Notes from my Knapsack 11-21-19

Notes from my Knapsack 11-21-19

Jeff Gill

Two or so cheers for temperance

___

One hundred years ago . . . that's the opening of more than a few columns or news stories, marking the centenary of this or that important event.

The end of World War I last year around this time, other such anniversaries get marked, but you'll hear little about how on Oct. 28, 1919, the Volstead Act was finally enacted, and took effect January 17, 1920.

Prohibition is the general term, but the enabling legislation was the Volstead Act, and in terms of national regret and forgetting it's up there with the Dred Scott Decision and Plessy v. Ferguson with legal precedents we'd like to sweep under the historical carpet.

Unlike our long struggle with slavery and civil rights, Prohibition only took twelve years for us to reverse, but the impact of that period had lasting effects, some would say right down to the present. And it began before 1919, with the Anti-Saloon League and its head, Wayne Wheeler, setting up shop just west of here in Westerville, Ohio in 1909. Their influence led Granville to interfere in Newark politics around saloon enforcement in 1910, resulting in mob violence and the lynching of an Anti-Saloon League deputy officer on Courthouse Square, and hard feelings that echo in county relations to this day.

Prohibition is generally considered by folks on the left and the right to have been a classic "bridge too far," an extension of state power into personal behavior that was ultimately unenforceable and unmanageable, undermining civic authority in other areas by looking foolish in the decade-plus of Prohibition failures. It's cited today around drug policy, and most immediately around cannabis regulation and legalization. "How did Prohibition work out, huh?"

And it's true, managing people's bad habits through passing laws and promoting enforcement as a tool of social control has limits. Smoking was not made entirely illegal, but I'm still impressed with the changes we've made over the last quarter-century; likewise drinking and driving, which was largely shrugged off in my youth, and now is much less common and generally frowned upon by drinkers and non-drinkers alike. All without making alcohol illegal.

On the other hand, I'm somewhat concerned to see the boozification of almost everything, from lemonades to ciders to seltzer water. Beer is sold in a variety of places I never would have expected to run into it, or step in it; wine is the genteel beverage of choice on TV and by even the most moderate of celebrities. Does everyone need to spend most of the day buzzed, or is this just alcohol marketing run wild?

So I'd like to offer two cheers for a quaint subject: temperance. Sadly it's become associated with Prohibition, but that's not what the word really means at root. 2020 might be a good year for The New Temperance to become popular.

Temperance just means restraint, or more importantly, self-restraint. Making your own choices, and not those of the marketing department. To be temperate might mean having one drink, not five; in other cases, it might be choosing the beverage that isn't "with added alcohol!"

Temperance doesn't have to be abstinence. It could just be moderation. But in 2020, that might be revolutionary.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's temperate in most things. Tell him what you think of the New Temperance at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 11-9-19

Faith Works 11-9-19

Jeff Gill

 

Warmth and shelter and other human needs

___

 

As you all have no doubt noticed, it's getting cold again. And that means a number of us in Newark and Licking County have been thinking about what to do for persons who are among the unsheltered homeless. The Newark Homeless Outreach crew has been at work every Saturday right on along, God bless them, and we just passed the one year mark for Vertical 196 on South Fifth Street as a weekday meal and hospitality ministry of the Licking County Jail Ministry.

 

And a group has been meeting literally since a few weeks after the last warming shelter effort was made last March to debrief doing overnight shelter for those not served by the current emergency shelter programs. The Licking County Foundation has hosted, our county Emergency Management Agency has taken a leadership role, and we have the county Health Department, Red Cross, Humane Society, Licking Memorial Hospital, the Transit Board, and many faith groups all at the table.

 

The Salvation Army has stepped up and offered to be a leader in this effort, as they long have been in emergency shelter services -- and one of our challenges in the last two years has been their 60-bed shelter on the east side of their building is full with families for pretty much the entire year, let alone in the wintertime. But they have started doing breakfast as much for warming as for the food Mondays through Saturdays, in their dining hall area where the weekday soup kitchen/lunches are served, and the weekend evening dinners.

