My mission has changed since I began the blog more than a decade ago.
It has always been the story of a life, but since 2016, it has also been an effort to offer something hopeful and uplifting to worried, discouraged, and angry people.
Sometimes I succeed, and sometimes I don’t, but I always try to tell the truth.
As is evident, I have been drawn to the story of the Amish, as I try to describe it through the lives of one family, my new neighbors, and friends, the Millers.
This interests some people and angers others.
I’ve been called a pedophile, an obsessive, weak, creepy, invasive, pathetic, love-starved, and intrusive man, so desperate for affection that he pesters and harasses a quiet and shy family that wants to be left alone.
The truth is more straightforward, at least to me. I am hungry to understand the Amish and their extraordinary lifestyle and seek all the time to answer the same question: what can the Amish teach us?
Try as I might, I am not blind to the deteriorating state of the country and the world beyond.
Yet, I have neighbors and friends who are the polar opposite of us, living peacefully in love, decent, humility, family, faith, and community. How do they do it, and what can we learn from it?
I thank the family for respecting what I am doing and tolerating, even love me.
They are, as Maria says, my other family, and I am grateful for them every day. But I never take my eye off the ball: what can they teach us, what can we take from them?
My writing has been greatly aided by the work of Donald B. Kraybill, to whom I am indebted.
Kraybill is the nation’s leading and most respected scholar of the Amish and their lives and history. He is a distinguished professor and senior fellow emeritus in the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College.
He is the co-author of The Amish and six other books. His new book is What The Amish Teach Us and it inspired me to take on the same subject, as I have done a few times before.
It was manna from heaven for members of this fascinating community to land just a few feet away from me, a writer, and become my neighbors.
They have opened their hearts and home to me, and I am eternally grateful. I will not waste this opportunity to learn about them and pass on what I know. Nasty e-mails will certainly not trouble me or slow me down.
I can’t whitewash the truth beyond my life. The reason the Amish are so fascinating to me is that they seem to have sidestepped or avoided most, if not all, of the mistakes and traumas and controversies that plague the lives of the “English,” as they call us.
“In a time when civil discourse is raw and coarse,” writes Kraybill, “when social discord and deceptions disturb us, when the scourge of political corruption and mass shootings anger us when technology threatens to overwhelm us when violence is our default for solving conflicts when loneliness is the norm when addiction and suicide rates soar, and in days when our social fabric seems torn asunder – our Amish friends have much to teach us.”
Yes, they do. When I drive up to the door of the Miller’s temporary home on the top of a hill, I enter a different world.
No raw discourse, no violence, poverty, homelessness, no overwhelming technology, addiction or soaring suicide rates, no social fabric torn asunder.
On the country, this is a cohesive, supportive and thriving community, day by day, the very opposite of the world they swore to avoid.
This will be a series I write from time to time, and I’m starting with the Amish idea of family. I went to the Miller home early the other day, I had to bring them pie pans and donut boxes – I help them buy supplies online, where they can’t go.
Barbara and Moise and their daughters were busy writing letters, as they often are.
I asked them what was going on, and they said they were writing cards to each of their eighteen grandchildren, it is important to them that no birthday go forgotten.
“They all need to be mailed on different days,” Barbara said, “we don’t want to miss anyone.”
They do the same to their 13 children (one died young).
Amish life, and their writings, sermons, and preaching all praise the value of family.
Family is what life is about for my neighbors. Marriage begins with starting a family raising children for as long as possible, and children, who will, in turn, produce more children.
“Our children are the crop we can take along to heaven,” wrote on Amish father.
Amish families are huge, they include in-laws, grandchildren, step-parents, aunts and uncles, cousins, and grandparents.
Moise knows a family that numbers four hundred people.
Amish families have no babysitters. They have no need to hire help.
When people are busy or travel, they just drop their children off at some family member’s house, the favor is always returned.
Although some family members live out of state, most live or move within a 20-mile radius of one another, the distance is considered the limits of normal horse buggies and the boundaries of the church districts.
People often ask me if Amish teenagers miss English-style socializing, but they are constantly socializing. The Amish national pastime is hopping into a horse buggy and going to socialize with other Amish friends and family.
Every Amish teenage girl I know has a boyfriend, and when they decide to get married – it is their choice when – there is no shortage of men they know to choose from.
The church is a primary additional source of socializing and meeting everyone in their community, no matter the age.
