Rhoda Janzen - Does This Church Make Me Look Fat?: A Mennonite Finds Faith, Meets Mr. Right, and Solves Her Lady Problems

H aving divorced after a fifteen-year marriage, and having returned in a scattershot way to the dating scene, I naturally had limited faith in my judgment. So when I found myself falling for a Jesus-nail-necklace-wearing manly man, the kind whose hands were so huge they ripped his jeans pockets, I thought my common sense was all a-pother.

Working against me was the fact that I am an egghead intellectual. Have you noticed that sometimes scholars do one tiny thing really well, but at the expense of more important things? For instance, I can diagram any sentence from the late fiction of Henry James. Why anybody would want me to is a mystery, but youd be surprised at how many requests I get. Were talking about sentences that march on and on, to and fro, like a bewildered Energizer bunny. I have limited life-management skills, yet I can diagram these sentences with the speed of an idiot savant. Why is it necessary to diagram any sentence? you ask. Good question!

Advanced education doesnt make one wise. In factstay with me herewhat if having a PhD makes you a tomfool? I can think of lots of evidence for this, and not just me. Consider the overeducated grad student I once met at an LA industry party. This chap was writing his dissertation on the iconic significance of Mr. Peanut. I am not making this up. The fellow shared with me many of the important cultural developments surrounding the meteoric rise of Mr. Peanut circa 1916. He traced the class implications of Mr. Peanuts spats, top hat, cane, and monocle. Just when I thought I could take no more, I spotted a willowy supermodel type in a one-shouldered clingy aubergine tunic. She was carrying a tremendous red onion as an accessory to her outfit. And she was holding it very casually in the palm of one hand, like a tiny evening bag, as if carrying a big red onion conferred a status that she was too modest to comment on. Lalala, no biggie, its an onion! I encouraged the dissertation guy to go introduce himself to her, but he got shy. I was, like, Dont be a ninny! March right up to that onion hottie and tell her what you know about Mr. Peanut!

My new boyfriend would never have uttered a single comment upon the iconic significance of Mr. Peanut. Nor would he have attended a cocktail party. Mitch was sober. He didnt drink, he didnt smoke, he didnt swear. His vocabulary could have passed muster with toddlers and kittens. He looked tough with his shaved head and scary biceps, but his language was clean as a whistle.

Out of respect for this mans unusual and valiant restraint, I was trying to clean up my act. This was a challenge for a potty-mouthed professor who felt that she had paid her vocabulary dues and could with impunity utter any four-letter word in the English language.

I expected that, as the relationship progressed, Id start to see slips and cracks in Mitchs languagea four-letter word here, an obscenity there. Mitch had been a card-carrying hoodlum, and a drug-dealer, and also once he had gotten fired from a bussing job for stealing the servers tips. Impressed, I said, Can I tell my sister that you mouthed off to an officer when he busted you for stealing his jacket?

Sure.

Can I mention that you sold weed out of your back yard and planted pipe bombs in peoples mailboxes?

He answered in his slow drawl, Thats just the plain truth. You can say any of that.

Mitch had been the kind of alcoholic who drove stinking drunk, with open bottles in the car. Then he found the Lord, who miraculously sobered him up. But the Lord didnt clean up Mitchs language. Mitch had to do that by himself. For a whole year he spent the noon hour at work biting his tongue in the lunchroom, saying nothing rather than risk the stream of foul language that had characterized his conversation before Christ. These lunchroom descriptions intrigued me. Sometimes profanity seems the outcropping of a limited imagination: Eff the effers! Somebody effed up the effin microwave with some effin ravioli! Id like to think that Mitch was more resourceful.

Mitch had overhauled his vocabulary, sure enough. Still, after almost two months of dating, one might expect the occasional outburst. So far Mitchs spiciest utterance had been, Well, Ill be double-dipped! Imagine this in a light southern accent, coming from a huge goateed rocker who has a permit to carry a concealed weapon. When a man has a gun in his pants, you dont expect him to be double-dipped.

On an early date to a sculpture garden I asked Mitch why he was always so taciturn. If a man dont learn to curb his tongue, he said, hell talk a lot of foolishness.

We were passing an enormous abstract painted steel sculpture by Alexander Liberman. Struck by the soaring arches and muscular lines, I paused. What does that say to you?

Says some dude had a lot of free time.

But isnt it spectacular?

Sure. Its spectacular if you got enough food to feed your kids.

Mitchs way of reducing things to their simplest essence provided a pleasant contrast with the sort of commentary provided in my circles. Literary critics liked to make things as opaque and complicated as possible. English professors chased nuance. Mitch summed things up.

Mitchs sixteen-year-old son Leroy had already confided that for as long as he could remember, his buddies had been terrified of his dad, around whom there had sprung up a stern terminator legend. First there was Mitchs size. Leroys dad caricatured the impossible male physiquechest like a scenic vista, cannon arms, a waist that disappeared into his jeans like a genie into a bottle. He kept clanking steel gym equipment in his living room.

Then there was the curious catlike walk. He moved with incredible lightness, as if he expected someone to attack him from behind. Anyone whos studied martial arts recognizes that walk. Put him in a suit, he looks like Secret Service. When you put other men in suits, they look like accountants or limo drivers.

Leroy told me that his fathers nickname was The Boxer.

I frowned. Id hate to be the box.

Yeah, Leroy returned. Stealth thinks my dad looks like a stone-cold Steve Austin.

Stealth? I asked. Your friends name is Stealth?

Yeah, said Leroy. Hes not my friend, though. Hes my cousin.

Are you trying to tell me that you have an aunt who named her child Stealth?

Leroy nodded. After the bomber.

They seemed a strange family to me.

Mitchs faith had played a central role in his sobriety, and I couldnt help but be impressed that he had so dramatically turned his life around. How many people manage to alter their core characterdeliberately, sentientlyas adults? I could list folks who had changed gradually over time, mellowing under the gentle weight of decades. And I could name people who had been strengthened by enduring external events out of their control, such as loss or trauma. But I couldnt name a single person who had managed to transform himself on his own.

In this sense Mitch was a rare bird. When I asked him how he had achieved such a stunning turnaround, he shrugged. That wasnt me. That was all God.

Yikes. I had grown up in a conservative Mennonite community, and this sort of totalizing religious expression made me uncomfortable. I associated it with foofy needlepoint pillows that said I BELIEVE IN ANGELS , or, in the other direction, giant lawn boards advising neighbors to REPENT, SINNERS!

Some of the church folk in my community of origin referred to me as abgefallen, fallen away. True enough, my life as an adult didnt look very much like theirs. Yet abgefallen is a term I never would have applied to myself because Ive always loved my Mennonite roots, my family, and the faith tradition practiced therein. In fact, in many ways I still identify culturally and theologically as a Mennonite.