Faith Works 3-26-11

Jeff Gill

"I have surely seen the affliction of my people…and have heard their cry"

___

There are not words to describe what has happened, and tragically is still happening in Japan.

Still happening, not so much because of the nuclear power plant situation, but because in the bitter dregs of a Japanese winter, many of the survivors are hanging on to life in the face of damp cold and lack of water or even food. This, after seeing what will likely total tens of thousands of their friends and neighbors and immediate family members get carried away by a wall of water, if they hadn't been crushed by falling buildings at the outset.

To endure all that, and then feel life slipping away as you wait for help, or even to be a hale and healthy relief worker who has too little to offer the living, and overwhelming numbers of the dead staring coldly back at you . . . it is too much.

Then add the atomic anxiety on top of that.

"Theodicy" is the subset of theology that wrestles with the question "How can a good God let evil occur?" Theodicy takes many forms, but it can readily boil down to "Why, O Lord, why?"

We live on the surface of an uneasy Earth. There is nothing stable or timeless about even snow-capped mountains or endless ocean vistas. Certainty is not actually built into bedrock.

You could wish, I suppose, that we lived on a stable, featureless ball made of simple, sturdy, homogenous material, a ball bearing just soft enough to push tent stakes into, and a neat ribbon of water around the middle. Of course, if it doesn't spin, you don't have day and night; if it doesn't orbit the sun, you don't have stability in your distance from the light & warmth it provides. If the earth doesn't have a molten core and vast plates nudging around on the surface of the crust . . . the biology for dummies version of all this is: if we have a planet with no earthquakes and volcanoes and thunderstorms, we have no life, or at least life like us.

Which is a version of taking on theodicy by saying "You wish the world were different, and if you were the Creator, you'd handle things differently? Check out Job, chapters 38-42. You don't understand all the myriad complexities involved, and why some things must be this way."

The more personal dilemma is that you run up against the enduring question, is freedom worth pain? Especially when it's my freedom at the expense of another's pain? Do there have to be tsunamis for human creatures to have free will?

A very unsatisfactory answer is "yes." Because any other fix we imagine to Creation requires another fix and another and another, and you always end up, going that way, with a preordained puppet theater, eminently safe, but horrible in its own claustrophobic way.

So people of faith look on natural disasters with a mix of empathy, and commitment. Whatever this means, however initiated, we're all sure of one thing: we are called upon at such moments to help. In New Orleans we sent help, and went ourselves by the hundreds of thousands, with many now shifting north to Nashville for rehabs and rebuilds.

Overseas relief efforts are for many religious bodies already at work; this is why general giving is really an ideal way to help, since existing funds went out first to help Japan, and who knows what's next?

Whatever your organized religious tradition, there's a group your fellowship works with where your dollars can back up your prayers. My own tradition of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) has the renowned "Week of Compassion" program, which was taken up just before the Japan disaster, but supports an office which responds & co-ordinates all year 'round: www.weekofcompassion.org.

They are also part of an effort known as “One Great Hour of Sharing” which is a special offering given in Presbyterian, UCC, and American Baptist churches, and at www.onegreathourofsharing.org you can find your denominational emphasis & opportunity to give at the “Get Involved” tab. Methodists know they can count on their United Methodist Committee on Relief, or UMCOR, which you can contribute to through www.gbgm-umc.org/umcor.

Catholic efforts are largely co-ordinated through Catholic Relief Services, online at www.crs.org while the Episcopal Relief & Development agency is at www.er-d.org.

If you are familiar with the cooperative efforts of Church World Service, such as the annual CROP Walk, check in at www.churchworldservice.org for their ecumenical efforts. Many evangelical Christian groups are working through Second Harvest Japan, www.2hj.org, and of course www.samaritanspurse.org. The Mennonite and other Anabaptist "peace church" traditions have www.mcc.org for their assistance to get across the Pacific.

What ever your beliefs, act on them, and reach out, and heal, in prayer and practical assistance. "Bear ye one another's burdens," which is what it all comes down to.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Knapsack 4-7-11

Twelve Years Old in Granville - 1959

___

Every time he swung around Mount Parnassus and zipped into the valley
over the bridge, Bobby felt just a little bit nervous.

Not so much the speed his Huffy bicycle could reach downhill, but
about the lady in the little brick house at the top of the slope on
the other side.

Mrs. Moody could be, well, moody. Or at least tart-tongued.

He knew that she wrote for the same newspaper that he delivered, and
she would make comments about how they worked for the same boss, but
a paperboy really never ran into anyone other than the circulation
manager, or the delivery truck guy if he was at his corner when the
bundle got dropped off.

His route was on the east side of the village, with another paperboy
on the west side, and a third out Burg Street. Recently, there had
been new houses going up beyond Clear Run, past Mrs. Moody's house,
all the way to Mrs. Sexton's farm with the big mansion behind the
polo field.

"Young man, this area along the road, beyond my house, used to be
called Centerville, did you know that?" Mrs. Moody had lots of
stories about how things used to be. He knew that Mrs. Sexton had
been a Jones, and there were Joneses back to the very first settlers
here, back to when Indians still camped along the streams and creeks.
Bobby found arrowheads and stone axeheads down along Raccoon Creek
and up in the Jones' fields, and she didn't mind as long as he showed
them to her before he took them home.

Mrs. Sexton always said, when he delivered the paper up to her big
house, to just call her "Sallie," which he never could do. He also
never could collect her subscription, at least not as regularly as
most of the rest of his paper route.

Wasn't that odd, that the richest person was the hardest to get money
from? Or maybe she isn't really all that rich anymore, his mother
would say as he counted up at the kitchen table of an evening. Which
seemed odd…weren't rich people always rich?

Anyhow, this was the last loop before heading home, Bobby thought as
he zoomed down into the valley like a jet fighter on a combat
mission. Pull up, cruise past Mrs. Moody, toss the paper up over the
picket fence onto her stoop like a guided missile, and then six more
customers until pedaling up Jones Road to the mansion, last delivery.
Sometimes Mrs. Sexton would wave him into the kitchen off the back,
and pour him a glass of milk, "from my own cows!" she'd always point
out. Then a leisurely ride home, and one more swoop across this
bridge before he was done for the day.

That's how yesterday was, and how tomorrow would probably be. Bobby
wondered if his son might deliver papers on this same route. Wouldn't
that be amazing? Some things changed, like those stories Mrs. Moody
kept telling him about old times, but then there was new stuff, like
hearing about how the Kraft Music Hall might be in color soon, now
that they had Perry Como. Mom and Dad seemed pretty happy about that.

Things would pretty much always be exactly the way they are, thought
Bobby. Except for the parts that will be different.

[As the father, in 2011, of a twelve year old about to turn thirteen,
I'd like to thank the readers of the Sentinel for bearing with me
through these twelve stories of "Twelve Years Old in Granville."]

