by Ira Wagler
“Hello. You must be a stranger in these parts.” He smiled, extending his hand.
Sure a friendly chap, whoever he was. I smiled back and grasped his hand. “I am.”
“I’m Sam Johnson,” he said. “Who are you?”
Johnson. Johnson. Strange name, for an Amish man. “Ira Wagler,” I replied. I waited for the inevitable flash of recognition. Wagler. Wagler. And sure enough, it came.
“Wagler?” he exclaimed. “Not related to David Wagler? Are you his son?”
I admitted that I was, though rather sheepishly.
He chuckled. “Well, well. Imagine that, meeting the son of that famous man on the streets of Topeka.” And somehow, strangely, I was instantly at ease and chuckled back at him.
Sam was different. I sensed that right off. He was sharp and intelligent, asking keen, incisive questions. From anyone else, it would have been offensive. But somehow, from him, the questions were okay. He was curious, and that was fine. I was intrigued. We stood there on the sidewalk in Topeka, Indiana, on that sunny fall afternoon and talked comfortably, like old friends. Like we’d known each other our whole lives.
His story flowed freely from him. He had not been born or raised Amish. As a young single man, he had joined from the outside—learned the language, joined the church, married, and had a family.
It is almost impossible to pull off something like that, to join the Amish from outside society. A lot of people think they want to, even believe they will, until they try it. Over the years, hundreds have made the attempt, but probably fewer than a dozen or two have actually pulled it off. Once they get inside the culture, the romance wears off in a week or two. The harsh, plain lifestyle. The endless hours of labor, from dawn to dusk and beyond. And even if they clear those hurdles somehow, the language barrier nails them. You gotta want it, really want it, to hang in there. It’s an almost impossible accomplishment, especially long term.
I stood there and gaped openly at him as he told me his tale. “How could you do something like that?” “What in the world possessed you to even want to?” I actually asked those questions the first time I met him. And a whole lot more. And I didn’t even know the man. I was entranced, almost mesmerized by our conversation. It was like an oasis, out here in the middle of this barren desert in which I was dying of thirst.
He sensed my eager, hungry mind, and we stood there talking as time passed. First minutes, then an hour. Suddenly then, he pulled back, startled, and glanced at his pocket watch. He must be getting on home. His wife was expecting him, and he was already running way late.
I wasn’t ready to let him go just yet. “When can we talk again?” I asked.
He seemed as excited as I was. “We can meet again, here in town, after work. Soon, very soon. I’ll check with my wife, so we can talk longer,” he answered.
As we parted, he spoke words that jolted me: “It’s not by chance we met this afternoon.”
I could only nod. I biked home in a daze. Finally, a man who understood me. A man with whom I could actually communicate. It seemed like a miracle.
That night, over supper, I told Phillip and Fannie about the man I’d met. Who in the world was he? Where did he come from? They knew him. Of course they did. Everyone, it turned out, knew Sam Johnson. Phillip and his wife seemed excited that I had met someone who had impressed me so deeply.
In the weeks that followed, Sam and I met regularly. Usually in town. And our friendship grew. He invited me to his house for supper one evening. I met his smiling, beautiful wife, Ellen, and his two rambunctious young sons. It was a lovely little household, and something stirred inside me, seeing him with his family. He had it all, it seemed. Why couldn’t something like that be mine as well?
It could have been, of course, with Sarah, back in Bloomfield. But somehow, it didn’t seem the same, what he had and what I could have had.
Within a month, we were fast friends. Best friends. I learned to trust him as I had trusted no one in my life before.
He listened a lot and spoke a lot. He challenged me, both intellectually and mentally. When I grumbled about the Amish, their simplemindedness and their shallow uncouthness, he heard me. And he agreed, to a point. But he always came back with a question.
“If it’s so bad, why don’t you stay and make it better? We desperately need people like you in the Amish church. You are a born leader. You could tremendously influence the culture and the church in your lifetime.”
And his perspective always left me silent, groping for a comeback. I came back a time or two. “You don’t understand, don’t realize the bad things I’ve done. You don’t know where I’ve been. And besides, I don’t know if I even believe in God. What use can the Amish possibly have for a man like me?”
Even those words, anathema to any ordinary Amish man, did not shock him.
And in time, I told him who I was. Of how I was so lost and so afraid. Of how I was approaching the end here in this area. Of the mad bishop of Ligonier and how I couldn’t take it anymore. I told him of my past, sparing no details. What I’d done, how I’d left home again and again. The people I had hurt, so senselessly and so deeply. I told him of Sarah and of all the guilt associated with that terrible experience. Haltingly, brokenly, I let the words flow from me. I left out nothing. Spared no details.
“You have done nothing that cannot be forgiven,” he answered after I finished. “Nothing. I don’t care what you’ve done. There is a place where you can let it all go, let it rest, and return to life. Trust me on this.”
And so it went, back and forth, for weeks. We talked of many other things too. My irritation at the Amish in general, my disconnection with the culture, and of his own journey to where he was. It seemed strange, and I told him so. We were traveling in opposite directions. Born of English blood, he was more Amish than the Amish. And I, born of the purest Amish bloodlines, was heading away, out into the world from which he had come. And yet somehow, we had met on our journeys and connected so strongly. Strange, indeed.
