This weekend passed with too much ease(ter)

We celebrate Easter to commemorate Jesus' death and resurrection, and yet Easter has evolved from being a sad-yet-joyful remembrance, to a time where pink and blue bunnies poo eggs all over our houses for us to excitedly find and eat. (I say this as one who comes from a family with this tradition)

This shocking transition is not news to anyone, I know. I understand the need to make Easter more fun for children, but how did we get bunnies and chickens from Jesus' death and resurrection? I understand the secularization (I hesitate to say "paganization") of Easter makes it a holiday everyone-even non-Christians-can enjoy, but is that necessary? It just gives companies another opportunity to milk the consumers for all they're worth. (I say this as one who enjoys chocolate very much)

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I struggle very hard to experience Easter with the appropriate mind set, in utter remembrance of what our Lord did for us. This year, however was different. I was invited to sing a heart-wrenching solo at Tavistock Mennonite church, which I was so grateful for, as it gave me a chance to express my personal mourning over Jesus' cruel death. That night Will and I watched the "Passion", which again stirred me to react to the reality of Jesus' inhumane mission (albeit not entirely realistic, as Mel took some artistic liberties, I'm sure) For those opportunities I was extremely grateful. However, I went from that to thinking about how much chocolate I could find and making sure my brother didn't steal any (yes, we're both adults).

I have to try very hard to see Easter for what it is, as I wasn't raised that way. Perhaps our secular holiday has some legitimate connections to the historical events (eg. Eggs = new life, searching for eggs = seeking new life in God, etc), but I never learned of that.

I want very much to "ease" myself out of the "happy bunny Easter" mind set to truly re-living Christ's heroic death for our salvation, and resurrection which overcame death. That's not to say my children can't have chocolate eggs over Easter, but I hope I can teach them why they are eating chocolate eggs.

   [ posted by Anabee @ 8:04 AM ]

Good Friday Reflections
I've stopped posting excerpts from my sermons for some reason. I gave a half-sermon on Good Friday. Here is an excerpt.

The Gospel account tells us about the two other prisoners who were being killed alongside Jesus. As the day drew on, the three men had a conversation, two criminals and the king of the world. Hanging there in the hot Israeli sun, every breath being torturously painful, one criminal turns to Jesus. He says that because Jesus was the Messiah, he should save himself and the other two. Then the other criminal criticized the first criminal and told the first man to accept his well-earned fate, and mentioned the innocent-ness of Jesus. Both men acknowledged Jesus as Messiah. Both men called to him for help. We cry out to him for help too. Which one did Jesus respond to? Which one is a model for us? Listen to the words those men cried to him.
“Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself, and us!”
“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
Only to the second man did Jesus respond, and what a response, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.”
The first man spoke to Jesus out of fear. Save us from death, save us from punishment. We cry to Jesus for help too. Save us from punishment, save us from hell. Jesus can and will save us, but we cannot be scared into heaven; we cannot use that kind of fear to approach Jesus.
The second man spoke to Jesus in humility. Remember me, he said. Remember me when you come into your kingdom. He took ownership of his errors. He knew he had sinned, he knew he was getting punishment for it, but he also knew something that even the disciples did not understand, the kingdom was still coming. Jesus had been telling them about a kingdom, a kingdom that he was going to bring, a kingdom that he was going to rule, but it was a kingdom that was not of this earth. That kingdom is still coming, that kingdom is already here. When we submit ourselves to that kingdom, when we turn ourselves to Jesus in humility and say “Remember me Jesus”, then he will to us and say, “you too will be with me in paradise.”

   [ posted by William @ 5:47 PM ]

An Update
So, with no issue to discuss for now, I wanted to update people on various things.

My blog was mentioned in the online version of the Mennonite Weekly Review in this article on Mennonite weblogs. They also highlighted my Mennonite joke page, which I think gets little credit for being the best of its kind on the web.

Going down a few posts, you'll notice the number of responses to my question game is rising. Three men have submitted themselves to answer five of my tough questions. Patrick (posted on Mar. 17) and Jared (posted on Mar. 20) have responded already, while Donny's answers are likely on their way soon.

