Mennonite in Blue Jeans

by Rhonda Langley

"Mennonite in Blue Jeans" is a humorous autobiographical account of my writing life, triggered by my reading of the popular "Mennonite in a Little Black Dress," by Rhoda Janzen, a woman with whom I grew up in Fresno. It's the little dress vs. the jeans, two views of the same Mennonite community.

196 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2011

About the author

All of the books by Rhonda Langley are available from lulu.com.
Rhonda Langley lives in Portland, Oregon with her husband and two sons. She spends her time dreaming, gazing into evening skies, writing, playing violin while looking out of windows, and also working full time as a special education teacher, doing laundry, helping her sons with homework and sometimes (but not too often) cleaning the house. Thankfully she doesn't have to make dinner because her husband does that (very well, too!).
http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/rhondal...

If you want to know more about Rhonda, read her book, "Mennonite in Blue Jeans."

Reviews

[Clif Hostetler · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book's dedication provides a hint about the motivations behind writing this book"

"To my home community, especially those who burned the other book."

The other book being referred to is the NYT best seller Mennnonite in a Little Black Dress by Rhoda Janssen. <LINK TO MY REVIEW> Lots of people, including me, read this "other book" and enjoyed some good laughs at the comic (though not completely accurate) representation of the world of Mennonites. So what's the problem with this other book? Well, not everyone is laughing. Some folks felt that they were being laughed at, not with. Furthermore, sticklers for historical accuracy winced at the inaccurate and/or incomplete descriptions contained in the "Black Dress" book.

Rhonda, author of this book, has a sort of epiphany when she finds Rhoda's book in a used book sale bin. It occurs to her that she is uniquely qualified to write a sort of rebuttal to that book. She is about the same age as Rhoda, grew up in the same town, and were both raised within the Mennonite Brethren Church community in Fresno, California. The big difference is that Rhoda left the Mennonite community and then later in her life wrote a book about Mennonites as an outsider looking back at where she came from. Rhonda had many of the same life experiences as Rhoda, but Rhonda continued to identify with Mennonites whenever and wherever they could be found in the various communities that she and her husband moved to.

Put another way, this is an author who experienced a growing appreciation of the anabaptist heritage of the Mennonite community at large, and in this book she is responding to another author who believed that the Mennonite community is something to escape from. I have experienced elements of both feelings, but in the long view I have developed a world view more closely to that of Rhonda's. Therefore, I experienced this book as an affirmation of many of my own life choices and experiences.

Rhonda accomplishes the goals for this book by simply writing her memoir. She delves into the nitty gritty of life which isn't all pleasant stuff. She confesses some of her personal and family's foibles and medical issues. But I got the sense that she's hanging-on and will endure. She won me over completely as her fan by the end of the book.

I enjoyed the following quotation describing the type of Mennonites she encountered in New York City:

"These are social justice seeking, subway riding Mennonites. These are Mennonites with positions at the U.N. ... These are radical discipleship Mennonites out to feed the hungry, free the oppressed, and in other ways follow the example of Jesus."

There's probably a bit of hyperbole in that quote, but I'm glad Mennonites are being well represented in the Big Apple.

I appreciated the Appendix at the book's end that provides a "New Mennonite Primer." She provides a simple description of today's Mennonite without sounding like a theologian or folk historian. The author proceeds to a dream vision of a long deceased progenitor coming to visit her family to see what has become of his descendants. This section reminds the reader that we may be products of our past, but we are also moving on to new and positive forms that fit our new present.

This book is not available from Amazon.com and probably not in your local book store either. It can be purchased from Lulu self publishing at this link. It's available in paperback or PDF ebook.

Review in June 25, 2012 Mennonite World Review

Review in December 2011 Mennonite Brethren Herald

[Shirley Showalter · Rating 4 out of 5]

The following link is to my review published in the Mennonite World Review on June 25, 2012.
http://www.mennoworld.org/2012/6/25/b...

I highly recommend it as a heart-felt response to Mennonite in a Little Black Dress, especially for those with a serious interest in what contemporary Mennonite life is like on the west coast. A talented debut writer.

[Kaylene Friesen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Clearly written as a response to Rhoda Janzen's, "Mennonite in a Little Black Dress", Langley takes another run at describing what it was like to grow up in the Mennonite Brethren community with all of it's joys and flaws. It was a good read and provided a welcome contrast to Janzen's experience but lacked the freshness and zing of Janzen's version.