The size of Amish families originates from the biblical command to “be fruitful” and multiply (Genesis 1:28). This command makes it unthinkable not to marry or to marry and remain childless.
Family living is structured to prepare children for collective living. Children learn early on that they are not special among their brothers and sisters – while English children are taught constantly that they are special.
The Amish promote the collective unit, the English the individual.
Family life does not revolve around individual children, but about the family as a holistic whole. Small children need to find ways to amuse themselves, crying gets them little more than a safety check.
No one is singled out.
No one is more special than any other.
The children are all treated equally, even though the boys will ultimately be more powerful than the girls.
They all attend school until the eighth grade, they all give any money they earn to their parents until they are 21 when they can keep what they earn and still live at home if they wish.
In a patriarchy, the males are always seen as more powerful, and perhaps more important. This comes in adolescence, not early childhood.
But the Amish women I know are quite powerful in their families and communities. They have important work, work that is central to the well-being of the family and the larger community.
The men cannot come close to doing it alone.
Children are never rewarded for crying or whining or being competitive. They are not praised for doing well, that is expected of them.
They do not ever go on Facebook or Twitter. It is never acceptable to be cruel or boast. Any kind of violence is forbidden.
They are not cruel to their siblings or to other children, which would bring instant concern and correction. They are never shouted at, bullied, or threatened with punishment.
Humility is worshipped, at home and in church.
Children are encouraged to speak with adults and to listen to them.
I am startled by the Miller children’s interest in me and my life. Everyone one of the Miller children has asked about my foot, and whether it hurts, and will it be better. I have friends decades old who have never mentioned it.
At meals, children are encouraged to speak their minds, talk honestly about any concerns, disagree with patriarchal decisions.
But there is little or no argument within the Miller family. There is nothing to argue about – parents, then older children in order of age have full authority and are obeyed. Bickering and brooding are almost unheard of.
Each child is given work to do at an early age – unthinkable for most English families – and works hard all day until dinner, which comes at dusk, or whenever it gets dark. Then, the home is lit with kerosene candles.
Children are taught to never call attention to themselves, it might harm their siblings.
Dusk is time for the family to get together – parents on one end, older brothers on the other, girls in between.
There is silent prayer before all meals, and sometimes, hymns are sung together as a family. Each child talks about their day. Family is a kind of powerful web in an Amish household, everyone’s life is intertwined.
But there is nothing robotic about the children, they don’t speak or think in unison, they are all different, with different identities, passions, and humor.
Somehow, in the midst of all this connectivity, they find a way to find themselves and be themselves. I never confuse one with another, each one is unique and distinctive.
When Leena and Fanny came to the house today, I went to the Miller farm to drop something off.
Every single member of the family came up to me and asked how the skirting was going, how the girls were doing, how clean was the wool getting.
They all seemed thrilled that the girls were doing this work on our farm, they were interested in every detail, they were very happy for their sisters.
No Amish child or family is ever alone when there is trouble – families and friends come running.
When somebody dies, Amish women and men descend from all over to help with chores, harvest the crops, tend to the animals, cook, and clean. The meaning of family is very real and very close.
Jacob, Moise’s brother in law told me a story about an Amish friend who lost a twenty-year-old son in a snowmobile accident out West, more than two thousand miles from the Pennsylvania farm where he was born.
On the first Sunday after the funeral, he said, thirty-two families visited to offer support and share their grief, and an average of twenty-five Amish visitors came by over the new two weeks every day.
The family, he said, received over six hundred sympathy cards from church members near and far.
I am told this kind of support is automatic and expected after death – especially an unexpected one of a young person.
“This kind of response,” wrote Kraybill, “is the abundant love that young people know they will miss if they leave the Amish faith. They know that family and friends will not only show up when tragedy hits but will hang in for the long haul, even assisting over the years.”
I can see with my own eyes that this kind of care and love touches deep and very primal instincts, especially in a wider world that seems more disconnected and angry and disconnected than ever.
People are not reaching out to one another in the English world, they are tearing each other to pieces, online and in their civic and common gatherings.
Unlike the Amish, there is no common or unified moral structure to keep order and help government function or faith prevail.
There is almost none of this trauma in the Amish world, and these close family ties are considered a major reason.
This is the love, writes Kraybill, that makes it so hard for young people, and most adults, to turn their back and walk away forever from a community – despite so many shortcomings and squabbles – that will care for them regardless.
The Amish are not saints, they are human like the rest of us. I’ve met good ones and not-so-good ones.