My prof offered me and opportunity to read a chapter of my novel to my Mennonite literature class this coming Thursday. I was thinking chapter two, but I'll have to look it over before I decide. I still haven't written anymore, but I will write more in April, when my schedule opens up a bit. Here's the link to where I keep it online. If you have a favourite chapter, let me know.

There was a bit of drama for me at church this Sunday. I decided that it was wasteful to print my sermon twice, once for revisions, and once for the final copy. This Sunday I decided to print my only copy at church an hour before it was to be preached. Plenty of time I thought. Anyway, after attempting a few different ways, and multiple reboots, I still was not able to print the sermon. At 10am, the time when I was supposed to be ascending to my seat, I still had no printed sermon. In desperation I gave Ana my keys and the disk and asked if she could go print the sermon off for me at home. Off she went and up I went. The service rolled along smoothly, and with less than a minute to go, she still hadn't arrived. I had written out a few point form notes for an outline, hoping that would be enough, in case she didn't get it to work on time, three verses into the 11-verse story of the Palm Sunday entrance in to Jerusalem, Ana arrived with my sermon. If they were available to me, I would have laid palm branches and coats at her feet as well.

   [ posted by William @ 11:37 PM ]

From Cradle to the Rave
During my half-hour drive into school, I usually cycle through country music, Oldies, or talk radio. While both have their flaws, I generally favour the CBC national format to the local any-idiot-can-call-in show.

On Tuesday, they were interviewing a man named Phillip Longman. He is suggesting that we will soon have to deal with an epic problem of under-population, that's right, under. He is the author of "Empty Cradle: How Falling Birthrates Threaten World Prosperity." (Click here for more information.) He pointed to the trend of developed nations to have sub-replacement birth-rates, meaning that the death rate is higher than the birth rate. Many population experts are saying that world population will max out at 9 billion, and will drop after that, not because of maximization of resources, but because of a fully voluntary decline in birth rate. They will fall (and are already falling in many places) because:
- increased access to medicine means more access to birth control
- urbanization means children become economic burdens rather than economic assets
- increased access to education for women, means that women put off having children longer, if not entirely
- the cost of raising children is rising (cost of living, opportunity costs, etc.)

I need look no further than my own family to see plummeting birth rate. Of my 9 siblings, only two have children so far, so we likely won't even replace ourselves, let alone duplicate ourselves or copy our parent's quintupling of themselves. While my own reproduction plans are on hold, I at least want to reproduce myself. Many see a lowered population as a good thing, but Longman warned that our current social assistance programs are designed so that the taxes on the working class will pay for the health etc. needs of the aging, and if we fail to reproduce that tax base, we are doing ourselves a disservice, and if that impersonal tax base fails us, we will also have no offspring to care for us in our old age. He used tax bases as a concrete example, but stressed that a stable reproduction is crucial to ensuring a stable economy and social structure.

I don't know how much of this was ever spoken, but I've always felt a strong sense from my cultural tradition that the idea of reproduction was fundamental. People who choose not to have children are sometimes seen as irresponsible and selfish. Women who choose careers over family are seen as incomplete women. Marrying before 25 is encouraged (and often marriage after 25 is viewed with suspicion). These views are not uniquely Mennonite, and are seen as "traditional" within most cultural groups. In our more modern "free" society, are we better off by being able to make our own family decisions in this way?

Longman suggested various things, including government initiatives (ie. tax breaks) encouraging extra childbirth and a restructuring of society to facilitate it. He thought that by changing the way we do education, young people could marry and have children instead of beginning their college degrees, meaning that they would effectively use their best child bearing years actually bearing children.

He was of course lambasted after the show for minimizing women to biological beings, not individual thinkers. He was also criticized by some for not being aware of the things needed for progress. Both of those things are highly valued in my birth culture. Focus on economic progress is seen as greed and desire for ultimate freedom of the individual (not simply the desire for woman's rights) is seen as selfish. I am likely not bound to follow in the traditions of my parents in various aspects of my life, especially reproduction, but I am not convinced that the traditional arguments against having families are valid. Raising children does not have to be as expensive as is claimed. A housewife is not a lesser woman, rejecting the opportunities afforded by our feminist age. Pulling ourselves out of traditional economic ideology, life becomes more than a maximization of financial opportunities. Removing ourselves from the me generation, we realize that life is better lived helping others, not simply ourselves.

