The Menno Melange

Another newspaper article. Any thoughts would be appreciated.

This past Sunday in Tavistock many churches celebrated in the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity by participating in the annual pulpit exchange. Every year, for one Sunday, the local pastors switch pulpits and bring their preaching, teaching and speaking styles to a new congregation. Parishioners that are used to their minister in clerical robes get to see someone in plain clothes, pastors that are used to giving one sermon get to speak twice at some of our local double charges and it can no longer be taken for granted that the one behind the pulpit knows more about what’s going on than the ones in the pews.
In my particular case, there weren’t too many surprises but I think a few eyebrows raised when I stumbled a bit during the Lord’s prayer. Some churches repeat it every week and some don’t use it at all. The wording can be different from one group to another, with some sticking to the wording from the traditional King James, while some have adopted more contemporary translations that are more true to our present day style of speaking. It’s more natural for me to say, “Forgive us our sins” than “forgive us our trespasses” and “yours is the kingdom” rather than “thine is the kingdom”.
The difference isn’t that I haven’t studied the Lord’s Prayer, but I just haven’t had it drilled into my head from childhood. I was still in elementary school when prayer was taken out of the classrooms, so for most of my schooling, I haven’t had to say the prayer every morning. None of the churches I have worshipped in used much memorization and liturgy in worship, and yet I’ve always felt that I hold the Lord’s Prayer in high esteem. A religious leader is asked by his followers how they should pray and the church has looked to that model ever since.
Among the things we are to pray for is “your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” If we pray that, we can’t look only to our death as a time to experience heaven, but we have to work to re-create it here on earth. The kingdom of heaven, as Jesus explains later, is place where the victims of earthly kingdoms are helped, healed and restored to dignity.
People still pray at school, usually before tests or waiting to see the principle, long after the Lord’s Prayer was dropped as a daily ritual. Either way, when we pray to God, we need to still do our part to bring about what we’re asking for. So heaven isn’t only a reward at the end, but also a responsibility for everyone who prays that prayer.

Well, I finally quit my job as a nurses aid, and do I ever feel relieved! I am no longer afraid to pick up the phone when it rings, nor having to wake up at 5am for early shifts, nor having to miss church.

But now I am back to job hunting…..and I have lots of time on my hands. So, I’ve decided to start doing the things I’ve only dreamed of having the time to do: Writing, both on computer and on piano.

I was inspired by a friend to write a book about my spiritual journey, starting as an atheist growing up, to becoming a Christian in Uganda, to experiencing other religions in India. I’ve often struggled with the idea of writing about myself (wondering, “Who would care to read about me?”) so there is always the possibility of writing about a fictional character who went through what I went through, who knows. I’m hoping and praying for inspiration in that department. Until then, I am re-typing my journals from Uganda, to cut out some of the mundane goobledigook such as, “I woke up at 6am, ate gnuts and popcorn for breakfast, and had a good p**p” (censored for you sensitive folk–you’d be amazed how much one writes about bodily functions when in a foreign country).

As for music, I hope to write more, especially for the musical Will and I are working on. We both plan to get that finished sometime soon. I also want to re-record my first CD, and record another or two. These are still dreams right now, but being unemployed is an inspiration to get my butt in gear.

In the mean time, if anyone knows of any employment opportunities, do let me know.

My parents were both part of it, but I found it repulsive. Many of the seniors I talk to are also a part of it. There’s a whole underground society of them out there. Everyday they sit down to their regular reading or radio broadcast of the local obituaries.

It’s morbid and it’s depressing, but somehow it fills their curiosity. So I was surprised when I recently found that it is quite a useful practise.

Our community experienced a number of deaths in the past few months, and for many of them, I was involved in the funeral arrangements. What surprised me was the small number of initial phone calls that would be made. In the first day or so, children, grandchildren and siblings were all telephoned by someone within the immediate family. Other than that, people need to find out on their own. But still, within a few days, oodles of people have called and sent flowers to the nursing home, and the church is full for the funeral.

News travels quite far by word of mouth, especially in tightly knit communities, but those obituary readers get the word out as well. Recently when there were a few deaths in our extended family, people that didn’t know them personally, but figured from the obituary they read that we were related to them, extended their condolensces.

I’ve begun reading them only on a professional basis. As a pastor/caregiver etc, it is helpful to know not only who has somewhere passed away, but who locally is mourning. I’m not so into it that I get the paper just to read the obituaries, but I do have local newspaper’s obituary sections bookmarked on my computer in the office. I guess it’s the logical next step from learning the local family tree.

It was my turn to preach again on January 1. The sermon was well received, but what I liked most about it is that people were willing to respond during the sharing time which followed. Those discussions made the morning complete in my mind. Anyway, here is an excerpt from the sermon:

The wise men are strange visitors; they most likely don’t worship the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Why would God use these foreigners, these non-believers for his own divine purpose? Whatever the reason, it isn’t the first time.
The first scripture that I read from this morning was from the story of Balaam and Balak. It’s an interesting story from the time when the Israelites were marching through the desert. Balak is the king of the region and he doesn’t like the Israelites squatting on his land and he wants to get rid of them. They outnumber his own army, so first he wants to put a curse on them. To do that, he hires Balaam, the local sorcerer. Balaam agrees initially and sets out to deliver a curse upon these people. He has no allegiance to Yahweh or to the chosen people of God. He has a job to do and he practises his own type of sorcery or magic through different powers. But God intervenes. Balaam gets a visitor of his own. An angel comes to kill Balaam, but he is rescued by an unexpected source. After Balaam has an intense conversation with the donkey he’s riding, he realizes that an angel is blocking their path. The angel tells Balaam not to deliver the curse, so he doesn’t. Balaam then decides to listen to God and he blesses the Israelites, which quite upsets Balak. Balaam was an unexpected and uninvited visitor to the Israelites, but this Gentile sorcerer delivered a blessing upon them from their own God.
These wise men from the east and this desert sorcerer from the west are both outside of the Jewish religious system, but they both have a very important role within their respective stories. Despite their cultural and religious backgrounds, they carry out God’s plan, and they worship God in the process.