The Menno Melange

It is with much humility that I call myself a writer. Even though various educational institutions have downplayed my ability to write, I am often called upon to do so; whether writing a sermon in my role as a pastor, writing an article for a newspaper or newsletter on behalf of the various committees that I represent, or in my self-appointed role as a playwright.

My twenty-minute sermons and my 500 word articles often receive comments from friends and local community members, but they have small audiences and low circulation, so the analysis is limited. Our musical was performed over two weekends to sell-out crowds composed of people from a variety of local communities and a number of diverging educational and professional experiences. We could observe their response as audiences and many of those people also verbalized their thoughts to us. It was the first time that my writing had been given such close analysis by so many people.

As a student in English classes I couldn’t help but think that we were over-analyzing the work in front of us. I couldn’t imagine that the original author, whether William Shakespeare, Margaret Lawrence, Rudy Wiebe, etc.) could have intended that his/her work would be dissected so closely. I was sure that the majority of intricacies my English teacher discussed with us were unintentional, or if they were intended, they certainly needn’t be given much significance. I was a skeptical English student, and looking back, I admit that I wasn’t giving the authors enough credit.

We had essentially seven audiences, and each group responded differently; they laughed at different times, they clapped with different frequencies and intensities, and they made diverging comments during the intermission and after the show. Casts know to anticipate different levels of applause, but it is far more difficult to adjust to the different levels of laughter. After rehearsing the script to death over a few months, it’s easy to forget that there is any humour in the words one has memorized. Lots of times, cast members were surprised to hear the audience laughing at a particular time. They would ask me, as the writer, if I too was surprised.

I was never surprised. I never received a comment about an intricacy of the script that I hadn’t very intentionally included. In fact, I often yearned for more intense critical analysis of the show, to see if even more of my intricacies had been appreciated or even noticed. I was fortunate enough to receive unanimously positive response, which may have simply fed my vanity, but I realized that my previous perceptions were entirely wrong. If this was the case with a less than amateur writer like myself, how much more would this be the case with a more seasoned professional. No matter how closely we look at the writings of another person, you will never uncover all of the hidden meanings and subtle nuances of the text.

Some of you might be wondering where we disappeared to (and some of you might have given up coming to this site, tired of seeing the same blog posts). We were hiding in the Shadows for that last month, and have only emerged now.

Okay, I will stop writing cryptically. From March to May we were busy with our musical, The Shadows of Grossmunster. May was particularly a month of madness, as we scrambled to build the set, last minute rehearsals, did the cast recording, figured out lighting, costume changes, make-up, hair, and set changes (and figuring out when to eat, and where to eat that is not Tim Horton’s AGAIN) and trying to sleep somewhere in there.

All 6 of our shows sold out weeks in advance, and we even squeezed a few more people into every show. I couldn’t have asked for a better cast, and people to fit the individual roles more adequately. I’ve never experienced more let downs and blessings in such a short period….the blessings FAR exceeding the downfalls. We experienced such selflessness, such patience and kindness, and such talent!

Only now can we look back and feel a sense of accomplishment, only now allowing the excitement and wonderment to sink in. Cause during the month of May, we just wanted to get through it, we just wanted to not be stressed all the time. To put it bluntly, we just wanted to get it over with. Now that we’ve caught up on sleep, we saw the light at the end of the tunnel and have come back into the light from the Shadows.

Now for some advertising:

-CD’s of the original cast recording are available through us for $20.00/each (shipping included). Just email us at shadows@grossmunster.com with the amount you want, your name, phone number and address.

-For those of you who missed the show and wish to see it, or who saw it and want to see it again and again, DVD’s are also available of the entire show for $20.00/ each (shipping included). Just do the same as above.

-Plaques and posters are also available of the commissioned painting The Shadows of Grossmunster. For more information about that, go to www.grossmunster.com under the section titled “Extra”.

We also made it into the Record. To see the picture and caption, go to www.grossmunster.com

If you’re wondering if it’ll be around again, we hope so. We plan to have it published and available to the public before we leave in September for South Korea. Oh yeah…that’s a whole other kettle of fish. I better save that for another blog post.

We are excited to announce that preparations for our musical, The Shadows of Grossmunster, are well under way. With a month of rehearsals under our belt, seeing our script and music come to life through a wonderful and talented group of cast members is truly a dream come true.

Having said that, we should let you know that tickets are selling fast! In fact, tickets for the first two nights, May 11th and 12th, are already sold out! Tickets are also selling for the second weekend, just at a slightly slower rate. Due to the high demand for the first weekend, we have added a 6th show, for May 13th @ 7:30pm.

