Faith Works 10-17-20

Faith Works 10-17-20

Jeff Gill

I am an unmasked sinner
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Sunday mornings I am part of y'all who are experiencing worship online, whether streaming or recorded video or social media "Live" feeds. With my now regular contacts with elderly folk as a caregiver, I'm still not attending even carefully distanced and face-covered indoor worship services.

We've all gotten better at this, speaking still for clergy who had to master cameras and audio and low power FM transmission, even though I'm now two months out from that. I watched my peers and colleagues early on, and now more leisure to check out a variety of online services. I attend vespers at St. Meinrad Archabbey in Indiana and Spanish language praise & worship in California and a number of services more like I'm used to all across the country and a local service or three I regularly check in on.

I've been asked my opinion about in-person worship; when or where it's appropriate, and how I think gathered worship can be done safely.

Looking back, we know more than we did then; what we were concerned might be the case in March and April is not the same as what we're trying to protect against this fall. That's learning and progress and the beginning of wisdom in an earthly sense. And looking ahead, we have the necessity of losing much of our outdoor options that so many congregations have used well through the spring and summer.

In short, there's no simple answer for me or anyone else to offer to faith communities in general. If a sanctuary has easy, ideally grade-level access with modular seating and excellent ventilation (up to code HVAC), I suspect that reasonable use of social distancing between family groups and face coverings would allow gathered worship just fine, but I'd be leery of congregational singing. But we're still learning about how exhaled viruses get from one person to another, and I'm no expert. What I am trying to do is keep up with the latest and best tested expert guidance on safe assembly, and right now having older and at-risk people (or their caregivers) inhaling a great deal of the exhalations of potentially COVID infected persons for an hour or more seems to be the primary concern.

For my wife and I, we're not concerned about the virus, but we're trying not to put ourselves anywhere we'd not want our respective elderly parent to be. So if we'd not put a 91 year old in that pew for an hour, we won't go there ourselves, simply out of caution from our regular visits as caregivers. That's a different limiting factor than many have to consider. Most people who don't have risk factors can, I think, with reasonable precautions be in a group setting - but shame on anyone who tries to shame someone else into removing a mask. If that's what gives them a sense of security enough to be out of the house and anywhere near strangers and others, we should all support them in what's working for their needs.

What this period has taught me, though, or perhaps I should say reminded me of, is my own sinfulness. Truly. Of the brokenness within me that Christ died to save me from, to start me healing from in the here and now, and to redeem me from when all is said and done.

Because I was watching a football game last Sunday, and I caught myself doing it. Yes, the players are taking their own sort of risks, for my entertainment and to keep the economy of their league and city and their own paychecks humming, I'm sure. Yes, the stands were mostly empty, in some stadiums with cutouts in the seats, others like Cleveland with couples and family clusters all spaced a few seats apart in a scattered array of fans. And mostly when you saw the bleacher sections you saw people with face coverings.

But there was one game where a last minute win turned the TV cameras to the owners box, through the glass, into the precincts of privilege, and almost all the wealthy & well-connected were sitting there without masks. I thought dark, grim, judgmental, unforgiving thoughts about them, and enjoyed doing so.

Then I heard Jesus say "Jeff, look at what you are thinking, and how." And I realized I was unmasked. I was simply looking to who was in, and who is out, and taking pleasure in being in while getting to label those who are not. And said "thank you, Jesus."

Still wearing masks out in public, though.

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's finally found some masks that fit him. Tell him about how you're worshiping through the season of Coronatide at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 10-10-20

Faith Works 10-10-20

Jeff Gill

 

When your stuff looks back at you

___

So you have too much stuff.

 

Trust me, that puts you in an overwhelming majority. And if you have someone else's stuff, on top of your stuff, that's part of the sandwich generation experience as well.

 

In fact, I've learned these last few weeks that there are many of us who are coming to grips with having to sort through a house of a parent or family member after their death or relocation into care, and finding out that within their stuff is the stuff of their parents' home, sometimes three and four generations of relatively unsifted, stacked up, piled together stuff.

