Faith Works 5-13-06
Jeff Gill

Reforming the Reformers

Our season from Easter to Pentecost series on the branches of Christendom continues with reforms of the Reformation.
Last week we saw Martin Luther in 1517 start the ball rolling, so to speak, although Czechs would proudly note that an early reformation movement was in their province of Moravia, under Jan Hus, over 50 years earlier. And they’d be right: the Moravian Church ushered in the Protestant Reformation, and their descendants would be some of the first Protestant Christians to reach the Ohio country in the 1700’s, giving us Schoenbrunn and Gnadenhutten and Lichtenau, so we daren’t forget them!
The Swiss Reformation under John Calvin was quickly exported to places like Scotland by way of French Hugenots, so even today the Church of Scotland is what today Americans know as Presbyterian, a church led by elders in session consulting and discerning together, the word for elder in Biblical Greek being roughly "presbyter" transliterated to English. John Knox and other Scots reformers brought Calvinism into the Anglosphere, but not without some resistance.
At first, the king of England called Henry the Eighth was indignant at "the monk Luther" challenging God’s authority through the church, which he rightly saw as challenging royal prerogatives. Writings he "helped" pen led to his receiving from the Roman pontiff the title "Defender of the Faith." Ironically, British monarchs still hold this title.
The irony is because the same Henry, heir-less from his first wife, led a reformation of the English, or Anglican Church, which led them away from Roman primacy and towards a "Church of England," with the monarch as, well, "Defender of the Faith." The Archbishop of Canterbury became another "primus inter pares," or first among equals in a form of church leadership for what is still known as the Anglican Communion, the third largest world branch of Christendom after Catholic and Orthodox Christian bodies.
Is the ruler of England the head of the church? Elizabeth the Second today, like her esteemed ancestor of the late 1500’s Elizabeth I, child of Henry, is exactly that for most Anglicans, but her son Charles, hapless Prince of Wales, may find a way to step aside from such a role given his complex marital history.
What is as true now, as then, is that the English Reformation was both less and more than many other Protestant revolutions, so their American branch, the Episcopal Church (from "episcope," or overseer aka bishop in New Testament Greek) has a liturgy quite similar to a Catholic mass. The major difference is in the authority structure, or hierarchy, tracing to the archbishops and primates of the still vital Anglican Christian stream.
Back in Europe, the idea of authority was thrown entirely aside by some reforming groups, especially in Bavaria and southern Germany into Switzerland, who thought Luther was far too restrained in his reform of the church.
Under leaders like Jacob Amman, becoming the Amish, or Menno Simons, with Mennonites, groups who saw authority as primarily in the local or congregational unit of the church, and who removed baptism from the infant to the adult stage of spiritual growth, were called "Anabaptist." They strongly weighed against ("ana") baptism as a rite of the church, and made it a decision of the mature adult to be, most often, immersed ("baptizo") in water, and many if not most were sent across the waters of the Atlantic for their troubles. Anabaptist groups are to this day both mostly found in the New World, and often associated with the clothing and habits of the time period that gave them birth, the 1600’s.
And even the Lutheran Christian movement of Germany, once made the official state church, provoked a reaction of what became known as "Pietism," a group seeking the original passion and purpose of Martin Luther’s first reformation. Some of these Pietist groups, Brethren and Dunkards German Evangelicals and the like, included a renewed Moravian Church, staying largely loyal to their Lutheran roots, helped to spin off movements and energy for groups that we know today in America in many forms . . . which we’ll talk about next week.
Suffice it to say that the Anglicans had protesters against their structures of authority, some who were more "pure" and some who wanted adult baptism or more congregational government (at least in the colonies) and some who were quaking in their silent prayer assemblies; these Puritans and Baptists and Congregationalists and Quakers all left the episcopal way of being Christian for organizing principles that still are with us in Licking County today.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story through disciple@voyager.net.

Notes From My Knapsack 5-14-06
Jeff Gill

Begin With a Single Step

Sidewalks, bike paths, trails, even the wider shoulders of some roads; strollers and bicycles and walkers of all sorts are out and around in this glorious spring weather.
True, we could use a little more rain, but just as in Camelot, Licking County has been receiving her liquid precipitation between midnight and 5 am for the most part.
Cool nights, also known as "good sleepin’ weather," with sunny days make for idyllic mornings and evenings, perfect for taking a nice walk.
Most health and weight loss advice boils down to this: get a move on! Better nutrition, smaller portion sizes, colorful platefuls of veggies are all important. But somewhat counterintuitively, a bit more exercise makes your body "ask" for more of that stuff, and plenty of fitness leaves your internal cues all pointing to the good stuff. If your muscles and bones are doing real work, they want real food and they know how to tell your foolish brain what the score is.
Kids present slightly different challenges, because they can want crud with their consumer-soaked brains and the veggie-dairy-healthy stuff with their bodies, and eat both with room for more. Limiting (or for some, banning) snack food is a task in its own, but children still respond best to their own physical cues with fitness driving better nutrition.
Where to run around, though? Running around in the car, of course, doesn’t count – let’s not even think about the drive-up windows you go by, or don’t. Our busy schedules of team practices, games, and rehearsals or lessons may actually have less real exercise in them than a long afternoon of running amok . . . if you have somewhere to do it.
A recent book proposed "Nature Deficit Disorder" as a form of illness afflicting American kids, and while I loathe the tendency to make a disorder of every little quirk of life, you can’t really dispute that roaming free in the wilderness ain’t what it used to be.
What did it used to be, anyhow? Is it another one of those golden glowing "good ol’ days" that doesn’t stand up to scrutiny?
My folks opened the 60’s by building a house on the edge of a town/small city, where farm fields could be seen from some upstairs windows and nearby woodlots from most. When we got kicked out of the house, joining other refugees from indoors into the banishment of "go play outside," that’s where we headed. A mowed field behind a church and next to corn was the ball diamond, and a ravine down the block held years of tree forts and scrap board clubhouses.
I suspect that there are some issues with increased fear (if not reality) of liability and lawsuits, with the accompanying fences and signage. The trend to screaming coverage of every pond drowning from Alabama to Wyoming on the local evening news helps generate a climate of fear and anxiety that may press parents to keep kids closer to home, let alone the "stranger danger" epidemic.
But I wonder how much has to do with family size. I was oldest of four, and my mom probably wondered where I was some afternoons, but after yelling my name out the back door, she was chasing another flapping diaper, and just couldn’t obsess about it. (Ground me for getting my sneakers muddy when I got home, she could do that, and ask "where did you get so dirty?" but I’m not sure she heard the answer.)
There was a six pack o’ kids around the corner, and three blocks down a twelve; some families were two and three, but four wasn’t unusual and five wouldn’t draw stares.
My dad was youngest of six, his dad was sixth of nine; great-grandfather was one of two, but that had more to do with his father’s service in the Civil War and then death not long after – he was youngest male of nine, we think, but the records are unclear. Coulda been more, but children who died young don’t always show up on paper.
The Little Guy is one of one, and is quite common in that state; his parents started late and got slowed down by a great deal of moving about. We didn’t really plan to have an only child, though his mother and my mother are exactly that themselves. We try not to be overprotective, but . . .
When you have one kid, you watch them more, if only because they’re the only show in town. You just can’t supervise four kids the same way. Whether or not you think kids should ever be out of your eyeshot or hearing unsupervised is a different debate, but average family size probably has a lot to do with why they rarely get there anymore.
The upside: since even adults should get out for a ramble regularly, just all go together. Stick to paths or climb a fence or two, as long as you’re keeping on the move.
And then have a healthy family dinner!

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; share your favorite family hikes through disciple@voyager.net.

Notes From My Knapsack 5-7-06
Jeff Gill

Headin’ Outside

Next weekend, on Saturday May 13, the Licking County Coalition for Housing will join their friends and supporters in a Golf Outing.
As a non-golfer, I still don’t understand entirely what that means, but apparently golf is even more fun when you are a) helping a worthy charity, b) whacking away with friends to mock your swing (or cheer you on, occasionally), and c) doing it with dozens of others in front of you and behind you to cheer and deride your time spent in those little sandy pits around the green.
If this sounds fun and exciting to you, or if you want to sponsor a portion of the day – I’m told people actually like putting advertising up next to some of the more popular bunkers, where a few spend more time than on the tee – call LCCH at 344-1970, and they’ll set you up.
The Links at Echo Springs is hosting the affair, and they promise green grass and tawny sands; apparently the weather is up to (full disclosure) the members of the bord.
Up and over across the county at Flint Ridge State Memorial, where the museum will open weekends at the end of the month, school field trips from all over the state are arriving, bright yellow buses carrying squadrons of lunch-clutching kids.
These days, most of our visitors are 4th grade students, in line with the all-powerful state proficiency standards, which put Ohio history in that year. A few adventurous 5th grade teachers still bring groups, and we get the stray older youth contingent, but the bulk of our group tour traffic this time of year is either 4th graders or senior citizens rambling the continent.
Jim Kingery, site manager for the Ohio Historical Society, has no word on when the Great Circle unit of Newark Earthworks State Memorial will have a museum facility again, but the old "Fairgrounds Circle" on Rt. 79 between Newark and Heath is open for picnics and some limited tours by arrangement (344-1919).
Those of us who volunteer with the sites to support the school tours get to meet kids and teachers from not only Licking County school districts, but Franklin, Perry, Fairfield, Muskingum, and Athens Counties, along with an annual visit from a school up in the Cleveland area on their way to the Statehouse and the Ohio Historical Center.
Over the last couple years we’ve met contingents from Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and New York. And those are just the ones who have made specific arrangements for a formal tour!
Often, while I’m waiting for a school bus to show up at Great Circle or Flint Ridge, a car will appear with a couple or family traveling from point A to point B who thought they’d stop along the way. We offer them what we can, and just in recent months I’ve given impromptu tours to visitors from Texas, Minnesota, Michigan, Florida, Oklamhoma, Louisiana, and Missouri. All to folks who drove out of their way to see our world famous 2000 year old earthworks.
Flint Ridge is a bit more off the beaten path, but still near the interstate, and well marked off of both I-70 and Rt. 40. Coming soon is the "World’s Longest Yard Sale" effort along the old National Road, from Cumberland, Maryland to . . . well, it’s going through Licking County, and may not end in Illinois but it will go at least that far, or so I hear from Doug Smith.
Along with being our newest county commissioner, Doug has been a student and teacher of the National Road and its lore. Efforts to promote this scenic and historic byway often involve him, and he and Charla Devine of Devine Farms have been active in promoting this Memorial Day weekend event. More to come . . .
Any route you may drive out to Flint Ridge takes you up and up, and winds around for good measure, but get a driver and switch with them when you get to the ridge and let them watch out the windows on the way back. Redbuds and dogwood are blossoming out all over; trillium on shady hillsides and fire pinks standing above swaths of spring beauties along the ridgetops.
Even though the daffodils and crocuses are fading, a new crop of native wildflowers and flowering trees is coming into season. A few more weeks, and yellow or tulip poplars will blossom up in the canopy a hundred feet above; watch at your feet for their falling petals.
Forsythia is dropping her yellow for a more staid green; we not only had next to no winter, we didn’t even have a snow after the forsythia bloomed.
But frost-free is another week away, so hold onto those tomato plants on top of the refrigerator! Even in a warm year like this, a quick freeze in mid-May is perfectly possible . . . as long as it isn’t the morning of the LCCH Golf Outing!

