October 12
Good Morning,
Prayers
God,
you know everything and at all times. You can fill in the blanks:
Martha
Ron
Eric and Mary
Gaza children
Wanda
Prime Minister Carney
Pope Leo
Poole Church
Farmers
Floradale Church
Forgiveness
Repentance
love, only love. AMEN
May your light continue to shine in the world that you live, and where the Spirit is working.
Fred
black and white shadows
crush humanity’s freedom
am I complicit ? MPL 2025
October 8 and 9, 2025
Good morning,
The Last Supper
Most churches celebrate the last meal that Jesus has with his friends. Catholics can have bread and cup everyday. Most Mennonites do the meal twice or three times a year. The Quakers remember, but do not do the drinking and eating of the meal. How important is taking the bread and cup for your faith ? What happens to you when you take the sip and eat a small piece of bread ? Catholics believe that the cup becomes the actual blood of our Lord, and then the bread is transformed into the actual flesh of Jesus. There is great mystery in this, and by taking the communion elements the grace of God comes down upon you and in you. Mennonites are supposed to be in the right relationship with our sister and brothers before we can come to the table. John in his Gospel does not say that.
At the end of chapter 14 of the last meal, Jesus continues to confuse his friends. He is going away, but he will come back. I wonder if there was a harsh argument here with Peter, John and James and the others. ” Jesus, you said that you have brought the Kingdom of God to the world, and now you are saying you are going to leave… but then come back. ” ( and by the way, from a present-day disciple, you have not come back ). Teh Gospel does say that the disciples soemtimes get frustrated with Jesus,a nd that is just fine for a faithful person to say such a thing.
Jesus tells them he will not leave them alone . He will give them the ‘ Holy Spirit ‘. It is not a flesh and blood person, but a nebulous being that floats around the new community that is left without its leader. The Spirit is hard to describe. How does the Spirit play a role in your life ? Have you ever seen the Spirit move around, when you have not been able to hold it. ?
” I have told you now before it happens,
so that when it does happen you will believe.
I will not say much more to you, for the prince of this world is coming.
He has no hold over me,
but he comes so that the world may learn that I love the Father and do exactly what my Father has commanded me. ” John 14:29-31
The Holy Spirit will help us in this world where the prince of this world is winning ? Oh no !!
Fred
black and white shadows
crush humanity’s freedom
Am I complicit ?
September 29, 2025
Good afternoon,
In the beginning God created the world out of nothing. Genesis 1:1My brother John had another art show in Toronto the past two weeks. Shirley and Caleb and I went yesterday on the final day of the show.John writes about his work:
” In one Body of work, Redekop surgically shreds newspapers and magazines, and reconstitutes them into layered, sedimentary formations.”
A second current in his practice arises from geometry and repetition. Here Redekop builds compositions from small ’tile-like’ elements assembling them into larger structures through simple mathematics and additive process.”
I have seen his work using old newspapers but the second type of art he is doing I have not seen. He explained it to me in terms of going back to the quilts of his Mennonite heritage. My mom was a quilter, so it might have been in memory/homage to her. He starts with a small piece of wood block and puts it into a spiral motion, and the various parts form a complete mathematical formation. It is cool. Often he uses recycled wood material. He is very creative and thoughtful. I admire his imagination and skill using simple material. One of my heroes.
Shirley, Caleb , the piece, John and Fred.
Fred
black and white shadows
crush humanity’s freedom
am I complicit ? MPL 2025
October 4, 2025
Good evening,
I am taking a course on memoir writing from Canadian Mennonite University. The teacher, Mary Anne Loewen has written books about the topic, and edited books on people writing about both their moms and dads. It is a hybrid course with people there in person in Winnipeg, and also about 20 people on line, like myself. We had our first session on Wednesday.
There was some good practical advice already in the first session. Below is a quote from her powerpoint presentation:
” Why are we writing ?
1. To provide a legacy
2. In order to discover more about ourselves; to make sense of our lives.
3. To exact revenge, and/or to vindicate ourselves.”
The first two ideas seem good. If I write it for my wife, children, grandchildren and also my siblings, I think that would be beneficial. Secondly, as I write my memories hopefully I learn more of who I am, and that I find meaning and sense out of my many different experiences. It might be a difficult process, as I learn things about myself that I really do not like. This is very much a possibility, as I write and think about all the ages of my life.
