Colleges in national spotlight

For those who haven’t seen it yet, the Associated Press wrote a story about Goshen (Ind.) College’s decision to beginning playing the national anthem before some sports games.

It's a good piece overall, though Goshen’s close connection to Mennonite Church USA could have been stated more clearly, as “ties” could be loose or strong, historical or present.

And the use of the word “ban” is misleading — playing the Star-Spangled Banner is not among the activities prohibited on campus.

Goshen and other Anabaptist schools also got national attention recently for a different practice — that of action to care for the environment. “Green Awakenings,” a report by Renewal, a national Christian student environmental group, lists Canadian Mennonite University in Winnipeg, Man.; Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va.; Goshen College; Messiah College in Grantham, Pa.; and Tabor College in Hillsboro, Kan., among more than 50 campuses showing leadership in environmental concern efforts. — Celeste Kennel-Shank

More complicated than just swinging a hammer

After several weeks of waiting, we finally got the good news. Our youth group has a spot in the Habitat for Humanity Collegiate Challenge program this summer. We are headed to Kentucky for a week of building houses.

I like to think that we did not just dive headfirst into this service trip. Our group was intentional about assessing why we serve, hearing stories from former long-term volunteers in our congregation, considering where we might go, and what impact location would have on the effectiveness of our trip.

We finally settled on teaming up with Habitat in Morehead, Ky., more than 400 miles from Chicago. The trip fit two of the criteria that our group sought — the work is hands-on and happens somewhere new, and kind of far away.

However, those elements we wished for present some of the biggest problems. None of us are experienced at building homes. Any experience we do have likely comes from previous service trips. This makes us not terribly effective builders. Add to this that we will be doing this building in a culture with which we are not necessarily familiar. And we’ll spend a considerable amount of time, money and fuel to get to this new place.

In light of these realities, is our service trip pointless? It is worthwhile to spend all this money to go somewhere and do work that we are not really qualified to do? Wouldn’t it be better for us to just send all that money to a professional in the area, who could do the job much more efficiently?

This service trip exposes some of our privilege — the funds to take a trip and the ability to take a week off from our normal lives. The service portion comes from good intentions, but can also act as a means of appeasing any guilt we might have about being in the position to take such a trip.

However, I have hope that there will be more to this trip than just a chance to travel. That after our group has taken the time (and gas) to drive across the country and encounter real people, from a different culture and circumstances than us, we will return changed to our lives of comfort. I hope that we can be intentional about recognizing our privilege and considering how we should, or should not live with it.

That is work that will take much longer than a week. That is work that is much more difficult than swinging a hammer or painting a house, even in the heat of a Kentucky summer.

Strange saga of Floyd Landis

Olympic speedskaker Cindy Klassen is the athlete Mennonites love to claim right now. Floyd Landis, not so much.

Landis’ conservative Mennonite upbringing became a key part of his backstory when he won the 2006 Tour de France, cycling’s most prestigious race.

In 2006, a ruling against Landis by the Court of Arbitration for Sport appeared to be the final word in his strange saga of being stripped of the Tour de France title for breaking anti-doping rules.

This week the Landis story took another weird turn. A French judge issued a warrant for his arrest in connection with alleged computer hacking at a French lab that held the data implicating Landis of cheating.

Landis continues to deny all the allegations. But his defense, and defenders, appear to have lost a lot of steam. “Trust But Verify,” a blog sympathetic to Landis that collected information and commentary on his case, closed Dec. 31, 2008.

A little over a year ago, a San Diego Union-Tribune story chronicled Landis’ “downward spiral,” including financial troubles and the break-up of his marriage.

He's a “Mennonite kid from Pennsylvania,” the reporter wrote, whose “life careen[ed] off a mountain road in a tangle of handlebars and spokes.” — Paul Schrag

Stepping up care for creation

Hours of sledding with the youngest to the most experienced sliders, rounds of charades and euchre, sharing slower meals and worshiping with an extended church family — could there be a better way to spend a winter weekend?

