On Magic Wings

Candelin Wahl with a pink dogwood in the background

I am so grateful for friends. My friend, Candelin Wahl, came to visit me and stayed for two days. Our friendship goes back a long way. We met when we were going to the same church. We were twelve months pregnant between the two of us at the time. Then my son, Tim, and her daughter, Drew, were born within three days of one another. As our babies grew into toddlers, we would get together, often once a week, to let our them play with one another. She went on to have another daughter, Jamie. As our children grew, we adopted one another's children as our second family. I still proudly consider Drew and Jamie my surrogate daughters. You can click on their names to visit their blogs and discover why I am so proud of them.

Yesterday Candelin and I had a magical day, which started out with a bike ride through our little village. The smell and sight of all the blossoming trees and flowers was intoxicating. The temperature was perfect, spring was in full bloom... what was there not to love?

After our bike ride, we did our civic duty... we went next door to the library to sort books for the book sale that's coming up. Candelin wrote a message to me on the sidewalk outside the library, where there is sidewalk chalk for people to leave their art behind. What a friend!

Friendship Forever!

After lunch, we headed off to "Magic Wings," a butterfly museum. When we walked in, all we could do was look around in awe at the magical fluttering of wings all around us. It was so incredible! For nearly two hours, we walked around and watched butterflies of all colors, shapes, and sizes. Candelin took more than 170 photos and several videos. Below is one of the more brightly-colored butterflies.

A male Cairns Birdwing

The Blue Morphos were the most amazing of them all, I thought. Below are several feeding on bananas. "Blue?" you might ask. What is so fascinating about these is that when they close their wings, they blend in with their surroundings, but when they open their wings, the "inside" of their wings are an iridescent blue. Beautiful!

Several Blue Morphos. 

While Candelin was taking a video, I walked down the path, and had no idea there was a "cloud" of butterflies following me. How cool! This is not as clear as it was, now that I've posted it to my blog, but you can still see the butterflies. This is no substitute for the real thing, but it offers a glimpse.

While we were in the conservatory, it clouded over and we heard rain on the roof. It got rather dark inside, much like dusk. We looked around, and many of the butterflies were hanging onto twigs and branches and folding their wings, like they were going to bed. We found out from someone who works there that that is exactly what was happening. Most of them go up into the high branches to perch, but there were plenty to see just above us. Don't let your eye fool you... these are not brown leaves, they are butterflies going to bed.

Butterflies retiring for the night

At closing time, Candelin and I returned home for a late afternoon nap, and then she treated David and me to dinner. Afterwards, the three of us had tea in our living room. Candelin regaled us with stories of her travels from the last three months, played us a few songs on her guitar, and shared a photo album with us. For more about her travels, you can visit her blog, named Sundialer.

We awoke to a washed world this morning. Here in the Pioneer Valley we've been having beautiful spring days, with hardly a cloud in the sky. So the rain we received yesterday and last night was welcome. 

After breakfast, Candelin packed up her little car for the last leg of her trip. As she did so, she had me choose from a collection of stones she'd found in Fairystone State Park in Virginia. Then she said good-bye and headed home to Burlington, Vermont. I'm sure her husband, George, will be as happy to see her as she is to see him. She has been traveling for the last three months. I could tell she her mind was already with him, for she didn't see me waving from my front porch as she drove away.

Candelin left me reflecting on all things magical: friendships, butterflies, spring blossoms, bike rides, butterflies with "gossamer wings," and fairy stones. I feel blessed by her friendship.

I am grateful for the memories Candelin and I created over the last two days and I will cherish these memories always. They are  enhanced by the photos and the videos. 

Below is my favorite of the butterflies, and also my favorite photo that Candelin took yesterday.

A "Glasswing." Candelin aptly renamed it "Gossamer Wings."

Do Amish People Resent Tourists?

Recently Fran Shultis asked a very good question about vacationing in Amish country. I will answer this to the best of my ability. Here's her question:

Saloma, my family and I are going on an overnight vacation to Amish territory this Spring. In many ways I feel like an intruder because I know the Amish are a very private people and would rather be left alone. Do you think Amish people resent vacationers? I have no intentions of taking pictures of them because I know they don't like that. Any thoughts on this?

Fran, this is not a yes or no answer. There are only a few things you can say about "The Amish" and this is not one of them. Presuming you could get an honest answer about this from 100 Amish people, you'd probably get 150 answers, because many of the Amish have mixed feelings about people touring their communities. In the communities that really don't want it, you won't gain access at all. In the most commercial of Amish communities, you have many of the Amish welcoming tourists, because they are benefiting from them. In fact, I understand that there are now some Amish who are doing so well from the tourist trade in Lancaster, that they rent out their farm land to their English neighbors, while these Amish families derive their livelihood from the tourist trade. Consequently, you have some very well-heeled Amish in Lancaster.

Though my home community in Geauga County, Ohio, is more commercialized than it was when I lived there, they have not been as embracing of tourism, and for sure not to tour their homes. In fact, when I was still living there, they used Lancaster as an example of what they did not want, and that was even before the movie Witness was made (which made tourism in Lancaster mushroom). The sentiment in my community was that this is "selling out" their religion and way of life for money.

