Peter's Pondering

Magic | October 6, 2005

[webmaster note: this was written in May, and got lost in the shuffle. Apologies to Peter and all the readers who will enjoy it, for the delay.]

A few days ago, Tim Wiebe dropped something special on my desk. Tim, among many wonderful things, is the other Mennonite Studies teacher at MCI--or, as he likes to say it: “[my] partner in non-violent, redemptive crime.” If you know him, you know that he’s dropping stuff all the time. Luckily, this was one of them.

The following piece is one of the short stories that Garrett James, one of Tim’s students, wrote for his “Menno Project.” Tim dropped it on my desk because it made him laugh. It made me laugh too. Enjoy.

This story is the first one in a collection Garrett has entitled The Little Larry Chronicles.

“Magic”
-by Garrett James

Four year-old Larry Reimer sat on his stool, watching Grandma make her ‘famous’ apple pie. It actually was famous. It was famous for being the worst-tasting apple pie in southern Manitoba. Most of the flavour came from the burned crust which everyone secretly hid in their napkins and dropped to the floor for Grandma’s poodle to consume. But Mittens the poodle had a secret of her own. When she took the crusts from under the table and out the door, she would actually take those crusts as far away from the house as she could. She would then bury them as far down as she could dig. She thought she was clever, but she was a poodle, so the joke’s on her.

He was fixated on the fork she uses to poke holes in the crust on top. He didn’t know why she did this, but he knew that it was what grandmas did. He was in no place to question her actions. For a four year-old, NOT questioning something was a HUGE challenge. But it was something about the magic of Grandma that just made him want to keep it a mystery. For Little Larry, as he was called by his uncles and aunts, magic was a big part of life. Everything Larry didn’t understand about life, he thought, had something to do with magic. He once shared this with his parents, and as Mennonites they understood it was their duty to delete any such idea from their son’s creative and impressionable mind. But Larry got revenge one day when a magician came to his pre-school and did a show for them. His revenge was that he enjoyed it. He loved it. He wanted more.

Reflection on the 2005 MCM Delegate Sessions | March 4, 2005

OK, so the 2005 MCM Delegates Session was not overrun with young adults. But there was a presence and that's a start. There was also a lot of young adult-savvy stuff going down. Like, for instance, a resolution was passed with overwhelming support, requesting that-and I quote-"MCM really start to young-people-it-up in the year to come." (Don't believe it was phrased that way? Come to the next Session and find out.) We also elected another under-30-year-old to the Board of Directors.

Now this is all fine and good, but, as one of the Delegates pointed out, these Delegates Sessions can be a lot of "preaching to the converted." We can all say that we want more young adult action in the Conference, and we can even get some of us conference-loving young adults on board, but the problem is just that: for whatever reason we're already conference lovers. Most of us who are involved have probably always been conference lovers. What we don't have enough of are people with a conversion-type experience to the Conference. We don't have anyone who can say: "On March 3, 2005, at 11:30 a.m., I became a Conference lover." And for that reason, we don't have anyone who can tell us what led them to Conference. So, what I'm wondering is, what would make a young adult more interested in considering more involvement in Conference? What already interests young adults and should be emphasized more? What can we do to get more young people inspired, interested, and sincerely wanting to get in on the action?

So, teacher that I am, I have an assignment for anyone reading this. Tell me: What do you like about our Mennonite Conference? And what would you change about our Mennonite Conference? And how do you think we could get more people like you to get involved with some part of Conference? Please, really, let me know. There's a discussion forum attached to this and you are welcome to post there. In fact, it's part of my course requirement. I don't even care if you're not a young adult. Please, just let me know. I think there a lot of people who would really value what you have to say.

[Let us know what you think in the "Intergenerational Forum"]

"Top 5 Reasons to Show Up at the 2005 MCM ADS " | February 2005

Chances are, if you've been anywhere near North America this past year, you've heard the buzz about the young people's vote. Even if CBC's high school home videos didn't get your attention, P. Diddy's ever-so-subtle "Vote or Die!" campaign must have. It occurred to me that with the February MCM Annual General Meeting just around the corner (Feb. 18 & 19), a prestigious rap mogul might actually have something to teach me. But then my pacifist conscience weighed in and I started having second thoughts about a "P. Eppy says 'Show or Die!'" campaign. Still, there is something to be said for participation in the democratic process. So, in the hopes of prodding you out of voter apathy with something softer than a sharp stick, here are my "Top 5 Reasons to Show Up at the 2005 MCM AGM":

1) Easy praise. Old people love it when young people show. Seriously, when I joined the MCM Board, I had people I'd never met telling me how wonderful I was. Why? Because I am a wonderful person? Not at all. Because I showed up and said "yes."

