Articles & Contributions

“The movement of the Mennonite adults around me was focused and purposeful — housework, yardwork, the transit to and from work, school and Sunday services. Women’s work was especially attuned to the reproductive labor of sustaining the bodily houses of our souls.

Among a small list of socially acceptable reasons for leaving the sermon time was putting the potluck casserole in the oven and readying the fellowship hall. As I doodled on the bulletin, I noticed, too, how work could release one from the discomfort of sitting silently while the men at the pulpit monologued.

It was middle school, and I wanted to learn how to knit. “Why don’t you ask someone at church?” my mother suggested.

The next Sunday morning, with knitting needles and a skein of scrap yarn, I cozied up to one of the church ladies known for her quilting prowess. I slid into the pew, presented my supplies and asked for help. As the sermon murmured on, I got lessons in casting on, knit and purl, and by the end of the year had completed my first “scarf,” more closely resembling a place mat.

A few years later, when my knitting teacher erected a quilt frame in the back of the sanctuary, I was initiated into the hand-quilting tradition of my Swiss German Mennonite heritage. Sunday after Sunday while the (mostly) men were at the pulpit, the (mostly) women were humming away at the quilt frame, listening or not listening to the sermon, silently agreeing or disagreeing with what was preached…”