I absorbed all the things he said about forgiveness and about new life. And gradually, his words began to penetrate my mind. He explained that there was no human penance for my sins. No way I could ever atone for all the things I had done. But, Sam reminded me again and again, there was someone else who could atone. Who could wipe the past away and give new life. Heal all the wounds—my own and those I had inflicted on so many others through the years. It seemed impossible that it could be true. But I listened, and I desperately wanted to believe him.
He never pressured me. Never told me to “just decide to do what’s right.” Or “to just straighten up and settle down.” I guess that’s because he wasn’t raised Amish. He didn’t buy into those trite, simplistic lines. He was simply my friend. Quietly there, just there, regardless of who I was or what I had done.
And gradually, gently, the man calmed my spirit and gave me hope. He led me to realize that my rough and rowdy past could be forgiven. That all the pain and all the wounds could be healed. That there was real hope and a new life for me, should I choose to take it. Accept it. Live it.
Gradually, too, the struggles and doubts that had haunted me since my early teens began to fade. I could do this. I could change. I could choose to believe. I thought it through for a long time. Days. Then weeks. It could be true. It must be true.
And then one day, the moment arrived. I would do it. See what happened. I’m not sure what motivated me. Exhaustion, I guess. That, and a tiny seed of faith that had somehow sprouted from somewhere. That day, that afternoon, I spoke to God again. Informally again. Not in despair this time, but as a man who dared to hope. A man who wanted to do what was right. From his heart.
My first desperate prayer, a few months back, had been heard and answered.
By quietly showing me Christ’s love, my friend had led me to the Source of that love. For the first time, I truly grasped that Christ had died for me—suffered, bled, and died—and that I could be his through faith. I was amazed at h
ow simple it really was. Why had it always seemed so hard, so impossible before?
I waited, then, for the light. Would it be in vain, like before? Like when I was baptized and felt nothing? Like when I returned to the Amish church, walked the gauntlet, and felt nothing? Would this end up the same? I waited. And it came. Almost immediately, a huge load of despair and anguish was lifted from me, replaced with a deep, quiet sense of joy and an internal peace beyond anything I had ever known. I couldn’t believe it. This could not be happening. Not to me. But it was.
And so, alone in my room that day on my cousin’s farm in Ligonier, Indiana, I reached the end of a long and tortured road, a road that had meandered through all the days and weeks and years of adulthood. A weary road of almost ten years. The end of my frenzied running from I knew not what to I knew not where. It all ended there, with a simple request for new birth and new life.
He who gives life to the lifeless gave life to me. I wanted to tell someone. Not shout, but at least express it somehow. But I couldn’t. Not among the Amish. They would view my experience with grave suspicion. The mad bishop would launch an inquisition for sure, which would not be pretty. But it wouldn’t be just him; others would look askance as well. Quiet and reserved, the Amish are not given to emotional testimonies about salvation.
I couldn’t wait, though, to tell Sam the next time we met. It would be okay. He would understand. And when I told him, he didn’t seem too surprised. He smiled quietly, and tears suddenly filled his eyes. “Welcome, brother,” was all he said.
And for me, it was like a new day had dawned. For the first time as an adult, I faced the future without fear. Not that the future was clear, because it wasn’t. And not that there weren’t a lot of issues to deal with, because there were. But somehow, I relaxed. I let go of all the emotional baggage that had burdened me for so long. Just released it. And it’s not that it disappeared magically, because it didn’t. It lurked out there on the edges of my consciousness like a ghost. It was still frightening sometimes, but it didn’t get to me. I knew and held on to the truth. I was now a child of God. Nothing could take that from me. Not the sins of my past. Not the pain of all those vivid memories. Not the fear of death or dying. Nothing.
34
Sam had always strongly encouraged me to value and embrace my Amish heritage. That’s where he was, firmly established in the culture he had adopted as his own. He longed for me to be there and to share it with him. Together, he believed, we could go far. But I was dubious. Why would I stay with these simple people? Sure, they held on to a lot of the old ways. Some things were good. And some of their traditions, too, were okay in my mind. But their studied, deliberate ignorance still rankled and bothered me—a lot. And I confronted Sam over and over again. Why? Why would I stay?
Always, he had the same response. “You are your father’s son,” he said. “Gifted, like he is. Like he was all his life. Your dad is getting along in years. The Amish will need someone to take his place. Someone to write, to define and explain their faith. Their lifestyle. Defend it. You have a strong personality. Leadership qualities. So why not you?”
I had no comeback for that. And after my conversion experience, that suddenly didn’t seem that important anymore. In the new, settled calmness of life, I decided to hang around for a while. See what happened. Come what may, I could take it. I even managed to dredge up a few good vibes for the mad bishop. Well, maybe that’s going too far. I didn’t have good vibes, but my intense hostility toward the man diminished miraculously, mostly because I removed myself from his presence.
