A story of war, immigration and connection
Like a garden maze with various starting points, the story of how I became connected to the Mennonite community is the sum of several individual stories that all led to the same place. My family’s journey to the Mennonites began with a Mennonite woman extending her compassion to us, and this has become a recurring…
No shortcut to Easter
It’s not easy to come up with fresh, new material for Easter, so we dug up something nearly 500 years old instead. We’re putting the “Menno” in Canadian Mennonite, literally—the original Menno. And while most of us are not accustomed to someone admonishing us to die to the carnal self, perhaps in our time of…
The spiritual resurrection
Reading words written nearly 500 years ago and translated nearly 70 years ago takes some effort, especially when the message is that death precedes resurrection. We trust the Spirit will reveal something new in the old. Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light. The Scriptures teach two…
Easter reflections
We asked 10 people for their most meaningful Easter memory, or an image that best captures the essence of Easter, or what Easter makes them wonder. Holy Week turtle soup When I lived in the Colombian community of Mampujan, I was part of planning a commemorative event to mark 12 years of displacement. Armed groups…
Readers write: March 24, 2023 issue
Alvin Baroro On page 6 of the Feb. 13 issue is a picture mentioning two people’s names and identifying another as “an Indigenous coffee grower.” Please do better than that and offer all equal dignity by making the effort of having all the names. —Harold Penner, Arnaud, Man. (Arnaud Mennonite Church) Editor’s note: Good point.…
What is a Mennonite?
Last month I was sleeping in my hotel in Vietnam when loud karaoke music started playing outside. The music was so loud that I thought my window was open, so I turned the lights on to check, but no, the window was closed. I put my earplugs in, put my pillow over my head and…
Gilbert Snider
Gilbert Snider stokes his wood-fed, maple-syrup evaporator in rural Waterloo County in 1954. The photographer, David L. Hunsberger, took many photos of working life in Ontario’s Waterloo Region. How much do you know about the working lives of your fellow churchgoers? For more historical photos in the Mennonite Archival Image Database, see archives.mhsc.ca. More moments from…
Gentleness behind bars
On Thursday mornings, I drive an hour north to the Saskatchewan Penitentiary, a federal institution in Prince Albert. I am escorted through the belly of the beast to the chapel area. Inmates begin to arrive. I am there, at the chaplain’s request, in support of a program geared towards healing injured spirits. It feels like…
Chickadee as sacrament
Normally I hearken closely to the words of Jesus. But although he advises that we consider the sparrows of the field, I’d rather pay attention to chickadees. Being commonplace seems to be no barrier to the joy chickadees bring to many. Chickadees live across the entirety of the southern half of Canada and all the…