But to exact revenge and vindicate myself. Exacting revenge is not in my Mennonite theology. At first I thought this was an awful thing to do. But, I guess it is part of being honest with my experiences and how I feel about them. The teacher said you will have to decide how you write about bad events, bad people and bad memories. You have to think about who will read the words , and is it worth the risk. It might be helpful to write, and then keep it to yourself. If I need healing, then it might be good to write the pain down. The other part, about vindication, is that people know “my” story, and I write “my ” side of the events. I am not sure I want to do that either. I do not want a ” I said, and they said ” back and forth stories .This memoir writing is going to be hard.
But, as she said the part about revenge, a memory immediately came to mind. My home church did not protect me from the fear and trembling around the second coming of Christ. I still carry that fear somewhere in my heart, mind and soul. It went on for years with constant fear and the Sunday School teaching. Would it be revenge or would it be honesty ? I guess I have to decide at some point how, and when I want to tell that story.
Is peace at hand in Gaza, and what kind of peace will it be ? AMEN.
Fred
October 6, 2025
Good morning,
I finished the last of my Top Ten books. The Russlander by Sandra Birdsell. She is a Metis/Mennonite from Manitoba. This story is a fictional story about the violence done to Mennonites from about 1914-2023. I believe it is her mother’s story. It is about a massacre of a rich Mennonite family. At the beginning of the book is a new item telling about the event, and all the people who died. The rest of the novel is told through the young girl, Katya, who survived. There are parts from the end of her life after she emigrated to Canada. So, throughout the book, you know what is going to happen.
The story is also my mother’s story. She was born in 1919 after the violence had begun. Her family had to move off their large farm estate to a small town in the Mennonite colony. Her memories were only about what others told her. My grandmother was the storyteller, and she told us about everyday life events like farming, cooking and nature. No one talked about the violence. They wanted to leave it behind ?\
In her storytelling, Birdsell is very critical of the Mennonite treatment of the Russian people. Mennonites treated them like slaves and saw them as less than human. They whipped their workers, and gave them less than enough food. Some people say this is why the Russians treated them so badly after the Revolution, taking their anger and violence out on the Mennonite wealth and security.
Thank you for listening to me reflect on the books that have shaped my life and faith.
Fred
black and white shadows
crush humanity’s freedom
am I complicit ? MPL 2025
Sunday October 5, 2025
Come to the mountain of the Lord, to worship the King of creation, salvation and sustaining power of the Spirit.
Prayers
Where are you God ? Your Psalmist asks this many times in his/her book ? ” I am not going to follow your call on my life,”
I remember
Moses
Jeremiah,
Esther
Isaiah
Jonah.
So many of your prophets and leaders said no to you, at first.
Even Paul has a question or two after getting hit with the Spirit on the road to Damascus
Thank you O God,
for your holy Scripture, the Bible,
that did not clean up all the difficult stories.
We have difficult lives throughout history,
and so the Bible reflects our existence,
as well,
as you walk with us in our challenging lives.
500 years ago
mennonites in the Ukraine
our faithful members in Benin, Congo, Ethiopia and Indonesia.
Thank you for being holy for us, God. AMEN
Waiting for peace to arrive in Gaza, in hope. AMEN
Fred
black and white shadows
crush humanity’s freedom
am I complicit ? MPL 2025
 | |||
September 16, 2025
Good morning,
A few months ago I picked the footwashing scene from the Gospel of John as my text going forward in my life. It is such an intimate event for Jesus and his disciples. but then there’s a problem. Peter does not want to have Jesus wash his feet. It upsets the fine evening. The dinner has all kinds of tension in it. Jesus wants to teach them humility with this act of service, but I am not sure it works.
As the evening continues in John 13:18-30 , Jesus says that someone in the room is the betrayer. This must have been a shock to the group except for Judas. He says it is not all of them in the room. Peter asks another disciple to ask Jesus who it is ? Jesus says it is the one whom I give the bread dipped in the wine. But there seems to be confusion about what it happening in the room. Judas was the treasurer of the group, so some thought Jesus was telling him to go buy the food for the evening.
“But no one at the meal understood why Jesus said this to him. Since Judas had charge of the money, some thought Jesus was telling him to buy what was needed for the festival, or to give something to the poor. As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night.” verses 28-30
Often I am like the disciples and am unclear what is going on in the church and in life. How can Israel continue to kill children, and the world community cannot stop them ? How can the war in Ukraine continue on the same pieces of land for so many years ? How can we ( and I am very guilty here ) continue to fly places knowing that fossil fuels make more pollution ? Are we stuck, or hope that someone else will fix the problems of war and climate. ? We must continue to advocate for change. It is our task.
