kar0ling

When I was in the Netherlands, every time our group of Mennonite trainees were together at a church service, we were called upon to sing; for, in the words of one Dutch pastor, "a group of Nederlanders just make noise, but a group of North American Mennonites is an instant choir." North Carolinian Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, a lead thinker in the growing new monasticism movement, knew to attribute improvised harmonies to Mennonites in the audience, when he invited those gathered to hear him speak in Winnipeg to join in an impromptu song. This past weekend, at a conference attended by mostly middle-aged male Mennonite pastors, mostly of "Mennonite ethnicity," we sang grace -- Praise God from Whom All Blessings Flow -- and the harmony was rich and strong in confident male voices. I love being a part of a tradition which can pull off a spontaneous rendition of the complicated interwoven harmonies of " Old 606 " or " Friedensfurst " -- or at least, us...

For three and a half years out of four, I care nothing about hockey. But then the Olympics comes. And suddenly, I care deeply that we (Canada) win. When the "Own the Podium" battle cry was beginning to feel embarrassingly underachieved, I consoled myself, and anyone who needed to hear it, that we were pretty much assured gold in women's hockey, we had darn well better medal in mens' hockey, and we'd likely medal in both mens' and women's curling. And those predictions did materialize to almost the best possible outcome. Scott Russell of CBC suggested out that Own the Podium was misinterpreted to mean things it wasn't intending. In an article entitled "Own the Podium: Lost in Translation," Russell argues that OtP was mean to encourage the very ideals the Olmpics are supposed to represent -- the struggle to do one's best, and the participation in competition together -- as envisioned by the modern Games' founder, Pierre de Co...