A Selfie of the 89 year Old Fool with Rhoda over my shoulder
While reviewing the printed analisys of three vials of my blood my physician reported that my blood count and cholesterol, kidney, liver and other bodily functions had either bettered or held their own. I’m pleased with my 89-year-old health.
Sauder Concert Hall (exterior)
On Friday evening My Joy and I went to a program called”Earthtones” produced by Goshen College choirs. They brought colorful costumes, dances, and tunes collected from cultures from around the earth. (Programs aired in Goshen College’s Sauder Hall are live-streamed to make them available to a wider audience.) If the Mennonite Church is as sensitive to the cultures within and without it, it is in good health.
Lead Pastor, Phil Waite
On Sunday Morning My Joy and I went to the church service at College Mennonite Church and to the carry-in at noon by the Borderlands group at the church. Borderlands embodies some of the ideals in the mission statement of the recent Anabaptist Identity Conference. For example: be a forum where questions can be asked without fear of reprisal, be able to think outside of the box and question that which we’ve been told. Health would be the result, if the AIC and Borderlands could merge with these ideals intact.
That Sunday evening My Joy and I went to the 53rd Annual Mennonite School Council Choral Festival. Fifteen member high schools sent more than 450 youth to the festival in Sauder Hall. The theme was “Music in my Soul”.
The Center of the Mass Choir as it takes the platform
Each of the fifteen choirs presented a piece from their repertoires, and then the choirs joined together in one mass choir under the direction of a master director, Dr. Eugene Rogers from the University of Michigan. Diversity of skin color, names not easily recognized as ethnic Mennonite, and the multiplicity of beautiful sounds glowed with their contribution to the future health of the Mennonite Church.
But, today “The Mennonite” brought news of a development that continues to test the health and wholeness of the Mennonite Church. A new network is organizing itself by appointing staff, employing a staff person, and otherwise institutionalizing itself while preparing to roll out invitation to conferences and congregations to join it. The Old Fool’s mind is filled with questions about the new development.
I thoroughly enjoyed the program at Souder Hall. It boasted my faith in the Mennonite Church of the future. It truly was music in my soul.
We hoped and prayed that MC-USA could remain one body. It’s clear (I think) that we will split-are splitting-Right and Left. NOW, we must give ourselves to loving care for each other. Can we give ourselves to working “across the isle” as it were. Organization matters but the body of Christ is larger than MC USA and this new organization presently forming.
A few years ago our congregation-Blossom Hill-needed to move from Lancaster Conference to ACC because Lancaster could not at that time ordain our women Pastors. Our Conference Ministers Warren Tyson and Keith Weaver planned a wonderful service of lament which was healing to all of us. I am confident that our leaders know how to lead us in this journey. Thesis and antithesis is easy. Loving lament might help us to synthesis next time.