Ranch Shekinah - The Amish Way of Living

Ranch Shekinah

Jul. 24, 2006

The Amish Way of Living

I have always found the Amish way of living intriguing. We live relatively close to Amish communities; Shipshewana, Napanne, and Goshen, Indiana. For my birthdays, I have often celebrated by taking my family to an Amish village, in Napanne, Indiana. I loveto visit the little settlement they have made into a tourist attraction. There are various homes and barns that were moved into one central location for people to walk through and be able to feel the essence of Amish living.

Although it seems as if I have always loved driving through the countryside, looking at the pretty white country homes and barns with all of their simplicity, it wasn't just the houses and barns that drew me. It was the children outside playing, the boys in their suspenders, black pants and white shirts, and the little girls in their homemade cotton dresses with matching bonnets. Yet, there was also something about their family life that appealed to me. There were no soccer games they were hustling to, no gymnastic classes, or piano lessons. Just the siblings playing with one another, outside and along-side their parents working on their farm. You could see the fathers cutting their fields with a horse-led plow, and the mothers tending to their gardens. It just appeared to me as such a simple lifestyle, the essence of a family community.

In this little Amish tourist village, there was one home I always felt something special in my heart. As the guide walked us through this home, he explained to us that the Amish met in their home for church services. I could visualize them all sitting around the living room on their simple furniture, worshipping God together. I found that to be very special - so unlike our present day organized-structure of church with all of its programs.

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Appearances are not everything. Sometimes I get these romantic notions about things and they really aren't what I perceive them to be at all. An example of this was once while traveling through Lexington, Kentucky. We stopped at a similar community, where the Shakers once lived. I was intrigued as they seemed very much like the Amish. I learned that they had all moved here as a settlement and pitched in together to make it a community. The herb, vegetable, and flower gardens, the massive brick mason homes, the pastoral and tranquil setting. I visualized and romanticized at the same time, their working hand in hand with their children, eating family meals and communing together. My heart longed for a community as such.

I did have these small questions...such as… whatever happened to these Shaker individuals? The Amish are still here, why don't I ever hear about any Shaker communities any more? I must have missed the toured guides that would have explained that to me. Instead, year after year, every time we would travel through Lexington, Kentucky, I would bring my family to this Shaker Village to lodge. It is said that these homes are the oldest structures in the U.S. that you can stay over night in as a visitor. They smell musty, the original wood floor creaks, and even the furniture seems as if it's been here as long as the buildings. We would dine in the home they designated for their restaurant. A beautiful stair case winds down into the foyer as you walk through the front door, and then enter into the dining rooms that are lit by candlelight. Sitting at this big table with my family of eight, I imagined once again that we lived a lifestyle of this simplicity.



Year after year, we frequented this place with all the romance and mystique it held for me. However, the last time we went there, it was then that I finally found out WHY the Shakers no longer existed. The story behind this busted my bubble and woke me up from my dreamy romanticism, into a rude awakening of stark reality. When the families came to settle in this community, they would separate the men from the women. The men stayed in one house, the women in another. I'm not for sure on this, but I think even the children were separated from their parents. Married men and women would not sleep with each other, let alone, reside in the same house. Behind this very strange arrangement, was their belief that they were living in the end times, so procreation was prohibited. The answer to why there was no more Shakers was now painfully clear...there were no children! Suddenly, what was like a dreamy haze, the reality appeared more as a nightmare! It taught me a big lesson on judging from appearances.

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For some of the same reasons, though, that I was drawn to the Shaker’s community, I was also drawn to the Amish. If I had to describe it with only one word, it would be 'simplicity'. Their simple white houses and barns, their children dressed in simple cottons, their simple church services, and their simple family meals.

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Perhaps my fascination of the ways of the Amish was because of the stark difference between my own family and them. Instead of a white farm house and barn, was a 6,000 square foot luxury home. Three stories, six bathrooms, and a foyer entrance that was as big as some entire family rooms. The master bedroom suite was complete with it's own grand foyer entrance, gas/woodburning fireplace, and a master bath complete with marble floors, giant jacuzzi bath, steam/shower and a cedar paneled sauna. In the driveway, instead of a horse and buggy, there was a Jaguar sports coupe, Mercedes Benz sedan, and a Lincoln SUV.

Outside, instead of a mother tenderly gardening, with her children playing sweetly by her side, was the professional landscaper and lawn service. Dad wasn't plowing the fields, either, he was in Chicago building a high-rise hotel building adjacent to the O'Hare airport. Mom was busy hustling her children to one place or the other, wearing their expensive brand-name clothing.

Instead of a simple lifestyle, my children's activities left me breathless at times. Throughout my first two children's upbringing, it seemed as if I was always running...gymnastic classes, piano lessons, soccer and basketball games/practices, and cheerleading. I felt that all of this was a necessary part of my children's lives to make their life complete.

I desired a simpler way, one that more imitated the lifestyle of the communities I had often frequented. We sold the 6,000 square foot home. This is step #1 of living a simpler lifestyle - smaller mortgage and taxes! We moved to a 150 year old farm house, about one-third the size of our previous home.