 

And I keep using the word "stuff" because it's a good resting place in between junk and treasures. I'm avoiding a side-trip into antiques altogether, especially because so much of what people think amongst their belongings, their own or inherited, are of antique value or are truly collectible assemblages, are . . . not. I'll let someone else write a column about how to identify items of value; my work has brought me up against the reality that this is not a common problem most of us need to worry about.

 

So we have stuff, not to say junk, because it has value if only because of associations and history. I've got items in my home which were made by my father for his mother, or made by an aunt's suitor as a peace offering after her marriage to another. Neither are of an iota of value on the open market, but if you're related to those people, they are precious beyond price stickers.

 

Which is why my most sincere plea to all of you who have been reading (and praying) along with me on this journey of breaking down two homes (and starting to maneuver around the edges of a third) and thinking about our stuff, our own and inherited, comes down to three sincere suggestions:

 

First, get rid of as much junk as you can. That starts with admitting what's junk, and treating it as such. Out of a parental home, everything might have a personal connection, so you have to be wary here: your visceral reaction may not be reliable. But holding onto to stuff for recycling or handing over to the places that historically have taken household stuff is trickier than ever, because with COVID everyone's been doing at least a little closet cleaning, and they're swamped. Some have stopped taking items altogether. So I'm just gonna say it: when in doubt, dumpster it. Really.

 

Second: if it's going to someone, start the process. And be ready to learn from the process. It begins with just going ahead and giving it to them – if you have stuff you're holding onto because "it's going to Muffy when I die" then why are you keeping it? And if you're holding back because you suspect Muffy doesn't want it, let's face that now, shall we? If Muffy is in an apartment and wants it someday, when they have more room, and you can spare the space, fine, otherwise, let's sort this out now. At the very least, make a list, put labels on the undersides, have that family meeting this Thanksgiving: decide in the open who gets what.

 

My siblings and I have been blessed with no disputes over furniture and such, but as a minister I have witnessed far too many tragic scenes of anger and estrangement over sideboards and dining room tables. But I've also been delighted by tales at funerals of how grandmamma had everyone sit down and talk through years ago who gets which item. Last minute adjustments after the funeral are simpler and less tense when the major questions have been dealt with out loud, working together.

 

Third: those last stacks and piles. You need to do the spiritual discernment, the prayerful process of asking yourself what they mean. Most of what we hold onto in terms of stuff has to do with what we're holding onto emotionally, unresolved, in tension. Clothes we won't wear again are indexes of body image anxieties or lost youth; hobby items unused, unopened, ask us questions about our choices and priorities in the past; childhood amusements can be pure sentiment and love, but they also often suggest conflicts and wounds still unhealed, the stuff of youthful sorrows still unmourned, awaiting redemption.

 

And there is redemption. I've given quite a bit to God as I stood at the lip of dumpsters, heaving and tossing. Yes, I've pulled a few items back. We're all a work in progress with our stuff.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's almost done with this phase of stuffism. Tell him how you've navigated the swamps of stuff at knapsack77@gmail.com, or on Twitter @Knapsack.

Notes from my Knapsack 10-15-20

Notes from my Knapsack 10-15-20

Jeff Gill

 

Changes in processes & preferences

___

 

Everyone who hates change sure loves 2020, because at the very least they've found they have company.

 

Forget about face coverings and social distancing. Never mind about half capacity restaurants and bars, or aisle arrows at the big box stores. Dismiss the new numbers on the news about infection rates and test positivity.

 

We all knew that there was a push on to move towards a more paperless, wireless, online and app oriented economy. But now, it's not just here, it's the whole ball game in many places.

 

Younger people already rarely carry what us olds call "money" and checks are turning into a near curiosity as we move towards cashless everything. And a few of us who intentionally avoided using taps on our phone home screen to pay for items are now finding that's about the only way we can conduct certain transactions. I've heard people say "I'm just not going to use any business that tries to force me that way," but while I wish them a certain defiant luck, I doubt that history is moving their way.

