MeyerBros --> Profiles --> Carl

is this a Profile?

I'm not sure, but it is a long introduction of me. I wrote it for vinifera (really, just a bunch of college friends). The rest of my wiki-things are over at Carl.HomePage.

the introduction

but yes! here I am, it is me, I am here, and although it's taken me (what? is it a year already?) too long, here's my attempt at a properly viniferous (villainous? vituperous?) introduction. It got long. It's hard to say everything in an introduction without making it long. If you don't want to read it, you don't have to. But you knew that.

I guess my story begins somewhere in the Swiss Alps, or maybe it's in the French Alsace-Lorraine, or perhaps in Germany. In any case, it begins a long, long time ago. The story hasn't been passed down, but I presume there were people living in all those places (a long time ago) and I presume that some of them were my ancestors. Once upon a time (I've been told) soldiers from Rome came, saw, and conquered, (presumably) including my ancestors. And then there was Constantine, and so my (presumed) ancestors became (nominal) followers of a Palestinian/Jewish guy named Jesus (with the aid of some cleverly-sown confusion regarding, among other things, the winter solstice and spring equinox and their connection to key dates in Jesus' life).

Then, at some point along the way, some of these ancestors of mine became a little less nominal and a little more serious about the whole Jesus thing. In fact, they got a bit fanatical, and since they had some disagreements with the princes and magistrates and priests about it all, they even started getting themselves burned and drowned and harassed and called all sorts of nasty names, like "Anabaptist."

To make a long story short, some of these Anabaptists (tired, I guess, of all the fighting and dying and killing and starving that seems to have been habitual in Europe at the time, and looking for land and a better life) made their way over to this continent, and some of those were my great-great-(etc)-grandparents. Some of them were killed by Indians (that story has been passed down), all of them got whatever land they got thanks to the killing of Indians (that one hasn't much), and then sooner or later (you were wondering when I'd get to this) I came along.

I came along roughly one thousand, nine hundred, and eighty years after Jesus (give or take four or five years). I came along in a place my people call Goshen, after a place over in Egypt where Jesus' ancestors lived for a while. I don't know what the Potawotami people who lived at that place called it. It appears that either they or the Miami people called some nearby places names like Nappanee, Wakarusa, and Mishawaka, although they may well have been saying something entirely different (such as "No, we don't want to be chained and force-marched to Kansas") and been misunderstood by the recorders of history and makers of maps. It happens.

But I'm getting off track. It's hard to fit all the important things into an introduction. My parents are Richard and Brenda Hostetler Meyer, and they live on thirty-five acres of land near Goshen, which was sold to a white man for the first time just a few years after the US Army burned Five Medals' Potawotami village to the ground.

My father is a good man, he usually has a bushy red beard, he taught me about Five Medals' village, and he works for Christian Peacemaker Teams as the coordinator for the team working in Hebron, near where Jesus lived (isn't it funny how everything connects?). Right now he is in Hebron, and he didn't come home for Christmas because he is trying to help secure the release of four Christian Peacemaker Teams members who are unwilling guests of some people in Iraq who are very angry, with some good reason, and who might kill them, without good reason. I miss him.

My mother is a wise woman, and she is the pastor of Benton Mennonite Church. She taught me about life, and anger, and families, and love. I still have a lot to learn from her. Right now she is at home, being a pastor and helping people to live their lives in a good way.

My father's parents are Albert and Mary Ellen Meyer, and they live in Goshen, in a beautiful house on Emerson Street. The house is beautiful because lots of laughing and playing games happens in it. My grandpa is a good man, a physicist, and former director of the Mennonite Board of Education. Now he is writing a book. My grandma is a wise woman. She helps people, and she was called a saint in John D. Roth's latest book, which she would not want me to tell you.

My mother's parents are Darrel and Marian Hostetler, and they live in a beautiful house on Third Street, in Goshen. The house is beautiful because lots of smiling and singing happens in it. My grandpa is a good man, and a musician. He plays the trombone and many other things, and used to direct the choir at Bethany Christian High School. My grandma is a wise woman, and a spiritual director. She does beautiful calligraphy.

I have two brothers. Eric is a good man, and an artist. He writes and directs plays, and he helps keep New World Players alive. He is also a seventeenth-year senior at Goshen College, or something like that. Jonny is a good man, and he has big hair. He is funny and fearless, and a student at Goshen College. He is dating Hannah, who is an artist, and a wise woman, and makes very good sushi.

That leaves me. One year after I came along, my beautiful and wise (and very young) parents took me to Lesotho (Leh-SOO-too), a country in southern Africa. We lived there for six years. My parents worked for Mennonite Central Committee, and I learned to speak Sesotho, read Dr. Seuss, make wire cars, and roll bicycle tire rims with a stick. While we lived in Lesotho, my brothers came along.

After six years, we all came back to this continent. We lived in Indianapolis for six months. In Indianapolis, I went to school at Charity Dye Public School #27, where I held hands with a white girl named Laura, and I saw a black boy named Gregory who couldn't sit still get hit with a paddle some days. I learned that black kids in Indianapolis mostly don't speak Sesotho, which surprised me. We sat inside at our desks for recess, because some kids broke bones fighting on the playground. My teacher was a wise woman named Mrs. Breaux, which is French. My brothers got chicken pox.

