In about 1920, when my dad was 16, he was walking or riding down a dirt road in the prairies of Kansas. As he approached the Miller farmstead, he saw a young girl riding a horse on the road and herding a small group of cattle. The young man’s arrival and the confusion of the animals scared the horse that the young girl was riding and the horse instinctively leaped over a tall hedge that grew in front of the house. Fourteen-year-old Alma never lost her seat on the horse. Young Eli said to himself, “I need to get to know a girl that can ride like that.” That’s how I recall the story.

A few years later, Eli and Alma were married, and soon began having children. Many, and with regularity. Eventually I was born number 14, out of 15 children.

My mother was in a culture and in a time in history that seems very odd and might seem almost wrong when compared to women, families, and society in 2022. She finished her education at Grade 8, and then joined her family full-time in the little world of their farm and church community. It was a world without any TV, radio, internet, phone, or even electricity and running water.

Many ideas about gender and roles were just assumed and expected in those days: Women had very different duties, roles, opportunities in comparison to men. Women were considered to have fulfilled their reason for being if they had found a husband, gave birth to children, and served their family well as a mother and grandmother. Any other way of being a woman was considered to have fallen short, or been allotted an unfortunate, unsatisfying life.

Mothers of families were considered normal women. In many homes these women were honoured and loved and appreciated by their husbands and by their sons. However, in too many cases these women were considered to be born into a class of people that were simply never going to have the freedoms and privileges of their brothers, their fathers, or their husbands. Their lot in life was to serve and to make others happy and successful. Husbands and sons had the right to take advantage of the place and status that God had apparently assigned to the women, even the mothers, in their world.

In my experience, Mother’s Day was a special day for showing appreciation for our mother and being verbal about our gratefulness for her love and selflessness. Because that’s who she was: loving and selfless.

I was very fortunate to have a mother who loved her husband and family with every cell in her body. She didn’t seem to feel trapped or robbed of fulfilling her life’s dream. She probably felt overwhelmed with managing and working out her role—managing the food, clothing, hygiene, and relationships of 15 kids and a husband. I remember a few times when I found her sitting by herself and crying. But that was rare. Mostly she sang and whistled as she worked so very hard and for very long hours each day.

Here’s the eternal effect, on me, of the impact and legacy that my mother lived and breathed and taught without fail: life has meaning; we live for a purpose with God as our God; we live by love for one another; being loved, and knowing we are loved enables us to love; we must have some fun, life is serious and life is an incredible amount of work, but we laugh and we make time to have fun; we sing, we make music; we read; we invite guests and we feed them lots of food; we enjoy and welcome our relatives; we live at peace with our world and with our neighbours.

So what’s a woman to do in our time, in our culture, in our world? How would someone like my mother have fit into the expectations and demands and roles and opportunities and stigmas and stereotypes that our culture describes for women. How would my mother respond to the expressions of pity and empathy and condescension she might feel from today’s self-determined woman?

I’ll start by saying that I’m not going to describe what that should look like for any woman. However, we can be inspired by the stories and lives of others, both women and men.

I believe that God didn’t intend that we use the Scriptures to create a box for anyone to fit into. I don’t believe that it’s God’s character or expression of love that we should define anyone by a list of restrictions. And I’m here to apologize and repent of being part of a system wherein we men used the Bible to describe the box into which women will be held, and by which a woman should be defined. That’s what happened a lot in the Christian tradition in which I grew up.

So the beginning point, in Christ, is that there is no restricted category defined by our birth and the features and circumstances of our birth.

As Paul says in Galations 3:23-29, you may have been born a Jew, a Gentile, to a slave family, to a free family, as indigenous or immigrant, as a female, as a male, but you are not defined by that birth status when you are baptized into Christ and are clothed in Christ.

In our world, we may have been born with an advantage or disadvantage because of how we are viewed by our culture. In Christ, we are not defined by our birth status, whether an advantage or disadvantage.

In Christ, we are not defined by our limitations or our privileges. And again, I am so sorry for how I have taken advantage of the status and opportunities I have as a male in the church, in the family. In the same way that I am sorry for taking advantage of my ethnicity and the power it has sometimes given me, I am sorry for taking advantage of the restrictions that have been used to define women.

