Making choices, soliciting input

With a nod to Mr. Vonnegut

“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”

~ Kurt Vonnegut

On re-encountering this pithy Vonnegut quote, I thought about masks, and I considered silos. I take on different community roles in various guises, they can be masks I wear, but the roles relate to reservoirs of content and information I find myself filling, whether the lack has been noticed or not. There are roles I feel called to portray, and gaps I’m motivated to fill in. Let’s just call them choices we make about who we are, and what we’re going to do.

Masks were the image I quickly posted with the Vonnegut quote on my social media feeds; on further reflection, you’re getting… okay, they’re actually grain bins. But I liked in this image the idea of multiple reservoirs or storage units fed from a central elevator feed. Call ‘em silos.

Silos in Wisconsin; image from Wikideas1 on Wikipedia

It’s no surprise to anyone who knows me even just peripherally that I have a tendency to overcommit and hyper-extend myself. Even just in certain spheres of engagement, like writing projects. Multi-tasking has been my long-standing default mode.

Recently I have largely stopped multi-tasking. I prioritize in advance, and tend to work on the next thing until it’s done, and then the next, et cetera. Much of this is because of my interstate existence these days, and just practically speaking I am more focused, to which some might say “and it’s about time.” People do say this, and I look back over my last forty years and am tempted to be defensive about this subject, but the reality is my current pattern is what it is and will continue to be as such.

But when I have occasion to do some assessment, especially on my stack of writing projects, I see a range of partially-filled vessels, and enough of them to leave me a bit disoriented as to where I should focus my efforts next to fill first one, then another. I hope to complete all of them, even if completion may in some cases mean coming to a decision to shut it down as not worth the continued effort. Most are likely to reach some sort of conclusion, though. And that’s where you all can come in.

Before I outline what I have half-baked, half-cocked, and partially completed, let me say what is perhaps obvious. You’re not responsible for what I do in which order, I’m just looking for input to see how it lands for me. It may be like flipping a coin to make a decision, and realizing when an option comes up “heads” that you in truth really want to do the thing marked “tails.” It works that way sometimes. In any case I may not pursue even a clear mandate from the responses I get here, but I want anyone who replies to know the input will be considered, and appreciated.

With that throat-clearing out of the way, here’s my current roster of partially written or roughly developed projects I want to work to some form of completion:

1.) The Newark Holy Stones - this is a joint project with Brad Lepper, and his hope is that I would get more done on this, which I take very seriously. It is about the discovery of two Hebrew inscribed stones in June through November of 1860 in the area of Newark, Ohio, their likely origin & ongoing influences. I’d say my focus would be here next . . . except it’s a huge thing, and has complications I should have anticipated but didn’t. Some of what I’ve done since is probably my way of avoiding facing those complications. If you don’t know much about this subject, I did twelve installments from March to the end of June last year, which you can scroll back and peruse if you’ve of a mind to. The complication in both going further with this, and doing so on here, is that the volume of feedback I got, mostly hostile and negative, was not what I expected. Both in comments & messages here on Substack, and in emails and other messaging formats. It was… distracting. Motivating, in a way, but definitely distracting. I’m aware most of this was from a rather short list of interlocutors, but they made up for in volume what they lacked in numbers. Going “live” again with the subject makes me tense up just thinking about it, and in truth, Brad & I have a (checks the current file) timeline outline that at 12 pt type and 1.5 spacing runs 124 pages. My twelve posts on a key series of events in early 1860 constituted about 12,000 words, and covered ten pages of our outline (which itself is 37,000 words in length), suggesting that a completed text based on that outline would exceed 140,000 words. Maybe I just need to break this down into pieces… but I have taken eight months off from the project, and it gnaws at me.

2.) Archival Discoveries and the “Why” of History - with a title like this, it could easily be put at the bottom of the list. Seven or eight years ago I wrote, first in Facebook Notes, which on the demise of that platform was migrated over here into Substack, a 40,000 word essay (or text, or unpublished volume, as you wish) I called “The Rise and Fall of the Ohio Region.” It appeared here in 26 chapters (again, you may scroll back and enjoy as suits you); there was a transition of sorts two years ago with my three part “Cynthia Pearl Maus and regions in the Disciples of Christ” (also posted here), and it could be looped in with what I started last December as “Archival Discoveries and…” which was part one of two, about half of a 7,000 word essay that still is seeking a conclusion. One way to get there is to simply take the logical next step, and re-title it as “The Rise and Fall of the Disciples of Christ.” The idea of writing that daunts me, not least because — as with my Newark Holy Stones writing — I know it’s going to get me some serious pushback, as my previous writing on this subject just in Ohio has gotten. Just some gentle allusions in the Cynthia Pearl Maus story, as she begins the behemoth of Young Adult Conferences in 1920, and carries her message of cultural uplift and character development as the heart of Christian formation into the 1930s to the 1960s, have earned me some furious retorts from across our church. Obviously, that’s not a reason to stop saying accurate and even useful things, but it’s surely a disincentive, especially to someone trying to prioritize one’s time.

