Transplanting a Seattleite

Recently, I was looking for something or other on Amazon (basically: I was awake and breathing and not out on a walk) and stumbled across Kyrja's _Rupert's Tales_. How cool are these! The bunny is adorable. The art is simple but appealing and not overly sentimental. The rhymes could become a bit much, but these aren't exactly the sort of book that one sits down looking for sophisticated verse.

I think what I like best about these books is how tactile the language is. Trees have "long, knobby knees". Rupert's bunny-eye view of ritual is really appealing, because the explanation always comes _after_ watching without knowledge. Never mind children: isn't this how it is with anyone, of any age, when first encountering an unfamiliar sacred act?

Rupert's heart speeds up and slows down, a realistic and tangible way of communicating his intense reactions to events like the arrival of an owl. "the twitching in his long legs began to relax". While the owl's explanation contrasts animal perceptions with human, it doesn't actually come down solidly on any particular conception of divinity, which I really appreciate. I was particularly pleased that Kyrja devoted some lines to acknowledging love of all kinds.

I read the Beltane section to T., and he liked the pictures and the story. We've been reading Wendy Pfeffer's books on the Solstices (most consistently in winter): _The Shortest Day_ and _A New Beginning_, and also her harvest book, _We Gather Together_. But I really like Rupert's Tales for being solidly grounded in a particular tradition that it isn't all that easy to find kids books about.

Happy Beltane! Give someone a hug and a kiss today, and remember that it doesn't just feel good. It is Good.

Today's news brings us a tragedy during the Hajj. But before you dismiss this as (a) a long way away involving (b) a bunch of people who are not co-religionists of yours, let's contextualize this a little. How does this event:

http://www.cnn.com/2015/09/24/middleeast/stampede-hajj-pilgrimage/

Compare to other crowd tragedies?

Wikipedia summary found here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_human_stampedes

Today's incident is included at the end. Working our way back, we can find a worse incident here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Al-Aaimmah_bridge_stampede

"these groups themselves often encourage high turn-outs at religious events to prove the relative strength of their sect."

If you are wondering (as I did) why that 2005 incident didn't register in your brain, that would be because we were all hyper-focused on Katrina at the time (and probably rightly so).

Rather than dismiss this all as Not My Monkeys, Not My Circus, let's stop a moment and consider the current visit to the US of the head of another very large monotheist, patriarchal religious group. A lot of people admire many of the statements of the current leader of this group, _even while he is busy canonizing a man who [feel free to offer a qualifier here] committed genocide_ (how anyone can justify a favorable opinion of someone who is moving Junipero Serra along the path to sainthood is beyond me, but the human brain is a flexible instrument, suited to an incredible variety of tasks). But you know? That dude is head of a large religious group.

Let's tone that all down.

When I was graduating from high school and in college, this was in the news:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piss_Christ

At the time, I was a Jehovah's Witness (I had been baptized as a full member when I was in 9th grade). I was an active member, and during this time frame, I spent some months as what was then known as an "auxiliary pioneer". I was not ashamed of my beliefs and while I tried to respect other people's desire not to be harassed by evangelism, when asked about them I shared them freely. A variety of things happened a few years later to convince me that the beliefs of Jehovah's Witnesses are entirely wrong and quite evil, and I disassociated myself when I was 25. But at the time of these events, I viewed blasphemy as a really serious issue. [ETA: Albeit one which God was responsible for dealing with, beyond organizational enforcement through shunning.]

Because Piss Christ involves a crucifix, and because I, as a JW at the time, firmly believed that Christ was murdered on a stake, not on a cross, the particulars of Piss Christ, while somewhat appalling, were not regarded by me as blasphemous in the same way they presumably were perceived by, say, Catholics. But it was interesting to me to see people who were otherwise Christmas-and-Easter Christians suddenly get Real Excited about something somebody did in the art world. As a member of a religious organization that worked hard to _set_ precedents about religious freedom (such as conscientious objection to military service including alternatives acceptable to SDAs, the right to refuse medical treatment such as blood transfusion, the right to go door to door), I found something about this very darkly humorous. Ha ha ha, you never had any issue treading on me, now look what somebody did to you. Tee hee hee.

Piss Christ has been a focus of religious anger, and accusations of blasphemy ever since. It has even come up in conjunction with the film, Innocence of Muslims.

But as far as I know, Piss Christ, while the target of vandalism in reproduction, has never been the focus of killings and hostage taking.

Tolerance in our society is meaningful and widespread. Let's continue to be uncompromising in our tolerance. Self-defense is an excuse for violence. The defense of others against violent assault is an excuse for violence.