There are communities that pretty much insulate themselves from the outside world, with only the men interacting with English people. That is one end of the spectrum, with Lancaster at the other end. Northern Indiana and Holmes County come in behind Lancaster, and then other Amish communities fall somewhere between these far ends of the spectrum.

None of the Amish communities are completely self-sufficient, which means that they are dependent on Englishers to buy and sell their goods. So someone in each family has to interact with those "of the world," unless they subsist completely on dairy farming (which is a small percentage of the Amish.) Roadside stands, greenhouses, bulk stores, furniture shops, quilt sales, and bakeries are all dependent on buyers, and most of them are not Amish.

I think perhaps the most important thing to remember when you are vacationing around the Amish is that no matter how much access you gain in their lives, you will never actually gain insight into their Amish life. This is true even if you spend lots of time and join an Amish family for meals. They are keenly aware the whole time you are with them that they are being observed, and consequently they will act differently than they would if you weren't there. There are certain things that are for Amish ears and eyes only, and that is part of what keeps them Amish and the rest of us not. One thing I find pretty universal about the Amish is that they do not like for the rest of the world to see their underbelly.

So I think it's probably fine for people to tour Amish country. As I mentioned, you will only get as much access as what they want to give you, anyway. They like the money we spend in their communities. In fact, they normally have one price for Amish people and one for everyone else on items such as rocking chairs, quilts, or furniture.

Having said all this, I don't know any Amish who like gawkers. Staring, taking photos, or asking an excessive amount of questions are all considered disrespectful. To give an example, I will use the most obnoxious one I've ever heard of. A woman tourist in Lancaster was watching an Amish farmer working in his field with a camera in hand. She kept motioning for him to come over because she wanted to get him to pose for a photo. When he ignored her and continued on with his work, she became so indignant that she went to city hall in Lancaster and complained. They explained to her that this was not a living museum, and that this person was on his own private property, and that he had every right to ignore her -- in fact she was the intruder.

The Amish make a distinction between taking photos of them versus taking photos of their farms. I always take photos of their farms when I have a chance.

Ironically, I have become a tourist when I go to Amish country. Just this past week I was in the Mohawk Valley, where there are a number of fairly new communities. It was very interesting to be "in the Amish but not of them," the reverse of "being in the world but not of it" while I was Amish.

Below are several photos I took this past week. 

This last photo was taken atop a steep and winding hill. I do not know how this family gets their horses up and down that hill, especially in winter. 

I love windmills for pumping water. They evoke nostalgia for me. Though we never had one, there were families in our community who did, so I associate them with Amish community gatherings, which is when I would have been around them.

 

Weekend Sunrise in Australia

Several nights ago, I heard a "ding" on my computer that signaled that I have an email coming in. I opened it and nearly swallowed my gum... it was from someone who was inviting me to be on an Australian television program called Weekend Sunrise. Over the next few days I got the details... I was to go to a studio in Springfield, Massachusetts, and they would interview me live from Australia at 7:30 PM on Friday night, which would be Saturday morning in Australia.

I tried not to be nervous. (Have you ever tried not to be nervous?) I've been interviewed for television before, I kept telling myself. And my recent yoga practice helped. I kept taking deep breaths to dispel my jitters.

I arrived at the studio early. I was asked to sit on a very high chair, which was very wiggly. I had visions of the chair breaking in the middle of the interview. Thank goodness my imagination was more vivid than reality.

Several people talked to me ahead of time, to make sure we had a connection. The whole thing felt so out of this world... I could have an interview on my Friday night, and their Saturday morning in real time, and yet it takes 20 hours to fly to that side of the world. Australia is a place the Amish can never travel to unless they sail there, and then how many weeks does that take? And yet they were the topic of discussion.

The minutes on that high chair seemed forever long. I could hear other broadcasts from the earphone in my right ear, and then commercial breaks. Eventually my hosts, Samantha Armytage and Andrew O’Keefe began introducing the Amish story and then me.  I soon figured out that there must be a time lag because I noticed that my hosts were trying to talk to me as I was still talking. And then a few minutes later, I heard someone say that they lost me, and I heard a commercial. It turned out that a few minutes into the show we lost our connection.

So I had my few moments in the sun, or should I say Sunrise. I found it to be a great experience, though it also has some kind of an unreal quality to it. If someone had told me while I was still Amish that I would someday be interviewed for television from the other side of our world, I would not have believed it. First of all, I wouldn't have known it could ever be technologically possible. I wouldn't have thought myself capable of such a thing either from the point of view of confidence or that I could do something so antithetical to my upbringing. It is pretty far from my humble and austere beginnings. I don't know if that is good, bad, or indifferent, but I cannot help but notice it.

If only I could someday travel to that far and distant land...