No one will try to imitate my mother and wish for a way to do what she did–as she did it. However, her life can be an inspiration and a model in so many ways, and I want to repeat those lasting and life-altering messages that I carry with me to this day:

• Life has meaning: we live for a purpose with God as our God;
• We live by love for one another; being loved and knowing we are loved enables us to love;
• We must have some fun; life is serious and life is an incredible amount of work, but we laugh and we make time to have fun;
• We sing, we make music;
• We read;
• We invite guests and we feed them lots of food; we enjoy and welcome our relatives;
• We live at peace with our neighbours and with our world.

Happy Mother’s Day!

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.

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?

Why do Jesus and the apostles frame the journey to both power and wisdom in terms of meekness? (Matthew 5:5; James 3:13)

My dad and mom were both rather quiet when it came to expressing opinions and judgments to others. My dad liked to think about things, and take some time with a topic before delivering a rant or strong opinion. Not always, but usually.

I watched the same traits in my numerous, older siblings. I learned something I didn’t realize until later: that our intuitive responses to a topic or to a person are often wrong or, at the least, shortsighted. If we think of this process properly, it’s a journey in gathering information while in the pursuit of wisdom.

That means putting the desired outcomes in a different category. It means believing that an outcome that is not the result of wisdom is not a satisfactory outcome.

Another, related, lesson I gained from my family: wealth does not come by intuition or by windfall. It’s a journey with a work ethic. Unfortunately, many needy individuals pursue wealth through lottery tickets or game shows.

In the same way, many pursue insights and knowledge through intuition. Apparently, for many Christians intuition is indistinguishable from a “word from God.”

Intuition is worth a dollar. Wisdom is worth a million dollars.

A prophecy is worth a dollar. Wisdom is worth a million dollars.

A political victory is worth a dollar. Wisdom is worth a million dollars.

A tribal identity is worth a dollar. Wisdom is worth a million dollars.

Being right is worth a dollar. Wisdom is worth…. You know the rest.

I believe God speaks to people. Today. But after recent prophecies and certainties published all over the internet and in other media, I’ve nearly lost my faith in the likelihood of anyone getting a reliable, “fresh” word from God.

I believe that sometimes opinion writers, analysts, and talk show hosts get it right. But after watching how Christians substitute values and perspective and priorities based on the information given by people whose lives are not aligned with biblical wisdom, I have nearly lost my faith in the Christian version of social realities.

It seems we’re usually too lazy to pursue wisdom instead of instant knowledge—with an instant stance on social issues.

Many of these reckless prophecies and godly-sounding analyses concerning our times and our futures have come from Christian leaders with a platform that impacts a lot of careless followers.

And when these prophecies and analyses prove to be ridiculous and false? The justifiable response is, “it’s because of our enemies. Once we dominate our enemies, this reality will be fulfilled.”

I wish we could all back off and arrest our quick responses to people and events. At the same time, I recognize that intuition and first impressions have an important place in our judgments. It’s not easy.

The pursuit of wisdom is a more demanding journey. Most of the time, we are too lazy to take that journey. It’s much more convenient to grab someone’s opinions, add our intuitions, and then just run with that tribal identity.

A warning: When we adopt our perspectives on reality from those who are not wise by biblical standards, we may well choose to be fools.

Information is not enough. Everyone has access to the information. Wisdom is way beyond that.

Outcomes and results are not enough. Good outcomes can also be achieved by treachery, treason, crime.

By what standards do we define wisdom? I begin with the “God of all wisdom” and his revelation through the Scriptures. The pursuit of wisdom is a theme from one end of the biblical story to the other.

The biblical descriptions of wisdom and its incredible, sovereign role are numerous and surprising.

The Apostle James refers to “the meekness of wisdom” in this foundational description of wisdom—where he contrasts “wisdom from above” with “wisdom from below.”

Wisdom from above: We really can, and must, learn to value wisdom over information; and to evaluate knowledge by its human sources; and to determine that true information does not always result in true wisdom, that desirable outcomes are not always the evidence of underlying wisdom.

“But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, open to reason, full of mercy and good fruits, impartial and sincere. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.” Read the whole passage here.

If you wish to watch my recent message, “How Did I Lose My Way?” check out my YouTube channel.

These are the opening words of what we call the Gospel, the Good News. Among Biblical quotations, those words are probably most often quoted and most easily recognized.

