It has been six months since Canadian Mennonite first launched the Young Voices section, website and blogs. We have covered peace rallies, RV trips, new businesses and art. As well as contributors from across the country, we’ve had submissions come in from France and Egypt.
It was the end of the work day and I had been forced into taking the bus. A nicely spectacular winter related wipe out had incapacitated my bicycle, leaving me with a strained shoulder, a blown tube and public transportation.
The Christmas season has officially come and gone and if you are like me you likely spent much time eating, shopping, giving or receiving, visiting, singing and worshipping. You were also likely subject to others bemoaning the loss of Christmas meaning.
Recently I was reading an excerpt from Tim Loder’s prayer book 'Guerrillas of Grace.'
Oh Lord, deepen my wounds
into wisdom;
shape my weaknesses
into compassion;
gentle my envy
into enjoyment,
my fear into trust,
my guilt into honesty.
One line in particular caught my eye. “Shape my weaknesses into compassion.”
At this time of year, we focus on Jesus’ birth, on the event of God becoming incarnate and enfleshed as a tiny baby. One of the main characters in this story is of course Mary, whom we read about and sing about, but who usually doesn’t get that much of our attention.
Most Canadian Mennonite colleges, universities and high schools have a majority of Mennonite or Mennonite Brethren professors or teachers, whether or not they have policies regarding the number of faculty that must attend a Mennonite or MB church.
When Daniel Eggert was growing up in Edmonton’s First Mennonite Church, there were 12 other people his age in Sunday school. From that group, only he and one other person still attend the church today. The other 11 have stopped going to church or they attend services elsewhere.
Fear will control our lives if we let it. And fear is the name of the game in Israel-Palestine.
I did not like Bob Dylan the first time I heard him.
Or the second.
Or the third.
What I heard when I listened to Dylan was simplistic chord structures, obvious social or emotional sentiments and a weird quavering voice that stretched the definition of singing. I based this opinion on whatever songs I happened to catch on the radio or movie soundtracks attempting to make sure the audience knew the film was going for some folksy charm.
I’m a third-generation thrift shopper. It’s one of my favourite things to do on a day off – just to walk over to the thrift store, and take a look at what they’ve got this time (though sadly, there’s no longer a Mennonite Central Committee thrift shop in Toronto). My grandparents were faithful customers and volunteers at the very first MCC thrift shop in Altona, Manitoba, for decades. My mom taught me the art of searching through the racks, eyeing clothing for cut, colour, quality. Almost all of my clothes are second-hand.
Whenever I don’t feel like doing a chore that I need to do, music has always helped me accomplish the task. In Jr. High, I LOVED cleaning my room, because I would put on my favorite BSB cd’s and rock out all Saturday afternoon. My mom would come in to check on me after a while, possibly concerned that it was taking me so long.
How much do I know?
Not very much, I suspect.
While I was getting my B.A. I often felt that I was only learning enough to know how much I do not know. For every text I could point to, for every thinker or philosopher or theologian that I felt had gotten it, had expressed fully something I had always just suspected to be true, someone else could point to another who would effectively dismantle whatever idea or argument I found so compelling.
Ask Dustin Bueckert if he thinks incorporating his faith into his day job is important, and he will tell you yes.
“And God blessed them, and God said to them, be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moves on the earth” (Genesis 1:28).
“Freedom is coming. . . . Justice is coming, oh yes I know.”
While many people in the area and across Canada congregated to watch cannons being fired and soldiers marching, more than a hundred people gathered in Winnipeg to sing for peace on Remembrance Day.
In a follow-up to Chris Frey's reflections on his one-year service term, Young Voices checked in with four young Mennonites to get their perspective on programs like Intermenno and MCC's SALT.
In his book entitled Prayer, Phillip Yancey compares the way we come to the Lord in prayer to the way in which toddlers approach their parents. Yancey says that if we were to ask the parent what is the right or proper way for their child to approach them, they might give you a strange look. Right way? A parent means being open to the needs of their child, there is no one correct way. Just so, there is no one correct way for us to approach God through prayer.
As someone who’s been a university student for almost a decade, I may not be an authority on money (considering that I’ve never really had any), or the economy more generally. But I do think about money a lot (being on a pretty tight budget somehow does that to a person), especially since I keep being told that in this day and age, it’s becoming increasingly unlikely that there will be anything resembling a full-time position in my field once I’m done all these degrees.
Last year, during my last few months of university, I started thinking about what to do after graduation. Like many people my age, I wanted to travel and experience something different before settling down and joining the job market.
Canadian Mennonite University (CMU) made headlines earlier this month when it launched its new Redekop School of Business, made possible through a donation from the Redekop family of B.C.’s Fraser Valley. Brothers John and Peter, their nephew James and the extended family have pledged a minimum of $6.5 million to found the school.
Mennonites have a legacy of resisting the violent, unjust ways of government and the world. Some have registered as conscientious objectors, others have protested against the justice system, and others are currently protesting the corporate greed and inequality of the world’s financial systems.
I do not know if this story is true, though it may be. And it does not matter if it is. For the one who told it to me it is true, that I do believe.
Frank was a frightening man to look at. He had deep set eyes, long stringy hair and a mouth that could still flash the rage that was once permanently there. All of this was heightened by the inch thick glass that separated us and the telephones we could barely hear each other through.
Having spent most of my life in Winnipeg, a city of about 750 thousand which apparently has as prolific an arts scene as a city of several million people, I’ve developed a great love of the literary, visual and musical arts. It’s also occurred to me that I’m by no means the only Mennonite of this generation with these inclinations – you might have noticed that quite a bit of this Young Voices section of the Canadian Mennonite has been devoted to various young Mennonite artists.
Attending lectures—like the one delivered by Douglas Roche on “A future without nuclear weapons” at the University of Ottawa—helps make interns like myself at the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) Ottawa Office more effective advocates for peace and justice within the political realm and with the general public.
The grey sky has the look of impending rain, and 50-kilometre-per-hour winds whip around the Markham (Ont.) Mission Church parking lot. Instead of sleeping at 9 a.m. on a Saturday morning—or at least playing video games in pyjamas—eight youths mount their bicycles on Oct. 15 and prepare to cycle 25 km in support of refugees and others seeking shelter.