But they have built and nourished caring and powerful systems of love and support that transcend conflict and make it irrelevant when there is trouble, pain, or loss. They seem able to let go of conflict, while we are becoming addicted to it.
The Amish are a successful, united seemingly content community.
The very things that most English are terrified of – running out of money, skyrocketing health costs, getting sued, being alone, getting fired or laid off, poverty in old age – just do not exist in the Amish world.
For all the American whining and fear of socialism, the Amish seem to practice it rather than preach it. They just don’t talk about it, and our politicians don’t seem to have noticed.
This ever-lasting love and deep support evoke the deepest kind of tribal longing, says Kraybill, “a longing that keeps most of the wayward-leaning souls at home.”
Some would say this is brainwashing. I disagree. People get a lot back from being Amish.
What do we take from this?
People need to be supported and feel supported.
The Amish realized hundreds of years ago that deep family and community connections and concern keep all of the yearning souls at home, eager to bring more children into the world.
“It takes a village.”
Amen
I really don’t understand how you can say that people generally don’t leave because they will always be loved by the community, regardless. How does this square with the Amish practice of shunning and excommunication? Maybe you’re seeing the carrot, but certainly there is also a stick.
https://www.ranker.com/list/facts-about-the-amish-shunning/erin-wisti
Johnson, I’m sorry you are confused by the fact that it is possible that I have a different idea than you do. I’ll try to help you.
Why is it okay for orthodox Jews to expel children who marry out of the faith or leave the community? Is it okay for the Catholic church to excommunicate people every day for holding different values about abortion, contraception, or God? Or promise them Hell for disagreeing and breaking the church rules?
It is morally noble for some Muslims to arrest, imprison, even execute people who violate laws and rules? Or women who wish to be free? My neighbor tossed his son out of the house for marrying an African[American woman. Parents punish children all the time – so do schools – for violating their rules. They often tell them to leave. A Texas teacher was expelled from school for teaching that America has a racist tradition.
Republicans are expelled from their party for criticizing Donald Trump. A friend of mine was kicked out of her women’s group for criticizing the MeToo movement, a city official upstate was run out of office for putting a Black Lives Matter sign on his lawn. How is it that only the Amish are immoral because they make rules and enforce them? They are pretty soft authoritarians, from what I see. They are non-violent and open about their laws. Nobody gets beaten, jailed or killed. If you don’t like the rules, you can walk away.
If you are shunned, you can return any time by apologizing.
Are you suggesting the Amish have no right to shun or expel people who are corrupt, violent, or who refuse to accept their beliefs? I doubt they would last very long otherwise.
In my opinion, they have the right to make their own rules. Shunning is one piece of the pie, there are many others you don’t mention. There are many content and fulfilled people in the Amish community. I make no apologies for wanting to know why. Being human, some won’t be happy. That’s life. Most Americans seem far more miserable to me than the Amish people I meet.
They are far behind the Catholic Church when it comes to ex-communicating, how come you don’t mention that? I hope this helps you to understand how I can say people don’t leave the church because they are promised constant love and given the same. I can say it because this is what I see, what I believe to be true, what Amish scholars like Donald Kraybill see, and what I think. I hope we can one day recover the idea in America that it is okay to see the world in different ways. I have the curious feeling that this was the idea our country was founded upon but is no longer fashionable.
I believe his point is you present their way of life as an ideal way of living that they all embrace with no problems. It isn’t. There is dissent. That’s why some are shunned. Then there’s rumspringa when Amish teens go out on their own In the outside world to decide when & if to be baptized.
Ann, please show me where I ever said that the Amish way of life was an ideal way of life without problems. If you’d read any two pieces I have written about them, you will read about the many problems they have and struggle with. It is not an easy or simple life. You don’t know what you are talking about and you know nothing about me at all.
I don’t know who the “he” you are referring to is, I get a lot of mail, but I imagine he can speak for himself and doesn’t need an interpreter, especially one who is misinformed and makes things up.
I’ve often said that I could not be Amish and wouldn’t wish to be; it’s far too difficult and complex – and religious – for me. I’ll be eager to see where I said otherwise. There is minimal dissent in the church, and Rumspringa is mostly a figment of the media and a few Amish families in and around Lancaster and almost nowhere else.
Of course, there will always be unhappy people. Have you read the stats on how many people have left the Catholic church and other religions in America?