After the six months, we came to Goshen, because my parents decided that it was home, anyway, and why try to run away from your home? So they bought some land, because that's what you have to do, even though they knew that buying and selling land is silly, and it was Potawotami land anyway. We lived in a trailer, and I slept in a little room with my brothers and glow-in-the-dark constellation stickers on the ceiling. I spent my days at Millersburg Elementary School, where there was only one black kid, and lots of Amish kids, both of which surprised me.

At Millersburg Elementary School, I made friends with Adam, and Alex, and Ben, and Luke. I don't know where they are today, except that Luke went to Goshen College and drew cartoons making fun of people who care about peace, which made me angry (but that was later). I had good teachers, like Mrs. Kauffman, who used to tell me "tough toenails" if I complained that something wasn't fair, and taught me to love books. And Mrs. Shoup, who discussed A Wrinkle In Time with me after I read it. And Mrs. Bontrager, who cried after I told her in front of everyone that I didn't care about the structure of the Japanese government. She let us do math "at our own pace." I bet an Amish kid named LaVern ten cents that I'd beat him to the end of the math book. I lost.

Then I went to Fairfield Junior High School. I ran cross-country, and played flute in the band, which was OK. Everything else was bad. People were mean, even meaner than in elementary school, and I didn't know how to be mean properly because I was from Lesotho and I didn't watch Saved by the Bell. An eighth-grader named Adam made fun of me and Eric on the bus everyday, and hit us some days. My parents told me he probably was unhappy, which was true, but didn't help.

After I convinced my parents that junior high was bad, they taught me at home for the second half of eighth grade. I studied math and science with my father, and English with my mother. It was better than junior high, but I was traumatized and not very happy. I remember screaming at my mother about an essay she wanted me to write for English. I remember saving up for a year and buying a Nintendo and playing lots of Tecmo Super Bowl and Super Mario 3 with my brothers. I remember my cool uncle Bruce with long hair playing Dungeons and Dragons with us. I remember telling my mother that if I could do it painlessly and not go to hell and not hurt my family, I would kill myself. I meant it, but not too much, because I didn't try.

Then I went to Bethany Christian High School. I liked that better. There were still mean people, but there were also strange people, like John Leigh and CJ Friesen and Peter Hartman, and I attached myself to them. Sometimes they were mean (and sometimes I was), but we had good times. We played Dungeons and Dragons, and complicated board games that take ten hours to finish, and computer games, and learned to program computers. We hacked Nibbles in the science room during breaks and listened to Fugazi and were cynical and sarcastic and thought we were pretty damn cool, in a we-don't-care-what-you-think sort of a way. But I never pulled that off very well, because actually I do care what you think.

Sometime during my second year at Bethany, Peter Gilbert (slacker extraordinaire) loaned me a book called "The Teenage Liberation Handbook: how to quit school and get a real life and education." Being more earnest and less of a slacker than Peter, I did quit school. It was one of my better decisions. I studied music theory with my grandpa, Greek and Spanish with my mother, and math on my own. I got a "classics" reading list from Ervin Beck, and didn't read most of the books on it. I got a job at MapleTronics Computers building computers, and eventually graduated to fixing them instead. Pete Hartman and I took Calculus at Goshen College. After class we would dive in the dumpster at Augsburgers Grocery (now SuperValu ), take our found treasures to my grandparents' house on Emerson Street for cleaning, and eat lunch.

I attended Assembly Mennonite, even though I had decided I was an atheist. I went for the youth group, because I was entranced by Rachel Koontz. We negotiated an awkward but pleasing not-really-dating relationship, which mostly consisted of long walks in Oxbow Park and canoeing in the Elkhart river. That winter, I went to a Christian Peacemaker Teams conference in Washington D.C., because Rachel was going. During the trip, I discovered that Rachel was more entranced by Ben Hartman than by me, which was devastating. I also discovered that the world needed some major saving. The combination added up to something that seemed like the end of one world and the beginning of the next, so I went home and listened to lots of Sarah McLachlan (Solace, a good album for when your world is ending). Eventually, I graduated from Sarah McLachlan to Thich Nhat Hahn, and then from Thich Nhat Hahn to Walter Wink, and then from Walter Wink to baptism at Assembly Mennonite and a CPT delegation to Hebron.

Before long I went to Guatemala, where I learned Spanish and built cement-shingle-makers, and then to Goshen College, which I'd sworn I'd never do. But it turned out to be a good choice, because I met all of you there, and learned that I was neither as worthless nor as superior as I'd previously thought. I also met Karissa, who is so cool that we got married (after I tried to destroy several friendships with some high-quality sulking and pouting). And from that point, most of you know my life story, more or less.

Now I live here on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation, in South Dakota, otherwise known as the sovereign treaty territory of the Titunwan Oyate. I work for Mennonite Central Committee (isn't it funny how everything connects?). It's a difficult job with too much responsibility, but I don't regret taking it on. Life is good. I spend a lot of time thinking about things like "where is home? who are my people? what can I do about genocide?" I spend even more time thinking about Peyton Manning and Marvin Harrison, and whether the Colts will win the Super Bowl this year. And I'm ever-grateful for Karissa, who is a wise and beautiful woman, and with whom any conflict can be resolved with enough talking through it.

I got up at 5:30 this morning because I couldn't sleep, and the sunrise over the snow was fantastic. You should see it.

I guess that's about it. I love you all!

Carl