The Menno Melange

Maybe you’ve seen the same movie as me. A president is trying to appoint a vice-president. With a few notable candidates jockeying for position, and a few vocal critics speculate on who will be chosen. He ultimately choses a woman senator, and the movie takes off from there. Some speculate that he is trying to leave a progressive legacy, others simply think she’s grossly under-qualified, not to mention lacking moral fiber. She had an affair with her campaign manager, and, in digging into her past, the press and her opponents discover that she allegedly took part in a group sex session at a college frat party. All she would offer as a defense is that she fell in love with her campaign manager and subsequenlty married him, and that even commenting on the allegations would legitimize the asking of those kinds of personal questions. She claimed that there was a double-standard; nobody cared what was in the sexual pasts of male politicians, why should hers matter.

That’s the movies. Then I read the story about Tie Domi’s divorce proceedings, where his ex-wife alleged that he had an affair with Belinda Stronach. The next day there is a news story that Belinda Stronach is accusing this country and its media of having a double-standard.

Quoting her in a canoe.ca article, she says “I’d really like to say in a country like Canada that there isn’t, but I do believe there is a double standard,” Stronach said on Tuesday. “And it’s unfortunate for other women in this country that want to seek political office and to make a contribution.”

Until I read these statements, I thought this issue was about Tie Domi, a man, and his moral misgivings. Does she really think that men are exempt from public scrutiny? If that were true, wouldn’t Clinton’s escapades been ignored? If the entire USA goes into an uproar because of the concealment of oral sex, aren’t we allowed to be concerned about an extended affair that helps to destroy a marriage?

Now I generally don’t care about the private lives of public people. I’ve seen enough to know that there is a lot of broken families in the general public. With all the sacrifices celebrities and politicians have to make to attain success in their field, I even expect there to be more brokeness in their own personal lives.

So why did this catch my eye? Partly because I was already not a big fan of Tie Domi, and partly because I’m not a big fan of people hiding questionable activity behind their right to have questionable activity kept secret.

As far as the double-standard goes, I am convinced that as long as people can benefit from complaining about a double standard, they will, whether that double standard exists or not.

Many years have passed since I left high school. I’ve made a number of right and wrong choices since then, and so have the peers that I graduated with. I don’t keep in touch with many of the people I grew up with at church, but within Mennonite communities, it’s usually pretty easy to at least know what happened to people.

A few of us went off to secular schools. Of this group, most moved away and return only on holidays. There are a few who returned and involved themselves in the church and are strong participating members, there are a few who have stopped attending church altogether in their new towns, and the rest have some sort of connection with other churches, with varying attendance, commitment and adherence. Some found jobs that they love and some still feel stuck in a rut. No real pattern, no strong adherence rate, no strong rejection rate.

A large number, who were neither particularly inclined to spirituality or academia, who stuck around, found jobs, and grew up. Slightly more than half of them kept their ties to at least some church. A few switched churches, a few gave it up all together. A high, but not surprising number succumbed to the influence from their work place and got into one or more of sex, drugs and alcohol, to the point where they rejected the church and were quite happy to have the church reject them.

So those were the ones bound for trouble anyway, so it’s not all that surprising that “the world” won over a few of them. A few of them did remain loyal, so there was some success, but what about the chosen ones who chose correctly?

Almost all of them loved Bible college, embraced the content of their teaching and found strength in their newfound community, meaning they pass, graduate and get married. So here, as expected, is the success right?

Well, after that it gets a bit foggy, mostly because, very few of them return home. Part of the problem is that they leave a community in which their Mennonite ethnicity makes them a member of an immigrant minority group and join a community where the Mennonites were the original settlers and where Mennonites are a dominant force is local religious, cultural, business and political spheres. It is safe to say that a majority stay away, but a few do return. They come back advocating a more energetic worship style, which doesn’t float well. They expect to be given leadership positions, or at least some respect for what they’ve learned, which they don’t always get. These people are natural candidates for youth pastor positions, but they don’t fit as well into the predetermined molds as much as people originally dreamt.

