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Readers Write: October 2024

Love and Hate   I agree with Ryan Dueck’s insightful article, “A place for hate” (June 2024), particularly in today’s harsh world.   In Ecclesiastes 3, Solomon observed there is a season for everything, including love and hate. This may seem chilling. Yet, Solomon also acknowledged that God makes everything beautiful in its time. Finding peace requires acceptance of God’s timing. We are admonished not to hate evil people but their deeds when they mistreat people, destroy nature and dishonour God.   Almighty God vows that vengeance is his; he will repay, not us. We are called to live in harmony with one another. God wrote the Ten Commandments as a guide for believers to live rightly. God detests haughty eyes, a lying tongue, murder, wickedness, false witness and dissenters among his people.   Jesus says: love your enemies and pray for your persecutors. The greatest commandments are to love God and neighbour. He reminds us that the Lord sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous. Paul counselled Roman Christians to bless those who persecuted them and to feed hungry enemies.   In Alan Paton’s 1948 novel Cry, the Beloved Country, he warned fellow whites to start loving their black neighbours, lest they turn to hating. The Beatles song “Revolution” vowed against contributing to hate.   Fear and hatred are linked. They fester when we won’t forgive. Love and hate are important, intertwined emotions. They are not easy to discuss, but, somehow, we all need to do better in loving one another and God.   – Robert G. Proudfoot, Edmonton, Alberta (First Mennonite Church)   Accept change   I write in response to “From fresh cabbage to ‘shovel- ready industrial land’” (August 2024). Even farmers can and must accept change. It is challenging, but we can survive when we all work together and people have a simple basic roof over their heads. It’s forward-looking.   Creator God will provide in due time.   Trust. Faith. Hope. Love. With lots of charity thrown into the mix.   – Ginny Shank Martin, Kitchener, Ontario (Waterloo North)    In praise of hymnals   Something unexpected and beautiful happened at our small Mennonite church last Sunday—we sang out of hymn books. I love singing out of the book, and I dislike singing “off the wall.” Here’s why.   Firstly, I am not a good singer. When I hold my own hymn book at a certain angle, I can hear my own voice better and there is hope that I can find the alto notes. Secondly, I can see the notes on the page better than on the wall. This also gives me a fighting chance to find my note.   Thirdly, when I hold my own book, I can quietly focus on the words I want, regardless of what others are singing. Let me explain. For years I faithfully attended church wearing a happy mask even though I was profoundly unhappy, trying to negotiate my way in a bad marriage. It took all I had sometimes just to walk through the door on a Sunday morning. I was out of gas for prayer. I was out of gas to listen to a sermon. Sometimes the rich music of a beloved hymn was all that fed me. While everyone around me had moved on to verse 3 or 4, I could quietly re-read the words of a comforting verse. This was often my inspiration during that time.   Those days are over, but I still want to savour words that touch me rather than move on.   Singing “off the wall” is commonplace and probably here to stay, but I’ll always be the one holding a hymn book because I made sure to hunt one up in the supply cupboard before the service.   - Dori S Daley Mehl, Turner Valley, Alberta (Trinity Mennonite Church)    Credit to Bill Janzen   At a time when Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) is getting some criticism for past HR decisions, it is also a good time to remember one of MCC’s finest—Bill Janzen of MCC’s Ottawa Office (“Bill Janzen honoured,” August 2024). Service in the name of Christ provided effectively; recognition rightfully honoured.   - Peter Andre S, Chilliwack, B.C.   Representing all in transition   What a bold decision to address the issue of those who leave the Mennonite Church. You represent all concerned, including the pastor, those who stay, those who leave and those who are still in the decision-making process. It is a call from God to be gentle, kind and loving in these transitions.   – John Peters, Kitchener, Ontario (Waterloo North Mennonite Church)    Plant-based eating   With thanks to Zach Rempel for the wisdom of his sobering and articulate insights (“A recipe to reverse the economy,” August 2024), it seems short-sighted to contemplate the negative impacts of unrestrained growth without focusing specific attention on the ways in which our patterns of food consumption contribute to the environmental degradation of the planet.   A substantial body of evidence points to the harmful role that raising livestock plays in the widespread destruction of rainforests, which are often and convincingly referred to as the lungs of the planet. Plant-based eating makes a substantial and proven contribution to improved personal health and longevity, as well as the broader well-being of our planet.   - Paul Thiessen, MD, Vancouver, B.C.   Grief of displaced churches   I am writing in response to the recently published article “Finding a home in the MB conference” by Will Braun (September 2024). The article offers attention and curiosity to a church that chose to move from the Mennonite Church to the Mennonite Brethren church. Yet within our Mennonite family are people who have found their new home here, not by choice but by being rendered homeless elsewhere.   I am the pastor of Jubilee Mennonite Church, which was voted out of fellowship with the MB church in March 2023. (Thoughts and views expressed here are my own, not Jubilee’s.) Less than a year later, our neighbour church (River East Church) was also voted out of fellowship by the MB conference.   Both churches desired a continued relationship with the MBs, and that desire was deeply disappointed. In light of our release, we found a home in Mennonite Church Manitoba (a continued relationship for Jubilee; a new one for River East).   I can’t help but see the absence of stories of the grief of loss from being removed from fellowship. We did not all get to choose how we moved locations. I would invite CM to apply the same attention and curiosity they afforded the church in the article to the churches facing the grief of displacement. How we tell those stories and whose story we emphasize matters.   - Janessa Nayler-Giesbrecht, Winnipeg, Manitoba (Jubilee Mennonite Church)   Leaving over inclusion hurts   As a former congregant, I have a lot of respect for Brent Kipfer (“Finding a home in the MB conference,” September 2024). I know him as a kind and wise man who I’ve known since childhood in St. Agatha Mennonite Church.   We left St. Agatha when I was 10 and attended another congregation, River of Life, the congregation I was discipled and baptized in. After I went to CMU to study theology, I heard that River of Life was also leaving over 2SLGBTQ+ inclusion.   As a queer person, it hurts to see people I love and respect leave the conference over my inclusion and that of other 2SLGBTQ members.   Am I so evil that you can’t be in the same denomination as me? You literally taught me my faith, but now can’t break bread with me?   I’m blessed to have found a home where I am loved and respected. Where my queerness is a blessing, not something to hide. Where the faith I was taught can be passed on to my children. Where we are welcome.   -Tim Wenger       Share this page: