A small town that cares
The recent floods in southern British Columbia have wreaked havoc in many ways, devastating towns and roads, and deeply impacting communities.
The recent floods in southern British Columbia have wreaked havoc in many ways, devastating towns and roads, and deeply impacting communities.
A very big community of not-very-close friends
Re: “Weak ties matter,” Sept. 27, page 11.
In 2015, some of the summer staff at Mennonite Church Manitoba’s Camps with Meaning wrote a song called “This Ground.” The song makes the simple observation that nature inspires us to pray. It encourages us to notice the beauty of creation all around us, hinting that there’s much to learn about God in the natural world.
Alternative service camps during the Second World War brought young men from various traditions and regions together. Pictured, Reverend David P. Reimer of Manitoba, centre, is posing with conscientious objectors in Seebe, Alta.
I was driving the night shift that week, hauling wood chips to the pulp mill in The Pas, Man.
I pulled into the Esso C-Store in Nipawin, Sask., a little after 11 p.m., closing time. As I filled my mug, I apologized for keeping the clerk around so late.
“Oh, no,” he assured me. “The fair closes tonight, so we’re staying open till midnight to catch the traffic going home.”
A reader who comes from outside the religious community asked what I meant by the term “flourishing” when I used it last month. I had written that God desires the flourishing of all peoples, especially the marginalized of our global world.
In Dr. Seuss’s book Oh the Places You’ll Go there is a section about “the waiting place.” It is depicted as an undesirable and useless place to be. I wonder if our Advent waiting sometimes feels like that kind of waiting. I wrote a little poem in the style of Dr. Seuss about Advent waiting:
‘We are in a climate emergency’: MC Canada
Mennonite Church Canada leaders released the following statement on Nov. 4 during the COP26 Climate Summit in Glasgow, Scotland:
The last time my in-laws came north to visit, they brought us a broken electric kettle. We had gifted it to them at a long-ago Christmas. Now, years later, it stopped working. It was under warranty, but that only applied in Canada. With repair, it could function and stay out of the landfill.
Herb Wiebe, facing camera, visits with an inmate at the Oakalla Prison Farm in Burnaby, B.C., in 1970. A growing number of British Columbia Mennonite men volunteered to befriend inmates through the M-2 (Man to Man) program, a prison visitation program then in its early days in Canada.
I expect everyone has forgotten what I had to say when I spoke at Rockway Mennonite Collegiate’s chapel a few years ago. But I know some remember that I asked students to read Scripture in their own languages. For a few international students it was the first time they heard the Bible read in their mother tongue. That has not been forgotten.
After a month in the woods by myself, my sabbatical plan is to spend three months listening to people who aren’t a part of church culture, to see how they view church and understand why they don’t go to church.
Readers respond to ‘living simply’
Re: “What is enough?” Sept. 13, page 11.
“Gluten free” proclaims the sign on one of these desserts at a Waterloo North Mennonite Church potluck in 2011. How have the offerings at your congregational potluck changed over the years? What traditions have endured? If you could convey the history of your congregation through a potluck table, what dishes would be on it?
Our lives—Holly’s and mine, that is—changed to a significant degree. Our oldest granddaughter, Maeve, who is 19, has moved into our home. Maeve comes to us from Ontario, where she left her family behind to begin the next portion of her life.
What is the most dangerous place in your community? The speaker at a large gathering of Christian university students queried us. “It is the library!” he answered.
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.
Look way off in the distance behind the North American Mennonite and Brethren farm boys (looking rather dazed at their surroundings) and you will notice the ruins of ancient Athens. These young men volunteered to tend horses and other livestock on ships sent to Europe to replenish herds following the Second World War.
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.
Tomorrow I’m driving to a log cabin in remote northern Quebec to spend a month in the woods by myself. That said, I’m not exactly roughing it. The cabin has electricity, a kitchen, a bathroom and what looks like a comfortable bed.
Idea of defunding the police based on false premises
Re: “Defund the Police?”, Sept. 27, page 4.