Blasphemy is no excuse for violence. Suggesting that blasphemers who are targeted by the violent are in any way to blame for what the evildoers have evil done, is on a par with blaming a rape victim for wearing the wrong clothes, being in the wrong place, or just being a woman.

http://www.awab.org/

Not in my town, alas, so I won't be checking out the American Baptist church in West Acton, altho there are some very nice people who go there.

I think we are going to SACC tomorrow. Littleton isn't starting their RE program yet. SACC has Rally Sunday AND they are kicking off Sunday school with ice cream sundaes. Mmmmm. That seems like an easy choice.

I think RE is starting over in our UU Parish church, and we could conceivably do both, since they have 9 and 11 a.m. services, and SACC is doing 10:30 this Sunday. But I doubt I will because I'm still coughing a lot, so I think we'll stick to the walkable/bikeable one for right now.

R. asked what the church is over by the town green. Turns out it is the other Congregational church in town -- and it is not ONA. We won't be visiting them.

ETA: The SACC service we attended recently included a brief mention of someone over at St Matthews, because a person in the congregation had attended a wedding there of a family member or friend. I was surprised at the warmth and love in the rev's voice when she referred to St. Matthews (Methodist), but I finally overcame my knee-jerk yeah-that's-not-gonna-happen to take a look at their website.

http://saint-matthews.org/

Which includes this, linked prominently on the front page.

http://saint-matthews.org/welcome-to-saint-matthews/pastor-steves-statement-on-homosexuality/

I have no good reason to attend a Methodist church, but I sure like that.

Oh, seriously, I may actually have to go at some point.

http://saint-matthews.org/welcome-to-saint-matthews/frequently-asked-questions/communion/

"when we have Communion, we offer it to everybody—no restrictions on age, church membership, or even belief. It’s Jesus’s presence, and he never held that back from anybody."

Nice people!

"You’ll get a piece of bread (gluten, dairy, & soy free); dip it in the cup of grape juice. Enjoy."

ETA: Aha! The Methodist welcoming association is the Reconciling Ministries Network, and St. Matthews is a member. Good to know!

If you had asked me a few hours ago, I would have sworn the Lutheran church down the street must be from the more liberal denominations. And I would have been wrong. This really helps explain an interaction I had in front of the grocery store with a couple of them doing outreach a year or so ago: That Thing is actually Missouri Synod. You know, the people who made one of their pastors apologize for participating in an interfaith memorial service after Sandy Hook:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/08/nyregion/lutheran-pastor-explains-role-in-sandy-hook-interfaith-service.html

He had to do this because the _membership_ of the synod was so incensed with him. This isn't a hierarchy imposing something -- it's a groundswell of anti-ecumenism on a par with the behavior of JWs and other cults.

LCMS still thinks homosexuality is a sin (heck, they're still really opposed to divorce) and that their membership should be giving public witness against homosexuality and legal recognition of same-sex marriage (their words!).

Bleah.

I could go on, but I'm not sure I'm ever going to get the smell off of me as it is. No, T. is not allowed to go there.

I have been thinking for several years that maybe-someday I'd get the kids signed up for Religious Education with the UUs, because I think that's a pretty good way of inoculating people against really dangerous forms of indoctrination. They wouldn't be going into a conversation with an evangelical or worse completely ignorant. But because they are young, and because of some other things, it has not yet been time to really start planning this process. However, with T. recently asking to go to church and both of us enjoying a Tai Chi/Taoism lay-led summer service over in Stow, I got to thinking about it again, and was trying to figure out how to get an answer to my concerns about UU pacifism and also to better understand how to make a hypothetical future interaction with Religious Education work better for my special needs kids. After my usual resort to the web, I said to myself, Self, you are friendly acquaintances/friends with a UU minister. Why are you trying to get an answer to these questions online?

So when I ran into my minister friend while on a walk with T. (it seemed potentially complex to attempt this conversation while walking with M.), I told her the story about T. asking to go to church and we had a very nice conversation about that that very naturally led to answers to my questions. I felt a little bad about bugging a friend with what is essentially a "work" question, but I apologized pre-emptively for that and she completely dismissed that as a concern. I suppose I should have expected that from a minister! She says that the UU community of course is varied, but has been really working on being more supportive of veterans, and they do have a chaplaincy program. She also talked about providing support to military families. Based on what she said, I had no trouble finding confirmation for her assertion that this was a quite new development for UU:

http://www.uua.org/care/ga/199191.shtml

She was also able to make suggestions about which of the nearby UU congregations might have more experience providing special support in Religious Education, and how to go about accessing that support.

Not sure when I'll be able to do anything about this, given the kids' current Sunday schedule, but I'll keep plugging away at the scheduling constraints and presumably something will work out, if not this year, then in a future year. In the meantime, it is a relief to learn that what was obviously the Denomination For Me in every other way is probably even manageable on the pacifism issue.

