However, that news click-bait was not referring to the Christ of the Gospels. It was not intended to help focus our attention on the historical story of the sacrificial death and the miraculous return to life of the “King of the Jews.” This headline was about the expected arrest of a former president—one for whom the parallels of the mission of the Biblical Messiah are, for some Americans, strikingly similar: “We need someone to fix this mess, to take the power away from those on the other side of the aisle and restore power to those of us who are being deprived of our rights. And now, the one in whom we trust is likely to be arrested and persecuted for trying to ‘take back’ our nation from those who are ruining it.”

I feel that the juxtaposition of the two events this week, the two scenarios of the arrest of an ideological leader (the historical arrest of Jesus Christ and the possible arrest of Donald Trump), help to expose the hopes and expectations of many Christians. And I’m deeply concerned about the way many Christian friends are conflating the goals and ideology of the Kingdom of Christ and the ideologies embedded in the cultural wars of American and Canadian society.

The Christ who was arrested by the enemies of “The Kingdom of God” in ancient Israel came to this earth to establish a way of life, a society based on self-sacrifice, love and fulfillment that leads to eternal life. The movement he began practically integrated into itself the ultimate ideal of God “reconciling to himself all things in heaven and on earth.” There was no space for grasping power over others, no need for conquest by might, no assumption that our fears are allayed by accumulating weapons, and certainly no expectation that God’s plan hinges on the successful recovery of national pride and patriotism.

In contrast to that, I feel that many American Christians have completely altered and redesigned the story. The Jesus we now need is a “saviour” who came to earth and died to make sure that some of us don’t go to hell, that there is relief for the guilt we feel for our sins, that we don’t commit most sexual sins, and that after death there is a destination where my soul can float around in ethereal bliss forever.

This story doesn’t need a Jesus who actually transforms our value system and replaces our entire bent toward power, wealth, empires, and control of others. This story keeps Jesus in his place—as saviour of our souls, so that we can pursue the American dream and avoid the limitations of political weakness and vulnerability to the rich and powerful.

This “Christian” story seems to imagine that the United States is the standard by which to measure every belief and ideology. This story attempts to hang our future and our hopes and our joys on the preservation of an empire and on the romantic description of the founding of the nation and how blissfully utopian it will be when it is great again.

Instead of expending energies and passions toward reconciliation, justice, and flourishing communities where mutual respect and hope and self-sacrifice put others’ needs in focus, the new “gospel” is about how to win all cultural wars, how to protect the right to keep an AR-15 or how to raise our voices louder than those of our opponents.

In this Holy Week, choose your “messiah” carefully. I can’t state strongly-enough the futility of aligning our passions or pledging our allegiance to the messiahs of national empires and of political-economic might. Consider the moral platform from which your messiah speaks, and the ultimate outcome of the moral values and ideology for which they may be arrested by the authorities of their time.

I pledge allegiance only to the historical Jesus the Christ, the only Son of God, whose life, suffering, crucifixion, and resurrection we remember and commemorate in this season. Jesus Christ is Lord! And he alone will restore the cosmos to what it/we are created to be.

It was especially satisfying to compile a list of 162 bird species on this 14-day trip, as we didn’t have birds coming to feeders, and we only had a bird guide for a few hours. I added 25 species to my life list. We’re getting more skilled at the birds of Central America, since this is our third visit in four years.

We’ve had some very joyful events in the past year, along with a few surprises that changed our lives and lifestyle. All in all, we are extremely grateful for God’s grace and care, his provision and his love. We feel all of that through our family and the friends that also feel like family.

We love to travel, and we love to visit in the homes of our daughters’ families. We are grateful to each of them for welcoming us and for the opportunities to grow closer to the grandkids.

We have been fortunate to travel to Arizona (Kim and family), to Ohio (Karla and family), to Kansas (where we reconnect with Rita’s mother and family) and here in Ontario to both Rhonda’s family and in Manitoba with Robyn’s family.

Last June, we celebrated the first wedding among our grandkids when Robyn’s daughter was married. This coming July, we look forward to another granddaughter’s wedding, Rhonda’s oldest. That makes us feel a bit older, no doubt. We’re very thankful for the people joining our family by marriage.

Other travels included connecting with both our families of origin, attending a Nisly reunion in Ohio, and spending a week with Rita’s mother and family in Kansas.

Our love for travel and birding included a week in Belize last February. We loved the break from the Red Lake winter, and we loved the experience of being in a new country. We plan to return there in a couple of months.