A while ago, that church went through a major leadership turmoil, and subsequent church split, and a few of the forces behind it were products of the officially sanctioned Bible College.

The church is almost empty of people with Bible College education. Besides the twenty- and thirty-somethings that are there raising families, the majority of the members don’t even have full highschool education. This is partly because of the realities of being a first and second generation immigrant community, but partly also because of a suspicion of higher learning, and those who have attained it.

So what am I getting at? Small town churches are bound to lose their youth, that’s not surprising. It is interesting to see how the officially sanctioned college has failed this particular congregation that has supported it so much. Factories and secular schools can’t be expected to strengthen the church, not at all.

The people I’ve talked to since that didn’t do the Bible college route, who have kept the faith, have been asking good questions and view their faith through a new and interesting worldview. Those who went to Bible College and came back were disillusioned by various things, and found that their time at the school didn’t really prepare them for real life. Those who went and didn’t come back, are still out there, “living the Word”, or whatever Christian-ese line you want to use, and very often participating in other small town churches, just not the one we grew up at together.

Maybe small-town churches should withhold their support until they see what their money will get them. Maybe the church should be in a “Pray for Me” poster hung up at the Bible College.

Upon completing high school, I perceived that I had three choices, 1) go off to the church sponsored Bible college, 2) stay home and work/settle down/get married/etc., or 3) go study something else somewhere else, and I felt strongly that my church community was advocating them in that order. After all, if I was at the official Bible college, it was certain that I was learning approved doctrine and most likely living approved lifestyle, and if I stayed home, at least I was close enough to still be influenced/supported by the church community. If I went somewhere else, only time would tell how far I was going to stray.

One way that this was made very clear was the prominent display of the “pray for me” posters at the back of the church. Bible Colleges mail photographs of students to their respective churches, with headings like, “Pray for me while I study at such-and-such Bible College.” While there was likely some sincere spiritual request in that, it was never free of inherent advertisement for that particular school and that particular type of lifestyle. These guys also got their names mentioned in the prayer requests section of the church bulletin on occasion.

I almost went to that Bible College, until I realized that I could both study for a career and enhance my faith. My secular University didn’t send “Pray for Me” posters to my church and my name didn’t show up in the bulletin.

Other guys stuck around, worked in local factories, played on the church baseball team, etc. Their workplaces didn’t send “Pray for Me” posters to the church either, and these local boys didn’t get their name in the bulletin either.

(I speak in gender specific terms intentionally. I talked to a lot of the guys about this similar experience, but I can’t even pretend to understand the pressures the girls faced, with the greater pressures to get married and have children, not to mention the greater discouragement to pursue higher learning.)

While I listened to professors enthusiastically deconstruct the beliefs I had held since my youth, my Bible college friends had those beliefs aggressively reinforced.
While I was surrounded by party culture and various other religious and non-religious groups, and while my factory friends found themselves surrounded in a more vulgar party culture and by people who found numerous destructive outlets for their newfound disposible income, our Bible college friends were surrounded by religiously motivated and spiritually conscious peers their own age.
While my factory friends worked for a companies that only knew how to extend compassion through pay-cheques and provincially outlined regulations, and while I studied at an institution that expected me to determine my own destiny, my Bible college friends were constantly encouraged by their professors, deans, and administrators in financial, academic and spiritual matters.

While my Bible college friends were prayed for, the rest of us weren’t. Does that make sense to anyone? While in some ways everyone deserves and benefits from prayer, if anyone in the church family needs it the least, it’s the youth that are studying at Bible colleges.

The title for this post is a wish of mine.

I wish there were no guns in the world. Sounds cliche, I know. They cause more harm then good (and the only “good” people may think of is for hunting purposes, and self defense).

In terms of hunting, I don’t think hunting is important enough, however, to justify the existence of guns. I don’t care for hunting as sport, but for those who need to do it for a livelihood/food, there are other ways to do it.