But sometimes it doesn’t seem as if God actually loves the world.

I could show you images and clips of news that paint this world in the darkest terms, with not a lot of hope. Even with some bright spots in the story, it seems we often desperately wish that there were an escape tunnel where we could just run and get away from the terrible, daily, depressing news.

This is the very world that God so loves. It’s not the first time that things have looked so dark, and felt so desperate to so many people. The cycle has always been there: seasons of hope and optimism followed too soon by seasons of more misery and despair. God so loves the world, even in such times. Maybe especially in such times.

Since the beginning, humans have complained that God does not deliver from all trouble and pain. Sometimes it’s hard to believe that God loves the world at all. Because he allows it to go through these cycles.

Bertrand Russell, a philosopher, said that our only choice for dealing with the injustices and suffering of this world is to build our lives on the “firm foundation of unyielding despair.”

“Unyielding despair?” Is that the best we can hope for? Do we have to take his word for it? Or is there another word? Are there other choices?

God so loved the world that through Jesus the Christ he entered into his own creation once again—living among his creation and suffering with the creation that hurts, that waits, that cries out for justice and redemption.

Jesus the Christ was anointed by God as a human to live the pain and suffering of this world without first eliminating it. Because of his great love, he experienced and lived humiliation and discomfort from the beginning of his life.

In the greatest expression of his love he submitted himself to the cruelty and death that humans often live by—when despair is all we have left . He felt the depths of pain and the realization that God would not deliver him from it at all.

The human birth of Jesus and the human resurrection of Jesus are the ultimate evidence of how God shows his love: not through instant deliverance from every and all suffering, but through the presence and closeness of relationship and identity. And most importantly through the ultimate deliverance from the power and rule of death.

So what are the actual outcomes of love? Will that love eradicate and replace our despair?

His birth as a human and his resurrection as a human assure us that justice for all, life that never ends, and ultimately satisfying joy are the outcomes of “For God so loved the world…”

Merry Christmas to each of you!

A long time ago an uncle, a successful lawyer, looked with pity on his brother living on the family farm. The farmer brother had dropped out of school, and was satisfied to eke out a comfortable living on this very valuable, large piece of property that had huge potential. Pity turned into desire. Desire became a dream. The lawyer began to understand that unless he took over the farm no one would ever appreciate the wealth the farm was capable of producing.

Negotiations didn’t convince the farmer. So the lawyer found a way to legally take control of the family farm, and eventually edged his brother out of any shares in the farm. The lawyer felt fully justified in the knowledge that the uneducated farmer had no idea how to maximize business potential—and didn’t seem to care.

The farmer brother ended up living on a small, severed tract of land given to him by the lawyer brother. There he managed to keep his family alive.

Now, generations later, the children and grandchildren of the lawyer continue to generate great wealth from the family farm. They are Christians, who give generously to the church. They testify regularly how God helps them through periods of drought, and how the rain comes at just the right time. They teach seminars–especially in foreign countries–about how hard work and good farming methods are so very rewarding for the farmers who will make the most of every opportunity–opportunities granted to everyone equally, by God.

These wealthy descendants of the lawyer often try to interact with their cousins of the farmer’s lineage. The successful cousins offer jobs and financial assistance to the needy cousins who descended from the farmer. For reasonable wages, these displaced cousins are also able to feed their families.

All the while, the wealthy cousins offer to share the secrets of their superior intelligence and business acumen. “Absolutely anyone can achieve the same level of wealth and business success, if only they will apply themselves to hard work and pursue their dreams,” they say.

In recent times, the displaced cousins have worked very hard to help their wealthy, farming cousins to remember and acknowledge what happened so long ago to rob them of the land that used to be part of their own heritage, as well.

For the lawyer’s Christian descendants, this is very disturbing. “We didn’t do this. We came about this farm without any sin against you,” they reply to their farmer-descendant cousins. “You must learn to forgive and move on.”

However, a few of the lawyer’s descendants are feeling very badly about the way the story has developed. They ask, “What would Jesus have us do to acknowledge a history of wrongs? What does it look like to work toward reconciliation and justice for all? What is equal opportunity? What do we do with stolen property?”