2) Free therapy. When discussing or thinking about the conference, do you often find yourself complaining about "them" without ever knowing who "they" really are? Do you find yourself feeling like "they" are out to get you-specifically you-with whatever it is they're doing with things? Come to the conference and cure your paranoia by meeting the "thems" and "theys" of your Mennonite community. If you're anything like me, you'll find yourself so comfortable that you'll wonder if "they" ever really existed at all.

3) Free food. No, I'm not just talking about communion here (although there's plenty of that to go around). Think about it: You know how great it is when you go home to mom and dad's on Sunday and get a free meal? Well, why not make it a full weekend of it? You and I both know that the Kraft Dinner in your cupboard isn't going anywhere. You can still have it on Monday…and Tuesday…and Wednesday…

4) More of the stuff you love. Ever notice how nice it has been to rest in the "everlasting arms" of the conference for the past 20-odd years? MMYO Volleyball. Camps with Meaning. Youth Group. CMU. Young Adult Council. If getting involved with the MCM Board has taught me anything, it's that these things don't run themselves. And as much as it would be nice to perpetually enjoy this sponge-like existence of ours, I get the impression that the "suits" of Mennonite Church Manitoba have been looking around for years, wondering if anyone actually wants to inherit this thing. Well, I for one, think you do-whoever you are. You're reading this, and that means you care. And if you care, I bet you'll love being involved.

5) Listening Ears. I think there's a myth out there that "the old people" don't want "the young people" meddling with the conference. I know I believed it for most of my life. The truth, however, is that this is nothing more than a divisive fiction. Without fail, every meeting or delegate's session I've attended has been full of older conference members asking me and the other young adults in attendance to share our perspective on things. There's always this moment at every Board meeting where someone says, "If only we knew what the young people thought about this…"; and then everyone sighs and looks wistfully at me. Now, as much as I love attention (and believe me, I do), there's a time and a place for a guy to move over and share the spotlight a little. So please, before everyone starts to think that you and everyone else our age thinks exactly like me, come and tell these desperate folks what you're thinking.

So there it is. February 18 & 19, 2005 (that's a Friday evening and Saturday) at Sargent Avenue Mennonite Church. Call your pastor and tell him or her that you want to be a delegate. I bet s/he will be thrilled. And I bet P. Diddy will call off that hitman he's hired too.

Borscht Versus Believers' Baptism: A reflection on my Mennonite identity crisis | January, 2005

Being a Mennonite Studies teacher, I like to stamp "Mennonite" onto just about anything half-decent that I can get my hands on. If, while reading, for example, I come across a wonderful idea written by a Catholic author that I enjoy-someone like Kathleen Norris or Richard Rohr-I immediately find occasion to "Menno-fy" what I've read. It's really quite easy. If it implies peace, uses the Sermon on the Mount, or leads me to cluck my tongue at materialism and worldly frivolities, I can confidently assert that although the medium is not Mennonite, the product most certainly has to be. And besides, Richard Rohr totally spoke at the Mennonite Conference in Normal, Illinois. I was there. It was in the 80's. I can even imagine what I was doing at the moment he spoke-finger-painting with the other under-10-year-olds, no doubt. And another time, I even noticed that there was a quotation from The Mennonite inside one of his books. They had reviewed him, I'm sure, because he was so Mennonite. He had printed it on the inside cover because underneath his own Catholic cover, he was a Mennonite too. He just wasn't ready to admit it yet. I notice these things, you see, because I am a proud Mennonite Studies teacher. And as such, I know that, truly, every good thing can be "Menno-fied."

