Canadian Mennonite
Volume 11, No. 06
March 19, 2007


BackPage

A meditation on stones

John Torrance Perks, left, and Ralph Lebold burn the mortgage at Waterloo North Mennonite Church, Ont., at a special service on Jan. 14. Perks is the church’s current Finance and Stewardship Committee chair and Lebold chaired the original building committee.

Look, the prophet says: “The stone shall cry out of the wall.”*

What do our stones cry out? Warning and wonder?

 

We are people of earth, all sizes and strengths:

small, large

light, dark

smooth, rough

individual, universal.

 

Rocks with messages bearing life from former worlds.

We brought these stones from farmlands of southern Ontario:

from Wellington, Waterloo, Wilmot

(from beyond these boundaries, from Appalachia, even from East Jerusalem).

 

They once impeded our plowing...

now they are lifted as a lesson in memory.

Founded on a Rock, on many rocks,

like fieldstone altars of covenant,

we live in confession and communion.

 

Seamless we are not, but lovingly trowelled, we touch each other

with promises to be bedrock to any who need us.

 

We are material of Art:

fabrics, like wall hangings, covering cold stone,

heralding seasons of Advent, Passion, and Easter—

the stone rolled away.

 

We celebrate and rejoice,

honouring a milestone of art and edifice.

Thanks be to God!

 

—Miriam Maust

(* Habakkuk 2:11) The poet is a member of Waterloo North Mennonite Church. Her poem was read at a “milestones” worship service and mortgage-burning celebration on Jan. 14 to commemorate 20 years of ministry in Waterloo, Ont. The final payment of a $220,000 debt-reduction campaign begun in 2004 was made in December. “It was truly a day of celebrating God’s guiding and leading over these past 20 years,” says Henry Pauls, chair of the Debt Elimination Task Force.


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