Finding the New Teacher - Part III of Three

It turned out that after that last miracle in our synagogue in Capernaum, my – Jairus, that is - meeting the new teacher was not going to be easy. Seems he had got wind of the increasing hostility of our religious leaders and experts in The Law. As a result, he was staying away from our town and synagogue. He was meeting people on the hillsides and lakeshores of the Sea of Galilee. I also heard that, likely for similar reasons, he had also begun to make his teachings more veiled. The plain message of repentance and forgiveness was being replaced by stories, parables like our other rabbis also sometimes used.

I was pondering how to pursue my quest to talk with this Jesus when it happened, but not at all how I envisioned it. Our dear daughter became ill. Nothing we could do, no help that we could find, seemed to be leading to recovery. My wife and I were afraid she was going to die. 

Then it struck me. This Jesus had performed all kinds of miracles. Could he heal our daughter? Part of me wanted to drop everything and go and find him and ask him if he could do us this favour. But did I have enough faith? That always seemed to enter the picture. Was there some sin her mother or I had committed that needed forgiveness? That was another factor that had been part of some of these healing episodes. All these questions and doubts. What’s more, what would my associates think? Here were our spiritual leaders thinking this man had crossed a line that deserved death. What would happen to me if they learned I had gone to ask him for help? Would I lose my position as synagogue leader? or worse?

Meanwhile, our daughter was beginning to look like she was indeed at death’s door. I told my wife what I was thinking and she accepted my plan. I threw all caution to the wind and hurried out to find Jesus.

I did not have to go far. In the distance, I could see a large crowd gathering at the seashore. I practically ran to the edge of the crowd and then began jostling to get nearer to Jesus. People who knew me helped part the way for me to get through; some of them knew our daughter was ill and maybe they wondered if I was coming to get help. Suddenly, there he was, right in front of me. I looked into his eyes and was so overcome by his returning gaze I threw myself at his feet. It was like he was just waiting for me to state my case. I didn’t care anymore what anyone thought. I just wanted our daughter well.

“Teacher, rabbi,” I cried, “Our daughter is at the point of death. Please, please, come to our place and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.” I could see the tears well up in Jesus’ eyes as he bent over and took my hands and pulled me to my feet. Without a word, he put his arm across my back and began walking quickly with me towards our home.

The crowd was still pressing around Jesus as we tried to make our way. People were reaching out to touch him, hoping to get his attention, to be healed. Suddenly Jesus stopped. Oh no, I thought, please, hurry. Then I caught myself. How could I be so selfish. If Jesus wanted to give his attention to someone else, I was sure he knew that he could still fulfil my wishes. Just being with him was giving me that confidence. It was strange, but I was feeling calm, no longer panicky. 

Out of the corner of my eye I had seen a woman fall to the ground behind him and just brush his cloak with her outstretched hand. Jesus turned and asked, “Who touched me?” His followers, those young men who had gathered around him said, “Jesus, the crowd is so tight – everyone is touching you.” He did not let that stop him. Still, he looked around. Sensing she could not get away, the woman whom I had seen touch him came forward and fell before him. Shaking in fear, she told him her long story. Again, I saw the look and tenderness with which he reached out to her. I can only describe it as real compassion, even love. He seemed so genuinely moved by the needs of those he encountered. He gave her his hand and said, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your disease.”

The crowd had stopped in its movement as this happened but even before those words were out of Jesus’ mouth I saw some friends hurrying towards us. The looks on their faces told me everything. They rushed to my side and in hushed tones told me what no father wants to hear, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further,” they added. 

Before I could even begin to think of what to do now, Jesus, having obviously heard our friends, turned to me: “Do not fear,” he said, “Only believe.” Oh, how I wanted to do that.

Then he turned to the crowd. Raising his arm toward them he said, “My teaching, my work with you is done for now. Please leave me go and complete another work I have to do.” Turning to his followers he singled out three of them and signaled them to go with us. 

We hurried on in silence to our home. Already from a distance we could hear the keening of the mourners. It really struck me then. Our daughter was dead. What could Jesus do now? We were too late. If only we had not stopped earlier. Again, I dismissed such negative thoughts. Jesus had reassured me and, somehow, I still felt calm entering our home with him.

I could see he seemed a little irritated with all the commotion and noise. He looked around at all the mourners and spoke, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” Really? Did Jesus know something we didn’t? Jesus went on, “Can you please all leave?” Some of those present were laughing at Jesus, even sneering at him. “The girl is dead,” they insisted. But his look told them he meant business and they went outside. He guided my wife and I to our daughter’s side, with the three men close behind. Again, he reached down, took our daughter’s pale hand and said, “Little girl, get up.” I held my breath, but what did I see? Our daughter’s eyelids flickered, then her eyes opened wide. Seeing us all around she got up off the bed and rushed into our arms. Then she pulled herself away and took a circle around the room, stepping so lightly it was as if she was dancing. Indeed, with the smile on her face she was. 

