My extended family has a new baby – not in the Mennonite side of the family but still, it has me thinking of baby books and nursery rhymes. And how sad it is that Mennonites don’t really have our own. Sure, Mennomedia has a small collection of Bible stories, modern parables and Mennonite history books … More Goodnight, Menno
Of all the Christmas hymns in all the hymn books in all the Mennonite homes and Churches, our favorite by far is that one about a rose. (When I say “our,” I do not, of course mean to speak for all Mennonites. There will be one or two Mennonites who dispute this generalization. In fact, … More Lo, How a Menno is Singing
Read part 1 of Miriam Toews and #Mennotoo here. If you are a Mennonite who has read Miriam Toews’ Women Talking, then the big question on your mind will be same one that’s on mine: Will the Mennonite community forgive Miriam Toews for having committed the grievous sin of conflating two different groups of Mennonites … More Miriam Toews and #Mennotoo (2)
In a note before the main text of Miriam Toews’ new novel,Women Talking, the author writes that the book is “a reaction through fiction of these true-life events, and an act of female imagination.” The events in question were a series of horrific rapes that occurred in a Bolivian Mennonite colony in the first decade … More Miriam Toews and #Mennotoo (1)
There comes a time in every Mennonite drinker’s life when they will be called upon to offer a toast. Well – not every Mennonite drinker’s — I’m not counting all the closet drinkers out there. Those who drink alone are free from this requirement and should just scroll ahead to the cocktail recipe. But for … More How to Toast like a Mennonite
When I was a grad student studying history, stories used to go around about rich Americans who would pay people like us to dig up their family histories. Though it sounded like a cash cow, the stories usually ended with having to deal with the ire of people discovering that their ancestors were neither luminaries … More Oh, look. Another Disillusioned Mennonite
My congregation has recently switched from wine to grape juice for communion. That’s right — something like 200 years after the temperance movement started urging Churches around North America to spurn the fermented grape, and 85 years after prohibition ended, the Church I attend finally decided to hop on that particular outmoded band wagon. To … More Griping over the Grape
This is it, folks. Time for the Mennonites of Ontario to flex our political clout. Just like the Amish PAC did down south in Pennsylvania. Except not like that at all. Ok – there are a few similarities to the 2016 US Presidential elections. Apart from the obvious comparisons between the Tory leader here and … More The Drunken Mennonite Gets Political
Some of my friends and family members are Mennonite Quilt Collectors. Or perhaps I should say that they are Mennonite Mennonite Quilt Collectors because they are Mennonites who collect Mennonite quilts. Which makes it sound like they just collect their own quilts. They don’t. My friends and family who collect Mennonite quilts are mostly Mennonites … More A Crisis of Quilting Proportions
Every spring a few people pop over to my Mennonite weddings post no doubt hoping to find advice on what to wear and what to expect at some Mennonite wedding they’ll be attending. It’s too bad, really, that weddings are their first impression of us. We’re actually much better at funerals. This isn’t because we … More Death of a Mennonite
