World has a suggestion of such a clock on the central tower, a reminder of how a central clock was once at the center of a community, like the timepieces on today's Courthouse towers.

I do hope to witness the silent tolling of this timepiece, the turning of this immense calendar, one more time. But my hope now is more to spend the time ahead helping to teach this story to others, passing along the wisdom we have and the questions that continue, now in relationship with the descendants of the builders here. They, and we, will continue our stewardship of these antiquities to generations still to come: which might well be a key element of why these were built. To communicate our understandings to generations yet unborn.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's enjoyed some nights at the Octagon when we didn't see a thing, but that's part of the story, too. Tell him what you look forward to at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Faith Works 11-7-2025

Faith Works 11-7-2025
Jeff Gill

Anticipation at war with nostalgia
___


We live in a consumer capitalist economy, designed to reward those who most effectively stimulate our desire to purchase things.

When we're hungry, this takes the form of how advertising and product placement and manufactured convenience causes us to make choices between ready to eat goods out in the marketplace, or items prepared for consumption at home. Why buy one burger rather than another? Some of it is habit, some of it is location, and today's acme of consumer capitalism can be found in loyalty programs, most recently translated as "in app" purchases.

Just to clarify, I'm largely a fan of capitalism and markets. That's a longer debate for another day if you favor socialism and centralized control. But my frustration, if that's the right word for a confused feeling of discontent, is around how poorly most of us stay awake, aware, and mindful of how consumerism works. It's not complicated, and it's easy to resist, but most of us let it blow us around and be nudged in directions not in our longer term best interests.

As my doctor likes to remind me, because he's a very good doctor, I can make purchases in advance of my hungers that are better for me than the ones I make out of convenience, from impulse, which are often both more expensive and less healthy. But it takes intentionality.

Being a Christian minister I am thinking along these lines as I watch the Christmasification of absolutely everything, starting roughly fifteen minutes after trick-or-treating ended (or mid-September if you go by TV ads). Now, I am not wanting to be a Scrooge here. At home we could put out one of those self-declaration signs, but ours saying "In this house, we watch Hallmark Channel films all the year round, without judgment." You may or may not know that those fine folks have branched out into Spring themed movies, Summer as well, along with Hanukkah Hallmark stories, etc. But in July, you get a month of Christmas movies, and they pop up all year round . . . and we're here for it. Plus, other channels have launched to pick up an echo of that holiday two-hour neat package story vibe.

It's just that pushing all the Christmas-y stuff back into November a) obscures Thanksgiving and fall and apples and roast turkey and the rest of this month's pleasures, and b) continues to overwhelm the quiet ancient and proper understanding of the liturgical season of Christmas, which goes AFTER Dec. 25 to at least January 6 and Epiphany, the twelve days of Christmas you know, and on traditional worship calendars all the way to February 2 and Candlemas. The groundhog is a later addition to the cultural round.

Make Christmas LAST, I would plead, not start sooner. But that's where consumer capitalism kicks in. Anticipation can trigger more purchasing than even the mystic power of nostalgia, and for longer. You can start marketing decor and accents and plan-ahead gifts in August, for pity's sake, five months worth of sales. After? The energy isn't there.

I know I'm both shouting into the wind, and preaching to the choir, all at the same time. But I feel sad at how ruthlessly and thoroughly we see Christmas peeled back and tossed aside on Dec. 26, when in practice we should be just getting going on it. Some of the Christmas music stations have started carrying on into New Year's Eve, which is something; not long ago they switched back their format Christmas evening, as the stores all started putting up Valentine's decor.

Put up your lights as early as you want, friends, just don't be in such a hurry to take them down. Let's allow Christmas to last this year, even into next.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; his practice is putting up the tree on St. Nicholas's Day and taking it down on Epiphany. Tell him how you make Christmas last at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Notes from my Knapsack 11-6-2025

Notes from my Knapsack 11-6-2025
Jeff Gill

Preparing for senior life situations
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One of many things my wife and I have learned over the last five or six years is just how many people are worried about elderly relatives, whether parents or grandparents or others they feel some level of responsibility for.

Seniors who are showing signs of fragility when it comes to driving, living alone, or just taking care of business generally, are nothing new to me. I entered parish ministry forty years ago, and such situations were among my first pastoral challenges. People would ask if I'd checked on Mary Alice or George, and it would turn out there were many reasons for concern, and few tools to use in response.

I've been part of at least a dozen "interventions" around the car keys, and some don't end well, despite the best efforts of adult children and close friends, let alone ministers who get called Judas for their troubles. There's no one map or path through this.

