Learning fluency step by step
Recovering a lost language or learning to speak a language doesn’t happen overnight. But a desire to learn will unbolt the door—swinging it wide open—and fill our lungs with sparkling morning air. We can learn to talk about faith in ways that are honest. We can recover winsome beauty that was lost. We can salt…
Listening to those who have left
A Mennonite elder once told me, “We need to listen to people who leave the church.” John Reimer (a pseudonym) is one such person. A soft-spoken grandpa, he recently left a Mennonite Church Canada congregation that professes open-mindedness and inclusivity. I wanted to know why. Reimer had been at the church for a couple decades but…
Listen to the silence
Recently, I heard a story about a young prince named Hullabaloo. He lived in a land where everyone and everything was noisy. When people talked, they shouted at each other. When they ate their soup, they inhaled it with a loud air-over-tongue sound. When they worked, they clanked and bumped until the air was filled…
Can we talk politics?
Some years ago, when Canada was in the midst of a federal election, my husband proposed that our church “talk politics.” Specifically, that we set aside time in the adult Sunday school class to examine the issues and the options being offered by different parties and candidates. The proposal was originally met with hesitation; people…
Readers write: March 26, 2018 issue
It’s important to listen well Re: “The skill and soul of listening,” and “What kind of Mennonite?” (Feb. 12, pages 16 and 2, respectively). The Bible refers often to listening; Proverbs expounds the value of listening and so do Jesus, Paul, Peter and James. But social media bombards us with all sorts of information so…
The skill and soul of listening
Listening to God in worship, contemplatively in a labyrinth, or in the Bible. Listening to each other across cultures, when your hearing is impaired or when with the elderly. Mennonite Church Eastern Canada pastors, chaplains and congregational leaders gathered for a daylong seminar on listening on Jan. 20, 2018, at Redeemer College. The morning panel…
