kar0ling

In my job, I have opportunity (and feel slightly obligated) to attend other churches. The experience of walking into an unfamiliar worshipping community has become quite familiar. So there’s less raw emotion & fear of rejection, and more clinical detachment & analysis of patterns in my approach to the situation. Frankly, as a single person, I’m fairly accustomed to walking into places by myself, and as an ambivert, I’m equally comfortable with lurking around the edges without speaking to anyone and being greeted and dragged into conversation. As far as churches in my denomination go, I generally know a fair bit about the church and its pastor(s). So I recognize that my perspective may not be shared by others. I realized, walking into a strange church last Sunday, that I was kind of a “mystery worshipper” – a stranger who goes into a service and provides commentary on it. Perhaps unlike some mystery worshippers, there are certain theological emphases I look for in churc...

Have I fallen prey to my own pet peeve, defeating my own argument? Is four-part harmony singing "culturally" Mennonite, like paska and schmaunfat? I argue vociferously, no. It may be true that choral-quality congregational singing is a feature of mainly of North American churches populated mainly by socio/ethno/cultural or DGR/S Mennonites, but this is a tradition which, regardless of the original intent in its adoption, has theological value. In this age, we are re-learning to appreciate visual imagery in worship, but through most of Anabaptist history, the values of simplicity and humility stripped ostentatious beauty from our religious practice...except in our singing. And even that is a recent development, the four-part tradition only arising in the 19th century (I think). The tremendous importance I ascribe to singing fully harmonized hymns is not based in conservatism or tradition but in its living expression of our value of community. Through part-singing, sim...

“Clark – is that even Mennonite?!” It’s a bit disheartening that we’re still saying things like this today when we’ve worked so hard to convey that a Mennonite is someone who subscribes to an Anabaptist perspective on faith, not a person named Penner who likes farmer sausage. But is does make a good story – and the Right Honourable Joe Clark handled it with aplomb.  “I am a Mennonite by aspiration,” he said. Amid the many definitions of Mennonite, this statement might still be discouraging, but in the context of Mennonite Central Committee ’s 50 th anniversary gala , it was just right. Especially as the former prime minister remembered how Mennonite churches, with the help of MCC, “did more for the boat people” than anyone else in Canada during the refugee crisis of the late 1970s, early 1980s. Clark praised several other noteworthy MCC responses to world problems, like its work through the CanadianFoodgrains Bank to not only provide food relief during the ...

Blue sky 60 PSI Tall and skinny Hello, spring! AKA, after spending more than an hour with degreaser and a toothbrush, splattering the walls and floor with fine black grime, I managed to partially degunk my chain. It's time to put the fat lady away for the season and bump over the streets on this slender girl. Repacking my headset and bottom bracket with grease can wait -- it needn't prevent me from waking my Skyline from hibernation. 

It changes the whole experience of biking , said one of the guys at the shop. He wasn't just talk about the extra stability and snow-busting power of the extra-wide tires. Having had my bike for a week at that point, I thought I knew what he was talking about. Sort of. Sometimes, I wish I could just have a normal ride like old days without someone commenting on my fat bike , he said ruefully. I haven't had quite the extreme experience he refers to, but the interactions I now have around winter cycling are certainly very different than with my mountain bike. Then, people would ignore me "in person" (that is, in my building, or when I was locking up), and swear at me from their cars. Now, everybody has to comment. Cool tires! (Look at the width, people; I didn't just switch these out with whatever the store put on a mountain bike -- the whole frame had to be redesigned to fit these puppies.) Now that's a good bike for winter. (As though you would kn...

OR I do not think [that word] means what you think it means It has become a weekly, almost daily occurrence. A how-to article or blog post will come across my path – usually in my facebook feed – touting the wonders of winter cycling. Not one to learn a lesson quickly, I keep clicking on them. Inevitably, I navigate away in frustration. It’s fun! It’s easy! Anyone can do it! You don’t need special gear; you can even look chic while you’re doing it. Oh, and get off your high horse – being a winter cyclist doesn’t make you special. This is the message of all these articles. Lies, I tell you. Now, far be it from me to dissuade people from cycling, but I think we may need different words for the varying circumstances that fall under the umbrella term “winter cycling.” Take Vancouver and Seattle, for example, where bicycle enthusiasts will talk about “winter” cycling. I’ll grant you that a bone-chilling, relentless, drenching rain is its own special brand of miserable to bi...

There’s a boil water advisory in Winnipeg tonight. I can’t help but feel like this is a test.  Given the news about Winnipeg lately, I see a certain poetic justice in this development, whether it’s some machinations of new mayor Brian Bowman to take a litmus of Winnipeggers’ true resolve to work toward mending relationships with First Nations people in our province, or whether it’s God giving us just the littlest taste of the hardship our fellow citizens face. Awareness has been growing for some time that we truly have a problem in this city. I think the human rights museum began to bring to some Winnipeggers’ attention the irony that such an edifice was to rise on land that is still contested to be stolen from First Nations people and sacrilegiously used by the oppressors. The Idle No More movement, the Eighth Fire tv series on CBC, Michael Champagne’s Meet Me at the Belltower initiative, and the election of MLA Kevin Chief have all been steps of Aboriginal people asse...