The Speech Not Given.

Newton, Kansas---I sat amidst a group of 111 people at a family reunion.  They came from China, Taiwan, Costa Rica, South Africa and all over the USA. For a Midwest Family from Kansas and Oklahoma, our generation had really spread out through the years. We had gathered in a large work shop at a farm outside of my hometown to have a Sunday morning church service.  It was raining hard against a metal roof and the sound resonated throughout the structure.

This is a mixture of two families and I am related to half. But because two brothers of my mother’s family married two sisters of another family, we have had combined family reunions for a couple decades. It is like having bonus cousins.

This is a group of really good people. I know that. But why do I feel so much like an outsider? Why did I leave feeling incomplete?

My family is Mennonite. It is a heritage as well as a belief system within the Christian faith.  The Mennonites of origin were a people of peace that wanted religious freedom as well as having a pacifist stand (not believing in fighting or war---a belief in working things out with compromise and talk or the ultimate “turning the other cheek”). They fled Russia in pursuit of this in America bringing Turkey Red Winter Wheat and their idealisms. Farming was the primary trade of these families.

My cousins and I are third generation. There are 18 cousins in one family and 15 in the other. They are all married except 3 of us. Some of them are grandparents giving us four generations at the reunion.

The service was a time for singing and sharing. Anyone could talk.  But I sat there frustrated.

I wanted to talk but I felt like there was too much at stake.  Too much respect for the elders in the family that are fewer and fewer in attendance each reunion. Too much fear of judgment by my own age group and the trickledown effect of the next generation down. I have watched my grandparents and my parents not communicate well. Is avoidance the same as pacifism I wondered? I don’t want to be like that.

But yet there I sat, not saying a thing.

I love these people, they are amazing…but I do not necessarily agree with each of them.

My talk would have been something like this:

 “I stand here knowing that I am not the cookie cut version of our forefathers. In some way I feel like I would disappoint you by not being this. The truth is I have many views that you would not agree with or approve of.

I have friends who are in the Military and I myself chose NOT be a pacifist many years ago. If only the world worked in a “peace over power” way, the idea of it is wonderful. But I see the world for what it is and if our country was a complete population of pacifists, I believe we would not be a land of the free.

I have friends who are gay. Good friends. I have not met one gay person who has not had a hard struggle with acceptance; from both accepting themselves and others accepting them. I am not on earth to judge, make choices for someone else or have it my way. My only job is to love.

I am a non-denominational Christian and think the Apostle Paul would be horrified if he saw all the infighting over doctrine and theology of the very people (the non-jews or "Gentiles"), that he brought Christianity to. There should be more time spent on life applications and loving, verses deciphering the exact interpretation of the verses. And Catholics are Christian, so get over it.

I have friends who are Jewish and do not believe they are going to hell.

I do not believe that drinking is a sin. I wish we could all share a glass of guilt-free wine. BUT I have seen first-hand the destruction that alcohol can bring and having drinks verses having an obsession are very, very different. If you have an obsessive personality or need to escape from what’s happening around you, don’t drink.

I do not believe that dancing is a sin and have seen the joy of expression through the correct type of dance. To allow your body to leap and jump and move according to your heart and soul is a good thing I think. Yes, there is dancing that should not happen in public…there is a difference.

I believe in the Bible. I believe in Science. I think there is room for both.

I think that “the church” should spend more time loving and attending to their own neighbors needs and less time making the news by what they have decided is the only way to think.

I am not married because I have not found the guy for me. I could very easily be a married miserable person. I have seen married miserable people in our family at a time when divorce was "not an option." I have seen a horrible struggle of a serially unfaithful spouse resulting in divorce. People are not what they seem sometimes. Rather than guessing or condemning, talk to her, ask her...because she needs you. So not being married does not make me less. I am not unhappy. I am very aware that I am not in your “club”. The one you don’t even know you have because everything is  thought of in family groups. But it's okay I know I'm included. And no, not gay either.

I say all this knowing that many of you feel uneasy with my words.

I do NOT believe in tolerance because I myself do not want to be “tolerated,” I want acceptance and love but doubt that can happen after saying all this and remembering the sermons in my upbringing.

I wish we were a family of more words. I wish that the burdens that so many of you hold hidden inside were opened to each other for true family support.  Without judgment, without worry, with total unexplained acceptance.  With only love."

That's what I would have, could have, should have said.