Faith Works 11-24-07
Jeff Gill
Setting the Table
First, we sit ourselves with the other kids at the card table or the dinette.
We have more mashed potatoes than corn, pass the relish plate and wait for the rolls, and even the turkey holds little interest for us in the shadow of whipped cream with a thin pumpkin pie underlay.
Then we end up at the adult table, acutely aware of the need to stick to silverware more than fingers, and hearing conversation that is mysterious when it isn’t boring.
Time goes on, and we begin to join in the discussion, even when it grows into debate. We can correctly identify about half of the relatives’ names as they go by, and put the napkin on our lap well before the end of the meal.
About the time we reflexively put the napkin on our lap right after grace, we’re using it for our own children in the old, old highchair which went back to your grandfather, wiping the strained squash from their chins.
Some of us move right on up to joining the ranks of the anointed, rustling and bustling about in the kitchen through the morning, to the hour of dinner, and back and forth right on through the meal.
From the salad forks at our plates to our roles in the preparation, we track one of the few clear “rites of passage” our culture offers. Beyond the driver’s license exam, the first date, and going off to college, there are few across-the-board shared experiences in American society that tell us we’re growing up.
Judaism has bar- and bat-mitzvahs entering adolescence, and Hispanic culture has the “Quinceañera” for fifteen year old girls, which middle-class “sweet sixteen” parties and debutante balls don’t quite track. Midwestern young men have making the team and varsity letters, which is significant for the small percentage of youths who get that experience. For the rest . . .
Thanksgiving dinner is still a common, shared, near-universal experience enough that it makes a cultural mark in more ways than the official, thankfulness-y purposes. I strongly suspect that the role alcohol and other substance abuse issues play among young adults is tied to the fact that lacking any other marker, drinking says “I’m grown up now, I’m moving forward in my life.”
But some families have such a strong sense of ritual and tradition around the meal that it can help bridge our cultural gap. You know what it means when you get a sharp knife at your place setting, and when that setting is at the big table.
Being invited to help mash the potatoes, or even to make the pies (!); joining the crew arms deep in soapy water, and not just running straight out to play touch football in the backyard after – these are ways to know, in your heart, you’re growing up. And we all need to know that, from some confirmatory source outside of ourselves.
When you help to lay to rest, in a small country cemetery, far past the last paved stretch of road, the woman who taught you how to put on a Thanksgiving dinner for twenty and more, and smile while you’re doing it, you know you’d best be about growed up. When you say the prayer of committal at her graveside, and stir gravy two days later while calling out instructions over your shoulder about the rolls, teaching your son how to put together the family feast, you know you’re pretty much an adult.
The new bifocals kind of drive the message home, too.
Many of us will be preparing for a different sort of ritual over these next few weeks, leading to the celebration of a birth into a very unusual family. The family is humankind, and the child is divine, and yet still human, and needs to grow and develop and know that he grows “in wisdom and in stature, before God and man.”
Think about this: how can our family rituals be signs and markers of maturity and growth for the children and youth among us? This may be one clear way we can set a path for them, in the direction we would hope.
It can start at the sink, or by the oven, and somehow it always ends up at a table. For boys or girls, young women or teenage men, the meal is what makes us, and we also make the meal.
For that lesson, thank you, Aunt Georgia. She’s earned her rest next to Aunt Chloa out at Greasy Point, and we will remember them every Thanksgiving.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s got a fair number of family buried in the Illinois prairie above the Embarras River (They pronounce it “Am-braw”). Tell him about a rite of passage you commend at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Thursday, November 22, 2007
Saturday, November 17, 2007
Notes From My Knapsack 11-25-07
Jeff Gill
Pickles, and Candles, and Flautists, Oh My!
Next weekend is quite simply an embarrassment of riches for Licking County.
All on Saturday night, Dec. 1, there are not one but three choices for you to get into a celebratory mood, and our family will get into at least two if not all three.
You can put on your giant bow tie and go to the dressier of the three events, starting at 7:00 pm in The Ohio State University, Newark Campus’ Reese Center ballrooms. President Gordon Gee will join Dean & Director Bill MacDonald in leading a celebration of 50 years for “the branch,” our own piece of Buckeye Nation.
Along with State Senator Tim Schaffer, State Representatives Jay Hottinger and Dan Dodd, and Newark’s Mayor Bruce Bain, the distinguished platform party includes Tim Klingler.
Who is Tim Klingler?
Tim is the first person to complete all his coursework for an Ohio State degree at Newark Campus, that’s who. The original building in October of 1957 was the old Newark High School, across from the new library building where there’s now a playground. The first building on the new campus, Founders Hall, was dedicated in 1968 (wow, even that’s 39 years ago), but Tim represents the human side of the achievement for the entire Licking County community that is OSU-N.
Other historical displays and presentations will be all around the welcoming hallways of the Reese Center, and surely a speech or two will be made. Call 366.9211 for more info; the evening is free and open to the public, but rsvp’s are appreciated for planning purposes.
History in a different register will play and sing and shout and laugh, all along Broadway in Granville with the annual “Candlelight Walking Tour.” Some programs begin long before sunset, as this first Saturday in December tradition grows and develops. The heart of the evening is when the Scouts light the luminaries all around the historic four corners, and musical programs from children’s choruses to professional musicians (mmm, flautists) are in all four corner churches from 6:00 to 9:00 pm. Programs change every half-hour, and the best plan is no plan – just wander around!
Wander into Granville and look for a bright red poster for the detailed outline of events, meander about and be surprised.
St. Nicholas appears both in Granville, and just down Rt. 37 at Infirmary Mound Park, where “Christmas in the Country” runs from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. The OSU-N event is “business attire,” while the Licking Park District is a bit more stable-wear friendly. Horse-drawn wagons, bonfires, and the search for the Christmas pickle all call for Carhartts and mittens, or at least bundled up good. Inside the warmth of the Bradley Center at the entrance to the park, the Shiloh Baptist Angelic Voices Choir will sing out in celebration, not just for the cookies indoors and the roasted marshmallows by the outdoor fire.
Those in business attire will, of course, be welcomed; LPD director Russ Edgington may wear a tuxedo, as long as he doesn’t have to put on . . . well, parents, you know which outfit I mean. Call with questions to 587-2535.
Full disclosure: I once found the pickle, so am retired from Christmas pickle hunting. Your children are safe, and won’t be trampled by me. The Little Guy, I’m not so sure.
When Sunday dawns, as it must, on however little sleep the night before, the first Sunday of Advent means for churchfolk that the four weeks of preparation for Christmas begin in earnest.
Let all the earth rejoice!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Pickles, and Candles, and Flautists, Oh My!
Next weekend is quite simply an embarrassment of riches for Licking County.
All on Saturday night, Dec. 1, there are not one but three choices for you to get into a celebratory mood, and our family will get into at least two if not all three.
You can put on your giant bow tie and go to the dressier of the three events, starting at 7:00 pm in The Ohio State University, Newark Campus’ Reese Center ballrooms. President Gordon Gee will join Dean & Director Bill MacDonald in leading a celebration of 50 years for “the branch,” our own piece of Buckeye Nation.
Along with State Senator Tim Schaffer, State Representatives Jay Hottinger and Dan Dodd, and Newark’s Mayor Bruce Bain, the distinguished platform party includes Tim Klingler.
Who is Tim Klingler?
Tim is the first person to complete all his coursework for an Ohio State degree at Newark Campus, that’s who. The original building in October of 1957 was the old Newark High School, across from the new library building where there’s now a playground. The first building on the new campus, Founders Hall, was dedicated in 1968 (wow, even that’s 39 years ago), but Tim represents the human side of the achievement for the entire Licking County community that is OSU-N.
Other historical displays and presentations will be all around the welcoming hallways of the Reese Center, and surely a speech or two will be made. Call 366.9211 for more info; the evening is free and open to the public, but rsvp’s are appreciated for planning purposes.
History in a different register will play and sing and shout and laugh, all along Broadway in Granville with the annual “Candlelight Walking Tour.” Some programs begin long before sunset, as this first Saturday in December tradition grows and develops. The heart of the evening is when the Scouts light the luminaries all around the historic four corners, and musical programs from children’s choruses to professional musicians (mmm, flautists) are in all four corner churches from 6:00 to 9:00 pm. Programs change every half-hour, and the best plan is no plan – just wander around!
Wander into Granville and look for a bright red poster for the detailed outline of events, meander about and be surprised.
St. Nicholas appears both in Granville, and just down Rt. 37 at Infirmary Mound Park, where “Christmas in the Country” runs from 7:00 to 9:00 pm. The OSU-N event is “business attire,” while the Licking Park District is a bit more stable-wear friendly. Horse-drawn wagons, bonfires, and the search for the Christmas pickle all call for Carhartts and mittens, or at least bundled up good. Inside the warmth of the Bradley Center at the entrance to the park, the Shiloh Baptist Angelic Voices Choir will sing out in celebration, not just for the cookies indoors and the roasted marshmallows by the outdoor fire.
Those in business attire will, of course, be welcomed; LPD director Russ Edgington may wear a tuxedo, as long as he doesn’t have to put on . . . well, parents, you know which outfit I mean. Call with questions to 587-2535.
Full disclosure: I once found the pickle, so am retired from Christmas pickle hunting. Your children are safe, and won’t be trampled by me. The Little Guy, I’m not so sure.
When Sunday dawns, as it must, on however little sleep the night before, the first Sunday of Advent means for churchfolk that the four weeks of preparation for Christmas begin in earnest.
Let all the earth rejoice!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Tuesday, November 13, 2007
Faith Works 11-17-07
Jeff Gill
Now Thank We All Our God
Back a few weeks, I asked for your prayers and I know I was blessed with them, many fold.
The reason I was looking for a little extra divine boost was a trip to meet with a few dozen pastors and lay leaders to discuss evangelism. The workshop was based on the book “Unbinding the Gospel,” which I’ve written about in this space before, and Gay Reese has two more books coming out Jan. 1, designed to help congregations implement the ideas presented in “Unbinding.” Together, they’ll be known as the “Real Life Evangelism” series, and I’ll have more to say about them after, oh, Jan. 1!
(But you can scope out amazon.com for pre-release info on ‘em.)
We’ll know more as the congregations involved work the process, but the sense of the workshop day was that we were doing something exciting and worthwhile. Thank you again for your prayers!
Soon, in some communities even tonight, there will be gatherings for a Thanksgiving service. Odds are good that you will sing, at some point, a hymn I grew up hearing referred to as “Nun danket alles Gott.”
In the very, very German town where I grew up, hymn tunes were noted in the church bulletin, and the tune name was usually “auf Deutsch.” Lutheran, Missouri Synod Lutheran, Disciples of Christ, or Roman Catholic, we all had our organists from the doctoral program at Valparaiso University, where Bach, Buxtehude, and Beethoven were the holy trinity.
What we also got were stories, probably told at choir practice and often folded into the sermons, about where these warhorses of church life came from. “Nun danket,” or “Now Thank We All Our God” is one of those.
1636. The Thirty Years’ War had been going on for, well, about thirty years, but they weren’t calling it that yet. It was the just the war they’d always known.
In Eilenburg, Saxony, a dukedom of what is now Germany, this small walled city was the front line of the north German war against Sweden. The Swedish army had invested Eilenberg in a siege, destroying hundreds of homes by fire and shot. The pressure on food and forage, the lack of sanitation and fresh water meant disase and plague started to aid the Swedish side.
Eilenberg had a number of Lutheran churches, including Pastor Martin Rinkart. Those churches dealt with a steadily increasing number of funerals each and every day, and even pastors began to die.
Martin Rinkart survived, until he was the only living pastor, doing up to 50 funerals a day, for young and old, soldier and grandmother alike. As with most sieges, the strain of maintaining their position led even the near-victorious Swedes to look for a speedy resolution for the conflict, before plague got into their wells and camp kitchens.
So the besieging army asked for a huge ransom, hoping for a payday that would break the city, and allow them to return home with pride. Rinkart, as the last clerical official, chose to go out to the commander of the opposing army, and plead for mercy under a flag of truce – a flag often disregarded in the last thirty years.
Hearing the tale of Rinkart’s faithfulness and steadfastness, the general was moved, and lowered his demands to what could reasonably be paid that day, and the army disappeared by the next morning.
It was just after the relief of Eilenberg that peace was declared between Saxony and Sweden, long overdue but cause for great pent-up rejoicing. Part of the city celebration was a worship service for the whole community, planned by Pastor Rinkart.
