Chapter the Second.

As I contemplate starting into the second part of my silly little story, I wonder how deep to go.  How much of the side stories and such do I tell?  Probably only those that have a bearing on the subject at hand....closet plain-ness, right?  Even though all experiences shape who we are, many have no direct bearing on this story.


After Darrin was baptized, we still lived the college town life.  The only real difference is that he played piano for Campus Crusade and we often went home for the weekends and went to church there.  Time went on.  Darrin graduated and we moved to the Portland area and though we had no real friends and an infant, we only attended church there one time.  It was my only experience with a "mega church" and one I do not plan to repeat.  


While living in an apartment (another experience I hope not to repeat) we learned just how much we didn't belong in the city.  Darrin drove about 20 minutes a day to work and one day while tending Madi and nursing my little bit of morning sickness, I heard sirens.  When he got home he told me about the police chasing a robber past our apartment and over the hill into the neighborhood where he worked.  There the man refused to give up and they had to shoot him.  He was standing in a school yard.  That was when we decided we had to get back to who we were and that very weekend we started driving the countryside looking for a place to land.


The place we found and were instantly drawn to was Vernonia.  We bought our first home there and joined the First Christian Church two months before Wilson was born.  I don't think we have missed a Sunday without reason since.  Some of the reasons may have been a little iffy, but we believed that we were asked by Jesus to be part of His body and commitment to the local congregation is part of that.  Oops....soapbox moment.


The Vernonia church has had numerous issues for all of its history.  I will not trot out my guesses as to why here, but suffice it to say, they were between pastors when we came and between pastors when we left for good eight years later.  


In the middle of those years, however we had a go at the mid west. Darrin was offered the opportunity to set up and manage a satellite company in Dubuque, Iowa and being young and ambitious and not knowing any better, we jumped on it. It only lasted a few months but while we were there our faith was challenged and our commitment to God and each other grew immensely.  While there are many things that were adversely affected, our credit rating mostly, I do not regret our time "back east" because it was there we first attended a church where the women covered their heads for worship.  


I had discovered the passage in Corinthians about women covering many years before and had never resolved in myself why that was cultural and communion was not.  The usual explanation about  how the women needed a reminder of God's and their husband's authority on their head because they were taking leadership in the church seemed MORE relevant today not LESS.  I still waffle on this.  I still have trouble buying that just because Paul mentioned it only once and only to a troubled church means that it isn't important for our troubled church here in America.


No more for today.  Its time for school. :)

I Really Haven't Forgotten...

...that I'm in the middle of a story, but I just have not the energy nor the will to write right now.  Maybe next week?

We interrupt.....

     Here in the middle of my telling, I am going to squeeze in a little real world example of why I am a closet Mennonite.  I definitely, partially, semi, lean toward noncombatant. What brought this to light recently was the death of a man who brought evil to most of the world, but who was still a child of God, Osama bin Laden. 


     Growing up in an NRA-belonging, gun-toting, protect-it-if-it's-your's family that has served in all four branches of the US military, you can see my dilemma.  The worst part is the constant battle in myself over my beliefs.  I still believe that if someone were hurting someone I love I would absolutely go all kinds of crazy on their head.  That is decidedly NOT anabaptist.  But I am so disturbed by rejoicing over the gruesome death of even a terrorist.  


     I have always been a believer in capital punishment....it's scriptural, right?  But doesn't that come from before Jesus came and changed the standard by which we are to live?  How can I reconcile the war within myself?