We are honoured to have heard from many of you, saying that you would like to come! However, if you want to see our show, we strongly suggest you order tickets through us or pick them up at a Mennonite Savings and Credit Union soon, especially if you are bringing a group and want to ensure you have enough tickets for the same night.

Also, we commissioned Ana’s mother (Jan Fretz), a professional artist, to make a painting dedicated to our musical, and she has made a breathtakingly beautiful photo extension painting of the Grossmunster church, a copy of which we will be raffling off at the show. The original will be displayed at her gallery, called Fleur de Soleil, in the silos at St. Jacobs.

For more information about what’s going on, visit our website http://www.grossmunster.com

I am pleased to announce that our musical, The Shadows of Grossmunster is well under way!

Since I last wrote about it, we now have our complete cast! We have a band, a stage manager, a music director, and have received reviews from our script readers. We have ordered the tickets from Ticket Master (they now do custom tickets), and we’ll have them ready to sell informally by next week. If anyone is interested in purchasing them in February from us directly, feel free to do so.

If you won’t be running into us anytime soon, we’ll be selling the tickets formally starting in March at various locations: The Mennonite Savings and Credit Unions in Waterloo, Kitchener, Elmira and New Hamburg, the St. Jacobs Visitor Center (starting in May) and Tavistock Mennonite Church. Please see our website for more details:
www.grossmunster.com.

We are very excited at how things are coming along!

So, I started writing this post last week, and got pretty far. I was on a role, inspired, and of course, the computer crashed on me. I was so frustrated, I didn’t even want to get back to it, until now.

Maybe this makes the excitement and busy-ness of our lives seem exaggerated, but I feel compelled to use categories. Makes for easier reading, and certainly for easier gathering of thoughts.

1. Our Vacation
Will had saved his last week of vacation until this month, to kind of celebrate our anniversary, so off we went, at the beginning of November. We spent the first 2 days at our cottage with 2 friends of mine. We showed them the tornado damage, which still fascinated us, played games, went for hikes, and stayed close to the ever-crackling fire. While eating pizza on our make-shift cardboard plates (so as to not have to wash them later), we were amazed to see over a dozen wood ducks out on the lake. We were also dazzled by the winter wonderland that greeted us into the next morning. Wow.

We then went to Cobourg, where those same friends live, for the next 2 days. We shared more laughs, played many more games, watched movies and enjoyed good conversation. Will and I went out to Presqu-il Park, just a 15 minute drive away, which is a conservation area and natural harbour. We walked 4.5 km’s of hiking trails, and saw woodpeckers (the Woody Woodpecker kind), which we had never seen before.

Then we were off for Kingston, where we went to the Penitentiary museum, Canada’s only one, which is located in the warden’s old residence, right across from Kingston Pen. Y’know how when you go to museums, you usually just look at the eye candy, and don’t always read the information? Well, I read praticly all the information provided, it was so fascinating. There were confiscated make-shift weapons, like crossbows made of toothbrushes and lighters, knives carved out of random materials, guns made of wood, etc. There were two stacks of cafeteria trays tied together, with a hole in the middle that an inmate made for an escape hideout. What was most amazing was seeing how resourceful people can be when they are desperate. We saw home brewing kits, toasters, lighters, made out of whatever objects they could find. We spent the night with some friends there, and watched MANY episodes of “The Office”. If you haven’t seen it already, DO. It’s very funny.

Last we went to Toronto to meet up with a bunch of our friends for supper. It was great to see them all again, and meet their new significant others. We spent hours catching up, and eating good food.

2. The Shadows of Grossmunster
Well, the final draft of the script is almost finished, which means we will soon be binding it, professional-like, and ready for distribution among cast members. We gained a violin player, which is very exciting for me, so I have been busily writing violin parts to all the songs. We now have a promoter, which will lighten our load in that department, significantly. We have a few more auditions lined up, but we still need a few more interested guys! So, if any of you readers know of anyone, please pass on our web address: www.grossmunster.com

We are also on the hunt for a stage manager and choreographer, and still for other musicians.

3. My birthday
Yes…..I am another year older, as November 14 declared. Sigh. Time goes by faster and faster as each new year passes, and I wonder where it all went. I have no regrets, but man! In four years I’ll be 30! Anyhoo, got some nice phone calls (including the “Happy Birthday” song at 11pm from some Toronto friends–Those rascals).

