The Grass is Greener?

While traveling in New Jersey and Pennsylvania on business, this week, I had the chance to visit Amish/Pennsylvania Dutch country. To you, that might not seem like much, but I really enjoy any opportunity to get acquainted with the culture and life-style. Their work ethic is amazing, and their fierce independence from the ultra-modern conveniences is admirable.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t plan on throwing it all away and buying a farm complete with draft horses, straw hats, and suspenders! I’d probably starve to death before I figured out how to make it work. But, there is something intriguing, fascinating, to me about Amish culture. Here we are in the 2009, computers, cell phones, airplanes, etc, literally surrounding the Amish. As we “Englishers” sprawl more and more, buying up the farm lands and rural country side in the areas where they live, the Amish drive horse and buggy down a busy county road, live with little or no electricity or gasoline powered equipment. These people wear simple clothing, shun attention, and work very, very hard. They truly live in a different century!

Lest you think Amish are backwards and frozen in time; Think again. They are amazingly adaptable! Instead of cursing the “Englishers” and our intrusion into their traditional domain, they have adjusted. Since farmlands are harder and harder to find, they’ve discovered more ways to make a living; take advantage of the tourists. Amish bake food, grow vegetables, make quilts and other sewn goods, and sell them at tourist stores and shops, roadside stands, and even their own homes.

I knew I was on The Peoples’ turf, when I stopped at one of these shops located in the bottom floor of an Amish home. Following a sign on the county road, I drove down the gravel drive and pulled up to the house surrounded by vegetable and flower gardens, barns, sheds, and garages, I parked in a drive way. Between me and the garage (no car in their garage), there was a traditional horse drawn buggy. The horse was elsewhere. As I opened the car door and got out, I put my foot in an oil spill from the Amish horse—a nice pile of horse droppings! For a split second, I wanted to be angry, instead I just chuckled! How could I be angry? I wanted to revel in the simple life, and I got it—up close and personal!

I think there are things we can learn from these independent, industrial, simple people. They contribute and depend on community for physical, social, and emotional survival. Their life is full of physical work and focused determination. Providing for themselves and extended family is assumed. They value faith and religion and expect it of others. Physical possessions are not all-consuming.

So much of our modern society represents the antithesis of the Amish life; look at all the mental, physical, and psychological diseases we carry. Amish are humans, so they are not perfect. There are things they do and believe, I think are strange, obscure, and contradictory, but we could learn some valuable lessons from these folks!

Food for thought.