Oh, The Joys Of Children!
My children are constantly reminding me of my own halls of shame from my childhood. Take for instance this evening. The whole Stauffer tribe gets together every Saturday evening for supper and we take turns having it at each others houses. This evening went well with the men folk discussing septic systems and how to build your own chipper/mulcher. The ladies were likewise having a profitable time walking out amongst the flowers and talking over various gardening tips, and whatever else women talk about.
My eldest son has just learned the neat trick of "going" outside. We are still trying to teach him the finer points of privacy and discretion in it's use. This evening tho, he decided the time had come to do #2 without the aid of anyone older than himself or any instruction in the matter. However, while he had learned to sit on a potty, he has not learned the art of squatting in such a way as to not fill ones own pants in the process. Thus he returns to the family, quite fragrant and displaying telltale signs that not all was as it should be. I couldn't decided whether to laugh or chide him. He stood there with this look saying that he knew something was not right and that things had not turned out as he had planned but not sure what happened, or what to do now.
Needless to say, end of evening, the tub was calling!!
I remember the times of learning when I've known that I'm doing something amiss but can't for the life of me figure out what it is. Here's one story:
When we moved back from Canada to Pennsylvania, we stayed at my Grandparents place for a few months until we found a place to rent. Across the road lived a family of Amish with children the same ages as us. We spent many a evening playing with them, while they did their chores. :-) One evening I was invited to come down for supper, a first for any of our family to eat with them. I ran home and returned with the desired permission and sat down to a picnic table full of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, salad, and pies. There may have been other foods but they escape my memory as a 10 year old. They had a big spread out since it was tobacco shearing time and they had a bunch of guys over to help them get it cut and put up in the shed. I remembered that they always pray silently so when the father bowed his head, I followed suit until I heard a pronounced sigh, meaning the prayer was ended. The food was wonderful and I did great honor to it as only a growing boy can. After we were done eating the father turned to me and said "Would you return Thanks?" I had never prayed in this setting before but being asked, thought I'd give it my best shot. I don't remember exactly what I said but I do remember noticing the laughing eyes and suppressed chuckles of the boys as we got up from the table. "Oh well," I thought, "who cares! I did the best I knew!" We ran off to play and had a great evening.
About three years later, the Amish father came up to my grandfathers place one day, as he was want to do. He started laughing and said, "Elvin, I just have to tell you something that has just tickled me for years." He proceeded to tell the same story I have except he said, "Knowing that you people are not used to returning thanks after a meal, I tried to help your grandson along by INFORMING him that we were going to return thanks. And he pipes up and prays out loud!" Both my grandfather and the Amish father had a great laugh over this though my reaction to the news was of sheer horror and it was almost a year till I worked up the courage to return for a visit.
One thing that father said that will always stick with me. He said that it was good to hear one so young, be able to voice himself that way to God." I have always remembered that. Often at our prayer meetings, the young boys will pray and when there are 15 or so, it takes quite a bit more time. But I remind myself, we are instilling in them the reverence of God and teaching them to pray is one of the best things we can do.
Well, the washer tells me it's done, now it's my turn. I hope it smells better coming out of there than it did going in!!
My eldest son has just learned the neat trick of "going" outside. We are still trying to teach him the finer points of privacy and discretion in it's use. This evening tho, he decided the time had come to do #2 without the aid of anyone older than himself or any instruction in the matter. However, while he had learned to sit on a potty, he has not learned the art of squatting in such a way as to not fill ones own pants in the process. Thus he returns to the family, quite fragrant and displaying telltale signs that not all was as it should be. I couldn't decided whether to laugh or chide him. He stood there with this look saying that he knew something was not right and that things had not turned out as he had planned but not sure what happened, or what to do now.
Needless to say, end of evening, the tub was calling!!
I remember the times of learning when I've known that I'm doing something amiss but can't for the life of me figure out what it is. Here's one story:
When we moved back from Canada to Pennsylvania, we stayed at my Grandparents place for a few months until we found a place to rent. Across the road lived a family of Amish with children the same ages as us. We spent many a evening playing with them, while they did their chores. :-) One evening I was invited to come down for supper, a first for any of our family to eat with them. I ran home and returned with the desired permission and sat down to a picnic table full of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, corn, salad, and pies. There may have been other foods but they escape my memory as a 10 year old. They had a big spread out since it was tobacco shearing time and they had a bunch of guys over to help them get it cut and put up in the shed. I remembered that they always pray silently so when the father bowed his head, I followed suit until I heard a pronounced sigh, meaning the prayer was ended. The food was wonderful and I did great honor to it as only a growing boy can. After we were done eating the father turned to me and said "Would you return Thanks?" I had never prayed in this setting before but being asked, thought I'd give it my best shot. I don't remember exactly what I said but I do remember noticing the laughing eyes and suppressed chuckles of the boys as we got up from the table. "Oh well," I thought, "who cares! I did the best I knew!" We ran off to play and had a great evening.
About three years later, the Amish father came up to my grandfathers place one day, as he was want to do. He started laughing and said, "Elvin, I just have to tell you something that has just tickled me for years." He proceeded to tell the same story I have except he said, "Knowing that you people are not used to returning thanks after a meal, I tried to help your grandson along by INFORMING him that we were going to return thanks. And he pipes up and prays out loud!" Both my grandfather and the Amish father had a great laugh over this though my reaction to the news was of sheer horror and it was almost a year till I worked up the courage to return for a visit.
One thing that father said that will always stick with me. He said that it was good to hear one so young, be able to voice himself that way to God." I have always remembered that. Often at our prayer meetings, the young boys will pray and when there are 15 or so, it takes quite a bit more time. But I remind myself, we are instilling in them the reverence of God and teaching them to pray is one of the best things we can do.
Well, the washer tells me it's done, now it's my turn. I hope it smells better coming out of there than it did going in!!
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"Well, Hans," you may ask, "what exactly does that consitute?" The chief component of such a venture would be a blog roll that would contain a link to all the member sites. Some things that we could add would be: a weekly roundup of the best posts across our blog ring. We could have different categories or just lump them together into one. We could include a short synopsis of the post or just give a link. The options are endless.
I have thought a little about a name. The name I will leave up to the a vote by the founding members. Here some combos I dreamt up from the simple and obvious "The Mennonite Blogring" to the clever and hard to pronounce (doesn't matter if it's hard to pronounce on the web!) "BlogMennoSphere" to "Rebaptized Bloggers" to "Mennonite Ring of Blogs." Like I said: It's up to the members. Nominations welcome.
This blogring would be open to all Mennonite (or Anabaptist or non-denominational with Conservative leanings) bloggers. I would prefer to keep it to blogs that offer content that is of general interest (theology, music, tech, sports, politics, life, news) and not the kind of content that "you have to know him." I'm not excluding personal content. That's what makes a blog interesting! But it needs to be interesting to the general Mennonite or even general Christian or even the general person.
If you're interested in such a venture, drop me an email at: hansmast at hansmast dot com