We were astounded. I was sure she was dead when I had seen her lying there so pale and lifeless. Our friends would not have told us so if they did not think she was dead. Had this Jesus just raised her from death? Who was this man indeed? Before I could say anything, Jesus asked us to give her something to eat. Her mother quickly complied. While our daughter was happily munching away, Jesus said, “Don’t tell anyone what you have just seen.” With that, he turned and left, with his three followers close behind.

Meeting the New Teacher Again - Part II of Three

I, Jairus, am writing again. 

I had written earlier about the new teacher in our area, this man called Jesus. As a leader in the synagogue, one needs to do a bit of homework around whom we let teach in our synagogue – if we have the choice. As I said last time, we need to protect or Law from misinterpretation and our synagogue and the privileges it enjoys from being abused. You will recall that this Jesus had come to our synagogue one Sabbath by surprise, so I was caught off guard at the time. 

I had asked around and learned a bit more about where this Jesus came from. He was indeed the son of a carpenter, Joseph, and his wife Mary, from Nazareth. He had several brothers and sisters. When I asked about the origins of his family I was stunned to find out he was not a real Galilean, but that his ancestors were Judeans, from Bethlehem in fact. Indeed, when we had all had to go to our homelands when a previous governor, Quirinius of Syria had ordered that for a census – orders that came from the Emperor Augustus in Rome by the way – this family had returned there and that was where Jesus had been born. Could there be something to those rumours of his possibly being the Messiah? I did not dwell long on such thoughts though. If Jesus’ birth was indeed important in that regard, our religious leaders would have found that out already. Instead, I was already hearing about caution coming from them about this man, if not outright questioning of his apparent authority and powers.

Just the same, the stories of what the people believed to be miracles he performed kept coming in. When I actually got to talk about these with some of those directly involved, you could not deny the truth of their story and the strength of their faith in this man. Indeed, for some at least, the performance of a miracle not only changed them in the area of healing involved, it seemed to mark for them the beginning of a brand new phase of their lives. It was like they had been reborn in their outlook, their attitude to life and to our faith. Regardless of their circumstances, and many of these people were poor and came from backgrounds many in our society frowned on – even hated tax collectors and prostitutes! – they seemed somehow happier, more confident, more at peace and content. Sometimes I had wished I could feel that way, what with all the stress of my position.  

Some of them then began to say that, along with the healing, Jesus had told them their sins were forgiven. My ears had perked up at that. This was a new twist. None of our miracle workers had ever added that to their incantations. Only God could forgive sins. Everybody knew that. For a human to say that would amount to blasphemy. Indeed, some of our more prominent leaders I got to ask about this said they were beginning to think what Jesus was saying was blasphemous in these and other areas. He seemed to be making preposterous claims for himself, allying himself with God in an easy and familiar way that none of our other teachers ever dared.

I was beginning to feel pulled in two directions. Part of me said, stay away from this man, he is dangerous, don’t even let him back in your synagogue. Another part of me said, go and hear this man some more, make up your own mind about him. Well, my chance came sooner than I expected. I had heard that this Jesus and his followers were touring around Galilee, teaching and performing miracles. He had evidently even cured a leper. That was something none of our healers could do. Only the prayers of the priests, following the rules laid down by the prophet Moses – well, actually given by God - had ever accomplished that. And this man was no priest.

Then I had heard that Jesus was back at the place in Capernaum he called home. I heard that a crowd had gathered to hear him speak so I decided to chance it and go and hear what he had to say. I say ‘chance it’ because I knew by now that there were those among our leaders who were not in favour of him and might question my presence there as the local synagogue leader.

I had not even reached the door of the home – well, in fact, I could not get near for the crowd – when some sweaty young men carrying a stretcher rushed towards us. Apparently, the pale and twisted body lying on it was their friend who had become paralyzed, unable to walk. They were hoping Jesus could heal him. However, the crowd was so thick there was no way they were going to penetrate that mass of humanity. After some words between themselves and those around I noticed them go around the aide of the house and next thing I knew they were on the roof, tearing away at the straw and tiles! Then, they dropped the man on the stretcher down into the room! A hush came over the crowd and even I could hear Jesus speaking out loudly and clearly to the man. They had surely gotten his attention by that feat!

