Ain't Got Time to Fix The... Shingles?

For a bit of a health update (am I getting old or what?) here's part of the weekly e-blessing I sent to my adult children today:

The older I get, the more I'm grateful for how blessed I've been. Life that has been good way beyond deserving, with my wonderfully loving family and church family, good health, meaningful work and wonderful opportunities to grow and serve.

All this became even more vivid in my mind when I noticed some strange, ugly looking sores on my chest and my back last Tuesday. I had been experiencing some itchiness in those areas for about a week but had never seen anything like this. I first thought I might be experiencing a recurrence of my one and only diagnosis of "cancer" twenty-plus years ago, involving a small spot on my thigh that turned out to be an easily removed case of basal cell carcinoma. But this looked far worse, and I was thinking something far more serious, like melanoma (!). Strangely enough, I found myself not only feeling the dread of a big "What if...", but a sense of peace in having enjoyed a long and truly satisfying life and feeling quite ready to go if that were my lot.

My good skin specialist, Dr. Carolyn Miller, whom I got to see Thursday, took one good look and immediately said, "Oh, you've got a case of shingles." Much as I hated to hear that (having heard all kinds of horror stories about the condition) I felt a great sense of relief as well. I hadn't expected this diagnosis, since I had gotten a shingles shot over two years before, but was told that would at least help me experience fewer and less prolonged symptoms, and was prescribed a medication that seems to be helping.

I guess it's all a part of growing older. It's life. There is spring and there is autumn, the season I'm in now.

Here's a quote by Parker Palmer, a Quaker writer I've come to appreciate. It's from his book, "Courage To Lead":

"This hopeful notion that living is hidden within dying is surely enhanced by the visual glories of autumn. What artist would ever have painted a season of dying with such a vivid palette if nature had not done it first? Does death possess a beauty that we - who fear death, who find it ugly and obscene-cannot see? How shall we understand autumn's testimony that death and elegance go hand in hand?

For me, the words that come closest to answering those questions are the words of Thomas Merton: There is in all visible things ... a hidden wholeness. In the visible world of nature, a great truth is concealed in plain sight: diminishment and beauty, darkness and light, death and life are not opposites. They are held together in the paradox of the hidden wholeness."  

Love and blessings,

Dad

Advertising a False Gospel

One of the problems we have in our society is that we have an enormous capacity for producing goods, but a limited number of people to buy them. So we’ve developed a huge advertising industry aimed at persuading people to buy more and more of what they don’t need and can’t afford.

Christopher Decker, in an article in the Wall Street Journal called “Selling Desire, Why Chastity is Bad for Business," notes that there was a time when advertising emphasized thrift, durability, and economy. Choices were usually made around how good a product was and how long it would last.  But a consumer society has to reverse these values, he notes, because if advertising is to succeed, and business thrive, people have to be convinced that desires alone are sufficient reasons to buy something and that all of our passions are to be indulged now, rather than denied or postponed. So the very notion of chastity has to go, he says, because that represents a mindset that is opposite from a throw away, consumer culture that urges us to get our our Visa cards to buy and use stuff with abandonment, and then simply discard it for whatever you like even better.

According to Dr. Sut Jhally of the University of Massachusetts, the right question to ask about how a given commercial affects us is not how much it influences whether we buy a particular product, but how advertising as a whole affects our buying into a whole different set of values that are counter to the ones we profess to believe. Modern advertising promotes a magical way of thinking, he says, making fantastic promises about what certain products will do for us, like offer us incredible happiness, gain the gloating admiration of all kinds of desirable people, and transform us into an instant, spectacular success. Consumerism promises all, and as such becomes a kind of religion that replaces the faith we actually claim to live by
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We need to teach ourselves and our children to talk back to the blatantly false messages we’re all hearing on television and other media every day. Or better yet, just unplug ourselves from the barrage of untruths we're being bombarded with and read or tell them some good messages of our own.