Review of "Thrill of the Chaste" by Valerie Weaver-Zercher

I recently was given a copy of the book Thrill of the Chaste by Valerie Weaver-Zercher, in exchange for visiting one of Dr. Donald Kraybill’s classes. I had known that Weaver-Zercher was studying Amish romance novels, so I looked forward to this publication, for I want to understand the reason for so much interest in this subgenre.

For anyone not familiar with Amish romance novels, they are those books you see in the Christian section of bookstores or in the gift shops of Amish-style restaurants with demure women in Amish garb, some leaning on fences in a pasture, others hovering above an Amish landscape, and still others with a male next to or behind her.  Almost invariably, though, there is the proverbial Amish head covering. The reason for this was articulated by one publisher when he said, “You slap a bonnet on the cover and double the sales.”

A friend recently gave me her impression of walking into a restaurant with a rack loaded with Amish novels.  She describes her impression, “This is Amish smut!” Given these are clean romances, without sex, or in most cases, without even as much physical contact as lip-kissing, this is an interesting impression, but one I share.

The content of these books are formulaic: the protagonist grows up Amish, she arrives at a place in her life (usually through a crisis) in which she questions the Amish faith, and then she has a conversion experience and becomes a born-again Christian. Somewhere along the line, there is a romance, often one in which she has to choose between an Amish boyfriend and an English one. These stories invariably end happily.

Weaver-Zercher has a humorous description of her friend, Margaret’s, reaction to her research when she tried to explain what she was studying.

… she is intrigued and a little confused. Like several other people with whom I spoke, she thinks at first that I am writing an Amish romance novel. No, I clarify; I am writing about them.

“So let me get this straight.” Margaret pauses, her forefinger raised above her chicken and rice. “You are writing about us, who are reading the books that other people write about the Amish.” It is obvious that this project strikes her as a tad funny, amusing in both its degrees of separation from the Amish and the endless ripples of research it suggests. [Pg. 231]

I enjoyed Weaver-Zercher’s wit throughout the book. She describes her own enjoyment of reading the books this way, “Eager to keep reading my latest Amish romance but unwilling to admit it, I would sometimes tuck the book under my sweatshirt when going to the gym or under a notebook when entering a doctor’s waiting room. … The deeper I got into this project, the more fascinated I became by the surreptitious nature of my Amish romance reading.” I felt like she left me hanging on this question. Perhaps answering this question for herself might have given her insights into the “typical” reader’s interest in these books. She does give us several good insights as it is. One she terms hypermodernity.  “The speed, anomie, and digital slavery of contemporary life have sent many readers, weary of hypermodernity, to books containing stories of a people group whom readers perceive as hypermodernity’s antithesis: the Amish.” The other term she uses is hypersexualization in which “sexual discourse, erotica, and pornography are present in almost all aspects of society.” She wrote, “The exponential growth of Amish fiction during the first decade of the twenty-first century cannot be understood apart from these “hyper” cultural developments.”

And when Weaver-Zercher mentions exponential growth, she is not joking. She

gives us an idea of the astounding growth of the Amish romance novels in the publishing market:

Sales numbers and bestseller lists confirm the vigor of the Amish-fiction category. The triumvirate of top Amish romance novelists—Beverly Lewis, Wanda Brunstetter, and Cindy Woodsmall—have sold a combined total of 24 million books. At least seven of Lewis’s Amish novels have sold more than 500,000 copies each, and one of those, The Shunning, has sold more than 1 million copies. Brunstetter’s fifty books, almost all of them Amish titles, have sold nearly 6 million copies. [Pg. 5]

I agree that hypermodernity and hypersexualization are two reasons why people are drawn to the Amish in general and to the Amish romance novels in particular. I would add another aspect, which Weaver-Zercher named but did not define or give as much attention as the other two: hyperindividualism. I feel this cannot be underestimated. In mainstream culture, we are taught that if we want something badly enough we can either achieve it or acquire it. We think if only we had enough money, then we could have anything we want. We isolate ourselves with screens in front of our faces how many hours per day? For however long it is, we are not interacting with other people during that time, which means we’re sacrificing community. We cannot possibly have meaningful interpersonal interactions in a community setting and be in our own world, too. People try, but they don’t succeed. It seems unplugging and living a simpler life is not as easy as reading an Amish romance novel.

Weaver-Zercher’s best example of this phenomenon is Suzanne Woods Fisher, host of the Toginet Radio show Amish Wisdom, who invites her listeners to “slow down, de-clutter, find peace, and live a simpler life” each Thursday afternoon. However, Fisher’s life is anything but simple. She is the author of numerous Amish books and is contracted with her publisher, Revell, through 2016. In 2012, she had ten books on the market with eleven in the works. In one particular busy stretch, five of her books appeared in seven months. She writes them at about the rate of one every three to four months.

Besides being a radio host and author, Fisher is mother of four children and she has a little grandchild, a dad with Alzheimers and a mother who needs lots of help. Her husband is a finance executive who travels frequently. It is Fisher’s hypothesis that Amish fiction is “a response to the feeling people have of being out of control with technology and change that is coming so fast. The feeling that you have a cell phone and you are never off the hook, you are responsible to be available all the time—it’s just overwhelming. I think there’s a longing for a life in which you’re unhooked and detached, and we can’t do it; it’s too hard.”