“Son, your sins are forgiven.” What? So, this Jesus did say those things! I heard some talking amongst those inside but I could not make out the words. Then I heard Jesus say, “Why do you raise such questions in your hearts? Which is easier to say to this paralyzed man, ‘Your sins are forgiven’ or ‘Stand up and take your mat and walk? So you might know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…” then he must have turned to the man dropped through the roof again, as he followed with “I say to you, stand up, take your mat and go to your home.” Before I had much of a chance to process what I was hearing the crowd parted and a young man, his face beaming but at the same time looking puzzled, as if he did not know what had just happened, passed by us. He was carrying his mat and quickly joined by his friends who had hustled back down from the roof, stretcher and all. They were so happy, slapping him on the back and saying how happy they were, but also thanking Jahweh.

Many in the crowd too were praising Jahweh and saying things like “We have never seen anything like this!”

Some of the crowd was leaving now, among them a small group of men I recognized immediately by their dress and accent to be from Jerusalem or at least Judea. Their faces were stern and they, unlike the rest of the crowd, were not praising God, but instead were talking about how this man was blasphemous and not to be listened to. They were not only saying this to themselves but warning the crowd as they passed through it and left. Fortunately, not being local men, they did not recognize me or they might have asked me why I was there. Mind you, I could have asked them the same. Seems we are all curious about what this Jesus is saying and doing.

Now, I had heard with my own ears some of the sayings our leaders have been concerned about. To tell someone your sins are forgiven, and that you have authority to do this – that seems a bit much. And to refer to himself as the Son of Man. That is a very sacred title, not used lightly. I had never heard anyone say that about anyone I knew, or anyone else for that matter, let alone about their own self. It is only a title one reads in our holy writings.

Yes, and there it is indeed connected in some places with the one to come, the Messiah. Was Jesus really saying he was The Messiah? It hardly seemed probable. He certainly did not fit our expectations in that regard.

I was really no closer to making sense of this all when another Sabbath rolled around and Jesus showed up again in or synagogue. I noticed that some of those same men, or ones like them, that I had seen at his home a few days back, were tagging along close behind him in the crowd following him. Then I noticed that one of our citizens whose hand had become shrunk and deformed was there, right in front of Jesus it seemed. A hush descended over those assembled as everyone watched to see how Jesus would react. They did not have to wait long.

Jesus saw the man and said, “Come forward.” The man hesitated but then he stepped out in front of Jesus. Jesus turned and looked at the crowd, and I saw he looked directly at those visiting religious leaders: “Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the Sabbath, to save life or to kill?” A flash of anger crossed his face as he said this, especially facing those visitors. It was replaced just as quickly by a look of deep sadness when no one dared to answer. I don’t blame them. Who would dare give an opinion in front of those leaders, those Pharisees and their friends. 

Turning back to the man, Jesus said, “Stretch out your hand.” People gasped as he did, not only that he was able to but that it now looked and moved perfectly normally. The man looked at his hand, opened and closed his fist, bent his wrist up and down. He was stunned, but then he realized, he had just been healed. He could not contain the joyful grin that spread across his face. He bowed and thanked Jesus profusely. The crowd’s response, indeed that of the man, was now considerably more muted than what I had sometimes seen and heard before. I understood. 

Jesus had placed his healing in the context of the Sabbath and according to our laws, or at least our traditions, that was work and not allowed. One could understand that with all that our other healers required of people to be healed, but with Jesus it was different. He did not seem to do any ‘work.’ He just spoke, and it happened. It was like how our scriptures talk of Jahweh at Creation – everything happened just by his word. Who was this man? Was there something divine about him?

The healed man could see that those visiting religious folk were not impressed. Had he just taken part in something wrong? Was he in trouble? They did not say anything to him, so he just turned and slipped away.

Meanwhile, I could hear those Pharisees, those teachers of the law, murmuring amongst themselves. They were talking about how Jesus was blasphemous, how he was breaking our laws, and that meant he deserved the death penalty. In fact, I heard some of them say as they rushed past me to leave, that they were going to report this to King Herod’s people.

Wow! Things were moving fast indeed. Would they really arrest this man? Charge him with these offenses under our law? I understood where they were coming from but I tell you, I was also deeply troubled. This man did not seem to be doing anything really wrong. Should it not be right to help people on the sabbath? What kind of god would prohibit that? Jesus seemed to say things with such authority. To him it all seemed so clear. I wished it was that clear to me. I resolved that before he came to our synagogue again, I would see if I could get an audience with him. I had a lot of questions. He seemed to have answers.

Meeting the New Teacher - Part I of Three

Shalom, my friends! Let me introduce myself. I am Jairus, and my home is in Galilee, Capernaum to be exact. Capernaum is a busy town on our Sea of Galilee. I am privileged to have the honour of being one of the leaders of our local synagogue. This is a serious responsibility. The synagogue is our local place for worship of Jahweh and the teaching of our Law. We have to be ever vigilant for correct teaching and interpretation of our Law - and staying away from politics. This last is because of the Romans, who occupy our land. They do not stand for anything that smells of rebellion.