   [ posted by William @ 2:46 PM ]

5 Questions
Within my extended blogging circle, there is a trend of people asking each other questions, and using the answers as a blog post. I volunteered to respond to five questions asked by Graham Old of Leaving Münster and Organic Church. Here they are:

1) What are the best and worst things about being a Mennonite?
I could go into a long tirade about just what exactly a Mennonite is, but I'll just say that I see it as being defined by deed (actions), by seed (cultural heritage) and by creed (belief system).
I love the food, language and little quirks of the culture in which I was raised. I love that we have a rich spiritual heritage in our spiritual forebearers, including the insistence on believer's church (adult baptism, intentional community etc.) and pacifism. I love that those historic developments are still integral to who the group is now, and how we act out our presence in this world.
I hate how inherently divisive we are. Church splits are part of our heritage, a part that also continues to be played out currently. I hate that many Mennonites are ashamed of their cultural heritage without realizing the rich spiritual heritage. I hate that people on the whole know little to nothing about Mennonites beyond the Amish stereotypes, and that I have to preface theological discussions with the whole, "no I don't ride a horse and buggy" explanation.

2) Humour seems to be quite important to you. What would you say to the amateur psychologist who says it's because you fear taking yourself too seriously?
I look at an amateur psychologist in the mirror everyday, and sometimes he asks me the same question. Humility is a big part of my upbringing, so self-deprecating humour is me just acting that out. Maybe I need to take myself more seriously and write about deeper stuff, but I honestly think that it would be outside of what the majority of my audience is looking for and outside of what I'm gifted at writing.
Recently, after years of always sitting quietly and attentively through church services, I've started to realize that a lot of it is unnecessarily boring. If I can be funny, I need to. Not so that I can hide the message behind an attractive package, but as a way of showing respect and gratitude to my audience.

3) Who is your hero? And if you say Jesus, I'm telling you now I will fly over there and give you a slap!
I don't have any heroes, whose quotes I have memorized and speeches that I have posted in my office. I admire the early Anabaptists, especially Felix Manz, George Blaurock, Pilgram Marpeck, etc. I love Martin Luther King, and other contemporaries who dealt with modern societal problems. I lost my capacity to look at individuals as super-human beings, but I hope to have replaced it with an ownership of what those individuals did, and thus what I also can do.

4) A young person in your church comes to you and explains that they are struggling with the whole idea of a prayer-life. Their prayers bounce off the ceiling, they get no joy from it and they see no answers. What's the point in their continuing and how would you advise them to do so?
Prayer is a tricky thing. We can expect to go through long periods of feeling little to no response. Many biblical figures as well as contemporary theologians felt the same way. God speaks to us in many ways, not always through direct "kneeling beside the bed" prayer. I'd advise them, and myself, to try different settings and styles of prayer, more listening than talking, honest questions about doubt and discomfort, spoken and thought. There is no set formula of how we are supposed to talk to God or how God speaks to us.
I know that kind of vague response isn't all that comforting to someone who feels distant from God, but connecting with God isn't something that I can for somebody else, as their pastor, it's something that they have to do, and take ownership of.

5) What's the most significant lesson you learnt in 2004?
2004 was my first year as a pastor, so most of my learning came in that area. I've learned about how much people look up to their pastors, and how much they need to look up to their pastor. As much as I'd like to empower them to direct their own spiritual lives, many still need an "authority" figure. I've learned that people don't learn from my sermons/discussions/whatever the things that I expect them to learn, and they don't always learn it when I want them to learn it. That means that I need to remember, or at least be able to discuss something I said months before, because words, especially words from the pulpit, have power, power that needs to be taken seriously.

Thanks Graham for those tough questions.
Now the way this works, is that if you also have a blog and want to participate, just indicate so in a comment to the post, and I will come up with 5 similar type of questions to your situation.

   [ posted by William @ 2:03 PM ]

Where have all the Barbarians gone?

That will be the title of the book I'm convincing my brother to write. During a comfortable and familiar chat, where I could hear the sound of the toilet flushing and keyboard tapping in the background, my brother shared an interesting theory with me. This theory tied nicely into a theory I have, and our theori-dialoguing (I just made that word up) fueled us both with excitement to write books.

