A Pie Plate Pilgrimage

by William Loewen

  Chapters 13-14

  1. Is Gerald justified in asking about Oscar and Lydia’s relationship?

  2. Does sharing spiritual ‘aha moments’ interfere with our public sense of religion as a private matter as Melvin asserts?

  3. Who appreciates literature more, the person committed to reading it frequently, or the person reading it for the first time?

  4. What do you think is the real reason that Oscar didn’t suggest Evangeline’s father as a potential author?

  5. What proof do our married households have of our status?

  Chapters 15-16

  1. In the context of Oscar and Evangeline’s date, is it more therapeutic to give or to receive an apology?

  2. Are Oscar’s Christian friends really that bad at listening and empathizing?

  3. Why did Oscar leave Lydia’s apartment that night?

  Chapters 17-18

  1. Is being a pain-killer a good or a bad metaphor for religion?

  2. What do you think a disclaimer laden drug-style commercial for Christianity sound like?

  3. Is Evangeline’s father justified in trying to disqualify Oscar from the scholarship?

  4. Melvin says that the company exists not to help people but to sell books. Lydia disagrees. Who is ultimately correct?

  Chapter 19

  1. Lydia feels Oscar is entitled to skip church given the circumstances, but he still insists on going elsewhere. Why?

  2. Why is it irritating when people drive speed limit? Should it be?

  3. Was Oscar out of line to take Lydia to Bethpage?

  4. Do Lydia’s experiences with prayer resonate with your own?

  5. Why did Lydia lie about who Oscar was?

  Chapters 20-21

  1. Did Gerald come to his decision based on finances or was something else involved?

  2. Is Westminster Printers right to hold the copyright to all of Zack’s writing?

  3. Did Gerald’s mother not trust her son to complete the project or was she really invested in Lydia?

  4. Why doesn’t Lydia negotiate more aggressively?

  5. Would you read “A Marriage of Equals”?

  Chapter 22

  1. What are Lydia’s spiritual expectations of her trip to the Worsley farm? Oscar’s? Mr. Worsley?

  2. How necessary is the work that she and Oscar do?

  3. Where do you think Lydia’s journey will take her? Oscar? Evangeline? Zack’s book?

  About the Author

  William Loewen is the pastor of Trinity Mennonite Church, just outside of Calgary, Alberta. Before that he worked in education and resource development in a volunteer capacity in South Korea and as a pastor in Ontario. He has ten years of combined experience in church ministry.

  A Pie Plate Pilgrimage is the first book written by William Loewen. He is also a contributor on an upcoming anthology entitled, A Living Alternative: Anabaptist Christianity in a Post-Christendom World, available in the fall of 2014. Together with his wife Ana, he wrote a full length musical, The Shadows of Grossmunster, which tells the story of one of the early Anabaptist Christian communities in Zurich, Switzerland. He has also had a number of articles published in other religious publications and community newspapers. His blog can be found at www.thirdway.ca.

  William Loewen is married and has three children, Ruby, Sebastian and Felicity.

  Special Thanks

  While there is one name on the front of the novel, there are many people whose thoughts and actions contributed to making this a better book, and owe each of them a debt of gratitude.

  Many, many people read full or partial manuscripts and gave helpful feedback and whole sections were added or removed because of what they said. They taught me a lot about what works and what doesn’t work. They taught me about grammar; I even learned how to use a semi-colon properly.

  Krista Wiebe at Clear Cut Editing was supportive and corrective at the same time, and she did a lot to help me polish it into something ready for public consumption.

  My congregation encouraged me to indulge my creative writing pursuits, and without that support, this project may never have been completed.

  Much is written in these pages about what it means to be a pastor. I have been blessed to have been led by and to have worked alongside some incredible pastors. I hope my own form of pastoring looks more like the spiritual guidance Oscar offers than the dominance and entitlement modelled by Reverend Ballard and Evangeline’s father, as it has for my own pastors, co-pastors and pastoral colleagues.

  Finally, thanks to you, the reader, for investing the time and energy to read through my book. The marketplace is full of other books and your week is full of other opportunities, so I am honoured to have been able to share this time with you. If you have any questions or comments about the book, please feel free to contact me through my blog (www.thirdway.ca) or my twitter account (@wjloewen). Also, if you liked the book, I would appreciate if you would write a review with the retailer or at my page on goodreads.com.