It is difficult for me to think of one.

Our winter retreat is one of the ways that our urban congregation escapes the concrete and metal of the city. Camp Menno Haven, in Tiskilwa, Ill., provides just the haven we needed. The snow-covered hills, the frozen lake, an abundance of trees and even some animal tracks that were not left by an alley cat all give us the chance to dwell and rejuvenate in God’s creation.

Camp Menno Haven, like other camps I have visited, should be applauded for being mindful about creation care. Compost and recycling are available and well-advertised. The Lutheran camp I attended for many years has a camp garden that supplements the weekly menu and a human-powered plumbing system, which makes campers aware of the energy and water costs of each flush or shower by requiring various numbers of pumps to operate toilets, sinks and showers.

Yet, there is room for improvement. Large portions of meat were served at nearly every meal during our retreat. While it was likely delicious to the non-vegetarians in the group, serving meat in such quantities is not environmentally responsible. The modern process for raising meat uses significant amounts of water, grains and fossil fuels. The final products are more than just the steaks that are served. Concentrated animal waste from factory farms contaminates water supplies. The livestock industry also emits considerable amounts of greenhouse gases.

Am I implying that all camps with a love for creation should switch to a strict vegetarian menu? No. It can be hospitable for camps to offer familiar foods to camp goers who may enjoy meat as a part their diet. Especially hungry camp goers who have taken advantage of the sledding and cross-country skiing.

However, it is reasonable to expect that organizations that demonstrate their love for the Earth in many creative ways can be inventive in the kitchen and reduce their use of environmentally costly meat.

Debating the anthem

Mennonite Weekly Review's Web site has received 68 comments and counting about Goshen (Ind.) College's decision to begin playing the national anthem in mid-March. That's likely the most we've had on any topic since we introduced comments in July 2008. Opinions have been mixed about the policy: some are in favor of it, many are against it and some question why the issue matters at all.

And our Web site is not the only place where people debating the decision are turning. Jesus Radicals, a network in which most participants are Anabaptists, is collecting signatures on a petition asking Goshen to reverse its decision. More than 450 people have signed since it was posted Feb. 8, more than half of them from other Christian traditions, according to Andy Alexis-Baker, one of the petition's writers. At least 120 are Goshen students or alumni.

Some of who have signed the petition have joined hundred of others in a 680-member Facebook group, "Against Goshen College Playing the National Anthem." From what I can tell, the group is mostly Goshen College students, alumni and current and former staff, with a couple of current staff writing that they are participating in discussion rather than showing full agreement with the group's purpose. Some group members write that they graduated from Bethel College in North Newton, Kan., and Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisonburg, Va. Still others are from other Christian traditions.

The debate has continued on Goshen’s own Facebook page, where some have expressed support, though from my rough tally there are more than half against the decision. Goshen has placed resources on its Web site as well, including a timeline and full text of the anthem task force's proposal.

Discussion is now beginning to expand past Goshen College: The Elkhart (Ind.) Truth reported that Bethany Christian Schools, a Mennonite institution, is considering beginning to play the national anthem, having been blocked from hosting sectional games by the Indiana High School Athletic Association since summer 2007 for refusing the practice. — Celeste Kennel-Shank

Fun and games

Canadians have sports on the brain. There’s a good reason for it, with Vancouver hosting the Winter Olympics.

The obsession with games and races on ice and snow extends to Mennonite magazines. Canadian Mennonite’s Jan. 25 cover features Michael Lee-Poy, a member of Erb Street Mennonite Church in Waterloo, Ont., carrying the Olympic torch.

The Mennonite Brethren Herald February issue's main image is two hockey players facing off. Among other articles on sports, Jack Reimer analyzes the pros and cons of competition. Discipline, self-sacrifice and concentrated effort are on the positive side.

The point I found most interesting was a negative one. Researchers, Reimer says, “have clearly demonstrated that involvement in sports lowers one’s moral reasoning.”