Notes From My Knapsack 3-24

Notes From My Knapsack 3-24-11

Jeff Gill

Twelve Years Old in Granville – 1905

___

If Billy had ever seen a man cry before, he didn't recall it. And two
crying old men was just the strangest sight.

There in the vestibule of the Presbyterian church, they were just
hugging and weeping and talking across each other, and Billy glanced
about, to see that many other adults had moist eyes as they looked on.

But it was time to go on up the steps into the sanctuary, and the
throngs that had crowded the new sidewalks in front now marched
together towards worship.

This was no ordinary church service; the preacher was a visitor, an
elderly gent (older than the two downstairs) who had grown up here in
the village, while his father had been the parson, both of them
called Rev. Little.

Just as he had feared, they ended up back far enough in the crowd
that by the time they got to the upper level sanctuary, the only open
seats were to the front. Billy had already been warned by his mother
that the guest preacher's father had been an absolute bear about
fidgeting or any noise-making, accidental or not, during worship.
Sitting in the second pew left him thinking that his doom was sealed,
and the nature of that doom occupied his thoughts for much of the
early part of the service.

When Rev. Little stepped to the pulpit, everyone shifted and adjusted
themselves as quietly as they could; Billy was not the only one to
have heard reminders that morning of the senior Rev. Little's eagle
eye. It was likely to be a long sermon, and finding a good position
at the start gave you a fighting chance to make it to the end un-
glared-upon.

To the satisfaction of both young and old, the message was a warm and
affecting one. The minister spoke of his father Jacob, the struggles
to build the church in which they now sat, and further struggles were
alluded to, which some of the adults nodded at gravely.

He did not dwell on that cloud, but went on to recall the fiftieth
anniversary of the village, in 1855, and ceremonies his father
presided over in the earlier building. There was a town meeting of
sorts, and it was adjourned by one Elias Gilman, the oldest surviving
original settler, and it was seconded by the youngest "mature" lad
present, "my brother and now a pastor himself, George Little."

Everyone looked about and saw the silver head nodding, and smiled.
Rev. Charles Little went on to say "the motion they made and seconded
was to adjourn, to a date fifty years hence. And as the final vote
was taken, two boys in the balcony, about the age of . . ." and his
eye swept down into the second row, pointing directly at Billy, to
say "that young man right there. Those two whispered to each other,
as young men sometimes do during divine worship," and a soft chuckle
washed through the church.

"They said to each other, on that motion to come together again,
fifty years hence, that they would be there. And friends, I am glad
to reintroduce to you those two, who have returned to Granville from
the far corners of this land, Henry Carr & G.G. Walker, carrying with
them lightly the burden of another half-century."

At that, the two men from downstairs, weeping yet again, stood arm in
arm in the frontmost pew of the church.

Looking at them, Billy had two thoughts: that it was hard to imagine
they had ever been twelve, but surely they had – and that no one had
ever called him a young man before.

It was a grand day, all around.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around
central Ohio; tell him a story at knapsack77@gmail.com.

Faith Works 3-19

Faith Works 3-19-11

Jeff Gill

 

St. Joseph, Keep Watch Over Us

___

 

March 19 is the day in liturgical Christian calendars when Mary's husband, Joseph, is remembered. He's also honored on May 1 as "St. Joseph the Worker" which was a late 19^th century attempt to steal some of the May Day socialist celebration, but that would be a very different subject.

 

We know relatively little about Joseph, but in truth we have more detail about him than many Biblical figures. There's description of him in both Matthew and Luke's accounts, and he comes off quite well.

 

Joseph is clearly respected, of good family – that whole "house and lineage of David" thing – and a worker, in wood.

 

In fact, later comments about Joseph by way of Jesus (Mt. 13:55) indicate that he was a "tekton," which means he was a bit more than a carpenter. Engineer or architect might be stretching a point, but a "tekton" in the literature of the time referred to a man who took the precious and rare commodity of wood, and used it to build, both directly and also for making the forms around which masonry would be shaped, such as an arch.

 

Once finished, the wood bracing would be knocked apart (carefully) with a mallet and pried apart, then reused. A tekton had a variety of skills in both wood and stone, and had to visualize the entire structure as it went up, and plan into the future for how, say, a half-dozen sets of forms would be placed and removed to build what might be dozens of arches in the finished building.

 

Then there's the question of his age. He's not called old, not exactly. The image of Joseph as an older father, whether at the side of Mary in the manger or on the road to Egypt after the visit of the Magi, is because after Jesus' childhood, to about twelve or thirteen, Joseph is clearly dead. We don't hear about his tragic death or the odd accident, it's just taken for granted that when Jesus reappears, narratively, at about 30 years old, Joseph is no more.

 

Add in the apparent set of step-brothers (this gets into the debate about Joseph, Mary, and if they had children after Jesus, a whole 'nother story), and the weight of scholarship tends to see them as Joseph's children by a first marriage, and there's something about the story of Joseph's dreams, encounters with angels, and ultimate acceptance of Mary, his pregnant betrothed, that feels right about that.

 

Joseph has some miles and some understanding on him when first we meet, and so there's a first Mrs. J, left unmentioned as were most women of that era, and then a later in life marriage that is a source of some conversation back in Nazareth ("is this not the carpenter's/tekton's son?" is not meant as a simple statement of fact, I'm thinking). The Joseph we start to piece together from our hints and asides, though, is a man who can handle a little talk in the taverns, and shrug it off with grace and dignity.

 

Since Mark 6:3 calls Jesus a "tekton," we know one more thing for sure about Joseph. He taught his son his trade, as any good father would, then or now. If your craft and skills and tools made a way for you in the world, it was that you handed on, more than coins or gold or even land. Joseph did that for Jesus, his son who was whispered of as "Mary's son," a sly insult which implied that Joseph was not his father.

 

Tradition rightly calls Joseph the father of Jesus, even if that doesn't tell the whole story. The old Irish cry of "Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!" may put old Joe third, but he's part of the Holy Family. God asked of him a choice, a decision to willingly carry a burden no less than did Mary, and he also said "Yes" to God's purposes.

 

The road ahead could not have looked clear, and need for things to go this way had to have raised questions in his mind, but Joseph saw God at work enough to say "yes, I'm going to follow this guidance, one step at a time."

 

For those in Japan, or in the midst of any of the inexplicable trials that wash over us in this life, it may be a good week to reflect on the role of Joseph, his responses in challenging time, and draw strength from his example – as did, most surely, Jesus himself.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him about how your work is a source of God's guidance in your life at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 3-12-11

Jeff Gill

 

Easter May Keep You Waiting This Year

___

 

 

Why does it seem like Lent is starting late this year?

 

Because it is!

 

We will have Easter on the very latest day it can fall, April 25, in 2038 (eat your fruits and vegetables if you plan on showing up!); this year is April 24.