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he doesn’t golf, but he’d be happy to mention your good cause’s golf event if you tell him through disciple@voyager.net.

Faith Works 5-6-06
Jeff Gill

Was Luther a Lutheran?

On the Eve of All Saints’ Day, 1517, Martin Luther uploaded his blog to the internet.
Er, he got a full page ad in the Wittenberg, Germany area Gannett newspaper.
No? Well, maybe he sent a direct mail flier with his detailed list of concerns to a targeted group of opinion shapers in the local zip code?
Of course none of that is correct; many of you know that the soon-to-be former Augustinian monk and priest and professor nailed his 95 theses, or points of dispute with Roman Catholic theology and practice, to the door of Wittenberg Church, next door to the Castle.
Nailing your thoughts to a church door sounds dramatic and picturesque, but for Martin Luther’s time and place, with Gutenberg’s printing press still an innovation and communication the province of the wealthy and influential, the best way to let average Joe, or Johannes, to get in on the debate was to post your theses on the public square. There they’d be next to the list of the banns, or who proposed to marry in the next few weeks, the property transfers, and memorial notices.
Sounds like the first few pages of the Advocate, doesn’t it? And that’s the point: many read the paper daily to see who’s getting hitched (or un-), who bought what parcel of land, and if their name is in the obituaries. As some of us say, if we aren’t listed in the "Death Notices," then we can have breakfast and move on.
So Martin Luther wanted to be on the editorial board, and write an Op-Ed, and even wanted feedback. "Hier stehe ich," as he was later to say, "Here I stand," "Ich kann nicht anders," – "I can do no other."
A movie was recently in theaters which starred Joseph Fiennes, who played the title role in "Shakespeare In Love." Titled simply "Luther," the viewing is worth it if only for the sight of Alberto Molina, actor with Diego Rivera and Doctor Octopus to his credit, playing Johannes Tetzel, a Dominican monk who is often and maybe even fairly blamed for precipitating Luther’s break with Rome.
Including the dramatic if ahistorical line "every coin in coffer rings, a soul from purgatory springs" (it was used, but not by Tetzel), you see the hard-sell fund raising techniques used by those working to build a new St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. You’ve heard of church splits over building fund campaigns? Well, this was the mother of all campaigns, and it began the mother of all Christian divisions, the Protestant Reformation.
Luther did have much to protest about abuses in the organized church of his day, but his original desire was to reform, not revolt. Likewise, the Catholic Church needed reformation, and soon embarked on a renewal campaign called the
Counter-Reformation, with many bishops and cardinals agreeing at the Council of Trent that their church must change.
But by then it was too late for those changes to be negotiated between the factions, for reasons both theological and political. The involvement of the infamously named "Holy Roman Empire" (as Gibbon noted, neither holy, nor Roman, and not even an empire) precipitated open warfare, and Luther’s conviction that priests should marry and the people should not only read scripture in their own language but – oh, the horror! – sing in worship, created a communion that was no longer in communion with the Bishop of Rome.
Were they Lutheran, though? Well, that’s what we call them, though it would no doubt sadden Martin. The German Church, with bishops of their own people and a separate but cooperative relationship with the civil authority, was reformed by Luther in a way that was different than his neighbor to the south, in Geneva, Switzerland, organized church and state. The rise of John Calvin and his Reformed Church helped cement the idea of "Lutherans" and "Calvinists" within the Reformation, each protesting in their own way.
Thirty years of warfare resulted in a stability Luther was never to see in his lifetime, with Catholicism resurgent in the south, especially around Munich.
The form of state Protestantism known as Lutheran spread north to the Scandinavian countries of Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and Finland, and much of the Baltic region. Many Lutheran churches in this country have a strong ethnic component from one of those countries.
There are also some well known faith communities in this country springing from groups that protested the protesters, when the Lutheran Reformation became the official state church. We’ll look at those next week, in part four of this series.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; contact him at disciple@voyager.net.

Faith Works 4-29-06
Jeff Gill

Beneath Vatican Hill

The Roman Catholic Church traces her roots beneath the massive bulk of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, where fill that Emperor Constantine brought in to level a side of Vatican Hill covers an ancient cemetery.
Below the "modern" structure, the second on that constructed platform, tombs from before the time of Christ and just after now can be toured, with the conclusion of the visit to the excavations, or "scavi," come to the area just under the high altar, beneath the center of the vast dome designed by Michaelangelo.
It is what archaeologists and classical scholars believe is the burial place of Simon Peter, foremost of the apostles and leader of the Christian movement carried back to the heart of the Roman empire. Just to the south is the former Circus, or racetrack, where Peter was executed by upside-down crucifixion; the pylon marking one end of the course was an obelisk brought as spoil of war, the same obelisk now in the center of the piazza before the largest church in Christendom – perhaps Peter’s last sight on earth, now witness to the election and speeches and funerals of Peter’s successors, called bishops of Rome, or "il papa," or just pope.
This second week of our series on Christendom for Dummies (hey, it takes one to know one!) moves from the ancient traditions of Eastern, Orthodox Christianity back to the west, and the Catholic Christian wing of the faith.
Pope John Paul II said not long ago of the eastern and western branches of traditional Christianity that the church "breathes with two lungs," implying that while each can get along to some degree without the other, such a situation is not the best, and could be harmful. The years since World War II, and especially in the pontificate of John Paul II, have seen a renewal of relations between the Orthodox and Catholic "lungs" not dreamed of since 1204, when Crusaders in Constantinople plundered holy shrines to make up for not getting to Jerusalem, and leaders of Christianity both east and west anathematized, or cursed each other.
Tensions began much earlier, and came to a head with church councils around 1052, when understandings of the relationships between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit could not be reconciled (the "filoque" clause). But the stresses were as much geopolitical as theological, beginning with the sack of Rome in 410, and cracked beyond all repair, it seemed, with the sack of Constantinople in 1453.
The word catholic, small-c, means universal, and the Roman Catholic Church continues to struggle with catholicity both as promise and problem. The papal affirmation "no salvation outside the church" is meant more as assured promise than veiled threat, but is heard by many as a claim of absolute authority with limited justification.
One of the common, but unusual titles used by the leader of Catholic Christianity is "Supreme Pontiff." You hear it just down the road in the name of the Pontifical College Josephinum, signifying the role of the Roman Pontiff in that school over the local bishop of Columbus, along with the "P" in the former PIME seminary school between Heath and Hebron, once a papal property, now the retreat center for the Diocese of Columbus.
This is a title that goes back into the ancient heritage of Rome, given by the city-state to Julius Caesar as "pontifex maximus," or literally "supreme bridge builder." This title, signifying the responsibility for maintaining relationships between believers and various faith groups, was held by the Caesars and was given to the Papacy when the Roman Empire fell.
As modern Supreme Pontiff, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, has a responsibility he takes quite seriously, to share the Christian message and build bridges to believers around the world.
Modern Catholics hold a loyalty to their bishops as the organizing embodiments of their faith community, and a primary loyalty to the teaching pre-eminence of the bishop of Rome, where Peter was martyred and where his successors still worship and preside as the "daddy" in Italian vernacular, or "il papa."
The pre-eminence of the papacy is an obstacle to some in hoping for Christian union, and the embodiment of unity for many others. This tension reaches a head when the old St. Peter’s is being torn down and a new one planned, just after the year 1500, and a good Catholic monk named Martin Luther gets some strange ideas in Pope Benedict’s homeland of Germany.
The story continues next week!

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; contact him through disciple@voyager.net.

