Scattering point : the world in a Mennonite eye / Jeff Gundy.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gundy, Jeffrey Gene, 1952-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Gundy, Jeffrey Gene, 1952-.

Gundy, Jeffrey Gene.

Gundy, Jeffrey Gene, 1952---Family.

Mennonites--Illinois--Biography.

Mennonites.

Mennonites--History.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (225 p.)

Place of Publication:

Albany, NY : State University of New York Press, 2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Part memoir, part family history, part meditation on history and the present, this work of creative nonfiction allows Jeff Gundy to ask what it should mean to "live in the world but not of it," as the traditional Mennonite saying recommends. As Scattering Point moves through time and space, it repeatedly questions how a modern, assimilated Mennonite poet and professor might live with some kind of fidelity to his tradition and to the promises and griefs of contemporary life.Scattering Point takes its title from Scattering Point Creek, which has its source on the author's family farm in Illinois. This book explores that place while also ranging widely from it and the Amish and Mennonites who have been associated with the area for nearly the last century. It traverses the Illinois prairie to churches and caves in Europe and incorporates family stories, soil geology, the architecture of cathedrals and churches, reflections on depression, and Mennonite martyrdoms and schisms. Scattering Point speaks of the great questions of history and religion, the quiet lives of Amish and Mennonite men and women whose histories are almost forgotten, and of our lives today.Readers of all backgrounds will see something of themselves in Jeff Gundy who writes, "I must admit it: I do love this world and, many, though not all, of the things in it," and whose quest is always for understanding that will allow us to "go back into the world more able to undertake the difficult work of loving it as we should."

Contents:

Front Matter

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Cathedrals, Churches, Caves

Fantasia with Raspberries, Baby Chicks, Wine and Roses

Scattering Point

Scatter Plots

The Notebook in My Back Pocket

Where we Live

The Sparrow in the Mead Hall

“Would You Have Left All This for Waldo?”

Notes

Works Cited

Notes:

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Includes bibliographical references (p. 205-212).

ISBN:

9780791487174

0791487172

9781417506705

1417506709

OCLC:

61367694