We were surprised in early October when a light stroke changed my (Merle) life somewhat. We are very grateful for the mobility and strength I enjoy, but there is hopefully more recovery coming.

Thank you for sharing life with us, and for making our lives fulfilling and joyful through your friendship and love. We wish you a very good New Year in 2023!

Merle and Rita

If this season is like a dinner, what features of Christmas festivities best illustrate the Creator’s idea of the meaning of Christmas? What mindset helps us get closer to God’s story of Christmas?

In the photo, that’s me, a 5-year-old looking forward to Christmas dinner with some questions: What’s it going to be? When are we eating? Will I like it? Do I have to eat green stuff? When can I have pie? Not a lot of appreciation for what has gone into the preparation of such a feast.

In contrast, my mom, who managed the whole thing, looks forward to Christmas dinner with a very different mindset: Will the whole family be here? What combination of foods will I serve? What will the table look like? Will there be plenty for everyone?

The story and the events that comprise this complex “Christmas Dinner” include concepts like “gospel” and “incarnation.” These are ideas and terms that deserve careful, deliberate savoring, and will be increasingly appreciated by coming back to the feast over and over. Experiencing the flavours emphasized by different “chefs” will help to expand our mindset.

If the story thread of the Bible is to be believed, this is a story and an event to shake up the entire cosmos.

The story thread of the Bible requires us to allow for events that are outside of the natural material world. We have to ask ourselves: is it possible that there is another realm, or several realms of reality outside of what I see and experience with my body and senses?

In the most simple terms, the Gospel is the information, the story of Jesus the Christ: that Jesus has always existed as a person with God the Father; the Incarnation: that Jesus was born of a virgin and lived on this earth as a human expression of God himself; that he was crucified and died and was buried; that he came to life and is again at the side of the Father to rule and reign and reconcile the entire cosmos to God.

Now you can try to just gulp that down in one quick bite, or you can believe that it’s not a bite: it is a lot of long, slow meals just to get your mind and your emotions to grow into your faith and experience. That’s why we have annual festivals like Christmas, so that we come to dinner over and over.

As I would have said about one of my mom’s dinners, “If you come and eat, you’ll love the food and you’ll love my mom.”

In the same way, the more you know about Jesus the Christ the more you will respond to him in love. The more you love him the more you will be transformed by him. The more you are transformed the more you will flourish in this life and the next.

It’s a journey. I’m not trying to brainwash you; I’m encouraging you to believe that outside all of this that we see and try to understand is the one, true Creator God who exists in three persons: The Father, The Son Jesus the Christ, and the Holy Spirit. I’m hoping to persuade you that there is a story and a plan to restore this entire universe to God. You’ll want to be on the “right side of history” in relation to the story from God’s perspective.

If you’d like to watch and listen to more details of my recent synopsis of the content and purpose of the lavish “dinner” that is the Christmas story, you can find it here:

As I consider being vulnerable while attempting to share life, encouragement and hope with those in my faith community world-wide, I decided to share a video message I gave some months ago.

Today, I can’t think of anything I want to say more emphatically than what I said in this message at a local church that invited me to speak. Please take the time to listen and consider what it means to live in “The Mind of Christ” on this day.

Practicing the Mindset of Christ – YouTube

This December has brought into sharp focus the reality of death and the uncertainties about the plans we make for ourselves and for our families. Within a week, two elders who were dear friends of mine left their spouses, families, and communities grieving their sudden passing.

It makes me wonder if my plans for Christmas and for my family will be altered just as suddenly. Would I embrace the “tidings of comfort and joy” in similar circumstances?

Goyce Kakegamic was a brother who had limitless energy and drive for ideas and ideals that really mattered to him. His zeal for the needs of his fellow indigenous community members, his passion for the church community he helped establish, his love for his own family energized him like few others I have known. He found ways to move people and to steer resources toward the things he really believed in.

I really admire such energy and passion. I affirm and applaud the many goals Goyce reached, and the people he encouraged along the way. He seemed to know everyone, and found ways to link people together to accomplish things. Goyce made a significant difference in this world.

Jim Keesic was an easy-going and friendly brother whom I have known for many years. I learned to know him while working together in the process of the translation and production of the Ojibway language version of the New Testament. I learned so much from him in that context.

