Opinion

I miss my Opa.

A few years ago, my daughter Ellie had a school assignment for Remembrance Day to to write about someone she remembered that served in the armed forces. She wrote about her great-grandfather (Opa). Helping her write a few short sentences about his life made me realize just how little I knew about his story, specifically his time in the war.

I walked into my curling club for the first time in 11 months and saw my team preparing to go out on the ice. I immediately teared up, telling them, “I’m so happy to be here, I think I’m going to cry!” We shared a laugh and hugs, and revelled in the moment of our mutual love of a sport and the camaraderie associated with it.

I am pondering yet again the “Mennonite” label, and what it means for us today in Canada. There are three things that recently provoked these questions.

Idea of defunding the police based on false premises
Re: “Defund the Police?”, Sept. 27, page 4.

Women at Grace Lao Mennonite Church sing at a “ladies’ revival” in 1999. This was an important year for the congregation of about 90 people, as they also dedicated their own independent church building in Kitchener, Ont. Previously, they worshipped nearby at St. Jacobs Mennonite Church. The church grew from the efforts of refugee families sponsored by St.

Learning happens because learners do something, not because teachers teach. Education is not about teaching—it is about learning.

For 45 years, the More-with-Less Cookbook has been a beacon of the Mennonite legacy of simple living. The popular, and much more recent, cookbook, Mennonite Girls Can Cook, is rooted in a decidedly more First-World spirituality. The divergent books illustrate something of the tension faced by Mennonites living in a land of plenty.

When I was director of Person-to-Person, a prison visitation program started by Mennonite Church Saskatchewan in the early 1970s, the V&C Room (Visitors and Correspondence Room) was often a place of holy space. While the prison system has a strict policy of nothing in and nothing out, God seemed to have little interest in following those guidelines.

Long ago I studied both sociology and theology, and I remain intrigued by the relationships between culture and faith. We can’t have one without the other. Which influences the other more?

Going right back to Menno himself, Mennonites have valued simplicity. But to what extent has this ethos survived the age of gadget-saturation, relentless advertising and soul-numbing consumption?

Nonviolence is the greatest ideal and goal
Re: “Finding a balance between pacifism and reality” letter, Aug. 16, page 8.

David Hunsberger’s photos are normally more well-composed. But it appears he saw the expression of expectation and joy on the face of music teacher Doris Moyer and he couldn’t wait to capture it. She grew up in Pennsylvania and taught at Rockway Mennonite Collegiate in Kitchener, Ont., in 1954, when this photo was taken.