Mennonites and Amish—Ten Myths and Misbeliefs

1. Aren't Mennonites just a more progressive group of Amish?  No, “Anabaptists,” not Amish, are the ancestors of today’s Mennonites. Anabaptists emerged in western Europe in 1525, nearly 150 years before Jacob Amman and his Amish branch of the movement. Anabaptists advocated a “free church” based on voluntary baptism and church membership. While supporting many of the reforms of Martin Luther in Germany and Ulrich Zwingli and John Calvin in Switzerland, they promoted what was then the radical belief in complete freedom of religion, and were against requiring membership in any established state church, either Protestant or Catholic. They saw mandatory infant baptism, which in those days registered children as both members of the church and citizens of the state, as violating the freedom of individuals to choose faith for themselves.

2. Does the term “Anabaptist” mean “anti-baptist”? No, Anabaptist was the nickname given to all “free church” dissenters, and means “re-baptizer.”  Early Mennonites tended to reject the term, as it identified them with a despised and diverse movement which included a small minority that did advocate violent revolution.

3. Was the name “Mennonite” chosen to honor Menno Simons as its founder?  No, the peaceful Anabaptists preferred simply being called “Brethren” (well before  the beginning of the “Church of the Brethren,” founded in 1704). Mennonite” was first a nickname but one that eventually gained acceptance some years after ex-Catholic priest Menno Simons of Friesland joined the movement in 1535, ten years after it had begun in Switzerland. So Menno was not its “founder,” but the group became identified with him as one of its most influential and long-lived leaders.

4. Have Mennonites always been quiet and withdrawn? Anabaptists were at first very outspoken in their attempts to bring about more radical reform in the church, but after being rejected and severely persecuted over the first 150 years of their existence (by Protestant as well as Roman Catholic authorities) later generations did become known as “the quiet in the land.” The deaths and suffering of thousands of early free church proponents led many Mennonites and Amish to seek asylum in the new world.

5. Why have the “plain” Mennonites and Amish maintained such a distinctive culture? While they have always stressed living simply and modestly, early members of the movement dressed no differently from any other 16th and 17th century European peasants. What makes their way of life distinctive today is how and to what extent they have successfully preserved and adapted certain existing patterns of attire from their European past.

6. Could Old Order and conservative Mennonites and Amish be considered cults? No, in that their confessions of faith are very much in line with traditional Christian creeds. Where they differ is in how they apply their faith to everyday life. For example, most of them (plain and otherwise) have maintained their nearly 500-year conviction that Christian should not take part in harming or killing others, even in war, and that the church should use no stronger form of coercion or discipline than excommunication. They have also traditionally been committed to living a simple, self-disciplined life, attempting to follow the example and teachings of Christ and his early followers. Thus they resemble monastic communities more than cults, and some early Anabaptists were in fact influenced by monasticism. Unfortunately, groups that are serious about not being “conformed to the world” are also often prone to dissent and division within their ranks, hence the unfortunate number of divisions.

7. Doesn’t it take dictator-style leaders to keep members of more conservative (“plain”) Amish and Mennonites in line? Contra-cultural patterns of appearance and behavior are preserved primarily by the influence of strong, nurturing families and through close ties to caring faith communities. Amish and “plain” Mennonites actually have less hierarchical forms of church government than do most denominations, and their ministers are typically unpaid persons chosen by “lot” from their own congregations.

8. Don’t most young people in more conservative churches grow up wanting to rebel and leave their faith? Some do, of course, but larger numbers are staying than ever, resulting in “plain” churches being among the fastest growing Mennonite groups in the US, soon to outnumber their more progressive Mennonite cousins.

9. Are most Mennonites in the Shenandoah Valley members of the more conservative groups? No. While Old Order Mennonites are the fastest growing and most visible group, their total numbers in this area are under 1500, while there are some 4000 Valley members of the more “liberal” Virginia Mennonite Conference, a part of the Mennonite Church USA (as is Eastern Mennonite University).

