Winning Enemies

MerleLeave a commentLife Lessons, Spiritual Growth, ,

My younger brother is a best friend. We can discuss different viewpoints and values without jeopardizing the love and appreciation we have for each other. It wasn’t always like that, especially when we were teens and our sense of competition with each other was at its highest. He was becoming larger and stronger than I, and I felt a compelling need to try regularly to subdue him in a wrestling, punching, or verbal match. Our fights were almost always about insignificant things, like which radio station would we listen to in the car, or who would drive. The need to Read More

Trust

Merle3 CommentsLife Lessons, Spiritual Growth

About 40 years ago I was sitting in a courtroom, complete with a real judge, real prosecuting attorneys, and real defense attorneys. But it wasn’t in a courtroom. It was a school classroom in a remote First Nation. The room had been commandeered for the day and officially transformed into a legal court of law. The proceedings were fascinating: partly because I was not a participant in any way, and mostly for the fact that I was friends with all the individuals facing the judge. The court personnel were all Caucasians from a city. All of the various accused were Read More

2019: What Shall We Fear?

Merle2 CommentsLife Lessons, Spiritual Growth

My mother had a lot to think about. She felt responsible to care for a large family, with the prospect of many more offspring to come. Her experiences in the Great Depression likely contributed to her concerns about having enough of life’s basic needs. To add to Mom’s anxieties, a common theme in the ’60s was the threat of frightening and global changes to our existence. The church and the news media both promoted a fascination with the end of the world as we knew it. When I was a child, I remember Mom’s musings about saving things–even considering saving worn-out shoes in case Read More

With Us

MerleLeave a commentSpiritual Growth, , ,

I want to be near birds. I love to observe them, to pursue them for learning about them, and to identify them. I love the challenge of getting near enough to get a good photo. I feed birds, so that they come closer. I learn to recognize their language so I can persuade them to come closer. I don’t like it that birds are so flighty. Sometimes the smallest movement causes a whole group to swirl into the air and leave the area. Just when I think I’m quietly getting near, the bird I’m pursuing takes off for another part of Read More

Fully Aware

Merle1 CommentLife Lessons, Spiritual Growth, ,

It was a wake-up, for sure. I suddenly became aware that I was looking out at the receding highway through the back windows of an ambulance. Somehow, I wasn’t surprised; but I didn’t know how I got there. So I asked. I got a short explanation. For the next hours in the hospital emergency and critical care unit, awareness was still an illusive and elusive thing. I thought I was aware. Then I realized I hadn’t been. Then I thought I had a grip on it. Then I realized it had escaped me again. I have never been as aware Read More

Reluctant God

Merle4 CommentsLife Lessons, Spiritual Growth, , , , ,

It felt like the most exciting event of my life was just ahead. In the mid-1960s, my dad had just purchased two horses to replace the one horse that we had recently sold. This was just too amazing: my brother and I could ride together, instead of taking turns. I couldn’t even focus at school, I was so pumped! But I faced a huge fear. The two new horses would not be ours for another week, or so. Would God really let it happen? At our church, the overriding theme in the 1960s was the coming apocalypse, the rule of the antichrist, Read More

Part 3: Sticky Labels

Merle7 CommentsLife Lessons, Spiritual Growth, , , ,

I was born with a label stuck to me. The doctor could easily see that scrawled on a sticky label on my back was the single word, “Amish.” From that, I’m sure he made quite a few assumptions about my life and potential. Sometime during the first months of my life, that original label was pulled off by my parents and replaced with one “Mennonite.” The old label hadn’t yet stuck hard enough to rip my skin. Any observer would now make some different assumptions about me. I wore that label in my childhood and teen years with a growing Read More

Part 2: Justifiable Hostility

Merle6 CommentsLife Lessons, Spiritual Growth, , , , ,

Before we start “As We Are One…” Part 2, I’m going to pick up some key ideas from Part 1: What if we Christ-followers would still consider The Cause, defined by The Cross, as an overarching and governing category of unity and belonging and action? What if we who wear the Christ-label determined that any other cause, though worthy, is not even remotely capable of destroying the unity by which we pledge allegiance to The Cause? If Jesus wishes his followers to be completely unified through a first allegiance to The Cause, how would he expect us to respond to Read More