I checked the publisher on Niose's book. *sigh* Palgrave Macmillan. Why am I not surprised.

p 208-9

"Since the Civil War a century and a half ago, America has never been as divided as it is in these early years of the twenty-first century. There has always been some conflict in America -- racial, class, and otherwise -- but nothing as widespread and visible as today's persistent and passionate class of worldviews. With a nonstop news cycle and a blogosphere that produces boundless information, opinion, and ranting, the warring parties within American politics and society are in a seemingly permanent state of contention.

Even during the social upheaval of the 1960s and 1970s, that strife was at least focused on a few specific issues: Vietnam, civil rights, feminism, Watergate. Among the older generation and conservative elements there was stubborn resistance to change, but the sense of disunity was insignificant compared to the deep, fundamental differences that divide much of America today."

Ordinarily, I would expect someone who could write that and get it through an editorial process to be young and charismatic. But as near as I can tell, this guy's at least my age, and I Am Not Young. The median age in this country is about 37. I'm older than that. This guy's older than me. So this is not the foolishness of Youth. This is the foolishness of a Total Lack of Historical Perspective.

The cold hard truth is the Religious Right is just spouting all the crap that a much bigger fraction of the country took for granted within my lifetime, and basically, very, very few of the people spouting it are prepared to kill over it (thank whatever you may). By contrast, the issues of the 1960s and 1970s included a far larger number of people _who did_ kill over those issues, and committed all kinds of crimes short of murder in the service of their goals -- whether those goals were the preservation of a the status quo, an attempt to return to some idyllic, ahistoric past or an effort to implement a utopian ideal. We are for the most part just yapping at each other. Pretending this makes us "more divided" than in the past is ridiculous, and, like most of the rest of this book, makes one wonder about the political naivete of the man who produced this nonsense.

John Harold Isaac's great-grandfather (my great-great-grandfather) is the top level guy in my family register. I _think_ that makes us 2nd cousins once removed but I'm fully accepting of any correction anyone would like to supply.

http://www.threehillscapital.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=422 :isaac-john-harold&catid=99:obituaries&Itemid=319

I also surfed around my ancestry.com tree, because I _knew_ I'd found obits on some of the other people in recent generations. They are not consistently CGCM. I've started putting obits in as "stories" so they are publicly visible, but I used to put them in as "Notes", which are only visible to people who are editors of the tree.

I stumbled across an academic article (testing Max Weber's thesis about capitalism and protestantism against Holdeman Mennonites, believe it or not) that suggested CGCM's have about a 50% attrition rate or greater in children of members. This is both unsurprising and real familiar to someone who was raised a JW. I can't really remember a lot of detail from any of my visits with the Mennonites. I'm _sure_ some were Plain people (and not Hutterites); equally, I know some weren't, and it wasn't just the excommunicated ones who weren't Plain. I think there really is a mix of anabaptist denominations represented amongst my cousins.

Another Delbert Plett blue paperback has arrived (Leaders of the Kleine Gemeinde). It's really annoying how difficult it is to get any detailed information on the CGCM. Just like JW's, they don't write about themselves for outsiders, and they don't let outsiders in far enough to write about them.

Subtitled: Mennonites in Oregon and Neighboring States 1876-1976
Author: Hope Kauffman Lind
Published by Herald Press

from page 176

"Three Holdeman groups settled in Oregon, but only the last survived through 1976. The first arrived in 1890 from Kansas where, after emigrating from Russia, they had joined John Holdeman's church and lived about fifteen years. In Oregon, they settled in northern Polk County near Perrydale, about ten miles from Dallas. Some family names were Unruh, Ratzlaff, Giesbrecht, Esau, Boese, and Schimmelfeming. Elder John Holdeman visited them in 1893 and ordained Samuel Boese to the ministry on November 23. In 1902, due to the Panic of 1893 and economic hardships that followed, the group dissolved. Some moved to Linden, Alberta, Canada."

[Paragraph about the second group that I don't currently think is relevant to my research.]

"In 1957 families in the third group began moving to Scio, northeast of Albany, an area with relatively inexpensive farms and friendly people. There they organized the Evergreen congregation. They came from the Winto and Livingston congregations in Merced County, California, because of urban pressures there from Castle Air Force Base with its screaming jets. Family names were Becker, Loewen (several of them), and Toews, all from California except one from Langdon, North Dakota."

What follows is a brief summary of why these two paragraphs -- all by themselves -- were worth getting the book to me. I _thought_ Peter W Toews was missing from my Johan Toews family register. He is not -- his section heading (sort of a chapter title) is just missing from the list of his siblings (I think of it as a table of contents), but his data is in the register. While I thought he was missing, I created a theory to explain why he was missing: that he had followed his half-uncle Peter when the colony in Steinbach underwent a painful, three-way schism, including a Church of God in Christ, Mennonite group (which is what these paragraphs are about), a Kleine Gemeinde Group, and a Chortitzer group. I _do not know_ which denomination my family members in Canada are currently -- or were ever -- members of (other than that half-uncle Peter _definitely_ went off on the Holdeman side).

