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Up Menno? What's Up, Menno? 19x15, 2003, prisma bronze & raisen noir, carbon ink. Available for Purchase Following in the footsteps of my relative, artist Tom Schenk, I created this portrait of Menno Simons from early etchings and paintings. Despite Mennonites inheriting their name from this outlaw priest, rare was the Mennonite sermon where he was quoted. His influence was a part of the tradition and doctrine but there was no form of canonization. Bugs Bunny dominated his social interactions through wit and chicanery. Humor is essential to emotional vitality, so society relishes laughter and admires the jester who can alleviate life's monotony and melancholy. Menno Simons stands in sharp contrast, as his words suggest reverence. One's entertainment might be but a footnote in ones biography, but it has become the new Western religion. We even want our news to be audacious and attractive. In postmodern culture the threat to spiritual ignorance is not atheism, but rather the addiction to active and voyeuristic play. Could it be that fantasy football and Internet pornography are the witchcraft the 21st century? I sat in the audience of "Saturday Night Live" in New York while Church Lady passed judgment on the carnality of the guest host that week. I felt removed from the pharisaical attitude that Church Lady satirized, and had no problem laughing at her piety. But she did chastise behaviors that are adding to society's moral freefall. The apostle Paul advised, "Don't become so well adjusted to your culture that you fit it without thinking" (The Message Bible, Rom. 12:12). |
 RESPONSE TO THE DRAWING: I don't know why I never came across this before!...Your art is very moving as I also was born of a conservative mennonite womb..Lancaster Conference..my Bugs Bunny tattoo on my ankle gives people of the Mennonite congregation I pastor something to talk about!...and my earring is something from Exodus 21:5-7.and i still own my plain suit.ha! Jerk-Over Temple is simply amazing! What a great gift your art is to the church and those around it, Dayvid Graybill, Poet, Writer and Mennonite Pastor, Denver, Colorado |
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