After a lifetime of fascination with the Amish, "simple" living, etc., I "serendipitously" wandered in to the liberal Mennonite church in middle age. This was a profound turning point in my long and circuitous faith journey.
Here I found, after a long journey through many spiritual practices, a Christian church that professed the same things I saw when I read the Gospels: Simplicity, non-violence, honesty, separation of church and state, priesthood of all believers, adult baptism, radical faith in a loving God. I was baptized, I became a member.
Before long, I found my path leading right back out the other side of the Mennonite Church--from "not a Christian" to "conservative fringe" in something just a few years. I gradually found my way along a path my liberal church wouldn't follow...something I sometimes describe as "urban stealth Plain"...or in lighter moments, "MennAnaQuak" (I sojourned with the Religious Society of Friends, a.k.a. Quakers, for a few years).
Searching for an outward sign of this inward journey, I began wearing a traditional Anabaptist "prayer covering" in not-so-traditional rainbow colors, to signify one of my other essential core identities: not conventionally heterosexual, according to either Plain or "English" culture.
This blog invites others to join me in exploring, sharing, reflecting, and encouraging one another in our personal explorations of what it means to be "Plain" and "Queer", "In the world but not of the world", all at the same time.
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