EDITORIAL: AS THE WORLD QUAKES

Mark R. Wenger’s column leads this issue because it confronts head-on the fact that we are living not in the soap opera of “As the World Turns” but the real-life drama of a world quaking. We don’t know for how long. We don’t know what will have tumbled when the ground stops shaking. But we do feel the tremors every day. In what strikes me as a stroke of brilliance, Wenger turns to a wise veteran of the Great Depression to bring together then and now and see what wisdoms we can pool.

Boring into the quaking, Kathy Zehr Nussbaum wonders if pineapples on mailboxes are quite the thing to worry about right now. Deborah Good tells of losing her father and offers pertinent glimpses of his wisdoms—such as the value of bringing people together to address and support each other through the tough times. 

Noel R. King’s column is placed where it is to keep us humble. As the world quakes, billions and trillions of dollars are being thrown around to try to rescue us. But none of us—no matter our pet solution—really knows if it will work or is a version of the shuttle stick accidentally nudged. 

Then columns to follow maybe reground us a bit in the faith that life goes on. Renee Gehman hangs in with her own stresses to model and report on the stamina required even to complete her column. Elaine Greensmith Jordan faces her own tremor—the loss of a husband—confronts opposition to her ministry, yet still stumbles into water turned wine. Starla J. King simply—yet groundingly—reminds us to celebrate who we are even though we can’t figure it all out. Reviewing “Doubt,” David Greiser shows us that truth matters yet we can’t always solidly plant ourselves on it. 

Often we hear that what ended the Great Depression was getting into a great war. Daniel Hertzler’s reviews remind us how tempted we are to expect salvation from the Myth of Redemptive Violence. 

The final two articles remind us that as much as we rightly long for the tremors to ease, we are, in the end, only grass, forced to hope that what remains everlasting is the love of God. Still humans want God with skin on, so in my column I asked if “you’ll hold me as I held you,” and Joe Postove tells of an Anne Friedmann he loved to the end because she first loved his quaking family. 

Finally the poets take us into the quakings and their sleepnesses and doubts as well as offer ongoing hints of hope that we shall still endure, still find home. —Michael A. King