Authors: Donald B. Kraybill,Steven M. Nolt,David L. Weaver-Zercher
The Amish Way (24 page)
Please Lord, find the parents
Who will do a special job for you.
Their precious child so meek and mild
Is Heaven’s very special child.
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Because children and adults with congenital disorders and other disabilities live at home and find work within the community, they are an ever-present reminder to those with whom they live to slow down or modify routines and expectations, and to include those with different abilities in the tasks of everyday life. Amish people are frank, often blunt, when they talk about disabilities, with little of the professional vocabulary found in polite quarters of modern society. But the belief that God places special children with specific families for a purpose fosters remarkable inclusion. Amish-published directories of those with disabilities typically list an occupation—from store clerk to “help around the house”—alongside each person’s name, no matter how severe the person’s limitations. This underscores the conviction that everyone has something to contribute.
Amish people also look for divine lessons in personal suffering, whether it’s the emotional suffering of grief or the physical suffering of painful or lingering illnesses. They believe that there is some purpose, however difficult to discern from a human perspective. And they believe that patience is important in the midst of suffering. “Whenever someone experiences illness, trials, or death,” said a young mother, “we say, ‘I wish you patience.’”
The Amish do not necessarily see human suffering as a virtue in the way that some other religious traditions might.
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Nor do they invite affliction. “We don’t go out and seek suffering just for the sake of suffering,” our Amish friend Jesse explained. “What’s the English word for that? Masochism, I think. At any rate, suffering just comes on its own in this life.” And the Amish find plenty of examples of suffering in stories from the Bible, especially the life of Jesus, in the martyr stories of their own history, and in the hymns written by Anabaptists suffering in prison.
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Nor do they invite affliction. “We don’t go out and seek suffering just for the sake of suffering,” our Amish friend Jesse explained. “What’s the English word for that? Masochism, I think. At any rate, suffering just comes on its own in this life.” And the Amish find plenty of examples of suffering in stories from the Bible, especially the life of Jesus, in the martyr stories of their own history, and in the hymns written by Anabaptists suffering in prison.
Heroes of the faith suffered, and Amish people often interpret their own suffering in terms of their faith. “As followers of Christ, we often experience suffering, because doing the right thing is not always easy,” Jesse said. “Doing good often requires suffering, sacrifice, and self-denial.” The twice-yearly communion services highlight the suffering of Christ. In fact, one member noted, “Communion emphasizes the crucifixion and Good Friday much more than the resurrection.” Because Jesus suffered, members believe that they also should be willing to suffer.
But not all suffering is the result of doing good or demonstrating faithfulness. Sometimes it comes simply because we are human. “Misfortune, sickness, or suffering is also our cross to bear,” explained Jesse. “To bear that suffering patiently without complaining is a good thing, a mark of faith.” Aaron Beiler, grieving his son’s snowmobile death, confides in his memoir, “I do not always understand why things happen as they do . . . [but] my little valleys are nothing when I picture Christ on the cross. . . . Forgive me Lord for complaining.”
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Minimizing physical suffering, pain, and illness has been at the heart of modern medicine and health care. Amish people frequently use medical services, but often in ways that reflect their distinctive beliefs and habits. Because of the church’s ban on higher education, there are no Amish doctors or nurses, so conventional medical care always comes from outsiders. Decisions about treatment are most often made by the members of a household, and it’s not uncommon for families to mix modern and alternative therapies. They may, for example, seek mental health care from a self-trained Amish counselor, travel to Mexico for unconventional cancer treatments, and go to a state-of-the-art hospital in Cleveland for a knee replacement.
The Amish believe they inhabit a world empowered by the spirit of God, who intervenes to bring about certain outcomes, and they also believe that Satan seeks to distort God’s plans. This does not mean that most Amish people think that illness is a result of personal sin or is some sort of divine punishment. But it does mean, as we noted in Chapter Ten, that they view nature as God’s handiwork and that the more one embraces nature, the closer one comes to God.
Because the body is a natural organism, many Amish consider natural remedies to be uniquely in tune with the mysteries of God. So although Amish people generally accept the value of modern medicine, they do not grant it the sort of ultimate authority that many scientifically minded non-Amish people do. In Amish eyes, modern medicine represents human efforts to control the body, even prolong life, and they weigh those goals against their trust in divine providence.