 

Given that the beginning of Lent is "backwards calculated" from Easter, those 40 days of fasting plus the six feasts of Sunday, Ash Wednesday was March 9 this year (March 10 in 2038 for those marking their calendars).

 

Most years, the Ash Wednesday service of an evening as Protestants do it, starts in full darkness; this year (and 2038) it will still be a bit eveningish when you go in.

 

For Catholics, the observance is most often in the early morning, so your cross-shaped mark of ash is visible all day. Hat tip, Catholicism!

 

At any rate, the ongoing question is: why can't Easter be a well-behaved holiday like Christmas or St. Patrick's Day?

 

One reason obviously is that Easter always falls on a Sunday, not a numeric date like Dec. 25 or Mar. 17 that migrates through the week. The Jewish Sabbath of the last day of the week, Saturday, was moved by the early Christian church to recall, each week, that momentous first day of the week when Mary Magdalene & the disciples discovered that Christ was risen, hence Sunday as the day of religious observance.

 

But that first Day of Resurrection was itself an event that happened in relation to the Jewish observance of Passover. The Hebrew liturgical calendar is lunar based, which the nascent Christian bodies didn't need to follow for the most part, and early on, they could accent their weekly celebration of Jesus' return from betrayal & death with the annual full-on remembrance just by watching nearby Jewish communities, and marking Easter the next Sunday after Passover.

 

Simple enough, but cheating. That left the Jews to do the hard work & keeping track of the moon, which actually doesn't work well just by eyeball. As we here in the neighborhood of the renowned Newark Earthworks know full well, moonrises and phases are often obscured by clouds, or happen in the middle of the night, and accuracy requires more than just saying "wal, it looks 'bout full to me, don't it?"

 

So you need tables and charts to know, even in a week of overcast, what day your Passover happens. And as Christianity spread across the Mediterranean basin and into northern Europe, there wasn't always a synagogue nearby to keep tabs on. It was time to keep track for themselves.

 

Which they did, but with local variations on how they assembled the charts for tracking lunar months versus the western 12 month calendar. The first council of Nicea had this as a major agenda item (creeds came later as an "action item").

 

Out into the old Roman empire, in the far-flung outposts recently portrayed in the movie "The Eagle," the Celtic Christians had one calendar for calculating Passover, tied in part to old Druidic customs, and the more Roman oriented folk from Canterbury in England followed the Roman mode.

 

At the Synod of Whitby on the eastern coast of northern England, the two sides met, and the Venerable Bede records in his ecclesiastical history that Bishop Wilfrid  (both of them soon to be saints) carried the day, with King Oswy, brother of the late King Oswald of the Northumbrians, voting to side with Rome. On both the Easter lunar tables, and proper monastic haircuts (don't ask).

 

In a nutshell, the date of Easter for Western Christendom then and now works like this: the first Sunday, after the first full moon, after the vernal equinox. As the moon's cycles move versus the fairly stable date of the first day of Spring (Mar. 20 this year), the first Sunday after that next full moon can swing pretty dramatically.

 

So yes, Ash Wednesday last week and Easter next month are late this year. But it isn't too late to pick a spiritual discipline to focus on for these remaining 40-some days until Easter!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he enjoys these odd little historical asides far too much. Tell him your favorite historical quirk at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Notes From My Knapsack 3-10-11

Notes From My Knapsack 3-10-11

Jeff Gill

Twelve Years Old in Granville – 1885

___

If Julia wouldn't loan her the umbrella, then Lucretia wasn't sure
she wanted to go.

Julia might be of an age to go walking along Broadway, with groups of
young women and men, to the Kicking Tree and back (all the way to
Granger, but not around the bend of Mount Parnassus), but she still
ought to share with a younger sister. Lucretia hoped that a whalebone
umbrella might be in the offing for her thirteenth birthday, but it
seemed as if Julia might not have gotten hers until she was nearly
sixteen.

Now Lucretia was following Mother and Father on this lovely fall
afternoon, from their house on Plum with little Osgood in tow, and
Julia staying at home with her snooty friends. It didn't look like
rain at all, but everyone knew that the new fire engine, powered by
steam, was putting on a display at Prospect and Broadway. They were
attempting to shoot a stream of water into the air, pumped from the
new pipes Mr. Bryant had laid out all over the village from a vast
wooden tank up on College Hill. The steam engine, on a handcart, was
supposed to put pressure on the water so that it would be a geyser,
like that place Lucretia had seen in the stereopticon in Mrs. Bolen's
parlor, a picture in three dimensions from somewhere out West, where
water shot from the earth every hour. Imagine!

"Let's keep moving, 'Crete," laughed Father, as she paused to look up
at the new Methodist church on the northeast corner of Main and
Broadway. She had marveled to hear Mr. Montgomery, the well-to-do
farmer out west of the village, tell Father about how every piece of
wainscoting, and the grand arcs of church pews in the sanctuary had
come from just two grand old cherry trees, four feet across, down
along the Raccoon. Now our main intersection in Granville had a
fourth tower for the four corners, just like a big city would have.

They scampered as Mother's and 'Crete's long skirts would let them,
tromping through the mud, and over the small bridge from the drainage
around back of the new "Centenary," as they were calling the
Methodist church now (what with the centennial of American Methodism
falling last year, when they finished the new building). The path
along the north side of Broadway was boarded along almost the whole
length of all the new storefronts, so they made better time as they
heard the murmur of the crowd, and the high, clear voice of Mr.
Bryant above all.

"Look out, look out now!"

The size of the crowd was substantial, filling the intersection and
most of Prospect Street on around the corner, looking back from the
porch of the Mansion House. 'Crete looked up at the three story bulk
of the Kussmaul block anchoring the corner, having kept her eye along
the rooftops, from the Methodist corner right along all the lovely
Italianate two story shops, gazing appreciatively at the variations
of brick patterns and brackets and cornices.

"Father . . ." she said faintly as she nudged him, still looking up.
Then suddenly a ribbon of water snaked down out of the sky, arcing
from behind the buildings, shimmering in the light, falling with a
rippling "splat."

Mother was soaked, and furious, while Osgood was wet and whimpering,
and Father's mustaches sagged with heavy droplets at each end, his
hat crushed over his eyebrows. You could hardly see his angry
expression. Lucretia was dry and untouched.

"I told you Julia should give us her umbrella!"

[Charles Webster Bryant, pharmacist & community leader, organized our
first civic water system, the historical societies for both Granville
& Ohio, and was holding the fire hose nozzle for the first test of
its steam engine. Its power & effectiveness surprised him…and a
number of village residents!]

Faith Works 3-05

Faith Works 3-05-11

Jeff Gill

 

Authority and the Auditory, the Heard and the Heeded

___

 

"And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, lo, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid."

 

If your first thought on reading those words is "Linus!" I think we'd all understand.