Jim loved his ethnic roots and his language. He had a vocabulary in that language that is unique to his generation and to those for whom a language is one’s heart language, one’s mother tongue. He never stopped encouraging me and affirming me in my attempts to be fluent in his language.

Jim joined in a new venture in 2005, when he became a founding board member of Living Hope Native Ministries. I remember his initial hesitance to formally commit to the project, even though he was enthusiastic about its value. At first, his advice and wisdom were worded in terms of “you.” Then he began slipping up, and saying “we.” When he caught himself saying “we” he laughed and said, “Osaam waahsa intishaa.” (Now I’ve gone too far.)

Jim became a passionate supporter and wise builder in the formation of that ministry, and even served as chairman of the board for a time. He never stopped believing in the cause and the reasons for working together in sharing the Gospel and encouraging the development of local churches. Jim made a significant difference in this world.

Both Goyce and Jim were confident in their own skins, quite sure of their own roles in this world and in the meaning and purpose of life. Neither one seemed afraid of or intimidated by those in other ethnic groups. Both Jim and Goyce freely expressed their critiques and affirmations to me as one would to a peer. I deeply respect that. I will miss that.

I can’t imagine the emptiness and void that Lucy and the family feel or the ways that Mary and the family grieve with these sudden losses. I only pray that the message, the tidings of “comfort and joy” are something tangible and lifegiving in a Christmas season that, for these families, will be like no Christmas before this one.

Just a few hours later, we were celebrating a short downpour of rain. This rain wasn’t carefully aimed at a few tomato root systems. This rain wasn’t strategically planned for the smaller flower patches while leaving the dry lawn for another time. And, the water meter in our basement never budged during all of it.

The rain came without the smallest effort from me, and without the slightest financial cost to me, and without the stingy limitations that seek to prevent wasted moisture. It fell without obligation to me, and without accountability for my responses or appreciation.

I relearned some things from the rain last night.

I celebrate the concept of grace in a renewed way because of that reminder. I am deeply impacted and changed by the grace I have received–much like an indiscriminate rain shower.

Today Rita and I celebrate 48 years of marriage. That’s a fresh and amazing part of this review of the meaning of grace. I’m reflecting on the emotional, physical, and spiritual health that are improved by, and dependent on, the function of grace.

Grace is being loved and accepted by someone who has many reasons to reject me. Grace is being able to remember painful experiences in a relationship and to remember hurtful words and actions without a desire to repay or to demand restitution. Grace is the skill of knowing when to work out a conflict and when to simply let it go.

In our relationship, there are so many times when grace keeps us from saying something that deserves to be said. I love that, when it protects my fragile ego from things Rita would like to critique in my life. In contrast, I often go ahead and say what I think she needs to hear in order to become a better person. I’m still learning that almost all of those words are simply for my own satisfaction. Grace is not like that.

Grace is indiscriminate in its very nature. Grace doesn’t actually change an objective reality; as in, Rita’s grace toward me does not remove my arrogance or judgmental tendencies. It only changes me when I reflect on the nature of her indiscriminate and undeserving grace. That tends to inspire more graceful responses in me.

Of course, I believe this amazing concept begins with God who described himself as gracious and compassionate. And the unexpected characteristics of the concept of grace are illustrated when it rains on the weeds and tomato plants alike.

These are people that died away from their homes and communities; people that disappeared without explanation and without record. It is the ultimate evidence of an arrogant, racist, and elitist system that married governments and churches into one deliberate machine intended to erase a people and to eliminate identity and to destroy any residue of ethnic sovereignty.

There are at least four categories of people impacted by this shocking discovery: the families connected by blood, community, tribe, ethnicity; the dominant governing society of the nation; the uninvolved observer citizens of the dominant nation; and the individuals that actually were physically present as workers in those institutions while they operated.

Many of my readers are part of a Christian church. Many of you live as members of a society that is both religious and governmental. Most of you are comfortably and safely settled in that dominant place that allows you to view the atrocities of the world from behind the judge’s bench.

Me too.

One difference in my experience is that I was an unwitting participant in the crimes of the nation in its marriage contract with the churches in an attempt to deal with the “Indian problem.” I played a small role in the underlying goal to destroy the sovereignty and identity of the indigenous peoples of this nation. I was there.

I don’t have the privilege of sitting on a white throne pronouncing empathetic, remorseful, self-righteous condemnation of what my people did in history–including the national and religious efforts that led to atrocities such as the disappearance of 215 individuals in one single institution. I was there.

