Canadian Mennonite
Volume 11, No. 16
August 20, 2007


InConversation

Letters

This section is a forum for discussion and discernment. Letters express the opinion of the writer only, not necessarily the position of Canadian Mennonite, the five area churches or Mennonite Church Canada. Letters should address issues rather than criticizing individuals and include contact information. We will send copies of letters referring to other parties to them to provide an opportunity to respond in a future issue if their views have not already been printed in an earlier letter.

Please send letters to be considered for publication to letters@canadianmennonite.org or to Canadian Mennonite, 490 Dutton Drive, Unit C5, Waterloo, ON, N2L 6H7, “Attn: Letter to the Editor.” Letters may be edited for length, style and adherence to editorial guidelines.

Reader finds financial articles stimulating

I very much enjoyed the financial articles in the June 11 issue. Money is always a stimulating topic whether it is discussed at a secular level or from a spiritual perspective.

In “Our finances are a witness” on page 6, Brice Balmer takes his investing seriously and follows a careful, ethical course, which could be a good recipe for all of us. But I would add one more “issue” to his list: What kind of economic growth does my investment support?

I try to avoid companies whose growth strategy is based on acquisitions (generally gets rid of workers) rather than a more natural growth (employs more people). This strategy also helps in part with the globalization problem.

Garth Brandt’s article, “The ‘abomination of desolation’ found,” was “off the wall,” but it does raise the issue about our innate propensity to shop at malls. I have never shopped at Seven Oaks, but have it on my revised “destination list” to experience first-hand this “abomination.”

Lori Guenther-Reesor’s brief article, “Fundraising and theology: Does the end justify the means?” was apropos. We at More Than A Roof Mennonite Housing (MTR) have just started a foundation to raise funds for homelessness and affordable housing in B.C. It is our desire that, while we want to be focused in our fundraising, we also want to adopt her adage that “fundraising is a ministry.”

—Peter A. Dueck, Vancouver

Direct questions not always answered directly

Re: “Information session turns into angry harangue,” June 11, page 24.

Sometimes constructing a bridge accentuates a chasm rather than spans it, and I wonder if perhaps some people’s expectations of Sakioeta’ Widrick’s information session created the gap between speaker and listeners reported in this article. I understand that many people present at the information session felt uncomfortably targeted by Widrick’s critiques. I also agree that dwelling on the resentment that sometimes exists in relationships can lead to more or different ill feelings.

That said, however, such sentiments can also form the basis for valuable discussion and learning. The reporter writes that “[e]ven direct questions about how to go about building neighbourly relationships led to long explanations and diatribes on history, the current political situation and theology.” Here is excellent proof that direct questions do not necessarily come paired with direct answers!

Indeed, the history of native-newcomer interactions in Canada is long, varied and complex, and every relationship that is formed is rooted in some aspect of that history. As a result, questions that arise are not easily summed up in a tidy package. The answers, and their significance, may still be waiting to be teased out from the many layers of the past.

No one person or group will have solutions or ideas that are functional, acceptable, or even comprehensible to all. It is important, then, to conceptualize native-newcomer relations not in terms of expectations or goals, but in terms of honest and self-analytical dialogue. Hearing voices of anger and criticism is one way of opening doors to deeper understandings of past and present situations.

—Katya MacDonald, Saskatoon

Reader thankful for insightful challenge

Re: “The Bible as fiction,” June 11, p. 13.

This was one great piece on Scripture. Thank you to Phil Wagler for his observations of our times and his challenge to us. I was riveted in my seat in reflection on my life and my world as I read, and I need not say any more.

—Garry Janzen, Delta, B.C.

‘Angry harangue’ article damages relationships

As a young white Mennonite couple living in South Dakota on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation working with Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) while learning how to build right relationships between white Mennonites and natives, we are saddened that the “Information session turns into angry harangue” article (June 11, page 24) is damaging to these relationships. Word of this article is already making the rounds in aboriginal communities even south of the U.S.-Canada border.

We have worked hard to come to this community with a humble spirit and an open mind, in the role of a listener. White people and governments have done, and continue to do, terrible things to the First Nations of this continent, and aboriginals have every right to express anger about those actions. Although we personally may wish to separate ourselves from these actions, we recognize that we are a part of the system that harms our friends and neighbours here, and that we have also benefited from the land and wealth taken from the First Nations.

We are learning how to listen better when aboriginal people share about their experiences with white people and governments. We find that we gain respect and friendship from our aboriginal friends when we are able to listen and not take their words personally or react defensively. We also find that we come closer to God and become better people by taking time for self-reflection when we feel defensive or angry. We are learning to “own” our own feelings, rather than blaming them on someone else.

If we really want to learn how to build relationships with First Nations peoples, we need to let go of preconceived notions of the answers we expect, and begin with careful and respectful listening to their perspectives, even when they are not easy to hear.

—Carl Meyer and Karissa Ortman Loewen, Porcupine, S.D.