 

From "A Charlie Brown Christmas," the words of Luke 2: 8-14 make up the pivot point of that seasonal favorite (beginning with the introit: "Lights, please.").

 

But the thing is, we HEAR them. In Linus' voice with childlike rhythms, perhaps with a British accent from the radio on Christmas Eve out of Cambridge, with the "Service of Lessons and Carols," and possibly with the resonance of a beloved family member and everyone gathered under the tree.

 

These words, and in this form, carry a weight and authority that goes beyond theology or Biblical literacy, and is essentially the power of what is "heard."

 

Or as Paul says in II Timothy, "Hold fast the form of sound words, which thou hast heard of me, in faith and love which is in Christ Jesus."

 

2011 is the 400^th anniversary of the publication of what is known today as the King James Version, or sometimes the Authorized Version (KJV or AV in abbreviation). There are a number of events happening this year around the world, including just down the road this May in Columbus (see http://kingjamesbible.osu.edu).

 

There's obviously a historian's interest in pulling out an old translation of God's Word from the Hebrew and Greek originals, but is there any point for pewsitters and workaday pastors to delve back into the KJV? Just a bit?

 

I would argue, on too many grounds to sum up adequately in a newspaper column, "Yes." Emphatically yes. Not because, as a few still do affirm, the KJV is in some way itself uniquely inspired, or because newer translations are less faithful (although there are many arguments to be had about the relative merits and starting points of each of them).

 

Where I would agree with "KJV only" churches is this: the idea that the KJV is incomprehensible to modern ears is hogwash. Do you have to work a little? Yes.

 

The comparison is sometimes made to Shakespeare, a contemporary of the KJV – and that's a good one, although much of the basis for the translation was William Tyndale's masterful translation, done 80 years before the Bard of Avon! What is useful about that analogy is that a person who just doesn't find words leaping to life on the page, modern or antiquated, will attend a performance of Shakespeare, and say after "so, they must have rewritten most of that, right?"

 

Generally, no. The actor/reader has to do their homework and be aware of the wider context of their speech, but they can then deliver with proper inflection and intonation the words of 1611 in a way that sounds perfectly understandable in 2011.

 

We make much of the sayeths and springeths (and begots), and there are some words like flagon and garner you don't hear on TV these days. And yes, some phrases like "by and by" or "suffer the little children" have flipped in meaning. If you want to read the Old Testament prophets, the KJV team clearly put the A-Team on the poetry of the Psalms and the majesty of the Gospels.

 

Yet the KJV also gives us 'Am I my brother's keeper?'; 'Escaped with the skin of my teeth'; 'Saying peace, peace, where there is no peace'; 'They have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind'; 'The signs of the times'; 'Fell among thieves'; 'Scales fell from his eyes'; 'Full of good works'; 'A law unto themselves'; 'Wages of sin'; 'The powers that be'; 'All things to all men'; 'Filthy lucre'; 'Let brotherly love continue'; 'The patience of Job'; and of course 'Perfect love casteth out fear' in which I would fain not casteth out the casteth with the bathwater.

 

The Authorized Version was written to be heard, to be spoken with understanding. Reading is important, study has a place, but hearing is central to what the scriptures themselves teach about taking God's Word into your heart.

 

I hope to say a bit more about our old, neglected friend the KJV in this 400^th anniversary year, and Tyndale himself, who gave us these words of translation that point, as all effective speech does, beyond themselves: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock."

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he owns far too many Bibles in myriad translations, but there's always a KJV nearby. Tell him your favorite version at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 2-27

Faith Works 2-27-11

Jeff Gill

 

Communicating Some Bad News

___

 

 

Behold, I come bearing bad news.

 

At least for some.

 

In faith community internal relations, a common subject of concern is "communications," as in "we need more communications."

 

Unfortunately, this is not exactly what you might call a "transparent" statement. In other words, it doesn't mean something clear and direct.

 

Rarely do you actually find a situation in the church or congregation where the leaders or clergy are not communicating at all. Folks will say "we need more communication," and the response will be, usually quite accurately, "but we've published articles in the newsletter, put notes in the bulletin, announced from the pulpit!"

 

Here's the bad news. People learn about things best in the way they expect to learn about them.

 

Huh?

 

Yeah, I know. It sounds like a non sequitur. Let me try again.

 

People who usually learn about things from, say, a handout at a board meeting, or from their buddy in the parking lot, will sincerely and honestly not hear or see a word of what was in the newsletter or bulletin or service announcement. Likewise, someone who expects to see the entire week recapped in their bulletin won't likely know or care that you posted on the church website or at the Facebook page any new details about an upcoming event for the community.

 

There's a growing awareness we have that there are auditory learners, and visual learners, and it's not that the twain never meet, but they pay relatively little attention to each other. Then there's the whole question of what "visual learning" means in relation to text, to print, to . . . stuff like this column.

 

If you are a regular reader here, odds are you're less focused on worship service video productions to get your information, and if you prefer a live skit or digitally animated visual to drive home the reminder that the deadline for the next "Women of Faith" is coming up fast, you probably don't read long paragraphs of text unless it's to mine out of the vein a fact nugget you realized you needed (you're scanning for the price or the phone number, not "reading" the whole thing).

 

It's easy enough for me to insert here a rant about living in a "post-literate" culture, where people may well be able to read, but they just don't read except to extract data. I feel that frustration as a pastor and teacher often enough, but I go back before the internet and even before cable TV enough to be skeptical that this is entirely a new problem.

 

The UMC theologian Tex Sample was writing about this challenge for the church in the early 1980s, and today, the complication is that the profusion of tweets and status updates can fool people into thinking that reading is back in vogue.

 

Not exactly.

 

The kind of rapid scanning and skimming that was once the province of PhD candidates with twelve books to "read" by Monday is now a broadly applied skill set known to fourth graders, and reading for impression and nuance and narrative content – oh, my. You are verging on what it means to teach Biblical Hebrew or Koine Greek to your parishoners when you're trying to promote that sort of reading experience.

 

But that's not the bad news I had in mind. (Whaaaaaaa? There's worse?)

 

The reality is that, since "people learn about things best in the way they expect to learn about them," we are now leading and ministering, lay and ordained, in a world where we have to communicate in multiple modes. That's right, more work to do the same job. Ask any of your fellow worshipers who work at a fast-food drive-up window about this.

 

We still need a bulletin, albeit formatted a bit differently; we still need newsletters to some degree, for certain segments of our fellowships; we'd best keep the e-mail updates and blasts, even as e-mail is becoming for today what hand-written letters became twenty years ago; and yes, even a fairly small church should have a Facebook page and Twitter feed, and you should use it.

 

Once upon a time, kids, there was a world, very near our own, when you just announced before the service, and posted a scrap of parchment inscribed with a goose quill on the outside porch notice board, that the box social would be on Palm Sunday between services. Then you got on your horse and went out calling on families that were usually home.

 

Isn't that a lovely story, once upon a time?