In terms of self-defence, if there weren’t any guns in the first place to provide a threat, people wouldn’t need guns to defend themselves with. Yes, there are other weapons, and it’s unfortunate that they are used in ways other than as tools.

Of course, this post is inspired by the Dawson shootings in Montreal, but I have always felt this way. The fact that someone invented guns infuriates me.

On a similar line of thought, the fact that someone created a video game based on the Columbine shootings makes me want to puke. Who in their right mind would enjoy playing such a game?! Never mind CREATE it!

I know this is a contraversial thing to say, and I expect I’ll get some comments about how guns are “important”, and “helful” in some cases, but this is how I feel.

In today’s world, where there is much concern for depleting resources, Will and I have been trying to find ways to conserve energy.

There’s always the obvious; turning off lights when you’re not in the room (and not using lights until you really need to), not using the car unless you need to (and biking to closer destinations or taking the bus), finishing your plates (Will is generally better at that than me), being thrifty with leftovers in the fridge (ie. using those leftover tomatoes in a soup, throwing that extra pasta sauce into a stew, whatever), recycling, composting (although we don’t do that, as we don’t have the means), etc.

And then there’s water. I have always been educated about water usage (more specifically inappropriate water usage), and yet it is so easy to be lazy and just leave the tap on, stay in the shower longer, have baths every other night, flush the toilet every time, use new water when using the washing machine, and of course using a dish washer.

Random trivia:
Washine machines use 100L of water with every load.
Toilets are one of the highest users of water in the house.
Dishwashers use 44L per load (stats curtosy of Anthony’s comment)

Having lived in Uganda for a year, I learned to fetch my water from a well 1km walk away. I actually enjoyed it. It wasn’t a burden. I enjoyed having to work for my water. It forced me to conserve and appreciate it more. I liked being challenged to find creative ways to do everything I needed to do with my water without using it up. I wish we had to live like that here.

When I came home I became more water conscious. I used a water saving washing machine (which pours the water into a sink and sucks it back up again for the next load), I put my teeth brushing water in a cup, so I don’t leave the tap running while I brush my teeth. I wash dishes by hand, and wait until I have a LOT of dishes to wash so as to make the best use of my dish water. I then use the rinse water to clean all my kitchen surfaces. Will and I let it mellow when it’s yellow, and you know the rest. We used buckets full of rain water to water our garden.

But we still get lazy. And had baths just cause it feels good. And flushed more frequently cause it started to stink. And let the shower water run for minutes beforehand because it takes forever to heat up.

Then when we went to the cottage last week, it rained all day. We had run out of water, and we thought, “Hey! Let’s put buckets outside to catch the rain water.” So we did, and would you believe that was the best tasting water I’ve ever had? We used that water for dishes, drinking, and cleaning. I joked about bottling rain water to sell, it was so good. But, of course that defeats the purpose of it being FREE and all. And I’m not interested in being a salesperson anyhow. Now I know that not everyone has the luxury of safely drinking rain water (ie. those in cities), but man, if you are ever in a clean air area, catch the rain water. It’s worth it.

Will and I were also recently inspired to save our bath and shower water (and the water that drips from our stupid leaky tap) and use THAT to flush our toilet, rather than flushing at all. That works well enough, and the process of pouring water down at a certain speed sets the flushing motion into place nicely. The only downside is that the water doesn’t properly replenish itself afterwards, so you have to pour a little more water in just to get it at the normal level again. But, it still saves water, as it was previously used water, or as Will taught me, “grey water” (previously used water that is still usable for certain things).

Anyway, that’s my 2 cents about that.

Well, we’re back from our week vacation at the cottage. I couldn’t have asked for a better week, weather-wise, activity-wise and company-wise.

When we first arrived, my sister, her husband and 21 month-old daughter were there, so I got to play with her all Monday, and sit in the sauna with my sister. Can’t complain about that. They left Monday, and we had the cottage to ourselves for the rest of the week!

