(Photo by Johny Goerend on Unsplash)
This editorial is not about abortion. Or maybe it is.
I write this on the day after Mother's Day, at a time when conversations are intense about the rightness or wrongness of ending a woman’s pregnancy. There is a lot to be said about the medical, legal and religious aspects of abortion, but not by me right now.
Photo: Mennonite Archives of Ontario
This adorable, and very formal, group is the “graduating class” of the Steinmann Mennonite Church Kindergarten in Baden, Ont., in 1964. The Kindergarten was started in 1962 by the married couples fellowship at Steinmann. Enrolment in the first year was 23; by 1964, it was 58.
Participants in a children’s musical celebrate their God-given creative talents. Kim Friesen Wiens conducted In the Image by Mark Burrows while Wesley Berg accompanied. (Photo by Michael Buhr)
At a time when many churches and their choirs are dwindling, music teacher Kim Friesen Wiens created something amazing in Edmonton with the potential to help reverse both trends.
Life has been… hectic. I am reluctant to use the word “busy” because I hate how society has come to embrace the word like a badge of honour, or throw the term around as an excuse for everything. And I find that the more people use the term, the more empty their schedules, and lives, appear. With such a harsh interpretation of the word, you can see why I try to stay away from it. And yet, it still creeps up into my vocabulary, and into my life. But I digress.
A highlight of the worship on the fourth Sunday of Advent for me was the children's story. Well, actually, after the children's story when the storyteller asked four of the children to ask someone in the congregation to light one of the Advent candles. Children calling adults' attention to the Advent candles? How appropriate. Really, it is the children that see more than adults do, pointing out the unexpected, speaking the unspoken, asking the unasked questions. When is it that we stop being children to unconditionally follow the norms of society at all kinds of costs?