The disciples did not always perceive Jesus’ teaching. Here at the beginning of the supper, they are fighting, and one of their own is now accused of conspiring to kill their saviour, their teacher and their rabbi. What next ??
Praying for all the leaders of all nations to work for a better peace . AMEN
Fred
black and white shadows
crush humanity’s freedom
am I complicit ?
MPL 2025
September 18, 2025
Good afternoon,
Book 9 of my top ten books… Wounded Healer by Henri Nouwen ( 1972 ) 97 pages”
He ( or She ) is called to be the wounded healer, the one who must look after his own wounds but at the same time be prepared to heal wounds of others …” page 82″ The wound of loneliness in the life of the minister hurts all the more, since he/she not only shares in the human condition of isolation , but also finds his/her professional impact on others is diminishing… ” page 85
It is the book that I have re-read the most times( it is the shortest of all of the ten ). It is about the calling of being a minister. I hope I have incorporated many of the ideas that Nouwen writes about here. Nouwen is pastoral, and is profound many times on every page. He was a Harvard professor, a missionary to the poor in Guatemala and for his final work he was in Toronto at a L’Arche community.
Since I retired in March, I am not a minister anymore. I am still a ministering person, so this reading of the book has a different perspective for me. I think I have learned some things over the years. I might have read the book for the first time in 1981. I realize that I am a broken person, but as I have realized over the years, it allows me to hear the brokenness of others.
Now onto the final book of my Top Ten…
Fred
eptember 15, 2025
Good afternoon,
There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
a time to be born and a time to die,…. Ecclesiastes 3:1-2
I have reflected on ‘time’ moving slow in my life a few times in the blog. Time changed for me about nine months following my heart attack. It has consistently been slow ever since. I was struck again by this sense of time in the last month. Normally, my pharmacist gives me two weeks of ‘blister ‘ packs of medication. I have been on much of the same meds since 2007. But in late August he/she gave me four weeks of meds. It seems to have taken forever to get through this one month supply, and I have another week to go ! Even though it has gone on for so many years, it still has not become normal, and it still feels strange and unnatural.
This is my life. I no longer ask why, but I do wonder what it might mean for my spiritual journey ? But after 17 years of slow time, it does not really matter. Some cancer patients have told me time slows down for them for a while, but then it goes away. And many people say that time goes faster as they get older. I say today, ‘ it is only September 15th ‘.
Maybe I am being offered more time to think ? I do not feel the need to do more. And I do not get any more done with all this extra time. The biblical prophets do not talk about time slowing down. Jesus doesn’t say anything about it. I wonder if his final week slowed down for him, as he and his disciples had to deal with so much conflict and tension. My body was traumatized by my diabetes and heart attack. Others have had the same experience and time marches on for them. Time walks in slow motion for me.
May peace quicken its pace in all places of war and violence. AMEN
Fred
black and white shadows
crush humanity’s freedom
am I complicit ? MPL 2025
September 22, 2025
Good evening,
It seems to me that I am posting later and later in the day. I wonder why ? I might still be getting used to a new rhythm in retirement. At the Mennonite Story four people have been on vacation, so I have been filling in a few more shifts ( like today ) than normal. When I was writing while still at Poole, the focus was the congregation. Maybe, I am still trying to see who is my audience, maybe it is still just for me.
I am really wondering about the situation in the United States and in Gaza being the reason my writing has been more challenging. I do not watch as much news, but what I hear is so distressing that it is hard to focus. Everyday Trump outdoes himself with something unbelievable. Today, he announced a connection between Tylenol and autism. He is not a doctor, but he makes the public statement. And the ruthless destruction of Gaza continues every day.
And I have been thinking about my life, and if a story, my story, needs to be written. I am a regular guy who has lived a relatively safe and unassuming life, mostly here in Canada. I have had some extraordinary health events in my life for sure, but why should I write my story ? I think it would be good for myself, and my family to have a record of my life events, and a little bit about my faith journey. I am still trying to figure it out to review my life in a public way, like a memoir. Why does my story need to be told ?
I keep coming back to the passage from the beginning of Luke’s Gospel.. He felt it important to write down an orderly account of the life of Jesus . This is Luke 1:1-4
‘ Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.’
Fred
Ponder Anew 