Mennonite in a Little Black Dress

by Rhoda Janzen

  Cannabis sativa

  First, and most important, most Mennonites don't know what dope is.

  Second, if you told them, they wouldn't know what to do with it.

  Third, not only would they not inhale; they would chop it up like parsley and sprinkle it into a bowl of Borscht. When I finally overcame my Mennonite hesitation at age forty-three, I found that, like Bill Clinton, I too was incapable of inhaling. Unlike Bill Clinton, I wanted to. Something in my lungs just snapped shut. Lord knows I tried. I even got a friend to exhale a cloud of smoke in my mouth while I breathed in deeply, as in yoga. But no go. Which brings me to a tentative working hypothesis that Mennonites may be genetically incapable of getting high.

  Exemption from Military Service

  The United States recognizes "membership in good standing" in the Mennonite church as a justifiable reason to bestow exemption from military service. Being a Mennonite is like having a note from your mom. This exemption is due to the fact that throughout their history Mennonites have defined themselves by their refusal to fight. Pick a war, any war, and the Mennonites have opposed it. In Mennonite doctrine, there is no such thing as a Just War. Moreover, we believe that violence leads inevitably to more violence. Thus we may say that in peacemaking activities Mennonites resemble Mahatma Gandhi. But the resemblance ends there. This may be just my personal opinion, but I don't think a Gandhi-style hunger strike would work with the Mennonites. Lay down their guns? Sure, no problem. Lay down their steady diet of potato dumplings? Not so much.

  Sidebar for cynics and apostates: In the eighteenth century the peaceful Mennonites of Nieder Khortitsa were known throughout southern Ukraine as Cherkessy met aufjebroakne Tjniefs (Men of the Broken-Tipped Knives). The Mennonites had to fight with pocketknives because, as pacifists, they couldn't carry firearms. This brings me to a related point, which is that irony isn't a Mennonite strong suit.

  Mennonites traditionally called themselves Die Stillen im Lande (the Quiet in the Nations)-meaning that civil resistance could be achieved through the twin activities of thoughtful active nonparticipation and farming. Both of these activities involve practical action. If it's worth believing, it's worth doing. Mennonites are big doers. In some respects Mennonites resemble Henry David Thoreau, who eloquently went to jail rather than pay a tax he thought was unfair. Mennonites have a sweet tooth for such demonstrations; they are very literal folks who enjoy a practical demonstration of what they believe.

  For instance, let's say that you call your little brother a fool when you are six years old. There's a verse in the Gospel of Matthew that says, "But I say unto you, . . . whosoever shall say, Thou fool, shall be in danger of hellfire." Your mother may therefore seek to demonstrate an important lesson, namely, We Do Not Utter Un-Christian Words, Especially to Our Brother, Even Though He Has Just Floated a Semi-Deliberate Turd in the Bathtub. Your mother may believe that the best way to demonstrate this lesson is to scrub your mouth out with homemade lye soap. What happens to the turd is between your brother and God. Meanwhile, the lye soap is both participatory and practical.

  Mennonites would rather do anything than engage in physical violence-lose a war, go to jail, perform six years of alternate service in forestry, you name it. Military conflict is thus for Cro-Magnon brutes and losers. Did Jesus lift a finger to fight back when they came to crucify him? No! Jesus preferred a lifestyle of homosocial bonding and potluck luncheons! So if you're thinking about studying karate or dating a Lebanese black belt, fuhgeddaboutit. You can't believe in peace if you're practicing war.

  Mennonite Dance

  Who are we kidding? Mennonites don't really dance! Puh-lease!

  Intermarriage and/or Genetic Pinkness

  Mennonites marry their cousins and second cousins. Mennonites all know each other instantly, on sight and by smell. Our last names are the same. We practically have a secret handshake. If you are a Mennonite, I think I can safely guarantee that you married my mother's second cousin. We're all eerily related, and thus the gene pool is shallow. Come in and splash if you must, but you won't get tan. We are ruddy Teutonic giants who wear plus-sized swimsuits.

  Gotcha! We don't wear swimsuits! If we wore swimsuits, that would mean we would have had to get naked! We've got better things to do. Such as sitting attentively in church, and praying that God will not call us to become a missionary on the Chaco!

  Multitasking

  North American Mennonites all used to grow up speaking Low German, using an outhouse, and shelling peas, sometimes all at the same time. This makes us ace multitaskers. My mother, one of seventeen kids, grew up with a two-seater biffy so that people wouldn't have to wait to use the toilet; they could enter in pairs, do their business, and get right back to work. The family that shits together knits together.

  The outhouse behind the church where my father was pastor offered only single seaters, but that was okay by me. I liked going alone to the outhouse. I liked taking a big gulp of outside air and seeing if I could hold my breath the entire time. I never could, and I always ended up inhaling the prodigious stink. After about ten seconds, you got used to it: a simple, uncomplicated odor. I sort of liked it. And I liked to stare down the hole at the shudder-some waste and the big damp flies. There were full-bodied turds slightly misshapen by the fall; there were interesting dark patches that absorbed smeared paper. Once I saw a rat moving like a shadow in the decomposing twilight. I often remained in the outhouse longer than necessary.

  I wouldn't have been able to explain it, but there was something satisfying about confronting the very worst that humanity could produce. What lay below the wooden seat presented a composite assurance that all the prim ladies of the church-Mrs. Franz Redekopp, Mrs. Heinrich Braun, Mrs. Jakob Liebelt-were, beneath their matronly skirts, not so prim after all.

  But I digress. Perhaps when you're the seventeenth child you are merely grateful that there is a seat for you, that your crap is part of the larger crap. You learn to work hard and pay attention to the many simultaneous conversations around you. Even as you sleep four to a bed, you master the art of plurality. Performing five different tasks, for five older sisters, each of whom is also multitasking, creates a soothing sense of anonymity. Call us Legion, for we are many!