Step #2 of this simpler lifestyle, was the desire to not "do" all the things I had with the first two children - the soccer/basketball games, the art/piano classes, and the gymnastic lessons. My desire was for them to have plenty of free time to just play.



Our church became more and more home-based with less programs and more of simple meetings of worshipping and praising God together, meeting often in our own living room.

The size of my family grew, also reflecting a different style of living than our main-stream culture. Eventually, we totaled six children, four of them being home-birthed.

In this old farm house with it's big country kitchen, I found myself for the first time putting an emphasis on cooking family meals. I could do this now with the more simple lifestyle of not running to and fro for all of the children's activities that I used to be involved in. I used to view cooking as a necessary evil. The time it took to shop for, plan, prepare, and then the dirty dishes afterwards. Even the time it took to sit down and eat, I viewed as just time wasters because of the more 'important things', such as, keeping the kitchen clean and showcase ready, and hustling the kids to all their activities. Cooking just took precious time away. Taco Bell, tuna fish sandwiches, why spend time on something that you can get so quickly if you just go about it right? But in cultivating this farm like lifestyle that I had always so desired, I found myself enjoying all that it took to prepare a good meal. I began to view it as a blessing instead of a curse, and a highlight in my day, instead of a time consuming waste. I found such satisfaction preparing and serving a big meal, sitting around the table with my entire family.

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When we bought this old farm house, there were several pieces of furniture that I had asked the sellers if they could be a part of the purchase. One of these pieces was an old Tappan stove. My family couldn't understand for the life of them it seemed, why I wanted this. They often persuaded me (and still do), to get rid of it, or at best, move it out on to the porch, leaving more room in the kitchen for the table and chairs. But it was part of the overall picture I was creating that had been cultivating in my heart for over a decade. My big 'farm' family (although were not farmers, my husband is a commercial developer), sitting around the big table, wood beams above us, a wood floor beneath us, and an old Tappan stove beside us. It was all an atmosphere I was trying to create, and the old stove was a part of my props.

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I have often desired to get to know an Amish family, personally. I often joked with my husband as we would drive through the countryside, that I wish I had a best friend that had 10 children, lived in the country with a big barn, and loved me so much that she would invite our entire family to come and stay for a week. Then we would enjoy this simple lifestyle with them. Our children and theirs would run through the cornfields together, and play in the hay. I would help with canning the vegetables and making the homemade strawberry jams, that I imagined they would be busy doing. In the evenings, after baths, we would all congregate at the table and eat homemade bread with butter that had just been churned. Our milk would have just come from the daily milking in the barn, and the corn on the cob would be from the day's harvesting.

However, I didn't see how I would ever get to know any Amish family, and even remotely enough to be considered a friend. I could see that they would view us as 'outsiders', those modern people that would influence their family poorly. But I have made a way to get to know a few families at least on an acquaintance level, and I appreciate that because I had at one time doubted even that possibility.



The first family I got to know was the Miller's. They have a dairy farm of about 8 cows and were willing to sell their milk to a co-op that I belonged to at the time. I loved when it was my turn to pick up the milk. I would drive down the country roads, pull into their gravel driveway in front of the barn where a few baby calves were being kept outside, like family pets. When I went in the barn I'd find Susie, the mother of this Amish family, sitting on a little stool, milking her cows. I was thrilled and couldn't help my tourist appearance, and snapped a picture. How cool I thought it would be, that as the kids opened the refrigerator door and grabbed the jug of milk, that they could see a picture of Susie milking the cow that they were drinking from, hanging on the refrigerator. At course, the kids didn't really think this was so cool. In fact, they thought this entire idea of drinking milk straight from a cow was just plain out gross. If the very thought of it was bad, it was worse when they smelled the milk (completely different from store-bought), or seen the fat of the milk rising to the top. Susie on the front of the refrigerator didn't do too much for them, either.

I could tell that when I snapped Susie's picture, although she was pleasant enough, it registered in me that I had just blundered. Somewhere, deep in my subconscious, I remembered something about the Amish and pictures. I just couldn't remember just what it was that I had read. I had desired for so long to get to know an Amish family, and now I was concerned that I had made some kind of omission. This really bothered me. Although I couldn't get it out of my head and I would often try to rack my brain remembering just what it was about the Amish and pictures, it didn't stop me from doing it again.

The next time it was my turn for picking up the milk for the co-op, there were several little Amish children playing outside. My kids got out of the car and began to play with them. It was another one of those Kodak moments. I just couldn't help myself. As my little one was swinging on an old tire swing hung from a tree with a rope, together with an Amish child about the same age, I snapped some more pictures. At that very moment, I seen Susie driving a team of horses and hauling a wooden cart piled sky high with bails of hay. It was just a glance, but I caught it again, I had done something wrong.



