IN THIS
ISSUE
Autumn 2002, Vol. 2, No.
4
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Editorial
SWEET
IN SAD
"No contributor fails in
some way to see light within dark, sweet
within sad."
POETRY
BY BARBARA SHISLER
A
FIRST-TIME VISIT TO AN OLD-TIME PLACE
C. Jack Orr
"The secular university seemed the
logical place to find an unfettered
intellectual haven. I became a university
professor. Academe would be my church. My
mission: To help students think about
their thinking so as to improve their
lives. . . . The horror that gripped the
world on September 11 awakened me from my
non-dogmatic slumbers. It seemed that
Moses stood before the entrance to the
twenty-first century with the ancient
invitation: "I put before you this
day, life and death, blessings and
cursing; therefore, chose life that you
might live."
THE
CRAZY AND WONDERFUL POWER OF SONG
Joan K. King
"When I sit in this place hallowed
by thousands of Sundays of singing,
surrounded by people as different from me
as night from day—yet hearing what
music we make together—I marvel at
the wonder and the breadth of God’s
grace."
SENTIMENTAL
FAITH VERSUS THE GOD WHO IS "I
AM"
Luanne Austen
"Sentimental faith dwells on what
God did yesterday. I am still moved at
the mercy of God that forgave my youthful
crimes. . . . I weep at the great things
he has done. And I sometimes long for
yesterday, when all my troubles seemed so
far away because he was so present."
THE
DESCENDANT OF THE MAN WHO BUILT A CHAIR
FOR JESUS
Gregory Hartzler-Miller
"As a young man in 1809, Jonas
‘White’ Stutzman was the first
of European stock to build a cabin and
settle in Holmes County. . . . But in his
later years, he became, as some Amish
observers say, 'a little unusual.' . . .
Being in his bloodline, and knowing some
of my own tendencies toward eccentricity,
his story drew me in."
THE
SCAB
Joe Franzen
"This cut had hurt me more than I
could ever have imagined. My legs were
chopped out from under me. My heart was
beaten and bruised. It hurt to breathe
and to move."
LESSONS
FROM MY FATHER’S LAMP
Elizabeth Raid
"My thoughts were with my
89-year-old father, curled up in the
narrow nursing home bed. What had
happened to his 40-year association with
our church college as professor,
registrar, librarian, archivist?"
Marginalia
WHAT’S WRONG WITH
"DOING WHAT’S BEST FOR THE
KIDS"?
Valerie Weaver-Zercher
"When did my love for my child turn
into a grocery list of my own
perfectionism? When did I get caught in
this catch-22 of socially conscious but
middle-class parenthood?"
Reel
Reflections
"SIGNS" AND
WONDERS
Dave Greiser
"Shyamalan’s films explore
spiritual themes with the kind of
tolerance and gentleness characteristic
of his parents’ faith and at the
same time also the rational precision of
much Christian theology."
Kingsview
IT ALL ENDS
Michael A. King
"Finally it had sunk in, into my
bones (which will turn brittle) and into
my flesh (which is, as Scripture says,
like grass), and not only into my
theorizing brain, that it all ends. . . .
If national leaders cannot be expected to
be pacifists, they should be expected at
the very least to have stared death in
the face, to have been sobered by it, and
to show evidence that they understand
what it means to take a life, whether
that of the earth itself or of other
people
Books,
Faith, World & More
TIME TO PAY ATTENTION TO
THE ENVIRONMENTAL CRISIS: REVIEW OF THREE
BOOKS
Daniel Hertzler
"How is it that we have come to
where we are in relation to our
environment? Who has decreed that we
should be free to "trash" it? .
. . As may be expected, the U.S., as the
biggest economy and the biggest polluter,
is the slowest to change. It appears that
the problem is made worse by having
‘oilmen’ . . . in the White
House."
The Turquoise
Pen
MARY ANN’S SECRET
Noël R. King
"Every time I sat with her, starting
just a few days after her encounter with
herself on the bus, I intently watched
Mary Ann’s blinking eyes, trying to
understand her secret. Blink. Blink.
Blink. The only thing I could see was a
small Mona Lisa smile whenever Mary Ann
blinked."
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