The Amish Way (20 page)
Authors: Donald B. Kraybill,Steven M. Nolt,David L. Weaver-Zercher
The barn’s second floor served as the sanctuary. Backless wooden benches formed twenty-foot rows—four rows on the left facing five rows on the right, with an aisle down the middle. The men filled the left-hand rows, with a large mound of straw behind them. Fresh-cut timothy hay overflowed the storage mow behind the women.
The morning was hot and humid, and it only grew hotter as the three-hour service wore on. Pigeons cooed from the rafters and fluttered between the mows. Horses neighed in the stalls below us, and tiny oat ticks hopped around on the floor.The large, open barn doors offered a view of rolling fields of tall green corn, brownish oat stubble, and a distant ridge of trees.
Whether a
Gmay
meets in a home, barn, or shop, Amish worship bumps up against the natural world in many ways. The lack of air conditioning, electric lights, and automated heating means that Amish worshipers are attuned to nature’s elements every time they meet—though some times more than others. One member recalls a preacher halting his sermon for fifteen minutes while waiting for a noisy thunderstorm to pass. On another occasion, worship ended abruptly when cows broke through a fence and the men rushed out to herd them back. From thunderclaps to barking dogs, from insect-laden flypaper to stifling heat, nature is never far away.
Gmay
meets in a home, barn, or shop, Amish worship bumps up against the natural world in many ways. The lack of air conditioning, electric lights, and automated heating means that Amish worshipers are attuned to nature’s elements every time they meet—though some times more than others. One member recalls a preacher halting his sermon for fifteen minutes while waiting for a noisy thunderstorm to pass. On another occasion, worship ended abruptly when cows broke through a fence and the men rushed out to herd them back. From thunderclaps to barking dogs, from insect-laden flypaper to stifling heat, nature is never far away.
This connection to nature is rooted in the rural lifestyle of the Amish. Although many Amish today no longer farm, all continue to live in rural areas. A few reside in small villages or on the outskirts of towns, but none live in cities. In fact, most Amish people hold a strong bias against city life. One writer declares that in Genesis 4, after Cain murdered his brother Abel, he fled from God and built a city, “which he peopled with his wicked descendants . . . [and] cities have been degenerating ever since.” The country, in contrast, offers rich possibilities for communion with God, the writer continues. “Life in the country is awake to the natural order of daylight and dark, sunshine and rain, the swing of the seasons, and the blessings with which God has ordered our world.” All of this, he concludes, is much better than an “artificial environment of urban centers where night is well-lit, rain is the way to ruin a day, and food and fiber originate at the local store.”
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Although Amish spirituality is closely tied to an experience of the natural world, the Amish believe that God transcends nature. In the words of the Dordrecht Confession, God created “all things visible and invisible,” which he still “governs and upholds . . . by his wisdom, might, and the word of his power.”
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Unlike traditional Native American religions, Amish spirituality does not see supernatural forces embedded in nature, such as spirits in the trees or ancestral voices in the winds. Still, because the Amish view the created world as God’s handiwork, it serves an important spiritual function, drawing them closer to God and teaching them about God’s power and providential care. “God’s beautiful and marvelous creation,” writes one minister, “is like looking through a small window into Heaven, especially when we think of His beauty, truth, and love.”
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Unlike traditional Native American religions, Amish spirituality does not see supernatural forces embedded in nature, such as spirits in the trees or ancestral voices in the winds. Still, because the Amish view the created world as God’s handiwork, it serves an important spiritual function, drawing them closer to God and teaching them about God’s power and providential care. “God’s beautiful and marvelous creation,” writes one minister, “is like looking through a small window into Heaven, especially when we think of His beauty, truth, and love.”
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The Amish way rests on prescientific assumptions about the natural world. Amish people affirm a literal reading of the creation account in Genesis 1 and 2. Evolution is considered heresy. One writer describes evolutionary theory as “an attempt to explain life without bringing God into the picture.” While admitting that the biblical account “leaves some questions unanswered,” he considers anything other than a literal six-day creation to be “wisdom of this world” that is “foolishness with God” (1 Corinthians 3:19).
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Another writer concurs: “The only way for us to learn how this interesting universe had its beginning would be for God to tell us about it. And He has done exactly this, very plainly, in the first chapter of the Bible.”
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Another writer concurs: “The only way for us to learn how this interesting universe had its beginning would be for God to tell us about it. And He has done exactly this, very plainly, in the first chapter of the Bible.”
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Although framed by the Bible, Amish views on nature draw from other sources as well. Many of the six-thousand-plus church leaders own copies of
Raber’s Almanac
, which is published by an Amish bookstore in Ohio and distributed nationwide. Updated each year, this one-hundred-page booklet includes the lectionary of scripture readings for church services, a directory of church districts, and the names of church leaders across the country.
