Plain Wisdom

by Cindy Woodsmall

  Cindy and Tyler were very quiet also as everyone passed the food around the table and filled their plates. Cindy put some salad on her plate, so I handed her the salad dressing. A moment later I heard her gasp in dismay. A quick glance told me she’d mistaken our regular salad dressing bottle for a squeeze type, resulting in a plate full of food covered in salad dressing. Poor girl, I felt so bad for her. Before me stood the opportunity to continue being extremely polite or just to be me. I chose to be me. Leaning in, I quietly said, “I’m sorry, Cindy, but the Amish are forbidden to have the handy squeeze bottles.”

  Her eyes grew as big as saucers, her mouth formed a perfect little O. For a few seconds she actually thought I was serious. Then we burst into laughter, and the ice broke. Completely. From that moment on, our days flew by. We talked freely over coffee as the sun rose the next morning; we laughed together as she tried to do chores the Amish way; we cried together while sharing our heartaches; we watched our boys ride horses and foot scooters while they chatted ceaselessly; and we gave them freedom to fish from a nearby dock without our hovering (but we watched from inside the house). And when they didn’t catch enough for supper, we quietly baked frozen fish sticks without their ever realizing what we’d done. After the sun went down, we made s’mores over a fire in the backyard.

  All too soon the week came to an end, and it was time for Cindy and Tyler to go back home to their world. It had been a great week, and I feasted on the memories until it was time for her to visit again.

  From Cindy

  Miriam’s garden still needed more weeding as the sun slid below the horizon, taxing my ability to distinguish between weeds and produce. Laundry on the clothesline flapped in the evening breeze, and supper dishes sat in the sink, reminding Miriam and me that we’d moved too slowly through the chores as I’d spent the day learning to handle the summertime responsibilities of an Amish woman.

  Tomorrow Miriam’s morning would begin before daylight as she prepared breakfasts, packed lunches, and passed around clean clothes for her three oldest sons. The boys had already graduated from the eighth grade in their one-room schoolhouse and now apprenticed full-time within the Amish community.

  After crossing the lawn without the assistance of floodlights or lampposts, we checked on our youngest children. They sat around a campfire with one of Miriam’s teen sons, roasting marshmallows and making s’mores. The fireflies they’d caught earlier glowed in a jar beside them, waiting to be released.

  Miriam and I went separate ways to finish the day’s work, she to the clothesline and I to the kitchen. As I washed dishes by a kerosene lamp, I could see her silhouette bathed in moonlight as she collected the last of the laundry. Wiping sweat from my face, I heard her call to the children, telling them it was almost bedtime.

  While Miriam’s children doused the campfire, my son made his way inside, washed up at the mud sink, and waited for me to escort him through the dark home. I took the kerosene lamp, and we climbed the wooden, spiral stairway. A mule brayed, cows mooed, and bullfrogs from a nearby pond croaked—all quite loudly. I smiled, but I knew that before sleep came, I’d long for some electrical device to block out the sounds of the farm and stir the summer’s humid air.

  Today I look back to that first visit eight years ago. As a resident of Georgia, I had doubted I could find a way to talk to someone who was part of the Old Order Amish life, but I had a story in my heart, and I needed an inside view of Plain living to be able to write it.

  Growing up in Maryland, I’d had an Amish Mennonite best friend, and our adventures—along with the reservations our parents had concerning our friendship—had sparked my desire to write about the joys and difficulties of relationships, both within the Amish community and with outsiders. But as with many writers, I didn’t actually begin to put those stories on paper until decades later. Long before I sat down to write, my family had moved away, and my Amish Mennonite friend and I had lost all contact.

  But in 2001, Linda, a friend who had worked at an Amish birthing center and as an EMT among the Amish, knew of Miriam and had connected the two of us. This connection began the long-distance relationship. More than a year into this relationship, Miriam invited me to visit her place.