Admittedly, though, when it comes to some of the finer things in the life of a young cosmopolitan Mennonite like myself (for "cosmopolitan" see, "lives in Gretna"), I must sadly admit that I find myself in a bit of a quandary. Here, I am speaking about the kind of edible finery that one's grandmother has proudly laid on the family table for generations. Or the beautiful quilt she has laid on one's bed. Heck, I'm even talking about Plautdietsch* and the way the words: "I drank some of that Papsi just barely," roll off of a Winklerite's tongue. I love these things, and, even better yet, I know that they have already held the title "Mennonite" for ages. I don't need to give the name to them. They've already been "Menno-fied."

The problem, however, is that by embracing these ethnic qualities of Mennonite-which, don't get me wrong, I would love to do-I'm limiting my ability to apply the term Mennonite elsewhere. If Mennonite is an ethnicity, then somehow I need to find a new term for all those Mennonites in Africa and India (I've heard there's one or two of them out there these days) that go to Churches called "Mennonite" and sometimes even agree with my Confession of Faith from a Mennonite Perspective! Now, I'd love to be proven wrong on this one, but from what I know, they've somehow managed to avoid reading between the lines. They don't know that now that they're Mennonite, they're supposed to be slurping Sommerborscht, sipping Yarba, and stitching quilts to get their now-Mennonite grandchildren through the next African winter. They don't know how to spit Knackzoat. They don't know that tomorrow's half-off day at the bargain store. And they probably don't even know any half-decent jokes in low-German.

My dad, a Mennonite minister, sees less of a need to stamp Mennonite onto the world around him. But he does, like any good AMBS-educated Mennonite, enjoy poking fun at non-denominational ministers. He particularly enjoys this when they are of the "ex-Mennonite" variety. And let's face it, most of them are. Once, during such an interaction, he summarized this whole ethno-religious Mennonite concern quite well.

Our family was visiting the local restaurant, which just so happened to be owned by the minister of the charismatic, non-denominational (read "ex-Mennonite") Church down the road from us. As we pulled into the parking lot, my dad noticed the words "Mennonite Buffet," emblazoned across the restaurant sign's advertising board. Barely able to contain himself, my dad parked the car, sprinted to the restaurant, and immediately honed in on his ministerial adversary.

"Mennonite buffet, eh?" he demanded, "Do I get to have a Pentecostal buffet next week? Because I've been seriously craving a side order of speaking in tongues!"

He guffawed about this joke for the rest of the meal. And I think I've only heard it 400 times since (just 90 more times and Jesus has let me off the hook…). But the point could not be made more clearly: in the 21st century, Mennonite ethnicity and religion do not always mix.

So what am I to do? If it's one against the other, I could, I suppose weigh my options and let the winner take all. Hmmm, Borscht versus Believers' Baptism? Plautdietch versus Pacifism? Plumamouse and Zweibaek versus Priesthood of All Believers? I guess, if I had to choose, all that spiritual stuff would win out. I have yet to find any Plautdietsch in the Bible, so I couldn't really justify it the other way. But the problem with this is that there are all these ex-Mennonite, non-denominational types who still go around serving Mennonite buffets. For some reason, they still get to be half-Mennonite. And really, there's not a darn thing I can do about it. If they want to eat verinika, speak in tongues about it, and then call themselves "Mennonite," what right do I have to stop them?

The other option, I guess, would be to clarify the word "Mennonite" in the religious sense. Some people would suggest that we should call ourselves Anabaptist Mennonites. In fact, the proponents of this movement have already started slapping the adjective "Anabaptist/Mennonite" onto everything in sight. Anabaptist slash Mennonite. It sounds a bit redundant to me. But it would be no surprise at all if I found out that this movement is mainly brought to us by the same people who introduced the dash into the Mennonite vernacular: the Enns-Zachariases, Schellenberg-Froesees, and Suederman-Schellenbergs. I suspect that it's mostly those slash people that want this dash thing to take off.

But I'm not sure I'm all on board with the slashy-dashies either. For one, the Anabaptist/Mennonite name is long and awkward. For another, it will only get harder to say as the slashies' names get longer and they want their dashes to keep up. So when the next generation of Enns-Zacharias-Suedermans and Kroeker-Goertzen-Wiebes try to pull a Disgruntled Catholic/Anabaptist/Mennonite on us, I think we'll wish we didn't budge on this one from the beginning.