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; yes, he's on Facebook and all that stuff. Email him at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Knapsack 2-24

Notes From My Knapsack 2-24-11

Jeff Gill

Twelve Years Old in Granville – 1871

___

Bluebell knew that some thought her name was a bit odd, but it was
the only one she'd ever had, so it sounded right to her.

Her father was a doctor up past Mary Ann Furnace along Rocky Fork
Creek, down to Hanover and back, riding along the trails through open
valleys and into rocky gorges towards the Knox County line. Mother
died so long ago she could hardly remember her face, and recently
Father had sent her to board at the "Lower Sem," which is what people
hereabouts called the Granville Female College. That distinguished it
from the "Upper Sem," or the Young Ladies Institute, where Dr.
Shepardson led a fine institution, but Dr. Kerr was much beloved by
all of his students as a teacher and leader.

Bluebell would not quite be old enough for the Lower Sem ordinarily,
but she was old beyond her years, after becoming mother hen to so
many younger girls in the wilds of Rocky Fork – part of why her
father wanted to give her back a bit of her childhood in the best way
he knew how. She stayed in the boarding house across the street, next
to the old post-road inn on Broadway, looking out her window at night
to the four story building on the north side of the street, where so
many marvels of the wider world were brought before her.

On weekends, she went to the other side of town to stay with cousins
who had a lovely house and a spare room, but she rather enjoyed the
boarding house during the week. The older girls of thirteen and
fourteen and more looked out for her, taught her how to sew up small
rents in her skirts and other fine little skills she had never
mastered; in return, she told them about how best to tickle a fish
out of a hollow in the creekbank into your hands, and that an osage
orange would keep spiders out of the wardrobe they shared.

Today, a special treat for all the young ladies was the visit of Miss
Hartwell. Bluebell thought how marvelous it was that she was exactly
twice her own age, twenty-four years old, mature yet still so young.
Not yet married, but having graduated from this very school, she had
gone on to teach, in Granville as she had in Jersey Township, and now
in Danville, Illinois, but back to visit family in Hebron, Luray, and
here in Granville.

She was an honored guest of the Lower Sem not as a successful
teacher, though she was, but as a published author. Not just in the
Newark Advocate or North American, but in national publications like
Frank Leslie's Illustrated, "Golden Hours," "Hearth and Home," and
Lippincott's had shown an interest in her work. She had even been
paid for work, Miss Hartwell told them with a smile, before it was
completed!

As a schoolgirl, Bluebell could hardly imagine that.

During the reception after Miss Hartwell's address to the young
ladies, Bluebell had pressed forward to shake the author's hand,
hoping some of that success might, in a way, rub off onto her. She
found herself invited to a chair, where her story was gently drawn
out by the guest, asking for an account of how one so young came to
be there. It was clear that Miss Hartwell understood much of
Bluebell's story without even asking, but she asked about the oddest
details…and even drew out a small notebook, in which, with a pencil,
she noted a number of things as they spoke.

[Mary Hartwell Catherwood married in 1877, and published a book that
became a nationwide best-seller in 1882, titled "Rocky Fork," tracing
the mundane adventures of a young girl named Bluebell, from her
valley home to a town west of Newark named Sharon that is
unmistakably Granville.]

Faith Works 2-19

Faith Works 2-19-11

Jeff Gill

 

The Law of Unintended Consequences

___

 

In dealing with human persons, when you try to make them do a certain thing, even a good or better choice (maybe even especially then), they have a tendency to shoot off in an unexpected direction.

 

Under the umbrella of policy and politics, that phenomenon is known as "the law of unintended consequences." Trying to get people to do what you want them to do doesn't always work out the way you think.

 

One reason for this is that the decision makers and rule creators often are already doing the thing they want to see others do, and so assume that a small disincentive is all it takes to nudge people their way . . . since obviously, everyone would want to live the way they do, and those who don't are simply misinformed or wrongly influenced by some external factor.

 

What results isn't what's expected because human creatures are much more complicated than that. In faith circles generally and Christianity in particular, we call it sin, but we don't always try to empathize, to think from within the decisions and behaviors, often for fear that this will appear to be "giving in" to sin or excusing it. Call it "sympathy for the devil," as Mr. Jagger did, and church people tend to shy away.

 

But here's what happens when you don't try to share your good news, in a specific area, without trying to imagine what people are actually thinking from the inside. Not long ago, Ohio passed with great righteousness, a "DUI license plate" law which gives some folks yellow vehicle tags with red lettering  (nice touch, the scarlet letters). The idea was: if you see other people having to wear this mark of shame on the roads, others will then be less likely to drive drunk.

 

I've read conflicting studies on the outcome so far of that law, but the unintended consequence has been that, in certain circles, the plates have become a badge of honor. Some in law enforcement quietly worry that getting the yellow plates has become a goal for some.

 

Ditto the perfectly reasonable consequence for an assortment of offenses of withdrawing driver's licenses. It makes sense, and I really don't want to argue against it, but traffic cops tell me in some areas, when you pull over vehicles, as many as two out of three have some kind of issue with their license (none, canceled, suspended) or registration . . . or an outstanding warrant.

 

That's not two of three of all drivers on the road, but when around two-thirds of those you pull over are in that situation, you have to wonder in general. So how's that "suspended license" thing working out?

 

Which brings me to a pair of stories this week, unrelated in essence, but closely tied in how I read the law of unintended consequences applying. One was a suggestion that we "drug test" recipients of public assistance. Gosh, on one level, that sounds so reasonable. I can hear lots of good, upstanding citizens thinking, at home with their coffee on a Saturday morning, "Why not?"

 

The other is the move by a county school district to effectively ban sweets and sugary treats in the classroom. Food allergy issues were raised, but they're actually a very small element in the outline and impact of this plan. The point is to help kids make better choices about food, allow parents to control their kids' caloric and nutritional intake, and promote healthy eating.

 

One is proposed, the other about to be implemented, and both, I believe, assume that a nudge will cause most people to shift behaviors in a better direction. Both, I believe, are seriously misguided and are likely to cause . . . unintended consequences. I think both plans show a clear lack of consideration of why people make the choices they do, and how to motivate people to want to make better choices.

 

In faith community discussions, mission-minded activity should always start with trying to understand the population you're trying to reach, on their terms. Only then can you truly enter their world and offer clearly the message you feel called to carry.

 

Why do people struggling economically choose to spend precious resources on drugs (or alcohol, or cigarettes, both legal but costly choices)? Why do parents send sugary snacks to school for their children and their classmates? Hint on the latter: it's not for the sugar, it's usually the simplest and easiest and most popular choice. On the former: let's think about it, shall we? Before we nod approvingly at a policy option that could create more problems than it solves.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; yes, he sent cupcakes to school for his son's birthday in years past - lock him up now. Tell him your nutritional sins at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 2-12

Faith Works 2-12-11

Jeff Gill

 

We Live In a Haunted Landscape

___

 

 

We live in a haunted landscape, that much is certainly true.