Late in the fall of that year, I moved out of his district and northwest, into the Goshen area. A nice older Amish couple, Sam’s friends, had an empty house on a small lot with an old dilapidated barn. They wanted someone to live there and maintain it. On Sam’s recommendation, they offered it to me for low rent. So I moved to a new district.
In the larger Amish communities, the rules can vary greatly from district to district. In one, you might be allowed power lawn mowers, rubber rims on your buggy wheels, and other progressive things. In another, you might be allowed only hand-powered push mowers, steel-rimmed buggy wheels, and so forth. A bishop’s policies can drastically affect the value of real estate in his district. The more progressive the bishop, the higher the value of land and homes, because everyone wants to live there. Not surprisingly, real estate values in the mad bishop’s district ranked way down there, among the lowest in all of northern Indiana. You could almost buy a farm there for the price of a simple house and lot in the northern districts.
Goshen was among the most progressive Amish areas in northern Indiana. A land of Canaan and the focus of the wishful gaze of many longing eyes from the southern districts. I was happy to shake the Ligonier dust from my feet and move to a land free of harsh, strange people like the mad bishop. A land of milk and honey. Goshen.
I never saw the mad bishop again. I never missed him, either.
* * *
I settled into my new home, a rather ramshackle place, but livable. Batching it, alone, for the first time in my life. Mostly, I liked it. An English coworker from Goshen picked me up each morning for the ride to the factory in Topeka, as it was too far to bike, and I paid him a few bucks every week in return. Soon, I decided to go buggy shopping. I found a nice rig with rubber-tired rims, which were fully allowed in my new progressive church. I also bought a plump little mare, not too wild and fully road trained. I was set.
My Goshen Amish neighbors all welcomed me. They stopped by, introduced themselves, and invited me over for supper. They included me in their lives as best they knew how.
An elderly Amish widow lived alone next door, a few hundred feet away. Barbara was suspicious when I first showed up at her doorstep, but she warmed up immediately after we had chatted a bit. Might she have an old copy of The Budget I could borrow? I wanted to catch up on the news and Dad’s latest letters. Her crinkled face lit up. Oh, yes, she did. After that, it became a weekly tradition. I stopped by to read the latest copy, sitting at her kitchen table, while she fussed and mothered me. Smiling, she served coffee and cookies while filling me in on the latest local gossip. Much of the time I had no idea what she was talking about, but I smiled politely and listened, commenting now and then where I could. We laughed a lot together. Lonely since her husband’s death a few years before, she eagerly anticipated my visits. In some small way, we each filled a void in the other’s life. I had no family in the area. Widowed and childless, she was alone. We quickly became fast friends.
It was one of the most idyllic periods of my life as an Amish person, outside of childhood. Settled and calm, I absorbed and lived each day. I enjoyed life and laughed again. Not the hard, desperate laughter of the past, but the true thing, laughter from the heart, deep and real. I still saw Sam regularly, and we hung out as much as possible. He beamed at the new me and checked now and then to make sure I was still doing okay in my newfound faith. I was.
Holed up in my bachelor home, with little social life, I buried myself in books. By then I had accumulated quite an impressive library of my own. Each evening, after a meager supper of soup and sandwich, I lit the kerosene lantern and read into the late hours of the night, working my way through Will Durant’s The Story of Civilization and random chunks and chapters from dozens of other books. My mind was hungry, and I fed it. And each night, long after the dim lights died in the houses of my Amish neighbors, I sat there, absorbing and devouring knowledge from those pages.
But it was not good to be alone so much. A man needs people around him, some sort of structural support. My friends tried to provide what support they could, but they all had friends and families of their own.
A single guy with no connections will quickly fall through the cracks, as I did. But to be honest, I didn’t really want to hang around that much with most of the people anyway. Sam and the widow Barbara, those two relationships I cherished. The others I could take or leave. Mostly, I left them, preferring my own company to
theirs.
The long and lonely evening hours got to me eventually. And something stirred in me that winter, the winter of my discontent. Not the old frantic discontent of the past, but a yearning deep inside to be free. Free of the cultural chains that bound me. Free of this confining Amish life. And this time, as the deep longings stirred within, I realized for the first time in my life that I could leave.
Leave and not be lost.
It took awhile, to get my mind around a thing like that. To examine it, test it, and really grasp it without fear. To face it, accept it. The box of Amish life and culture might provide some protection, but it could never bring salvation.
And once I really truly grasped that fact, it was only a matter of time until the course of my future changed forever.
* * *
I didn’t just pack up and leave the next day, or disappear, with no word to those around me. I didn’t even consider such a course. I pondered the issue for days, weeks. Did I really, really want to give it all up? I had invested a tremendous amount of time and effort to reach this place, both my physical surroundings and the place of peace in my mind and heart. I had experienced a miraculous spiritual rebirth here in this area, as an Amish person.
And always, Sam’s words echoed in my head: Why not stay? Why not take on your father’s work? The Amish need people like you. Why not you?
In those long evening hours alone in that house that winter, I pondered. Thought it through. Maybe Sam was right. Maybe, just maybe, I should stay. Be the man I could be among the Amish. The man Sam thought I should be.
