Menno Simons
Growing up in a Mennonite church, and with Mennonite parents was neat. I learned at a very early age that war is bad, that gay people are OK, and where to buy strong LSD....all at church! I also learned new words like dildo and slut. I had no idea what those words meant, but I knew they were bad, and that they should only be used when insulting a girl. I called the girl down the street a slut, and her mom and sisters came to my house wanting to do terrible things to me. I saw them walk up to the house, and I ran into my room and hid in bed, and after they had briefed my poor mother about what I had done, she came to my room and asked me why I called the girl a slut. I told her that I learned it at church, from Graham, and that it was one of only two bad words I knew....the other being dildo. In hindsight, shit was awkward.
I learned a lot of more and less valuable things at church as well, but above all I learned that being a Mennonite is weird, and not something most people understand. I am culturally still a Mennonite, but I don't practice the faith, and I don't put much stock in a book of old stories or imaginary friends. I drink yerba mate, and I eat farmer's sausage(hehe), and I still like to hear old hymns. I speak low german, love farms, and go the MCC relief sale every year in Abbotsford.
The engraving above is of the interior of Menno Simon's church from the 1500's. I understand that there are now two known copies in the world, and one of them hangs on my wall. It's by far my most valuable, and most prized possession, and was supposedly found in the hold of a ship filled with mennonites fleeing persecution. Cool! I also have a copy of the one with the duder hanging by his hand while his captors take a smoke break from torturing him. The print I have is from the early 1800's, and was in a later copy of the Martyr's Mirror.
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