Now, especially in Galilee, it seems our people are prone to breeding rebels. Some of these individuals have also made claims of being The Messiah. According to our holy writings, The Messiah is a descendant of our great King David, who will someday appear and free us from all oppression and restore Israel to its former glory.

I had heard of someone who was being referred to as a new rabbi. Some were even beginning to ask if he was The Messiah. But I am getting ahead of myself.

In the first place, this new teacher, oddly enough, was from Nazareth, a small village northwest of here from where no one of note had ever come. That should have been enough to quell ideas of his being The Messiah, as our prophets have written in our holy writings that he was to be born in The City of David, Bethlehem, way south in Judea. I had heard through the grapevine that he had been a top student of our teachers in Nazareth. He had been slated to go for advanced education after his bar mitzvah but then his father died. Instead, he took up his father’s trade of woodworking to support his family. That was quite a sacrifice but also a noble thing to do. The life of a rabbi would certainly have been preferable to the hard work of a carpenter. 

But then, I guess when he judged his family was capable of surviving on their own, he had left home. I had heard about his turning to teaching. He had even begun to gather around him some followers, as proven rabbis do. However, this young man had no track record yet that would have been thought to attract such disciples. Furthermore, these were not young men noted for being students, for their academic ability. They were fishermen! An odd choice for a rabbi if you ask me.  What’s more, I had heard he had performed what actually seemed to be miracles – such as healing the sick and casting out demons. Some of our people claimed to be able to do these things too. However, they had to take training as to how to do this, which was not free. As a result, the services they offered their clients, who were obliged to go through all sorts of rituals, necessarily allowed for the exchange of money, sometimes considerable amounts of such. Well, this man – his name was Jesus by the way – was reported to perform healing and exorcism on first meeting an individual and merely by his word, free! 

People were beginning to flock to where he was on a regular basis. Apparently large crowds followed him at times, seeking healing and freedom from unclean spirits. But he was also teaching, words said to be a powerful message of the need to repent and seek forgiveness, similar to another recent preacher who had appeared in our midst, one called John the Baptizer, so called because he was baptizing people who repented of their sin and wanted to turn over a new leaf. But this Jesus seemed to be adding a new twist to this message. He was saying that the kingdom of heaven was at hand. This phrase alone was enough to make one wary of what might yet come of him.

Thus, I was somewhat on edge this particular Sabbath Day when I saw a crowd approaching our synagogue and near its front, was a man, striding along, occasionally stopping to place his hand on some poor supplicant and, evidently, from what I gathered, performing some healing. Some people were calling out things like, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me.” So, was this the Jesus I had heard about?

I was at the door of the synagogue when this Jesus approached. He stopped and, raising his hands and turning his face heavenward, seemed to be mouthing a prayer. Such a look of peace and determination seemed to then envelop his face. Then he looked straight at me with a look that was both gentle and powerful. Don’t ask me to explain that combination but that’s what I felt.

He bowed to me with clasped hands, walked in and sat down near the front. I quickly followed, almost pushed along by the throng. I conferred briefly with my colleagues and we agreed that, since this man was gaining recognition as a rabbi, the only polite and correct thing was to let him read the scripture and teach. One of our elders then handed him a scroll, from which he read and then began to teach.

In spite of ourselves, we were quite taken aback by his teaching. He did not go on and on reciting the sayings of rabbis from the past to explain the passage, like so many of our young teachers do. And he was so well-versed in the scriptures, the Torah! He quoted freely from it to support what he was saying. In spite of myself, I could not deny the power and authority with which he seemed to speak. It was actually quite refreshing, if I do say so myself.

Suddenly, he was interrupted by a shout, “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth? Have you come to destroy us? I know how you are, the Holy One of the God!” We had all turned to look at where the disturbance was coming from and could not help but catch our breath at those words. Jesus was indeed being addressed as if he were the Messiah! But the voice was coming from a disheveled figure in rags whom we all recognized immediately as someone possessed by an unclean spirit. He should not even have been in our synagogue. I was about to summon some of my colleagues to see if we could get him removed. However, before we could do so, this Jesus stopped his teaching and approached the man. Facing him square on he said in a loud clear voice, “Be silent, and come out of him!” The man fell to the floor in a writhing convulsion, shrieking and then lay still. We knew the demon was gone. Jesus reached down his hand and pulled the man to his feet. The man turned in a daze and left the building with his friends. 