Their Christian brothers and sisters try to help them think through it: “We can’t undo history. We, ourselves, didn’t wrong anyone. God has obviously been blessing this farm all along. Our wealth is well-deserved. We earned it ‘fair and square’.”

And so, the story develops on the same track as it has for generations. Each set of cousins continue in the path they inherited. They see no way to resolve the awkward and historical wrongs.

If you were born into either one of those family clans, what would you do?

The tears, the explanations, the sense of loss to the community had a huge impact on what I considered for my own life and beliefs. I knew that I never wanted to be the subject of such a grief process and such a separation from a community I valued. At that age, I did not have the courage to openly resist or challenge the system.

The result was that I became very skilled in undercover “operations”, learning how to spread my wings and try new things without becoming the object of any public censuring.

As I review a lifetime of experiences and observations about church practice and methods in relating to those who resist the systems, I find I have a very different set of interpretive lenses than I did at age 12.

That’s because I see something that I wouldn’t really acknowledge for a long time: That the church and individual Christians may actually be responsible for cases where a person rejects the church and is completely disillusioned with the “faith.”

The conventional wisdom among most Christians is that we should do our best, and if others reject the faith as we proclaim it, that is entirely their problem. They alone will suffer the consequences.

Actually, some of the harshest words of Jesus suggest to us quite a different scenario. Jesus seems to clearly put responsibility for others’ perception and openness to Jesus’ message on those who claim to embody that message.

Jesus: “Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.” From Matthew 18.

Jesus: “But woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.” From Matthew 23.

Most Christians I know do not accept any responsibility whatsoever for the anger and reactions of those who reject our faith. However, sometimes the culpability leads right back to us—those of us who do the speaking and acting in the church community.

The harshest words and judgments of Jesus were not aimed at sins like sexual immorality or even murder. He used most of his harsh words to condemn hypocrisy and religious abuses.

In my lifetime, I have often seen the church, or individual Christians, take strong and decisive action against young people who “rebel” against the system. I have never once observed the church, or individuals, publicly ask themselves in a serious way: “Are we, am I, responsible for the loss of faith and trust in that person?”

A close relative of mine rejected the church and the faith for many years. It turns out that the lead pastor in that church excommunicated my relative and others—all the while hiding personal issues of substance abuse, hypocrisy, deception, and spiritual abuses. The church, the conference, and fellow leaders all ignored the sin in that leader and endorsed the decisive excommunication of this youth who dared to resist the strict rules of the church.

How very different might be the outcomes in the lives of those who have been wounded and even destroyed by the hypocrisy and duplicity in the message and systems of the church—if only the sins of the leaders had first been addressed. Many youth and onlookers would surely have viewed the church’s message and the church’s systems through very different lenses.

After eating about six bites of rubbery, spindly broccoli fruit we jerked the plants out of the ground and left the area open. Some weeds are starting to grow there, but at least the ugly broccoli plants are no longer sneering at us.

Considering the pathetic results of our broccoli crop, it becomes obvious that gardeners are mostly fantasizing about the merits of broccoli. I’m quite sure that stories and photos of healthy heads of maturing broccoli are mostly contrived and distorted versions of garden realities.

That is because gardeners are mostly a self-absorbed lot. They thrive on making their gardens look clean and productive. They take photos of their healthy plants and pretend there are no worms or weeds or blight anywhere nearby.

Simple logic leads me to believe that my experiences with the plants and the elusive benefits of eating broccoli make it impossible to trust statements about the value of this food—or the possibility that a normal human being could successfully grow it.

People all over the world are being duped about the ease of growing their own broccoli. It is a rare occurrence that someone could actually benefit from the experience of planting and eating their own crop of this so-called superfood.

So which broccoli fertilizer have you read about? Did it actually seem effective? Tell me about your negative experiences with this fertilizer.

Do the best gardening books tell you anything that you have found to be untrue? What has this done to your confidence as a gardener? How are you recovering from the damage to your sense of knowledge and competence as an aspiring grower?

Do you know of any gardener who has made false claims about broccoli? What did they say? What did you do to counteract the effects of this misleading information?

What is your version of a superfood? Does anyone actually know what value superfoods have in the diet of the human race? Is there any reason to take this idea seriously?

I think we are back to eating whatever diet our body feels good on. There is no way to know how food affects your life, unless you don’t feel good eating it. If you feel good, keep doing what you’re doing.