 

My wife and I were credit card holdouts for a very, very long time, far past most of our peers, age-wise. But we reached a point where if we wanted to travel at all, we needed to get one. We did, but committed to using it sparingly, and thoughtfully, and I think we did well to be as careful as we were . . . but now we have two, and we buy groceries and gasoline with them. Travis McGee in John D. MacDonald's wonderful series of largely Florida-set mysteries speaks near the end of his run (with the author's death in 1986) about having to get a credit card and feeling the net come down across his elusive and vagabond lifestyle, and that's only become more true in the decades since.

 

Yet I think I speak for my wife and many others when I say I really don't miss having to trudge into the gas station or mini-market to pay and then pump. It simplifies things (especially when it's raining), but now the whole business model changes for how to sell stuff to us, and you get little TVs on the pumps and ads on the hoses.

 

Elections are a process just like economic procedures. I never imagined I'd not get up and go to a polling place to vote. That's how I was raised, that's what I've done, and frankly I've enjoyed that visceral thrill of throwing the lever over to . . . ah, but now we tap and click and whirrrrr (the levers have been gone for years) and so why not by mail or downtown on a day preceding Election Day? And how soon will some kind of a validated app on our phone become our polling place? Yes, it changes the whole process, but it makes some new opportunities open up as well, even to encouraging new participants.

 

None of this is about loving change, but from elections to economics we've gotten an opportunity this year to figure out how we want to approach the steamroller of change, and steer it as best we can, rather than fight it fruitlessly as it simply rolls over us. We can't stop it, but we can shift its direction into a better road, less traveled or no.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's still ambivalent about credit cards. Tell him how you adapt to change at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Faith Works 10-3-20

Faith Works 10-3-20

Jeff Gill

 

Knowing when enough is enough

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Sufficiency is an old-fashioned theological term not much in everyday use, but it still has a place in our spiritual reflections.

 

It has to do with the idea in Christian belief that Jesus is all you need, without anything or anyone else necessary for your satisfaction and salvation.

 

Sufficiency says "Jesus is enough."

 

Many of the tales through the ages of religious conflict have to do with our persistent tendency to make our heart's ease and soul's security dependent on "Jesus plus," or "You only need Jesus, and" let alone "Jesus has a list of additional criteria." Anything plus Jesus is likely to be too much, whether in personal or churchly terms. God has a lot going on in this world, but in terms of sufficiency, Jesus alone is enough. Anything else is extra, and too much extra is . . . well, I'd say something about a tasty, well made cupcake and too much frosting, but I worry that might just confuse some of you.

 

Because to be more than a bit theological about practical matters, I believe the doctrine of sufficiency applies to not just spiritual redemption but earthly happiness. Which is what brings us back to where I left you last week, with piles and piles of stuff.

 

I know, some of you might be saying "Jesus is not enough if you're hungry, or broke, or homeless." Yes, that's right, sufficiency is not quite a recipe for diet or budget or household economics, but it's part of the superstructure that allows even those aspect of everyday life to work in a whole and healthy way.

 

Let's go back to that cupcake. Okay, frosting lovers: will you concede that there's a point at which it's too much? Where is your enough? An inch? Two inches? A foot?

 

Biology is teaching us that sometimes we can't just trust our physical, evolved instincts alone to know when enough is enough. The economics and biochemistry of scarcity means that our taste for sweets and sugars, fats and greasy good, is larger than is good for us when there's plenty available. Our body alone doesn't always know when it's enough, and we keep going. Choices are needed, to slow and even to stop ourselves, including the placement of frosting, the pouring of ranch dressing, the ladling of cheese sauce.

