Mennonites in the Militia

From Growing up Mennonite...

Mennonites in the Militia

Have you ever noticed that after a particularly violent summer storm, once the rain has abated and the rainbow is shining like a neon sign in Times Square, (God’s promise not to destroy human kind ever again, no matter how bad we get) beams of light stream out in a powerful geometric array from one central source (likely the sun) through cracks in the still dark cumulus clouds.  That my friend is “God Light” not to be confused with the “Spielburg Affect” in which ominous cloud formations herald the coming of alien life forms at Devil’s Peak.  “God Light” (copy right protected) is quite the opposite phenomena and a technical term and image I picked up either while attending Sunday School or Daily Vacation Bible School (DVBS) during the formative years of my Mennonite childhood.

“God Light” is one of those indelible images that never fades in my mind, in fact it is fixed in my mind through reinforcement from the numerous pictures I have viewed from decades of Sunday School attendance.  In my mind’s eye I also see Jesus Christ standing either on a mountain top or sometimes on a church steeple with long purple, flowing robes.  He is smiling, well groomed, sporting a trimmed beard and probably at the peak of his career at a time when his heavenly father was well pleased with his achievements here on Earth.  In this undated image Jesus was likely content in the knowledge that he could heal the sick, feed the hungry, drive spirits from swine, bring lizards back to life (a childhood trick apparently), and the source of much of his early success, turning water into wine.  God Light shines all around, and still takes my breath away and that may be about as spiritual as I get.

Going to church each Sunday was literally a ritual, while living in Waterloo we would get into my Dad’s 1950 Ford and drive the length of Weber Street to the Ottawa Street Mennonite Brethren Church.  My dad was a slow driver and would always make comments about drivers who passed him only to be at the next stop light at the same time.  My dad had his ways.  One of those ways was not to join the church.  Its not like membership at a country club.  Joining means getting baptized.  He never did, so in this way he was somewhat of a renegade.  I don’t know what stopped him but I think it was a real issue between he and my mom, and I’m sure church members in their shunning way were able to exert subtle and not so subtle pressures on my parents.

If there is one thing Mennonites are good at, that would be shunning and I say that with a total absence of pride.  There are so many things I am really thankful for having been raised Mennonite, but this cruel practice of shunning is not one of them.  Statistically, look at it this way, there are about one and a half million Mennonites world wide and at least a dozen different denominational categories.  For example, my tribe called Mennonite Brethren broke away from the larger Mennonite Church while still situated in the Ukraine prior to immigration to Canada.   

Enter one, Jacob Amman, truly the “Man of the Year” (1693) who introduced the concept of shunning by breaking away from the Mennonites.  He favoured the social avoidance of baptized Mennonites who left the church; so you see even the Amish were formed as a splinter group.  I’m not sure how far Mennonites can continue to splinter before they lose viability. I only mention shunning and its judgmental counterpart because my family felt the cruel hand of shunning because of my unbaptized father who liked to make wine and kept a TV in the house, and I later conjectured because I was a nuisance in Sunday School, a DVBS drop out, a German School reject as well as a total failure as a choir member and that’s what this story is really about.

I think to over compensate for my father’s sinful ways and to stave of the specter of shunning I was encouraged to do things like go to church regularly, and attend Daily Vacation Bible School in the summer months. Now that’s a double whammy, like taking cod liver oil and then licking the spoon.  In the bigger picture my sibs went to a Mennonite High School, Eden Christian College, we were also encouraged to attend Bible College where it was hoped we would meet our future spouse. I even volunteered, over my Spring Break, with Mennonite Disaster Service. I went to Pennsylvania to help after a flood season. There was also MCC for foreign service and the list went on.  Not to toot my Mennonite horn too loudly, Mennonites could be found around the world helping people.  They may shun each other, but will quickly pitch in to help others, doesn’t make any sense, but that’s all part of the Mennonite enigma. 

Driving through the suburban country side during summer months in most Southern Ontario communities, I often observe church signage advertising their Sunday schedule, or they make statements like “Jesus is the answer”  (What was the question?) and advertise, flea markets, bingos, upcoming miracles, UFO sightings and their Daily Vacation Bible School Program.  An opportunity for the chosen to go to a summer program, in a church, during the summer.  Yeah, that has about the same appeal to me now as it did when I was a kid. In fact back then it set shivers of fear and dread spiraling through my central nervous system. I think I developed ticks.  

Today, church educators try to spice things up a bit to attract kids to their summer programs. Themes are used, such as the Rainforest, or Ecology, “Superhero Missionary,” or whatever creative trick adult minds can devise to get kids inside a church during the months of summer these same months recognized, I might add, in the Bill of Rights and Freedoms as the “inalienable months of freedom.”  I felt then as I do now that DVBS is a violation of my civil rights. 

