Hopewit

Untitled If triangles had a God, He'd have three sides. ~Old Yiddish Proverb This old proverb puts a different perspective on “ So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.” (Genesis 1:27, NIV) As a triangle would imagine it’s creator to look triangular, humans logically imagine God to resemble themselves. And maybe that’s a good thing, or maybe it’s just that visualizing God is impossible for us except to imagine his love to be like our love, his justice to be like our justice, his anger to resemble ours, his features to mimic ours. Artists who’ve attempted to render God’s essence on canvas have invariably portrayed the figure of a man. (See, for instance, Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam .) The problem with personifying God in this manner is that it can come disconcertingly close to idol worship, and idolatry answers a need for some person or force outside our reality to give our lives ...

ST. JOHN'S HARBOUR “ For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer. Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.” (Romans 13:4-5) I know of no Biblical passage that cries louder for contextual interpretation than does the 13 th Chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans. To the new Christians in Rome, Paul appears to be saying, 1) that God appoints ruling authority to keep order, 2) that to disobey government is to defy what God has ordained, and 3) to prevent punishment and keep a good conscience, we ought to pay taxes, obey laws, respect authority. The dilemma for those who ignore or aren’t aware of the character of the person who wrote it, the situation of the people for whom it was written or the state of ...

Don't mess with the white man. He may be armed. Moderated by MCC, a dozen of us Mennonite-Church people engaged in a listening circle on the subject of “Rural Reconciliation” last night. I don’t think that event would have happened if Colten Boushie and some friends from a nearby reserve hadn’t invaded the Stanley farm near Battleford, Saskatchewan and if Gerald Stanley hadn’t shot and killed Boushie and if there hadn’t been a highly-publicized trial in which Stanley was found not guilty of murder or manslaughter.    What is one to do if on a semi-isolated farmyard, trespassing persons threaten to steal your property and cause you to fear both for that loss and the safety of your family? The question was raised starkly and honestly . . . and no definitive response was offered, likely because no one there had an answer handy. Probably resulting from the publicity surrounding the Stanley trial, it’s becoming more apparent that we’re caught between the convict...

Off Newfoundland An RCMP spokesperson said it would take investigators a long time to determine the cause of the crash that killed fifteen and injured the other fourteen on a bus near Tisdale. I’m not an investigator of accidents and shouldn’t even be speculating, but it’s one of the things we do when such horrible tragedies happen. That, along with the “our hearts and prayers are with you” condolences that seem so utterly inadequate, donations of money for victims’ families and reams of social and official news chatter that hovers somewhere between tearful and heartfelt empathy and crass “accident voyeurism.” These are some of the ways we humans collectively mourn events as tragic to others as was the recent crash; nothing adequate—or even appropriate to the situation—presents itself. We do what we can and it never feels like enough. How shall we address this overwhelming sadness that comes over us and for which no relief but time is offered? Even though we ma...

Jasper National Park, August 2010 I generally listen to a TED talk or two while doing my walking-for-health thing, my phone in my pocket connected to my brain through ear buds and wire. Yesterday, a Nigerian man held forth for 11 minutes on “Why I choose humanism over faith,” that is, as opposed to a religious person who chooses to hope for intervention from the “empty sky.” His definition of humanism —as clearly as I can remember it—was that it places its confidence in people’s ability to reach the goals for which they long, that it is neither providence nor the influence of gods or a god that is relied upon. By this definition, we are most of us inclined in different proportions to be humanistic. We do, after all, encourage our children to think that they get things by working for them and that the sky’s the limit in the area of achievement. Anyone can become president if he puts in the effort. Human achievement through human effort gets a nod from even the most d...