Young Anabaptist Radicals

Monthly Archive: March 2007

Introducing myself: An excuse to navel-gaze.

I’m Skylark, a self-described YAR who found this place totally by accident. I was looking for info on Jerry Jenkins coming to Kidron Mennonite because I’m the newspaper reporter who covers Kidron. This was the first hit in a Google search. Hi Tom. :-) I got sucked into Tom’s post about his concerns over Jerry Jenkins’ visit. One post lead to another, and I really like this place.

A little about me: I’m 23, female, Mennonite, pacifist, and vegetarian. Over the summer I followed the progress of Bike Movement (Denver Steiner and I go to the same church), and of course I covered it when BikeMovement came to Kidron Mennonite in August. It seems like almost anything that happens event-wise in Kidron is at that church. :-P Not that there are many other options for venues. That put me in contact with an area Christian young adult group. I’ve been a part of the group since. I’ve totally gotten on board with Denver’s push at church to create safe spaces where young adults and others can ask “unsafe” questions and explore issues we would otherwise ignore in favor of more sanitized church activities. My mentor and I have gotten to know each other a lot better lately, and we’ve known each other since I was 13, so that’s pretty cool. (more…)

March 3, 2007 Biographical, Gender, Journalism, Media, Power, Roman Catholic, Sexism, Young Folks Read more >

Tragic Bus Accident

The Bluffton College baseball team was in a tragic bus accident in Atlanta. They were traveling to Florida for spring break training. From what we’ve learned on the news, we know that 6 are confirmed dead and more than a dozen are injured. The bus was traveling on 75 and apparently went over an overpass.

Susan Gascho, former pastor at Atlanta Mennonite Fellowship is at Grady with some of the injured. AMF is helping by hosting families and friends of the players.

Please be in prayer for the families and friends of those killed and injured. And also remember that while this is the most salient tragedy now, there are lots of other people hurting for a variety of reasons.

Bluffton University Baseball Team
Photo of the Bluffon College baseball team from Bluffton website

March 2, 2007 Community, Current Events, Objective, Young Folks Read more >

Unhooked? An unabashed reflection (and rant) on love

The other morning, driving to teach, I caught myself listening with a longing heart to a laughable story on NPR. Welsh farmers who, because of a shortage of eligible women, were “advertising” themselves as possible husbands in hopes to keep their small community going. Women from all over the world were responding! I found myself daydreaming about me and some handsome Welshman eating scones…then snapped back to reality in order to lead a poetry course to 35 carefree college underclassmen. I wanted to tell them, “Look. Don’t ever graduate. Don’t ever assume everything’s going to be as easy and planned out as it is now. And for goodness sake, don’t assume that Meg Ryan movies can happen in real life.” But I decided to talk about the Beats instead.

It’s no secret that young people in America–often faced with too many options or life choices– go through a “quarter life crisis” (just see the whole book series on the subject). I’ve been rethinking my life goals a LOT recently, along with all the assumptions and expectations that go/went with them. I used to believe that every “Anne of green gabels” had her “Gilbert” out there. I used to believe that God knew what was in store for our hearts and protected them. Now, I’m not so sure. Maybe I’ll be singing a different tune in ten years, but for now, I’m content to sit with my multiplying questions. (more…)

March 1, 2007 Change, Community Read more >