10. Are most of the world’s Mennonites found in North America and Europe? No longer. As a result of mission efforts by more progressive evangelical Mennonite groups, there are now far more Mennonites in Africa, Central and South America, and Asia than in the US and Canada. This is not true of Old Order Amish and Old Order Mennonites, however, since they do not actively evangelize or proselytize others, but they will accept outsiders as members if they are willing to commit to their way of life.
                                      

So Long, Saigon Cafe

Today, after 15 years of serving a blend of great Vietnamese food and gracious hospitality, Ty and Bich Truong are closing the doors of their Saigon Cafe on East Market Street for good. Not that their unique restaurant hasn’t attracted enough customers. The past several days have seen nothing but long lines of loyal patrons waiting to enjoy just one more taste of the Truongs’ fare.

The couple just decided it was time to take a break from the 12-14-hour days they've been putting in every Monday to Saturday, 52 weeks a year, and to try something new. They also plan to put their house up for sale and move to California sometime soon to be closer to some of their grown children.

Our own ties with Ty and Bich go back to 1979, when the church I was serving as pastor, Zion Mennonite near Broadway, sponsored Ty and several of his siblings and cousins as refugees. They were among the many “boat people” who had made a perilous escape from Ho Chi Minh City after the fall of Saigon to escape the difficult conditions in that war torn country. With some 650 people in a vessel measuring 90 feet by 40 feet, they somehow made it to an overcrowded refugee camp in Thailand.

There Ty met Bich and the two fell in love and were married. Since their marriage wasn’t recognized by the U.S., Ty had to come here without his new wife, who went to France to be with relatives until she was finally able to rejoin her husband in 1982--through the efforts of the Mennonite Central Committee’s refugee resettlement program. It was my privilege to perform an official American wedding ceremony for them at our church later that year.

I recently spoke with Ty about their experience of adjusting to a new world. “I get really upset when I hear people complain about their lot here,” he said, with deep feeling. “This is heaven compared to what we’ve been through. What do people want, something better than heaven?”

Thanks, Ty and Bich, for all the courage, hard work and contagious optimism you’ve demonstrated through all these years. We’ll miss you a lot, but your warm spirit and your tasty entrees will be memories we’ll savor forever.

The Great Outdoor Wood Furnace Project

In my spare time (?) I've been getting the following word out to as many of my friends as possible:

SMALL LOANS FOR A GREAT OUTDOOR WOOD FURNACE

At the September 21, 2011, meeting of the Board of Gemeinschaft Home, a recovery and re-entry program for 25-30 ex-offenders, I volunteered to find up to 20 persons in our community willing to make an interest-free three-year loan of $1000 or more each in order to have a top-of-the line, virtually pollution-free $18-20,000 wood furnace installed at the house. This would enable the Home to have a system in place by this winter that would provide all the heat and hot water needed for both of its buildings and save the program literally thousands of dollars each year.

Currently, there is a plentiful supply of good oak wood available to at nearby EMU's Park Woods, where a number of mature dead trees are in need of harvesting. The plan is to solicit volunteers from churches and elsewhere this fall to help residents cut, split and haul enough of this (free) wood on a designated Saturday to provide for the first winter's needs.. Board member Sam Miller already has estimates from local dealers for this kind of furnace, and there is a great location for it and for wood storage on a level area on the upper (east) side of the property.

Monthly natural gas bills in the winter are typically $1400 or more, so the savings will be significant and ongoing from the beginning. This project will also provide additional work for residents over time, and fueling the furnace 2-3 times daily during the colder months could be assigned as a routine chore shared by the men.

I already have positive responses from four members of our board and four other individuals, and my goal is to get enough commitments from other friends and supporters in the community by the end of this week to raise the remaining amount. Investors money will be returned through savings in energy costs--and of course through equity in our property in case Gemeinschaft were to close its doors.

But we are not closing! With the help of some exciting recent staff changes, the program is going forward with a new sense of urgency, energy and mission. Levels of morale and motivation on the part of our residents are at a new high.

Please contact me either by e-mail <harvyoder@gmail.com> or in person, if you can help or if you have any questions.

