Vigils 'n' Sigils: "Hier stehe ich, ich kann nicht anders..."

New to this thread? It begins here.

"And you may ask yourself: well, how did I get here?"

Naked runners, uppity old dames, indigent meditative-types -- so much low-hanging fruit to ponder on the family tree. Distraction? Or a possible entry point to forgotten corridors of the Magisterium?

"Whatevs," as the kids were once prone to saying. A few more stray observations, then, on the current state of Anabaptist Protestantism and where I might fall in with it. Perhaps a bold conclusion to this series will suggest itself. Or maybe I'll just declare a natural "time out" in hopes of moving on to other interests.

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My mother informs me that a friend of hers -- a recent widow -- heads down to the Mennonite colonies in Paraguay every winter to deliver public seminars on sexual health.

I know this woman -- she's the mother of a high school friend. It's probably been 30 years since I saw her (or my friend, for that matter), but what I recall of her fits this profile quite well. She is friendly and solicitous, and disarmingly candid in an unassuming way that gently invites disclosure in turn. Also, she is perfectly fluent in German and at least one of its plaut- varieties.

Mom passed along a few amusing/delightful anecdotes from a recent trip, then took an unexpected detour to darker territory. "She [my mother's friend] says there's a group that hived off from the colony some years back, and occasionally one or two women will show up at a seminar. But they don't ask questions and they don't speak. People from this group only come to town for the meanest of necessities. They don't make eye contact with anyone, but glance around constantly. She says they behave as if they are all haunted, the men and the women."

"I don't know what that is," said my mother. She was silent for a while, then said, "That's pagan idolatry."

****

I tend to think my temperament is of the "Go along to get along" variety, but it's probably more accurate to say that's what I aspire to. Regardless, I've often wondered what prompted my ancestors to literally break faith with the state. So far as I'm concerned, give me three squares daily and a relatively stable social order and I'm generally happy to quietly live a life of the mind while plugging at the menial tasks that need doing.

Of course, revolution appeals to any untested young fella straddling the cusp of manhood, and in my day I spent some time hanging out with and trailing the footsteps of a few bold would-be radicals. Inevitably I became impatient with their impatience and bailed the scene before significant investment was asked of me.

And yet, here I stand -- comfortably Canadian -- after my ancestors fled one sweet gig after the next because they had a POV that brought the Catholics and the Lutherans into agreement.

"Let's wipe those Mennonites off the face of the earth!"

I'm made up of the genes of people who put everything at risk after they read the Bible for themselves.

Go figure.

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"Reading the Bible for themselves" -- man, am I ever not an advocate of that! My tribe's spent the last 500 years building from that foundation and we're only now at the point where we admit to beneficial dialogue with Roman Catholic and Orthodox types.

Makes me think the Holy Roman Church dropped the ball pretty badly, way back when.

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Fun fact: the Mennonites took in Baruch Spinoza and published his work. What did he have in common with us?

Exile. Successful trade. Lofty musings that ran counter to prevailing thought.

Perhaps the capacity for a lusty limerick.

Apparently that was enough -- for us both.

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"Le cœur a ses raisons, que la raison ne connaît point" -- Blaise Pascal: "The heart has reasons which reason knows nothing of."

Ain't that the truth? I'm looking at Korea right now and the blowhards circling it, and hoping there is some heart-based raison bringing conviction to collective consciousness where dispassionate logic -- "Let's stop now, or this'll be the end of us all" -- has failed.

Say a prayer for the ways of men, won't you?

****

We are all haunted by something -- it is foolish to pretend otherwise.

"Abraham F. Reimer did not share the financial acumen of his brother Klaas, and was more interested in astronomy and other intellectual pursuits. His diaries and journals are filled with all manner of observations, calculations, facts and figures. Fortunately for the family, his wife Helena was a resolute pioneer woman of great determination, who earned much of the family income as a seamstress. The family also received considerable financial assistance from the Gemeinde."

And with that I declare myself the uncontested winner of the Fuela Reimer Literary Award. Thank you for reading! And may God have mercy on my family.

It's Fuela's cosmos -- we're just squatters in it.