The irony of “fast texts about a slow culture” is not lost on Weaver-Zercher. Several authors are contracted to write at least two books per year, besides Fisher writing at least three per year. So the people who want to read Amish books to fantasize about slowing down their lives are causing the already hyper capitalist publishing industry to go into overdrive. This is one of those incongruities of Amish romances.

I thought that Beverly Lewis pioneered the Amish romance novel when she wrote The Shunning back in 1997. However, Weaver-Zercher points out that there were several antecedents, including Sabina: A Story of the Amish by Helen Reimensnyder Martin published as early as 1905. She names at least five others. From reading Thrill of the Chaste, it is clear that Beverly Lewis came out with The Shunning at the right time—the market was ripe for an Amish story.

As I was reading Thrill of the Chaste, I kept feeling that Weaver-Zercher was missing something vital in her study.  I wanted, in the worst way, for her to analyze the accuracy, or more precisely, the authenticity of the Amish romance novels.  Finally, on page 197 (of her 250-page book), she addresses this when she writes: “To what extent terms like authenticity and accuracy even matter to most readers of Amish fiction is uncertain.” A paragraph later, she writes that the most frequent inquiry she received from people is how accurate are these novels. I would assert that if this was her most frequent inquiry, then it does matter to people. And then the truth comes out in her description of her response, “Whenever anyone asked me whether Amish novels are accurate… I usually mumbled something vague and entirely unhelpful…. I doubt I gave anyone the answer they were looking for, partly because I wanted to argue with the question.”

It seems the reader may not have gotten any idea of Weaver-Zercher’s feelings about authenticity in the Amish novel, had it not been for her friend Richard Stevick, who one day told her she must deal with this question of accuracy.

And so for the following chapter, Something Borrowed, Something True, Weaver-Zercher finally does write about the lack of authenticity of some of these stories, though she often puts the criticism in others’ voices, including mine. (She quoted from my blog post Amish Fiction).

Weaver-Zercher then asserts that most inaccuracies are generally invisible to anyone outside a relatively small crowd of Anabaptists or their friends, and that it is likely that Amish fiction clears up more popular misconceptions about the Amish than it creates.  And then she asks, “And if readers walk away thinking that the Amish in Lancaster County drive black buggies instead of gray, or that Amish people write letters in Pennsylvania German rather than English, has any real harm been done?”

Then Weaver-Zercher writes, “novelists cannot be released from all responsibility to the actual world, however, especially when they’re writing stories about a living ethnic and religious culture to which they and most of their readers do not belong. Representing one culture to another comes with a host of ethical responsibilities, and the ancillary dangers—circulation of misinformation, appropriation of cultural symbols, assertion of control—are many.”

This would have been a wonderful passage with which to start a book about Amish romance novels, but that would be a whole different book. Being it is so close to the end of the book, it hasn’t been part of the discussion from the start. I find it so very inadequate and incomplete.

I would say no, there isn’t any real harm done with the inaccuracies of the different color buggies or what language letters are written in. But when an author and her readers superimpose their values on the Amish, then I believe there is real harm done. Because I am not writing a book-length review, I will focus on one real way I feel harm is done.

In these novels, the protagonists become a born-again Christian, and by doing so, they are now saved through Jesus Christ, something the “works-based” or “rules-based” Amish religion could not do, is the implication.

According to Weaver-Zercher, some of the upcoming Amish fiction will be super-charged with this message.  One author said that she is writing Amish fiction, “To expose the Amish lifestyle as, not Christian, but a cult. They are a community of ‘works get you to heaven,’ not salvation through Jesus’ atoning work on the cross alone.”

I groaned when I read this. During my book talks, I have encountered people in my audiences who ask, “Is the Amish religion faith-based or works-based?” To which I will reply, “Both.” Sometimes they think I misunderstood the question and rephrase it, “Well, what I mean is, do they believe in salvation through Jesus Christ or through good works?” To which I will again reply, “Both. They definitely believe that Jesus died on the cross so that they may have everlasting life, but they also believe that following Jesus’ example in doing good is important in their life on earth.”

One day on our way home from a book talk my husband, David, asked, “What is wrong with good works anyway?” My guess is that many born-again Christians would say that if you believe in good works, then that excludes the belief that Jesus is your Savior.  What they don’t realize is just how much they are misunderstanding the culture they are judging and that it doesn’t have to be one or the other and by thinking it is, they are limiting themselves from gaining a better understanding of the Amish people and their tenets.

Another deep misunderstanding in Amish romance novels, when a protagonist decides she needs to leave the Amish she does so with apparent ease. What they miss completely is something so obvious to someone who has left the Amish… no matter the reason for leaving or how sure we are that the decision we made is right, we all have to deal with the loss of community that comes of leaving. For an example of the turmoil that one feels when caught between two worlds, you can read my earlier posts Anna’s Return, and A Letter from Anna.