Notes From My Knapsack 4-30-06
Jeff Gill

Thornwood Drive, connecting Union Township’s northern reaches and the Newark/Granville corridor since before the Civil War, is still a crucial link for Licking County.
Many of you shared your interest with me last week in where and how the "Dugway" changed traffic patterns; along with the Deep Cut on the west edge of Millersport, these two projects are probably only second to the National Road and the Ohio & Erie Canal in shaping the first hundred years of our region.
Just as the expansion of Rt. 79 wiped away a few remaining traces of the canal bed and basins in recent years, the new Thornwood connector and Cherry Valley interchange will obscure some still visible chunks of history, wherever the new path goes.
Thornwood begins in the south where it does today, starting at Beaver Run Road (named for early settler David Bever, so don’t look for bucktooth rodents nearby). Arrowing north past the Sts. Peter and Paul Retreat Center of the Diocese of Columbus (former PIME), this is clearly a surveyed route, not a former Indian footpath.
But just at the foot of the hill to West Main (which does have that prehistoric angularity), where Hope Timber sits above, there is a small "jog" in Thornwood, a noticeable shift but small enough that it will certainly vanish in the coming widening.
The reason for this jog is simple: in horsepower days, Thornwood ended here, turning right and looping around the steep slope to join Main near Vensil-Orr-Chute’s new funeral home.
The Showman farm, once a true Licking County agricultural showplace, still sits in part on the ridge beyond the bike path stop on Cherry Valley Road. A traveler from the rich grain markets of Hebron heading for Granville, or an underground railroad conductor seeking a rest on the way to Mount Vernon, Mansfield, and ultimately Canada, has to get around that ridge.
From the meander east around the southern side of the Showman ridge, you would cross Main, called the Columbus Road this far away from Newark proper back then. You’d go north along Showman St. (still called that), and at Central City (now mainly the Market Basket) follow Cherry Valley Road around the northern half of the Showman farm to . . . the Showman Bridge! At this crossing of Raccoon Creek an aqueduct for the Granville Feeder of the Ohio & Erie Canal lay alongside the bridge, and if you come towards the Cherry Valley/Reddington Road intersection from the west, you can clearly see the age of the bridge that we still use from the piers and streamlined footers in the creekbed.
River Road, Reddington, and Thornwood all dissolve into a tangle today which will vanish under whatever new interchange is built at the end of Thornwood to route us into Rt. 16. Just as wagons couldn’t, and didn’t, go straight up the hill north to join Main Street, neither did the 1800’s River Road do anything but push on to join Cherry Valley Road. Somewhere after 1900 power equipment and the horseless carriage that Mr. Ford up in Detroit made popular created the link from the foot of Showman Ridge, pushing Thornwood from the jog, up to cross Main and James Road, then up and over to drop down onto River Road.
Now larger trucks and increased expansion of both Newark and Heath mean this set of intersections will change again. The traces of the original paths and roads will only be seen in the books and diaries about former days and olden times, with the stray street sign or neighborhood name reminding us of another way.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; share your stories with him at disciple@voyager.net.

Notes From My Knapsack 4-23-06
Jeff Gill

Dugway Opens the Road

Discussion of an interchange for Rt. 16 and Cherry Valley Road takes us very close to the roots of Licking County transportation history.
Before the National Road and the Ohio & Erie Canal criss-crossed this area in the 1830’s, the network of roads and paths were less linear and had to fit both the terrain and the limitations of both human and animal power.
The angle of West Main Street through Newark, offset to north-south or east-west lines of the surveyed city, traces back to the first maps we have, and likely follows an early American Indian path from the meeting of the Licking River forks to the Scioto River drainage west.
Weaving into what’s now James Road, Canyon and River Roads, possibly linking with Morse Road, the Native American footways were trodden down by European shoes, widened for mule and ox teams, and slowly straightened (a bit) for wagon and stagecoach.
The same is probably true for what we now call Rt. 13, up from Somerset, the early regional center, where many of Newark’s "first citizens" came from, weaving north along the first terraces above the marshy river bottoms to Mount Vernon and on to Mansfield.
Between Newark and the northwest, to Granville, the main road also follows a unique angle which may also hint at pre-settler trails.
Less well remembered, or traceable on the map, is that the highlands now called "Morgan Manor" stretched to a drop-off to Raccoon Creek, creating a major obstacle for the first travelers who weren’t on foot to get from the area of Granville St. in Newark to where Newark-Granville Road heads into the latter named village – and almost where the new interchange is proposed.
The first settlers, and for many years, had to make a double crossing of the creek, jouncing down and laboring back out of the riverbed, a path which had to be laboriously rebuilt after each spring and every major rain.
What now unnamed citizens took on was a "graded way," or "dugway" through the saddle of the ridge just north of Raccoon Creek, cutting a deeper path that lessened the grade for oxen to make the slope up and over into the eastern edge of the Granville area.
Done, necessarily, with shovels and stoop labor alone, this was Licking County’s first major public works project. It was memorable enough that the district west of Newark proper north of the creek was, and is still to some, known as "Dugway."
In fact, if you travel west on Rt. 16 and peel off to the right onto Granville Road, just as you leave the expressway a small part of the old Dugway is still visible to your left, fenced off but clearly evident if you know what you’re looking at. The age of the trees growing down on the sides of the trench show the antiquity of this site.
ODOT will probably use this area for staging and construction purposes when the Cherry Valley interchange is built, but I hope someday the area can be not only preserved but memorialized in some way. The Dugway is a clear witness to the elemental labors that were needed to make transportation and community expand and connect in early Licking County, just as the area’s growth requires a more technologically elegant, but not dissimilar solution, along Rt. 16 today.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; write him at disciple@voyager.net.

Faith Works 4-22-06
Jeff Gill

Beyond Easter

So, Easter’s over, right?
Not for much of Christendom, which celebrates the "season of Easter" right through Pentecost, which isn’t ‘til June 4 this year.
I say "much" of the Christian landscape, not only because a number of Protestant Christian bodies don’t pay much attention to liturgical calendars, but there is one major branch of Christianity that hasn’t even had Easter yet!
In the Orthodox Christian world, Easter is tomorrow (so their Pentecost is June 11). One of the differences between Eastern and Western Christendom is how they date the observance of Easter, and who tells them that decision.
Before diving into the roots of that variation, let me announce a small proposal. Through the "season of Easter," for Christians and anyone who lives among and around us – that should cover everyone, shouldn’t it? – I’m going to try to do a brief series of columns explaining the different branches or denominations of Christianity, and where they come from. These questions come up in conversation and my e-mailbag fairly often, and I hope this will be of interest to many, if not most.
Stepping back into the heart of the story, it should be noted that Christians represent a sort of Jewish heresy, if you will. Jesus and the early church (read the first few chapters of the book of Acts in the New Testament) lived and worked and worshiped in the context of Second Temple Judaism, among Pharisees and Saducees and Essenes just for starters among competing schools of thought in Jerusalem. The relationship between Jewish followers of "the Way" and Gentile (or everyone else) followers marked much of the first century development in what was first called in Antioch, now Syria, "Christian."
Roman officials saw Christian groups as Jewish sectarians, and treated them that way for some years, but by the time of Emperor Nero, it was handy to give this group their own standing, if only to blame them for burning down Rome and burning them in retailiation.
For the next two centuries, Christians worshiping in house churches (Google "Dura-Europos" for some interesting sidelights) and in catacombs, or underground cemeteries, had to avoid both Roman officials who wanted them to worship Caesar, and Jewish authorities who wanted to make it clear they weren’t responsible for these illegal sectarians.
What we now call Eastern versus Western Christianity is often known in this country as an ethnic church. Greek Orthodox or Russian Orthodox or Serbian Orthodox groups tend to look like national churches, but big-O "Orthodoxy" as the biggest group in the Eastern branch of the Christendom has more in common than language and culture.
Most Orthodox churches today will claim that their liturgy, or "order of worship," ties them back closer to the church of the apostles than any other group. Their distinctiveness does go back to the years following 325 AD, and the Roman Emperor Constantine, who wanted to secure the eastern half of his empire by moving the capital, at least in part, to the city of Byzantium which he re-named Constantinople. Just like an emperor, huh?
At this point, Christianity had spread throughout (and beyond) the borders of the Roman Empire, and what Constantine didn’t think he could govern in one piece as an empire probably was going to be challenging as a religious body. Back in Rome, the traditions around the leader, or bishop of Rome as the primary leader in the church went back to Peter’s location in the imperial capitol and his and Paul’s death there in Nero’s persecutions.
But Constantinople, newly named and with a new imperial court, had long acknowledged a patriarch, or revered leader in Byzantium, who now had the formal title "Patriarch of Constantinople." The man in this office is, to this day 1700 years later, considered "primus inter pares," or first among equals with fellow patriarchs and metropolitans in the Orthodox Christian community. Much of the robing and ritual in Orthodoxy echoes the formal dress and court rituals of the eastern Roman empire, which it has now long survived.
We’ll touch lightly on Orthodoxy in America towards the end of this series, but next week we’ll return to Rome, and look at the development of Roman, western Christianity, known in this country as the Roman Catholic Church.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; contact him through disciple@voyager.net.

Notes From My Knapsack 4-16-06
Jeff Gill

As Easter Passes By

"The Gospel of Judas" is getting a great deal of press right now. This is an ancient papyrus, the old Egyptian form of paper made of Nile River reeds, with Coptic writing of the fourth century about group called the "Gnostics."
What you’ve likely heard is less that unimpressive precis than a breathless "this could completely change everything we thought we knew about Jesus and his disciples." Which it doesn’t.
I’ll grant you I speak as a practicing Christian – I still can’t quite get it right – and preacher fellow, but the history and archaeology of this discovery is pretty straightforward. What is mysterious and confusing is who owns the thing, and the path includes a stop in Akron, Ohio, and an antiques dealer named Bruce Ferrini. All roads go through the Buckeye State, don’t they?
You can see most of what you need to know at www.nationalgeographic.com, but suffice it to say: if you came to me with a document, that you said was a copy made in 2001 of a letter written in 1940, that purported to tell the true story of Abraham Lincoln’s love life, I think most people would understand my skepticism.
It would be worth considering, mostly for what people were believing, or wanting to believe, in the 1940’s about a man who died this weekend (Apr. 15) in 1865, but the odds that there was new, reliable information about events in 1865, let alone the 1850’s, are pretty awful small.
That’s what we’ve got with "The Gospel of Judas." A really interesting look at Gnostic groups of the period following 140 A.D. to the Constatinian era, around 340 A.D.
One thing that seems to some odd about the training of clergy is the time spent on learning the names and bases of ancient heresies. If a heresy existed in the age of the first seven councils of the church, what’s that to us today?
But those ancient un-orthodox doctrines have a way of keeping coming back; we haven’t found too many original diversions over the ages. Gnostics taught that there are secret teachings that only a select few could comprehend about how the world was evil, spirit good, and how to get from one to the other.
Docetism said Jesus only seemed to be human, but was actually all spirit, and only his human appearance died on the cross – a form of Gnosticism. Likewise Marcionism: Marcion said the God of the Old Testament was actually evil, and those books and teachings should be tossed in the trash, along with half of what we call the New Testament today. He forced the early church to "set canon," or determine which books were canonical, a process that included the Hebrew scriptures.
Arianism divided Jesus into wholly human before his baptism, entirely divine after, but Arius lost that theological argument (only after a few centuries of dispute); Pelagianism was the work of an English monk who taught that humans were born good, and only received sinfulness slowly by contact as they grew up.
Then there’s Donatism, Sabellianism, not to mention the Ebionites. St. Augustine was a Manichaean in his youth, and I’m still trying to figure out what they believed, but they believed they’d have a good time doing it.
Heresy is a good subject to study, to learn the basic outlines from the outside of what constitutes faith, and where the edges of belief have been defined. Each age, like each generation, pushes their own edges, but usually not as originally as they think.
Or as an elderly gentleman I knew years ago told me: "Every generation thinks they invented sex, and that older folks had no idea about it. Which when you think about it . . ."
Yep.
So it is with belief systems: most radical new ideas have a history and standard set of arguments that answer them, if you know the story. If I’m going to make a mistake, I’d like to have the defense it was an original one.
"The Gospel of Judas," in fact, has much of the same story Andrew Lloyd-Webber and Tim Rice put into "Jesus Christ Superstar" back in 1970. Which is itself getting kinda old, come to think of it.
But I’ll watch it again this week anyhow.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; send your outdated ideas to disciple@voyager.net, and he will likely recycle them.