He wrote a hymn for that service, the song we know as “Now Thank We All Our God.” When you sing it in the knowledge of the hundreds of deaths and funerals and committal services the author had just seen before writing these words, it has a very different ring to the announcement of Thanksgiving.
May you find much to be truly thankful for this Thanksgiving season, and do it with your community in prayer and song!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; alles gut, danke, and your good news kann gehen zu knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Now Thank We All Our God
Back a few weeks, I asked for your prayers and I know I was blessed with them, many fold.
The reason I was looking for a little extra divine boost was a trip to meet with a few dozen pastors and lay leaders to discuss evangelism. The workshop was based on the book “Unbinding the Gospel,” which I’ve written about in this space before, and Gay Reese has two more books coming out Jan. 1, designed to help congregations implement the ideas presented in “Unbinding.” Together, they’ll be known as the “Real Life Evangelism” series, and I’ll have more to say about them after, oh, Jan. 1!
(But you can scope out amazon.com for pre-release info on ‘em.)
We’ll know more as the congregations involved work the process, but the sense of the workshop day was that we were doing something exciting and worthwhile. Thank you again for your prayers!
Soon, in some communities even tonight, there will be gatherings for a Thanksgiving service. Odds are good that you will sing, at some point, a hymn I grew up hearing referred to as “Nun danket alles Gott.”
In the very, very German town where I grew up, hymn tunes were noted in the church bulletin, and the tune name was usually “auf Deutsch.” Lutheran, Missouri Synod Lutheran, Disciples of Christ, or Roman Catholic, we all had our organists from the doctoral program at Valparaiso University, where Bach, Buxtehude, and Beethoven were the holy trinity.
What we also got were stories, probably told at choir practice and often folded into the sermons, about where these warhorses of church life came from. “Nun danket,” or “Now Thank We All Our God” is one of those.
1636. The Thirty Years’ War had been going on for, well, about thirty years, but they weren’t calling it that yet. It was the just the war they’d always known.
In Eilenburg, Saxony, a dukedom of what is now Germany, this small walled city was the front line of the north German war against Sweden. The Swedish army had invested Eilenberg in a siege, destroying hundreds of homes by fire and shot. The pressure on food and forage, the lack of sanitation and fresh water meant disase and plague started to aid the Swedish side.
Eilenberg had a number of Lutheran churches, including Pastor Martin Rinkart. Those churches dealt with a steadily increasing number of funerals each and every day, and even pastors began to die.
Martin Rinkart survived, until he was the only living pastor, doing up to 50 funerals a day, for young and old, soldier and grandmother alike. As with most sieges, the strain of maintaining their position led even the near-victorious Swedes to look for a speedy resolution for the conflict, before plague got into their wells and camp kitchens.
So the besieging army asked for a huge ransom, hoping for a payday that would break the city, and allow them to return home with pride. Rinkart, as the last clerical official, chose to go out to the commander of the opposing army, and plead for mercy under a flag of truce – a flag often disregarded in the last thirty years.
Hearing the tale of Rinkart’s faithfulness and steadfastness, the general was moved, and lowered his demands to what could reasonably be paid that day, and the army disappeared by the next morning.
It was just after the relief of Eilenberg that peace was declared between Saxony and Sweden, long overdue but cause for great pent-up rejoicing. Part of the city celebration was a worship service for the whole community, planned by Pastor Rinkart.
He wrote a hymn for that service, the song we know as “Now Thank We All Our God.” When you sing it in the knowledge of the hundreds of deaths and funerals and committal services the author had just seen before writing these words, it has a very different ring to the announcement of Thanksgiving.
May you find much to be truly thankful for this Thanksgiving season, and do it with your community in prayer and song!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; alles gut, danke, and your good news kann gehen zu knapsack77@gmail.com.
Sunday, November 11, 2007
Notes From My Knapsack 11-18-07
Jeff Gill
What Goes In First Comes Out Last
Basic to the challenge of making a traditional Thanksgiving feast is timing.
Each dish has its own demands on the stove or fridge or freezer, and the varying times and stages are the real trick of an all the trimmings dinner.
Truth be told, roasting a turkey is fairly simple – take the bag o’ stuff out of the body cavity, and the rest is easy.
Unless you leave it in the freezer until Wednesday night. That’s fine if you were serving steak, or an eight pound shoebox bird, but a twenty pound classic fowl needs a step-by-step plan for thawing, prepping, roasting, finishing, and carving, and that can be a two or three day sequence.
In between the occupancy of the oven by big bird, your other side dishes and baked goods weave in and out, with the rolls zipping through last. Meanwhile, the stove-top is bubbling on all four burners for many of us, with green beans and quartered potatoes and gravy and stuffing and noodles and a small saucepan of peas for we happy few.
But that’s more than four, which means some dishes have to rotate on and off the stove – no one gets to be too at home on the range, if you know what I mean.
Then there’s shuffling the refrigerator space, for jellos and relish trays and icebox pies and suchlike.
That’s the true art of a calm, happy Thanksgiving: to do all this and still smile, get the table set, and not bite the head off the first person coming in the kitchen to look for some ice for their soda.
I’ve done a few Thanksgiving feasts, but I have to admit that my overall affect of peace and tranquility was lacking. Gravy I can do, even pie crusts while roasting tom turkey I can do, but doing it all and not getting testy, not so much.
One piece of paper, with a rough sketch of an action plan, a timeline, would have done me and my loved ones a world of good. As it was, my sequence was largely in my head, which did no one any good who wanted to help, or even figure out how to get out of the way. (Dad wanting to know why there was no creamed corn -- he was lucky not to end up wearing some vegetables, but that wasn’t really his fault.)
Working with the Homer Curry family Christmas dinner years ago at St. Francis de Sales, my real joy in that was not feeding the lonely and hungry as much as it was having responsibility for gravy . . . nothing but gravy, about thirty gallons of it. Finish the gravy, and step onto the serving line and ladle your wares onto waiting plates, and life is good.
For Christmas, my dad has had the good idea of focusing the mealtime part of the day onto a massive pair of lasagna pans. You want starch, meat, dairy, seasonings, vegetables – they’re all there. Have seconds. Garlic bread on the side, and then back to sorting the stuff out of the stockings.
None of which helps us on Thanksgiving Day. Even Italians (which we’re not) don’t have lasagna on the fourth Thursday of November. Bird and beans and berries and bread must be served, whether at home or at some separate venue. Eight hours for the turkey, three stages of boiling and mashing and mixing with garlic cloves and butter for the mashed potatoes, and a hearty pan full of stuffing to stand-in for the former output of the interior, woven in with the boil and simmer of saucepans you’d forgotten you had from the back of the cabinets.
Here’s the good news, though; we will all forget to put something on, or out, or mix it up, and that thing will be found about when the pies get cut. And no one will care. We will be stuffed ourselves, not willing to even entertain the possibility of having wanted any more than we’ve had, and the missing item will go into the rondelay of leftovers for the next week. Our excess of cooking, to make up for the general lack of culinary effort from the preceding year, is enough for a a platoon of gluttons even when shy a pan of sautéed Brussels sprouts or some such.
Your gathering is thankful for whatever’s on the table, and that’s the truth. Me, I actually like green peas, especially with the last of the gravy. Enjoy the company first, the food second, and worry about the cuisine last, if at all. And give thanks.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him your gravy-related misadventures at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
What Goes In First Comes Out Last
Basic to the challenge of making a traditional Thanksgiving feast is timing.
Each dish has its own demands on the stove or fridge or freezer, and the varying times and stages are the real trick of an all the trimmings dinner.
Truth be told, roasting a turkey is fairly simple – take the bag o’ stuff out of the body cavity, and the rest is easy.
Unless you leave it in the freezer until Wednesday night. That’s fine if you were serving steak, or an eight pound shoebox bird, but a twenty pound classic fowl needs a step-by-step plan for thawing, prepping, roasting, finishing, and carving, and that can be a two or three day sequence.
In between the occupancy of the oven by big bird, your other side dishes and baked goods weave in and out, with the rolls zipping through last. Meanwhile, the stove-top is bubbling on all four burners for many of us, with green beans and quartered potatoes and gravy and stuffing and noodles and a small saucepan of peas for we happy few.
But that’s more than four, which means some dishes have to rotate on and off the stove – no one gets to be too at home on the range, if you know what I mean.
Then there’s shuffling the refrigerator space, for jellos and relish trays and icebox pies and suchlike.
That’s the true art of a calm, happy Thanksgiving: to do all this and still smile, get the table set, and not bite the head off the first person coming in the kitchen to look for some ice for their soda.
I’ve done a few Thanksgiving feasts, but I have to admit that my overall affect of peace and tranquility was lacking. Gravy I can do, even pie crusts while roasting tom turkey I can do, but doing it all and not getting testy, not so much.
One piece of paper, with a rough sketch of an action plan, a timeline, would have done me and my loved ones a world of good. As it was, my sequence was largely in my head, which did no one any good who wanted to help, or even figure out how to get out of the way. (Dad wanting to know why there was no creamed corn -- he was lucky not to end up wearing some vegetables, but that wasn’t really his fault.)
Working with the Homer Curry family Christmas dinner years ago at St. Francis de Sales, my real joy in that was not feeding the lonely and hungry as much as it was having responsibility for gravy . . . nothing but gravy, about thirty gallons of it. Finish the gravy, and step onto the serving line and ladle your wares onto waiting plates, and life is good.
For Christmas, my dad has had the good idea of focusing the mealtime part of the day onto a massive pair of lasagna pans. You want starch, meat, dairy, seasonings, vegetables – they’re all there. Have seconds. Garlic bread on the side, and then back to sorting the stuff out of the stockings.
None of which helps us on Thanksgiving Day. Even Italians (which we’re not) don’t have lasagna on the fourth Thursday of November. Bird and beans and berries and bread must be served, whether at home or at some separate venue. Eight hours for the turkey, three stages of boiling and mashing and mixing with garlic cloves and butter for the mashed potatoes, and a hearty pan full of stuffing to stand-in for the former output of the interior, woven in with the boil and simmer of saucepans you’d forgotten you had from the back of the cabinets.
Here’s the good news, though; we will all forget to put something on, or out, or mix it up, and that thing will be found about when the pies get cut. And no one will care. We will be stuffed ourselves, not willing to even entertain the possibility of having wanted any more than we’ve had, and the missing item will go into the rondelay of leftovers for the next week. Our excess of cooking, to make up for the general lack of culinary effort from the preceding year, is enough for a a platoon of gluttons even when shy a pan of sautéed Brussels sprouts or some such.
Your gathering is thankful for whatever’s on the table, and that’s the truth. Me, I actually like green peas, especially with the last of the gravy. Enjoy the company first, the food second, and worry about the cuisine last, if at all. And give thanks.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him your gravy-related misadventures at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Saturday, November 10, 2007
OK, so I guess I'm in the right place these days . . .
Click the question below to take the test yourself!
Click the question below to take the test yourself!
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What's your theological worldview? created with QuizFarm.com | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| You scored as Evangelical Holiness/Wesleyan You are an evangelical in the Wesleyan tradition. You believe that God's grace enables you to choose to believe in him, even though you yourself are totally depraved. The gift of the Holy Spirit gives you assurance of your salvation, and he also enables you to live the life of obedience to which God has called us. You are influenced heavly by John Wesley and the Methodists.
|
Friday, November 09, 2007
Wednesday, November 07, 2007
Faith Works 11-10-07
Jeff Gill
What We Don’t Own (Mostly Everything)
Working on important family projects with a vital household tool in hand, I suddenly realized that I didn’t own it.
Waiting for a small printer to spit out a receipt, I read on the back of my debit card from the bank: “This card remains the property of Major Financial Institution . . .”
This slab of plastic I use everyday isn’t mine, but the bank’s. Kind of like my house, which I own in some senses, but don’t in others. As divorcing folks realize quickly, there’s the spousal interest; even for those of us happily married, we own a home as a couple, in full partnership with the mortgage holder.
Which leaves me owning the eaves and gutters, it would seem, but I share those with the trees as a handy place to store their fallen leaves.
The bank never offers to help mow or trim shrubbery, but the neighborhood association has a claim on a broad swath where bushes suddenly appear, and then disappear in the maws of ravening deer, who have a family claim on my whole neighborhood going back to the last Ice Age.
Then there’s the municipal folk, who offer a courtesy call just before a truckload of workmen show up to dig holes in “their” easement and imperfectly replant the desirable, deer proof shrubs they shoveled aside.
