A slow, simple obedience

My introduction to Anabaptism began with fire.

Let me explain. I grew up in a Presbyterian household, but when I went off to the University of Toronto, a roommate introduced me to the Living More With Less book and its companion, the More-with-Less Cookbook. To say I devoured them would be an understatement. In fact, a new world was unlocked.

In her foreword to Living More with Less, author Doris Janzen Longacre began, “This is a book for people who know something is wrong with the way North Americans live and are ready to talk about change. This is a book about rediscovering what is good and true. This is a book about beauty, healing and hope, a book about getting more, not less.”

I hadn’t known. It was the ’80s and greed was good, said Gordon Gekko in the movie Wall Street. I didn’t buy into that way of thinking, but in my experience of church, faith did not inform matters of transportation, food, justice or all the other things that make up a daily life.

It was also the time of the first Band Aid concert, so I knew the world was in trouble. We were told that, “in our world of plenty we can spread a smile of joy … Say a prayer, pray for the other ones.”

Living More With Less found me right when I was on the cusp of adulthood, thinking about how I wanted to live. I repurposed the index cards I usually used to study, scribbling down tips for avoiding waste, the composition of a whole protein, stories of choosing solidarity and hospitality.

One winter weekend, I brought my chicken soup to a boil on a hot plate, then wrapped it in newspaper and blankets so that by the time my friend and I returned from church, the noodles were cooked. We had conserved energy and could enjoy a delicious Sabbath meal with friends.

What I appreciate most about the books are their practicality and emphasis on joy; that this is a better way to live. Janzen Longacre was quick, however, to dismiss a cheap joy: “How-to books. . . do not look fondly upon feeling guilty or raising those feelings in anyone else. But what if you are guilty?” And we are. 

In response, Janzen Longacre demonstrates the steps of repentance and new living. John the Baptist’s answer to the similarly convicted crowd is one Janzen Longacre says “could hardly be more contemporary”: to share our surplus coats and food with those who have none. She adds, “Then on to the more complicated issues. . . exploitation, respectable robbery, greed with violence.”

And that’s how it has gone. I jokingly describe the More-with-Less Cookbook as my gateway drug into the Mennonite world, and I know I am not alone. At the time of the 25th anniversary of the cookbook, Gayle Gerber Koonz, professor at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, commented, “If you consider the theological teaching and witness of this cookbook, its impact far outweighs that of most Mennonite writings in theology and ethics.”

That influence doesn’t stop with simple household tips. If these ideas take root, we end up closer to my husband’s experience teaching environmental science. When students would despair at the state of the world, his response was always: do something, and then add another something, and so on. Janzen Longacre says, “The message here is mainly one of first steps … Yet in that process we invariably move on to economic and political issues.”

This makes a new way of living both clear and joyful through small acts that are seemingly unimportant but are a realistic place to start. 

And so, the fire. During that first flurry of excitement about this better way to live, I began making my own bread—Pilgrim’s Bread from page 58 of the cookbook. I would mix ingredients, let the dough rise, go to class, return to punch it down, go to the library and then come back to bake it. One cold day, I put the Tupperware dough bowl in the oven for the rise and left for class. A roommate arrived home, turned on the oven to preheat, took a shower and returned to find the oven on fire. Afterwards, the racks dripped with plastic and bread. Hours of scraping followed.

Janzen Longacre reminded me then and now: “There is no fast, easy way. . . but one voice still speaks in the silence. For Christians it is the call to obedience.”