If you're looking for the latest straight talk on the "Gospel of Judas" (or, as i'm starting to call it, "The DaJudas Codex"), here are three very useful links: first, the outline of the scholarship and sections of the text, and the second two are very solid Biblical scholars with their weblogs, containing great commentary and linkage:

http://www.tertullian.org/rpearse/manuscripts/gospel_of_judas/

http://NTGateway.com/weblog/

http://benwitherington.blogspot.com/

And from the first link, below the sig, is a pair of excerpts from the text, which really should tell you all you need to know about why this document didn't make the major leagues . . .

Read, enjoy, and learn: and have a blessed Holy Week!

Pax et gratia, Jeff

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For all the talking "about" the Gospel of Judas, here's enough excerpted material to tell you all you need to know (thanks to tertullian.org and NTGateway.com):

{selections from Gospel of Judas codex}

THE DISCIPLES BECOME ANGRY

When his disciples heard this, they started getting angry and infuriated and began blaspheming against him in their hearts.

When Jesus observed their lack of [understanding, he said] to them, "Why has this agitation led you to anger? Your god who is within you and […] [35] have provoked you to anger [within] your souls. [Let] any one of you who is [strong enough] among human beings bring out the perfect human and stand before my face."

They all said, "We have the strength."

But their spirits did not dare to stand before [him], except for Judas Iscariot. He was able to stand before him, but he could not look him in the eyes, and he turned his face away.

Judas [said] to him, "I know who you are and where you have come from. You are from the immortal realm of Barbelo. And I am not worthy to utter the name of the one who has sent you."

JESUS SPEAKS TO JUDAS PRIVATELY

Knowing that Judas was reflecting upon something that was exalted, Jesus said to him, "Step away from the others and I shall tell you the mysteries of the kingdom. It is possible for you to reach it, but you will grieve a great deal. [36] For someone else will replace you, in order that the twelve [disciples] may again come to completion with their god."

Judas said to him, "When will you tell me these things, and [when] will the great day of light dawn for the generation?"

But when he said this, Jesus left him.

SCENE 2: Jesus appears to the disciples again

The next morning, after this happened, Jesus [appeared] to his disciples again.

They said to him, "Master, where did you go and what did you do when you left us?"

Jesus said to them, "I went to another great and holy generation."

His disciples said to him, "Lord, what is the great generation that is superior to us and holier than us, that is not now in these realms?"

When Jesus heard this, he laughed and said to them, "Why are you thinking in your hearts about the strong and holy generation? [37] Truly [I] say to you, no one born [of] this aeon will see that [generation], and no host of angels of the stars will rule over that generation, and no person of mortal birth can associate with it, because that generation does not come from […] which has become […]. The generation of people among [you] is from the generation of humanity […] power, which [… the] other powers […] by [which] you rule."

When [his] disciples heard this, they each were troubled in spirit. They could not say a word.

Another day Jesus came up to [them]. They said to [him], "Master, we have seen you in a [vision], for we have had great [dreams …] night […]."

[He said], "Why have [you … when] have gone into hiding?" [38]

THE DISCIPLES SEE THE TEMPLE AND DISCUSS IT

They [said, "We have seen] a great [house with a large] altar [in it, and] twelve men—they are the priests, we would say—and a name; and a crowd of people is waiting at that altar, [until] the priests [… and receive] the offerings. [But] we kept waiting."

[Jesus said], "What are [the priests] like?"

They [said, "Some …] two weeks; [some] sacrifice their own children, others their wives, in praise [and] humility with each other; some sleep with men; some are involved in [slaughter]; some commit a multitude of sins and deeds of lawlessness. And the men who stand [before] the altar invoke your [name], [39] and in all the deeds of their deficiency, the sacrifices are brought to completion […]."

After they said this, they were quiet, for they were troubled.

JESUS OFFERS AN ALLEGORICAL INTERPRETATION OF THE VISION OF THE TEMPLE

Jesus said to them, "Why are you troubled? Truly I say to you, all the priests who stand before that altar invoke my name. Again I say to you, my name has been written on this […] of the generations of the stars through the human generations. [And they] have planted trees without fruit, in my name, in a shameful manner."

Jesus said to them, "Those you have seen receiving the offerings at the altar—that is who you are. That is the god you serve, and you are those twelve men you have seen. The cattle you have seen brought for sacrifice are the many people you lead astray [40] before that altar. […] will stand and make use of my name in this way, and generations of the pious will remain loyal to him. After hi another man will stand there from [the fornicators], and another [will] stand there from the slayers of children, and another from those who sleep with men, and those who abstain, and the rest of the people of pollution and lawlessness and error, and those who say, ‘We are like angels’; they are the stars that bring everything to its conclusion. For to the human generations it has been said, ‘Look, God has received your sacrifice from the hands of a priest’—that is, a minister of error.

But it is the Lord, the Lord of the universe, who commands, ‘On the last day they will be put to shame.’" [41]

Jesus said [to them], "Stop sac[rificing …] which you have […] over the altar, since they are over your stars and your angels and have already come to their conclusion there. So let them be [ensnared] before you, and let them go [—about 15 lines missing—] generations […]. A baker cannot feed all creation [42] under [heaven]. And […] to them […] and […] to us and […].

Jesus said to them, "Stop struggling with me. Each of you has his own star, and every[body—about 17 lines missing—] [43] in […] who has come [… spring] for the tree […] of this aeon […] for a time […] but he has come to water God’s paradise, and the [generation] that will last, because [he] will not defile the [walk of life of] that generation, but […] for all eternity."

JUDAS ASKS JESUS ABOUT THAT GENERATION AND HUMAN GENERATIONS

Judas said to [him, "Rabb]i, what kind of fruit does this generation produce?"

Jesus said, "The souls of every human generation will die. When these people, however, have completed the time of the kingdom and the spirit leaves them, their bodies will die but their souls will be alive, and they will be taken up."

Judas said, "And what will the rest of the human generations do?"

Jesus said, "It is impossible [44] to sow seed on [rock] and harvest its fruit. [This] is also the way […] the [defiled] generation […] and corruptible Sophia […] the hand that has created mortal people, so that their souls go up to the eternal realms above. [Truly] I say to you, […] angel […] power will be able to see that […] these to whom […] holy generations […]."

After Jesus said this, he departed.

* * * snip * * *

When he heard this, Judas said to him, "What good is it that I have received it? For you have set me apart for that generation."

Jesus answered and said, "You will become the thirteenth, and you will be cursed by the other generations—and you will come to rule over them. In the last days they will curse your ascent [47] to the holy [generation]."

JESUS TEACHES JUDAS ABOUT COSMOLOGY: THE SPIRIT AND THE SELF-GENERATED

Jesus said, "[Come], that I may teach you about [secrets] no person [has] ever seen. For there exists a great and boundless realm, whose extent no generation of angels has seen, [in which] there is [a] great invisible [Spirit], which no eye of an angel has ever seen, no thought of the heart has ever comprehended, and it was never called by any name.

"And a luminous cloud appeared there. He said, ‘Let an angel come into being as my attendant.’

"A great angel, the enlightened divine Self-Generated, emerged from the cloud. Because of him, four other angels came into being from another cloud, and they became attendants for the angelic Self-Generated. The Self-Generated said, [48] ‘Let […] come into being […],’ and it came into being […]. And he [created] the first luminary to reign over him. He said, ‘Let angels come into being to serve [him],’ and myriads without number came into being. He said, ‘[Let] an enlightened aeon come into being,’ and he came into being. He created the second luminary [to] reign over him, together with myriads of angels without number, to offer service. That is how he created the rest of the enlightened aeons. He made them reign over them, and he created for them myriads of angels without number, to assist them.

ADAMAS AND THE LUMINARIES

"Adamas was in the first luminous cloud that no angel has ever seen among all those called ‘God.’ He [49] […] that […] the image […] and after the likeness of [this] angel. He made the incorruptible [generation] of Seth appear […] the twelve […] the twentyfour […]. He made seventy-two luminaries appear in the incorruptible generation, in accordance with the will of the Spirit. The seventy-two luminaries themselves made three hundred sixty luminaries appear in the incorruptible generation, in accordance with the will of the Spirit, that their number should be five for each.

"The twelve aeons of the twelve luminaries constitute their father, with six heavens for each aeon, so that there are seventy-two heavens for the seventy-two luminaries, and for each [50] [of them five] firmaments, [for a total of] three hundred sixty [firmaments …]. They were given authority and a [great] host of angels [without number], for glory and adoration, [and after that also] virgin spirits, for glory and [adoration] of all the aeons and the heavens and their firmaments.

THE COSMOS, CHAOS, AND THE UNDERWORLD

"The multitude of those immortals is called the cosmos— that is, perdition—by the Father and the seventy-two luminaries who are with the Self-Generated and his seventytwo aeons. In him the first human appeared with his incorruptible powers. And the aeon that appeared with his generation, the aeon in whom are the cloud of knowledge and the angel, is called [51] El. […] aeon […] after that […] said, ‘Let twelve angels come into being [to] rule over chaos and the [underworld].’ And look, from the cloud there appeared an [angel] whose face flashed with fire and whose appearance was defiled with blood. His name was Nebro, which means ‘rebel’; others call him Yaldabaoth. Another angel, Saklas, also came from the cloud. So Nebro created six angels—as well as Saklas—to be assistants, and these produced twelve angels in the heavens, with each one receiving a portion in the heavens.