The Lovely Wife and I do, in fact, own our cars, but many in our neighborhood lease, a relationship I’ve never quite understood. But you don’t own it, so you’d better not cut a moon roof in the top – can you put college stickers in the windows of a leaser?
Some of these leased vehicles get parked in front of my house, blocking the postal worker’s access to the mailbox, which I’m told we don’t own, mostly. Even if we bought it at BigBox ourselves and dug the hole and poured the concrete, the box itself is somehow the property of the Postmaster General (when is his turn to paint?), so the right to store or swap items around the block in that space is limited.
The upside being that this is why folks dropping fliers around the neighborhood are breaking the law if they put stuff “for free” in the PG’s mailbox.
Back in my wallet, there’s the driver’s license which allows me to drive the car I do, sort of, own; property of the state. Try to ask for the picture half back when you get a new one and see what I mean. It’s like you asked them to give you a $5 from their wallet.
Oh, that Lincoln engraving? The money you carry, that you earned, this “legal tender for all debts, public and private”? Not yours. It remains the property of the Federal Government while you make use of the symbolic value in everyday transactions.
And the change in your other pocket? That board almost filled with 50 state quarters? Well, the board may be yours, but not the quarters, not technically.
Just like the license plate on that car you “own,” the trash roller bin from the service company, the downloads on your computer, “your” library card, and your Tivo box. But unlike a few years back, we own our phones now, which may or may not be a good thing.
Your body, though, that you “own,” right? Well, science tells us that every seven years is the “turnover period” for your cellular material, with the stuff that makes up your corpus delicti swapped out for new matter on the old design. Which gives a whole new understanding to “you are what you eat,” doesn’t it?
The upshot of all of this being: we don’t really own much, even in an age of consumerism and materialism. We really are stewards in this life, the only question being whether we are conscious, intentional stewards, or fumblingly wasteful caretakers who deserve to be fired.
That’s the upshot of most stewardship campaigns that many churches conduct in November, reminding their members of what giving is really about, which is just putting our treasures in the right places. Giving as a primary part of our personal stewardship is a key step to remembering that we own nothing, really, but have a great gift in our care for a season, life itself, and what that life can shape and effect.
For the more hardened materialists, good news! Under Ohio law, your estate owns your corpse, and has a pretty much unassailable right of disposal as you choose. So there’s one thing you can own without variation or dispute, but only after you die.
Me, I’m thinking organ donation.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s a blood donor now and an organ donor on his driver’s license (property of ODMV). Tell him what you value at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
What We Don’t Own (Mostly Everything)
Working on important family projects with a vital household tool in hand, I suddenly realized that I didn’t own it.
Waiting for a small printer to spit out a receipt, I read on the back of my debit card from the bank: “This card remains the property of Major Financial Institution . . .”
This slab of plastic I use everyday isn’t mine, but the bank’s. Kind of like my house, which I own in some senses, but don’t in others. As divorcing folks realize quickly, there’s the spousal interest; even for those of us happily married, we own a home as a couple, in full partnership with the mortgage holder.
Which leaves me owning the eaves and gutters, it would seem, but I share those with the trees as a handy place to store their fallen leaves.
The bank never offers to help mow or trim shrubbery, but the neighborhood association has a claim on a broad swath where bushes suddenly appear, and then disappear in the maws of ravening deer, who have a family claim on my whole neighborhood going back to the last Ice Age.
Then there’s the municipal folk, who offer a courtesy call just before a truckload of workmen show up to dig holes in “their” easement and imperfectly replant the desirable, deer proof shrubs they shoveled aside.
The Lovely Wife and I do, in fact, own our cars, but many in our neighborhood lease, a relationship I’ve never quite understood. But you don’t own it, so you’d better not cut a moon roof in the top – can you put college stickers in the windows of a leaser?
Some of these leased vehicles get parked in front of my house, blocking the postal worker’s access to the mailbox, which I’m told we don’t own, mostly. Even if we bought it at BigBox ourselves and dug the hole and poured the concrete, the box itself is somehow the property of the Postmaster General (when is his turn to paint?), so the right to store or swap items around the block in that space is limited.
The upside being that this is why folks dropping fliers around the neighborhood are breaking the law if they put stuff “for free” in the PG’s mailbox.
Back in my wallet, there’s the driver’s license which allows me to drive the car I do, sort of, own; property of the state. Try to ask for the picture half back when you get a new one and see what I mean. It’s like you asked them to give you a $5 from their wallet.
Oh, that Lincoln engraving? The money you carry, that you earned, this “legal tender for all debts, public and private”? Not yours. It remains the property of the Federal Government while you make use of the symbolic value in everyday transactions.
And the change in your other pocket? That board almost filled with 50 state quarters? Well, the board may be yours, but not the quarters, not technically.
Just like the license plate on that car you “own,” the trash roller bin from the service company, the downloads on your computer, “your” library card, and your Tivo box. But unlike a few years back, we own our phones now, which may or may not be a good thing.
Your body, though, that you “own,” right? Well, science tells us that every seven years is the “turnover period” for your cellular material, with the stuff that makes up your corpus delicti swapped out for new matter on the old design. Which gives a whole new understanding to “you are what you eat,” doesn’t it?
The upshot of all of this being: we don’t really own much, even in an age of consumerism and materialism. We really are stewards in this life, the only question being whether we are conscious, intentional stewards, or fumblingly wasteful caretakers who deserve to be fired.
That’s the upshot of most stewardship campaigns that many churches conduct in November, reminding their members of what giving is really about, which is just putting our treasures in the right places. Giving as a primary part of our personal stewardship is a key step to remembering that we own nothing, really, but have a great gift in our care for a season, life itself, and what that life can shape and effect.
For the more hardened materialists, good news! Under Ohio law, your estate owns your corpse, and has a pretty much unassailable right of disposal as you choose. So there’s one thing you can own without variation or dispute, but only after you die.
Me, I’m thinking organ donation.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s a blood donor now and an organ donor on his driver’s license (property of ODMV). Tell him what you value at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Monday, November 05, 2007
Notes From My Knapsack 11-11-07
Jeff Gill
Veterans and Voters and Vehemence
Booster Snapshots’ publication date is November 11, which puts the anniversary of the end of World War I smack on Sunday. Some of you get tomorrow (Monday) off work, and the mail and banks and courts hesitate a day, along with a few schools.
Generally, the once Armistice Day, still Remembrance Day, is marginally recalled as Veteran’s Day, and is a good time to say a “thank you” to those who returned, just as we honor those who did not make it back from their service on Memorial Day in May.
But with the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month falling in the middle of many worship services, I hope there’s an acknowledgment on Nov. 11 of the significance of World War I, and a recollection of what this country began learing about wars overseas.
The lessons, of course, continue.
With the detritus of Hallowe’en still laying around the house, this is a good time for me to introduce you all to the Lovely Wife’s contribution to economic forecasting. Perhaps you’ve already heard of the “Chocolate Percentage Trick-or-Treat Index of Economic Optomism,” or CPTTIEO (which has a nice, authoritative ring to it).
When the Little Guy returns from his Beggar’s Night rounds, his practice is to carefully sort the candy into types and sub-types by brand. What the Lovely Wife adds to this process is a casual eye to how much of the total candy haul are chocolate-based goodies, or as she puts it, “real candy.”
Apparently pixie sticks and suckers never did much for her.
What my wife believes is that when the percentage of a standard haul on Hallowe’en night that is chocolate-based (C-B), then a decline in the C-B% indicates reduced economic optomism, while a C-B% uptick shows people feel flush and want to share it.
Sounds as useful as anything else Jim Cramer has to say. What did your neighborhood show?
There was also some interesting seasonal news out of Iowa, where some officious idiot realized that the profusion of small pumpkin sale operations (y’know, entrepreneurism) was due, in part, to the fact that if they only sold pumpkins, they didn’t have to mess with sales tax, since Iowa like most states exempt food items.
Ah ha, said the said bureaucrat, but they do not generally eat them, they use them as décor, which means – tonight, we tax! (Mwahahahahaha. . . .)
So the Iowa Farm Bureau and others put together a form, akin to the legal lie that associates itself with fireworks, for people to attest that they will eat some portion of their pumpkin purchase. No, really, this happened.
Which then made a number of religious thinkers ask: “Is it permissible to avoid an unjust tax by telling a lie?” Owww. Meanwhile, the bad publicity did what it was designed to do, and the legislature in Iowa will likely craft an exemption for pumpkins by next fall.
Around Sycamore Lodge, we avoid this whole problem by making pumpkin chicken soup, roasting acorn squash with butter and brown sugar (or maple syrup does nicely), and we always roast the pumpkin guts, both seeds and strings, on a cookie sheet with salt and olive oil. Take that, Iowa!
Spaghetti squash is a tradition in my family around this time of year, and the Little Guy was very skeptical as I made the sauce with the last of the garden basil, tomatoes, and green pepper. He had already figured out that the acorn squash, sweet and tasty as it may be, was a vegetable, and he was against it. So why would this big yellow thing be any different?
But the weird alchemy of scooping out real spaghetti looking stuff after an hour in the oven won him over, and he ate it all, including the sauce. Thus are small parenting victories won.
A last note, which I’ve been sitting on for a while as I don’t want to lapse into Andy Rooney parodism. This is something that’s really been bugging me for a while, though.
Surely someone can invent a radar speed measurement device for our fine state troopers that doesn’t involve shaping it like a cannon that works best when said trooper adopts a firing line stance, arms extended, sighting along the barrel, aimed right at your face?
My brief military service never involved getting shot at, but I’ve spent a fair amount of time around guns, and have spent much time teaching young people never to aim a firearm, even a toy one, at someone. And I’ve been shot at, twice, both in odd circumstances precipitated by irresponsible idiodicy on the part of others.
Anyhow, I’ve never been able to avoid a clench of my hands on the wheel and had to fight an urge to swerve when I round a bend on Route 16 and see, up ahead, someone lined up in ready position. Why should I get used to that feeling? Can’t we invent a more citizen friendly radar device? Peace out, y’all.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; if you know how to get the state to quit pointing things at us, contact Jeff at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Veterans and Voters and Vehemence
Booster Snapshots’ publication date is November 11, which puts the anniversary of the end of World War I smack on Sunday. Some of you get tomorrow (Monday) off work, and the mail and banks and courts hesitate a day, along with a few schools.
Generally, the once Armistice Day, still Remembrance Day, is marginally recalled as Veteran’s Day, and is a good time to say a “thank you” to those who returned, just as we honor those who did not make it back from their service on Memorial Day in May.
But with the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month falling in the middle of many worship services, I hope there’s an acknowledgment on Nov. 11 of the significance of World War I, and a recollection of what this country began learing about wars overseas.
The lessons, of course, continue.
With the detritus of Hallowe’en still laying around the house, this is a good time for me to introduce you all to the Lovely Wife’s contribution to economic forecasting. Perhaps you’ve already heard of the “Chocolate Percentage Trick-or-Treat Index of Economic Optomism,” or CPTTIEO (which has a nice, authoritative ring to it).
When the Little Guy returns from his Beggar’s Night rounds, his practice is to carefully sort the candy into types and sub-types by brand. What the Lovely Wife adds to this process is a casual eye to how much of the total candy haul are chocolate-based goodies, or as she puts it, “real candy.”
Apparently pixie sticks and suckers never did much for her.
What my wife believes is that when the percentage of a standard haul on Hallowe’en night that is chocolate-based (C-B), then a decline in the C-B% indicates reduced economic optomism, while a C-B% uptick shows people feel flush and want to share it.
Sounds as useful as anything else Jim Cramer has to say. What did your neighborhood show?
There was also some interesting seasonal news out of Iowa, where some officious idiot realized that the profusion of small pumpkin sale operations (y’know, entrepreneurism) was due, in part, to the fact that if they only sold pumpkins, they didn’t have to mess with sales tax, since Iowa like most states exempt food items.
Ah ha, said the said bureaucrat, but they do not generally eat them, they use them as décor, which means – tonight, we tax! (Mwahahahahaha. . . .)
So the Iowa Farm Bureau and others put together a form, akin to the legal lie that associates itself with fireworks, for people to attest that they will eat some portion of their pumpkin purchase. No, really, this happened.
Which then made a number of religious thinkers ask: “Is it permissible to avoid an unjust tax by telling a lie?” Owww. Meanwhile, the bad publicity did what it was designed to do, and the legislature in Iowa will likely craft an exemption for pumpkins by next fall.
Around Sycamore Lodge, we avoid this whole problem by making pumpkin chicken soup, roasting acorn squash with butter and brown sugar (or maple syrup does nicely), and we always roast the pumpkin guts, both seeds and strings, on a cookie sheet with salt and olive oil. Take that, Iowa!