  This was the first of what has become at least a yearly visit. I’ve been greatly blessed by the friendship with Miriam and her family. She and I marvel that forging a friendship was easier than either of us expected. It took us one evening, really, and a plate full of salad dressing.

  THE RHYTHM OF LIFE

  A SENSE OF COMMUNITY

  On my first visit to Miriam’s, our mutual friend, Linda, picked Tyler and me up in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, near the train station. We headed west, out of the busyness of the city, and before long we were traveling down winding roads that carried us to more sparsely populated areas.

  Sunlight splashed across the mountains and valleys like a spotlight revealing props on a stage. The fields were lush with half-grown hay that swayed in the breeze. As we drew closer to Miriam’s home, Linda pointed out the fenced areas that belonged to the Flaud family. Cows stood in wide pastures, horses grazed in a small field near the barn, and rows of clothing hung on lines, snapping in the wind as they soaked up the fresh scent of spring air.

  Linda pulled onto the dirt-and-gravel driveway and parked. When we got out of the car, the heat smacked us with mid-June temperatures in the nineties. The double-wide wooden doors to the red and white barn stood open, and a quick glance revealed empty milking stalls. A silo attached to the barn towered higher than the trees surrounding the two-century-old brick farmhouse. A large garden in her backyard was lined with rows of vegetables.

  Linda, Tyler, and I walked up a concrete sidewalk. Miriam and her husband, Daniel, greeted us at the door before we had a chance to knock. Their friendly smiles were more beautiful in person than I’d imagined during the months of speaking to them on the phone.

  I stepped into their Old Order Amish home, noticing half a dozen things all at once. The mud sink that sat mere feet from the front door. Straw hats hanging on a hatrack. Boots and waders, obviously used for milking cows, lined up neatly along the wall. A family-sized thermos on the kitchen counter with rows of glasses nearby. (I later learned this is Miriam’s way of providing her children with plenty of cold water on hot days without their needing to constantly open her gas-powered refrigerator.)

  Without electricity the rich beauty of sunlight filtering through the canopy of trees brought a soft green glow to the rooms, and a breeze cooled the house in spite of the sweltering temperature outside. The mouth-watering aroma of freshly made desserts and percolated coffee filled the air.

  While growing up in Maryland, I’d been in Plain homes but never in an Old Order Amish home. I’d like to share with you some of what I’ve learned, but at times you may wonder why I’m not going into more detail. The Old Order Amish are very private people, and true friends would never share anything publicly that would make each other uncomfortable. This book offers an invitation into an Amish home. That’s a cherished invite, and as a guest we’ll enjoy the warmth, honesty, good food, and insights while minding our manners by not asking for more. I hope that’s where our heart is whenever we enter anyone’s home. Come. Let’s enjoy our visit.

  An Old Order Amish community is usually made up of homes scattered throughout the hillsides of a farming country. Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana have the highest population of Old Order Amish, but they live in other states too, including Maine, Missouri, Kentucky, Minnesota, and Colorado.

  An Amish district has approximately twenty-five families, and each district has three preachers and a deacon. When a district has more than thirty to thirty-five families—most often due to children becoming adults, getting married, and forming their own homes—the church leaders will begin a new district. Keeping the number of households limited in each district is necessary when you consider that church is held in someone’s home every other Sunday, a family-style meal is served afterward, and duri
ng the school year, one teacher works with students in all eight grades.

  Today most Amish children attend classes in a one- or two-room schoolhouse. Generally they are taught by a young Amish woman; although men can teach, few choose to do so. Just as I cannot opt for my children to attend school outside of our district, the Amish cannot opt to attend a church or school outside the district in which they live. However, if a new district has not yet established an Amish school, the children may attend the closest Amish or Mennonite school. In some areas Amish children attend public school because their community is unable to build their own school. The Amish receive no government support for their schools, so the costs of constructing a building, supplying it with desks, books, and equipment, and paying a teacher’s salary can be too much.