Some signs of my age:
a) Worsening vision (the glasses I bought in India 2 years ago are almost out of date now)
b) Achy joints (particularly my left knee)
c) Sensitive teeth (although I’ve always had that, it’s not doubt getting worse–and I’ve got quite a few dental appointments to show for it). Sigh.
d) Memory loss. Never mind, I’ve always had a bad memory.

4. Christmas Craziness.
Okay, we all know Christmas is a crazy time of year, but as a professional musician, ’tis the season for work. I am not only playing organ every Sunday (since the other organist is busy), I’m playing various Christmas concerts at both nursing homes I work at, doing the Christmas programs at Doon Heritage Crossroads again (for the fourth year), and putting on a Christmas choir concert with my choir of seniors at work. Phew! Oh…and…finishing off the score for the musical..hopefully.

People always told me I should go to school for music, and I always resisted for some reason. Looks like music found it’s way into my life, anyway. Big time.

5. MCC term
As of now, we still don’t know where are are going. All we know is that our 2 top choices, Belfast and El Salvador are not available anymore. So, we are waiting till the new placements are revealed next year. In the meantime, we anxiously await our time of service.

That’s all for now. Better publish this before the computer crashes on me again.

Word is getting out about our musical, and we are often stopped by people who ask us about it. A lot of times, people are surprised by the amount of time and work that we’ve put into it. By the time it’s performed, it will be quite difficult to assess how much time we’ve spent on it, but we really don’t want to look at it that way. This has been a big part of our lives ever since we started working on it a year and a half ago. As the time approaches, it will become an even bigger part.

In many ways, this project has become a part of us, not in a self-sacrificing martyr sense, but in an identity sense. That’s a good thing now as we work toward making this project a success, but it makes us wonder what we will do after it’s done. Because of other things we’re hoping to do, it’s not likely that we’ll start writing another musical. Maybe we’ll just promote it in other places so that other people will start performing it in other places and we’ll get to travel the world watching our own show (yeah right). For now however, it is a project that adds meaning and motivation to the routine of the rest of our lives. We’ll worry about filling that void later.

As forewarned, here is the (hopefully eagerly awaited) post about our musical.

We are about 2 scenes from finishing, and have found a theatre in St. Jacobs to perform it in. We are hoping to have it performed in spring or summer of next year. Some of the proceeds will go towards our expenses, and some will go towards an organization, like MCC (Mennonite Central Committee)

Many of you have been following along, but for those who haven’t, or who have forgotten, or who are new to this blog, I will explain the musical a bit: “The Shadows of Grossmunster” is about Anabaptist history, focusing on the original Anabaptist leaders; Felix Manz, Conrad Grebel, George Blaurock, Ulrich Zwingli, etc. All the beginnings took place in Zurich, and the Grossmunster is the big cathedral that all the meetings and debates took place at. We also focus on how things changed with the invention of the printing press, the corruption of the early church, from the perspective of Martin Luther, how the group was formed and persecuted, right to the execution of Felix Manz…and yes, there is even comedy and romance (believe it or not). Also, the script and music is all original, script and lyrics written by Will, and music all composed by me.

It is now time to find people to make the musical possible:
-We need actors (most of whom can sing), about 15, although, that number may change.
-We need musicians; I am hoping for a cellist, a guitarist, a banjo player, maybe a violin, or whatever I can find and I will then write musical parts to accomodate that instrument. I will be the one playing the piano
-We need a producer, or at least someone to help us do that
-We need people to help us sell tickets, advertise, put posters up, spread the word, etc.

If you are interested in any of that, or just in coming to see it, OR if you know of someone who might be interested, please contact us by e-mail or by phone: (519) 655-6882
Soon, we will be updating our website, or creating a new one specifically for the musical, where you can go to get more information. We will let you know when that happens.

Hope this is intriquing to some of you, and that we get some responses. We are very excited about this project.

We will soon have a completed rough draft of our musical. As we switch from writing and composing to editting, we will also get more info out to the general public, but here is a brief update. We are open to comments on what we’re doing so far.

Process
We usually write the scenes on their own without trying to tie a bunch of them together. That means we save the stringing of consistent themes and character development for the editting process. We expect that it will tie together well, and that we couldn’t have been too unknowingly inconsistent, but the next phase of the process will reveal that to us.

