Menno Simons versus Thomas Jefferson
The Preamble:
The Anabaptist movement took root, in the 1500’s, under the leadership of one Menno Simons from whose name we derive the word Mennonite. This historic period was part of a larger Protestant movement which was instrumental in severing the ties that bind with the Roman Catholic Church over such issues as indulgences, whereby sinners could literally pay to have their sins forgiven, much like today in the Muslim religion whereby a life time of sins can be forgiven by building a mosque. It is a system that seems to work because in Kuwait, where I now live, at the time of writing this story, there are more mosques per square km than there are Tim Horton’s in Southern Ontario cities.
The Anabaptists did not believe in child baptism nor did their counterparts led by Martin Luther (not KIng) who stapled his 95 theses, documenting his discontent with the Catholic establishment, to the door of the Wittenberg cathedral in 1517. He might have gotten away with it too had he not been so critical of the Pope Leo X who three years later had Luther excommunicated from the Catholic church. You can’t keep a good man down and he and his anti-catholic followers with the aid of the newly invented printing press (which turned out not to be a fad) translated Luther’s many writings from Latin to the German vernacular and within two months his ideas flashed across Europe like a comet entering the earth’s atmosphere. It was electrifying.
In a similar fashion Anabaptists, evolved into Amish, Hutterites and Mennonites and they all soon discovered that, although they disagreed on just about everything else, they did agree on the concepts of pacifism and non-violence as ways of manifesting their protest, as a reactionary move, directed against the Roman Catholics.
The Catholics of course had an exceptionally long history of warfare, violence, persecution and aggression as demonstrated in the Crusades (Christians 3, Muslims 4) and on their own continent in the inquisitions directed against the Jews and other non-believers, miscellaneous infidels, along with the numerous witch hunts, associated with thousands of deaths by burnings and drownings, and then later, to top it all off, the myriad of child abuse and pedophile cases for which the Catholic church is now famous. Obviously, as Ricky Recordo once said, “Lucy you got a lot of ‘splaining to do,” so did the Catholics. I think the Anabaptists really called this one right, and Menno was right on his game when he led the separatist charge.
For whatever reason Mennonites became to be known for their peaceful demeanor, not to be confused with their propensity and skill for passive aggressive behaviour which is a whole different ball game (refer to appendix A). Ghandi would have been proud of my Mennonite ancestors and their core value system for the most part, in fact I suspect Ghandi got some of his inspiration, like making home spun cloth to show independence from British wool merchants, from the Mennonites themselves who were also self sufficient on many levels before they even knew who British Imperialist were. But enough of all this boring history.
My main point here is a little known fact that I recently unearthed during my research. Mennonites did not like Thomas Jefferson who was not even a Catholic. Jefferson, as legend has it, and this could be just another urban myth, was the principle author of the Declaration of Independence during the American Revolution. For it was in that same document that he more or less gave Americans the right to bare arms. I mean what was he thinking?
As a result of this seemly minor semantic blunder in the Declaration, Americans today have taken on the mission to arm themselves to the teeth with over 300 million hand guns stowed away in purses, glove compartments of cars, rifles in pick up trucks, and automatic pistols in night stands. No other society on this planet has quite embraced the concept of an armed civilian population as throughly as the Americans have. On a per capita basis the Spartans didn’t even come close. Menno Simons would have turned in his grave if he knew this, so we are not going to say a thing. Mum is the word! I think we owe him that much.
As good Mennonites, and in the true meaning of pacifism and non-violence my brother and our friends embraced the words of Thomas Jefferson to the letter of the law, ...life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness...oh, and the right to bare arms...” and were probably the best armed Mennonites since my father and uncle picked up rifles from dead Russian soldiers during the Russian Revolution.
The Story Begins:
“You shot me you dumb bastard.”
I think Davy Crocket, the frontiersman, was likely more an influence on my childhood then was Menno Simons, In fact I had no clear idea of who Menno Simons was until I was nineteen years old and traveling Europe with a Mennonite exchange program when I was taken to see his cottage. I believe it was in Bad Oldesloe or maybe Lubeck. He travelled around alot so the house was probably a rental.
No one really felt safe having Menno and his family as a dinner guest, or even worse over night because it tended to cost them their lives as Menno was a fugitive with a 2000 guilder bounty on his head. I’m not sure how that converts to Euros, but just not a good sign when your religion is founded by a fugitive. In fact the family seemed to have a bit of a wild side as Menno’s brother, Peter, was killed with many others from Menno’s congregation as they tried to physically, in a military sense, take over a monastery. Yes, you read right, that would be a monastery. I’m not certain if this was some sort of university or fraternity prank, or they really meant to conquer a monastery. Either way it was a failed attempt and Menno became very heavy on his non-violence stance ever since that little disaster. In fact it is safe to say he was totally against the use of the sword to establish the Kingdom of God here on Earth.
As a kid I always thought that Davy Crocket’s coon skin hat was the coolest thing, as was his fighting at the Alamo against all odds, not unlike attacking a monastery I suppose, but Disney never made a movie about that, did they. Like every Mennonite boy growing up in the 50’s I wanted a hat and a rifle like Crochet's. What can I say popular culture versus a minority religion led by an ex-priest who by his own admission played cards, drank and followed other diversions. I can only guess what those were. Give me that coon’s skin cap any day.
