Tongue Screws and Testimonies
Cynthia Page
How
could a beautiful and sweet young woman like Kirsten come up with this
title for the book she edited? It made me uncomfortable. I felt
creepy. So imagine how I felt about
attending the reading to celebrate the publishing of this book of
reflections on The Martyr’s Mirror. Not interested at all. I would
prefer not to know about it. I had never heard of The Martyr’s Mirror
until Kirsten told me of her project. After a brief investigation via
the Internet, her interest in the topic was a mystery to me too. But
the invitation was on my Facebook page. I decided to go. I
adored Kirsten. She was bright and clever and fun. She and I were
married to cousins. She had been my salvation at family gatherings.
While the rest of the family reminisced about days long gone and people
long gone, she talked to me. Although Kirsten
and I share the "married into the family" status, she shared something
important with them that I do not. She was of the Mennonite faith and
raised in a Mennonite home. My husband, Ray, left that church long ago
and some of his siblings have also found other paths to the divine, but
the aunts, uncles, cousins, and their children follow their Anabaptist
heritage. I wanted to go to her book reading to show my support. I
planned to buy of copy of the book. I don’t
understand the Mennonites. The "old order Mennonites," those who live
near the extreme edge of the culture, are especially puzzling. They
have rules and customs that are designed to set them apart from the
world. But the lines and boundaries don’t make sense to me. Once
we stopped at an old order Mennonite buggy shop. As we pulled into the
driveway we noticed there were no electric lines going to the house. As
the owner showed us his work I asked how long it took to do it by hand.
He explained that he used a computerized laser drill for the work he
was showing me. No dishwasher or vacuum in the house, but a
computerized laser drill in the shop. I tried to understand. For
one family, a car was not permitted, but they had automobile tires and
car seats on their wooden wagon. I tried to understand.
Recently, I
saw a young woman in a coffee shop wearing plain clothes and a hair
covering, surfing the Internet with ear buds in. I tried to understand. Kirsten
and the rest of the family did not follow these old order practices,
but there was a separateness about them. Although they were unfailingly
kind, something held me apart from them as surely as the fence
encircling Kirsten’s chicken coop holds out stray dogs. I hoped the
reading might allow me a moment inside the fence. The
night of the reading was cold. It was dark early, as it is in late
fall. I was unfamiliar with the small college campus and the location
of the chapel where the reading would be held. Ray was out of town so,
map in hand, I made my way alone. I followed a young couple up the
sidewalk hoping they were also going to the reading. They were. They
showed me the way. The crowd unbundled from
their coats, gloves, and scarves and settled into the seats of the
chapel. I was pleased to see the room was mostly full. I was happy and
proud for Kirsten. As she introduced the program, Kirsten said
Mennonites were a blend of pride and humility, of insularity and
outreach. Yes! She succinctly captured a description that addressed the
confusion I felt about the Mennonites. But
there was more to it—that was only a partial description. One of the
first presenters was an older man with snow white hair, a neatly
trimmed mustache and erect posture. He looked the part of the emeriti
faculty member that he was. He read excerpts from The Martyr’s Mirror.
As copies of the book’s original illustrations were projected on a
wall, he read the accompanying gruesome stories of brave men and women
who were tortured and killed for their faith. Surprisingly,
an element of magic was included in some of the stories. For instance a
stake, upon which a woman was burned to death, later bloomed. A strange
combination—torture and magic—how do Mennonites understand that? After
the reading of the tortures ended, the evening improved. The young
writers who read from their works weren’t entirely comfortable with The Martyr’s Mirror.
They revered it as they reverenced their grandparents. And they have
moved past it as they have moved past their grandparents’ ways and have
embraced computers, cell phones, and Facebook. And
yet, they searched for meaning in the stories. The sharing of their
conflicting emotions had the audience laughing out loud. It wasn’t the
evening I had feared. I feared I might leave the reading feeling guilt
ridden because I had not made sufficient sacrifices for my faith, but I
left with a lilt in my step. But was it the
evening I had hoped for? Had I seen inside the fence? What was there? I
saw struggle, discomfort, and uncertainty. Kirsten captured it in the
book’s opening essay: What will I do? As
I sat in my cold car and started the engine to head home, I felt a
little sorry that I didn’t have a big book of my own that was a pivotal
point of my history. That feeling has surprised me. Was I lacking
something? Or was my jealousy a reaction to their cultural pride? A
few weeks later I visited my mother in Lynchburg. She was about to
throw out an oversized light blue book with a navy blue fabric spine.
"You can have it if you want it," she said as she handed it to me to
examine. The gold letters on the spine were nearly faded away but I
could make out the title, The Illustrated Treasury of Children’s Literature.
Inside she had written "Tommy and Cynthia Floyd" and the date she had
bought it. On the facing page the title was highlighted by wobbly
pencil circles. The table of contents and several other pages were
similarly decorated with squiggles and twirls. I
remembered poring over this book as a child. Was this my pivotal book,
the key to my heritage? Did it shape me as The Martyr’s Mirror shaped
Kirsten? Somehow it didn’t seem as noble. Little Jack Horner just
didn’t stack up with torture and sacrifice, but it did contain magic. I
thumbed through the book. The musty smell was strong. I looked at the
familiar illustrations. I saw a princess sleeping on a stack of
mattresses, two children approaching a cottage made of gingerbread, a
marionette with a very long nose, a stuffed bear with a jar of honey. I
closed the book and smiled, remembering that I had bought a similar
volume from the Literary Guild for my children when they were young. I
brought the book home. Was there a connection between Tongue Screws and Testimonies and The Illustrated Treasury of Children’s Literature?
I hunted for an answer—scratching and pecking at ideas just as
Kirsten’s chickens scratch and peck at the ground. My book had fairy
tales, stories written to delight and amuse, not the record of brave
suffering for a divine cause. But the fairy tales had lessons too.
Honesty, ingenuity, loyalty, and bravery were there alongside the
whimsy and fun. I shook my head to clear it. Was I trying too hard to
make this work for me? Closing the musty book,
I knew there was one thing I shared with Kirsten and the Mennonites. We
wanted to find our place. We searched for our place in our birth family
and in the family we married into and in our world. Sometimes it was a
struggle to fit the past into our evolving understanding of the
present. Maybe all of us are riding in a wooden wagon fitted with
automobile tires—traveling part in the past and part in the present.
Thankfully our touchstone stories guide us. And a little magic now and
then doesn’t hurt either.
—Cynthia
F. Page, Harrisonburg, Virginia, has lived in the Shenandoah Valley for
nearly five years and is budget director at James Madison University
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