 

And economic science along with practical politics ask us if our consumption of too much stuff, piled high and shoveled deeply, is actually depriving others of their basic needs. Not that every financial transaction is a zero-sum game, but do we even ask ourselves "if I get this, does it mean someone else can't get that?" Especially when we are piling up stuff (attention Matthew 6:19) far beyond what we need, what we will ever use, what can reasonably be called "enough."

 

And as a spiritual discipline, just like learning to focus our attention on God, and noticing what it is that most easily distracts us and making that an area of extra attention and effort to set aside: the stuff we either most pile up, or least want to get rid of, usually is telling us something. About unresolved anguish, personal pain, deeper doubts which we're trying to cope with through stuff. There is a false spirituality at work in the joy of shopping, the illusory ease in your heart from purchases, the fake satisfaction of knowing you have that stuff . . . somewhere.

 

When your stuff is what gives you peace, but only for a moment, I can say to you with certainty: it isn't enough. And this is what we Christians mean when we say "Jesus is enough." And where some ask a non-trivial question about buying or keeping stuff about whether or not it gives you joy, as a believer myself I would suggest that, at least for some of us, we could even more usefully ask if our stuff is an idol, a replacement for Jesus, a substitute certainty or replacement satisfaction that says to us we can find a better connection to the Divine, to the Eternal, than through Jesus.

 

None of this says we have to throw everything away and live as wandering hermits, though as Jesus said to a person whose stuff was weighing him down, "maybe you should think about it." That's my theological take on all this; I'll offer some slightly more practical counsel about it all next week.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's still got plenty of stuff to sort out, none of which he will take with him. Tell him how you are getting your idols put into storage at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.

Notes from my Knapsack 10-1-20

Notes from my Knapsack 10-1-20

Jeff Gill

 

It's debatable

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Presidential debates have come to Ohio, and will continue, including a vice-presidential debate, through October.

 

You may be aware that there's an election in November, early in month. Time is running out to get registered if you aren't (Oct. 5 deadline), or you can start now to plan for early voting in Newark in a few days from now, if you are already registered and prefer to skip the Election Day ceremonials (Nov. 3, just to be clear).

 

Having done a little debate in school, I have to admit to a general level of bafflement at what we call debating for presidential candidates. I could call it Kabuki theatre, but that would be equally unfair to Japanese culture.

 

Debate as a competitive form involves knowledge of subject matter and the ability to directly refute or override your opponent's arguments. Famously, you have to be ready to argue either side of a subject, with the skill being honed your ability break down the case pro- or con- into its constituent elements, and work with them convincingly in complete sentences.

 

Presidential debates have two opponents facing each other (sometimes three in the recent past), but there the comparison breaks down. Moderators are pretty actively engaged themselves, and their role as I think of them is to state the proposition under review, and to haul the debaters back on topic if they wander off too far into the weeds. A more traditional debate form would have the moderator say "George Washington said in his Farewell Address: 'The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is, in extending our commercial relations, to have with them as little political connexion as possible.' Given that instruction, our proposition tonight is that the United States should have minimal foreign entanglements. Mr. Trump, winning the coin toss, you will argue for the resolution; Mr. Biden, you will argue against it."

 

Instead we have a moderator or moderators saying things like "Do you think our foreign policy is heading in the right direction?" which is so open ended as to leave the moderator nothing to moderate. How do you say you're off-topic if you've defined the topic so broadly?

 

And perhaps a traditional debate would not serve us so well in the process of determining who would make a better Chief Executive. I can't help thinking that we could do better than the so-called "presidential debate" format, though. Some suggest a cage match, which just gets you the strongest and meanest, so that's a no for me; other athletic competitions have been proposed, a lower-impact ninja warrior course, but I don't see that sorting mechanism getting us a better occupant of the White House.

 

I'd be interested in some sort of listening competition. Have the two of them sit and hear at the same time a series of presentations, both personal and factual in nature, and then give them a test on what they just heard. That's the sort of head-to-head competition that might help us in seeing who is really more ready for the office.

 

Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he's been debating all sorts of things recently, too often with himself. Tell him what arguments convince you at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.