Telling Our Stories: My Story 1 - Coming Full Circle - back to faithfulness, patience, humility & simplicity

Telling Our Stories

My Story 1 - Coming Full Circle

I grew up among ordinary people. Perhaps some of them wish to see themselves otherwise. Certainly, they were generally hardworking. There are innovators among them, even successful entrepeneurs and businessmen. By and large though, they were, notwithstanding my mother and paternal grandfather being teachers, and my father a pastor, all individuals of minimal education. The people I descended from were mostly farmers. Then ones I lived among were hunters, trappers, and fishermen.

Perhaps that is why I never became a person of big words or fancy phrases. I am not an intellectual. I did go on to become a medical specialist and even in training there was told I needed to use more of the vocabulary of the specialty; in plain words, psychiatric jargon in my case. I probably never totally satisfied some of my teachers in that regard. Some of it was me, some of it was my purpose.

I grew up then among simpler people, and I do not say that negatively at all, as I believe there is virtue in that, as some today are rediscovering. My roots are Anabaptist/Mennonite and humility and simplicity were values in that circle. To some extent there was even a bias among some of my ancestors against higher learning and the pretension it was felt often accompanied that. You’re never popular if you make it too evident you’re trying to be above your roots. 

This last was also a characteristic of the Metis and First Nations people; the other groups among whom I grew up, many of whose first language was not English. They, in many instances, just did not have the privilege - “white” I learned later in life I had. I have to credit my parents for not letting us think we were any different than these neighbours, classmates and friends. Indeed, unlike far too many of my settler colonist ilk, they never said a negative word about them.  

On the other hand, a lot of their good qualities were highlighted and I learned from that. Sharing was a big thing in that economy. Those who had, shared. Patience was also a solid virtue. No one can outwait an Indian, as we called them then. Their self-effacing attitude and associated wit also helped in the cultivation of humility. These are also Christian virtues.

All of this is part of what made me determined to always try and express myself so that the message got across simply enough. When I got into medicine I concluded this was especially important. We knew, in the profession, we were being taught a language that was esoteric to most. That made me all the more determined to keep my language at a level those I served could understand. This was true for medicine and also for language related to the Bible, church and theology. I remember one fellow church member once saying it was felt to be an asset or even gift to be able to communicate in more dense church language. I don’t understand that from a Teacher whose advice in the Sermon on the Mount, the manifesto of the Anabaptists, was to keep your communication to Yes and No. 

So, now, entering my eighth decade, some in the Church are coming around to a place that some of our people never left. The days of the evangelistic crusade, the televangelist and the mega church have lost their lustre. As the authors of “The New Parish” Sparks, Soerens and Friesen write, it’s time to get back to our neighbourhoods. Too long we have believed the lie that we could live ‘above place,’ disconnected from our neighbourhood, our land, our world. Our churches are consumer-oriented - yes, some even use the phrase ‘user-friendly’ - and commuter-based. They are not community churches in many instances. It’s also time to reclaim the virtues of patience, faithfulness and humility, as Alan Kreider writes in “The Patient Ferment of the Early Church.” Our mission, and the church lived this for the first 3 centuries before the Roman Empire co-opted the church, was simply to be faithful. That was enough for the empire to fall before the church. Unfortunately, the church became swallowed by the empire and we were subjected to 1700 years of Christendom. Now that is fading, and it’s time to get back to basics. 

Big is not always better. Indeed, Jesus’ whole mission and demonstration of who God is tells us that, but we lost sight of that. Now, I am going to delve into “Shrink” by Tim Suttle and see what that adds to what I have read this last year that so resonates with me and what I have been trying to be about and seeking for in life. Thanks be to God, the truth is still out there and it will make us free. Jesus said that,.. but of course you knew that.