THE RULERS AND ANGELS

"The twelve rulers spoke with the twelve angels: ‘Let each of you [52] […] and let them […] generation [—one line lost—] angels’: The first is [S]eth, who is called Christ.

The [second] is Harmathoth, who is […].

The [third] is Galila.

The fourth is Yobel.

The fifth [is] Adonaios.

These are the five who ruled over the underworld, and first of all over chaos.

THE CREATION OF HUMANITY

"Then Saklas said to his angels, ‘Let us create a human being after the likeness and after the image.’ They fashioned Adam and his wife Eve, who is called, in the cloud, Zoe. For by this name all the generations seek the man, and each of them calls the woman by these names. Now, Sakla did not [53] com[mand …] except […] the gene[rations …] this […]. And the [ruler] said to Adam, ‘You shall live long, with your children.’"

JUDAS ASKS ABOUT THE DESTINY OF ADAM AND HUMANITY

Judas said to Jesus, "[What] is the long duration of time that the human being will live?"

Jesus said, "Why are you wondering about this, that Adam, with his generation, has lived his span of life in the place where he has received his kingdom, with longevity with his ruler?"

Judas said to Jesus, "Does the human spirit die?"

Jesus said, "This is why God ordered Michael to give the spirits of people to them as a loan, so that they might offer service, but the Great One ordered Gabriel to grant spirits to the great generation with no ruler over it—that is, the spirit and the soul. Therefore, the [rest] of the souls [54] [—one line missing—].

JESUS DISCUSSES THE DESTRUCTION OF THE WICKED WITH JUDAS AND OTHERS

"[…] light [—nearly two lines missing—] around […] let […] spirit [that is] within you dwell in this [flesh] among the generations of angels. But God caused knowledge to be [given] to Adam and those with him, so that the kings of chaos and the underworld might not lord it over them."

Judas said to Jesus, "So what will those generations do?"

Jesus said, "Truly I say to you, for all of them the stars bring matters to completion. When Saklas completes the span of time assigned for him, their first star will appear with the generations, and they will finish what they said they would do. Then they will fornicate in my name and slay their children [55] and they will […] and [—about six and a half lines missing—] my name, and he will […] your star over the [thir]teenth aeon."

After that Jesus [laughed].

[Judas said], "Master, [why are you laughing at us]?"

[Jesus] answered [and said], "I am not laughing [at you] but at the error of the stars, because these six stars wander about with these five combatants, and they all will be destroyed along with their creatures."

JESUS SPEAKS OF THOSE WHO ARE BAPTIZED, AND JUDAS’S BETRAYAL

Judas said to Jesus, "Look, what will those who have been baptized in your name do?"

Jesus said, "Truly I say [to you], this baptism [56] […] my name [—about nine lines missing—] to me. Truly [I] say to you, Judas, [those who] offer sacrifices to Saklas […] God [—three lines missing—] everything that is evil.

"But you will exceed all of them. For you will sacrifice the man that clothes me. Already your horn has been raised, your wrath has been kindled, your star has shown brightly, and your heart has […]. [57]

"Truly […] your last […] become [—about two and a half lines missing—], grieve [—about two lines missing—] the ruler, since he will be destroyed. And then the image of the great generation of Adam will be exalted, for prior to heaven, earth, and the angels, that generation, which is from the eternal realms, exists. Look, you have been told everything. Lift up your eyes and look at the cloud and the light within it and the stars surrounding it. The star that leads the way is your star."

Faith Works 4-15-06
Jeff Gill

Did the Easter Bunny Visit?

Over the last few weeks, especially on-line, the story from St. Paul, Minnesota has made the rounds. All too sadly true, the human rights director for the city ordered an Easter Bunny be removed from a seasonal display area, since it could "give offense to non-Christians."
Buddy, I got news for you. There are quite a few Christians, especially the very passionate and evangelical among them (the type I’m guessing really bother this fellow), who would be delighted if they never see an Easter Bunny again, and are . . . well, they would likely avoid saying the pastel-painting rabbit was "offensive," but from their point of view it sure isn’t Christian.
Which, of course, it isn’t. Even the name of the observance is one of those classic Anglican baptisms of the pagan cosmos into Christ’s service. "Eostre," and fertility icons like the ever-burgeoning wabbit, come from the Angles and the Saxons and springtime rites that pre-date the whole Resurrection deal coming to the British Isles.
Christians of good will can disagree about the seasonal Harvey appearances (I find full-human-size rabbits as scary as a two year old does Santa Claus), but I can’t help but wonder what planet the administrator up north is orbiting if he sees the Big Bunny as the thin edge of Christian theocracy. Throw ‘im out, if you must, but if we had come forward to ask the municipality to remove the Fuzzy Lupine because he offends our religious sensibilities, am I wrong to suspect Christians wouldn’t have gotten the same hearing? Just wondering.
Liturgical purists, of the sort who insist that churches shouldn’t sing Christmas carols until Dec. 24 at the very earliest, will observe that the Hopping Fellow shouldn’t be hiding eggs and little surprises until we actually have something to celebrate, i.e. after church on Sunday.
Practicality, the true religion of America, has dictated that Saturday is the canonical Egg Hunt day, so both churches and community groups are planting unearthly colored oblate spheroids among the sprouting grass tufts, with teenagers carefully stashing the good candy up in tree limbs for later recovery.
Ham sells like turkey at Thanksgiving, only less so, and the rush to buy new dresses and pants long enough for the growing Little Guys gives a small retail bump to the season, and the sugar rush is nothing like Hallowe’en. Easter tries to emulate the rest of the cultural calendar, but it can’t quite, at least not so far.
Because even more than the Virgin Birth lurking awkwardly behind Christmas (hiding behind a screen of "heh heh, sure, I’ve known pregnant girls who said they hadn’t…"), Easter puts front and center a culturally very un-assimilateable image.
Good Friday pop culture doesn’t even want to touch, except for a glancing mock here and there, and the stray movie in Aramaic, Hebrew, and Latin. Maundy Thursday still baffles all but believers, and even a fair number of those.
But Easter…
The celebration of a sunrise after a Sabbath Passover, in a garden on a city’s edge 2000 years ago, next to the town dump, adjoining the civic execution ground. A commemoration of women who were where they weren’t supposed to be, doing what no one was supposed to do, hearing what wasn’t possible to hear, and seeing . . .
"He lives, He lives, Christ Jesus lives today; He walks with me, and talks with me, along life’s weary way."

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; share your story with him at disciple@voyager.net.

Notes From My Knapsack 4-09-06
Jeff Gill

You’re In Jeopardy This Week!

"Well, Alex, I’ll take Easter Potpourri for 600 words…"
Going from Palm Sunday today through Easter next weekend and the rest of April, we’re pulling a scrambled stack o’ notes out of the ol’ knapsack.
This Sunday, New Life Community is celebrating the opening of their Ministries Center at 5:00 pm. They hope to build someday somewhere in the southern third of Licking County, but for now they will rent office space in the former Hebron municipal building at 116 W. Main St., next to the new Sunshine Coffee & Books. New Life will then hold a talent show at Lakewood Middle School at 7:00 pm that evening. For info, call 928-4432 or e-mail pastorbrian@hedied4.us.
Many different churches hold a "Maundy Thursday" service on, yes, Thursday evening, check their signs for info: this marks the institution of the practice of Communion in the life of Christian churches of all sorts, regardless of how they do it.
Good Friday is a day off for many, but not all school districts in Licking County; the Newark Area Ministerial Association (NAMA) is holding a Noon to Three "Tre Ore" Good Friday service, this year at Trinity Episcopal just east of Courthouse Square; your writer will offer one of the seven meditations on the "Last Words of Christ on the Cross."
The Granville Ministerium is offering a silent "Cross Walk" from St. Edward’s Catholic Church parking lot east of the village, on Granville Rd., back through Granville and up to Denison’s Swasey Chapel; this procession will begin at 11:00 am.
Many other churches hold their own evening Good Friday reflections at 7 or 7:30 pm.
Saturday is an anticipation of Easter joy in many locations with an Easter Egg Hunt for children. Major ones are offered at public parks around the county, sponsored by a variety of groups from churches to service organizations.
Licking Park District offers a free and open afternoon with children’s activities on Saturday, April 15 at 1:00 pm; they are inviting the whole county to bring their little ones for a ramble across the greening hills off Rt. 37 just north of Union Station.
Easter Sunrise services are at 6:30 am most locations; the Midland Theater is hosting a Newark Community Sunrise service at 6:30 am led by NAMA members, and Second Presbyterian hosts a pancake breakfast to follow that benefits the Licking County Jail Ministries. For info, check www.spcnewark.org.
The Lakewood Area Ministerial Association holds a sunrise Celebration of the Resurrection at Dawes Arboretum, with area churches providing music and message at 6:30 am. Following that, Hebron United Methodist offers the annual Nelson Werkhaven Easter Breakfast for donations only. I can vouch for the quality of the coffee, and more!
Then the very next weekend, April 21, 22, & 23, the Lakewood Drama Department presents "Hello, Dolly!" This musical version of the life story of Dolly Parton is a joyful celebration of a day at Pigeon Forge, and . . . wait, the Lovely Wife is handing me a note, saying "Wrong."
OK, so "Hello, Dolly!" is set a few years back (fun for the costume department) and in the New York area (will they go for accents?), with roles made famous by Carol Channing and Barbra Striesand (can the makeup budget handle the fake nose expenses?). Whateveah.
Anyhow, any time Martha Fickle and her team of talented youth put on a musical production, you can’t lose by attending, maybe even twice.
Shows are 7:30 pm Friday and Saturday, 3:00 pm Sunday. Call the box office at 928-4496 and make ‘em sell out the show!

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; send your community news bulletins to disciple@voyager.net.

Faith Works 4-01-06
Jeff Gill

No Foolin’, Really, Honest!