But really, what are we to do? The only remaining option would be to drop the name Mennonite from our Churches entirely. In fact, we all know that some (insert put-on coughing that sounds like "M.B.'s" here) have already been going in this direction. But I'm not sure I'd really like that. It would be like letting them win. I'm not completely sure who would be winning, but I know they'd be winning, and I wouldn't like that. Plus, my Mennonite history prof once made a really scathing remark about "pietistic charismatics who have no sense of their own heritage when they unceremoniously dispense with their own denomination-name and intellect." It made us all laugh. And it also made me feel like a better person than all those name-dispensers. I like that. I don't want to stop feeling that way.

I guess in the end, we can only realize that, like the scientist in Frankenstein, we've created a monster with a mind of its own. By tying our faith and ethnicity so closely together for all these years, we've really created the problem ourselves. And it certainly didn't help that we stopped interacting with the entire non-Mennonite world for almost 400years of history! But, like so many of my Christian foibles, I guess I can find some redemption in the fact that Christ so often turns my awkwardness into opportunities. When you tell someone you are Mennonite, you often find out that they have all kinds of crazy preconceptions about what that is. And half of the time they're right. But right or wrong, I've almost always found that these interactions usually turn into sincere opportunities to dialogue comfortably about my faith. As a Mennonite Studies teacher, I do know one thing: People are most interested in learning about Mennonites when they are motivated by some honest curiosity. And if Mennonites aren't a curiosity-inducing people, I'm not sure who could be.

Note: *I am labouring under the naïve assumption that low-German is still an unwritten language, and that for that reason, I can spell it however I want. This is a handy way of admitting that as proud as I am of all kinds of Mennonite culture, I'm still too lazy to call up an elder and ask them for a correct spelling.

[Let us know what you think in the "Intergenerational Forum"]

so Peter... | August, 2004

“So Peter, would Jesus hang out with the lice kids? Or would he send them home?” This was the question that Andrew, our camp lifeguard and detailed thinker, casually tossed me—the Camp Koinonia Summer Program Director—on the dock one afternoon. Or maybe it wasn’t as casual as it sounded. Because, maybe, just maybe, there were two sisters sitting on my mini-lodge steps at that very moment, waiting to be picked up by their parents. And maybe they had little crawly creatures nesting in their hair, making them scratch. Maybe. I wasn’t really sure because I had spent the day trying to forget about it.

“I don’t know Andrew, would Jesus let a bunch of parents down by allowing their kids to contract lice at camp?” I retorted, more than a little defensively.

“I’m not sure. If you’re asking whether Jesus favored the healthy over the unhealthy, the rich over the poor, the non-lepers over the…”

“Ok, Ok,” I finally conceded, “I don’t like this any more than you do.” And really, I didn’t. And I was kind of proud of Andrew for pushing the issue--proud in a guilty, uncomfortable sort of way. Like when you’re ready to walk right by a panhandler and then notice your best friend fishing around for change in his/her pocket. I was proud of Andrew because he was still thinking freshly and idealistically—the way that sometimes feels easier to avoid when people expect you to keep things in order.

When I walked back to the mini-lodge steps, I let my eyes fall on the place where the girls were making bracelets with one of their counselors. I noticed that the tears on their cheeks had dried. Tiny, flaky white tear crystals were now bobbing up and down on their cheeks with each smile and laugh. They were happy, energetic, and clearly over their initial embarrassment and disappointment. I sat with them and watched their counselor tell them jokes, give them beads, and dance to Latin music with them. Then I went inside and noticed the card that the other directors had been preparing for them. We all signed, and told them that they were special and brave and should definitely come back next year.

Shortly before they left, we gave them the card. They took it gladly, thanked us sincerely, and promised to return. I went back into the mini-lodge and thought about what had happened. I thought about how frustratingly un-simple it can be to know what Jesus would with things that Jesus never actually had to do. Jesus, for instance, never had to worry about whether or not his campers should go on campout with a possible storm approaching. He never had to give them timeouts for pillow fights or come up with creative stories for why Johnny’s sleeping bag is drying on the clothesline this morning. And he certainly, as far as I can tell, never had to send anyone home for lice.