My neighbors have never even heard of Rumspringa, and they come from a substantial Amish community in northern upstate New York. None of their children have left the community to explore other lifestyles or to “dissent.” There are all sorts of reasons why Amish people are shunned – disobeying the church, borrowing money, abuse of wives and children, stealing, fighting, drinking, lying, driving cars, failing to come to church. Very few are ousted for dissent. Unhappy church members don’t need to protest, they are always free to leave.
In a Patriarchy, dissent is very difficult, as I’ve often written.
Rumspringa is not about dissent, it’s about freedom to choose insofar as it exists at all and the opportunity to sample other lifestyles before settling down.
About 15 percent of Amish children leave the church when they grow up, they might be unhappy or just want another lifestyle or to pursue a different line of work. They are free to go. Baptism is not for teenagers coming back from their travels, it’s for any Amish person who wants to join the church.
If you have any concrete evidence to the contrary, please cite it. You are welcome to disagree and criticize me, Ann, I can handle it, but making your own reality up out of the sky and misrepresenting me is not persuasive. Reading you, it feels like you’ve been on Google for five or ten minutes.
As for “him,” whoever he is, if he has something to say to me, he doesn’t need to hide behind you, he can come right out and say it. It’s not my task to tell you that the Amish are wonderful or that they are not. I think they have much to teach us and people with open minds will consider it and make their own decisions. People who think with their jerking knees won’t consider it and are not interested in learning. Best Jon
Thanks!
Thank you, Jon. Excellent piece. Ahhh, the little guy standing there watching, learning, joining in , being included.. sweet! “The ties that bind.”
Dear Jhon
It’s so nice you chose to write about the Amish family.
I my self have so much in common with them
Since I grew on a kibbutz close community that work the land where family and the community are supporting each other all the time . For the last forty years I am visiting them and work with them and admired their way of life .
I am going to follow your blog .
Best to you and your wife
Love you Ariel
Ariel, love back to you, I think of you often and miss you and our rides in the park, your friend Jon
I know you don’t want dialogue but for girls to be told from birth that they are not as important as boys. Is this admirable?
Anne, please don’t tell me what I want, and we’ll do better. Civil dialogue is valuable and important to me, it’s also becoming rare.
Your description is a distortion and misrepresentation of what I see and hear.
I am not aware of many Amish girls who are told from birth that they are not important. Nor have I ever said patriarchy is admirable. To write about something is not to endorse it, as you assume. If writers endorsed everything they wrote about there would be very few books or articles. I am not a fan of patriarchy, nor have I ever endorsed my family and family would howl at the idea that I was in charge.
But that does not mean there are not valuable lessons to be learned from the Amish and their way of life. I am guilty of trying to learn about them. I have no apologies to make for that.
Giving men the power to make decisions is not my preference, but it is definitely not the same thing as telling every female that they are not important. I can tell you Amish women are very important to that culture and wield enormous influence and power. They would find your comment demeaning and offensive. That is not what Amish women tell me they feel, they feel very necessary, important, and central.
The tricky thing is that the Amish system is working better than ours, and more peacefully and kindly, and meaningfully, and that is what I’m curious about. The patriarchy is one piece, it isn’t the whole puzzle. In America, we can no longer understand or abide by people who think differently from us. That is our sickness. I appreciate your being civil, while also managing to be snide. I am happy to “dialogue” with you about this if you can explain yourself and your information a little more fully. And I do thank you for being civil.
P.S. I consider many of the things the Amish do to be both admirable and valuable. I wouldn’t judge America only by it’s current dysfunction and division, I don’t judge the Amish because they put men in charge at a time when there was no other option and have kept the practice.
HI Folks..I have been interested in The Amish Communities, but having grown up in the Unitarian Universalist church, I find any religion or spirituality, or way of life that oppresses their community distasteful. Anyone who is oppressed in the name of a belief bothers me greatly. I don’t think people need to follow strict guidelines for living. One has to find their own way in life. If One looks into history, One can see many examples of people who only want to escape their oppressive upbringing and strict laws….
Marsha, I don’t know of a family or faith that doesn’t oppress people and ask them to follow guidelines or face punishment or exile, including the Republican and Democratic parties, schools and small towns.
True, Marsha, the Amisn are believed by sociologists to be the oldest and most successful small communities in Western civilization.
Beautiful piece of writing Jon. It seems they show their people and animals by example, truly living their values. I have learned something I can do better.