The teaching session was over though. Everybody was talking at once about what they had just seen. They were amazed at the authority we had just witnessed. Some wondered who this was and what kind of new teaching this was. It was unheard of to simply command the spirits like this and see them obey. My own head was spinning from what I had heard and seen. Part of me said I had just seen one of our laws broken. Our rabbis had taught that healing was work and not to be performed on the Sabbath. However, before I could do anything further, Jesus and the crowd were disappearing down the road. I heard later they had gone to the home of one of his fishermen followers and that he had healed this man’s mother-in-law. What’s more, after Sabbath was over that evening, the house had been filled with people seeking healing and deliverance from unclean spirits. What indeed was going on here?

Losing Our Mother III – Forbidden Memories

When the family moved to Saskatchewan it had already begun to unravel, as families do. I had moved out in July ‘67, and before Les moved to join the family for Grade 12, we lived together in downtown Winnipeg for the ‘summer of love’ as some called it (hippie days, remember?). Loretta had left 4 months earlier when she had married Dave Kroeker from Saskatchewan. Then, at the end of the summer of ’67, she and Dave moved to Saskatchewan.

Our relationships with our younger siblings then depended either on correspondence or visits, which were not frequent. Nor did we use the ‘phone much. We had not grown up with one so were not used to doing much of that. But that was the way with all families in those days, especially when separated by geography, as we were now. 

Later in life I realized that we were beginning to repeat the pattern of my father’s family of origin. They too had moved about and thus negatively affected relationships between especially younger members of the family. I was often aware of the lack of closeness between us and our parents after we left home and I think father just never had a model for how one related to adult kids as we think of it now. His father was also separated from him most of his adult life, except for visits, which might not even always have been annual, one way or the other.

Thinking again of our father’s instructions to us when our new mother arrived, I thought recently of his grandfather. He lost 4 wives and remarried in short order after the first 3. Perhaps my father had some knowledge of that which played into his quick remarriage. Mind you, his first marriage had been a rapid affair of some necessity too. He wanted to go back ‘north’ to complete his Conscientious Objector term during WW II, but as a United Church minister, not a teacher like his first two years. This seemed to require him to be married. He then came ‘south’ to visit his parents at Easter of 1945, at which time he met my mother. Their parents had become friends as grandfather Brandt had moved into the district to teach and Grandfather Enns (my mother’s father) was a school trustee. The twoyoung people discovered they had a mutual interest in missions. My maternal grandmother had been quite taken with my father and seemed to do her part to promote interaction between the two. Mother was 24 at the time and perhaps grandmother, who married at 19 (a common age in her time), thought she was getting on and needed a spouse. Anyway, some 5 weeks later they were married and 6 weeks after that they were headed back north as newlyweds.

As one grew older though, one begins to remember things more often. It seems to be natural thing that occurs with aging. There is more to our past life than our future. We began to share stories when we visited one another. Our youngest brother Tim, who had been 7 when mother died, wanted to learn more about her. To do so he made a movie with his video camera – a new thing in the 1980’s. He interviewed each of his siblings and our father. Viewing it recently (it is on-line here at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qv5wq713I08), I was surprised, given how things are now, how freely father spoke of his first wife, our mother. Tim even took the video to a film festival in Yorkton, SK, but I can’t remember if it placed in awards.

Anyway, in the fall of 1986, we had a family gathering at our sister Loretta’s farm in Englefeld, SK. It was actually in part a 22^ndanniversary of our folks’ marriage, cake so decorated and all. Tim wanted to show his completed ‘Our Mother’ project to the rest of us so we all sat down to watch it. Suddenly our stepmother (I rarely use that term, unless to distinguish her from our biological mother in conversation or writing, because of the negative connotations it so often has) jumped up and ran crying to an upstairs bedroom, saying, “After all I’ve done for you, I’m still not your mother…” or words to that effect, with that meaning. We were all stunned. Father and Loretta followed her up to try to calm her and settle things down. The family gathering continued.  

However, intended or not, we got a message: No more talking about your mother in front of this mother. Hence, the ‘chapter’ title. As I have sometimes said in later years, after becoming a child psychiatrist and learning more about families, there were no manuals for blended families, no guides in those days, as to how to deal with all of these issues affecting our families. So, we simply resorted to silence, except when in the company of one another, and sometimes our uncles and aunts, as long as Mom was not round (Speaking of identifiers, ‘Mom’ is often the term we use for our stepmother; the more respectful and formal ‘mother’ is more often reserved for our biological mother). Indeed, as we got older, on the occasion of getting together, or having contact in other forms, with kin and friends who had known our mother, we would sometimes outright ask them for their memories of our mother. 

We learned we could not ask such at ‘home’ though. When something was said in conversation about Mom or mother, our stepmother sometimes misunderstood and her unhappiness if it was our biological mother who had been referred to was evident. The spirit persists though; one wants to know one’s story, where one came from. Too often even when talking to father in an attempt to learn about our shared past, sometimes looking at photo albums to help sort things out, as soon as mother was in earshot, it was time to close the photo album, to change the subject or be quiet. 