Spaghetti squash is a tradition in my family around this time of year, and the Little Guy was very skeptical as I made the sauce with the last of the garden basil, tomatoes, and green pepper. He had already figured out that the acorn squash, sweet and tasty as it may be, was a vegetable, and he was against it. So why would this big yellow thing be any different?
But the weird alchemy of scooping out real spaghetti looking stuff after an hour in the oven won him over, and he ate it all, including the sauce. Thus are small parenting victories won.
A last note, which I’ve been sitting on for a while as I don’t want to lapse into Andy Rooney parodism. This is something that’s really been bugging me for a while, though.
Surely someone can invent a radar speed measurement device for our fine state troopers that doesn’t involve shaping it like a cannon that works best when said trooper adopts a firing line stance, arms extended, sighting along the barrel, aimed right at your face?
My brief military service never involved getting shot at, but I’ve spent a fair amount of time around guns, and have spent much time teaching young people never to aim a firearm, even a toy one, at someone. And I’ve been shot at, twice, both in odd circumstances precipitated by irresponsible idiodicy on the part of others.
Anyhow, I’ve never been able to avoid a clench of my hands on the wheel and had to fight an urge to swerve when I round a bend on Route 16 and see, up ahead, someone lined up in ready position. Why should I get used to that feeling? Can’t we invent a more citizen friendly radar device? Peace out, y’all.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; if you know how to get the state to quit pointing things at us, contact Jeff at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Faith Works 11-3-07
Jeff Gill
Fall Back Into November
“Novem,” the Latin word for nine, reminds us in this eleventh month of our year that New Year’s in ancient Rome was March.
But the new year, and all the events leading up to the turn of the calendar, liturgically and socially, are pressing in close.
On this fine fall morning, if you’re reading this and not planning to trot over to Columbus for the Wisconsin game, there are a number of options.
The Habitat for Humanity folks are working their way through the very last steps of completing the last house they’ll build on Monroe Street. The dedication has been pushed back to the start of December, and a few volunteers for trim painting and tacking up shed siding will be welcome today – just drive through the E. Main and Buena Vista intersection, cross the tracks and turn south immediately, then turn right before you enter the railyard, and go to the street’s end.
For the faith-formed folk who have kept the momentum behind our local chapter, many thanks; the new homeowners have been doing their sweat equity to make their down payment, and the interest-free payments they’ll make will roll on into the next house. Stay tuned for more updates on that!
Also today out at Camp Falling Rock is Apple Butter Day, which has no real religious connection at all, but if you want to start feeling thankful as practice before the big day, there’s little else that shows the bounty of nature and the grace of creation than an autumnal trip out past Wilkins’ Corners and up to Houdeshell Road, where you can help stir the copper kettle and smell the heavenly scent of apple butter cooking down from the beautiful fruit of the trees.
Some of you will start turning your clocks back around noon, which makes evening a preview of the official end of Daylight Savings Time, which isn’t chronologically until 2 am Sunday. Given the number of clocks we have around the house (coffee maker, blender, microwave, curler set, sound system, car dashboards, digital fireplace, light timers, watches, washing machine, electric toothbrush, running shoes, toaster – reset ‘em all), you may need to start before dark today.
Make sure that in the morning you didn’t forget that last clock-radio by the bedside, or you’ll find yourself at the early service. Or go and find out who attends that one! And check the church kitchen for clocks that may not get set back until Christmas (crock pot, can opener, dishwasher, battery clock on wall above the stove).
Speaking of which – if you haven’t already been hearing Christmas music, you must not be working with the children’s choirs at your church. They are all deep into rehearsals for programs and worship music and Christmas Eve, which I hear is on Dec. 24 this year.
The Granville Candlelight Walking Tour kicks off the season with Sat., Dec. 1, where children will sing all around you as you walk from corner to corner through the evening.
Thursday, Dec. 6 is the annual Newark downtown “Sights & Sounds” around the churches of the historic core, with many musical offerings in preparation even now. Mark your calendars, and if your town has a special community event for the holiday season, let me know.
For the liturgically minded, the First Sunday of Advent is actually Dec. 2 this year, so the Sunday after Thanksgiving is not a headlong rush into hanging o’ the greens and starting the church calendar (the first Sunday of Advent begins the new lectionary cycle, among other patterns which begin here, not with the calendar year). Many clergy and lay leaders look with special warmth on those years where a “breather” falls into the calendar, and you can stay an extra day at a family gathering or some such.
But for the very, very liturgical, this is “Christ the King Sunday,” as the grand wrap-up of the ending cycle of the church calendar, with the role of Christ Jesus as cosmic redeemer, enthroned in the heavens, highlighted in the songs and readings. That can clear our heads and hearts from cornucopias and turkey feathers from construction paper, putting us in a receptive frame of spirit for the day by day approach to a savior born in a stable.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him about your community Thanksgiving service coming up in a few weeks at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Fall Back Into November
“Novem,” the Latin word for nine, reminds us in this eleventh month of our year that New Year’s in ancient Rome was March.
But the new year, and all the events leading up to the turn of the calendar, liturgically and socially, are pressing in close.
On this fine fall morning, if you’re reading this and not planning to trot over to Columbus for the Wisconsin game, there are a number of options.
The Habitat for Humanity folks are working their way through the very last steps of completing the last house they’ll build on Monroe Street. The dedication has been pushed back to the start of December, and a few volunteers for trim painting and tacking up shed siding will be welcome today – just drive through the E. Main and Buena Vista intersection, cross the tracks and turn south immediately, then turn right before you enter the railyard, and go to the street’s end.
For the faith-formed folk who have kept the momentum behind our local chapter, many thanks; the new homeowners have been doing their sweat equity to make their down payment, and the interest-free payments they’ll make will roll on into the next house. Stay tuned for more updates on that!
Also today out at Camp Falling Rock is Apple Butter Day, which has no real religious connection at all, but if you want to start feeling thankful as practice before the big day, there’s little else that shows the bounty of nature and the grace of creation than an autumnal trip out past Wilkins’ Corners and up to Houdeshell Road, where you can help stir the copper kettle and smell the heavenly scent of apple butter cooking down from the beautiful fruit of the trees.
Some of you will start turning your clocks back around noon, which makes evening a preview of the official end of Daylight Savings Time, which isn’t chronologically until 2 am Sunday. Given the number of clocks we have around the house (coffee maker, blender, microwave, curler set, sound system, car dashboards, digital fireplace, light timers, watches, washing machine, electric toothbrush, running shoes, toaster – reset ‘em all), you may need to start before dark today.
Make sure that in the morning you didn’t forget that last clock-radio by the bedside, or you’ll find yourself at the early service. Or go and find out who attends that one! And check the church kitchen for clocks that may not get set back until Christmas (crock pot, can opener, dishwasher, battery clock on wall above the stove).
Speaking of which – if you haven’t already been hearing Christmas music, you must not be working with the children’s choirs at your church. They are all deep into rehearsals for programs and worship music and Christmas Eve, which I hear is on Dec. 24 this year.
The Granville Candlelight Walking Tour kicks off the season with Sat., Dec. 1, where children will sing all around you as you walk from corner to corner through the evening.
Thursday, Dec. 6 is the annual Newark downtown “Sights & Sounds” around the churches of the historic core, with many musical offerings in preparation even now. Mark your calendars, and if your town has a special community event for the holiday season, let me know.
For the liturgically minded, the First Sunday of Advent is actually Dec. 2 this year, so the Sunday after Thanksgiving is not a headlong rush into hanging o’ the greens and starting the church calendar (the first Sunday of Advent begins the new lectionary cycle, among other patterns which begin here, not with the calendar year). Many clergy and lay leaders look with special warmth on those years where a “breather” falls into the calendar, and you can stay an extra day at a family gathering or some such.
But for the very, very liturgical, this is “Christ the King Sunday,” as the grand wrap-up of the ending cycle of the church calendar, with the role of Christ Jesus as cosmic redeemer, enthroned in the heavens, highlighted in the songs and readings. That can clear our heads and hearts from cornucopias and turkey feathers from construction paper, putting us in a receptive frame of spirit for the day by day approach to a savior born in a stable.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him about your community Thanksgiving service coming up in a few weeks at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Monday, October 29, 2007
Notes From My Knapsack 11-4-07
Jeff Gill
Connections Hanging By a Thread
What does voting this Tuesday, with a lever, a punch through card-stock, or a touch on a television screen, have to do with the governing of our county?
Does the simple act of voting, with our limited knowledge as individuals and the unpredictability of human nature, actually mean much of anything to the choices our elected officials make? Or does election day just anoint one over the other on a basis perilously close to drawing straws?
Last week I was walking across the long lawns of a local soccer field, where the morning fog was melting off a wide stretch of grass still green. The nearest trees were a hundred yards and more away, and the only objects waiting for our arrival were a number of eight foot high goal cages, with a mesh net of woven twine hanging across the back and sides.
Even twenty feet to one side, as I walked past each soccer goal, I would feel the light, lengthy swipe of spider web stretch and snap across my face. A tall man, I’m used to getting those strands across my face and caught in my hair when walking forest trails, but rambling over a broad lawn is not where I expected to smack into spider web.
So I looked around for an anchoring point, and quickly realized that the spiders would logically enough clamber to the top of the goal, ready to cast their line far across the Midwestern plains. With a slow, steady breeze, they would unlimber many yards of webbing, hoping to snarl in a distant tree where the would walk, highwire fashion, over into a new world.
Or even more amazingly, they may have clambered up one of the riverside sycamores a hundred yards away, and attaching to a high branch, launched themselves out into the void, spinning a strand behind them, the gossamer thread billowing in the carefully calculated (but never predictable) breeze, until the long low arc intersected with the metal bar to my left.
Looking up to trace the possible sources for these weblines, I saw in the sky extended plumes with a feathery uplift at one end. These cirrus clouds, tens of thousands of feet in the air, were puffs of ice crystals caught up in the high blasts of the leading edge of an air system, ghostly trumpet heralds of weather to come tomorrow. That night I would see the circular rainbow around a full moon, made by the refraction of those ice crystals now spread across the sky more evenly, bending the reflection of the sun’s shine off the round moon into a circle of dim but distinct spectral colors.
The next day I took a walk in the light rain that fell from overcast skies, a result neatly predicted by the cirrus of yesterday morning stretching above the spiderweb. Up the road from me is the field that embraces a small woodlot where a house built in 1810 once stood. Paralleling the rows of corn, is a line that separates a modern development, in what was once a farm field, from where crops are still planted and harvested.
From back when that work was more by hand and closer to the ground, that line on closer inspection is a wall, or at least the remnants of a wall. Laid of field stone, slabs of sandstone, there are still about six courses worth of rock, stretching for over a hundred yards and surely once even longer, on to the side of the next hill. Overgrown with Virginia creeper and poison ivy, the wall is nearly invisible until you’re right on it.
Once you see it, though, you can’t help but think about how 200 years ago these stones were taken from freshly plowed fields, one by one, and carried over to slowly build this wall. How tall once was it? Hard to tell.
Webs and clouds and walls and lines of connection and separation – and votes. We connect ourselves to the process of government, and connect that process to ourselves when we choose to step aside from the everyday and wait in line, cast our vote, and cast our voice out into the electorate. It is a thin strand, to be sure, that connects us to great affairs, but a little more substantial if low to the ground when we vote on our local officials and levies.
Tuesday morning, 6:30 am sharp, the officials and judges and your neighbors will be waiting and ready. Connect yourself to the work of government, and while you’re at it, enjoy the fall as you walk away from the polling place. You’ve earned it!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; throw him a line at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Connections Hanging By a Thread
What does voting this Tuesday, with a lever, a punch through card-stock, or a touch on a television screen, have to do with the governing of our county?
Does the simple act of voting, with our limited knowledge as individuals and the unpredictability of human nature, actually mean much of anything to the choices our elected officials make? Or does election day just anoint one over the other on a basis perilously close to drawing straws?
Last week I was walking across the long lawns of a local soccer field, where the morning fog was melting off a wide stretch of grass still green. The nearest trees were a hundred yards and more away, and the only objects waiting for our arrival were a number of eight foot high goal cages, with a mesh net of woven twine hanging across the back and sides.
Even twenty feet to one side, as I walked past each soccer goal, I would feel the light, lengthy swipe of spider web stretch and snap across my face. A tall man, I’m used to getting those strands across my face and caught in my hair when walking forest trails, but rambling over a broad lawn is not where I expected to smack into spider web.