My mom wanted me to go to the DVBS at the local Mennonite church which happened to be a rival church, not our own MB church.  They wore a different coloured bandana. My mom was also able to over look the minor theological difference between the two churches and saw an opportunity for me to go to church in the summer when my friends were at the canal swimming, and generally having summer fun in the manner in which God intended.

The worst thing about VBS, other than it was in the church, in the summer, when my friends were swimming and having fun, was memorizing verses and reciting them in front of the entire church congregation at the end of the program, somewhat like a religious graduation ceremony.  I guess I shouldn’t complain because I have since learned that certain students and believers of the muslim religion will memorize the entire Quran.  This rote exercise in futility probably gives them about as much insight into living a righteous life as does memorizing IKEA assembly instructions, but at least with that you end up with a completed bookshelf, or chair and a free allen wrench.  At least I didn’t have to memorize the entire Bible, but I still have trouble with IKEA instructions.

My favourite verse was, “Jesus wept,” also the shortest verse in the BIble, unless someone can show me a verse with one word.

On the final day of DVBS, during the grad ceremony, I can still vividly remember walking to the pulpit to make my brief recitation.  My mouth was dry, my lips were cracked, my vision blurry, my mind as blank as blank could be.  There was no TelePrompTer, nor teacher to cue or coach me.  For a prepubescent kid I sweated like a pig as a hush fell over the congregation as if I was about to commit a felony or a miracle.  I was hoping the sweat on my shirt would form a pattern resembvling the image of the Virgin Mary and everyone would be distracted at such a revelation, but oh no, that little trick only works at a Catholic DVBS. They seem to have a “Mother Mary Monopoly”. I was of the Anabaptist persuasion, we separated from the mothership and formed our own franchise in the early days. I was so screwed. 

I was too nervous to ad-lib, and how does one ad-lib a Bible verse anyway.  I looked to the stained glass windows for inspiration, any God Light?  I at least looked for a bolt of lightening to strike me dead and end my misery.  As is normal under such a stressful situation I experienced a flashback, like a literary out of body experience, sending me back to two weeks prior.

Stage Directions: Page takes on a translucent-like appearance as reader participates in the flashback...

DVBS had just started and as far as my mother knew I had biked over to the church to attend. In reality I had doubled back, actually took my bike through the orchard behind our house and hid in our garage.  I was prepared to stay there for hours and remerge to synchronize with the DVBS dismissal time and then slickly tell my mom in all sincerity about the insights and Biblical revelations I had experienced in DVBS.

Had there been a mall I guess I would have opted for that distraction, but malls were still not really a mainstream phenomina and it never really crossed my mind to go to one, so there I was in a dark hot, humid garage on a summer day when my friends were at the canal swimming.  My DVBS subterfuge apparently did not allow for the fact that at some point in the morning my mother would take out the kitchen garbage and put in into the metal garbage bin in the garage where she automatically caught me doing my time.  Mission aborted.

She was speechless.

Flashback over. 

I was still speechless.  Stalemate.  Flashbacks only buy you so much time and when you come out of them you still are stuck in reality. Somehow I mumbled something and stumbled away from the podium after my stellar Biblical pantomime, likely bringing shame to my entire family and all of our ancestors which could likely result in an honour killing that same afternoon.  As a theological note Mennonites don’t actually openly endorse honour killings, nor do we practice ancestor worship, but in the religious sphere, I always felt that good karma derives from a sketchy knowledge of comparative religions like a Darwinian evolutionary survival skill.

My mom, bless her huge loving Mennonite heart, always wanted me involved in things, if not the unsuccessful DVBS program, than German School.

German School was offered in the basement classrooms of the MB Church on Scott Street where my family attended.  As an adult, who speaks only one language, I can well understand why my parent’s generation would desire to have their beloved culture and other Mennonite traditions live on through the German language and through the over achieving seed of their collective loins moi (mich?).

German, as taught in a MB German school, like the Quran and the three R’s taught in frontier pioneer schools was all taught by rote.  The first word I can remember learning in German class was Vogel, which means bird.  The paperback text book had a wonderful illustration of a Robin and I associated robin with hood and somehow remembered vogel.  Now every time I see a bird the socialist in me thinks of taking money from the rich and giving it to the poor. Funny how the mind works.  My first phrase I learned while in the Mennonite student exchange program in Germany was, “Ein Beer bitte.”  I had come a long way in linguistic development and cultural understandings.  My insights had no bounds.

None the less I must have been a disappointment to my parents.  Not only was I a DVBS failure with severe attitude and truancy issues, it soon became apparent that I had no discernible aptitude whatsoever at learning a language.  I still struggle with English. It is not without coincidence that later the church choir director would make a parallel statement about my singing abilities.