Now, we five older siblings also have two half-siblings from this second marriage of our father's. So, in some ways, that complicates things even more. One does not want to negatively affect them and their impression of 'their' mother by talking of our mother,  whom they know nothing or very little of, in front of them, or in correspondence including them. Just one more reason to keep quiet. Unfortunately, the eldest of the two, our brother Steven, has already pre-deceased the rest of us. He was the one who still lived near our parents, so his absence creates more pressure on all of us distant sibs (in more ways than one as you see now) to 'look after' our aging parents. 

So, sadly, we five have accepted that the reality seems to be that there are many things about our past, about our mother, we will never know. We have learned to live with that, even though we wish it were otherwise.  

How much different things could have been. My wife Anne and I have read the book “A Good House” by Canadian author Bonnie Burnard (I had to ‘google’ this to ‘remember’ it all as we no longer have the book, and there is a review here https://bevcurran.wordpress.com/2017/10/04/a-good-house-by-bonnie-bernard/). This is the story about where a stepmother comes into the picture but she is a wise woman. She knows that really, she has nothing to lose and everything to gain if she helps ‘her’ children keep the memory of their real mother alive.  If only our stepmother had thought that way.

Losing Our Mother II – Your New Mother

Before I go on I want to make one clarification. These pieces about the loss of our mother are just that; they are not so much memories of her or stories about her life. Furthermore, and it probably hardly needs saying, these are my thoughts on the loss of our mother and its impact, which has turned out to be more far reaching than one would have anticipated all those many years ago at the time our mother went to be with her Lord and Saviour. Each of my four siblings has their own memories of all of this, and they do not necessarily coincide with what I remember, think or feel.

At the end of my first chapter in this essay, I talked of our family’s resuming ‘life’ after the loss of our mother. Father continued his work with the Mennonite Church’s urban mission outreach, as it was then still called, with native people, again, as they were then called. We children finished our school years in June 1964. For me, that meant high school graduation and deciding what was to come after that.

In July of that year we got our first inkling of a significant new development in our family life. Father made it known that he was too lonely as a widow trying to raise us five and wanted to marry. Furthermore, he already had his sights on, and had indeed spoken with, a young woman in our church whom we knew. Her name was Anne Thiessen and we older three knew her through our belonging to the youth/young adult program and choir of our church. She was somewhat of a ‘sponsor’ of the former and member with my sister Loretta and I of the latter. Dad had been getting to know her better through his being on our church’s council where she was treasurer.

On July 20 – it’s in my diary, as I discovered recently – Dad asked what I thought about remarriage. I am not sure he mentioned Anne specifically. I thought I had a memory of his asking the three older ones of us way back around February. Now, I’m not sure about that idea. Anyway, was I going to flat out say no?

The secret was soon out. Honestly, I think we were all more intrigued by the idea than that we had or shared negative thoughts about the prospects. We got to go on dates with Dad and Anne. What’s not to enjoy for a family in the summer when you get to go to a powwow (on the prairie outside of Stoney Mountain Penitentiary, mind you, because of father’s connections with indigenous inmates) and a picnic after. Or a day trip to the Peace Gardens, or the Whiteshell – with picnic lunches. 

Meanwhile, I started my first year at Canadian Mennonite Bible College, commuting the 13 miles by bus. This meant leaving home at 6:20 and getting home just in time for supper. A wedding date was set and plans put in motion. Sister Loretta was designated as Maid of Honour and myself as Groomsman. Before we knew it, October 17 rolled around and after a marriage in Bethel Mennonite Church and a reception, we had a new Mom. My siblings remember Dad coming home and telling us this was our new Mom, we should give her that honour and put our biological mother out of the picture, or words to that effect. Sounds somewhat harsh, and maybe it was the impact that caused it to be so remembered (Maybe father did not want us to use the word 'stepmother' and, indeed, I do not remember using this word till years later, and then only outside of our parents' hearing). How little did we know at the time how true this request was going to become over time. 

Anne worked hard at being a Mom for 5 chidden from 7 - 17. If my memory serves me well she even altered my trousers to go with changing fashions. She might even have helped me type up some college homework. Understandably, things did not go totally smoothly. My siblings complained of too many casserole suppers… of not being able to always have seconds… or even meals if they came home too late. As the oldest, whose bedroom was next to ‘the folks’ for a while, I recall overhearing hard discussions between our ‘folks’ with dad trying to encourage our new Mom. For my part, I remember trying to get my younger siblings to go easier on our new Mom.