It is tempting to blame the Amish for shunning their family members who leave. But they would not be Amish if they didn’t use shunning as a church discipline. I believe that the cohesion in a given community is commensurate with the level of sacrifice and effort people need to make to be a part of that community. The Amish have a sense of community the rest of us can only admire or envy. They value community over the individual, which is the reverse of our culture in which individual freedom (often in excess) is valued over community. And the Amish teach that you are either Amish or you’re not—there is no in between. So you cannot have it all.  

This is one way in which I feel the Amish are completely misunderstood by the authors of Amish romance novels. I will save their misrepresentation of what they call “pow-wowing” for another day. And rumspringa—I’ve already written extensively on that.

Weaver-Zercher writes about the Amish romance novel transporting the reader to Amish country, “Now, thanks to Amish fiction, America’s own exotic but homespun religionists are as close as the book on the bedside stand.”

I would argue that the Amish romance novels feed the American fantasy that we can have it all—we can keep up the fast pace of our lives and at the end of the day, we can pick up a book and be transported to the rural landscape of Amish country—all without sacrificing anything aside from the time it takes to read the book. It seems to me that this is as momentary as eating candy… it tastes good, but there is no lasting nourishment in consuming it. Furthermore, there is something wrong with appropriating the Amish culture for our amusement.

I wish Weaver-Zercher would have addressed one very important point. The authors of Amish fiction want it to have it both ways—they want to use the Amish culture as backdrop for their novels, while at the same time judging the Amish beliefs as being inadequate for their salvation. Furthermore, they are making a personal fortune by doing so. You don’t have to be born and raised Amish to understand these incongruities.

If I didn’t have to read a bunch of the novels that would certainly give me literary indigestion, I might want to write a book about the myriad of ways in which the Amish are misunderstood, misrepresented, exploited, and appropriated in Amish romance novels and how they set the stage for even greater lies about the Amish culture in reality shows like “Breaking Amish” and “The Amish Mafia.”

Weaver-Zercher’s book Thrill of the Chaste is a good first step in understanding our fascination with the Amish. I would assert that there are deeper reasons for this fascination. We know, deep down, we need something that the Amish have. To be a part of an Amish community, one has to practice self-denial, humility, and austerity and yet we, of the world, don’t want to deny ourselves anything. We sense the divinity in Amish people and even how they achieve it, but we refuse to follow their example. In Suzanne Woods Fisher’s words, “It’s just too hard.”

From an Amish Farm to Du Pont Children's Hospital

Stories are powerful. They help us find connections with one another. I have just found that connection with someone in a whole different walk of life. He is a pediatric orthopedic surgeon at Du Pont Children’s Hospital in Wilmington, Delaware. After he received his Bachelors at the University of Colorado, he entered medical school (also at the University of Colorado).  He did his post-doctoral training at the University of Colorado, the University of Virginia, and the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto.  He has held faculty positions at Thomas Jefferson University and the University of Delaware. He worked as a physician at Goshen and Elkhart General Hospitals before taking his current position at Du Pont Children’s Hospital. He received a lifetime achievement award for contributions to caring for children with disabilities from the Royal College of Surgeons of Scotland.

The only reason I know about Dr. Freeman Miller is because I am the "scribe" for the Amish Descendant Scholarship Fund blog, and today so I had the honor of introducing him. 

Freeman Miller, M.D.

Dr. Miller is on a whole different path than I am and it's obvious that his skills are almost opposite of my own. However, I find his story so powerful because he had the humble beginnings of being born and raised in an Amish community in Ohio like I did and yet he was able to get to where he is today. It seems he did not spend much of his life lamenting his roots. Instead he embraced them and used the advantages he did have, while overcoming the struggles that may have come from having only an eighth grade education.

It is in the journey of fulfilling his life purpose that I feel I connect with Dr. Miller's story. He inspires me to understand and remember my life purpose and to strive to fulfill that purpose. I hope that someday I may make a difference in people's lives, even if only a small measure of the difference he has made. 

For more about Dr. Miller, please visit the Amish Descendant Scholarship Fund blog. Here are two excerpts. The first is our thank you to Dr. Miller for his contribution to the Amish Descendant Scholarship Fund. The second is an excerpt from the interview with him.

Not all of us are going to make such a difference in our world as Dr. Miller has made. However, we can certainly make whatever contributions our talents allow. For some, acquiring more formal education is important in following their dreams and realizing their potential. Now Dr. Miller is helping to make that possible by giving generously to the Amish Descendant Scholarship Fund. Not only is he accomplished in making a difference in the lives of the children he treats, but he is now reaching out to those who have left the Amish and are in the beginning of their educational journey. With grateful hearts, we thank him wholeheartedly for his kindness and generosity. 

What advice can you give to someone who has left the Amish with only an eighth grade education and would like to go to college? 