The authors are program coordinators with the MCC’s Oglala Lakota Nation Unit in Porcupine.

Churchill quoted in preposition debate

I enjoyed the exchange between my old friend Gil Epp and the editor (“CCP judge needs grammar lesson,” June 25, page 16), and I agree with both of them!

As an old English teacher, I always enjoyed the comment from Winston Churchill which, I think, puts into proper perspective the particular rule about the use of prepositions. Supposedly an editor had clumsily rearranged one of Churchill’s sentences to avoid ending it in a preposition, and the Prime Minister, very proud of his style, scribbled this note in reply: “This is the sort of English up with which I will not put.”

—John Schellenberg, Calgary

Dear editor...

What do editors talk about when they get together?

One thing is letters. We love ’em.

The letter is one of the great forms of communication. A third of the New Testament and a good deal of its doctrinal teaching come to us as letters.

Letters to the editor are churchly democracy in action. Even the unhappy ones show that readers care about our publication. Editors dread being ignored, and sometimes wonder, “If an article falls in the forest and no one writes a letter, has it really been read?”

Readers love letters, too. Many will say, “The first thing I turn to is the letters to the editor.”

I received some memorable missives when I was a denominational editor, like the one that began, “Dear pacifist puke” (unsigned, of course). Another, dripping with venom, closed with, “In the bonds of Christian love.”

Then there was this cryptic note: “Normally I don’t write letters to the editor, but in this case I felt I had to.” End of letter.

One “pen pal” was a meek and gentle soul who became transformed when writing to editors. The act of sitting down before a keyboard seemed to pull out the stopper of decorum, releasing a gush of bile from his fingertips.

Another writer sent a generally thoughtful letter marred by two profanities. One was a non-theological reference to an unpleasant afterlife and the other was a barnyard term. When I deleted them, the writer complained that I had “cut out the best parts.” I couldn’t help replying, “You mean — and — were the best parts of your letter?”

Well, what about the charge that editors cut out the best part? Do people really think that when a letter or article arrives, we read it over carefully, searching for the best part? And when we find it, we pounce, exclaiming, “Aha, there it is—the best part. Out it comes.” Do some readers really think we aim to shield them from the best parts of anyone’s writing, and give them something bland instead? (That would make it difficult to sensationalize, which we also are accused of doing. It takes a creative genius to sensationalize bland.)

Most churchly editors love putting out an issue with plenty of letters. But that doesn’t mean anything goes.

Sometimes we have to cut off debate, and that rankles readers, especially those who waited too long to send their own comments. Editors rarely invoke the cut-off. Trust me on this; they really don’t want to deprive you of material that is interesting, instructive and inspirational. But periodically they have to ask, “Will yet another letter on Topic A, no matter how precious it may seem to the writer, make readers’ eyes glaze over with boredom?” One more letter may indeed hold the last great insight that no one else has yet considered, but sometimes it’s just another fly buzzing over a horse long dead.

Want to be an effective letter writer?

1. Keep them short. Can you say it in 200 words or less? That takes work. As Blaise Pascal wrote to a friend, “I have made this letter longer than usual because I lack the time to make it shorter.” A Mennonite editor recently received an 1,800-word “letter” with strict instructions not to edit. Ever compliant, she didn’t edit a single word. Nor did she print it.

2. Sign your name. Only in rare cases will editors publish a “name withheld.”

3. When signing off, don’t cite your employer or institution unless you are speaking on its behalf.

4. Before you hit “send,” take one more look; maybe set it aside for a bit. Not to spoil your fun, but is this “a word fitly spoken” (Proverbs 25:11)? Will it persuade anyone? Think about the last time your mind was changed by a letter to the editor. What worked best—a rant or reasoned discourse? Getting something off your chest may feel good for an hour, but how will it look when you see it in public print?

Ask if you have simply reacted or if you have actually advanced and illumined the discussion. Learn to do that and editors will love you—and will be happy to open your e-mail or envelope the next time you write.

—Wally Kroeker, for Meetinghouse, an association of Mennonite and Brethren in Christ publications

The expert

Outside the box

—Phil Wagler

I feel it rise up within me now and then—that drunken sense of expertise.

This frightens me because the claim of the expert is so closely related to the slander of the serpent, who asked Eve, “Did God really say…?” The serpent claims to know more than we do. It hints at some secret, Gnostic superiority that can be had that flies in the face of everything we have been told. Suddenly the benevolent Creator becomes suspect.

The expertise of the expert is the dime-store fare of the self-inflated. Anyone who claims to be an expert in anything has yet to study it enough; they have yet to become genuine disciples.

“Gloom and reluctance are the hallmarks of expertise,” writes Harland Cleveland. It is this gloom and reluctance I have felt in my expert moments. It floods over me and I have seen it overwhelm others when the Living God challenges our grand conclusions. When I’ve managed to build something that looks wonderful I become an expert, but in that same moment I become reticent to see what I’ve created disturbed and there is a constant sinister gloom hanging over my efforts to keep my creation alive.