  Although the Old Order Amish may take advantage of some modern conveniences, like hiring a driver to take them to a job site or a doctor’s appointment or a local Wal-Mart, those things are done sparingly, and they are not necessary to sustaining their way of life. Because the Amish community has farmers, builders, craftsmen, blacksmiths, church leaders, midwives, and teachers, they are fairly self-sufficient. Most Amish people are either self-employed or work for Amish relatives, with many young men carrying on the work of their forefathers.

  When a young man turns fifteen, he begins an apprenticeship as a craftsman or farmer, often under his father or an uncle. The girls apprentice under their mothers, learning about sewing, gardening, canning, and tending to little ones. The girls also work at local grocery stores, markets, restaurants, and bakeries.

  When an Amish man owns a business, it’s his responsibility to hire as many Amish men as he can; this tradition keeps the Amish from losing its young people to the outside world and helps promote unity and a sense of community. It also helps sustain the independence of the community. If a man’s business is successful enough, he may find a facet of that trade that can be turned into a separate business for another family to start.

  In addition to similar interests, skills, locality, culture, and heritage, the Amish have also preserved their sense of community by having their own language. They speak what is commonly referred to as Pennsylvania Dutch, although the word Dutch in this phrase has nothing to do with the Netherlands. The original word was Deutsch, which means “German.” The Amish speak some High German (in church services) and Pennsylvania German (Pennsylvania Dutch), and after a certain age the children are taught English. This causes the children to feel closely connected to their community. When a non-Amish person speaks to young Amish children in English, the language may not make sense to them.

  I enjoy spending time with Miriam’s grandchildren. Since I don’t have any of my own, I soak in their cuteness like a dry sponge in a bucket of water. But sometimes they look at me funny when I talk to them because they don’t understand what I’m saying, and when I try to speak in Pennsylvania Dutch, I fail miserably. But one of Miriam’s sons has become adept at listening to how I mispronounce their words, and he can usually help me. He always relates the correct pronunciation to a familiar English word so I know how the word should sound. Even my Southern accent doesn’t thwart him, although it does make him laugh.

  The Old Order Amish lifestyle is much more than what’s easily seen—how they dress, travel by horse and buggy, and live without electricity. The true sense of living Old Order Amish is found in the close-knit lives of those who make up the Amish community.

  From Miriam

  This recipe is often brought to our many large gatherings. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t love it.

  CHICKEN SPAGHETTI

  1 chicken, cooked and chopped (about 2–3 cups)

  1 pound spaghetti, cooked

  ½ cup chopped onion

  ½ cup chopped celery

  pat of butter

  1 cup chicken broth

  1 cup milk

  1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup

  1 can condensed tomato soup

  salt and pepper to taste

  ½ pound Velveeta cheese

  Place cooked chicken and spaghetti in a container, and set aside. In a large pot sauté onions and celery in a pat of butter. Add broth, milk, and soups. Bring to a boil. Remove from the heat, and add chicken and spaghetti. Add salt and pepper as needed. Pour the mixture into a 9″ × 13″ greased or sprayed casserole dish. Cover with cheese. Bake at 350 degrees until it’s heated thoroughly and the cheese has browned.

  FINDING RHYTHM

  And God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

  —GENESIS 1:5, NASB

  From Miriam

  Nature gives us the unexpected, but it also gives us rhythm. When God created the world, He designed the sun to rise in the east and set in the west at basically the same times each day, allowing for the seasonal changes. We can depend on our Creator for this rhythm day after day, week after week, year after year, as it has been since the beginning of time.

  I look forward to each new season. When I grow weary of snow and cold, I am encouraged by knowing an end is in sight. Winter fades and spring begins. During those first few weeks of spring, I love the feel of the sun on my back and the warmth of garden dirt under my feet as I plant fresh seeds in the ground. In summer I enjoy having my children around more, even as the temperatures rise to scorching and the hot sun dries up the ground. By the time fall rolls around, my desire for warm weather and gardening has been fulfilled. Having plowed, planted, weeded, and harvested through spring, summer, and into late fall, I look forward again to the quieter indoor season of winter.