April Fool’s Day is not the right timing for me to say more following last week on the subject of drinking, society, and the church. Suffice it to say I’m channeling the spirit of Carrie Nation these days – no fooling a’tall – and a cooling off period is in order.
Stay tuned, as they say on our television colleagues’ newcasts. More is certainly coming on this channel.
For now, a look to the south. Most of us thought there had to be fools at work in the state and federal relief effort following Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. Hearings, investigation, spin and counterspin are all now efficiently in progress, while progress on some feeble stabs at "planning the rebuilding design proposal outline" are barely in the "draft management plan" phase.
What hasn’t stopped progressing is the work of church and faith-based groups, who were on the scene even before the wind blew out and the rain stopped, and they’ll be working faithfully long after FEMA is just a dim, bitter memory.
The Spring Break season has seen over 100 Licking County folk head down to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast to work. Some from local churches, others out of our area with national parachurch organizations, and including students resident here going with college groups from all over the country.
They were all converging on the stinkiest, most devastated, and often eerily silent landscape they will ever see.
Doug Lehner from Centenary United Methodist Church in Granville described it this way in worship: he asked all the men to stand, and then invited them to switch sides of the center aisle and sit down. As the pictures from their work group’s experiences scrolled by on the projection screen, the sanctuary was filled with shuffling noises until everyone was awkwardly re-seated.
"Now you have just a small sense of what life is like for the people of that area; they aren’t where they’re used to being, surrounded by people they don’t know, seeing every aspect of their lives from a new angle," Doug went on to say.
Along with many who were down there mucking out houses, some were doing a renovation of a devastated church building that was going to be re-purposed as a dorm for future workers. They were, like many, driving 30 minutes each way into St. Bernard Parish to work. As they spoke to the members at Covenant UMC, they told of the crew from Clemson University who began this effort. That group was sparked by a student from . . . yep, no foolin’, Licking County, out of Johnstown UMC.
These kind of connections and serendipities are taking place all through the region. And the heart of the work is being done by Mennonites and Antiochian Orthodox, evangelical Christians and socialist faithful, Salvation Army insignia now as familiar along the Gulf Coast as military ranks. Ecumenical, interfaith, and cosmopolitan, the volunteers who are choosing Destruction-World over some other –World for their spring vacation are making an impact that amazes even the most cynical on the scene. They could be in Cancun, but instead they are living out the "Can Do" of religion at its best.
For patient, persistent, comprehensive relief efforts, no one will replace the role of faith-based groups in the clean-up and reconstruction. There is a kind of mindset, separated from elections and budgets, that is better suited to doing the un-plannable, un-handbookable work of reweaving a community network into a newly intact fabric. No agency will ever do that, or at least do it well (my guess is the former).
We needed government, official, armed forces skills to do things like rescue 30,000 off of rooftops with helicopters, and they did that well, brilliantly even! And we need a major civil effort to support the civil engineering of levees and pump stations.
If they can do that part, we’ll take care of the rest.
No foolin’.
(Oh, and set your clock forward tonight, OK? No, um, joking. Or if you show up early, they may send you to choir practice or Sunday school or some other unimaginable fate. You’ve been warned!)

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell your group’s work trip story through disciple@voyager.net.

Notes From My Knapsack 4-02-06
Jeff Gill

Ho! For the Open Road. . .

Looking up a reference for something I was writing elsewhere, I started nosing around in C.S. Lewis’ autobiography, "Surprised by Joy."
This is a book I’ve read a number of times, but after finding the quote I needed, what kept me thinking this springtime was the description of hiking through the countryside.
Every Spring, with a number of friends who enjoyed the conviviality and adventure (but that rarely included J.R.R. Tolkien, author of "The Lord of the Rings," as he only liked talking to people if he could look directly at them, which is dangerous on the trail to say the very least)
Hiking is an activity well suited to this season, whether in England or Licking County, with the chill of winter far from gone, but the long views through the barren trees still available. You can keep warm with a steady pace, and the prospect of growth and blossom is starting to show for the discerning eye.
What isn’t comparable is the where and how of Jack Lewis’ gang of rambling scholars went for their spring jaunt. They didn’t follow official hiking trails (sorry, Bob Pond!), and the railroads were still in service and busy. They literally hiked cross-country, following rural roads and occasionally crossing fields and pastures.
The planning of the route was half the fun, it seems, not only to figure out where to go but perhaps more importantly where to stop, finding villages with likely pubs where the ale, porter, and hard cider would surely quench a hearty thirst.
This is where the image breaks down to the modern American midwestern eye. Can you imagine walking from Hebron to Marne to Utica on the shoulder of township roads, stopping for a late breakfast, early lunch, tea (well, an afternoon snack), and early dinner before reaching . . . maybe a B&B up by Bladensburg could fill in for an inn, but still.
Obviously, the advent of more and faster private motor vehicles make for most of the shift. In the 1920’s and 30’s and 40’s the British countryside was still largely dominated by horsepower and the stray Model A, with an infrequent Jaguar of the well-to-do audible miles and minutes before it came roaring at, say, 50 miles an hour, tops.
Changes in agriculture, too, make for more fences and less use of lanes in the spaces on maps between the paved roads. But it is interesting to think about how differently rural life looks through the year to someone who has sauntered through the middle of farm production; sympathy and understanding are surely helped by contact and exposure, from agriculture to the academy, between farmers and fellow citizens.
To which the wise reader will retort with the two all-purpose argument enders of "theft and liability." No doubt. So we rule out the shoulder of the racetracks known as secondary roads, and farm fields in general.
What you could do is chart a path through quiet communities going from one public house to another, however you crossed the countryside, but you wouldn’t get a beer, local or imported. Today’s pub is usually named for the innkeeper of old or a family member, or a sign of the royal family, right? Like McDonald’s, Wendy’s, or Burger King.
There are a few establishments around Licking County where the Oxford Sauntering Society might feel at home if they came back and found a path to connect them on foot. They may not serve fermented beverages of any sort, grain or grape-based, but each of these seems like the kind of spot where a weary traveller might unwind and converse peacefully with a crew of merry fellow venturers.
Kirkersville has the Village Tavern on the National Road (proud home of the Galusha Anderson Society), Hebron with the Hometown Deli and Lancer’s Inn, and on down the road to Jacksontown’s Jacktown Pub . . . hey, a pub!
If you didn’t mind the traffic, if you could navigate your wandering way to downtown Newark and the Natoma or out west a bit to Yesterday’s Pub (there’s another).
I’ve long appreciated the biscuits and gravy up north at Utica’s Pioneer Restaurant, and the east end of the county offers the MidTown Diner in Frazeysburg, while way out west is Johnstown’s Main Street Café.
Many have celebrated the return of Pataskala’s Nutcracker Restaurant, and any ramble of mine is a success when it concludes at Granville’s epicenter, Aladdin’s, with the magic Yum-yum. But I’ll give the downstairs Tavern at the Buxton Inn points for atmosphere, and the Granville Inn for sheer taste.
So the idea of a hiking week is possible, as are the kind of stopping places to sit and relax and converse and cogitate with fine food (beverages may vary). What we can’t do is put them together, at least without risking life and limb, stepping across deer carcasses and deceased possum entrails, careful not to walk on the broken glass, either.
Ideas, anyone?

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; sing him a hiking song to the tune of disciple@voyager.net.

for the March 30, 2006 "The Granville Sentinel"
Letters to the Editor

To the Editor --
"Prom," it should be observed, is short for promenade.In the recent debate over the wheres and hows of the Granville, or many other schools' prom, I'd like to add a few reflections on where this tradition comes from, and possibilities for where it is going, in future years if not this spring.(I'm going to leave the Stepford comments alone; having never seen either movie, from the book my impressions are perhaps skewed, but of the numerous Granville women I know, many of whom are indeed attractive, I can think of none who are robotic and compliant.)The promenade was once a rite of spring where the entire senior class, and later lower grades, put on their best Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes and "stepped out." Think Fred Astaire and Judy Garland in "Easter Parade" and you get the idea.Instead of a linear parade on the avenue (Fifth Avenue), a room and some music, with a general movement in possibly a counterclockwise motion, was the scene of those young adults' promenade.I use the term "entire" quite literally. As my parents both have retold, the point of "The Prom" was a) for everyone to participate, and b) for adults to view their own and others' offspring with pride and approval.Over time, couples became more the norm ("will you be my girl at the prom?"), but not the rule. Packs of young men and gatherings of young women filled in the vast interstellar deeps between dancing couples, perhaps jealously watching them out the corner of their eyes, or maybe not caring. You were as likely to be there with buddies and friends as you were to have "a date."And one was promenading so that, from the gym balcony or behind the cafeteria railing, parents and even grandparents could see you, see that your friends in fact can clean up, and maybe even see that you have a sweet date.
Let's not even discuss cost.
Of course, one can reply that the train has left the station, the station has been closed and converted to a tourist mall, and anyone waiting for the train to return is mildly delusional.
Perhaps.
But what does one make of the idea that parents seeing the prom is an affront and offense? Why should the school officially affirm an event where if you have no date, you have no place, in Granville or Columbus? And could the community actually conceive of this possibility: that a festival of excess is not something that is absolutely mandatory?
What would an event look like that involved all the students, and was available to all regardless of wallet . . . and that didn't regard parental pride as an abomination to be suppressed? Other than assemblies and awards nights, could a social activity full of joy and excitement not require the hint or promise of inebriation, reckless behavior and abandon?
And isn't it interesting that it is, indeed, very hard to imagine what such an event would look like.
But it's worth our while to consider that, within living memory, we had such an evening in the spring, called "The Prom."

Historically yours,
Jeff Gill

Note to occasional readers: This is where i post my original copy with my own headlines from the columns i write for the Newark Advocate and Community Booster. For this "FaithWorks" column in this Saturday's "Your Faith" page in the Advocate, i'm adding below a little more context from the Warren Tribune-Chronicle.