My first advice is try to figure out what your goal is, if you are not sure, try to get a job in some context in the area you are interested in. I think it is very important to define attainable goals and then work toward that. When I started initially working in the emergency room as an orderly I had a very poor concept of how medicine was organized and how one got through the system, so for me this work experience allowed me to develop goals that I could attain. If an Amish young person has completed eighth grade in an Amish school, I think it would be wise to start in a community college. You need to learn how to interact with the modern Internet and develop good English skills. I think the English is less of a problem if the person has a good language aptitude. The educational system though is very different from 50 years ago, when I did not find skipping high school was a major problem. A lot of what high school students now learn, I got in the first two years of college. Also it is important to remember that coming from an Amish school, which most likely gave you a less then ideal educational foundation, does not mean that you are the only one with this struggle. There are many thousands of intercity poor schools who have no better educational foundation. I feel the big difference you have growing up in an Amish family and community is you have already learned the importance of hard work, healthy interpersonal skills and good moral judgment. You have this large head start to use the programs, mainly in community colleges, which are directed at helping these young people with poor educational foundations.

If you know of former Amish people who are aspiring to more formal education, please send them a link to this blog post and to the one on ADSFund blog. We are hoping to reach all those who are candidates for the scholarships we will be awarding this year. We are so thankful to Dr. Miller and others for their contributions, which makes these scholarships possible. 

To Leave is to Forgo...

Today I received an email from my blogger friend, Tom, who writes the blog The Backroads Traveller. He kindly shared with me a link to an article on Yahoo News about women who leave "extreme faiths." As I read through the article with interest, I was amazed how much the issues were parallel to the ones of leaving the Amish.

The article is titled Analysis: Women Leaving Extreme Faiths. Here are several phrases that anyone leaving the Amish can relate to, I'm sure:

"...there is only us vs. them, chosen vs. unenlightened, saved vs. sinners. To leave is to forgo community, structure, kin and perhaps one's eternal soul."

This story is centered around Megan and Grace Phelps-Roper who left the infamous Westboro Baptist Church founded by their grandfather. Here is something a current member of the church said about the two girls:

Those two girls were kind of straddling the idea that they wanted to be of the world but that they would also miss their family, the only thing they ever knew. If they continue with the position that they have, those two girls, yeah, they're going to hell. (Feb. 7, Kansas City Star)

This sounds like a pronouncement from an Amish person who knows someone who has just left. 

Here is another poignant statement:

Women raised in restricted sects can be "pounded down," says Moore-Emmett. "It's beyond even what we see in a domestic violence shelter."

[...] "They just have some resiliency that is just beyond what you would imagine—what they could ever imagine—that they have in themselves," Moore-Emmett says. "They find it in themselves to start questioning, to start finding that there might be another way to live."

[...] Defections are also rare because such closed faiths provide a sense of community for women and fulfill women's relational goals, says Patricia Millar, who studied cultic groups. "They felt a strong sense of belonging and mattering, more important than themselves..."

[...] Whether you were born into it or came to it later in life, breaking faith and dismantling community ties can be traumatic. "The fallout and repercussions are very scary and very overwhelming," says "Beyond Belief" co-author Susan Tive.

[...] Moore-Emmett says someone on the outside has to be there to help, especially for those who have been shut away from society, raised in an us-versus-them paradigm. "It's very difficult to make a new life when you don't have any job skills, when your education is very limited, you don't have any family," she says. Besides experiencing culture shock, apostates can live in fear that the leaders will reach out and strike them dead and, for years, they constantly question their own thinking.

It reminds me of the day that I pulled up the song, "She's Got her Ticket" by Tracy Chapman for Anna to hear on YouTube. She followed along with the lyrics and then she asked in disbelief, "You mean someone wrote that song who wasn't even Amish?"

There is a new book coming out about women leaving extreme faiths called Beyond Belief. I will be reading it, that is for sure. 

_________         ________     _________     _________    ________     _________     _________

On a different note: I am going to be speaking at the Milanof-Schock Library in Mt. Joy, Pennsylvania this Wednesday at 6:00. There is still space, so if you and someone you know would like to come to the talk, I would love to see you there. The library is charging a $5 fee. If you are interested in buying an autographed copy of my book, I will be giving you $5 off to offset the fee (my book normally costs $20 -- I will be charging $15 at this venue.) I hope to see you there!

To Stay or Leave?

I was doing some perusing of websites tonight that are administrated or written by former Amish people. Once I started reading "Letters to and from Former Amish" by the Mission to Amish People website, I could not stop reading. I was pulled into the intensity of the letters. 

First there is a letter from someone who had left the Amish and is back in his community to someone who has left the Amish. He is asking for guidance about whether he should stay or leave. He wrote that he came back to talk to his parents and then saw how people "were taking it" that he was gone, and he stayed. He wrote, "If I would have gone with my heart, I'd still be gone."

Next is a letter "We are putting you in the ban" written by a bishop to a young woman who has just left his congregation.

That is followed by a son's letter to his parents after he left. The ending of the letter is especially poignant, when he tells them he loves them very much and will miss them very much. His letter ends with, "My family means so much to me and always will." -- Your loving son, Samuel.

