Readers write: April 4, 2022 issue
Marriage is a spiritual union of soulmates
Re: “God didn’t create you wrong,” Feb. 21, page 4.
Marriage is a spiritual union of soulmates
Re: “God didn’t create you wrong,” Feb. 21, page 4.
Our new Voices Together hymnal invites us to expand our circle. This involves getting to know people with different abilities, cultural ways, histories, faiths and stories that shaped them. It involves welcoming everyone as members of our human family.
Spring! A time to shake off the cold and grey, decorate the church auditorium with quilts and share lunch and spiritual sustenance. This is the annual spring meeting and lunch of the Ontario Women in Mission at Bethany Mennonite Church in Virgil, Ont., in 1986.
War seems close to home for many of us when it hits Ukraine. My paternal grandparents (and my husband’s) fled Crimea as refugees nearly 100 years ago, getting married in Kitchener, Ont., and then moving to Manitoba. Conversations are being triggered in my family and in our congregation on the multi-generational impacts of those traumas.
Can you believe that I proposed to my wife in a cemetery? It wasn’t premeditated. We went for a walk and ended up there. That’s when it felt right. I got down on one knee like a sentimentalist and said, “This is where it starts and this is where it ends.” The line just came to me.
My grandfather, Harry Giesbrecht, referred to the country, language and people of Ukraine as his “beating heart.” The many trips back “home” breathed life into his aging lungs. The cool water of the Dnieper, the pothole-riddled roads near Lichtenau, Molochansk and Nikopol, and the patriotic anthems transformed my 80-year-old grandfather into a young man.
“Life can be real / on a snowmobile,” croons Canadian music legend Stompin’ Tom Connors in one of his many songs about Canadian life and culture. As someone who occasionally dabbles in songwriting myself, I have often had a chuckle when I hear that line with a bit of forced rhyme. What does “life can be real” mean anyway?
Mennonite Publishing House occupies a corner in the Kitchener (Ont.) Auditorium with its bookstand at the Mennonite World Conference assembly in 1962. Three women in the foreground gravitate towards the parenting books and the bestselling Mennonite Community Cookbook, while two men browse titles related to missions.
In my federal voting life, I have voted only for the Liberal party.
When I suggested that as the opening sentence for my next Canadian Mennonite column, my two eldest granddaughters, 17 and 20, immediately began guessing at the percentage of readership that would immediately condemn me to the lake of fire.
The very day that Russia sent tanks across the Ukrainian border, a book on nonviolence arrived at my door. Sometimes I wonder if God does that sort of thing intentionally.
As I read through long lists of descendants in the first chapters of First Chronicles, some names are familiar, like the sons of Jacob and other names I’ve encountered in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus.
What would you do if you heard that all life on earth was about to end? This is the premise behind Don’t Look Up, an Academy Awards best-picture nominee, released on Netflix in December and already one of the most popular Netflix films ever made.
Thank you for sharing Janzen tribute
Re: “Simple wonder, peculiar generosity,” Jan. 24, page 4.
I recall meeting Annie Janzen for the first time at an event hosted at/by Canadian Mennonite Bible College in Winnipeg in the late ’60s or early ’70s.
After four decades of ministry primarily focused on youth, young adults and young leaders, I welcomed the invitation to become the director of congregational ministries within Mennonite Church Manitoba.
At the 1970 Conference of Mennonites in Canada annual sessions in Winkler, Man., Waldemar Janzen, a Canadian Mennonite Bible College professor, gave a report on young people, stating: “Not everything is wrong with young people today. There is a great openness and honesty among youth today. There is a remarkable depth of insight into self and society.
I smiled seeing a friend post on Facebook, tongue firmly in cheek, that civil disobedience is fine as long as he agrees with the issue.
I’m not sure what happened over the past two years. Maybe I finally accepted that it’s over. We’ve passed the point of no return. Climate change; democracy collapse; and the death of common sense, dialogue and civility. This is our reality and it seems beyond repair.
Lord, in your mercy, hear our prayer.
When tensions grow, positions harden, and hearts grow cold, we call for Canadians to pause, step back and reflect.
We see that (on Feb. 3) Ontario declared a state of emergency because of protests in cities, towns and border crossings. Across the country, leaders at all levels of government are struggling to respond to protests.
These three words, at least for me, capture strong feelings I experience as I work with congregations and pastoral leaders at this time.
This is a photo of the home of Bernhard Klippenstein (1880-1973) and Maria (nee Dyck) Klippenstein (1882-1956) in Waldheim, Northwest Territories. They moved from Altbergthal, near Altona, Man., to Waldheim around 1902. They returned to Altbergthal around 1907.
CPT Iraqi Kurdistan met with Kak Bapir and some of the villagers of Basta village from the Pishdar district on Feb. 2, 2022. Basta villagers have been partnering with CPT since 2008. Basta village is one of the hundreds of villages that have been targeted and bombed by both Turkey and Iran for a long time. CPT is working alongside the villagers to stop the Turkish and Iranian cross-border bombings. (Photo courtesy of CPT)
The organization formerly known as Christian Peacemaker Teams has changed its name, replacing the meaning of that first letter with “Community.” I have two reactions. First, the name change is good for the organization. Second, it shows that the broader church has not caught the vision of the peacemaker Jesus.