So I looked around for an anchoring point, and quickly realized that the spiders would logically enough clamber to the top of the goal, ready to cast their line far across the Midwestern plains. With a slow, steady breeze, they would unlimber many yards of webbing, hoping to snarl in a distant tree where the would walk, highwire fashion, over into a new world.
Or even more amazingly, they may have clambered up one of the riverside sycamores a hundred yards away, and attaching to a high branch, launched themselves out into the void, spinning a strand behind them, the gossamer thread billowing in the carefully calculated (but never predictable) breeze, until the long low arc intersected with the metal bar to my left.
Looking up to trace the possible sources for these weblines, I saw in the sky extended plumes with a feathery uplift at one end. These cirrus clouds, tens of thousands of feet in the air, were puffs of ice crystals caught up in the high blasts of the leading edge of an air system, ghostly trumpet heralds of weather to come tomorrow. That night I would see the circular rainbow around a full moon, made by the refraction of those ice crystals now spread across the sky more evenly, bending the reflection of the sun’s shine off the round moon into a circle of dim but distinct spectral colors.
The next day I took a walk in the light rain that fell from overcast skies, a result neatly predicted by the cirrus of yesterday morning stretching above the spiderweb. Up the road from me is the field that embraces a small woodlot where a house built in 1810 once stood. Paralleling the rows of corn, is a line that separates a modern development, in what was once a farm field, from where crops are still planted and harvested.
From back when that work was more by hand and closer to the ground, that line on closer inspection is a wall, or at least the remnants of a wall. Laid of field stone, slabs of sandstone, there are still about six courses worth of rock, stretching for over a hundred yards and surely once even longer, on to the side of the next hill. Overgrown with Virginia creeper and poison ivy, the wall is nearly invisible until you’re right on it.
Once you see it, though, you can’t help but think about how 200 years ago these stones were taken from freshly plowed fields, one by one, and carried over to slowly build this wall. How tall once was it? Hard to tell.
Webs and clouds and walls and lines of connection and separation – and votes. We connect ourselves to the process of government, and connect that process to ourselves when we choose to step aside from the everyday and wait in line, cast our vote, and cast our voice out into the electorate. It is a thin strand, to be sure, that connects us to great affairs, but a little more substantial if low to the ground when we vote on our local officials and levies.
Tuesday morning, 6:30 am sharp, the officials and judges and your neighbors will be waiting and ready. Connect yourself to the work of government, and while you’re at it, enjoy the fall as you walk away from the polling place. You’ve earned it!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; throw him a line at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
Faith Works 10-27-07
Jeff Gill
Are Ye Able, Said the Master
“Are ye able when the shadows/
close around you with the sod,/
To believe that spirit triumphs,/
To commend your soul to God?
So sings the last verse of “Are Ye Able,” a classic Protestant Christian hymn written by Earl Marlatt in1926. In seminary at the time, he went on to teach at a number of Methodist institutions himself.
This week of observances for the eve of All Saints’ Day, or “All Hallows,” means that the creepy and crawly signs of Hallowe’en will be all around.
Many folks who wouldn’t be caught dead (ahem) walking through a cemetery will turn their front lawn into one. People who know nothing of the Latin phrase “Requiesat In Pacem” will scrawl R.I.P. on foam boards painted aged grey.
But what’s the deal with “the shadows” closing ‘round you with the sod? Ick. Sounds like a horror movie plot, “Buried Alive.”
Doesn’t it?
Perhaps this season of growing chill and grinning pumpkins, mocking darkness and death, is a good time to do some – theology! Ah, I scared some of you, didn’t I?
Theology is just thinking through our beliefs, making sure the implications of our ideas trace out in accordance with the Bible and point towards God.
What happens to us when we die? There’s a major point of interest for believer and non-believer alike. When you hear people talk about the soul and death, you tend to hear language that points to arrival in Heaven at the moment of death (when that is would take another column). Along with that understanding is the growth of a sort of “folk belief” that the recently departed are “angels.”
That is all a fairly recent way of looking at death, actually.
For much of the history of Western Christendom, the theology of death went like this – when you died, your soul went into the care of God, but your awareness and subjective reality essentially went into the ground, where your corpse was the “index” of what would, at the Last Judgment, be your resurrected body, where the physical and spiritual was reunited, judged, and given their eternal reward before the Judgment Seat.
This is why reverence for tombs and graves, and superstitions about corpses and relics, occupied such a large part of ancient thinking. The body was waiting, as was your soul, for the end of Time, and we the living, passing by the churchyard gravestones, waited with them. There is much medieval and Renaissance art depicting the drama of the Last Trump, when graves and tombs would open, the seas would give up their dead from the vasty deep, and saints would clatter back together from their sanctifiedly scattered situations, drawing their various bits and the faithful found nearby to the Valley of Jehosaphat near the Golden Gate, where the sheep and the goats would find their proper fold.
Granted, even in this perspective, from the decedent’s point of view, no “time” would pass between their passing and the end of “Time,” but pastoral allusions to the immediacy of one’s trip to stand at the foot of the Great White Throne became a sort of Ongoing Judgment, with each one’s death an end of time in itself, with eternal disposition on demand.
I’d argue that another pair of side effects of this shift is the lack of respect for cemeteries generally (just a bunch of cast-off husks, right?), and the rise of a devotional focus on the place, the moment of death. You’ve seen them from simple roadside small white crosses to elaborate six-foot tall engraved crosses surrounded by vigil lamps once only found in graveyards and a mound of flowers, stuffed animals, or Buckeye-logo pinwheels.
Why this new trend? Well, if the moment of death is the moment of arrival in Heaven and the culmination of God’s final answer, then the moment of death becomes much more a focal point for the living than the “resting place” (think about that term, right?) for the body.
Paul speaks of the power of the bodily resurrection, which may not be too tied to where your trimmed fingernails or knee-replacement joint goes, but does seem to say that God is interested in the whole person, and the spirit is manifested in a body, and the body is entwined with the soul, and you really can’t see God’s purpose fulfilled in one without the other.
Which is why that 80 year old hymn asks us to consider the long sleep awaiting Gabriel’s trumpet blast to truly end, and then . . .
Lord, we are able, our spirits are thine,/
Remold them, make us, like Thee divine./
Thy guiding radiance above us shall be/
A beacon to God, to love and loyalty.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he thinks a Jack-o’-lantern is an interesting way to think about a soul shining out through a body! Tell him your story of faith at work at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Are Ye Able, Said the Master
“Are ye able when the shadows/
close around you with the sod,/
To believe that spirit triumphs,/
To commend your soul to God?
So sings the last verse of “Are Ye Able,” a classic Protestant Christian hymn written by Earl Marlatt in1926. In seminary at the time, he went on to teach at a number of Methodist institutions himself.
This week of observances for the eve of All Saints’ Day, or “All Hallows,” means that the creepy and crawly signs of Hallowe’en will be all around.
Many folks who wouldn’t be caught dead (ahem) walking through a cemetery will turn their front lawn into one. People who know nothing of the Latin phrase “Requiesat In Pacem” will scrawl R.I.P. on foam boards painted aged grey.
But what’s the deal with “the shadows” closing ‘round you with the sod? Ick. Sounds like a horror movie plot, “Buried Alive.”
Doesn’t it?
Perhaps this season of growing chill and grinning pumpkins, mocking darkness and death, is a good time to do some – theology! Ah, I scared some of you, didn’t I?
Theology is just thinking through our beliefs, making sure the implications of our ideas trace out in accordance with the Bible and point towards God.
What happens to us when we die? There’s a major point of interest for believer and non-believer alike. When you hear people talk about the soul and death, you tend to hear language that points to arrival in Heaven at the moment of death (when that is would take another column). Along with that understanding is the growth of a sort of “folk belief” that the recently departed are “angels.”
That is all a fairly recent way of looking at death, actually.
For much of the history of Western Christendom, the theology of death went like this – when you died, your soul went into the care of God, but your awareness and subjective reality essentially went into the ground, where your corpse was the “index” of what would, at the Last Judgment, be your resurrected body, where the physical and spiritual was reunited, judged, and given their eternal reward before the Judgment Seat.
This is why reverence for tombs and graves, and superstitions about corpses and relics, occupied such a large part of ancient thinking. The body was waiting, as was your soul, for the end of Time, and we the living, passing by the churchyard gravestones, waited with them. There is much medieval and Renaissance art depicting the drama of the Last Trump, when graves and tombs would open, the seas would give up their dead from the vasty deep, and saints would clatter back together from their sanctifiedly scattered situations, drawing their various bits and the faithful found nearby to the Valley of Jehosaphat near the Golden Gate, where the sheep and the goats would find their proper fold.
Granted, even in this perspective, from the decedent’s point of view, no “time” would pass between their passing and the end of “Time,” but pastoral allusions to the immediacy of one’s trip to stand at the foot of the Great White Throne became a sort of Ongoing Judgment, with each one’s death an end of time in itself, with eternal disposition on demand.
I’d argue that another pair of side effects of this shift is the lack of respect for cemeteries generally (just a bunch of cast-off husks, right?), and the rise of a devotional focus on the place, the moment of death. You’ve seen them from simple roadside small white crosses to elaborate six-foot tall engraved crosses surrounded by vigil lamps once only found in graveyards and a mound of flowers, stuffed animals, or Buckeye-logo pinwheels.
Why this new trend? Well, if the moment of death is the moment of arrival in Heaven and the culmination of God’s final answer, then the moment of death becomes much more a focal point for the living than the “resting place” (think about that term, right?) for the body.
Paul speaks of the power of the bodily resurrection, which may not be too tied to where your trimmed fingernails or knee-replacement joint goes, but does seem to say that God is interested in the whole person, and the spirit is manifested in a body, and the body is entwined with the soul, and you really can’t see God’s purpose fulfilled in one without the other.
Which is why that 80 year old hymn asks us to consider the long sleep awaiting Gabriel’s trumpet blast to truly end, and then . . .
Lord, we are able, our spirits are thine,/
Remold them, make us, like Thee divine./
Thy guiding radiance above us shall be/
A beacon to God, to love and loyalty.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he thinks a Jack-o’-lantern is an interesting way to think about a soul shining out through a body! Tell him your story of faith at work at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Monday, October 22, 2007
Notes From My Knapsack 10-28-07
Jeff Gill
What Really Frightens You?
Still another week to time change, and setting our clocks back an hour. The days get shorter, and (finally) cooler. Above, a full moon dances among the scudding clouds.
Are you scared yet?
No, that won’t do it. Just atmosphere and lighting effects won’t ruffle your goosebumps, we who’ve seen Freddy Krueger and Jason LeMasque.
Does the prospect of wearing white out of season tend a tingle up your spine? Is it the possibility of having your in-laws stay at your house for a week your worst nightmare?
Clearly, there are many who live in fear of being seen in public without proper hair products in place, and not a few who need the security of earphones playing their tunes to block out the sheer horror of birdsong and passing traffic.
But seriously, what scares you?
Running out of money could do it for most of us, except we have figured out how to hide the fact it happened three paychecks ago behind a curtain of credit card slips and payday loan paperwork, drifting off the counter unread.
Illness is the great fear for anyone, and the growth of the medical industry has as much to do with tending our fears as it does with keeping our carcass functioning smoothly.
Death waits behind the cemetery gate, but more and more our fellow citizens are choosing to skip the graveyard, if not the grave, with not only boutique memorial services, but specialized disposal plans – launched into space like Scotty (James Doohan) was, or made into a diamond for a piece of memorable jewelry.
It would scare me to end up, posthumously, in a pawnshop. Anyhow.
It may be the prospect of shuffling off this earthly coil in a particular way, like the endless junior high playground conversation – would it be worse to be hanged, or have your head cut off? Winston Smith feared rats knawing his face, which makes sense, even if betraying Julia didn’t, but that’s Room 101 for you (see “Nineteen Eighty-Four” for more details).
Agoraphobia is fear of the agora, which is to say “open spaces” beyond one’s home, like the Greek marketplace which gives a name. All fans of Charlie Brown’s nemesis Lucy VanPelt know that pantophobia is the fear of everything, which strikes good ol’ Charlie Brown as the right diagnosis. Yours?
Fears are various and changeable – I once feared stewed tomatoes, and now do not. I don’t like them, I just don’t have to have them around my house now that I’m the parent. On the other hand, my parents liked lamb brains, breaded and fried, and I kind of miss the taste. The giant beef tongue in the fridge after butchering season, slowly sliced into sandwiches, neither pleased not bothered me. Just keep your stewed tomatoes with stale bread soaked into them, and slowly stirred before my horrified eyes, far, far away.