In an effort to prove/disprove my theory, I found and got a copy of Peter W. Toews approximately 40 page memoir, which I have now mostly read. In it, he describes his travels to various places. I have external evidence (through documents indexed and/or digitized in ancestry.com's databases) of Peter's travels to Polk County, Oregon, where he married a woman with the maiden name Kaegi (census records indicate her father came over from Switzerland himself and while the name is not a common one among Mennonites, there was a Mennonite group in Switzerland involving that surname into the 1950s) and the married name (twice) of Unruh (his second marriage; her third). Later, he traveled with this wife and their daughter Emma to Merced, California (again, external evidence _and_ mentioned in the memoir). While Peter speaks only very briefly of the original schism and doesn't touch on religious issues to any great degree thereafter (thus, no internal evidence as to his particular choices of congregation/denomination/etc.), he is very clear about why he was traveling (to visit friends and family, including two sisters of his who were apparently married and living in Oregon when he traveled there the first time) and the subtext of how he chose his wives is pretty apparent as well (he wasn't choosing based on geography, but he was choosing within the community of people he already knew, and that community was closed).

The first paragraph supplies evidence in support of my hypothesis that he was Holdeman. I no longer believe this led to an internal-to-the-family split. On the contrary, I suspect the whole family (for suitable definitions of whole family) was Holdeman/CGCM and may have continued to be so into the time frame that I met them (altho this is a tricky hypothesis for reasons I may get into later). I suspect this in part based on the memoir saying two of his sisters were in the group in Polk County that he went to visit, and in part based on a very imperfect understanding of which groups retained (near-)mandatory veiling practices into the 1980s.

The second paragraph supplies a possible explanation for the visit to Merced.

I'm continuing to try to get answers to my questions while avoiding the obvious step of contacting my closest relatives to just ask them. You might wonder why I would be so averse to just contacting them and asking them. Then you might read up a bit on CGCM, and conclude that being wary, in this instance, is, shall we say, the better of valor. My current strategy is to just enter great swatches of the register, attempt to find death dates for the older generations, and hope someone has an obituary available online that gives a church that maybe makes clear which group they were with at least at the end of their life.

If you're ever working on a family tree and entering names and dates and wondering why anyone could possibly care about places for births and deaths, I'm hoping the above makes it clear. The family register I have is JUST names and dates. Reconstructing all the migrations is something that I'll have to do laboriously -- and the compiler had in front of him while he was doing it because he was doing this over the phone (phone numbers! with area codes!) and by letter (addresses! addresses!). I don't think I have it in me to complain about great-uncle Aron, because just having this thing is amazingly cool. But if I did have it in me to complain, I would. No places means really, really, really tough to _find_ the stories, much less tell them.

I've been pursuing a may-yet-turn-out-to-be-true-theory that I spawned in an effort to explain what I _thought_ was a glaring absence from my Johann T Family Register: Peter was the only adult kid from the children of Johann to have surviving children who wasn't in the register.

I _thought_. Turns out it's probably a typesetting/layout/editing error. The information is there; the line in the list of sections is missing.

The theory is straightforward: the missing Peter followed his half-uncle Peter to become a Holdeman Mennonite/CGCM/Church of God in Christ, Mennonite. His first wife was the foster daughter of half-uncle Peter. The second wife was a US Mennonite from the Ohio area (and there's active Holdemans there) whose first husband was an Unruh. The third wife was a US Mennonite from Oklahoma, and I think also from an area with a lot of Holdemans. For suitable definitions of "a lot". The net effect was negative feeling with the rest of Johann's descendants (problem with this thesis: I'm not entirely certain _which_ branch of Mennonite they are, if they stayed KG or became something else and I am so far a little too chicken to contact someone and ask (my primary contact having been excommunicated for quite a while, and is over 80 and I'm not sure what his health status is currently).

That's the theory. It was a great theory. And I found what sounds like a memoir written by Peter, currently in the Glenbow Archive. I've sent them an email to ask them if they will make me a copy or otherwise help me get access to its contents without traveling. It'll be interesting to see if anything comes of that request.

ETA: Sweet! In exchange for a telephoned credit card number, I should be received emailed copies of the document (37 pages, and the pictures are on the website already) soon. Very exciting! In related (ahem) news, I found a T. Family Chronicle, 1900 in Preservings, No. 18, June 2001, page 97. I will probably be quoting from that in a later blog entry.