Ang, so glad to see your beautiful thoughts and poetic words have made it onto this site. Your last comments beg reminder for me of what I have seen in “grassroots christianity” (or emerging churches) in the UK. A common theme, also common with those adhering to the new monastacism, is transforming public places (such as pubs for example) … of course also apparent is the opposite - transforming of “sacred” space (cathedrals) into “secular” (pubs) [due to the deterioration of Christendom]. Grassroots christianity (I prefer lower case as it rubs a slight edge off of the institutional nature of the Religion) is drawn towards places normally seen as outside the boundaries … it’s drawn to the marginalized and forgotten. If we are too comfortable in our own spaces of mennonitedom, we lose out in the gritty hard-to-deal-with nature of life … out of which (at least for myself) I have found joy through its pain.

With emerging movements like new monastacism, simple way, emergent churches, and “grassroots christianity”; we as Anabaptists need to hold light enough to our tradition to dance with the ‘other’ experiences enough to engage the Spirit in its many forms and expressions. … we must listen and engage with the emerging movements of God’s Spirit around us - and notice also the Divine in all aspects of Created life, as you have mentioned.

“There is no mission without dialogue and no dialogue unless one takes the risk of having his or her own ideas radically changed.”

“Far from being an ongoing growth like a tree (or a family tree) the wholesome growth of a tradition is like a vine: a story of constant interruption of organic growth in favor of a pruning and a new chance for the roots.”

“The normativeness of Jesus illuminates that all is not well and calls for ‘midcourse correction,’ ‘reorienting our present movement forward in light of what was wrong.”

“Vulnerable relations with outsiders are integral to the otherness of the church and that when this understanding of caritas is forgotten and unpracticed, the church loses its otherness and is assimilated to the violence of the world.”

[First three quotes from John Howard Yoder; last quote from Romand Coles.]

There is the further element here, I think, of being called to account. Appreciating Catholics is one thing; hearing their real criticisms and challenges is another. What of the judgment that our worship is careless, our unity imaginary, our memory myopic? In speaking of and to God in the language of another tradition, we inevitably learn the force of its judgments upon us. This is also the pain and joy of being excluded from the Mass.

A few years ago during my term with MCC’s SALT program in Swaziland, I was visiting with some other MCCers in Lesotho and happened to be having a discussion about being Mennonite. One friend, who considers herself Mennonite, but did not grow up Mennonite, inadvertenly responded to a question, “I don’t know; I’m not ethically Mennonite.”

I’m applying to seminaries for next fall, and I’ve intentially chose to apply to non-Mennonite schools, so that I can see Mennonites in the context of another tradition.

I know when I go elsewhere to worship (especially to fundy or super evangelical churches), I really appreciate what Mennonites represent, and the worship style we embrace. In fact, I go to Germantown Mennonite, and since we were kicked out of the denomination 10 years ago, we act more Mennonite in worship style now than we ever did. We certainly appreciate the core beleifs and world view of the Anabaptists.