But thankfully I also thought about how Jesus, along with his father, gave us a promise. He told us: Don’t worry about being perfect, because through your imperfection comes my perfection. He told us this when he asked all kinds of unlikely characters to lead his people in the Old Testament. He told us this when he picked tax collectors and other people of ill repute to be his disciples. He told us this when he asked us to be humble, come to him as little children, and live as broken vessels. And most of all, he told us this when he himself succeeded through what the world would have called an absolute failure, being executed as a common criminal.

I thought of this as our two campers bounced of the mini-lodge steps and rolled out of the Koinonia parking lot. I thought: wow! Somehow, these girls feel loved. Maybe it’s all the one-to-one attention they got in their short time here. Maybe it’s the fact that we had some amazing staff attending to them. Or maybe it’s just a miracle. But for whatever reason, these girls are some of the happiest campers I have ever seen, even if they’ve only been here for a day.

So, would Jesus send a camper home for having lice? I don’t know. Or maybe I just don’t want to say what I suspect is true. But I do know, and I do want to say this: Jesus loves every child and adult who comes into our camps, churches, or personal lives. And whether or not we make all the right decisions, he can and will use us to show it, as long as we are willing to take the chance.

Lenten Reflection | April 25, 2004

You can call it a reflex reaction to 5-and-a-half years of university exams if you like, but this Lent I decided to fast from being right. You heard correctly. This Lent, I got to eat all I liked. I got to continue all my other bad habits too. Like driving when I could walk, watching TV when I could read, and leaving the room whenever my roommates started a conversation that might possibly go in a direction that might possibly lead them to wonder how often I really did think my chore duty required me to sweep the floor in a month. It was all good. Or at least this Lent it wasn't all bad. Or maybe it was. But it still wasn't my focus. Because really, once a month isn't that bad for sweeping. I mean, we all wear socks inside most of the time don't we?

Either way, this Lent, I was trying something new. I wasn't fasting from any specifically detestable action. I was fasting instead from something that informed my actions. I was fasting from bad attitudes and rotten thinking. I was fasting even from personal identity and what I might have typically liked to label "personal righteousness." Because if you think about it, "personal righteousness" and "self-righteousness" are pretty much synonymous. It's just that you're self-righteous when I don't like your put-on piety. I'm personally righteous when I know I'm really right. At least that's what I've been telling myself. Or at least that's what I was allowed to tell myself until I started this whole crazy fasting-from-having-to-be-right power trip (or do I mean disempowered trip?).

You see, it dawned on me that the need to be right can destroy some beautiful bridges that God is building in my life right now. Bridges that could be linking me more effectively to loving relationships with my friends and family. Bridges that could be linking me more deeply to the love of God and Christ. Bridges that could be linking me more graciously to my enemies. Bridges, even, that could take me from the desolate plateau of my corrupted self, across the chasm of selfishness, and into the lush rolling hills of my selfless, Christ-infused, True self.

God, I believe, gives us endless opportunities to cross bridges. Think about how often people want to be appreciated. Every time we speak as human beings, we engage in the process of voluntary communication. We choose to let our words be heard by those we speak to. We choose to let our prayers be heard by God. We choose to do so because it is inherently important to us that others hear and appreciate our thoughts, ideas, fears, and joys. People speak because they want to be heard. People want to be heard because they long to be appreciated. Every time we engage in the act of communication with someone, you and I are, in effect, saying: "Could you please appreciate me?" That, I believe, may well be the voice of the soul, crying out beneath our every word.

Or maybe not quite our every word. Because, in addition, I believe God has blessed us with another very beautiful way for our soul to communicate. He has empowered us with the ability to say: "You are appreciated!" He has empowered us to voluntarily allow our souls to speak with the words of his own. As humans, we long to be affirmed or loved. God lets us ask for that, and, in a beautiful act of trust and compassion, God lets us help him answer it for others.

The only problem is that we so rarely take that opportunity. Or at least I know that I can't even begin to count how often I pass it up. And the main problem with it is my own rampant lust for being affirmed myself. You communicate with me, and instead of reflecting God's love upon you, I try to one up you. I try to be more right than you. I try to fulfill my own need for appreciation by saying: "Oh no you don't. Don't go trying to get appreciated. I'm going to earn more love from God than you because I'm more right!" It's silly and it's childish. It's counterproductive and it's pathetic. And really, in the end, it's a lot like two preschoolers fighting for their mother's attention. The only difference being that for us, the mother knows that we could act so much older. The mother knows because the mother has blessed us with the ability to do so.