Pax, Jeff

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Faith Works 3-25-06
Jeff Gill

Lots of Venting, a Little Hope

This Lenten season, I’m doing weekly programs at three different churches, so I’ve been getting a wide range of very helpful and interesting feedback on this column (and appreciation of the Advocate for running it, so thanks to Alicia and Mike as well!).
It’s been very nice to hear how many people say "FaithWorks" is cheery, informative, and inclusive.
So of course, this week’s column is mordant, opinionated, and divisive. Any regular readers who want to flip the page now and look for Nancy and Sluggo on the comics page, we’ll see you next week, no problem.
Right now this writer is in a foul mood, and I want to share that sensibility with you, if you don’t mind – but hey, you’re still reading.
Here’s what won’t work, isn’t working: we can’t crank up the DUI laws any further, if not only idiots can drive about with eleven (11!!) on their record, but we have judges with eight still sitting on the bench. As a pastor, I get second chances, but that has nothing to do a) with eight chances, and b) whether the privilege of being a judge, dispensing justice, falls under that category. I learn from a fellow journalist that: "In Ohio, a fourth DUI offense can be considered a felony if a driver has three prior convictions during a six-year period, or five convictions over a 20-year span."
That seems clear enough, doesn’t it?
And here’s what won’t work: decreasing the intoxication level. I get the argument for .08 vs. .10, but when so many of the folks arrested after accidents have .24 and .37 alcohol levels in their blood, moving the bar (ha! He said mordantly…) to .06 or even .04 ain’t gonna touch the heart of the problem.
And raising the drinking age from 18, when you can vote and join the Marine Corps and get shot by your nation’s enemies, but drinking a beer is illegal until you make sergeant, while the horror stories on the roadways are generally triggered by inebriated 30, 40, and 50 year olds, that didn’t work very well and may in the long run backfire.
But here’s what really won’t work. Standing at the casket, looking down at a marvelous 18 year old you had watched grow up at church camp from kid to back as counselor, whose female friend had died immediately the week before, already in the grave.
A third college freshman in the back seat gets to live, although after months of therapy ahead he’ll likely never run and jump, but we believe he will walk. Slowly. Painfully.
And the man who did this to them, age 47, drunk at three times the legal limit, with eleven DUIs, and driving his girlfriend’s truck that the state police had warned twice to quit loaning him, in writing.
There are no laws to stop someone like this. We can’t write enough new ones, or field enough cops (they were right there, following him to pull the vehicle over for, yes, a busted taillight, and the drunk accelerated away, crossing the center line to head-on the kid’s car, which went as far over as he could and still was hit, rolling them into the ditch).
The man in question will no doubt spend the rest of his life in prison. Boy, I feel better now, don’t you? No, I didn’t really think so. He won’t kill anymore, good kids or even very annoying ones, young or old. The next guy with a case of Blatz in him? Will the sentence move him to bum a ride off of a buddy, or let his girlfriend drive?
Only transformation from within can change this kind of situation. The only hope I can offer in such a tragic place is that the effects of religious conversion and transformation can do what the fear of jail and public revulsion can’t. Faith in a larger, wider reality than the twelve ounces in your hand, and belief that you are made for a higher purpose than draining it, that can make a difference.
Red lights in the rearview, for too many, just press the gas pedal, as they try to drive away from their demons. But you can’t go that fast, and you’re likely to drag those burdens into the path of innocent others.
The police and justice system will need to keep doing their work, mainly cleaning up the broken glass and busted lives after the tragedy strikes (but can we move that judge along, please?). What gives meaning and purpose to the simple preaching and elementary study and corporate prayer we share together, in our faith communities around Licking County and beyond, is that we may be making the impact that matters.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; share a story of transformation with him at disciple@voyager.net.

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Andrew J. Hopkins,1987-2006

CHAMPION - Andrew J. "Andy'' Hopkins, 18 years old of Champion, Ohio, died Monday, March 13, 2006, in Cleveland Metro Health Medical Center, after a brave battle to recover from injuries sustained in an automobile accident.
Friends will be received from 5 to 8 p.m. Friday, March 17, 2006, at the Champion Christian Church, 151 Center St. West, Champion, and one hour prior to a 9:30 a.m. funeral service on Saturday, March 18, 2006. The Rev. Roger McKinney, Senior Pastor of Hiram Christian Church, will officiate.

Interment will follow in Champion Township Cemetery.

Contributions may be made to the Andy Hopkins Fund, established at Cortland Banks, 194 W. Main St. Cortland, Ohio 44410, to defray the family's unexpected expenses and ensure a lasting legacy for Andy. Carl W. Hall Funeral Home is handling arrangements.

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Driver in fatal crash is indicted

By CHRISTOPHER BOBBY Tribune Chronicle


CHARDON - The man accused of causing the March 2 crash that killed two Hiram College students was named Friday in a multiple count indictment issued by a Geauga County grand jury.
His girlfriend also was indicted on an involuntary mans-laughter charge because it was her car.

James D. Cline, 47, and Karen Hensley, 50, both of Burton, are scheduled to be arraigned at 9 a.m. Tuesday by Common Pleas Judge David Fuhry.

Cline was indicted on four counts of aggravated vehicular homicide and two counts of aggravated vehicular assault that include specifications that he was impaired by alcohol at the time. He also faces a charge of failure to comply with the order or signal of a police officer, two counts of involuntary man-slaughter, driving on a suspended license and driving under OVI (operating vehicle intoxicated) suspension.

The vehicular homicide, vehicular assault and manslaughter represent a duplication of the allegations stemming from the accident, and Cline can only be convicted on some of the charges. Hensley's indictment charges that she knowingly provided Cline with the vehicle to drive.

"Hensley owned the vehicle being driven by Cline the night of the crash, even though she knew his license was suspended,'' according to Lt. Heidi A. Marshall, commander of the Chardon post of the state patrol.

"She had also been warned by the Geauga County Sheriff's Office in June 2005 to stop providing Cline with vehicles to drive.''

She said lab results indicated that Cline's blood-alcohol content the night of the fatal crash was 0.26 percent - more than three times the legal limit in Ohio of 0.08 percent.

Cline has been convicted 11 times for DUI dating back to 1984. In Ohio, a fourth DUI offense can be considered a felony if a driver has three prior convictions during a six-year period, or five convictions over a 20-year span.

The crash this month claimed the lives of two 18-year-old college students, one from Champion. Andrew Hopkins, a 2005 Champion High School graduate, died Monday at MetroHealth Medical Center in Cleveland from injuries he received in the crash.

Hopkins funeral will be held today.

Grace Chamberlain of Kirtland died shortly after the crash at Geauga Regional Hospital.

A third passenger in Hopkins' car, Evan DaSilva, 19, of Rhode Island, is listed in fair condition at MetroHealth.

According to the Chardon post of the Ohio State Highway Patrol, Cline was fleeing from police when his car went left of center on state Route 700, hitting Hopkins' car head-on and rolling the teen's vehicle into a ditch just after 9 p.m. March 2.

cbobby@tribune-chronicle.com

Notes From My Knapsack 3-26-06
Jeff Gill

Cheaper Than Dirt?

Every year it surprises and bothers me.
There’s usually a need in the Gill lawn for some topsoil, and this spring very much so. I went out and without much bother, let alone comparison shopping, found a big pile o’ sacks labeled "top soil."
When it came to asking "how much," it felt as if I were doing them a favor by hauling it away, and the total cost was a pittance. If I’d wanted peat moss, it would have cost more. Cow manure, more. Sand, more. Brick dust, more. Fer Pete’s sake, a bag of nails: much more.
And so you think, "well duh, Gill! It’s dirt! You can find it anywhere, sack it everywhere, sell it anyplace. Cheaper than dirt, y’know."
Well, if only you could find it anywhere. There are many places on the face of the earth where topsoil would be a welcome gift at a wedding or birthday, let alone for spring planting.
That isn’t true in Ohio – yet – but it could be someday. Most of the state, and certainly Licking County, has had about 10,000 years since the glaciers went back to the Yukon garage and left sterile clay and silt behind.
It takes that many millennia of mosses, grasses, plants, shrubs, softwood tree leaves and hardwood debris, along with billions of worms steadily working the soil to make that (to a farmer or gardener) beautiful black, rich, organic stuff that ain’t dirt, but soil.
Soil is what you need to grow crops, whether an Edwardian herb garden or a row of corn. As they told us repeatedly at Purdue University on the edge of the Great American Prairie, dirt is what’s under your fingernails and needs a scrubbin’. Soil is a gift from God.
Is top soil plentiful around here? In most ways, yes. We’re mostly too level for erosion to have done major damage, and our local farmers got the conservation, contour-plowing, no-till gospel early on.
Houses not only lock up a fair amount of topsoil in certain areas, when subdivisions go in where farming once used the acreage, it helps to make it disappear entirely.
In many yards, considering that the topsoil is scraped clear by builders before the footers are set (organic soil is much less stable for your foundations than clay silts), the amount that was put back after the house was done depends on the efficiency and generosity of your contractor.
Some of that scraped off topsoil is recycled into new lawns, but much goes into random fill. Agriculture minimizes erosion, but can’t prevent it entirely; there’s a reason they call the midcontinent’s main drainage "The Big Muddy," and New Orleans keeps sinking and ending up farther from the Gulf of Mexico. Top soils in suspension head south, and grow the delta.
Meanwhile, back at the farm, we’ve figured out how to replace manual milking, momma hen, and shoveling poop onto the fields. But we have no artificial topsoil technology in the pipeline. The spreaders help mechanically to replace the bovine endproduct as a fertilizer back into the fields, but we’re not quite keeping up.
Do we have another 10,000 years to wait around to replenish this precious resource? I’d hate to eat canned food that long. Technology may actually come up with a process to generate new topsoil, but they ain’t close. I’m thinkin’ let’s treat topsoil like the vital, non-renewable resource it is.
It tells me something that big bags of this precious, all-too-potentially-rare stuff are the cheapest things going. It tells me that the ideas of cost and value don’t track very closely. How could the social costs of losing topsoil in the future, the crying need for this rich, black, usefulness in so many places around the world right now, be factored into the price?
Too many potential answers to that question go back to government regulation, and my confidence that any money they collect would be used for the initial purposes (see entry under "proceeds, state lottery") is pretty low.
One starting place is for all of us, at least, to know the difference between dirt and soil, and to value the latter, at least in our own imaginations. Think about it when you marvel at how cheap it is, today anyhow, to buy a sack of what we call dirt, but farmers around the world call "black gold."

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; sling some mud at him through disciple@voyager.net.

