I was all alone at the barn site. Moise and the small crew – they had been working on the barn gates for much of the day – were having dinner behind their temporary house, along with a growing crowd of Amish visitors, family, and friends.

They were all out behind the farmhouse having dinner, which Barbara and the girls were working on yesterday and all day today.

I felt this was all something I should stay clear of; it is strictly an  Amish affair. I wasn’t invited and wouldn’t have accepted.

There are many places in this new world where I clearly don’t belong, and I accept that completely. Boundaries preserve friendships; they don’t destroy them.

I stopped by earlier to ask if I could help, and the big thing for me is to bring ice cubes in the morning, before 6:30 when the raising starts. Moise made it clear he will be unhappy if I miss the roof-raising.

I intend to be there for that. I was invited, more than once, and made to feel very welcome at the worksite.

I stood alone at the top of the hill and felt a quiet and deeply spiritual wave roll over me as if God were blowing a gentle wind over the barn.

Time for some reflection in solitude; there is nothing like it.

I remember this site when it was a mud puddle, Moise plowing it with an old plow and two horses, and he and his children were picking up rocks along the way and building a rock mountain.

I remember going with Moise to order the concrete, haggle over the tiles, the lumber. I witnessed all of this; I know where everything in that building came from and how much it cost.

The rock mountain build off the blood and sweat of tilling the fields is gone now; it’s all inside the walls Moise and his friends built on the outside walls.

Tonight, there was an Amish parade at my house.

All afternoon and evening, Amish carts rolled by on the way to the Miller Farm. They came from all over the area, and they come to work and finish the barn. And they haven’t gone back, which means they are sleeping over somewhere up there, ready to work at dawn.

When I close my eyes, I see the barn growing every day. Tomorrow there will be 75 to 100 new sets of eyes and hands. I’ve never seen anything like it.

Although I had little to do with it in a practical sense, this became very personal to me. Driving somebody around is not hard labor.

I witnessed it from the first flattening of the soil and the first bag of concrete and the first plank of wood that was delivered.

It was a gift to see this barn come together. My friend Moise worked every day (except for Sundays), getting the ground ready, building the basement and pouring cement, and making sills for the concrete walls.

We had little direct contact with each other but managed to stay in touch and connected. He keeps telling me we will have time to spend together in the Fall. Maybe, maybe not.

I suspect Moise will have a least a dozen major projects to work on starting Thursday, and one of them will be his new house. It is not his nature to reflect.

I am proud of Moise, and somehow I am proud of me. This feels like a coming out to me, but I’m not sure a coming out of what.

The next raising will not be quite the same for me, the first was thrilling to see; it was so very new and exotic and uplifting. But I hope to keep on writing about the Amish; I’ve just begun to scratch the surface.

I was moved by the sight of the barn tonight on that hill as the wind suddenly came up, and the draft horses shook their heads against the flies.

The barn raising was a coming of age, a maturation, and an inspiration for me. I never tire of watching these men and women work together and see their joy in helping each other and figuring out what they can accomplish.

It is always much more than I imagined possible.

My friendship with Moise has ripened and is just cruising along; it seems to flow as something we both accept but don’t have to worry about even think much about.

My presence on the farm has become normal.

I bring ice (or baskets), scratch Tina, thumb wrestle with Joe or Fanny, give Barbara some news. She keeps me in line, telling me what they want and what they don’t want or need.

I check in with her to see if there is anything she needs that day. Today, it was just ice cubes in the morning.

I never forget that these people are very different from me, something I respect. I doubt I would like them so much if they were like me.

My basket initiative is a success; now, five baskets hold fruit and vegetables in the foodshed. I’m a proud basket, papa.

There are good ways to help and bad ways to help.

Someone messaged me today and warned me (I love warnings about as much as I love unsolicited advice) that I should be cautious about suggesting things to them; they may back off and push me away.

We live in a world of warnings, but I don’t accept that part of our culture. Should the Amish ever tire of me, I will be grateful for this time with them and move on.

There are many wonderful things to write about.

I will never change who I am to please any other person; that will never happen to me again. I usually tire of things before anyone else I know. I’ve always been the one to push people away. Maybe I can break that habit.

During the troll wars, someone posted a message saying I was a person of “brief passions,” I thought that was a wise and true statement, even though it was intended to be hurtful.

I hope I keep having brief passions right up to the very end.

But I am not losing my love or connection to this family; it just keeps on growing.

Tonight, I pulled in to ask what I can bring tomorrow. Just two bags of ice was the shout; everyone was frantically preparing for supper.

This is their thing, not the place for outsiders.

Joe came running across the field to thumb wrestle with me, followed by Sara and Fanny. I won three times, and then Joe beat me; he is beginning to figure out the game and has a thumb of iron.

On the way out, Mosie waved, asked me about the weather, reminded me to be at the raising early, told me his shoulder was better.

This all has been more than just a story for me, but a gift of some kind; I’m still working it out.

I still hear the sounds of the Amish men and children singing their hymns on the way to work. Helping others is their tonic, their joy.

This evening on the way home, I pulled up to the hill above the worksite. There was no one there, just the two draft horses in the woods to keep the bugs away.

Tina came running over for her daily belly scratch, and I walked around to the open gate of the barn.

I paused and imagined how busy this place would be when the hay and sheep and horses and goats and plows were there.

I said a prayer to the Amish God: please bless this farm, the people who use it and the animals who will live inside, and the food and donuts stored and made here.

Please bless the people on all of those carts rolling past our house all day to barking and outraged dogs. Please bless the farm itself, dead to the earth a year or so ago and bursting with life now.

And bless me too, while you are at it, I feel there’s a piece of me in that barn.

Renewal and rebirth. I feel it myself.

Finally, thanks for permitting me to come and tell my stories and be a part of this curious but wonderful new family.

I imagine I will be riding Moise around somewhere later this week as he sets to work on his next plan to make his great adventure here work, to sell donuts and corn and blueberries and zucchinis and build homes and barns for his daughters and sons, and ready his new home for the winter.

While Moise is a trusted friend, there are no quiet times around him, not unless you are family heading to church.

I’ll be there in the morning with Maria right after sunrise, delivering my ice cubes and wondering if there is any way on this earth I can sneak a picture of the raising with my Iphone without breaking my word.

I can see the sun rising against the roof and the scores of workers in their straw hats.

And who knows? My new Leica is set for delivery tomorrow, this could be the first page in the next chapter of how Jon gets himself in trouble again.

The best part of being in trouble is taking the heat.