We canoed around the lake a lot, and surveyed the new damage created by the tornado. The devastation to the trees on the other side of the lake is obvious. A lot of tree tops were chopped off, many trees blown over, and it generally looked sparse and messy. To our surprise, the devastation revealed a beautiful cliff-face that would never have been seen, otherwise. We can now see our cabin from the lake, whereas before you couldn’t because of all the trees (in reverse, we now have a surprising nice view of the lake, due to less trees). In our canoeing we also saw beautiful flowers growing on tree stumps that fell into the lake. Another surprise; life continues after the storm. We ran into the heron a few times, and saw a pair a loons.

We hiked to Ol’ Baldy, which is the view point I climb to every visit as a tradition.

The path was so indistinguishable because of all the fallen trees, I almost got LOST a few times (keep in mind I have tread this path for the past 16 years). We saw MANY intriguing root systems, revealed by trees falling over and bringing the ground with them. We found one root system that was 10 times bigger than me! We found another that folded over and created a cave. Very cool stuff.

Rather than being torn up about the massive changes incurred on Bulpit, we were quite fascinated by it all. Will and I climbed up again, and marked a NEW path to the point, since tree clearance there is probably a low priority for the camp. We felt good about our little project.

We biked 18 kms to the nearby general store, which is always a treat for me. I’ve seen that store change ownership over the past 16 years, but it’s always the same country store. We stocked up on goodies, and ventured back home. The road was quite deceptive, as what we thought was a downhill one way, was actually a downhill the other way, and my perception was all mixed up.
We also biked 34 kms to my old camp, Fraser Lake, getting lost on the way. I have NEVER biked a road SO extreme. The uphills were SO exhausting, we had to walk our bikes up the hills, panting like crazy. The downhills were equally extreme, that we could go as fast as 65-70 km/per hour just COASTING. Needless to say, it was a very tiring trip. But we made it!

We basked in the sun, generally after swimming, after our crazy bike rides, and that’s always a treat. The water was freezing, so the only time we swam was when we were REALLY hot and sweaty. Even then the water was STILL freezing. We canoed out to the floating raft, and I read outloud while Will fished (or attempted to). Didn’t catch anything, but I caught 2 little sunfish for him to use as bait, using a net, and patience.

We saw a 3 ft long snake hiding amongst the lily pads, and chasing frogs to eat. We later saw it eating a huge fish (compared to his mouth). Will also wrestled with a garter snake. We were trying to chase it off the dock, so it wouldn’t get in our way when getting in the canoe. It wasn’t getting the hint, so Will used his paddle to persuade it. Rather than slithering away, which I thought a little garter would do, it lurched at his paddle, mouth open. Will swooped his paddle under the snake and tossed it into the water. It was awesome.

We had a campfire, cooking our hot dogs over it (Mmm, charred hot dogs and buns…..), and later stargazed from our cabin porch. I saw one shooting star, and Will wondered the whole time why we should bother stargazing. “Because it’s beautiful!” I would protest, or “Because we can’t see the stars at home, and it’s nice to see them!”, or I’d get philosophical and say, “Can you believe we are looking right out at the universe, with nothing physical between us? We could be hanging upside down right now!”

A highlight of our week was watching the skidder come in (a huge tractor that is designed to pull heavy trees, for those of you who don’t know what a skidder is, like me once), and pull away HUGE birch trees that had collapsed over the road. We gawked as the guy chainsawed the huge trees, in seconds, completely unafraid of where the tree might land, then attached it to the cord, and drag it away with this massive machine. It tore apart the road, but we didn’t care.

Will and I spent a lot of our time clearing dead trees from around the cottage, clearing paths and making the general area look nicer. I always knew how strong Will was, but I didn’t know he was THIS strong. I watched as he dragged a 25-foot long felled birch tree from under the cabin porch and toss it into the woods like it was a branch! (Okay, he was sweating lots, but he still made it look easy). Meanwhile, I was practically crying because a birch log had rolled over my foot (it’s stilled slightly bruised right now).

So, it was hard getting back to the swing of things back home. But we need to get back to our musical perparations…and oh yeah, our jobs.