Nope, nausea doesn’t quite add up to fear.
You can be made queasy and uneasy to the point where fear literally strikes through your vitals, as grandma might say; come to think of it, the page in the “Old Farmer’s Almanac” of the astronomical signs corresponding to the disemboweled figure (arrow pointing to “Vitals”) always left me quite ill at ease.
Watching a horror movie, or reading a Gothic novel, for the sheer thrill of fright, has never been my cup of tea, or cup of eye of newt, either. Some folks seek out the most gory haunted house or ask to sleep in the haunted room because fear is their catnip. Having rappelled down cliffs, buildings, and once from a helicopter, I know the raw wrench of fear, but that’s a reminder to me never to do so again unless something behind me is burning, or a baby is below me on a ledge.
You need to know the outlines of your fears, so a good grip is always available to you on ‘em, but to trace every inch of your anxieties, and revel in them repeatedly, just strikes me as a bit much.
Then again, I frequently get up in front of groups and speak, which polling regularly shows as a greater fear factor than death. Maybe I’m a thrill seeker and don’t know it.
What scares you? ‘Tis the season!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; his greatest fear is missing a deadline. Send him your timely observations at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
What Really Frightens You?
Still another week to time change, and setting our clocks back an hour. The days get shorter, and (finally) cooler. Above, a full moon dances among the scudding clouds.
Are you scared yet?
No, that won’t do it. Just atmosphere and lighting effects won’t ruffle your goosebumps, we who’ve seen Freddy Krueger and Jason LeMasque.
Does the prospect of wearing white out of season tend a tingle up your spine? Is it the possibility of having your in-laws stay at your house for a week your worst nightmare?
Clearly, there are many who live in fear of being seen in public without proper hair products in place, and not a few who need the security of earphones playing their tunes to block out the sheer horror of birdsong and passing traffic.
But seriously, what scares you?
Running out of money could do it for most of us, except we have figured out how to hide the fact it happened three paychecks ago behind a curtain of credit card slips and payday loan paperwork, drifting off the counter unread.
Illness is the great fear for anyone, and the growth of the medical industry has as much to do with tending our fears as it does with keeping our carcass functioning smoothly.
Death waits behind the cemetery gate, but more and more our fellow citizens are choosing to skip the graveyard, if not the grave, with not only boutique memorial services, but specialized disposal plans – launched into space like Scotty (James Doohan) was, or made into a diamond for a piece of memorable jewelry.
It would scare me to end up, posthumously, in a pawnshop. Anyhow.
It may be the prospect of shuffling off this earthly coil in a particular way, like the endless junior high playground conversation – would it be worse to be hanged, or have your head cut off? Winston Smith feared rats knawing his face, which makes sense, even if betraying Julia didn’t, but that’s Room 101 for you (see “Nineteen Eighty-Four” for more details).
Agoraphobia is fear of the agora, which is to say “open spaces” beyond one’s home, like the Greek marketplace which gives a name. All fans of Charlie Brown’s nemesis Lucy VanPelt know that pantophobia is the fear of everything, which strikes good ol’ Charlie Brown as the right diagnosis. Yours?
Fears are various and changeable – I once feared stewed tomatoes, and now do not. I don’t like them, I just don’t have to have them around my house now that I’m the parent. On the other hand, my parents liked lamb brains, breaded and fried, and I kind of miss the taste. The giant beef tongue in the fridge after butchering season, slowly sliced into sandwiches, neither pleased not bothered me. Just keep your stewed tomatoes with stale bread soaked into them, and slowly stirred before my horrified eyes, far, far away.
Nope, nausea doesn’t quite add up to fear.
You can be made queasy and uneasy to the point where fear literally strikes through your vitals, as grandma might say; come to think of it, the page in the “Old Farmer’s Almanac” of the astronomical signs corresponding to the disemboweled figure (arrow pointing to “Vitals”) always left me quite ill at ease.
Watching a horror movie, or reading a Gothic novel, for the sheer thrill of fright, has never been my cup of tea, or cup of eye of newt, either. Some folks seek out the most gory haunted house or ask to sleep in the haunted room because fear is their catnip. Having rappelled down cliffs, buildings, and once from a helicopter, I know the raw wrench of fear, but that’s a reminder to me never to do so again unless something behind me is burning, or a baby is below me on a ledge.
You need to know the outlines of your fears, so a good grip is always available to you on ‘em, but to trace every inch of your anxieties, and revel in them repeatedly, just strikes me as a bit much.
Then again, I frequently get up in front of groups and speak, which polling regularly shows as a greater fear factor than death. Maybe I’m a thrill seeker and don’t know it.
What scares you? ‘Tis the season!
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; his greatest fear is missing a deadline. Send him your timely observations at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Faith Works 10-20-07
Jeff Gill
Atheism’s Superiority, Faith’s Humility
Christopher Hitchens is a brilliant writer on many subjects, a self-proclaimed contrarian, a former Trotskyite Marxist, and currently the most quoted anti-theist in the world.
His recent book is selling like ice water in . . . OK, I’ll restrain myself. It has the title “god is not great,” and the lack of a capital letter is not a typo.
His argument begins with Islamic fascism, where “Allahu akhbar,” “God is great,” becomes a background chant for murder and homicidal suicide, then quickly spreads, like sin in Sodom, across the entire religious landscape.
Religion, aka “theism,” is the source of pretty much all evil in the modern world.
How does this explain, oh, the slaughter begun by Leon Trotsky himself in the Lubyanka Prison, and continuing under Soviet communism long after his own party’s officials ordered his assassination in a Mexican exile just as World War II began?
Anyhow, the point is that Hitch, nonconformist in so many interesting ways and pursuer of truth and integrity in all things, believes that faith in a god is the biggest lie of all (his no-caps rule, not mine, but watch out for the new AP stylebook).
Candidly, I’d be perfectly happy to ignore him on this subject and keep reading his insightful coverage of world affairs and regional politics with great interest if a bit of skepticism, a skepticism he would encourage, to be fair. But he always feels the need to go on beyond “I don’t believe in any god or gods” to “and people who do are ruining everything!”
Which you would expect me to take personally.
Which I do.
But in the spirit of clarity and straightforwardness that Hitchens claims to pursue, in the steps of his spiritual mentor, George Orwell . . . wait, I mean journalistic mentor . . . I want to try to look at one of Christopher’s key arguments fairly and honestly.
In the seemingly endless book tour for “god is not great,” where he has debated all manner of comers (look up online the text of his Hugh Hewitt debate with Mark Roberts, where courtesy and coherence marked both sides), there’s one point Hitchens had made over and over.
“Ask yourself this question. Can you name one moral action, or moral utterance, performed or spoken by a believer that could not have been performed or spoken by an atheist?” That, he claims, is the killer argument, which no one has answered.
I would say, no one has answered tohis satisfaction.
Which is the heart of the problem for people of faith debating with people like Hitch. My response to that challenge would be, “No, and I see no reason to insult you by trying.”
Really.
To claim that atheists can’t be or do moral things is incoherent and silly. Of course they do. Religious folk would say, privately amongst themselves out of courtesy, that one’s intention matters quite a bit. Maybe even eternally. The idea that we would say you can’t be a good person or do moral things until you share our beliefs is your angst, your issue, not ours.
Butwhy would you be moral? Do you have a sustained case to be made for moral living? Even at that, I’ve heard non- and anti-theists make cases for a materialist ethic; they exist, and don’t automatically lead to a “state of nature, red in tooth and claw.”
Where I suppose I would play into Christopher’s “gotcha” game is the fact that what I do believe is that he, and others like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris grotesquely underplay the degree to which religious belief motivates goodness and caring and charity. For every heretic burned are a thousand thousand soup kitchens; for each bigot are visionary leaders building a society that works bottom up, not top down.
And I will go to the Heavenly bank on those ratios – that there are, and I’ve met them and worked alongside of them, atheists who do good works, and there is a force for good in religion that provides results of compassion and care much more reliably. Religion is a net good, even if it isn’t universally effective on adherents, and while atheism provides some delightful human beings, in general, the outcomes aren’t on Hitchens’ side.
In other words, give me 100 believers and 100 unbelievers, and I’m more likely to staff a food pantry out of the former.
Chris, I’m happy to have any help we can get to do God’s work from those who don’t believe, too. Bless you in your quest.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him what motivates you at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Atheism’s Superiority, Faith’s Humility
Christopher Hitchens is a brilliant writer on many subjects, a self-proclaimed contrarian, a former Trotskyite Marxist, and currently the most quoted anti-theist in the world.
His recent book is selling like ice water in . . . OK, I’ll restrain myself. It has the title “god is not great,” and the lack of a capital letter is not a typo.
His argument begins with Islamic fascism, where “Allahu akhbar,” “God is great,” becomes a background chant for murder and homicidal suicide, then quickly spreads, like sin in Sodom, across the entire religious landscape.
Religion, aka “theism,” is the source of pretty much all evil in the modern world.
How does this explain, oh, the slaughter begun by Leon Trotsky himself in the Lubyanka Prison, and continuing under Soviet communism long after his own party’s officials ordered his assassination in a Mexican exile just as World War II began?
Anyhow, the point is that Hitch, nonconformist in so many interesting ways and pursuer of truth and integrity in all things, believes that faith in a god is the biggest lie of all (his no-caps rule, not mine, but watch out for the new AP stylebook).
Candidly, I’d be perfectly happy to ignore him on this subject and keep reading his insightful coverage of world affairs and regional politics with great interest if a bit of skepticism, a skepticism he would encourage, to be fair. But he always feels the need to go on beyond “I don’t believe in any god or gods” to “and people who do are ruining everything!”
Which you would expect me to take personally.
Which I do.
But in the spirit of clarity and straightforwardness that Hitchens claims to pursue, in the steps of his spiritual mentor, George Orwell . . . wait, I mean journalistic mentor . . . I want to try to look at one of Christopher’s key arguments fairly and honestly.
In the seemingly endless book tour for “god is not great,” where he has debated all manner of comers (look up online the text of his Hugh Hewitt debate with Mark Roberts, where courtesy and coherence marked both sides), there’s one point Hitchens had made over and over.
“Ask yourself this question. Can you name one moral action, or moral utterance, performed or spoken by a believer that could not have been performed or spoken by an atheist?” That, he claims, is the killer argument, which no one has answered.
I would say, no one has answered to
Which is the heart of the problem for people of faith debating with people like Hitch. My response to that challenge would be, “No, and I see no reason to insult you by trying.”
Really.
To claim that atheists can’t be or do moral things is incoherent and silly. Of course they do. Religious folk would say, privately amongst themselves out of courtesy, that one’s intention matters quite a bit. Maybe even eternally. The idea that we would say you can’t be a good person or do moral things until you share our beliefs is your angst, your issue, not ours.
But
Where I suppose I would play into Christopher’s “gotcha” game is the fact that what I do believe is that he, and others like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris grotesquely underplay the degree to which religious belief motivates goodness and caring and charity. For every heretic burned are a thousand thousand soup kitchens; for each bigot are visionary leaders building a society that works bottom up, not top down.
And I will go to the Heavenly bank on those ratios – that there are, and I’ve met them and worked alongside of them, atheists who do good works, and there is a force for good in religion that provides results of compassion and care much more reliably. Religion is a net good, even if it isn’t universally effective on adherents, and while atheism provides some delightful human beings, in general, the outcomes aren’t on Hitchens’ side.
In other words, give me 100 believers and 100 unbelievers, and I’m more likely to staff a food pantry out of the former.
Chris, I’m happy to have any help we can get to do God’s work from those who don’t believe, too. Bless you in your quest.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him what motivates you at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Notes From My Knapsack 10-21-07
Jeff Gill
Ah, Wilderness!
Henry David Thoreau and John Muir and Terry Tempest Williams, nature writers and essayists, all tell us about the necessity of a little wilderness to temper our civilized lives.
Orion Magazine and the Audobon Society and the National Parks and Conservation Association each try to get us involved in the story of preserving natural preserves and wilderness zones. The Lovely Wife and I support the work of groups like The Nature Conservancy and the Environmental Education Council of Ohio to that end.
With global climate change on the radar screen for political parties across the spectrum and in nations around the globe (and hey, congrats, Al, on that Nobel Prize), there’s a key role for each of us to play in supporting and safeguarding special places from the Licking Park District properties to UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
This all shouldn’t make us forget that we live in an ecosystem, right now. Your lawn is growing and respiring and decaying, the ditch down the road or over the fence may be an unintentional xeriscape or pocket tallgrass wetland, and that overgrown bush on the corner is harboring a flock of migrating songbirds.