Next comes a letter "To our dearest lost brother." A family writing to a brother who left.

Then comes a classic letter to someone who has left and it includes these lines: "Oh, if younce could only break loose of Satan and come home. Deep in your hearts you are not truly happy, and you never can be as long as you stay out in the world."

There is another letter from a bishop to one of his parishioners who left. It starts out with, "I heard you were in a bad car wreck, one of the guys got killed. As the tree falls so will he lay. Until Judgment Day. I hear he was only 18? I don't know him. But unless his parents didn't try to teach him right from wrong, the whole load will lie on him?"

There is a letter from a daughter to her parents who left. Apparently the mother had asked to come back and see her children and grandchildren. The answer was, "No! You are not welcome to come in as you are now. [...] Please don't come in such a way."

These letters are such a poignant reminder of how difficult it was to receive a letter from the community after leaving the Amish. I have them stashed in my closet. Though I haven't read them in a while, I remember phrases. "I felt so sorry for your mother. I noticed her 'halstuch' (cape) was all wet with her tears at church on Sunday." And in another one, "Are you really prepared to follow your flesh now and burn in Hell forever and ever?" And yet another, "Oh, if only you knew how hard this is on your mother, you would come back. And what about the promises you made to the church?"

Thankfully, after all these years of being away, my memory has faded about how intense it was to make the break. I grappled with the guilt for years. Therapy was my life raft. And slowly, with time, the Amish lost their hold on me and I came around to having dreams about where I wanted to go with my life and then following the direction of those dreams.

Yet it only takes a trip down memory lane with glimpses of others' struggles to remind me from whence I have come and how grateful I am for what my life is today. Now I only wish I could lighten the load for those who are still in the struggle. Guilt can weigh so heavily on people's shoulders when it's used as a weapon.

No Sorrow without Joy

When I was growing up, we learned a poem in school entitled, "What God hath not Promised." One of the lines is "God hath not promised joy without sorrow." This is so true. Life is often about struggles. But as I have discovered this week, the reverse is also true. We do not have to endure our sorrows without joy in our lives. Thank goodness!

This week those of us at the Amish Descendant Scholarship Fund have something to celebrate. Hop on over to the blog to find out why we are celebrating. And please help us spread the word!

I would like to thank all of you who have been so supportive through my process of letting go of Anna. I especially like the suggestion of sending occasional cards, to let Anna know I've not forgotten her. So thank you, Elin, for that suggestion and to others for supporting that idea.

I've been writing quite a lot lately. It seems that the loss I'm feeling about Anna is somehow stimulating my muse. Before Anna went back, I asked her if I may write about her in my second book. She seemed quite eager to have me do so. I think there was a part of Anna that wanted her story told. This part of her is obviously in conflict with her desire to return to her community and be separate from the world. However, I am going to remember and honor that part of Anna that wants to be recognized for who she is.

I realize something as I am writing about Anna. My memory of what happened while she was here is actually very much sharpened by missing her. If she was still living with us, I may not have the clarity I do now.

Here is a vignette I will share:

While we were out shopping for ingredients to get Anna's baking business started, we got to talking about the Ordnung (set of church rules) in her community. We were in the parking lot of Target and neither one of us wanted to end the conversation, so we sat in the car. Dusk was falling around us. Anna spoke in a matter-of-fact voice, as if she’d never before reflected on or judged these rules she’d lived under all her life. The women have to wear homemade underpants that are basically old-fashioned cotton bloomers, the size of long shorts in the “English” world. And then as if that isn’t enough, they are not allowed to have elastic at the waist. Instead, they use a button. They also have to sew their own “underdresses” that they have to wear all year long. And they cannot wear bras.

“You have got to be kidding me! So does the bishop actually go over the stuff that women can and cannot wear under their dresses at Ordnungs church?”

“Yes. He does. He says it really fast, and then he moves on to women’s stockings, but I heard it every time.”

"Even he must be embarrassed." 

In the semi-darkness, I could see Anna’s expressions, especially when car lights lit up her features. She got a mischievous grin on her face and she said, “But you know, I was a naughty girl.” She giggled.

“Why? What did you do?”

“I sometimes wore a bra.”

“Oh no, you don’t say!”  I said as I laughed in mock surprise. “That makes me a naughty girl right from the start!”

“Yeah, but you were from the ‘SotAmish’ so that doesn’t count.”

“The what Amish?”

“People in my community called your kind of Amish the ‘sort of’ Amish.”

“Oh really? Are they saying that they are the ‘real Amish?’’’

“Yes, I think that is what they are trying to say.” 

So, it's a comforting reminder that even though life is often about struggle, it is also about finding joy in the midst of it all. And that gives me hope. Maybe I have done all I can for Anna, but that will not stop me from trying to make a difference in others' lives. I have a feeling Anna's story can do that.

And then there is the feeling of empowerment that comes of helping Amish descendants find their way to college. And the appreciation for the goodness in people as they share of their resources to help this happen. What a joy!