 

Near where my family lives, I often hear the weeping of pioneer mother Lilly Jones, who will not live to see her three children, including a newborn, grow to adulthood as life fades from her body.

 

Just yards from where I work on weekdays, her second (of three) gravesites calls to my mind her four brothers and a cousin, standing not far from the rough-hewn square platted out for a courthouse in a county not yet formed.

 

And I feel the warmth of her smile quite regularly, as I pass her third and last burial location, gazing down on the passing cars near (where her father and mother are buried as well), marveling at the ease with which I slip into a grocery store filled with wonders from around the world.

 

It may just be me, but I can sense her presence.

 

There is that Courthouse Square, with watching faces of stone telling grimly serious jokes about our county's past, lips barely moving but the wit apparent to all who have ears to hear.

 

I can spot shadowy figures, known from old black and white photos, shading into the doorways of today with ethnic restaurants and modern businesses in full color, but their long dead hopes and dreams putting the chiaroscuro into the street scenes.

 

And yes, I've walked with others who marked a path from a century ago, a journey of terror and sorrow, and then got to gently trace the heartlines back to a birthplace, and a last resting place for one who died on a downtown Newark corner. Should his shade still be here, or there? He walked alongside of me in both places.

 

We live in a landscape haunted by names we know, and also by the works of a people whose name for themselves we cannot recover, whose individuality largely comes down over thousands of years to one object, found in the last century – today, the Wray figurine has a human face below the hood of bearskin which looks at me often, and whispers . . . something. He knows what the earthworks are for, and he's willing to tell.

 

I'm still trying to make it out, just what he's saying.

 

And of course there are steeples and buildings, churches still used for worship and some repurposed, in which pastors preached and deacons served and a living Word called across the ages. Some names we know – Father Lamy, Rev. McCarty, Dr. Fiers – many more we know not, but their imprint is far beyond cornerstones and congregational histories.

 

In the pews, faithful worshipers are hearing, in the words of the Christian New Testament, "a great cloud of witnesses," our parents and grandparents and great-grandparents, for some of us spiritually only, but no less our ancestors. There are hymns that, wherever I hear them sung, whomever I'm worshiping with, I can hear my grandmother's high clear soprano singing out over the top of the melody.

 

No, really – I hear her, quite distinctly, gone these thirty years and more.

 

Then we come to the table, the altar, the Lord's Supper, the communion, the Eucharist. "This do in remembrance of me," said someone who died, and yet lives. We see him not, then suddenly, "in the breaking of the bread," he is visible, present, alive.

 

We live in a haunted landscape, absolutely.

 

Ghosts?

 

I'll leave that subject to the marketing department. There's money to be made and thrills to be evoked on call, as scheduled, for individuals and tours by arrangement (bring your own equipment for recording or photography).

 

But that's not the kind of haunted I'm talking about, or the spirit that can truly bind a community together. There's a spirit of connection, of common purpose & history, of communication, that has nothing to do with digital temperature readouts or resistance meters -- but it's real and vital and necessary, and perhaps most importantly, it's the results that can be measured, not the experience itself.

 

It is, however, very real. Maybe even more real than . . . what we call reality.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; tell him your local ghost story (careful, he's a skeptic, but you wouldn't know it) at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Knapsack 2-10-11

Twelve Years Old in Granville -- Granville Sentinel 2-10-11

Jeff Gill

[This is eighth in a series of twelve stories based on historic fact,
or known small details, about life in this area from the point of
view of a twelve year old.]

Some 2000 Years Ago

She had watched as closely as she could, but it was still a puzzle.

Her mother had set up the loom under the tree where the well-worn
branch showed, in two polished patches of bark, that they were not
the first of their people to set up their weaving here.

They had spent the last few weeks with the fibers, dried after their
removal from the proper plants which were themselves pulled out of
the marshy ground. In large circles, sitting cross-legged on the
hard packed clay surrounding the fire hearths, they had hand rolled
the fibers of thistle and milkweed stems into longer cordage.

The smaller, younger girls had rolled pieces together between their
palms like a daub of riverbank clay turned into a worm, but now
compressing and straining until the tubes became strands – then they
passed those bits on to the older women, who with nary a smile would
roll them between their work hardened hands and along their thighs,
and in no time see those strands become strings.

When the strings were spun into long fiber (by some amazing work done
by women with longer fingernails, dangling spindle weights, and
skills the younger girls despaired of ever matching), it was then
passed around the circle to the beginning again, where the littlest
young women rolled it up onto clay cylinders until a fat ball of
cordage was the result.

Some of that cordage had been woven into a multi-strand rope that
made up the sides of the loom that now hung down from the tree
branch, and other stretches of it had been taken to the fire camp,
where larger pots sat ready with water and nut shells or berries. The
girls of her age had been sent down yesterday to the creekbed, where
they gathered up fist-sized rocks that were hard and dense, not the
stone which easily scraped down into sand, and those stones were now
in the big fire.

Older women with longer arms (and some of whom already had scorched
eyebrows) took pairs of green sticks with small forks on the end, and
lifted the rocks to where they could gently place them in the pots.
After a short time of cooking the dyes with the water, the rolls of
fiber would be placed into them, coming out sometimes with colors you
couldn't always predict. She had just learned yesterday that it was
bright yellow-green hickory nut coats that made the best black dye.

Now the challenge was to master the rhythm of the snake stick,
flashing it back and forth between the vertical strands, tapping down
with the lightning stick to firm up the horizontals from above.

Her mother was making a beautiful pattern, one that echoed the story
of their clan, colors contrasting and marching back and forth among
the more stolid background, like the tale of the people across the
face of the earth, like the weaving of the sun and moon across the
sky and through the year.

She was just working with a solid color, trying to make a sturdy
piece of rough cloth that could cover a baby (maybe even hers in a
few years, absurd though that might seem), or just a panel for a
shirt or pair of trousers.

It looked so easy as her mother worked, and she kept saying "It was
hard for me at first, dear" as she worked her weaving up from her lap
into the air above her head.

The weave was loose, and the ends of sections of fiber hung at odd
intervals, but slowly, row by row, the small loom filled out in the
shadow of the larger one. She would get better.

[There is little fiber found in the ground from the period of Native
American life in Ohio called "Hopewell," but from impressions left in
clay surfaces, and a precious few scraps preserved by contact with
copper, we know their weaving technology was quite skilled, to the
extent of making fine fabrics.]

Faith Works 2-5

Faith Works 2-5-11

Jeff Gill

 

A Cult You Might Be a Member Of

___

  

It's been a while since I wrote about cults.

 

I feel about cults and their influence much as C.S. Lewis did about Satan and all his works: you can actually spend too much time talking about them and help their cause more than your own.