 

But until all the Christmas gifts are allocated and relocated from the Toy Run that was this past weekend, and the start of the Angel Tree program, which so many of you reading this help support, they don't have room to do an overnight warming shelter. Newark Central Christian the back-up plan, through Thanksgiving. After Dec. 1, the primary location will be at the Salvation Army, which works out logistically and practically in many ways. But until then, with some transportation help from Newark Naz and the county Transit Board, if we have a series of nights forecast for below 10 degrees, the Warming Center effort will be looking to Newark Central to host.

 

Beyond Thanksgiving, if we need to provide emergency warming shelter space for those who aren't in our regular shelters (Salvation Army east-end, St. Vincent Haven, New Beginnings), the dining hall and adjoining area of the Salvation Army can host, but we will still need volunteers. This is where you have an opportunity, which is this Wednesday night.

 

There will be a training for Warming Center volunteers on Nov. 13, at 6:00 pm to about 8:00 pm or so, in the chapel at the front of the Salvation Army post on E. Main St. If you attend, you are not obligated to volunteer -- you might decide you can help in a different fashion after hearing out the training information, and that's just fine. But if you'd like to be better equipped to assist with a warming center night this winter, this training can answer your questions and help your understanding of homelessness and unsheltered persons in the wintertime.

 

You do not need to sign up in advance, but they'd love to know how many to prepare for. You can contact them directly at 740-345-8120, or let us know at the church office and we'll pass the word along. I know many churches have a Wednesday night program or Bible study (we do at my church), but if you are led to learn more about serving those who have no where else and no one else to turn to, you won't go wrong attending this training.

 

Thank you for your prayerful support of the work of service in Christ's name that we did last winter, and will be part of again in the coming months!

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's gotten to know lots of new sisters and brothers on the streets and in the meetings around this issue in the last year. Tell him what you hope to see happen in 2020 at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 11-2-19

Faith Works 11-2-19

Jeff Gill

 

Memento mori

___

 

"Memento mori" is an ancient phrase which is simply Latin for "reminders of death."

 

The philosophy of memento mori is why you see skulls on those old Pilgrim tombstones in Boston, or a display of bones in a medieval tomb. As my old late friend Father Tom Shonebarger would say, they call us to "meditate on our mortality."

 

All Souls is the day on the Christian calendar which falls on Nov. 2, following All Saints on Nov. 1 and I believe you may have noticed the eve of All Saints, or All Hallows, aka Hallowe'en. This time of year still calls us to celebrate the spooky, enjoy the creepy, and relax into the increasing darkness.

 

(Is this where I remind you all to set your clocks back an hour tonight? You're welcome.)

 

I'm not the first to point this out, I'm sure, but the growing "observance" of Hallowe'en with decorations of a ghoulish and horrific nature I think has a subtle parallel to our general loss of memento mori on an everyday basis.

 

In Granville, we still pass the (former) main cemetery as people enter and exit the village on a daily basis. The Old Colony Burying Ground from 1805 was a physical, unavoidable memento mori for everyone.

 

In Newark, the Sixth Street cemetery was much the same on the western, sunset edge of town; after 1850, those memorials, all but one, were relocated to the northeastern corner of the growing city, and Cedar Hill became a place you had to go on purpose to visit, not necessarily a spot you passed by everyday.

 

All over the county the nearby graveyards moved from just outside the church doors to the edge of downtown to . . . outside of town, set apart, farther away. Since the early 1900s, funeral homes became more the mortuary destination we think of now, not a residence for morticians who came and "laid out" the dead in your own front parlor. Death has steadily gotten farther and farther away.

 

I'll be blunt: I see, and touch, a great many more dead people than most of you. Outside of a medical person or funeral director, a parish pastor is more likely to contact and be around death than about anyone else. We can almost forget how accustomed to the presence of absence we are, until family comes into the room and sees a person they've loved now still and quiet in a casket. And then we remember.

 

But frankly, I don't need a memento mori, and I'm not a big Hallowe'en decorator, not because I think it's all intrinsically Satanic or evil, but because I think people are responding to a felt need, especially at this time of year when days grow short and life sinks out of sight across the landscape, to confront and deal with the reality of death.