Characters
One of the joys of writing is watching characters emerge from blank pages, even if they are historical people. It sometimes feels like a journey to uncover what that person was really like, and sometimes it feels like I’ll have to apologize to their ghost for how I’ve changed them. Either way, it’s been fun looking at Felix Manz, his mother Anna, Conrad Grebel, George Blaurock, Ulrich Zwingli, Martin Luther and others. Those are complex men (I say men because there isn’t enough written about Anna to say much about her either way). None of them belong fully on either side of the ’sinners or saints’ spectrum, and anyone who says otherwise doesn’t know the history well enough.

Key Details
We are focussing on the life and death of Felix Manz, mostly between the years of 1523 and 1527, taking place almost entirely in Zurich, with a few other locations thrown in, to add context.

Challenges
Making this musical into a success has a number of obstacles that will first need to be overcome.
- Interest: the story and characters are already interesting to me, but making them interesting from a commercial perspective isn’t automatic
- Preaching: if I’m true to what the early Anabaptists would have said, the dialogue will sound quite preachy, which may turn off some viewers. Can I find a more artistic way of conveying the same points? Will the audience understand?
- Objectivity: often our theological and cultural position presupposes that we will admire certain figures and despise others. One might assume that a musical of this time period from an Anabaptist perspective would be highly critical of Zwingli and suspicious of Luther. While that’s generally true, the study and writing process has definitely endeared me a little more to them.

Location and Time
Depending on how quickly we get through the next phases, we may be ready for a fall performance, or it could also be a spring performance as well. The location we’ve been talking about most seriously is St. Jacobs, which would be appropriate since its thriving tourism industry revolves around its Mennonite reputation.

Name
Our working title so far is “Shadows of Grossmunster” or some variation of that, ie. “The Shadows of Grossmunster”, “In the Shadows of Grossmunster”, “Up from the Shadows”, “Up from the Shadows of Grossmunster”
Any thoughts? Do you bring up certain good or bad conotations?

Spring is finally here, and this is the time I stop hibernating. Winter really makes me not want to go outside, or do anything, really. I just hope it doesn’t snow again. Those poor robins. Now, for the update.

1. Infamous Job hunt
Still looking. I am awaiting to find out if I got a job as a program supervisor at the YMCA, but given my past experiences of “good” interviews not bearing fruit, I’m not expecting the best. I was offered one full day at the nursing home I work at on Mondays (8 hours instead of 4), so I may take that, but that may hinder any future attempts at finding a full-time job on the side. So, it’s a bit of a gamble. Man, finding work sucks. It’s like, you’ve got something to offer the world, and no one wants your help. It’s a cruel world out there.

2. Musical
On a happier note, Will and I are pretty much finished the first half of our musical. It feels even more official, because I now have the Allegro Finale program, which allows me to put my music on the computer and print it out so it looks professional (sorta). We’re moving along faster now, and we will start recruiting for actors and musicians soon. We will make a more official appeal at a later time, but this is just a heads up. If any of you are interested, let us know.

3. V for Vendetta (NOTE: If you haven’t seen the movie, and you want to, or do not care to, DO NOT read this, because this will not make any sense and give away much)
Will and I saw this movie with a friend a few days ago, and I thought it was awesome (albeit a little unnecessarily violent). It’s one of the few movies I’ve seen that manages to be entertaining, keep you on your seat, and stay at a peak the WHOLE 2 hours! Most movies start off great, then have a lull, then it gets better, than a lull, etc. Not this one. It was intense the WHOLE time. Anyway, I’m not writing this as a movie review, but rather to get some ideas from other viewers to help resolve a debate between us 3 who watched it.

My friend and I were convinced that “V” is a man, who, through the letters received from the woman in the cell next to him, fell in love with her, and that’s why he uses her roses after each killing, and that’s why he laters tells Evey that he never thought he could love again.

Will, however, had a intriquing and increasingly convincing theory. He felt that “V” WAS the woman in the other cell. For example, after the fire, “V’s” body becomes so morphed, that you can’t really tell. Also, the fact that there is a substantial scene about the lesbian woman and her lover seems superfluous if there isn’t a greater connection than is presented in the movie. And, the fact that “V” could be a lesbian woman fits with the fact that “V” falls in love with Evey. Also, it fits more that “V” uses the same roses that the lesbian woman and her partner grew in their home. Also, it fits that “V” has this whole shrine dedicated to that woman (wow, this must sound weird to someone who hasn’t seen the movie, and has decided to read this). About the male voice, Will pointed out “V” could have had a voice box under the mask (somewhat Darth Vader like). Also, the whole movie is about how there are no coincidences and how EVERYTHING is connected. So what are they trying to tell us?