He pointed out to me that we are in an age where barbarians can no longer exist.

Barbarians (according to his definition): Those who are scapegoated; Those who are seen as savage and/or evil due to ignorance about them; Those who are labeled as "enemy" because there is a need to know just who the enemy is.

Well, "barbarians" do exist (ie. they are made to exist), but that should not be the case. In an age of communication, globalization, transportation, education and whateverelse-ication, we have access to learning about all cultures, groups of people, races, religions and what not, so as to understand each other.

However, despite the fact that we can understand each other, doesn't mean "barbarianistic-scapegoating" (another Ana term) has ceased. No, (some people in) the US label Iraqis as "barbarians" so as to know who the enemy is (but without using that exact term, of course). (Many) Israelites see Palestinians as "barbarians" (and vice versa), motorcycle gangs are seen a "barbarian" (as well as many other deviant subcultural groups) and of course criminals, who, when they are locked up, many want to forget about and throw away the key. Why does this happen? Perhaps because we need to have someone to blame, to know who are enemies are.

Here's where my theory comes in:

What if there were no such thing as enemies? What if enemies are simply those we do not a)understand, b)know or c)like (granted, c results from a and/or b), as opposed to there simply being "good" people and "bad" people in the world?

Assuming that is the case, then the "cure" for "enemization" (Zing! One more) would be to get to know those we don't know and make an effort to understand those we don't understand, which could result in liking the person/group of people.

Theory: If we knew everything about everyone in the world (their suffering, hopes, pains, guilt, struggles, faith, past experiences, etc) it would be impossible to hate, to kill, to go to war.
-If you knew that the women in the red Mazda cut you off because she was rushing to the hospital, you would probably be less inclined to shout profanities or flash the birdie
-If you knew that the store clerk was rude to you because their mother died a few days earlier, you wouldn't want to be rude back
-If you knew the names, families and goals of every soldier on the opposing side of a battle, you wouldn't be able to bring yourself to pull the trigger (Granted, there is something to be said for de-humanization, de-senstization and obedience out of fear)

Assumption: You may be thinking it is impossible to know everything about everyone in the world
You're right! However, you can pretend you know. It's a fun exercise to imagine what a stranger is like, where they are going, were they are coming from, why they may be having a good or bad day. I would encourage you to do that, if you don't already. The mere act of humanizing strangers by putting a person behind them generates compassion, understanding, empathy.

That, in a nutshell...okay, maybe a tortoise shell...is my theory. I will save the specifics for my book.

   [ posted by Anabee @ 12:07 PM ]

Of Wine
I heard a documentary today on CBC radio about the wine crisis in France. It turns out that they have lost a lot of market share, and quite a few farms and wineries are struggling. Listening to the discussion, a few things struck me as interesting.

The first was that wine consumption in France is down 50% from 1960. I won't go on an anti-alcohol rant here, but I see it supporting my claim that alcohol is increasingly irrelevant in our society, and responsible individuals will learn to consume less. I'm not saying this to condemn anyone, I just think that on the whole, the negatives of alcohol outweigh the positives.

The second thing is the struggle between old and new world wine production. The French are losing market share internationally, and the US, Canada and New Zealand, etc. are competing well. Hearing the comparisons, it seems to me that the problems in the wine industry are a metaphor for what is happening in the church. A discussion with a Canadian winery operator followed, and the comparisons were more than striking. I won't draw direct comparisons, but I'll list off the differences. For some the comparisons are obvious, for others it's not so clear. The Emerging church group have their frustrations with church institutions, and other people also have their own frustrations. Read through these comparisons, and draw your own analogies. Here, the old world is European countries producing wine in the style of their forefathers, and the new world is other countries producing wine however they want.

- The old world dictates the flavour and style to the masses based on the weather conditions of a certain year, while the new world responds to market demand.
- The old world names their wines after the region or winery that produces it, while the new world names their wines based on the grapes being used.
- The old world repeats the customs taught to them, and only uses technology to enhance or speed up the customs, while the new world embraces new technologies, new methods of production, and new varieties of wines, based on market demand.

I don't think that a market analogy has to mean that churches need to bow to the pressures of mainstream society, but listening to people at a grassroots level benefits church structures and larger denominational units.

   [ posted by William @ 5:42 PM ]