[Note: In this same entry, you will see first "Faith Works," and just below that, the Booster column "Notes From My Knapsack."]

Faith Works 3-18-06
Jeff Gill

Holy Blood, Holy Plagiarism?

Counting down to "The DaVinci Code" movie in May, there’s an intriguing lawsuit working through the British courts.
The authors of the long in print "Holy Blood, Holy Grail" claim that their book was the basis and inspiration of Dan Brown’s novel, still in hardcover and selling ridiculously well for a slapdash mishmosh of historical error and improbable plotting.
Having read a number of Michael Baigent’s books, I’ll agree that Brown has mined thoroughly the veins of fool’s gold tracing millenias of secret societies hiding the obvious from the uninterested. If you write non-fiction, and a fictional treatment uses your work as basis for a novel which sells more copies of your book long after it would be a remainder table bookend, it seems downright ungrateful to sue because you didn’t get to sell millions more.
(An aside: I thrilled to read the book "Nautilus 90 North" as a kid, the true story of the first US nuclear submarine going under the Arctic ice cap to the North Pole itself; I was startled years later to read "Ice Station Zebra," which lifts nearly verbatim sections throughout to advance the plot of an adventure mystery, and later became a film. But no one sued; they were glad someone read their book and got them a wider audience. And put Rock Hudson and Ernest Borgnine into their movie!)
To sue on these grounds, among other things, implies that your book is well represented by the fictional version. I’m not sure I’d want to point this out.
As we’ve noted here before, there are plot puzzles and factual problems throughout "The DaVinci Code," a book that brags before page one that it is thoroughly based on "Fact." Among others: Jesus wasn’t considered divine until that wacky Emperor Constantine, but Mary Magdalene, his wife (whoops, just gave away a major plot point for the three of you who haven’t read it), is a Goddess. Huh? And the bloodline of Jesus, who wasn’t really divine, right?, is the most important secret in human history, which is why we need to work details about this into all kinds of art and architecture, in order to hide that fact.
Don’t even start on the albino monk thing.
So if you’re reading this, that means that the amazingly all powerful secret societies (that really exist! FACT!) haven’t stopped me from revealing their plot, but Baigent and Leigh may have won a settlement against the bazillions Dan Brown and his publishers have made off of a book that reveals that without women, no future generations can be born.
Okay, then.
Without risking legal action, let me reveal the summary of a secret hidden right out in the open. Call it "The Bethlehem Code."
The House of David, or "Beit Dawid," is foretold to descend through a simple place outside of the Holy City where the most basic of needs is met, a bakery town called the "House of Bread," or "Beit Lehem."
A child born in this place of simple, but necessary work, is called "the Bread of Life" when he is grown, and is broken like a loaf at the dinner table, scattered and gone even before he could be appreciated in life.
Then some claimed that, on the path to an inn near Emmaus, this dead man spoke to them, and they only fully realized his identity "in the breaking of the bread."
And the followers of this child of the House of David is still made known to them through simple elements, bread broken and shared. This act is done is public, but few see clearly the message hidden under the ages of symbolism and mystery. Call it "The Bethlehem Code."

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; contact him through disciple@voyager.net.

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Notes From My Knapsack 3-19-06
Jeff Gill

Take a Hike, Save a Planet

Carbon footprints are the hook for a series of ads by an energy business (no, no we aren’t oil companies anymore, really!). The joke is that no one knows quite what they are, and I’m waiting to see if the folks formerly known as British Petrol will answer their question.
Being the impatient sort I want to skip ahead and point out that just as a building’s footprint is the total area it covers including parking and other supportive structures that impact the area, your carbon footprint includes both immediate and somewhat more distant impacts.
We put carbon, a building block of life but a wee bit problematic roaming about on its own, out into the atmosphere every time we start the car or any other internal combustion engine. Products of the burning fuel, exhaust and even a bit of rubber rubbing off on the road, all become our share of the carbon we’re dispersing into the environment.
But when we flip a light switch, there’s some of our share of the hydrocarbons generated down on the Ohio in the coal burning power plant at Cheshire, a town it was cheaper to buy and evacuate a few years ago than protect from emissions. The TV left on all night, the other three glowing slots in the toaster when we put in our single pastry, the bean grinder next to the coffee pot are all adding a smidge to our "carbon footprint."
Add in the products we get "cheaply" from developing world manufacturing where emissions controls are non-existent, and carbon dioxide is the least of environmental burdens they throw off, then you get a true bigfoot mark for each of us on the beaches of the cosmos.
Some years ago there were groups promoting a kind of "carbon diet," starting like most diets with the need to be aware of our carbon output in an average day, just like calorie counting. Then we would work for a rational reduction in simple steps.
A common pair of features in all of these approaches were a) energy reduction strategies, and b) major effort to reduce use of internal combustion. The amount of environmental impact of little engines, especially the two-stroke and recreational variety, is almost equal to the total hydrocarbon and oil release of all American private automobiles.
Snowmobiles, personal watercraft, ATVs, and lawn care put-puts tend to blow pure oil and gas out along with much less combusted fuels and an exhaust that makes your carbon footprint sasquatch-sized. Mowers, blowers, and trimmers are an ongoing problem for groundwater issues right now, as well as atmospheric concerns coming down the pike.
The numbers of those who believe that Mother Nature can infinitely absorb our toxins is shrinking daily, and is already down to a vocal minority working for the industry PR firms. But there is still a large amount of environmental fatalism, fed (in my opinion, and what’s a column for?) by too long a series of failed doom-crying crunchies.
So many see the hint of a problem, but don’t see how they can help, which is where you come in, dear readers. Actually, just checking the air pressure in your dratted tires can make a huge, huge difference in gas mileage over time, which reduces your carbon footprint significantly.
We aren’t going to be herding goats on our prarie-fied lawns for most of us, but we can get our mower overhauled. Just sharpening the blade and replacing the air filter makes a positive impact.
As for trimmers (don’t get me going on leaf blowers), here’s where rational "footprint" thinking comes in. If you trim not only your own, but a bunch of other lawns, then a gas whacker makes sense. A rechargeable battery trimmer is great for a smaller yard and personal use, even if it doesn’t give the same awesome power rush of "vroooommmm!!!!" But if you go "green" with electric and use up three or four in the same lifespan of a gas model, then you’re just wasting resources on the other end.
Footprint, profile, shadow, outline: the logic of all this is looking rationally at your energy use, and making reasonable calculations based on that data as best you can.
At a certain point, you do have to go with instinct and "fuzzy logic." I believe, based on scant data, that all our energy consumption, across the board, would go down if we just walked more. It doesn’t really matter to where or for what reason, I’m thinkin’
Running means more funky shoes and hot showers, and cars I think we all know need more time in the garage to recalibrate their computers; we can’t walk everywhere nowadays, but the walking we can add in is less time in front of computers and TVs, leaves the lights off in the house and makes us more aware of the world around us unmediated by The Weather Channel.
Walking may make us hungry, but it also makes us more aware of our bodies, not as an opponent but as a vehicle that needs maintenance and upkeep. We see where we fit into the world, on a human scale. Somehow, I believe, walking will lead us to better energy choices all around.
And if I’m wrong, you still got a nice walk out of the deal.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he checks email between walks and hikes at disciple@voyager.net.

Notes From My Knapsack 3-12-06
Jeff Gill

Recycle Your Thinking

Mostly, we recycle.
As much stuff as can be quickly and readily kept out of the landfill, with a decent chance of actually going back into the production cycle, we bin up and take at intervals to the local recycling center.
We’re not compulsive or frantic about it . . . no one dives into the kitchen wastebasket to grab something that should have gone out to the garage, and sometimes even a recyclable container goes into the bag.
Rational recycling takes into account the fact that we want to preserve resources, not waste them. If putting something into the bin, especially when we’ve just taken a load the day before and the weather is warm, a container that needs a bunch of washing out with hot water is going to trash out, not going into recycling. What is the good of using up so many resources (energy for hot water, let alone soap) for a lesser savings?
In fact, the main motivation for our family to make recycling a priority is reducing the burden on landfills, where basically all of our municipal waste ends up. Resource and economic savings on most recyclables is modest, which is why modern recycling centers rarely can fully pay their own way.
The longer term "social cost" of jamming landfills full, which may not be money out of our pockets right now, is going to be paid by the Little Guy and his offspring. Avoiding packaging where feasible is even more helpful to those future generations, but sending back into the cycle all your corrugated cardboard boxes, and the bottles, cans, and jugs which are nearly unavoidable will make a difference.
On the one hand, we need to be realistic and understand that we’re paying money now to support recycling which may well cost more if we wait a hundred years. We can’t stop just because aluminum cans don’t pay as big a stack of quarters as it did a few years ago.
On the other hand, if we recycle for pure reflexive idealism, dumb things can happen.
A recent trip to the center left me wrestling with the dangerous temptation to point out to a stranger in public that they’re being, um, non-thoughtful, shall we say.
The vehicle, rear gate covered with outdoorsy and environmental sentiments, was already there when I arrived with my three bins in the trunk. Pulling in, I turned off the car, walked around to the back, and looked over with a smile to my socially conscious neighbor.
Their vehicle was running. It ran the entire time the Little Guy and I went from opening to opening, with our bottles and flattened boxes and such slid into their categories with satisfying thumps and crashes. Young Master thinks we recycle for the sound effects, and he may be half right.
But the Socially Conscious Neighbor had a large undifferentiated pile of recyclables, which is certainly no beef of mine, which were being slowly sorted into handfuls and carried over to the labelled entry ports, all while a large internal combustion engine was running in "Idle."
I’m no environmental engineer, but can we just hazard a guess that more energy was being wasted than even a best case scenario would give back to the earth out of the recycling itself? And wouldn’t a mildly thoughtful person realize this: unless they see recycling as a purely automatic good in and of itself.
So the first object to recycle is our thinking. Reduce the packaging that you can with selective purchases and bulk items, remove what you can from the waste stream without using up so much cleaning time and materials that you’ve flipped the equation of savings, and figure out where you can use recycled products in your life to complete the cycle.
And then there’s global warming; stay tuned for your carbon diet right here.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; you can find out where the nearest recycling bins to you are by emailing him at disciple@voyager.net.