The following autumn, 1965, I moved into residence for my last two years at the college. From then on, apart from weekends (and not even all of those) and summers at home – and even then, I was out working on a farm in Alberta all of one summer (1966) – my relationship with my parents gradually changed to being one of a guest. Two months after I graduated from college in the spring of 1967 they moved to Saskatchewan. I saw them once more that summer and then not again till Christmas. After that, it was not until I also moved to Saskatchewan in the spring of 1968. Thereafter, it was the usual occasional weekend, perhaps Thanksgiving, usually Christmas and Easter visits etc. Our own biological mother had faded into history it seemed, at least for me.

Losing Our Mother

I have been thinking about writing this for some time. Sometimes writing of this nature helps bring closure to a situation. It can be somewhat cathartic, perhaps healing. A past trauma can be dealt with. 

Losing our mother had a beginning in a certain point in time. However, as life has continued to unravel in this area, I realized that losing one’s mother does not necessarily come to an end. At least, not in this life.

It was in Winnipeg; December 14, 1963. I was in Grade XII. Mother had experienced an exciting fall getting back into teaching after eighteen years. I remember how pleased she was to be able to put on a lovely white blouse over a grey wool skirt, pin on a favourite brooch, and get back into the classroom. She was just 43-years-old.

We were deep into winter – snow, freezing temperatures. Christmas was coming. We had a tree up in front of our ‘picture window,’ with lights encircling it. Something new and fascinating was a little coupling, between light cord and socket, that caused the ‘Christmas lights’ to flash off and on intermittently. My younger brothers were playing in our living room, where stood the tree, and were bothered by the on-and-off feature, so it was ‘off.’

Our parents were preparing to go to a Christmas social at our church. They were going to pick up Dad’s brother, Uncle Victor, and his wife, Aunt Margaret, who was, coincidentally, mother’s cousin. They had just moved to Winnipeg. The women of our church were putting this social on and their husbands were their guests. Our parents were excited to go; it was their first such outing since moving to the city some sixteen months earlier. 

When they had dressed, and passed by my room at the top of the stairs, I asked mother whether we couldn’t leave the intermittent light switch ‘on.’ I thought it helped make our place more noticeable to passersby. I think she asked me to consider my brothers and we said goodbye and I turned to my homework and they continued down the staircase and left.

A few hours later I heard the door open and steps on the stairs. I turned to my bedroom door and there was father, with Uncle Victor right behind. Father had a pained expression on his face. It was as if he was choking on the first words that came out of his mouth, “Your mother’s dead,” he said. 

The rest of the evening, and indeed, much of the days that followed, remains a blur in my memory. I do have a diary that I kept, that I can refer to, but I don’t want to be obsessive about details here.

We children, there were five of us in school, quite school a week earlier than our peers for ‘Christmas break.’ Our grandparents, our uncles and aunts, friends from church, were in and out of our home. They brought food or prepared it at our place. They helped look after us – my youngest sibling was 7-year-old Tim – while also helping father with the necessary arrangements for things like a funeral and burial.

When a funeral home had been secured – Loewen’s of Steinbach, whom I discovered later, had longtime connections with our parents – father took us children to view our mother’s body, nicely dressed and lying in a casket. I remember how gray she looked… I had my little camera along and took a picture. 

Besides our grandparents – mother’ parents from Winkler and Dad’s from Clearbrook (now part of Abbotsford), BC, other uncles and aunts came to the city. Uncle Henry and Esther Born and their family were traveling back from South America where they were in mission work, to BC, and made a last minute detour to Manitoba.

Then came the day for the funeral, held not in our church, Winnipeg Bergthaler Mennonite, but in the larger more distant Bethel Mennonite. It was bitterly cold - minus thirty degrees. A long black limousine came to pick us up to go on the long ride to the church. I had mixed feelings about riding in this car – there was the element of luxury for a teenage car nut like myself at the time – but it came with death. 

After the funeral, of which I remember nothing, we again rode the limousine to Brookside Cemetery out by the airport for mother’s internment. Our family and friends huddled around the gravesite while last words were spoken in the fading winter sunlight. Then it was back to the church for a reception, which was the custom. All I really remember of that was our Aunt Ruby (Dad’s older brother Peter’s wife) Brandt’s mother, Mrs. Robinson, coming up to me to give me a big hug and express her condolences. I don’t recall anyone else doing that. Hugs were not yet common in the Mennonite repertoire of social behaviour. As I write, it is only days since I shared that memory with Aunt Ruby, now 97, long-since widowed, and my cousin Shirley, her daughter, on a visit to them in Houston, Texas, where they now live.

Then it was on into the New Year, 1964. Distant relatives went home. However, we continued to get a lot of support from especially mother’s parents and siblings and their families. Mother’s youngest sister Marian was still single and in the city and she came over a lot to help with household tasks. Loretta, next youngest to me at 15, our only sister, went through an accelerated period of learning to do more of the tasks considered women’s work in those days.

