EDITORIAL
Exploring the Tent Pitched Among Us

Michael A. King

When John 1:14 says that “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth,” the verb translated “dwelt” could also be rendered, I was inspired to learn, along the lines of “pitched his tent.” God through Jesus pitched and pitches his tent among us, dwelling right here with us in the enfleshed nitty-gritties of our real lives.

Exploring aspects of what that looks like is one thing the authors of this issue of DreamSeeker Magazine might be viewed as doing. Suzanne Ehst strikes me as doing this when she turns becoming a pillar of salt into evidence of a compassion not so different from what we believe that tent-dweller in the end expressed on his cross.

Jody Fernando explores the tent pitched among us when she seeks to experience God’s presence not simply in disembodied faith but amid the struggles and pains of real life, including marriage when it turns out to involve more than easy romance. Mel Leaman looks for the larger meanings in his flesh-and-blood relationship, hurts and joys included, with his brother. Deborah Good is leading us near the tent when she asks how broken neighborhoods might be transformed into art and an old mattress into a large and comforting hand.

Although I wasn’t thinking of the tent when I wrote it, my own column can be understood to suggest that often older people are particularly able to discern where in life’s rough terrain the tent is to be found. And it was a pleasure to have in hand at precisely the right time to illustrate this an article from older author Milo D. Stahl (my boss in the 1970s when I was a college work-study student). Stahl invites us to dream not of a comfortable retirement but rather to plan for an active old age of tent-living with Christ in which we embody and work for shalom and Jubilee.

Linda Martin shows how that down-to-earth activity, hanging wash, can draw us toward the tent. Noël King doesn’t exactly coax us near the tent, but maybe we still learn something about it through entering her parable, which smashes our spirituality head-on into solid boulders. David Greiser’s film review might be viewed as looking at life outside the tent.

In book reviews on such topics as Fanny Crosby as well as how Christians and others have handled and mishandled land, Marlin Jeschke and Daniel Hertzler show us realities both earth-bound and also hinting at the tent. In their exchange of views regarding “Brokeback Mountain,” David Greiser and Forrest Moyer wrestle with how you both live in the tent and redemptively engage gay love. And poet Rebecca Rossiter spies the tent in simple suppers, alfalfa, and quiet Mennonites wanting to let the music out.
—Michael A. King