Raber’s Almanac
, which is published by an Amish bookstore in Ohio and distributed nationwide. Updated each year, this one-hundred-page booklet includes the lectionary of scripture readings for church services, a directory of church districts, and the names of church leaders across the country.
But
Raber’s Almanac
also brims with information about nature. The inside cover shows solar and lunar eclipses for the year, zodiac signs, and the dates when Mercury and Venus are visible in the morning and evening sky. Each month has its own page in the almanac. The front side of the page features the phases of the moon, the lectionary scriptures for each Sunday in that month, and selected Bible verses, poetry, or hymns. A chart on the back side of the page shows solar and lunar details and the astrological symbol for each day of that month.
Raber’s Almanac
also brims with information about nature. The inside cover shows solar and lunar eclipses for the year, zodiac signs, and the dates when Mercury and Venus are visible in the morning and evening sky. Each month has its own page in the almanac. The front side of the page features the phases of the moon, the lectionary scriptures for each Sunday in that month, and selected Bible verses, poetry, or hymns. A chart on the back side of the page shows solar and lunar details and the astrological symbol for each day of that month.
The content of
Raber’s Almanac
blends rural folk culture with a biblical worldview. “More Amish than will admit it still plant some of their seeds according to certain astrological signs,” one bishop says. “My father would sow the spring clover in the sign of Leo in March. Some neighbors plant potatoes on or the day after the May full moon, radishes at a waning moon, and above-ground crops in a waxing moon.”
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The bishop adds that many aspects of Amish life, such as the hymns sung in church, follow seasonal patterns. “In the spring we sing of the skylark trilling its love song and then in autumn of the coming cold season.”
Raber’s Almanac
blends rural folk culture with a biblical worldview. “More Amish than will admit it still plant some of their seeds according to certain astrological signs,” one bishop says. “My father would sow the spring clover in the sign of Leo in March. Some neighbors plant potatoes on or the day after the May full moon, radishes at a waning moon, and above-ground crops in a waxing moon.”
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The bishop adds that many aspects of Amish life, such as the hymns sung in church, follow seasonal patterns. “In the spring we sing of the skylark trilling its love song and then in autumn of the coming cold season.”
Even more than the seasons, daily weather occupies a central place in Amish life, in conversations, letter-writing, and even sermons. Whether looking at the stars, tracking migratory birds, or talking about hail and rain, people are attuned to nature’s impulses and find in them compelling evidence of God’s power and majesty.
This enduring belief in the goodness of God’s creation is one reason why farming plays such an important role in Amish life. Even though many families have left the farm, pushed off by rising land prices or lured by other jobs, farm life remains the ideal. In the words of one person, farming “allows us to be part of the cycle of life, death, and renewal that God planned in His wisdom. In our daily contact with creation we cannot help but stand in awe and wonder of God.”
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In his organic farming column in the Amish publication
The Diary
, Moses Esh recalls a poem he learned in school, titled “Out in the Fields with God.”
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In his organic farming column in the Amish publication
The Diary
, Moses Esh recalls a poem he learned in school, titled “Out in the Fields with God.”
The little cares that fretted me
I lost them yesterday
Among the fields above the sea
Among the winds at play;. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Among the husking of the corn,
Where drowsy posies nod,
Where ill thoughts die and good are born
Out in the fields with God.
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Surely this sentiment—standing near to God in a field of grain—describes the experience of many non-Amish farmers too, but the feeling likely runs deeper among the Amish because they farm with horses. One farmer explains, “When I am cultivating corn on a 75-degree, late June day with a team [of horses] that responds perfectly to my voice, and I listen to the cheerful flight songs of the bobolinks in the hayfield nearby, I think we farmers must be the most fortunate people on earth.”
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Farming with horses is not easy work, of course, and this farmer might sing a different tune on a 90-degree day when the flies are biting and his draft horses are acting up. Still, unlike sitting in the air-conditioned cab of a noisy diesel tractor, farming with horses offers close contact with the soil, a full measure of fresh air, and the endless chatter of birds. “I often joke,” says one Amish writer, “that if tractors can plow a six-acre field in two hours, I figure on two days, but my time includes listening to vesper sparrows and meadow larks and watching clouds scud across the sky.”
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Farming with horses is not easy work, of course, and this farmer might sing a different tune on a 90-degree day when the flies are biting and his draft horses are acting up. Still, unlike sitting in the air-conditioned cab of a noisy diesel tractor, farming with horses offers close contact with the soil, a full measure of fresh air, and the endless chatter of birds. “I often joke,” says one Amish writer, “that if tractors can plow a six-acre field in two hours, I figure on two days, but my time includes listening to vesper sparrows and meadow larks and watching clouds scud across the sky.”