That’s because I was a worker at an IRS, an Indian Residential School. For three school-years I did maintenance and repair work to help keep one of these institutions operating.

What am I to do with that?

I have to own it. For more than 20 years I have been consciously owning it and working to redeem what can be redeemed of a story that includes priceless, respectful, lasting relationships with indigenous people–all shrouded in a cloud of dark, destructive, hidden agendas of cultural imperialism and societal assimilation. I own it.

As a young adventure-seeker barely out of my teen years, I volunteered to be part of an enterprise of which I knew absolutely nothing. The conservative Mennonite folks with which I was associated had entered a contract with the provincial ministry of education. The best version of the story is that they were responding to requests from communities and families that had no formal education options in their home communities or on their traplines.

No one told me the worst version of the story: that the government national agenda was to “kill the Indian in the Indian.” None of the Christian collaborators I knew were intentional in that goal. Most of the Christians I worked with really believed, in a naïve simplicity, that the Mennonite version of faith and the Mennonite version of work ethic and lifestyle would benefit any and all–no matter their culture or history.

I’m not alone in my story. Thousands of my people supported this effort with dollars, labour, food, volunteerism, and deep passion for doing the “work of missions.” Very, very few ever questioned the underlying collaboration of church and state, and the sinister goals that fueled the national agenda behind it.

It is very easy to look back on history and sanctimoniously condemn those who didn’t see what was coming; to righteously affirm, “I’d never have done that, had I been there.” That kind of repentance is not. That kind of indignation all feels very different to someone like me.

I do. I do repent for participating in something I didn’t understand. I drafted an apology statement that was adopted by the agency where I’m a member, and a statement that is still an official reflection on a convoluted history. Read it. It is history that is complicated and that is a troubling mix of complicity with evil and many good intentions.

I have literally spent long, torturous days in talking circles with indigenous people who came through the Mennonite schools. I have heard enough stories and experiences of pain and neglect and loss to last me for several lifetimes. I have cried with, I have expressed my deep regret for the feelings and outcomes. It is never enough. Really, it is not enough.

I call on my people, especially those in my story and my personal realm of relationship and association to lay down the determination to defend and protect the residential school history. What value is there in writing the story from only one perspective? What will we gain by declaring that my good intentions were enough to negate the underlying evil design and the personal scars that suffering individuals will never lose?

I don’t care if I was innocent, personally. I don’t care if much of what I did had some good results. With Jesus Christ as a model, I will try to identify with the pain and loss and injustice that others experience as a result of what I helped to perpetrate. I will help to carry the burden of those affected by my part of the story. I don’t live in shame, but I do live in a state of repentance and empathy.

That seemed to be a personal warning and a frightening prospect for my dad. He talked about ways of preventing such a turn of character, such a radical change in the core behaviours of apparently-virtuous men. It made him think and speak very seriously about what it is that comes out of a person’s mouth after the normal filters are gone.

A couple of years ago, I had a very serious head injury from a fall. As I was recovering, I thought about the fact that I might well have had the kind of brain damage that forever removes the cultural sensitivities and filters that keep my darkest thoughts and feelings from pouring out of my mouth.

In considering my moral portrait, I’m thinking a lot about myself and about other influential people who have been considered “moral examples” to their families, their communities, and even to the world. I’m thinking especially of the “painted portrait” that my granddaughters and grandsons may hang on their mental walls and look at for a long time.

What is, to me, most concerning is that we men naturally want to paint portraits of the achievements and accomplishments and the battles won against the enemy. And we sorta wish that those we admire in those ways would also have a little moral compass hidden away somewhere. But that doesn’t really add any brush strokes to the portrait we paint. It’s more like a fingerprint accidentally left on the back side of the canvas.

Given the contemporary stories of pastors, leaders, governors, fathers, I want to go on record with a few points. I don’t really care if most of my readers appreciate these, or not. I really care about what my wife, Rita, sees; what my daughters and sons-in-law feel; what my granddaughters think; and what my grandsons admire in my developing portrait. I believe that encapsulates the grand idea: I care what God thinks.

First point: I value and respect the wisdom and the prophetic voice of someone like Beth Moore, and her insights into the world of theology, church, denomination, and politics. Such voices must change our world; not because they are faultless, but because they draw attention to areas of blindness, abuses, ignorance and corruption. When men of influence, power, and status dismiss such voices and tell women like her to “go home,” we do so to our own peril.