We engage in high-level moral reasoning, he explains, when we include others in our considerations. But when low-order reasoning takes over, we primarily focus on our own interests.

I suppose there’s a lot of evidence for this. Athletes and spectators too often embarrass themselves with boorish behavior. I always feel sorry for coaches who look like all the fun has been sucked out of their job. Competition does sometimes bring out the worst.

But, for every out-of-control outburst in the heat of athletic battle, I’ll bet you can find dozens of acts of respect — and countless moments that add joy to life in the games so many of us can’t imagine living without.

Now, I wonder if Cindy Klassen can win another speedskating medal this year. — Paul Schrag

Wayne County and The Shire

I first came across Mint Brook Meadow Tea at a stand run by an Amish couple at the Mill Race Center Farmers Market in Goshen, Ind. The pesticide-free, air-dried tea was branded as having been grown and packaged by Amish and Mennonite folks in Wayne County, Ohio. Several paragraphs on the box told me of the high place mint tea holds among Germans and their descendants. This tickled me since I learned to love mint tea from my grandmother, among other aspects of our Pennsylvania German heritage she shared with me.

I was impressed by Mint Brook Meadow Tea's good fortune when I found the tea again in early January in a Whole Foods grocery store in Pittsburgh. It seems the company is on the up and up: Tolkien Enterprises, which owns many of the merchandising rights for J.R.R. Tolkien's The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings series, granted them the right to market Hobbit Tea.

Dante Tropea, one of Mint Brook Meadow's farmers, told The (Cleveland) Plain Dealer he appreciates the books' moral lessons of choosing to do what is right despite pressure to do otherwise, and that the tidy fences and farm fields of The Shire aren't so different from Amish settlements in Ohio.

Being a big fan of The Lord of the Rings as well as mint tea, I think I'll try the Hobbiton Meadow Mint first. — Celeste Kennel-Shank

Less than super roles

Last night I gathered with a group of friends for some good food, conversation and a mix of football and pricey commercials, a traditional Super Bowl party. The get-together was hosted by a man. The delicious meal was prepared primarily by men. Some of the biggest football enthusiasts in the group were women.

Yet, as soon as the commercials began rolling, we were reminded that men and women have very specific roles to play. Men do not, at least willingly, shop, clean up their messes, listen, or carry lip balm. Unless it means they can get the car of their choice. Women, on the other hand, are either manipulators, coercing their significant others to do those unmanly tasks, or pawns of little value that can be traded for tires.

The advertisers seemed to rely on gender stereotypes to somehow convince the public of the superiority of their products.

Rewind eight hours from the kickoff (right about the time the pregame coverage was starting). My setting was very different. Our worship service had just started, and like every week, men and women were participating based on their personal gifts. Not the ones assigned to them because of their gender, but the ones that God gave to them as unique individuals.

Leading music, teaching the children in the nursery, discussing Scripture, cooking dishes for the potluck, preaching, planning service projects for the congregation, washing potluck dishes — these are only some the tasks that are shared by the men and women each week in our community.

In a society that sends us so many messages about just how we should be feeling and acting as men or women, it is refreshing to have a place where these roles do not limit us in the expression of our gifts. It is good that the church is a place that welcomes us as we are.

Who's sorry now?

Apologies for the sins of history sometimes get dismissed as empty gestures. Can we really repent on behalf of our ancestors? What’s the point, if the wrong happened centuries ago?

Canadian Mennonite theologian Jeremy M. Bergen offers insight, prompted by the Lutheran World Federation plan to renounce 16th-century condemnations of Anabaptist and apologize for persecution that happened nearly 500 years ago.

Bergen suggests that when others apologize to us, we should consider what we also ought to be sorry for.

He says we should not be comfortable with forgiveness that costs us nothing.

Mennonites might repent of our role in promoting disunity among Christians and of self-righteousness, Bergen says.