The idea that all of the outdoors can be neatly divided into man-made and natural is the source of a great deal of confusion. Licking County can be limned into myriad zones of naturalness, from the pristine – well, maybe not – to the paved. In between is a spectrum, with gradations subject to the eye of the beholder.
One such zone that needs more awareness and understanding is “Edge.” An edge is a transition from one natural type to another, so a woods edge is one, and a pond edge is another. We don’t think of “Edge” as a natural location the way we do “Swamp” or “Prairie,” so we discount it.
One way we do hear about edge-ness is in the old-growth forest debate, because animals like the infamous spotted owl live in vast, unbroken tracts, and a Hundred Acre Wood with a road driven through the middle of it is now not only two fifty acre woods, but neither is as welcoming a habitat for Owl, Eeyore, and Pooh, or I should say their natural analogues.
More to the point, there are animals that prefer “Edge” as their habitat, just as owls need deep woods with aged trees. Can you guess some?
Of course you can! Yep, deer go for forest edge, and Canada geese go for pond edge. Increase little pockets o’ trees with lots of edge, and you get plenty o’ deer. Put in drainage ponds hither and yon across the landscape, and put an aerator in to keep the ice from freezing right across, and the Canada geese don’t migrate south for the winter.
Aby Johnson, one of the stalwarts of Camp Falling Rock for the Boy Scouts, reminds us that deer were non-existent in Ohio from before 1900 to about 1950, and through the 50’s, the Newark Advocate always ran reported sightings of white-tails on the front page of the sports section, until 1960 when they became a bit too common.
Now, they regularly put on the front-page stories of how villages and cities are working on plans to shoot deer.
We have a glut of deer because we’ve created an ideal habitat for them, in reproductive terms, anyhow, and we helpfully plant seasonal foodstuffs for them like tulips and petunias and day lilies. They thank you by having more children, and doubtless naming them after you in gratitude.
Plus, we forbid hunting. Out in the townships where they plant corn, they also carry carbines in the combine and rifles in the pickup gun rack. They have many deer, but not quite so many even with more and better food.
So the deer will be shot, and then . . .
What will happen next? The only thing I’m sure of is . . . something will happen. Nature abhors a vacuum, said Spinoza, and we live in nature, whether suburban, rural, or urban alley.
What defines your local ecosystem? Ditches that funnel run-off, nearby streams, lines of trees surrounded by knee-high growth of, stuff, a slope here, a clump of bushes over there. Where do rabbits come out of, and how many bird-feeders get pillaged by masked bandits (another edge fan, by the way)?
Mountaintops have their allure, but just as Thoreau said “I have traveled widely in Concord,” why not get more familiar with your own piece of nature? It may help us figure out how to manage it more wisely.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher who has traveled widely in Licking County; tell of your travels at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Ah, Wilderness!
Henry David Thoreau and John Muir and Terry Tempest Williams, nature writers and essayists, all tell us about the necessity of a little wilderness to temper our civilized lives.
Orion Magazine and the Audobon Society and the National Parks and Conservation Association each try to get us involved in the story of preserving natural preserves and wilderness zones. The Lovely Wife and I support the work of groups like The Nature Conservancy and the Environmental Education Council of Ohio to that end.
With global climate change on the radar screen for political parties across the spectrum and in nations around the globe (and hey, congrats, Al, on that Nobel Prize), there’s a key role for each of us to play in supporting and safeguarding special places from the Licking Park District properties to UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
This all shouldn’t make us forget that we live in an ecosystem, right now. Your lawn is growing and respiring and decaying, the ditch down the road or over the fence may be an unintentional xeriscape or pocket tallgrass wetland, and that overgrown bush on the corner is harboring a flock of migrating songbirds.
The idea that all of the outdoors can be neatly divided into man-made and natural is the source of a great deal of confusion. Licking County can be limned into myriad zones of naturalness, from the pristine – well, maybe not – to the paved. In between is a spectrum, with gradations subject to the eye of the beholder.
One such zone that needs more awareness and understanding is “Edge.” An edge is a transition from one natural type to another, so a woods edge is one, and a pond edge is another. We don’t think of “Edge” as a natural location the way we do “Swamp” or “Prairie,” so we discount it.
One way we do hear about edge-ness is in the old-growth forest debate, because animals like the infamous spotted owl live in vast, unbroken tracts, and a Hundred Acre Wood with a road driven through the middle of it is now not only two fifty acre woods, but neither is as welcoming a habitat for Owl, Eeyore, and Pooh, or I should say their natural analogues.
More to the point, there are animals that prefer “Edge” as their habitat, just as owls need deep woods with aged trees. Can you guess some?
Of course you can! Yep, deer go for forest edge, and Canada geese go for pond edge. Increase little pockets o’ trees with lots of edge, and you get plenty o’ deer. Put in drainage ponds hither and yon across the landscape, and put an aerator in to keep the ice from freezing right across, and the Canada geese don’t migrate south for the winter.
Aby Johnson, one of the stalwarts of Camp Falling Rock for the Boy Scouts, reminds us that deer were non-existent in Ohio from before 1900 to about 1950, and through the 50’s, the Newark Advocate always ran reported sightings of white-tails on the front page of the sports section, until 1960 when they became a bit too common.
Now, they regularly put on the front-page stories of how villages and cities are working on plans to shoot deer.
We have a glut of deer because we’ve created an ideal habitat for them, in reproductive terms, anyhow, and we helpfully plant seasonal foodstuffs for them like tulips and petunias and day lilies. They thank you by having more children, and doubtless naming them after you in gratitude.
Plus, we forbid hunting. Out in the townships where they plant corn, they also carry carbines in the combine and rifles in the pickup gun rack. They have many deer, but not quite so many even with more and better food.
So the deer will be shot, and then . . .
What will happen next? The only thing I’m sure of is . . . something will happen. Nature abhors a vacuum, said Spinoza, and we live in nature, whether suburban, rural, or urban alley.
What defines your local ecosystem? Ditches that funnel run-off, nearby streams, lines of trees surrounded by knee-high growth of, stuff, a slope here, a clump of bushes over there. Where do rabbits come out of, and how many bird-feeders get pillaged by masked bandits (another edge fan, by the way)?
Mountaintops have their allure, but just as Thoreau said “I have traveled widely in Concord,” why not get more familiar with your own piece of nature? It may help us figure out how to manage it more wisely.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher who has traveled widely in Licking County; tell of your travels at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Sunday, October 07, 2007
Notes From My Knapsack 10-14-07
Jeff Gill
Hello, World; We Are Newark
Last week I had the pleasure and privilege of sitting in on a conference call for the U.S. Commission for UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (check ‘em out at http://whc.unesco.org).
As the callers from across the nation – the guy in Hawaii was up before 5 am, standing in his kitchen in the dark – rang in, introducing themselves, I thought back to a few months ago.
The Lovely Wife and I decided to take the Little Guy to his maternal-side long-ago stomping grounds, Mammoth Cave National Park. When we were waiting for a bus to an outlying cave entrance on one of our guided trips, I stopped under the large American flagpole by the entrance, and copied down a bronze plaque’s inscription.
Under a circular logo with a diamond in the center, the symbol found at sites around the globe marking a World Heritage Site, these words were inscribed:
“Through the Collective Recognition of
the Community of Nations
Expressed within the Principles of the
Convention Concerning Protection of the World
Cultural and Natural Heritage
-Mammoth Cave National Park-
Has Been Designated a
World Heritage Site
And Joins a Select List of Protected Areas
Around the World
Whose Outstanding Natural and
Cultural Resources
Form the Common Inheritance
Of All Nations.”
Below that statement is the date “Oct. 27, 1981.”
Mammoth Cave is one of only twenty places in the United States, like Monticello, the Grand Canyon, Independence Hall, and Yellowstone, with the designation “World Heritage Site.” Those twenty share the title with marvels like the Pyramids of Giza and Macchu Picchu, Stonehenge and Teotihuacan.
That number is about to change, as ten more locations over the next decade will be presented through the Secretary of State to UNESCO for “inscription.” In 2009, the first two names proposed are Papahanaumokuakea National Monument on the northeastern shores of Hawaii (including Midway Atoll), and the Civil Rights Churches of Alabama.
Right on their heels come Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece, Fallingwater, and . . .
The Newark Earthworks.
Someday very soon, somewhere in our community, a marker like the one at Mammoth Cave is coming for the “Ohio Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks,” an assemblage of both the myriad mound complexes in the Chillicothe area, and our own complex here, all built around 2,000 years ago.
I don’t mind admitting that I teared up a bit during the call, when the list of ten recommended sites was read, and just now when I typed out the official statement that goes with WHS status. Actually, I was pretty happy for the Hawaii guy, too, since he didn’t get up so early for nothing.
Ohio has done herself proud in this effort, with Serpent Mound from just a thousand years ago on the tentative list of ten, and then the Underground Railroad sites from Wilberforce down to Ripley as a recommendation for continued review on the next ten, along with the Dayton Aviation sites, which were on that second list with the suggestion that they resubmit alongside Kitty Hawk.
This is one historic state, and here in Licking County we are truly the “Land of Legend.” The world (and National Geographic) is taking notice, and now the National Park Service and the State Department are following suit.
If you ever wondered what it would be like to live in an ancient hill town in Italy, or by a pilgrimage site in South America, or next to a natural wonder in the US Southwest, wonder no more. You’re already there, and you’re home.
But we’d best be tidying up, because company’s comin’.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he is a longtime volunteer guide at the Newark Earthworks sites and Flint Ridge. Tell him your tale of globe-trotting, even if it’s right down the road, at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Hello, World; We Are Newark
Last week I had the pleasure and privilege of sitting in on a conference call for the U.S. Commission for UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (check ‘em out at http://whc.unesco.org).
As the callers from across the nation – the guy in Hawaii was up before 5 am, standing in his kitchen in the dark – rang in, introducing themselves, I thought back to a few months ago.
The Lovely Wife and I decided to take the Little Guy to his maternal-side long-ago stomping grounds, Mammoth Cave National Park. When we were waiting for a bus to an outlying cave entrance on one of our guided trips, I stopped under the large American flagpole by the entrance, and copied down a bronze plaque’s inscription.
Under a circular logo with a diamond in the center, the symbol found at sites around the globe marking a World Heritage Site, these words were inscribed:
“Through the Collective Recognition of
the Community of Nations
Expressed within the Principles of the
Convention Concerning Protection of the World
Cultural and Natural Heritage
-Mammoth Cave National Park-
Has Been Designated a
World Heritage Site
And Joins a Select List of Protected Areas
Around the World
Whose Outstanding Natural and
Cultural Resources
Form the Common Inheritance
Of All Nations.”
Below that statement is the date “Oct. 27, 1981.”
Mammoth Cave is one of only twenty places in the United States, like Monticello, the Grand Canyon, Independence Hall, and Yellowstone, with the designation “World Heritage Site.” Those twenty share the title with marvels like the Pyramids of Giza and Macchu Picchu, Stonehenge and Teotihuacan.
That number is about to change, as ten more locations over the next decade will be presented through the Secretary of State to UNESCO for “inscription.” In 2009, the first two names proposed are Papahanaumokuakea National Monument on the northeastern shores of Hawaii (including Midway Atoll), and the Civil Rights Churches of Alabama.
Right on their heels come Frank Lloyd Wright’s masterpiece, Fallingwater, and . . .
The Newark Earthworks.
Someday very soon, somewhere in our community, a marker like the one at Mammoth Cave is coming for the “Ohio Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks,” an assemblage of both the myriad mound complexes in the Chillicothe area, and our own complex here, all built around 2,000 years ago.
I don’t mind admitting that I teared up a bit during the call, when the list of ten recommended sites was read, and just now when I typed out the official statement that goes with WHS status. Actually, I was pretty happy for the Hawaii guy, too, since he didn’t get up so early for nothing.
Ohio has done herself proud in this effort, with Serpent Mound from just a thousand years ago on the tentative list of ten, and then the Underground Railroad sites from Wilberforce down to Ripley as a recommendation for continued review on the next ten, along with the Dayton Aviation sites, which were on that second list with the suggestion that they resubmit alongside Kitty Hawk.
This is one historic state, and here in Licking County we are truly the “Land of Legend.” The world (and National Geographic) is taking notice, and now the National Park Service and the State Department are following suit.