When I read this piece, I felt a deep longing for the tightly knit, religious community (not Amish) I grew up in. You describe very well what it is like.
The only thing is that the love is highly conditional. There is little room for personal growth and change if one wants to remain inside. It is very painful to have to leave the community to be true to oneself, as I did. And, I recently realized, there’s no going back.
For me, I am lucky because my community is less strict and there are enough people still inside, including immediate family, who are able to love and accept me even though I’ve changed. I can’t imagine the pain of someone who has to leave a stricter community, and thereby abandon all connection.
I like to think that we can build such modern communities of our own, based on love, acceptance and inclusion. But I agree that it is a challenge to do so in our world.
I don’t mean to disparage what you write. I can totally imagine the beauty of the lives you describe.
Thoughtful post Marianne, I learned from it, thank you. It touched me.
Thank you for your insight. I learned a thing or two. Good info to ponder.
Thanks, Ann. You got my point entirely. And,Jon,the “him” she was referring to was me (not sure why you’d be confused about that). I appreciate her chiming in and in no way feel she’s forcing me to hide behind her. Yes, you do present this lifestyle as almost entirely positive. Including in the very essay we are commenting on. Do other religions have their own problems? Of course. But we aren’t responding to an essay presenting a view of any other religions through rosy colored glasses–only yours about the Amish. I’m glad you admire and are friends with them. But you are more than happy to gloss over those aspects that might negatively impact members you don’t count among your personal friends. It’s like you’re a member of the modern media you so often excoriate–reports that are entirely one-sided and reflect only your desire to control the narrative.
Johnson, thanks for explaining yourself. I’ll try and return the favor.
I’m proud of what I have written about the Amish and plan to continue writing about this extraordinary family and the culture around it. And yes, I desire to control my narrative, it’s my narrative, my blog, my opinion, my hard work. Generally, the response has been wonderful. My goal isn’t to investigate my friends and neighbors, I’m not 60 Minutes, rather I want to write what I feel about them and what can be learned from them.
Honestly, I don’t see where it’s your business to tell me what I should be writing.
You are free to create your own narrative anytime with your own blog, your own work, your own perceptions. I feel no obligation to control or adopt yours. Personally, I find it more satisfying to go out and do my own work and research rather than troll Facebook looking for other “narratives” – I call them stories – to pee on.
I’m sure you could find lots of nasty things to say about the Amish if you went out and looked. So could I. It’s not my choice as a writer. Take your piercing, fearless glasses with you, Ann might love to come along. Most of the time, people accuse me of being too critical, this is refreshing.
I feel no need to argue with you about what I believe. I didn’t ask for your opinion and do not find it persuasive in any way. My pieces are a very honest account of what I experience and what I see and feel, they are not an account of what you see or might see or feel. Even in America, in 2021, we have the right to be different.
You were not standing next to me when I talked to the Amish and became friends with them. How presumptuous of you to criticize me and my work for not believing what you believe. If you got off your ass and went to see for yourself, I would be interested in what you write, not so quick to turn up my nose. Feels like snobbery.
I appreciate your being civil, but to me, you don’t offer me one single reason for apologizing for what I wrote or re-thinking it. Your only idea is that you dislike my enthusiasm and ideas about the Amish and I should be much tougher on them since you seem to think you know more about them than I do.
You’re glad that I like my neighbors? Really, you could have fooled me. Gee, thanks, I needed that blessing.
The truth is, you want me to be as arrogant and seemingly cynical as you are.
You offer absolutely nothing in return and none of your own work or research. This seems to be the fashionable social media stance – it’s easy and free to crap on somebody else’s work while hiding safely behind your computer screen. Anything positive is either naive or dishonest.
But this is what really confuses me. If you don’t care for my take, go find some Amish people and do your own work, rather than jeering at mine over my “narrative.” Write your own narrative, show the world how it is done. I can’t imagine scolding you for being honest. My perspective might be right or wrong, I can’t say, but it’s mine and it’s what I believe. I’m very comfortable with it.
You haven’t offered one single fact, thought, or reason for changing my mind. This is why I don’t like arguing my ideas with strangers on Facebook, fighting with three billion strangers who know nothing about me doesn’t seem a good use of my time. You can take it or leave it, I owe you absolutely nothing but my honest observations. Let me know how many Amish people you know and have spoken with.
Best Jon
P.S. I was also confused because you are not the only person who e-mails or messages me on a given day, although I imagine that comes as a shock to you.