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It’s not just farmers who revel in nature: Amish people who have left the farm or never farmed at all also find inspiration in the outdoors. On an acre or two of land, they raise gardens, care for horses, and let their windows open to the breezes, smells, and sounds of nature. With few entertainments to keep them indoors—no Internet, no cable television, and no video game systems—nonfarm families frequently spend time in nature.
Virtually all Amish families, those that farm and those that don’t, have gardens that supply them with fresh or canned vegetables year-round. Families also buy many groceries in stores, but nearly all households produce a large share of the food they eat. Underscoring the benefits of growing her own food, one grandmother notes that “good, wholesome food” makes the family meal “a sacred ritual.” “If we know where everything on the table comes from,” she writes, it “seems to make us more aware and thankful to God.”
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Tending vegetable or flower gardens is time-consuming and physically taxing, for it entails an endless struggle with weeds, bugs, mildew, and drought. Still, like the hay fields of the farmers, gardens are a place of spiritual nourishment as well as labor. One Amish woman described her experience in her flower garden:
I am strolling through my garden
in the early morning dew.
And I fill myself with happiness
to last the whole day through.
I talk to yellow butter cups
they seem to understand
The poppies nod their dainty heads
just like a little band.
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In his book
Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder
, journalist Richard Louv worries that “over-scheduled, over-organized” twenty-first-century children are being harmed by their detachment from nature. He recommends one hundred activities for parents to remedy their children’s nature-deficit disorder, from digging in the dirt to walking under a full moon. The outdoors nurtures physical health and psychological wholeness, Louv says, and even contributes to children’s spiritual well-being.
Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder
, journalist Richard Louv worries that “over-scheduled, over-organized” twenty-first-century children are being harmed by their detachment from nature. He recommends one hundred activities for parents to remedy their children’s nature-deficit disorder, from digging in the dirt to walking under a full moon. The outdoors nurtures physical health and psychological wholeness, Louv says, and even contributes to children’s spiritual well-being.
Louv need not worry about Amish children. Immersed in nature from birth, they spend much of their early years digging in the dirt and chasing wild things. Toddlers follow their older siblings and parents around as they work in the garden and tend animals. In addition to having pets, many children are responsible for caring for chickens, calves, cats, and dogs at an early age. Amish children don’t play sports in organized athletic leagues, so their outdoor experiences are not tied to the “manicured playing fields” that, according to Louv, have replaced nature-oriented parks and play spaces in the lives of most American children.
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Family activities often revolve around nature, sometimes combining work and recreation. Some families, for instance, enjoy picking wild fruits and berries, often along fence rows that provide shelter for creatures that children find intriguing. Amish bishop David Kline is a farmer, naturalist, and author, whose books are widely read by outsiders. He describes a springtime walk when he took his youngest daughter to a nearby creek in search of hidden treasures. “The winter winds created new sand and gravel bars, and we loved to comb those deposits for Indian artifacts [and] old bottles,” he writes. But in addition to finding human artifacts, Kline and his daughter found evidence of God’s creative work—the tracks of minks, raccoons, muskrat, and even freshwater mussels. His conclusion from that experience echoes Louv’s ideas about what benefits children: “All children should have a creek winding through their childhood.”
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This bond with nature is nurtured by the literature children read. Many Amish publications include a children’s section with nature-related poems, stories, and crossword puzzles.
Family Life
magazine has a “Pre-School Corner” with simple exercises that challenge children to separate farm animals from wild ones or match animal mothers with their babies. Textbooks in Amish schools, devoid of current events, feature wildlife stories that introduce students to the plant and animal kingdoms. This is even true of math books. One sixth-grade math book includes three nature-related units: “On the Farm,” “Insects,” and “The Greenhouse.” One problem in the insect unit poses this question: “Steve found 16 crickets. If half of them each laid 295 tiny banana-shaped eggs, how many cricket eggs were there?”
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Family Life
magazine has a “Pre-School Corner” with simple exercises that challenge children to separate farm animals from wild ones or match animal mothers with their babies. Textbooks in Amish schools, devoid of current events, feature wildlife stories that introduce students to the plant and animal kingdoms. This is even true of math books. One sixth-grade math book includes three nature-related units: “On the Farm,” “Insects,” and “The Greenhouse.” One problem in the insect unit poses this question: “Steve found 16 crickets. If half of them each laid 295 tiny banana-shaped eggs, how many cricket eggs were there?”
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The Lost Creek Shoe Shop in Mifflintown, Pennsylvania, an Amish-owned and -operated store, is known at least as well for its binoculars as for its shoes. Make your way through the strong smell of leather in the front room, past the shelves of hiking boots and work shoes, and you’ll find a back room overflowing with optical devices—from beginner binoculars for less than a hundred dollars to state-of-the-art spotting scopes that will run you several thousand. Step outside to the observation deck, and you can try them out on the warblers and blue-birds that inhabit creek banks and wooded areas around the store.
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