After paying for our milk, I decided I had better ask Susie if I had offended her and seek forgiveness if I had. Susie should be the poster girl for Christian grace and sweetness. She explained to me, that yes, the Amish do not believe in taking pictures. I sought to understand the reasoning behind this. Was it just because a camera was a product of modern technology? She told me that the Amish are built upon the traditions of their fathers and it has always just been this way. But beyond that, they believed that to have your picture taken was a prideful thing. It was focusing on yourself, it was an image, it was something that represented pride. Did that mean that they never had a picture of their babies?, I asked incredulously. Yes, that was true, she told me, they never took a picture of their babies. I found that to be sad. I'm obsessed with taking pictures of my babies and preserving family memories. Does that mean that you have no idea what great-grandpa and grandma looked like, so the children that never knew them could be reminded of their life? Yes, she assured me, they never, ever, took a picture. I was left a little bit in shock, the thought of never having a family picture, never a picture of what our babies looked like, or my father that was now in heaven. I just couldn't imagine living like that. Yet, I did respect their issue of pride and trying to hedge around even the remote possibility of falling into pride by having their picture taken.

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On the occasion of buying my first horse, Major, I had the privilege of getting to know yet another Amish family. When I purchased him from Donna, of Cedarlane Farms, in Ohio, I discovered that the father (the stallion) was from an Amish farm not too far from me. I wanted to know if there was a way to contact them, and Donna told me that they did have a phone. She explained to me that the Amish could have a phone if they just didn't keep it in their house, but rather, built a separate structure for it. I called him and arranged a meeting time.

Gerald, the Amish man I was visiting, told me an interesting story. I didn't see any run-in sheds for their horses, and the barn that they had certainly couldn't hold all of the horses they owned. I asked him about this and he told me that horses adapt to anything. I asked about lightning, and he told me that only once had this happened to him. It was a horse that he had bought as a sickly colt. He had bought it because he felt so sorry for it and had nursed it back to health. Not only had it recovered, it started becoming a very strong and beautiful gelding, and he was feeling very proud of not only it's beauty, but of his own participation in this amazing recovery. After a particular strong storm, he found this horse had been struck by lightning, laying lifeless in the pasture. He told me that he felt that God had allowed this to happen to him because of his pride in this animal.



That was two different Amish people that had both spoken of the issue of pride. That seemed to me what the Amish was all about. It wasn't just simplicity for simplicity sake, it was about staying away from pride. I respected that.

Recently, I spent more time with Gerald because I was considering buying a stallion he had for sale. He and Darla’s six children were positively adorable. They ran around the barn barefoot, hopped on their horses without a saddle, and even the teeny little ones sat on the horses bareback, without a fear in the world. They were always so quiet, only talking if spoken to, and with very limited words at that. They smiled a lot. They had the sweetest and uncomplicated smiles.

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As we got ready to leave, after spending some 6 hours together, I felt comfortable enough to ask the question that had been brewing inside of my head. Pointing at the little wood shed that housed their outside phone, I asked Gerald, that since they had a phone now, when would they be getting their first computer? In his business, selling horses, a computer would be a real asset to market his horses with a web page. He told me that he would have to have permission from the church for that. The church had given the permission for their congregation to own phones, just not in the house, and the church would have to give their blessing, which they hadn't yet, for them to have a computer.

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I find it interesting that I was always drawn to the Amish. I think God used that to give me a tangible picture of something I could strive for, a different way of life than the one I was living, with all of it's complications, pride, and needless activities. By going there annually just driving through the country side, it was capturing images that went further into my soul and spirit of desiring a better way. Each year, I found myself getting just a little bit closer to this image.



I see God in His providence using the Amish people in our culture to paint a picture for us, one that might be almost impossible to imagine had we not the Amish to look at. I can see God's hand in my own life, showing me there was a better way, and implanting within me what this might look like.

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Comments

Jul. 24, 2006 - Untitled Comment

Posted by eclecticchaos

what a great post. I live about an hour north of the indiana border and I too have always found the Amish fascinating. It's amazing tho, in my whole life that I've lived here, I still have never gone down to shipshewana. I really should do that. I can't wait until the kids are a little older and we can go visit the amish villages. Altho part of me feels bad doing that, b/c they aren't an attraction to be viewed, but yet it's still educational.

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Aug. 2, 2006 - Untitled Comment

Posted by ourhomeschool

I too am intrigued by the Amish. I love reading about their lifestyle. I would love to have their simplicity and family community. Not only family community, but their community around them. It's not like us... "Englisher's"... who do things for ourselves (prideful)... They come together to accomplish what needs to be accomplished. I commend you for your choices that you have made to simplify your life.
Have you ever read any of Beverly Lewis books? I am not much of a novel reader, but when it comes to her books, I can't put them down. I absolutely love them.
I really have enjoyed reading your blog. I am going to put you on my friends list so that I can visit often. Many blessings.

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About Me

Welcome to our ranch. Come, sit on our porch, have some tea, and stay a while. Were going to have a lot of fun chatting. Bring the kids, too, as we've got lots of room to play, horses to ride, cats and kitties to cuddle, gentle dogs to pet, and baby chickens to look at and hold. We can take trail rides around the alfalfa field, wade through the creek, take a paddle boat to the island on the lake, go fishing, or explore the Black Walnut Forest. There's no hurry around here. We'll just meander about and maybe even pack a picnic basket - Ranch Shekinah is abounding with Mulberry trees, wild blackberries and raspberries, an orchard of apple trees, and a herb garden.