Many of our churches are experts at the Christian religion. We know how to do it. We know the songs. We know the game—we can build buildings, run programs and spout what Christians (right- or left-leaning) should. We are institutional experts who hire institutional experts to manage our religious enterprises.

And then along comes a person, a dream, a vision, a Holy Spirit thing that confronts our expertise, and we—who know it all—see only gloom. Then the first thing we dig in is our heels. Having figured this church thing out, mastered the show and confined every possible work of the Holy Spirit to our structural or philosophical framework, we shake our heads and fret what might be lost if we confess our misappropriated expertise.

This is what has risen up in me and, quite frankly, almost more than anything it frightens me that I can become an expert accomplice in the lie from the pit. A hellish presence can infiltrate even the most beautiful garden.

I’m no expert on God. I’m no expert on his church. I’m a servant. I’m a slave to Christ. I depend on his speech to me, not my speech about him. I don’t receive any original words or find any previously undiscovered path; I simply retell and relive a mysterious Life that was, and is and is to come again. With my feet planted on the Rock of Ages, I am anticipating the next breeze of the Holy Spirit.

When gloom and reluctance overshadow me, I have lost my bearings, my way and my place. I have lost the adventure, stopped heeding the creative voice of the Eternal and settled for the squawk of the expert. Where have gloom and reluctance become the sullen, grumpy weather in your life or in the life of your church?

Beware the expert enterprise of human religion, even when it is bathed in the name of Christ. A sure sign that we’ve lost our bearings is that fear overpowers the word of the Lord to “Fear not” as he breaths new life, new hope and a new future that is as infinitely ancient as he is.

Phil Wagler is one of many servants at Zurich (Ont.) Mennonite Church (phil_wagler@yahoo.ca).

Here and now Christianity

New Order voice

—Aiden Enns

In July I was hiking in the Rocky Mountains alongside three sons from an Old Order Mennonite family in Alberta. As we exchanged views about Mennonites, one asked if I believed in heaven and hell.

I used to worry a lot about that, I said, especially when I was younger. I “took Jesus as my Saviour” because I didn’t want to go to hell if I died in a crash on my motorcycle. But now I don’t worry about the afterlife, I said. I find this present life gives me enough to worry about.

Consider, for example, the hell on Earth we North American Christians create for others through war efforts—a minimum of 65,000 civilians killed in Iraq since the beginning of the U.S.-led attack in 2003 (see iraqbodycount.org)—and economic policies of displacement and exploitation. How we respond, shows our allegiances. Do we actively resist the spoils of empire or capitulate and enjoy the conveniences? How we respond, I believe, determines the extent of our salvation.

I’ll admit it’s simplistic, but I’ve adopted a view of looking at people as being either oppressed or oppressors, which I learned from Paulo Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. As one who identifies in the latter category, I need a theology of liberation for the oppressors.

Unfortunately, as Mennonites, we follow the mainstream in our reluctance to give up power and control. We point to mission and relief efforts, and aim to be responsible with the wealth and power we’ve been given. But rarely do we—and I include myself, as a white, male, heterosexual, highly-educated property owner—celebrate downward mobility.

Sallie McFague calls for an “ecological theology of liberation.” In Life Abundant (Fortress, 2001) she says we need a theology “that can free us from insatiable consumerism and, as a result, liberate others, including the natural world, for a better, healthier life.”

I’m haunted by the words of Gustavo Gutierrez in A Theology of Liberation: “To be with the oppressed is to be against the oppressor.” Voluntary poverty can be an act of solidarity and resistance, he says. “Christian poverty has meaning only as a commitment of solidarity with the poor, with those who suffer misery and injustice.”

Instead of idealizing material poverty, he sees it as an evil. For Christians to voluntarily adopt a life of poverty, or to adopt a “spiritual poverty” as he calls it, “is to protest against it and to struggle to abolish it.”

“Because of this solidarity—which must manifest itself in specific action, a style of life, a break with one’s social class—one can also help the poor and exploited to become aware of their exploitation and seek liberation from it,” Gutierrez writes.

As a person of power and privilege, I…. Let me try again. As one who participates in oppression and exploitation, I need avenues of repentance and resistance. With all the despair in this world, I find it escapist to simply rely on an other-worldly hope in heaven. I need hope to pursue a more difficult and materially sacrificial life now.

I need to taste more of that heaven that Jesus said was already in our midst. “My yoke is easy and my burden is light,” said the Saviour, who dwelt among the poor, held scorn for those pursuing wealth and died without a robe. Where is that burden now? How can I put on that yoke?

Aiden Enns is a member of Hope Mennonite Church in Winnipeg. He is the publisher of Geez magazine and sits on the Canadian Mennonite board. Send him feedback at aiden@geezmagazine.org.


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