If you ever wondered what it would be like to live in an ancient hill town in Italy, or by a pilgrimage site in South America, or next to a natural wonder in the US Southwest, wonder no more. You’re already there, and you’re home.
But we’d best be tidying up, because company’s comin’.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he is a longtime volunteer guide at the Newark Earthworks sites and Flint Ridge. Tell him your tale of globe-trotting, even if it’s right down the road, at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Thursday, October 04, 2007
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Faith Works 10-6-07
Jeff Gill
Worldview Matters
Rick Warren, whose “The Purpose-Driven Life” has sat on many bedside tables and even been read before falling asleep, wants you to think about “world view.”
This Southern Baptist pastor whose influence crosses all sorts of denominational boundaries is speaking largely to pastors, and to anyone interested in helping their faith community impact the community around them.
Yes, he’s a Christian – you can say that’s his worldview, and you’d be right. His point on those wanting to offer their worldviews to others is that you can’t go at ‘em as if they have no worldview at all, and you’re offering one to fill the gap.
Pastor Warren reminds us that everyone has a worldview, and in the American mission field, there are about six that cover the vast majority of the 60 to 80% of most regions that are unchurched.
His analysis comes down to these six statements: “I’ve got to think of me and mine first,” “the one who dies with the most toys wins” (they even have a bumper sticker), “do what feels good,” “whatever works for you,” “you are your own God,” and “God doesn’t exist.” Most people, Warren argues, live basically out of one or two of those viewpoints on how the world works.
If you want to offer an alternative to those approaches, or philosophies, or whatever you want to call them, you have to first present why those viewpoints aren’t going to get you through life, let alone into the next.
Call them self-interest, materialism, hedonism, pragmatism, solipsism, and atheism, and they line up well down the side of a page, but how you write the definition shapes the response of an evangelist. And Warren is right to remind us of this fairly obvious point, because we do forget that folks don’t pick their worldview out of a philosophy text or mail order catalog, but we live into them, step by step. We adopt them because, in one context or another, they work for us, so we keep them – often long after they no longer make sense, even to ourselves.
What Warren doesn’t get into, being much less long-winded and wordy than your host in this column, is how these worldviews often persist right into the life of faith.
We hold out our faith in God’s guidance and provision, but we hold onto our belief in “whatever works” when it comes to program and planning for church life; our hearts are firmly fixed on Heaven as our true home, and still pursue our own comfort and safe surroundings for fellowship and study.
I haven’t sold 35 million books recently, but I’d step in front of Brother Rick and suggest that we need to have an honest encounter with our own worldview issues within the church, in order to have a saving impact on the fallen worldviews of others.
Are we pursuing growth for a sense of success and security in our own frame of reference, or because we sincerely need to reach out to people we see heading towards their own ultimate sadness with grim intensity?
Can we as believers build up the body, for the purpose of equipping the saints for the work of ministry, without falling into the desire for easy fellowship and cheap grace around a Buckeye game on the big screen?
Most crucially for the Christian faith in this country, and right here in our corner of it, do we want to point fingers at the family arrangements of others just to give ourselves a sense of solidarity among me and mine, when our homes and marriages and children are not being strengthened and built up for a lifetime? We need to put solid foundations under the homes of the faithful before we can out offering ourselves as consulting engineers for everyone else’s contractor business.
What worldview are you living? If a visitor to your church were asked on the way out, “What do you perceive to be the governing philosophy of living in this place?” – what would they say?
In fact, you could try that sometime. Don’t do it unless you’re willing to listen to what they say.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him your world view at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Worldview Matters
Rick Warren, whose “The Purpose-Driven Life” has sat on many bedside tables and even been read before falling asleep, wants you to think about “world view.”
This Southern Baptist pastor whose influence crosses all sorts of denominational boundaries is speaking largely to pastors, and to anyone interested in helping their faith community impact the community around them.
Yes, he’s a Christian – you can say that’s his worldview, and you’d be right. His point on those wanting to offer their worldviews to others is that you can’t go at ‘em as if they have no worldview at all, and you’re offering one to fill the gap.
Pastor Warren reminds us that everyone has a worldview, and in the American mission field, there are about six that cover the vast majority of the 60 to 80% of most regions that are unchurched.
His analysis comes down to these six statements: “I’ve got to think of me and mine first,” “the one who dies with the most toys wins” (they even have a bumper sticker), “do what feels good,” “whatever works for you,” “you are your own God,” and “God doesn’t exist.” Most people, Warren argues, live basically out of one or two of those viewpoints on how the world works.
If you want to offer an alternative to those approaches, or philosophies, or whatever you want to call them, you have to first present why those viewpoints aren’t going to get you through life, let alone into the next.
Call them self-interest, materialism, hedonism, pragmatism, solipsism, and atheism, and they line up well down the side of a page, but how you write the definition shapes the response of an evangelist. And Warren is right to remind us of this fairly obvious point, because we do forget that folks don’t pick their worldview out of a philosophy text or mail order catalog, but we live into them, step by step. We adopt them because, in one context or another, they work for us, so we keep them – often long after they no longer make sense, even to ourselves.
What Warren doesn’t get into, being much less long-winded and wordy than your host in this column, is how these worldviews often persist right into the life of faith.
We hold out our faith in God’s guidance and provision, but we hold onto our belief in “whatever works” when it comes to program and planning for church life; our hearts are firmly fixed on Heaven as our true home, and still pursue our own comfort and safe surroundings for fellowship and study.
I haven’t sold 35 million books recently, but I’d step in front of Brother Rick and suggest that we need to have an honest encounter with our own worldview issues within the church, in order to have a saving impact on the fallen worldviews of others.
Are we pursuing growth for a sense of success and security in our own frame of reference, or because we sincerely need to reach out to people we see heading towards their own ultimate sadness with grim intensity?
Can we as believers build up the body, for the purpose of equipping the saints for the work of ministry, without falling into the desire for easy fellowship and cheap grace around a Buckeye game on the big screen?
Most crucially for the Christian faith in this country, and right here in our corner of it, do we want to point fingers at the family arrangements of others just to give ourselves a sense of solidarity among me and mine, when our homes and marriages and children are not being strengthened and built up for a lifetime? We need to put solid foundations under the homes of the faithful before we can out offering ourselves as consulting engineers for everyone else’s contractor business.
What worldview are you living? If a visitor to your church were asked on the way out, “What do you perceive to be the governing philosophy of living in this place?” – what would they say?
In fact, you could try that sometime. Don’t do it unless you’re willing to listen to what they say.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him your world view at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Notes From My Knapsack 10-7-07
Jeff Gill
Free Speech Works Oddly, But Works
President Ahmadinejad of Iran managed to show off one of free speech’s best features at Columbia University.
Some voices argued with great passion and pretty decent debating points that he shouldn’t be given a public platform, given his use of “free speech” to argue against the Holocaust (all just a misunderstanding), for the obliteration of a country (Israel has no right to exist), and that Iran only wants nuclear plants so he can make that cool glow-in-the-dark paint for watch hands (OK, not quite).
But when he was in New York City for the opening of the United Nations’ General Assembly, he dropped by Columbia for a little meet ‘n greet with the students and faculty.
Turns out Columbia has a president, too, and Lee Bollinger took the podium first to tee off on the human rights record of Iran under the ayatollah-ite regime, and their lack of political freedom, such as restricting the right to breath for some dissidents, hanging a number of peaceful Bahá'ís, along with a quite a few Jews accused of spying on flimsy pretexts. Pres. Bollinger covered it all, with citations.
Pres. Ahmadinejad countered by saying, loudly, clearly, in unambiguous Farsi with a very skilled translator removing all doubt, “There are no homosexuals in Iran.”
Don’t know about you, but that one statement justified Columbia giving him a platform more than any excoriation by the school’s executive officer. Knowing that this fellow thinks he can say something like that with a straight face (sorry, I know) puts us all on the same page about the viewpoint of the current regime.
The great thing about free speech is that if it really is as free as possible, we all learn where one another are coming from, and what we intend. Press releases and sound bites can’t quite deliver that sense of who and what a person’s about.
You could call it the “give ‘em enough rope” philosophy, but that assumes this only works as a negative check and balance. I like thinking of it as more of a “Glass cleaner” approach, with more than a little circle rubbed through the dirty window, but a wide field of view showing as much as possible.
If a candidate for school board says at an election forum, “We have no kids with special needs in our district,” or a municipal candidate says “We don’t need more economic development around here,” or a township trustee race evokes the comment “We don’t have any roads or bridges that need upkeep,” I’d wonder if that was possibly what they meant as a one-line quote in an election guide.
When they keep talking after the room breaks out in laughter, as if everyone were nodding their heads up and down, I’ve learned something useful.
We’re a month away from what I think of as the “real elections,” when school boards and local councils and trustee panels go before the voters. Millions of dollars worth of TV ads during presidential campaigns can cloud men’s minds more surely than The Shadow, but in a local election, not so much.
There are irrational people running for local positions, though, and they often have one rational line they’ve ridden on the road to Election Day. You need to hear the whole statement sometimes, or hear their tagline in a broader, conversational context, to realize “this person is nuttier than grandma’s banana bread.”
If your area has a candidates’ night or election forum, make the effort to drop by and spend an hour listening. What you hear is free speech at its best, and the best solution to the problems people claim come from the wrong kind of speech is more free speech, not less.
Speak out, too, but make sure to listen to some of that free speech first; there’s a price for not doing so.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s met politicians who are unhinged and tightly buttoned down, sometimes in the same person (different days). Tell him your Election Day story at knapsack77@gmail.com.
Jeff Gill
Free Speech Works Oddly, But Works
President Ahmadinejad of Iran managed to show off one of free speech’s best features at Columbia University.
Some voices argued with great passion and pretty decent debating points that he shouldn’t be given a public platform, given his use of “free speech” to argue against the Holocaust (all just a misunderstanding), for the obliteration of a country (Israel has no right to exist), and that Iran only wants nuclear plants so he can make that cool glow-in-the-dark paint for watch hands (OK, not quite).
But when he was in New York City for the opening of the United Nations’ General Assembly, he dropped by Columbia for a little meet ‘n greet with the students and faculty.
Turns out Columbia has a president, too, and Lee Bollinger took the podium first to tee off on the human rights record of Iran under the ayatollah-ite regime, and their lack of political freedom, such as restricting the right to breath for some dissidents, hanging a number of peaceful Bahá'ís, along with a quite a few Jews accused of spying on flimsy pretexts. Pres. Bollinger covered it all, with citations.
Pres. Ahmadinejad countered by saying, loudly, clearly, in unambiguous Farsi with a very skilled translator removing all doubt, “There are no homosexuals in Iran.”
Don’t know about you, but that one statement justified Columbia giving him a platform more than any excoriation by the school’s executive officer. Knowing that this fellow thinks he can say something like that with a straight face (sorry, I know) puts us all on the same page about the viewpoint of the current regime.
The great thing about free speech is that if it really is as free as possible, we all learn where one another are coming from, and what we intend. Press releases and sound bites can’t quite deliver that sense of who and what a person’s about.
You could call it the “give ‘em enough rope” philosophy, but that assumes this only works as a negative check and balance. I like thinking of it as more of a “Glass cleaner” approach, with more than a little circle rubbed through the dirty window, but a wide field of view showing as much as possible.
If a candidate for school board says at an election forum, “We have no kids with special needs in our district,” or a municipal candidate says “We don’t need more economic development around here,” or a township trustee race evokes the comment “We don’t have any roads or bridges that need upkeep,” I’d wonder if that was possibly what they meant as a one-line quote in an election guide.
When they keep talking after the room breaks out in laughter, as if everyone were nodding their heads up and down, I’ve learned something useful.
We’re a month away from what I think of as the “real elections,” when school boards and local councils and trustee panels go before the voters. Millions of dollars worth of TV ads during presidential campaigns can cloud men’s minds more surely than The Shadow, but in a local election, not so much.
There are irrational people running for local positions, though, and they often have one rational line they’ve ridden on the road to Election Day. You need to hear the whole statement sometimes, or hear their tagline in a broader, conversational context, to realize “this person is nuttier than grandma’s banana bread.”
If your area has a candidates’ night or election forum, make the effort to drop by and spend an hour listening. What you hear is free speech at its best, and the best solution to the problems people claim come from the wrong kind of speech is more free speech, not less.
Speak out, too, but make sure to listen to some of that free speech first; there’s a price for not doing so.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s met politicians who are unhinged and tightly buttoned down, sometimes in the same person (different days). Tell him your Election Day story at knapsack77@gmail.com.
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