We went back to school, except for me! I had contracted mumps somehow during this period of time, and so was a couple of weeks late returning to classes – at the new River East Collegiate in North Kildonan, where we had moved six months earlier.

Life continued. There was no talk of what we had just experienced. Of course, family and friends showed their support and care in the ways already described. There was no lack of love. However, I don’t recall anyone expressing any particular concern for how we were all doing. There was no processing of our experience. There was certainly no grief counseling, as there often is nowadays. That was something unknown in our circles. 

We had lost our mother, traumatically, long before we should have. That’s all we knew. Were we in shock? Is that why I have so little memory of this all? Were we in denial? Was that the only way to cope? It seems we all just closed the wound as quickly and as best as we could in our own ways and carried on. 

To be continued

In the Fulness of Time

“In the fullness of time.” How often have we heard that phrase with relation to Jesus’ coming? Usually it refers to the state of the world at the time with particular reference to how the Hellenization of the Mediterranean and adjoining lands followed by the rising of the Roman Empire made it possible for the gospel to be spread after Jesus’ ascension as rapidly it was.

I wonder if there is not another explanation for that phrase. Let me take you back to the tale of the patriarch Jacob wrestling with God. You will recall that God changed Jacob’s name at the time to ‘Israel’, meaning ‘one who wrestles with God.’ God told Jacob, as God did his father Isaac and grandfather Abraham before him that through them God was creating a special people. You will also recall that Jacob’s descendants, as this people of God, took on the name Israel, and now that name is applied to the nation formed in 1948 in Palestine.

So then, what might that name mean for the Jewish people? Might that mean the same for the nation? There’s another twist to this. We Christians consider ourselves to be following in the footsteps of the Jews as the people of God. What does ‘Israel’ mean for us?

Some Jewish theologians have come to understand, although they still question why, that it is the lot of the Jews to ‘wrestle with God.’ What they mean by this as I understand it is that they accept this state of struggle, but still wonder why? They continue to struggle with God over what has happened to them throughout their history, and still do. Why were they reduced to slavery in Egypt? Why were so many of their people lost because of the actions of invading empires? Why the Holocaust? And why, in particular, has anti-Semitism never ended? What is the purpose of all of this? Where is the meaning in it? And especially why, after 4000 years and more, do there not seem to be answers?

My proposition is that this goes on because the presence of the people of God is never going to be welcomed by all in our world as it is. There is another power who has been fighting God since Creation and many humans, perhaps often even unwittingly, are helping him fight his battles.

Satan would like to destroy God’s people. The treatment of the Jews and Christians throughout history is a testimony to that. To our shame as Christians, Satan has too often even been able to use us for his purposes when our actions become anti-Semitic.

But all of this is not where I am going with this. Let’s go back to the phrase I began this piece with.

We believe that God, in his love, created us to be in a mutually loving relationship with him. However, almost from the beginning, we as humans strayed from that for which God created us. God’s plan to deal with this, as we have come to know it, was ultimately for God to come among us to show us his true nature and how that could be lived out in the world. This came about through the birth, life, death and finally resurrection of the one we call Jesus. Jesus was God in human form.

But even that was not enough. We are incapable of living the way God planned it. We are going to ruin God’s plans even if it means killing him to get our way. And we know that’s what happened to Jesus.

God had even that covered in God’s plan. We believe God is love. God showed us through Jesus that the ultimate act of love is to lose your life for the other. So just when Satan and his blind and deaf minions thought they had won the victory by killing Jesus, they had actually and totally lost. Jesus’ death and our belief in and acceptance of the gospel, the good news of that penultimate historical event, turned out to be the means of our reconciliation to God.

And ‘the fullness of time?’ Yes, the Roman Empire was there. Its roads and its laws did help spread the gospel. The Apostle Paul, the prime example of the Apostles, the ones first called by Jesus himself took advantage of those factors. However, that was after Jesus’ ascension, his return to whence he came.

God’s plan was able to be fulfilled at the time in history when it was for at least two reasons. God’s people, the Jews, Israel, thought they had it all figured out as to how to get on God’s good side, to put it somewhat crudely. They, at least the leaders, had no use for Jesus. He didn’t fit Into their scheme. What was worse, it seemed he was going to destroy all their best-laid plans. They had to do away with him. They were still committing the sin of their ancestor Jacob, thinking they could wrestle with God and win. They lost.

The other reason was though, indeed the Roman Empire. The Romans wanted power at all costs. Nothing should upset their plans. So, when the Jews brought Jesus to the Roman governor Pilate, it was not that hard for him to give consent to doing away with one more zealot.

The earthly minions thought they had it all figured out. As it turned out, God’s plans were the ones that were fulfilled. Praise the Lord!

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