OK, so what am I saying here? I guess I'm saying that our need to be right is generally fueled by our own selfish reactions to our own need to be loved. After a hundred sermons on grace, our actions still give away the fact that our childish instincts want to earn our way into heaven. And as long as we think we still need to earn, we'll still pursue being right as our ticket into God's good graces. And as long as we think we need to be right, we'll limit our own ability to love those who might see things differently. And in doing so, I believe, we'll be missing out on all the beautiful bridges God is building in our lives. It's not that I don't believe in Truth, and it's not that I don't believe in standing up for what's right. It's just that generally I see myself forgetting what is right. "Love one another. In the same way [Christ] loved you, love one another" (Matthew13:34) Of course, I could be wrong. And if you think so, this might not be such a bad time to disagree with me. I am, of course, still fasting from the need to be right.

What scares a "G.C."* more than the call to evangelize?
| January 6, 2004

What scares a "G.C."* more than the call to evangelize? Apparently the experience of being evangelized. This was the cold reality that left my teeth chattering as I boarded a plane to what I thought would be a warm, comforting holiday in sunny California. The "holiday" was to be the North American Young Adult Fellowship in Los Angeles, a conference for other young Mennonites like myself to meet, worship, sing, and just generally quell our out-of-the-youth-group, into-the-gemeinde anxieties. However, it was the flight there-the least comfortable part-that turned out to be one of the most memorable.

I saw through my seatmate from the start. He wasn't sitting with any of his friends. His friends weren't sitting with any of each other. Strategically, they were each dispersed along the window seats of the economy class cabin. It was almost as if their very presence was saying in a not-so-subtly metaphorical way, "To get to the light, you have to get through me." Of course, most tellingly of all, though, my seatmate had a nametag. It said: "Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints." His name was on it too (it being a nametag and all), but I don't remember that part. I sort of feel bad about that, but I console myself with the reminder that I probably remember the part he most wanted me to.

Strategic seating plan or not, however, the handshake was warm and the smile sincere. And if the conversation wasn't natural, it was at least as much of a well-crafted imitation as you'll get on most flights. It was also one that went straight to the heart of my clever, cocktail, err, I mean, fairly-traded ten thousand village coffee-party repartee: Mennonite history. (Like any "G.C.", ask me about personal salvation and I'll reach for a drink; ask me about Mennonite history and you'd better pour yourself a pitcher). So I talked at length. And he listened…and listened…and showed incredible enthusiasm for what I was saying. Still, I couldn't shake the feeling that somewhere in his mind he was putting a big red checkmark beside the box that said: "Step 1: Ask questions. Be interested." And by the time we had slid into "Step 6: Offer Book of Mormon as free gift!", I was a little bit more sure of that fact.

But I was still not so sure about everything. And by everything, I mean Everything. Because somewhere between steps 2 and 5 I realized that my seatmate and I were really similar. Really, really similar. Most frighteningly similar was the way my seatmate talked about religious doubts, Biblical inconsistencies, and the faith-filled life. He talked about an all-loving, all-forgiving God who touched his world in a beautiful way. And he used my words. My words. He didn't give me a schpiel from a TV ad; he didn't sound rehearsed; he didn't even sound insincere in any way, shape, or form. He sounded like me talking about me-and God. And in doing so, he made me really, really uncomfortable.

Why? Because as far as I can see, our similarities left only two really believable possibilities. Either we've both been fooled, or we've both been found. I can't write him off without writing off myself. But can I write him in without feeling like a heretic?

Let that sit for a while. I certainly have. And then see where it leads you. For some frustratingly elusive, but probably necessary and community-building reason, we will probably not all come to the same conclusions. But we can share and learn from each different one. The verse below is where I felt led, and I would love to know where others have ended up too. Let me know.

"And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge-that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God." (Ephesians 3:17b-19)

Maybe feeling heretical is more Biblical than we've realized.

*The author recognizes that the term "G.C" is now outdated and probably sounds politically incorrect, exhibiting two other Mennonite anxieties (one more than the other, depending on your denomination). He eagerly awaits suggestions for a better way to refer to socially-obsessive, evangelically-challenged Mennos. M.C.'s still feels too much like a rap reference.

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