Thanks!

Going on the "Amish Diet"

 

In light of studies showing that members of Old Order Amish communities have significantly fewer cases of obesity, diabetes and related health problems, some have suggested that an “Amish diet” might work even better than, say, an Atkins diet.

In short, it would mean eating hearty meals every day but being as physically active as are typical members of Amish farm families. Their meals routinely include lots of home grown meats, fruits and vegetables, but also some very tasty desserts. But all of that is accompanied by hours of good manual labor (and the use of far less fossil fuel) in the growing, preserving, preparing and transporting of food, in making many of their own clothes and otherwise taking good care of their households and farms.

In his book, "Great Possessions, An Amish Farmer's Journal," David Kline describes some of the simple everyday pleasures of living on their 120-acre Holmes County, Ohio, farm, where the entire family works together to grow and market food and take care of the land that is so vital to their way of life. Without the distractions of radio, television, computers, e-mail, or cell phones, something as ordinary as cleaning out their horse barn becomes an opportunity for Kline and his teenage son to experience rigorous exercise while engaging in an extended man-to-man conversation, something that happens all too seldom between most fathers and sons in our faster paced urban society.

While not many of us urbanites will be able to live like the Amish, a healthier, lower-tech lifestyle might involve the following:

1) less mowing and more hoeing--and gardening
2) less shopping at crowded malls and more sharing of home produced goods and resources with our neighbors
3) less dependence on far-off corporate farms and factories and more reliance on home and locally grown products
4) less dependence on passive forms of media entertainment and more involvement in physically active and socially interactive work and play
5) less riding and more walking and biking

We could call it the latest, state-of-the-art "Amish Diet and Workout Plan."

P. S.  I grew up in an Amish family and community but have been a member of the Virginia Conference Mennonite church most of my adult life.

Human Trafficking: A Growing Form of Modern Slavery

Oh, freedom,
Oh, freedom,
Oh, freedom over me, over me,
And before I’d be a slave
I’d be buried in my grave,
And go home to my Lord and be free.
                                            - Negro spiritual

Does “modern slavery” sound like an impossibility?

Not to a newly formed local group called the “The Shenandoah Valley Justice Initiative,” a faith-based group of modern day abolitionists committed to combating this evil, commonly referred to as human trafficking. 

In the book “In our Backyard: A Christian Perspective on Human Trafficking in the United States,” author Nita Belles cites a report from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that more than 100,000 children are victims of this modern form of the slave trade in the US alone, and that almost all trafficked children are eventually forced into hard labor and prostitution.

Around the world, as many as 12 million children are trafficked every year, according to her research. In Mexico alone, more than 16,000 children are working in the sex trade, most of them at tourist destinations. And in Southeast Asia, at least 30 percent of sex trade workers are between the ages of 12 and 17.

Child trafficking typically begins with a stranger visiting a village and offering housing and a good-paying job in the city. In an effort to support his or her family, the child leaves and promises to send money home, only to become the victim of horrendous mistreatment and abuse.

According to Lynne Hybels, cofounder of the Willow Creek Community Church in Illinois, in an article in the June 2011 issue of Sojourners magazine, a club owner in Chicago can pick up a phone and “mail order” three beautiful girls from Eastern Europe. Two weeks later a fresh shipment of three Slavic girls will be at his club. She also cites Rachel Durchslag, director of the Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation, as saying that the average age of entry into prostitution is 14.  And all of this doesn’t even begin to address the thousands of other workers around the world who earn only enough to keep them alive for one more day of work under dehumanizing conditions.

The SVJI is sponsoring the showing of the documentary “Nefarious, Merchants of Souls,” Tuesday, October 4, at 7:00 p.m. at the Potter’s House Worship Center at 1911 West Market Street in Harrisonburg (just west of Thomas Harrison Middle School).

I urge all concerned people to attend. And to invite your friends to join you.

Check out their new web site at www.valleyjustice.org, or contact them at svjiva@gmail.com (540-801-0519).