3.) “Never to be removed”: The Preservation History of the Newark Earthworks - in some form, this is going to be completed at least as a public presentation by Aug. 20, 2026 at the Octagon Earthworks visitor center. In truth, I could get up and do it today; the research is largely completed and the material just needs to be written out in full as a coherent document. From Marietta’s Mound Cemetery in 1801, up to Newark’s Sixth Street Cemetery in 1810 (and Licking County’s Fairmount Mound and Cemetery in 1829), the construction of the Upham House in 1848, and Henry Holler’s deed restriction of 1853 at the “Old Fort,” we have a coherent narrative. Eli Hull’s country house construction in 1875 lays down a trail of mixed motivations, picked up by his friend and business cohort Reinhard Schiedler, who buys up land on both sides of West Main Street from Hull Place on out to the Octagon Earthworks, with a fascinating story to be told of immigrant inclusion and technological innovation all helping preserve ancient wonders in 1892, with a guest appearance by Dr. John B. Schueller, who I’ve delighted in getting to know better, along with his countryman Reinhard here in Newark. And then the Wright family re-enters our narrative in 1931 through son-in-law Clarence Jones, lawyer and antiquarian… Anyhow, to write this up in the narrative it deserves is a bigger effort than it takes to sum up in 40 minutes with visuals on a screen behind me.

4.) This Land of Legend - By any accounting, this should almost certainly go last. But it’s a volume, a book, a piece of work that’s been gestating in my head for a very long time. It may be 89% written up in my cerebellum; I won’t know until I nerve myself to actually start putting it down through a keyboard onto pages, virtual or otherwise. Before I started seminary, I spent a year as night manager of a bookstore-slash-copy shop, where I sold an inordinate number of copies of William Least Heat-Moon’s “Blue Highways.” I had read “Travels with Charley” by John Steinbeck as a kid, and “Blue Highways” had an overt relationship to the earlier 1960 book, out in paperback by 1984. Seriously, I sold “Blue Highways” to people who hadn’t even come into Von’s for a book. Then in 1991 Heat-Moon came out with “PrairyErth: A Deep Map” which was a tome and a half, a piece of “vertical travel writing” about a particular place, Chase County, Kansas. It’s over 600 pages, all going deep into the landscape of this one seemingly undistinguished prairie county. And yeah, I feel like I could give you 600 plus pages on Licking County from glacial retreat 14,000 years ago to the day after yesterday, all right here. In this “Land of Legend.”

“PrairyErth” did not outsell “Blue Highways.” It did boost tourism in Chase County a bit, I’m told. It’s not for everyone. And I’m not sure how many even in Licking County, Ohio would want to read my layered takes on “This Land of Legend.” But chapters and episodes of this unwritten book haunt me, pretty much daily.

=+=+=+=

So there you have it. Four writing projects, all in various stages of deshabille.

1.) The Newark Holy Stones (which could be subtitled “the origin of the Antiquities of America”)
2.) Archival Discoveries and the “Why” of History (which is NOT “The Rise and Fall of the Disciples of Christ,” right? Or is it?)
3.) “Never to be removed”: The Preservation History of the Newark Earthworks
4.) “This Land of Legend” (a deep map, a narrative history of this county)

Wendy Hollinger will probably say “what about the book visiting WPA post office murals around the Midwest?” Yeah, that one is going to have to wait a bit (travel isn’t on my list right now). I’ve got a bunch I’d like to say around public art in general and John Steuart Curry in particular, but that project is definitely no more than a few note cards and phrases in the back of my head.

If you’ve read down this far, what strikes you as more interesting than the others? Which one or two would you think I should finish first? Or even if you want to say “I think you can just shelf THAT one permanently…” I won’t be mad if you say so; keep in mind I may still write it, but your reaction will be taken into consideration.

By the way, before anyone says “instead of writing this, you could have just gotten to work on one of them”: I’ve been on effective hold for four hours, waiting for an official call to get some business done. I defy even David McCullough to write creatively while watching a cell phone for a call… A memoir comes to mind occasionally, perhaps in conjunction with option #2, but does the world really need more memoirs?

Thank you for your input!