You may notice, especially if you're in this age bracket of feeling your years, yet being the active helper for those much older, that around November and December, there's a spike in TV ads about finding "help for Mom" sorts of services. There's a hard practical reason for that. You can kid yourself for months on the phone or in quick visits, but often the Thanksgiving dinner is where the kids see things they'd missed before. Lack of care, loss of memory, confusion on the basics. There are huddles on the porch, and conversations outside about what could be done, what might be offered.

Here's a few thoughts for those entering this anxious cohort. First, a parent or family member on their own still gets to make choices - even bad ones. Interventions are harder than you might realize. But: you can prepare without permission. There's no court hearing needed to allow you to start making preparations. Scout motto and all, you know.

For pity's sake, don't wait for a trip to the emergency department to start. That's when many people gear up, and there are some shocks to come if you don't start researching options sooner. Starting with the hard fact: senior or assisted living is not available on the day or even the week you need it. You will encounter waitlists, and the best facilities have months long ones.

You need to know what the options are in your area; Medicare has a good website to help you get started, but if you say "only three or four star facilities for my X" you need to look at the full range, because when it was a fall or hospitalization that took a person out of their house, it's the hospital that says when they leave, and not always back to the home. Sometimes what's available isn't what looks best on paper, and you will have to adapt.

Planning ahead isn't being pessimistic or mean (even if you might end up being told that, by the person in question if they realize you've done so). It's the difference between choosing and having choices made for you.

Hope is not a plan. Sean Grady, our county emergency management head, reminds me of this truism often. It ain't, either. Being ready and knowing what questions to ask is a gift, one that may not be appreciated in the moment it's needed, but you'll be glad you did.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been asking questions about senior care for what seems like forever, and now he is one. Tell him your solutions at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Faith Works 10-31-2025

Faith Works 10-31-2025
Jeff Gill

It's the great mass cultural experience, Charlie Brown
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Almost sixty years ago, for nearly three generations, you could at the end of October assume a set of cultural references shared by everyone.

Not religion or church-going, not even football in Ohio or basketball in Indiana.

"It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown" aired in 1966, and became a yearly tradition (first on CBS, later ABC), much anticipated in days before VHS tape or digital media. If you missed it, that was it for the year, and few missed it.

What's hard to believe is that the whole program, credits included, is just twenty-five minutes long. Within that tight time frame, you have Lucy pulling away the football as Charlie Brown tries to kick it. There's Linus explaining to Sally the peculiar theology of the Great Pumpkin, rooted in sincerity as well as the pumpkin patch. We get trick-or-treating, and "I got a rock" not once, but three times. And the idea of a Hallowe'en party with bobbing for apples and kids costumes, not the first time anyone had seen one, but possibly an origin point for the explosion of such events into the festivals we see today from rec centers to High Streets.

And there is the incredible sequence woven in of Snoopy, the World War I fighting ace, shot down by the Red Baron, then making his way behind enemy lines, mournful train whistles in the distance, past ruined farmsteads and French signposts (all geographically accurate at Schulz's insistence) until our hero makes his way to… you know. That "smash cut" is still a vital memory of childhood for me, still delightfully jarring today.

I suspect most of you are remembering each of these scenes with me, in sight and sound, nodding along. Even the subtler elements, such as the usually flat, two-dimensional scenes shifting in Snoopy's fantasy (it is a fantasy, right?) to perspectives and deep background, blending into painted skies which evoke mixed memories with so many autumnal sunsets: it's all quite real to most of us.

We don't have this story, though, as a mass cultural experience anymore. That lament went up first with "A Charlie Brown Christmas" leaving public airwaves, and we've discussed the subject before. From holiday animated specials to MASH finales, the idea of anything being a common touchstone for over 50% of all of us is fading into the rear-view mirror. Many of us have seen "Great Pumpkin," but not everyone, and certainly not all children.

As much as the show is beloved for the reasons I shared above, what makes me want to keep putting this complicated yet simple story in front of children (of all ages) is the ending. The credits include a final closing sequence, but the ending to me is with Lucy and Linus.

Lucy, cranky, mischievous, cantankerous Lucy, wakes up at 4 am (do not ask where their parents are, that's a different universe anyhow), checks her blockhead brother's bed, and finds it empty. She makes a face, dons coat and scarf and hat, heading for the pumpkin patch. She finds the dozing Linus, shivering in the pre-dawn cold; sister walks brother back to the house still mostly asleep, and to his bed. She takes off his shoes, and covers him up. She still looks irritated, but she does all this, then back to bed herself.

Love. Cranky love, but it's still love. Not announced with trumpets or phalanxes of violins, just a simple quiet scene of caring, compassion, and love.

That's what Hallowe'en is all about, Charlie Brown. May you have a delightful one, whatever you do to mark the day.


Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he gets a chill every year when he hears that train whistle on Snoopy's journey. Tell him where you find love shown unexpectedly at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.

Coda: https://youtu.be/NIWh_YIRQuM