Back in June The New Yorker magazine published a weekend essay by Agnes Callard titled “The Case Against Travel,” tagline: “It turns us into the worst version of ourselves while convincing us that we’re at our best.”  It’s a well-founded critique.  Citing a classic definition of a tourist as “a temporarily leisured person who voluntarily visits a place away from home for the purpose of experiencing a change,” Callard goes on to argue that, as tourism is currently practiced, it’s the host culture that ends up being changed by the visitors who have little interest in their own change.  She continues: “The single most important fact about tourism is this: we already know what we will be like when we return.”  Fair enough. But this week I’m thankful for those for whom travel has widened their hearts.  I’m thinking especially of stories from Israel and Palestine.  I’m thinking of my

Today is the Feast Day of Saint Francis. Mennonites don’t generally do a lot with traditional saints or feast days, but I know Saint Francis holds a special place in many of our hearts because of his connection with Creation and the natural world.  There are many different stories and legends that swirl around the person of Saint Francis, some of them more fantastical than others. Born to a wealthy family, he eventually renounced that wealth, stripping naked in the town square to show the depth of his conviction. He ended up giving much of his former wealth away and turned toward a life of simplicity and following the call God had placed on his life. Two of my favorite stories about Francis are that he was called on to settle a dispute between a town and a wolf, and that he was known to preach the gospel to the

A couple weeks ago in our Transitions and Ritual group I gave a handout that included the words “liminal space.”  It has become a common way of referring to the in between time, when something is clearly ending but the new thing has not year appeared.  An astute participant asked where the phrase comes from.  None of us knew.  This week’s Daily Meditations from Richard Rohr include a reflection on liminal space, but doesn’t address its origins. Fortunately, this is easy to research.  The online Merriam-Webster entry gives its Latin root, limin,limen, meaning threshold.  Like you’re leaving one room and about to enter another.  At the threshold.  Liminal space. As Rohr mentions, liminal space is sacred space.  And the role of healthy religion, rather than upholding a rigid stability, guides us into and through liminal space, which is always a place of transformation. I think it’s one of the reasons

Our weekly Peace Candle lighting includes acknowledgement of “those known as the Hopewell” among the Indigenous peoples who have “lived and labored, fought and loved” on this land.  Yesterday brought a major global acknowledgement.  UNESCO has declared Ohio’s Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks, eight sites in all, a World Heritage site.  The designation recognizes “places deemed of universal importance and value to humankind.”       An NPR article highlights that the walls of one site alone, Fort Ancient, in southwest Ohio, needed about 125 million basket loads of soil at 30 pounds per basket.  These took a lot of work (with no evidence of forced labor), and a lot of time, to build.  The earthworks were for ceremonial rather than military purposes.  Bill Kennedy, manager and archeologist for the site, refers to these creations as part of “a new religious movement.” The best estimates for when this multi-generational religious movement began are around

We’ve just started the Narrative Lectionary and it’s pretty clear up front, despite the nine month span, that’s it’s just a skim through the Bible.  This coming Sunday Isaac will be promised to Sarah and Abraham, after which we’ll see Isaac’s son Jacob wrestling with an angel, drop in on Moses at the burning bush, and catch the Ten Commandments at Sinai.  Then we’re out of the Torah altogether with the Ruth story and the kings and prophets of Israel.  We’ll try to tie some things together in between but it’s a fast trip. Skipping from Genesis 2 (Garden of Eden) to Genesis 18 (the promise of Isaac’s birth) means we jump over (at least) a couple stories that continue to illuminate the human condition. Genesis 6-9 tells the Noah Flood story in which only a few people and pairs of every animal are saved from global ecological destruction.  In