I can’t in all honesty say I don’t know any German at all as such a statement would be a complete disservice to my upbringing, because like most good Mennonite kids of my era I grew up watching Hogan’s Heroes (a WW II comedy set in a concentration camp, doesn’t sound funny.  I guess you had to be there) that along with German school and living an entire year immersed in Germany in the wine region of Bad Durkheim, it is safe to say, that today, I can fluently speak in excess of 60 German words.  In addition, while traveling I can identify German tourists at a glance, at a distance.  Clearly education, travel and cultural exposure was not entirely wasted on me. While I can’t boast being a prodigy, I can say, “Ich Bien ein Berliner.”  Which I’m told, after Kennedy said it, might actually mean I am a sausage.  Language is such a hit and miss thing at the best of times.

My mom, like mother Teresa, never gave up on a cause.  I was her cause.  Her youngest child who one day would be set adrift in a large and frightening, secular world considering Sunday School, DVBS, choir and German School, as they related to me, were no longer really issues of family discussion. My mother, despite her lack of formal education did have the ability to think out side of the box.  She lived by the phrase “paradigm shift” and made one with me.  My mom in her wise problem solving mode decided to send me to cubs, a decidedly English institution. In fact, at the time,anything not purely Mennonite was termed either “English” and remember to wrinkle your noise as you pronounce the word, or ”Canadian” another wrinkle.

I believe that I may have been the only Mennonite in my church or possibly community who served active duty as a cub.  As it turned out I had somewhat of an aptitude for cubbing. It did not involve a different language, there were no Bible verses to remember, I did not have to sing and it wasn’t held during summer months. As a result I rose rapidly through the ranks to boy scouts and eventually Rangers, the young adult version. 

Cubs was so very much not in the Anabaptist tradition. We wore uniforms with long socks, green shirts, and cute little caps. It had a somewhat cuddly neo-nazi look to it. Every little thing we did we got a badge for it and I thrived on positive reinforcement.  I had an arm full of badges for building fires (my dad was a pyromaniac), marksmanship (I loved guns), knot tying, map reading (I became a geographer), survival skills, arts and crafts, etc.  If we did something one of our leaders would be sure to pin a badge on our arm.  I learned to make presentations without freezing up in front of an audience.  Cubs did not use pulpits which took off a lot of pressure while public speaking.  I was truly built for the secular world.

I think my mom’s plan to change her timid little Mennonite boy into someone with a skill set marketable in the global economy finally started to pay off. I may have been a tad weak in my Mennonite traditions, but I turned out to be a damn fine cub. It was a start. 

During my grade nine year at Waterloo Collegiate Institute, at a time when Canada must have been far more militaristic then it is today, all male students were expected to join the militia. “Canada, you say.  What a pity.” My God this was the sixties, peace and love were in the air, Jupiter was aligned with Mars, Men were not yet from Mars, or women from Venus.  It was the era of the hippies, free love, drugs and oddly, high school students marching and carrying really heavy rifles.  There were no flowers stuffed down the barrel.

Its not like I volunteered for militia, apparently it was on the curriculum.  I didn’t have the vocabulary back then but since my hackles were raised I had an inclination that militia, as practiced in my high school was some fascist, neo nazi, bullshit perpetrated on a guileless, quasi patriotic civilian population by the vast Canadian military industrial complex, or was I thinking of another country?  I joined because I had to join.

The day I got my uniform I realized what pompous, narcissistic little shits the “regular” militia guys were.  By regular I was not thinking entirely of their colons.  The regulars actually wanted to be in the military.  I think I was experiencing a latent anabaptist reaction to a military presence.  I can never really be sure if at that moment I wanted Menno Simons to be proud of me, or it was a conversion of convenience, like marrying to get a green card.  Either way after just a week of marching in the hot sun in the parade ground, which doubled as the staff parking lot.  I concluded: let the Americans protect us.  They have more guns.  What  purpose did NATO and NORAD serve I asked in my own internal monologue. Personally, I wanted no part of the military.  I played my Mennonite card and with a note eagerly signed by my mom had me back on the streets faster than you can say, “Brunk Revival Campaign, born again Christian and Jesus Saves.”

Having given that vitriolic and anti militaristic statement I also have to admit that I loved to shoot a rifle.  Sorry Menno! Our school, buried deep within its bowels, had of all things, a rifle range.  I wondered what else they had buried under the school, or maybe some questions are better left unasked.  There were certain urban myths left unanswered.  Like did Jason Hurlbutt from 11-C actually move to Regina like school officials told us?

In order to pursue my love of shooting I had to put up with some of those mis cretin regular military types who also liked to shoot things.  We used old military rifles which were altered with a 22 bore, so the power they purported was illusory, but then so was the uniform.  My non-anabaptist friends wanted to know how they too could become Mennonite and get out of the militia while still being allowed to shoot a rifle.  My mumbled, inarticulate, but otherwise evasive answer had to do with a tangled web we weave when first we try to deceive and once I got passed the drowning of anabaptists I had pretty well lost my audience.

I have never attempted skit shooting, that may be more part of the Anglican faith.