 

How much is too much? Almost any amount can be, mused Lewis, after which he wrote a whole book showing how our world looks from the point of view of a senior demon, who was advising (or let's say "preparing") a junior nephew in the dark arts of temptation.

 

Consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, said Emerson, so in the shadows of those two older and wiser eminences, I will venture into the murky waters of cult influence.

 

There is a cult that can't be said to be growing in pervasiveness, since it's been around for a very long time – some might say as long as time itself. Most of us know that this is a sad, shabby, false belief system, and look down on those we perceive as having gotten tangled up in it . . . and there are precious few of us who aren't actually members of the cult whether we know it or not.

 

(And most of those who are emphatically not "in" let themselves be defined almost entirely by their not being in it, which means the cult oddly controls even their lives.)

 

What is this malevolent, destructive, subversive cabal? Oh, you ask like you don't know.

 

It is: the Cult of the Next Thing.

 

There. I said it out loud.

 

The Cult of the Next Thing has infiltrated every church, mosque, synagogue, cathedral, praise barn, or rental hall where a congregation gathers. The Cult of the Next Thing is weaving its ever clutching tendrils through every denominational structure there is, whatever the faith.

 

The Cult of the Next Thing whispers sibilantly into your ear "things will be better as soon as the Next Thing comes along." When you start to suspect you need to be moving along yourself, because everything where you currently worship, where you practice your faith, is getting kind of old and stale and over-familiar, the voice of the Cult of the Next Thing says seductively to you "when you find the Next Thing, everything will be different."

 

The object of worship in this world-dominating cult, the Next Thing, is always almost here, nearly ready, just about perfect. It just requires that you let go of what you've known, and usually those people you've gotten close to (or been irritated by), and move on to get just a little closer to the promise of . . . the Next Thing, which will fix everything.

 

The Next Thing is easier, cooler, smarter but also simpler, more effective (or will be once the kinks get worked out), shinier, has fewer calories, and whitens your teeth while slimming your figure. The Next Thing gets you more in tune with God without actually having to listen closely or strain or wait for a deeper understanding, because the Next Thing IS a deeper understanding just by being what it is.

 

And by moving to the Next Thing, you show your taste and discernment by so doing, as opposed to all those still stuck on the last thing, whatever that was. I forget.

 

On the other hand, there's this fellow who said that the Kingdom of God was not the next thing, but is within you. If you move on to the next thing, you really aren't any further away from the Kingdom, but just by making that shift you didn't automatically get any closer to it.

 

When you start getting habituated, not to say addicted, to the experience of the shift, the move, the transition to the next thing, that can – itself – actually block your approach to what's been within you all along.

 

Perhaps the true worship you need to find is best located not by going back, nor by moving on yet again (in tools or techniques, which church or discipline, whatever), but by stopping where you are, with all the flaws and problems there so painfully apparent all around you. Stop, and reflect, and look at your own role in creating an atmosphere of thankful praise in your heart.

 

You might be surprised by what happens next.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he's fallen into a few cultic traps himself. Tell him about your experience of the Next Thing at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Faith Works 1-29

Faith Works 1-29-11

Jeff Gill

 

Ministerial Education Is Changing (Again)

___

  

For most Christian denominations, a seminary degree is the baseline credential for ordained ministry.

 

A seminary is effectively a graduate program, a master's degree beyond a bachelor's, or college degree. In living memory (but just barely), a seminary or "divinity" degree was a B.D., a "bachelor of divinity" such as Oxford and Cambridge in England still grant, but both across the pond and here it was a graduate degree in the sense that you had to have earned your Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) or Bachelor of Science (B.S.) to enroll.

 

So to reduce confusion the degree has become known in the last fifty years as an M.Div., for the Latinate "magister divinitatis" or Master of Divinity.  Divinity is, when it's not a very nice egg white based dessert, an archaic term for pastoral theology – the practical study of applied theology in preaching, pastoral care, sacramental theology, and ethics. If that sounds like more than your average master's program, you're right.

 

A master of divinity has long been 90-100 credit hours to earn, plus an oral defense and/or a thesis paper. Most academic master's programs are 32 to 50 credit hours, in part because they're a high-level overview of a particular field, usually leading to the more intensive doctorate, or Ph.D. program. But the standard "ordination track" degree of M.Div. is a kind of unique creature all its own, not quite a doctorate, but well beyond a basic college diploma.

 

Like any graduate education, though, it ain't cheap. Or isn't.

 

I could go over all the woes and complications of having significant student loan debt built up, and then going into a professional field that have average pay rates lower than any other (less than teachers & social workers, let alone administrators & lawyers & doctors, even worse when you compare by amount of education & experience), but the truth is you know all that.

 

The question getting asked with varying degrees of insight and compassion across the country is: but why?

 

Why, that is, do we need each gathered congregation to have a graduate-level trained person with a professional certification & institutional oversight, when you just need someone to get up and say a few words on Sunday and go visit a few sick people occasionally, plus read a funeral service out of a book once in a while?

 

[I'll pause so all the ordained clergy reading this can pause to catch their breath from either weeping uncontrollably or laughing maniacally.]

 

The problem is, it's not that simple, and never has been. True, the historic roots of "a well ordered and educated clergy" are in the days when you were a day's ride on horseback from the next pastor of your tradition, you had (maybe) a Greek New Testament along with your KJV Bible, and a commentary or two, and a book of printed sermons from an honored preacher of your denomination. Along with the doctor (if there was one) you were the best educated person in town, almost without fail, and when there was no schoolteacher you usually filled in until the next one could be found.

 

Stipulated: those days are gone. But what cars and interstates and the internet haven't changed is that if someone asks you a pointed theological question in an ER at 3 am, or while standing by a graveside at high noon, you can't often say "What a good question that is; let me go home and look some answers up and I'll e-mail you later."

 

And you may be able to pass off pre-digested messages out of the gunny sacks of LaHaye and Lucado and Warren and Schuller, maybe even re-purposed as your own, but after a while the least literate of your flock is going to notice that the teaching and tendencies of your preaching is swinging around the compass, like an unanchored ship at high tide in shifting winds.

 

There's a place & a purpose for seminary trained clergy, even if practically speaking that may not be every pulpit in every church building every Sunday. Meanwhile, church bodies have to accountable to the congregations, who may observe that if credentialed clergy are no better bets for good behavior and solid teaching than a guy off the street, why pay the premium?

 

Seminary training & ministerial certification are being radically reworked literally as we speak (so to speak). If you hear a conversation going on near you, jump in. We need everyone thinking and working on this challenge.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he's a "magister divinitatis" himself but always thought he should have gotten a B.S. degree. Tell him about your training in ministry at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow Knapsack @Twitter.