 

In truth, every skittering dried leaf across the sidewalk is a reminder of death, a memento mori. The roadside dead animals, the news on TV, even the chill in the air calls it all to mind, as much as we might try to avoid thinking about leaving this life for what is to come. I just heard again something like nine of ten people think it's important to talk to their family members about what they want at the end of life, and less than two of ten have done so. You can see the hesitation right there, whether in advance directives, wills and testaments, or just telling someone where you'd like to have your ashes scattered.

 

So it becomes socially acceptable to plant in your lawn a row of skulls in October. Centuries ago, a skull might pop up along the side of the road on the way to school by the church after a heavy rain, and an older child would say "someone tell the gravediggers they need to go deeper!" Now you can put up tombstones by your driveway and drape black hangings on your windows, even if you haven't planned your own funeral and mourning clothes are a quaint piece of history.

 

The seasonal memento mori are getting packed away this weekend, and we turn to fighting darkness with light, with Christmas decorations starting to go up all month. The reminders, and the need, continue to be with us.

 

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

Newark Advocate 2020

Newark Advocate 2020 PROUD Magazine

Jeff Gill

 

In 1820, James Monroe was President of the United States, Ethan Allen Brown was governor of Ohio, and Newark was still six years away from being incorporated as a town.

 

Native Americans of the Shawnee and Wyandot tribes still lived in the northern and western parts of the state, often traveling through Licking County, which was just twelve years old itself. Five years earlier in 1815, the original log courthouse was replaced by a modest two story structure, but Courthouse Square around it was still marked by ponds and bogs, surrounded by mostly log structures barely more ornate than pioneer cabins.

 

And it was in 1820 that "The Newark Advocate" was first published, in a simple sturdy brick building on the square. This intrepid business venture was the brainchild of Benjamin Briggs, a native of Pennsylvania who arrived in Newark's earliest days to make his mark, find a career, and start a newspaper: one that is today the county's oldest continuously operated business.

 

Briggs owned and edited "The Advocate" for thirty-six years, and as a sign of different times and journalistic expectations, he was elected mayor of Newark twice, and was voted at different times to both the Ohio House and Senate, as well as postmaster. His was a vigorous and partisan editorship, advocating for development projects like the Ohio & Erie Canal or the National Road through Licking County, or local efforts such as new church buildings and improved streets downtown.

 

In the early 1800s down through the first part of the 1900s, newspapers were almost without exception partisan, and "The Advocate" was a Democratic Party paper. Through the decades, other party and constituency publications flourished – at one point Newark had over twenty newspapers with names like "The Rasp" or "The Constitutionalist" or "The Reveille and Woolgrower"  – but after World War I the rise of a more dispassionate journalistic ethic led to a bipartisan "Advocate" overshadowing the other party-oriented papers, like the "Newark North American" or "Newark Express."

 

"The Advocate" has outlived its competition in most cases by outworking it: the paper was the first in the county to go from monthly to weekly to daily, and has been a daily for a majority of its publication history. An early adopter of electronic media tools, the news now arrives by email and on browser windows as much as it does on doorsteps or in driveways. Social media and online reading make the entire news environment a constant, never-ending opportunity for readers to connect and advertisers to reach audiences.

 

Advertising along with subscriptions has been the heart of the "Advocate" business model since Briggs' days as editor and owner. After many decades of private ownership, the formation of the Advocate Printing Company saw the business into the Twentieth Century, and "The Newark Advocate" is now part of the USA Today Network. Whether in the print product or the online version, newspaper ads are still a major part of each page, and looking back through the two hundred years of history you learn almost as much from those ads as you do the articles about who we are as a county.

 

The first hundred years you see many advertisements for horses and carriages and the equipment and services that go with them; in the second hundred years, cars and trucks are well represented in the ad sections, while you have trouble finding a livery stable. Through the 1800s, clothiers and haberdashers and milliners are common in the corners of each page promoting their wares; today, banner ads online and sidebars are focused on very different retail angles, from electronics to home delivered groceries.

 

But in the editorial content itself, you hear the spirit of each era speaking both to their subscribers, and also as that "first rough draft of history" credited to journalism. Sometimes that voice is cracked and flawed – The Advocate sadly did not endorse Abraham Lincoln in either 1860 or in 1864 – but you can also hear calls for justice in the 1960s through Op-Eds, and editorial invitations to renewal and re-invigoration as Newark has navigated the end of one industrial era and the beginnings of our information age.