I’m really sorry, but if Menno Simons was alive today and had the fortune to be nominated by President Obama for a Supreme court posting his past would be dragged through Foxe and CNN networks and their affiliates all part of the Republican mud slinging machine and he would come out the loser even if he had a publishing resume longer than Nora Roberts. Life is cruel.
And it came to pass I got my cap and rifle one Christmas as snow lay round about. Ironic, that I would receive a weapon of mass destruction on a Christian holiday. In another story I’ll tell you how I nearly shot my eye out during the first week with my rifle. I walked around for several days with a pronounced red dot on my forehead between my eyes, it had a truly a certain Indian quality to it. My mother so astute about many things never questioned me as I passed it off as a mosquito bite.
Okay, I know, fast forward, you want to get to the “You shot me you dumb bastard” part of the story.
As years went on my brother, actually I’ll distance myself from my brother during the procurement part of the story as he and his friends, older than me, making me an innocent in much of this bought, a few guns. I am the Colonel North in this story and not even Congress will change my testimony. Suffice it to say the world was a simpler place back then and mere kids, with no photo ID, could walk into Canadian Tire and buy rifles and ammunition.
I think by the time of the shooting we had (read my brother) a 22 hand gun, a 22 rifle, several pellet guns, a BB gun, a 410 shot gun, a 12 gauge shot gun an AK-47 (just kidding) and a cross bow, although technically not a gun, it could send an arrow four inches into the trunk of a willow tree, so I think it qualifies. It would be an under statement to say that we were well armed, at least my brother was.
I love my brother. He was my Davy Crocket and took on the real big brother role at this stage of my life, despite the fact that he tricked me me into smoking so I could then be manipulated into not telling our mom that he smoked. Clever guy my brother!
He has a name, but since this is a work of fiction I will not reveal that name to protect his identity. I will however, mention I am from a family with two sisters and one brother. Marv taught me to fire a gun so I wouldn’t end up shooting myself in the head again. He knew our mother would be disappointed if I did. We would often drive out to Cleason Snyders farm where we would take rifle practice in the quarry there.
Did you know, for example, that a slug, a solid piece of lead, could penetrate the engine block of a Chevy. I know I was impressed too. My big brother taught me how to safely cross a fence line with a rifle without shooting myself. He had great patience as he showed me how to line up my target, hold my breath and squeeze the trigger. I can say thanks to my brother and my training just give me a ski mask and direct me to any 7 11 convenience store, but that would be wrong and you don’t have to be Mennonite to know that.
We killed ground hogs, pigeons, barn cats and song birds primarily. Yes, in retrospect, while it is true we had shit for brains it seemed so right at the time. There was no Green Party. There was no environmental movement. There was no endangered species list. There were just stupid Mennonite boys with guns on God’s green Earth doing what seemingly came quite naturally. And it is usually at this point when I get quite defensive about my past, perhaps to cover my guilt, and I know the psychologists amongst you are now thinking nature versus nurture. Well fuck you. I had a good Christian upbringing and proud of it. At least I wasn’t attacking some dumb monastery in a Frisian town, or dumping toxic wastes into the Love Canal. This was our constitutional right and who cares if in the fine print we were Canadian and not American. Details.
On week ends my brother, myself, Walter, Kurt, Donald, the Kaettler brothers and other hangers on would bike past the Welland Canal at Lock number one, where if we had the time and the inclination would place a penny under the bridge’s massive counter weight. When a ship usually of Liberian or Panama registry came through ( I thought those countries had huge navies) we would then be thrilled to watch our penny get flattened like a pancake. The same works with trains and railroads tracks, but sissy boys today can pay fifty cents and have a machine do it for them and it will probably say San Diego Zoo or Niagara Falls on the penny when all is said and done.
We were kids with guns, we were not sissies, and on a mission to the renovated McNab junior public school where my brother was bussed to attend grade eight. On this day we were on bikes and this was a trek. A small creek ran passed the school through some very thick woods and on to Lake Ontario. This was safari country. We parked but did not lock our bikes. Bike theft was still in a developmental stage at this time.
We hefted our backpacks full of beans, wieners and Kool-Aid and hiked to the Interior. Once situated we fired our guns at random targets. Walter fancied shooting at branches usually patently unaware of who was in his line of fire on the other side of the branch. I shot a blue jay that day, not a baseball player, and apparently there was a witness to my deed. A situation that would later teach me about cause and effect.
it seems that day we were being watched. Apparently we had wandered into Mennonite country without really knowing it. Its something like doctors without borders, one could easily pass into Mennonite lands unaware. We heard a commotion back where we had our bikes parked by the school. We quickly elected to send a scouting party to investigate.
We did not like what we found. Running off in the distance like mad dogs and Englishmen were several Mennonite boys, you could tell by their distinctive dark clothing, suspenders, bowl haircuts and flood-like pants. Their baggy untailored pant legs flapped like kites in a tropical storm. They were moving at great speed.
Everything was happening so fast. We went for our bikes to give chase, only to discover that the tires were all flat, ever single one of them on all five bikes. Walter came running up the path behind us and when he put two and two together, the kid was a math whiz, maybe he was a speed reader too because a sign attached to my bike said, “ Blue Jay Killer.” Walter fired from the hip at the fleeing anabaptists little shits and got my brother right in the stomach.
“You shot me you dumb bastard.”
The story ends.
Marty Rempel
From: Flights of Fancy from a mis-spent youth: Growing Up Mennonite
No comments:
Post a Comment