In response to Will’s theory, my friend and I were saying that he couldn’t be the woman, because when Evey was in her mock cell, she received the letters through a hole in the wall, and “V” told her that he received that letter the same way she did (and aside from putting her in a mock cell without telling her, he never lied to her). Also, we said he had the shrine dedicated to that woman because he loved her (and not because he WAS her, as Will thought).

So! Having said that, I’d be interested in your input (assuming you have seen the movie). What do you think?

4. My friend’s mother
Since my last update, my friend threw a birthday party for her mother in the hospital 2 weeks ago, to which family and close friends were invited. Will and I went to that, and it was a touching event. More family showed up than she expected, and it was fun. Sadly, her mother was already on the downward slope, and was unable to be awake/conscious for any of it.

Then last Friday, Will and I went down for a quick visit, which would be our last. We spent a few hours chatting with my friend, and she told how us she has grown and what she has learned throughout this experience. It felt very final and conclusive to all of us, but we didn’t truly know it. Just before we left, Will thought to say a prayer, so we both had a hand on my friend and her mother, and we prayed. After the prayer, my friend let out her sadness through tears and words of love She then escorted us to the subway, and as soon as she went back to the room, her mother’s breathing had already changed. The nurses said it would be a matter of minutes. My friend laid down beside her mother and whispered more words of love as she watched her mother’s breathing slow down, until she never took another breath again. The nurses said it was the most peaceful death they had seen in a long time. My friend believes (as do we) that her mother was just waiting for that last prayer, and waiting for us to leave so she could have one last moment alone with her daughter. They say that hearing is the last to go, and I truly believe that. When Will and I found out how her death happened, we both cried. I have never been with somone that close to them dying before, to be one of the last voices they hear. And my friend, she was there for it all, the whole journey from start to finish. She has so much wisdom and love to share from this experience, and I pray she does someday.

In researching historical data, I hit a snag recently, and went to inquire with a local history prof regarding the info. In my script, I want to do a just representation of the person of Felix Manz. For those unfamiliar with the story, and even a refresher for those who knew it once, Felix Manz was a well educated scholar of the Bible and key figure in the beginnings of Anabaptism in Zürich Switzerland. His writings of word and song endure, and his impact on present day Mennonite, Anabaptist and Free Church theology is undeniable. The history books record all these things, but they also add a sidenote, that he was the son of a priest. In pre-Reformation Europe (Manz was born in the late 15th century), even though there was some dissent among the church, priests were still sworn in with a vow of celibacy.

The history books record that Felix lived with his mother in a house close to the Grossmünster in Zürich. The group of Radicals that wanted to speed up the pace of reform in the church, namely Conrad Grebel, Wilhelm Reublin, Blaurock, etc., also met at her house regularly for Bible study, and more famously on the night of January 21, 1525 when they all took turns baptizing each other.

The modern reader reads this story and sees Felix as an illegitimate child. Upon further research, I found that Heinrich Bullinger (the successor to Ulrich Zwingli in Zürich) was also an illegitimate child of a celibate priest. I wanted to do justice to Felix and his mother on stage, and I was curious for historical reasons as well, so I brought my list of questions. What was the nature of these relationships between priests and their wives/concubines/girlfriends? To what extent did Felix’ status as an illegimate child play into his initial child baptism? How did it alter his status in society? at theological universities? How did it reflect upon his father?

The answer I got was quite surprising. The answer was that priests having children and long-term monogamous relationships was so commonplace that nobody cared. Many great figures of the Reformation (Desiderius Erasmus, Martin Bucer, Dirk and Obbe Phillips, etc.) were illegitmate children of priests. In fact, the only people wdisapprovedved of these relationships were the odd high church figures and the establishment in Rome. General society supported the local priests’ in ignoring of their vows of celibacy, and they also resented Rome for discouraging these marriages.

Analyzing this reality, I started to wonder about contemporary clerical celibacy within the Catholic church. 500 years after the Reformation, the church is still able to enforce it? Some suggest that a new pope (likely not Benedict) could bring about badly needed development in this issue that many say is the most visible demonstration that the Catholic church is behind the times. Back when all of Europe was Catholic, and the church exercised powerful influence, many priests publicly broke their vows. Now, when the church has almost no political or civil power, almost no priests break their celibacy vows.

I also wonder what things has our society accepted as irrelevant vows? Maybe civil obedience? Every pastor I’ve ever driven with breaks the speed limit, some obsessively. Are there other things? Should we change our perceptions so that breaking our vows is okay, or change our vows because nobody keeps them anyway?