 

Benjamin Briggs, the first editor (and reporter, and circulation manager, and advertising executive, and pressman), was said in Hill's 1881 "History of Licking County" to have been "a clear, forcible writer, much given to the use of strong Saxon words that vigorously expressed his ideas, and he never wrote without having ideas to convey. . . When he chose to be vituperative he generally succeeded." But he was also "identified with every project that tended to the advancement and welfare of the place and its people," and left for Washington an honored representative of Licking County's interests. Today's editor, Benjamin Lanka, wouldn't expect to run for political office while still holding a position of journalistic trust, but he and his staff still honor clear and concrete writing, condemnation when called for, and praise whenever possible. With a volunteer community Editorial Board, "The Newark Advocate" still has strong words and straightforward suggestions about what can improve and enhance the everyday lives of people around today's Courthouse Square.

 

From the Briggs era to the present day, you can't help but notice how the interests of "The Advocate" have always "tended to the advancement and welfare of the place and its people."

Faith Works 10-26-19

Faith Works 10-26-19

Jeff Gill

 

Treasure in jars of clay

___

 

Let me share some shocking news here. I am unapologetically a pastor of a Christian congregation, what's sometimes inaccurately called "organized religion." Jesus is amazing, but his church has made mistakes. Big ones. Over millennia. We've signed off on slavery and misogyny, oppression and exclusion, Crusades and witch burnings. We're still arguing over what the Boss actually meant when he said "Love one another," which really shouldn't be that hard to interpret.

 

But I'm still a Christian, a preacher, and a minister of a local congregation. Because the core values and central mission of Christian faith still speak to me of eternal things, of lasting value, of enduring hope . . . and are worth handing along to others.

 

It's the time of year when a number of organizations, sometimes called "parachurch" groups, are doing their fundraising or mobilization activities, and there's one in particular involving shoeboxes and Christmas gifts that always attracts a great deal of social media furor about the rightness of working with that group and its current executive director (spoiler alert: he's not the first leader of that organization, nor will he be its last). And we're getting ready for the Christmas season, with kettles and bell ringing and Angel Tree efforts already under way, and there are people with concerns about those groups and their policies, past or present, as well.

 

I am, at heart, a historian as much as a preacher, and I'm aware of the sins of the past perhaps to a detail even beyond what the detractors are focused on. My own congregation and regional church body has some doozies back a century or even less than half a century ago. To do good we've allowed ourselves to be bad, let alone wrong. Yet as the old saying goes, if I found the perfect church, I'd ruin it by joining.

 

Yes, by sharing the Good News (in Old English, "godspell," or Gospel) through any organized church I'm running some risk of passing along some of our more flawed and foolish errors of the past, contaminants of the container, not the contents, and I might not be gifting others with the purest possible word of life -- but without those clay jars and woven baskets of churchly construction, I would have less of the outpouring to offer up to those without. Without hope, without grace, without peace.

 

So I use some bruised reeds and cracked pots to carry the water of life -- Samaritan's Purse, The Salvation Army, the Christian Church in Ohio, even (good Lord help us) Central Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) right here in Newark. We have much to repent for, many reasons to seek redemption, but these broken buckets and flawed vessels are what we have at hand to work with. The house of this world is burning, on fire my friends, and you might tell me "there are more fitting containers further away!" but I'm working with the tools I have at hand to quench the flames. I know the lineage of this equipment, I'm aware of the compromised history, but I'm still going to take them to the river, wash them in the water, dip them deep in the flow, and pass along what refreshment and restoration I can.

 

Anyone who wants to stand off to one side and criticize the bucket brigade as flawed and foolish and failing may do so. I'm going to step in line, pass along what I'm handed, and do the best I can with what I've got . . . and will upgrade as I'm able. But to say this isn't the best that can be done, so stop all work and stand around talking about how we could do it all better -- you can have that conversation on the sidelines, but I'm going to work while we have light, with the tools at hand. Work, while night is falling. [John 9:4]

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's entirely in favor of repentance and redemption, even for organizations. Tell him what you'd renew from the past at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.