  Knowing and trusting in God’s rhythm helps me in many ways, and I use His rhythm to create my own. The rhythm of the day. The rhythm of the season. The rhythm of life.

  From Cindy

  The first time I entered the Amish world as an adult, I had traveled for eighteen hours by train, my son and I spending the night in a sleeper car. I couldn’t sleep, so I pulled out my laptop and worked, glancing up every so often to take in the beauty of distant lights shining amid the dark towns.

  I’d spent years honing the skill of multitasking, so working when I couldn’t sleep made perfect sense. My life’s goal seemed to be sharpening my ability to juggle more tasks using less time.

  But when I stepped into my friend’s Old Order Amish world, I found something I hadn’t known I was missing: a sense of morning, noon, and night.

  At home my mornings consisted of the same things as my middays, late afternoons, and evenings: the computer, e-mails, phone calls, writing, editing. The family chores had no boundary between morning and evening. I could move a load of clothes into the dryer just as easily at ten o’clock at night as I could at ten in the morning. E-mails were sent just as naturally before daylight as before bedtime. I woke each morning to the call of busyness, but I had lost the rhythm of the day—the tempo of sunshine filtering into my soul, listening to the birds wake, and breathing in the aroma of a day’s fresh start.

  In Miriam’s world the uniqueness of morning, noon, and evening is too strong to miss. Laundry has to be washed and hung out early. Cows and horses need to be tended to before breakfast. Without electricity, navigating the home after the sun goes down brings a sense of closure to the day.

  During my visit that week, I felt the rhythm and nuances of a day as the sun moved across the sky from east to west, and I began to mourn the years I’d been too busy to truly notice. I certainly knew when morning arrived each day, and I had a long list of morning things to accomplish, but electricity and natural gas provided me with an unnoticed shield. Beyond the protection it had given me against the harshness of winter and summer, that shield had also blocked my senses and my soul from the beauty of feeling a day slide across the sky. Sipping a cup of coffee on the front porch each day couldn’t solve the problem because it went deeper than how I spent a few minutes here and there. I’ve become so involved in doing life that I’ve acquired a type of tunnel vision in expe
riencing the days, months, and seasons.

  As the Amish need to step inside our world from time to time to meet their needs—using a Realtor, seeing a specialist, or borrowing money from a bank—I want to find a way to step into theirs, to feel the pulse of each day even while living in my world.

  MAYBE WE ALL NEED A GREEN THUMB

  But other [seed] fell into good ground, and brought forth fruit, some an hundredfold, some sixtyfold, some thirtyfold.

  —MATTHEW 13:8

  From Miriam

  Early in 2009 my craft orders were piling up, and I was behind in my writing for Plain Wisdom. Although I’d set aside working on my crafts in order to write, I still had the items around me. The room was filled with baskets that I had lined with fabric and lids on which I had painted scenery. I make birdhouses from old boots, and after bending a discarded license plate in half, I use that as the roof. I have stacks of prints from scenery I’ve painted and the frames I put them in. And I hand piece and quilt wall hangings, often framing them in a set of wooden hames (curved pieces in a horse’s collar). With all those supplies and Plain Wisdom calling to me, I still could not block out my other responsibilities and obligations by closing myself in that one room. With every telephone call or knock on my door, I’d lose my train of thought. Getting ahead with my crafting put me more behind in my writing, and vice versa.

  One morning a friend stopped in, wanting my help with some serious issues. On the verge of frustration and feeling guilty for being so selfish with my time, I tried to reassure myself that I was doing the right thing by walking away from my work. This thought came to mind: in the garden of life, being successful isn’t just about hoeing your own row but also about slowing down enough to help your brother hoe his row until he is caught up, then hoeing the rest of the field together.