Members of the most tradition-minded Amish groups make the least use of medical professionals, preferring either to treat illness with homeopathic cures or simply to accept painful conditions that others would seek to cure. They may wear a copper ring to ward off arthritis, have their teeth pulled to avoid the need for dental care, or go to reflexologists to relieve ailments. A column titled
Ivverich und Ender
(Odds and Ends) in the Amish newspaper
Die Botschaft
offers a variety of salves and remedies that have been passed down in rural families for generations. Coltsfoot tea, for example, is suggested for chest congestion, and hot lemonade is said to be a reliable remedy for colds.
Ivverich und Ender
(Odds and Ends) in the Amish newspaper
Die Botschaft
offers a variety of salves and remedies that have been passed down in rural families for generations. Coltsfoot tea, for example, is suggested for chest congestion, and hot lemonade is said to be a reliable remedy for colds.
The line between accepting suffering and inviting suffering, as Jesse put it, is at the heart of Amish debates over immunization. Most Amish parents support immunization because, as one man noted, “our feeling is that there would probably be many more sicknesses, paralyses, and deaths if no one took them.” Said another, “We can think that our children will not get these diseases unless God wills, but are we doing our part if we purposefully neglect a preventive measure?”
In contrast, families in the most conservative Amish
Gmay
s often ignore or resist public health calls to immunize their children. In a letter to an Amish periodical, a father in Wisconsin explains, “I feel we should put our trust in God rather than the technology of the world. I think God put these diseases here for a purpose, to chasten us sometimes.” A writer from Ohio agrees: “We feel we need to trust in our heavenly father. Our forefathers didn’t have the baby shots, so why should we?”
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Gmay
s often ignore or resist public health calls to immunize their children. In a letter to an Amish periodical, a father in Wisconsin explains, “I feel we should put our trust in God rather than the technology of the world. I think God put these diseases here for a purpose, to chasten us sometimes.” A writer from Ohio agrees: “We feel we need to trust in our heavenly father. Our forefathers didn’t have the baby shots, so why should we?”
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Relatively few Amish households forgo immunizations, but even those Amish who make use of conventional medical practices usually refuse procedures that they see as artificially initiating or prolonging life. Amish families seldom keep a loved one on a life-support system for more than several days. In vitro fertilization is virtually unheard of, and heroic interventions for the elderly are rare.
Even the process of leaving the hospital can be uniquely Amish. A staff person at a large hospital with many Amish patients described with awe how “the Amish do their own social work.” When a patient is discharged “we have an exit interview to discuss how the patient will transition to home care and therapy, and we may have as many as thirty family members showing up. They are already doing different jobs to help the patient readjust at home. It’s remarkable.”
Whatever the remedy, traditional or scientific, some illness and disease cannot be cured. In such cases, some Amish turn to a ritual of spiritual healing that involves prayer and anointing the sick with oil. Drawing on a Bible passage in James (5:14) that says, “Is any sick among you? Let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord,” a gravely ill Amish person, or that person’s family, might ask for such prayer and anointing. The ritual is somewhat like last rites or extreme unction in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox traditions, although the Amish do not connect the oil itself to the forgiveness of sins as some other Christian traditions do.
The bishop and ministers typically read the passage from James, as well as Psalm 23, which is traditionally regarded as a psalm of comfort. They offer prayers from
Christenpflicht
and, if the sick person is conscious, pose three questions: (1) Do you desire this anointing? (2) Is there anything in your life you would like to confess? (3) Are you willing to surrender to God’s will and whatever he has for you? After this, each of the ministers says a few words of comfort and hope. Then the bishop applies a small amount of oil to the patient’s forehead and offers a final prayer.
Christenpflicht
and, if the sick person is conscious, pose three questions: (1) Do you desire this anointing? (2) Is there anything in your life you would like to confess? (3) Are you willing to surrender to God’s will and whatever he has for you? After this, each of the ministers says a few words of comfort and hope. Then the bishop applies a small amount of oil to the patient’s forehead and offers a final prayer.
The ritual is often as much a call for spiritual healing and comfort—a way for a dying person to affirm her or his faith in the face of death—as it is a prayer for physical healing. The Amish do not expect everyone anointed with oil to recover his or her bodily health. In some communities, Amish families readily work with hospice to allow family members to spend their final days at home. Hospice staff members report that Amish patients and their families are typically much more accepting of death than are members of the wider society. “They intuitively understand hospice philosophy: that life eventually leads to death,” one nurse said. “They don’t deny death or refuse to talk about it. And they involve the whole family.”
