Tag: identity

  • Secondary identities

    Secondary identities

    The first identity of a follower of Jesus is “a follower of Jesus.” The church is an alternative city within the city, a new way of being human and being part of a people centred on Jesus. Any other cultural or personal markers may be important, but they must be secondary. If we believe there…

  • Faith Before Flags

    Faith Before Flags

    I spent my mid-twenties holding my disability flag high, confident that I’d found my calling. This was my cause. These were my people. Wholly devoted to the disability community and its quest for equality, I wrote and spoke, adding my voice to the throng of those already raising the battle cry. This was where I…

  • Everyday Epics

    More stories of the past at Kumomoto. Stories that complex-ify. Japan not as a cohesive, evil, military power all seeking destruction of neighbouring nations, but as a land of people in various societies with each their own different story of life and love and suffering, dominance and loss. There was a civil war as recent…

  • A Balancing Act or a New Show

    My impression of Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo was a college trying to keep its identity as a Christian college on a growing campus with increasing diversity. They seem to be doing a good job of balancing and finding integrity in the shifting realities, and they’re not the only Christian higher education institutes to be dealing…

  • Throwing Off the Cloak

    Every now and then a familiar story comes to new meaning. A recent re-reading of the story of Bartimaeus in Mark 10:46-52 pushes me into an area of discomfort that challenges my identity and my understanding of our identity as a faith community. It makes me question our responses to Jesus’ unexpected ways of transforming…

  • Beginning the New Year with Stories

    After a refreshing and relaxing Christmas holiday in Canada, my spouse and I have returned to Harrisonburg, VA to continue our studies at Eastern Mennonite University. While going north in December does not really align with my climate preferences, the draw of family and friends during the Christmas season is strong. At the end of…