And as a reminder to look on the light side of life, here is my joke of the day:

I suppose there is no global warming where the "real Amish" live. The proof is in the bloomers!

A Letter from Anna

This past week I have finally heard from Anna. She writes that she is sewing herself new clothes, shelling popcorn, getting ready for church to be held at her sister's place, and putting a quilt in frame for an "English" lady.

Then I read this:

Saloma and David, I am so sorry I didn’t know how the things are all, but if younce write more letters, don’t expect to get more letters back from me. I promised the preachers that I want to forget everything about the outside world. And there is another wedding in the neighborhood besides those two that already were and I want to be back in the church before the wedding is, but if I would write younce then I am not forgetting the outside world. So please don’t look forward for more letters.

In a letter, I addressed Anna’s request that we cease our communications:

Your letter made me sad. It’s too bad that your preachers don’t see that we supported your decision to return to the community by bringing you back. I will be honest and tell you that it will be really hard not hearing from you. Yet I understand how much you want to be part of the life in your community again. It sounds as though I will make things harder for you if I continue to write, so I will honor your request and stop writing. It is so odd that there are times when we care about someone and we want to hold them close, yet we are required to open our arms and let that person go. The six months you were with us was a gift from above and we came to really care about you. I cannot imagine going through the rest of my life without ever seeing you or hearing from you again. No matter what happens, I will never forget you. I think of you many times a day and I send you my thoughts and prayers as you walk the path you feel is right for you. Your friends send theirs along with mine.

In high German there is a term that people use when they don’t know if they will ever see one another again. It is Lebe wohl and it means “Live well” or “fare well.” Even though I have a hard time imagining this is it, I do hope you will live well.

Much love and many blessings,

Saloma and David

P.S. I am going to send the letter I wrote on Monday. After all, I wouldn’t want to waste a perfectly good letter. (I can imagine your smile as you read this.) I will always remember your smile and your sense of humor. Goodness, how I miss you!

I am a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. I know that there is a lesson I need to learn from Anna walking into our lives, staying for six months, and then leaving and having to cut off all communications. In good time, I am sure I will understand why she was part of our lives for a time. Right now I'm too close to the loss and so I cannot yet know what it all means.

The world Anna chose

And where she lives (the gray house on the right)

Snow and About Anna

Yesterday morning I awoke to what sounded like a convoy of trucks going across the bridge over the Connecticut River. It was the wind roaring all around the house. The snow had been coming down all night apparently, and from the sound of that wind, we were having the blizzard that had been predicted.

At first when I looked out the window, I couldn't see the car, though I knew it was there. We had some major shoveling to do.

There's a car in there somewhere...

David, being the early riser that he is, tried shoveling early in the morning before the wind had died down. It was of no use... the wind was whirling around in a circle and scattering the snow in all directions. So he had to wait.

David did do some shoveling before lunch. Then we had something to eat, and we both headed out. I took it upon myself to clear off the porch, steps, and sidewalk first. I estimated that it took 400 shovels full to clear the sidewalk. (I counted how many it took to clear just one section of sidewalk and then multiplied it by the 8 sections.)

Meanwhile, David was shoveling the mouth of the driveway, where the snowplow had left quite a bank. He was having to lift the snow to height of his shoulder. 

You can barely see David on the other side of the snowbank

There is something really beautiful about a newly fallen snow. This sidewalk had been cleared early in the morning, but it had filled in by several inches by the time we did our shoveling.

Our little town

After David shoveled the mouth of the driveway and I had finished the walkway, we still had the driveway to open and the car to dig out.

More shoveling to do...

We were getting close to the car, when our neighbor, Keith, from across the street came over and helped us finish shoveling out. It was exactly what we needed, for by then we were plumb tuckered. I had been out there for three and a half hours straight. It was good to come into a warm house have some supper, and go to bed.

About Anna

Two weeks ago, David and I were on our way back from upstate New York, after dropping Anna off at her parents' home. It feels like that happened ever so long ago. We have not heard from her, and perhaps we won't for a while. She may not be allowed to write... and the mail I'm sending may not even make it to Anna. But I will not stop sending her mail, all the same. I want her to know I care, and somehow just by writing and sending letters, I feel like she will get that message. There is more to the story than this, I am sure. We made enough of a connection with Anna that I just cannot imagine that we'll go through the rest of our lives without hearing from her. I wish her and her family the very best.

Meanwhile, David and I are adjusting to life without Anna. We've moved our offices around. My desk is now in the corner of the guest bedroom, where I have a nice view of the intersection and I can watch life happening as I'm writing. David has taken over the office I vacated. And we've cleaned up the attic, where eventually we'll set up a second guest bed. Anna will still have a place to visit or live, should either of these come about.

I want to thank all of you who responded to my last post. Many of your kind and compassionate comments brought tears to my eyes. It was good for my soul to feel such compassion when I needed it so. Note: I did respond to each of you, so if you wrote something to me and you haven't yet read my reply, please check it out.

Many thanks to all of you for continuing to read my posts and for responding when you do. It makes keeping up this blog well worth it.