Although some Amish people die in hospitals or far from loved ones, as was the case of Mervin Beiler, most die at home surrounded by family members. This is almost always true for the elderly, who typically spend their senior years living in the
Dawdyhaus
adjacent to their adult children because the Amish do not use retirement centers or nursing homes. If an elderly parent needs long-term assistance with the activities of daily living, their children or adult grandchildren take turns providing the care. In some cases an aging parent needing continuous care will move from home to home, spending several weeks in each one.
Dawdyhaus
adjacent to their adult children because the Amish do not use retirement centers or nursing homes. If an elderly parent needs long-term assistance with the activities of daily living, their children or adult grandchildren take turns providing the care. In some cases an aging parent needing continuous care will move from home to home, spending several weeks in each one.
When death comes, the funeral rites in Amish society express the final statement of surrender to God’s will. Plain and simple in their ritual enactments, without flowers or elaborate caskets, funerals are held in a barn, home, shop, or tent at the home of the deceased, never at a funeral home or in a church building.
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Licensed funeral directors play a minimal role. In most communities a mortician transports the body to the mortuary for embalming, returning it to the home a few hours later. Very few if any cosmetic enhancements are done, even in the case of accidents. Speaking of the body, an elderly bishop said, “How it is, is how we take it.” After the mortician returns the body to the home, family members dress the body and place it in a simple wooden coffin made by an Amish carpenter.
The community springs into action at word of a death. Relatives and friends assume shop, barn, and household chores, freeing the grieving family from daily tasks. Several couples from the family’s
Gmay
or one nearby take the lead in organizing the funeral service. Women prepare food for the three hundred to six hundred people who are expected to attend. Friends dig the grave by hand in a nearby Amish cemetery and arrange the benches for the funeral service as they would for any Sunday-morning service. Friends and relatives visit the family and view the body at the home for two days before the funeral.They come by the dozens—often hundreds—to visit. “It’s almost a social affair,” said one person. There is a lot of silent crying and hushed conversation.
Gmay
or one nearby take the lead in organizing the funeral service. Women prepare food for the three hundred to six hundred people who are expected to attend. Friends dig the grave by hand in a nearby Amish cemetery and arrange the benches for the funeral service as they would for any Sunday-morning service. Friends and relatives visit the family and view the body at the home for two days before the funeral.They come by the dozens—often hundreds—to visit. “It’s almost a social affair,” said one person. There is a lot of silent crying and hushed conversation.
The funeral service itself is typically held on the morning of the third day after the death, although rarely on a Sunday so that the hundreds of people attending the funeral will not have to travel that day or miss their own church services. During the ninety-minute funeral service, ministers read hymns, Bible passages, and
Christenpflicht
prayers, and they deliver several meditations on death and hope. Singing is part of the service in some areas but not in others. Funerals are conducted in the Pennsylvania German dialect, but one of the preachers may offer his meditation in English if many non-Amish neighbors or coworkers are present.
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A meal for guests may be served before or after the burial.
Christenpflicht
prayers, and they deliver several meditations on death and hope. Singing is part of the service in some areas but not in others. Funerals are conducted in the Pennsylvania German dialect, but one of the preachers may offer his meditation in English if many non-Amish neighbors or coworkers are present.
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A meal for guests may be served before or after the burial.
A horse-drawn hearse leads a long procession of buggies to a nearby burial ground, usually located on the edge of a field or pasture. A brief viewing and a short graveside service mark the burial. Pallbearers lower the coffin and shovel soil into the grave as a hymn is read or sung. Deceased carpenters and farmers, business owners and factory workers, housewives and teachers, dressed in prescribed clothing and lying in identical coffins, all have small gravestones of the same size, erasing social status. As a benediction, mourners offer the Lord’s Prayer in silence. The prayer’s petition, “Thy will be done,” memorized in childhood and repeated thousands of times in life, seals the transit to eternity.
Death in Amish society has not been sanitized or segregated from daily life. Members of the family touch and dress the body. Children are exposed to the reality of death many times before they reach adulthood. Church members dig the grave and cover the coffin with dirt. Death is received in the spirit of
Gelassenheit
, the ultimate surrender to God, as the community reflects on the familiar words of a hymn they have sung since childhood:
Gelassenheit
, the ultimate surrender to God, as the community reflects on the familiar words of a hymn they have sung since childhood:
Consider, man! The end,
Consider your death,
Death often comes quickly;
He who today is vigorous and ruddy,
May tomorrow or sooner,
Have passed away.
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