Editorial

I was sitting on Dave Scott’s porch on the Swan Lake First Nation a few years back when he started talking about a handshake treaty between his Ojibwe ancestors and Mennonites.

I had never heard of this. Later, I discovered no Mennonite historians had either.

Starting in April, this magazine will be printed 12 times per year instead of 22. Many readers encouraged the change.

In the Canadian Mennonite (CM) survey, carried out from July to October, we heard from nearly 350 people.

In addition, CM board members and I spoke directly with pastors, church leaders and others across the country.

“I will give you shepherds after my own heart who will lead you with knowledge and understanding.”

This is God’s beautiful promise in Jeremiah. Indeed, we need shepherds after God’s heart.

As we prepare to send this peace-themed issue of the magazine to press, all eyes are on Gaza. Israeli tanks sit poised at its northern border, ready to invade. Long lines of transport trucks laden with aid sit at its southern border, as a humanitarian catastrophe unfolds. The people of Gaza, mostly civilians, sit in between—cut off, trapped, at the mercy of outside forces.

In the past few weeks, I’ve spoken with five people who have been deeply wounded by church institutions. I’ve met countless more in previous years.

I regularly receive notes from estranged church folk who want a place to belong and have vital contributions to make, but have been pushed aside.

I don’t get out much.

That’s true for my personal life. My wife and I are homebodies and we jokingly refer to ourselves as “indoor kids”—a nod to the kind of children who choose watching TV or reading a book over getting outside and running around.

The fact that Mennonites are spread throughout much of the world provides the global Anabaptist community with rare access to on-the-ground, first-person comment from both hotspots and forgotten corners of the globe.

I did not plan to write about polarization—I’ve filled my quota on that topic—until Maxime Bernier held a rally near my home. Bernier leads the People’s Party of Canada (PPC) and may be the most prominent populist politician in the country. I couldn’t resist the chance to cross the political divide.

I came closer than I’d like to admit.

Three weeks before a family road trip to Ontario, our ex-Hutterite mechanic gave our 2004 Jetta wagon the death sentence. The ensuing car search turned into a troubling family crash course in the psychology of real-life environmental ethics.