The enduring “portrait” of faithful women to whom God has given a platform and a special way of communicating wisdom and perspective will last forever. Just as biological procreation is not the domain of one gender, so the call to moral excellence and virtues is also the artistry of female and male intellectual intercourse.

Second point: We men must pay close attention to the colours and media that are being applied to the canvas where our portraits are appearing. Male voices have always been abundant. We have decided which elements matter in a finished portrait. We have excelled in preserving the memory of men who leave behind a beautifully-painted portrait of wisdom, achievement, and moral example. It just seems that we’re finding that some of our portraits are being spoiled by a false sense of superiority and control, and the absence of many common virtues. And most of that is being exposed by the women who should have been speaking into the story all along.

The critical concerns expressed by female voices often don’t fully overlap with the chorus of male voices. Most Christian men seem to define an excellent “moral portrait” as one of successfully avoiding the forbidden sexual activities. In my experience, a woman’s idea of morality is more related to integrity–the harmony of words and actions–evidenced by love and empathy.

Radiant and awe-inspiring colours are a product of light. A simple prescription for an accurate and honourable moral portrait can be found in 1John 1:7: But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.

I was hanging out with an older brother to whom had been given the job of herding a group of cattle in the ditch on the side of the road in front of our farmyard. The cattle were able to find edible grass there where the last bits of moisture in the arid Kansas summer provided some green feed.

I was playing along the edge of the road when a county maintenance tractor with a ditch mower came right down the ditch we were using. I froze. I wasn’t supposed to go out onto the road. I was afraid to go down into the ditch. I froze in place.

The man driving the mower stopped his machine. “Boy, you’ve got to move! This thing will cut your legs off!” he yelled at me. I bolted to our yard, which was not far away. I rushed to the safety of my mother and told her, “That man said he was going to cut my legs off.”

I thought of that experience this morning as I was thinking of how much we seem to fear leaving our ideological ditches on either side of the road.

It seems we are losing the ability to confidently travel down the actual road—which is designed for effective forward movement. Instead, we are being trained to entrench ourselves in total opposition to most other humans and their ideas. We are learning that if we come up out of the ditch of radical thought on one side we are inexorably destined for the vile ditch on the other side.

This even happens when considering debatable church doctrines. It happens when comparing personal convictions. It is common in the tensions surrounding racism, human rights and freedoms, or political perspectives.

“We’re right. They’re wrong. The arguments on this show cannot be broken.” So goes the tagline on a daily, political-talk radio show. There is no road between the two ditches, and not the least regret for it.

I’ve heard the same sentiments in Sunday School discussions. I’ve felt the same arrogance in sermons on the radio, or even in a church publication. I’ve even been guilty of making such noises myself.

Fear of losing my position and sliding into the ditch on the other side of the road may, in fact, have some value. However, camping in the ditch on my side of the road is an equally-problematic solution. It simply provides me a false sense of confidence. It gives me the illusion of some control.

Is that why we seem to love being in the ditch on one, or another, side of the road? Yes, it’s easier to stay in the ditch than to negotiate and to compromise so that we can actually make good use of the road.

Self-confidence that is simply based on fear of something other is a worthless investment. Nothing is actually within our control, then.

Climbing up out of my ditch of protective platitudes and selective truth claims does not mean that I will be hopelessly doomed to the ignorance and evil that I think I see on the other side of road.

Can we find our way back onto the roadway and begin to make progress? Can we travel down the road without spending our energies screaming at the trolls in the ditches and under the bridges?

How do we do that? Is it all about choosing the “right” sources of information? Is it about wearing the right label of identity? Is it about getting all the facts just right?

No. It begins with a mental adjustment and a heart-level affirmation that it is the road we want to travel on. And that we will share the road with people with whom we don’t always agree.

It is the basic desire to respect others–as I would want to be respected. Respect means to hear and consider. Without respect, there is no way to speak the truth in love (an ideal we find in Scripture).

It means distancing ideologically from the outrage, the hatred, the screaming arrogance that seems to come from both the ditches—the permanent dwelling of those who define the world in terms of “enemies and allies.”

It means replacing fear with peace. It means cultivating a determination to make peace among people wherever possible and to confidently make progress down the actual road.

It means doing what we can to win our “enemies” over; not to merely conquer them.

And those of us who claim that we model our lives and our values after the life and the words of Jesus Christ can be leading the way. Is that how it appears to be?