  The Sing-along

  Mennonites may be unfamiliar with the pleasures of nudity, but we can all sing a capella, in gorgeous harmony, the reverent hymns of our youth. This is one of the reasons Mennonites have such big families. The parents are trying to round out the family choir. If they don't get a tenor, dammit it, they'll keep trying until they get it right. I am not at all gifted in the musical arena, though of course I can carry a tune and deliver an acceptable alto. When I first went to public school, I remember being astonished when my classmates in the Easterby Elementary school choir aired their rendition of the classic "Jimmy Crack Corn." They were more enthusiastic than tuneful, and nary a student knew how to harmonize, except Lola, who had a gorgeous voice even as a child. Poor Lola looked as if she'd break into tears.

  Once, traveling as an adult with a group of Mennonite scholars, I visited the Byzantine cathedral of Saint Sophia in Kiev. Our guide mentioned that the acoustics were spectacular. Spry Klaus Quiring, a retired music professor, was quick to turn to the rest of us, excitement in his eyes. He tried the opening bars of "Grosser Gott wir loben Dich" (Holy God, We Praise Thy Name). There wasn't a moment's hesitation. Suddenly the cathedral swelled with beautiful harmony. We all knew every word of every verse, and the hymn was so beautiful that the officials waited until we had finished the last note before they booted us out and politely requested we not come back.

  Perhaps you have been wondering, How can I join this attractive religious group? Yet it would be only fair to be forthcoming about some of the social lubricities that Mennonites have jettisoned for carefully considered theological reasons. This list includes, but is not limited, to the following:

  • Drinking

  • Dancing (though let's not forget "liturgical movement,"
which is sort of allowed)

  • Smoking

  • Sex outside of marriage

  • Sex inside of marriage

  • Sex on television

  • Sex in the movies

  • Sex in the classroom

  • Gay sex

  • Straight sex

  • Sex on the Chaco

  • Higher education

  • The Walt Disney Story of Menstruation

  • Gambling

  • Playing cards

  • Foul language (i.e., the word fool)

  • Ouija boards

  • Slumber parties

  • Cafeteria lunches

  • Divorce

  • Prada

  • Atheist husbands who, after fifteen years of marriage, leave you for a guy named Bob.

  On the other hand, Mennonites happily endorse the following:

  • Public prayer, out loud, with bowed heads, especially in restaurants and at airports

  • Mind over matter when it comes to dental hygiene

  • Huge donations to charity (with the money you save by not going to the dentist)

  • Potlucks (A-J bring a main dish; K-Z, pie)

  • Sweater vests buttoned right up to the top, so that they nicely cover the short-sleeved poly-blend shirts beneath

  • Pluma Moos, a hot fruit soup starring our friend the prune

  • Can I just say here that Pluma Moos also contains raisins?

  • Christian fish decals for the bumper, or perhaps a sticker depicting a cartoon girl and boy kissing each other in the name of Yahweh

  • The scrupulous consumption, on principle, of any and every moldy leftover in the fridge. In the words of the 1970s naturalist Euell Gibbons, whom I like to think of as an honorary Mennonite, "Many parts are edible!"

  Okay, I think my job is done here. The above summary of Mennonite culture is probably much more to the point than whatever's on Wikipedia. If you have paid close attention to the preceding pages, you are ready to meet Mennonites in real life. When you do, speak slowly and smile. If you play your cards right, I'm pretty sure they'll offer you some cabbage.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Special thanks to my editor, Helen Atsma, and my agent, Michael Bourret, for their role in shaping this memoir. I would have never thought of writing this story had not my svelte red-headed friend Carla Vissers pointed out that my e-mails from California were sounding a lot like nonfiction. I'm thinking of buying Carla a drink or something. And I never would have moved forward without the active encouragement of Anna-Lisa Cox. I'm grateful to Beth Trembley, Julie Kipp, Laura Roberts, James Persoon, and Jill Janzen for their insight, and to Joanne Jenkins for reading some of the chapters in early draft. Spirited nine-year-old Emma Jenkins had the pluck to dance an Irish jig in the lobby of a symphony hall, thus becoming my inspiration.

  It is my parents who played the greatest role in supporting this project. They invited me to stay with them as long as I liked, and were perfectly good-natured when I asked them pressing questions about their Mennonite youth. Also, when I was out writing in their gazebo, sweating it out in the valley heat under a slow fan, my dad would sometimes appear in his long shorts and dress socks, puttering about the backyard. Eventually he'd come over to the gazebo, deposit a handful of ripe cherries, and silently go away again. How sweet is that? And my mom! For her I'd drink scrofulous buttermilk-though in all probability if it's scrofulous, she's probably already finished it herself. In buttermilk, as in life, she's my hero.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Rhoda Janzen holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Los Angeles, where she was the University of California Poet Laureate in 1994 and 1997. She is the author of Babel's Stair, a collection of poems, and her poems have appeared in journals such as Poetry, the Yale Review, the Gettysburg Review, and the Southern Review. She teaches English and creative writing at Hope College in Holland, Michigan.

  Table of Contents

  Cover Page

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Table of Contents

  1. The Bridegroom Cousin

  2. Touch My Tooth

  3. Fear of Mosquitoes

  4. Wounding Words

  5. A Lingering Finish

  6. What the Soldier Made

  7. The Big Job

  8. Rippling Water

  9. Wild Thing

  10. The Trump Shall Sound

  11. And That's Okay!

  12. The Raisin Bombshell

  13. The Therapeutic Value of Lavender

  Appendix: A Mennonite History Primer

  Acknowledgments