Knapsack 1-27

Twelve Years Old In Granville -- Granville Sentinel 1-27-11

[This is one of a series of stories I'm offering over the next few
months, telling stories based on historic details from the viewpoint
of a twelve year old in that time and place. I hope they promote
some reading out loud, a little sharing of family stories, and maybe
even a bit more digging into history by children & their parents.]

About 2000 Years Ago

This was the first year he had been allowed to come to the men's camp
where the special, sacred blades were made.

When his father had solemnly affirmed that twelve laps of the sun
across the eastern horizon had passed since his birth, the other men
of their village had gathered around to place their hands on his head
and shoulders, and sung their song over him.

When they came to the special spot, men of the other families
connected to this valley were already present, bending the sapling
poles and weaving the mats to set up the workshop.

It was the young boy's first time here, rather than further up into
the hills where the women and small children stayed during the
regular trip back to the ceremonial grounds. Almost exactly halfway
between the watercourse to their south, and the sudden lift of the
hills to the north, they had been coming to this place before his
father's and his father's father's days.

In a few more years, he might join the parties that traveled west,
beyond the wide river there, across three more great streams, and
almost to the Great River to which all of these waters ran. There
they would find the source of the smooth, grey, milky flint from
which they carefully shaped the bladelets for this place of preparation.

Likewise, if the years were good to him, he might find himself
walking just a short distance to the east, through the squeeze where
the creek bent around the bluff that reached the closest into their
valley, and so into the open land where the great shapes were laid out.

Father had explained how the wisdom of the sun's motions, and the
mysteries of the moon's both shorter and longer cycles, was
considered and consulted through these enclosures, and the healers
and singers who had their own set locations in the arrangement. The
boy understood little of it, for now, but knew as he sat through the
nights listening to the singers of his own clan, more would be made
clear, just as your eyes adjusted to see easily on a full moon night
even after a bright sunny day.

Today's clear weather helped him as he picked carefully at the dirt,
gathering up all the debris from the making of the bladelets from the
distant flint source, and laying it on a deerhide which would then be
taken to the trash pit nearby. These fragments could cut your feet,
but would never be simply cast aside as some of their local flint
would be back at the hunting and cooking camp.

So much to learn, but so many to teach him; not only his father, but
uncles and uncles unknown who came to greet them as family, here in
the preparation camp.

What would the next week be like, here in this place with so many
memories for all of his family, men and women, adults and children
alike? He did not know, but he was sure it would be wonderful.

With the discarded flint flakes all in a tidy heap, old single edged
bits, a few broken spear points and a worn down spokeshave, he
carried it all over to what he knew now was the proper spot, and did
his part with a prayer in his heart.

From the earth it came, and to the earth, returned as a blessing.

[Near Cherry Valley Road, south of Newark-Granville Road, a series of
archaeological sites revealed concentrations of Wyandotte chert, a
flint from southern Indiana used in the Hopewell period of Native
American earthwork building. Little is known for certain about the
material's significance to the users, or its use.]

Faith Works 1-22-11
Jeff Gill

Dialogue, By Any Other Name, Would Sound As Sweet
___


Back in seminary, studying for my preparation for ministry, one of my mentors and professors then is now “general secretary” of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA (www.ncccusa.org), aka the National Council of Churches, or plain old NCC.

Then and now Michael was interested in ecumenism, the field of building bridges and connections between various Christian denominations – a subject related to, but different from interfaith discussions, which would be between Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, etc.

In constructing ecumenical dialogues, Michael taught and preached over and over something that has always stuck with me (and hope it’s what he wanted to stick with us): when you are truly trying to maintain dialogue, you engage with the best of the tradition you are addressing. If you are focusing on weak spots, as you perceive them; if your discussions tend to always gravitate quickly to the areas where you find their doctrine or structures or practices to be deficient, you’re not having a dialogue, you’re trying to win a debate. And the response, on both sides, will be to retreat into the mutual fortresses of apologetics.

This is not the same as saying you never talk about the tough stuff, or that you can’t disagree with a dialogue partner; what happens, though, when you look for the strengths of the other side’s position, and open by discussing what you value and why of their own way, it does two things.

First, it creates no little pressure for the responding party (even if they were ready to rip into your flaws) to do the same, and secondly the most worthwhile part of the discussion comes from your own (on each side) reflection on the often unique way the dialogue partner has honored who you are. Very often, in these sorts of discussion, the reaction is “we never thought about our own approach in that way: wow!” (Or a more distinguished phrasing of “wow!”)

I had the chance recently to preach for a congregation whose denominational practice is infant baptism, and I spoke about what is valuable, from my viewpoint, about the primacy of God’s role and proper subordination of the role of our “choice” in baptism as a means of grace, both in remembering your own baptismal status, and how that informs your witnessing of baptisms in worship again and again through your life – and I made it clear I come from and still affirm what’s called a “believer’s baptism” practice of my own Christian tradition, where a decision for Christ, confession of faith, and full immersion are the norm.

It was fascinating to hear from folks, after the sermon, who said they had not considered the significance of their own baptism as God’s gracious act more than something our choice, or our parents’ choice, did for us in our lives. They had heard those words, but knowing that they were hearing this appreciation from someone who, as a pastor, could ruefully note that “believer’s baptism” can turn into works-righteousness if we’re not careful: that made aspects of their baptismal practices jump out into sharper and clearer contrast.

Mind you, I still don’t choose to do infant baptisms (traditions like mine do baby dedications, and then what many churches call confirmation becomes a baptismal preparation or “pastor’s class”); in the same manner, I prefer weekly communion, while respecting how some churches make a very special worship experience out of less frequent reception of the bread and wine; likewise, I’m not ready to see myself under the authority of the Bishop of Rome, Archbishop of Canterbury, or any other local person with a funny hat, yet I am all too aware of how chaotic and counterproductive a purely congregational approach to ministry & evangelism can be. And so one.

There’s something about Dr. Kinnamon’s call to engage with the best of a tradition that you are standing against that is very effective, and not just for a rhetorical version of “cheap grace” and easy, inoffensive agreement. I could throw out cheap shots about baptizing anyone and everyone including the village cat, misbehaving cardinals from the Inquisition to the internet, or run down denominational structures both hither AND yon.

Which just begs those parties to snarl and start dissecting my own numerous sins and trespasses.

Will we find a new culture of civility? Standing before the Great White Throne, alongside the glassy sea, near the river shaded by trees whose leaves are for the healing of the nations – we’ll find it there, I’m sure. Short of the Kingdom of God, I’m not so certain. If we do find some islands of civil discourse, I think they’ll start with an approach very like a healthy ecumenical discussion, where we begin not with where our distinguished colleague is an idiot or a Nazi or a (insert party label here), but with an opening consideration of the areas where we think our good friend and dialogue partner, who is sadly if mildly mistaken on a number of subjects, has made some excellent points.

Come, let us reason together.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and supply preacher around central Ohio; he’s won a few debates that he might have done well to lose. Make your points to him at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow Knapsack @Twitter.