We’re guilty of these sins on small and large scales. We create divisions when we assume certain last names are “Mennonite” and others are not. We fall prey to pride when we condemn the other side in a disagreement as being not really Mennonite or Christian.

Being asked to forgive should “become an occasion for our own conversion,” Bergen says. His idea of not accepting an apology without examining our own hearts is excellent advice. — Paul Schrag

A new home for Seattle's homeless

Those who read Jonathan Hiskes' October article in Mennonite Weekly Review or who otherwise know Seattle Mennonite Church will likely remember that the congregation runs a drop-in center for homeless people in its neighborhood, Lake City.

The Seattle Times reports that an apartment building, McDermott Place, opened in December in Lake City that gives preference to renters who are homeless and who have mental illnesses.

While the apartments will help only a portion of Lake City's homeless residents, for those residents the building's existence "is just huge — housing in the neighborhood they love and in the neighborhood they call home," Jonathan Neufeld, Seattle Mennonite community minister, told The Seattle Times.

It's great to see this positive development as Seattle Mennonite and others continue to offer aid in a way that upholds the dignity of their homeless neighbors. — Celeste Kennel-Shank

Solemn membership

Lately it seems as though our congregation should bookmark number 794 in Hymnal: A Worship Book — the responsive reading for reception of new members. Welcoming four new members in the past two weeks has brought the idea of membership to the forefront.

Until recently, I never noticed the solemn tone to this joyful event or weightiness of the promises made when new members are received. This is likely in part because of my Lutheran upbringing and in part because I still fall into the often-transient group known as young adults.

Each new member shared a brief testimony about how his or her path has lead to Chicago Community Mennonite Church. All of the statements included the desire to be part of a community of believers. Then the new members and the church family made vows of commitment to one another — to offer and receive counsel, to hold one another accountable and to be joined in fellowship, worship and service.

But, even after the serious promises that were made, it is difficult to see what changed.

The four new members are certainly not strangers to the community. They have each been full participants in the life of the congregation for months. They were already offering their unique gifts to enrich our community through committees, in worship and through service projects. A mutual exchange of support between the church body and these individuals has already been happening. The same is true of other regular attendees who are not members in our congregation.

So what, then, is the importance of membership? Why do we make such earnest promises?

Perhaps so that the new members can know they are truly accepted as they are. Or so the new members know that they have companions in attempting to follow the ways of Jesus. Or so that the community knows that these individuals who have become a part of the fabric of the congregation plan to stay around for a while, continuing to contribute their gifts.

Perhaps membership is a promise to community itself. Through the process each member commits to being the community for which he or she longs.

Giving to Haiti relief

As word spreads that the U.S. Internal Revenue Service will allow taxpayers to tack donations for Haiti relief made between Jan. 12 and Feb. 28 onto their 2009 taxes, a concern has popped up that earmarking donations — as required for the deduction — will hinder the future work of organizations.

On Saundra Schimmelpfennig's list of dos and don'ts of disaster donations (via Steve Thorngate), a don't is earmarking funds for Haiti relief.

The potential problem is organizations ending up with funds they can't spend, as happened to the Red Cross after the 2004 tsunami in Asia (via Felix Salmon.)

That wasn't the case for Mennonite Central Committee, which used funds designated for tsunami relief and reconstruction during a five-year period, according to Phil Rush, director of MCC's Resource Generation Network.

In Haiti, MCC can use funds earmarked for earthquake survivors for its long-term response, Rush said.

So, while MCC needs non-designated funds for its work, too, U.S. donors who want to take the 2009 tax deduction can do so without hindering MCC down the road. Those who wish to give to large organizations such as the Red Cross or Doctors Without Borders, though, should take care about designating funds.

Whether or not they earmark donations, individuals are giving abundantly. It's time for governments to step up, too, writes Justin Podur, a Toronto-based activist who has collaborated with Colombian Mennonites on economic justice efforts. And international financial institutions could cancel Haiti's debt, as well as giving grants rather than additional loans. — Celeste Kennel-Shank