The Amish got it goin' on

“You can preach a better sermon with your life than with your lip.”
-Amish proverb


Fig.1 All work and some play makes an Amish boy

The Amish don’t have podcasts. Can you believe that shit? I would love to hear the serene tones of Pennsylvania Dutch accents expound upon quilting techniques and tips on how to avoid tourists trying to take their photographs.

If you’ve seen Witness, you’ve seen half of what decent pop culture has to offer regarding the Amish. Devil’s Playground is the other half, and it’s illuminating cinema to say the least. It’s a documentary about the tradition of rumspringa, the time in an Amish teenager’s life when they are allowed to explore and experience the “English” world outside their insulated farming communities. The purpose of this is related to the old Anabaptist/Mennonite belief that a baby cannot be properly baptized. A person has to make a willful, adult decision to have communion with God, so the kids are allowed to see what their options are before being encouraged to return and focus on entering the community.

Devil’s Playground first outlines the basics of Amish Mennonite life, then follows around a handful of Amish kids on their rumspringa. During this time, wide-eyed kids go out to parties, dance and drink too much, drive around in cars, and sometimes take drugs. Very few decide that the outside life is for them, reflecting the high retention rate (between 80-90%) among the Amish denominations. Pretty awesome for a group who don’t include medicare or any government benefits whatsoever. The super-fast barn-raising thing, though… FEMA would’ve benefited from utilizing that sort of community work ethic.

Fig.2 Harrison Ford is too sexy for his pockets

The Amish don’t join the military, but they don’t apply for Social Security benefits either. No phones, electricity, or fancy clothes. They’re as “off the grid” as anyone can get. On the surface, the rules against things as banal as buttons seem odd, but what I found most appealing about the Amish is their sound reasoning behind everything they do or don’t do. Shirt pockets aren’t allowed because there’s the possibility you can put a flower or other pretty trinket in there, which can lead to pride. The ego-loathing Buddhist in me can’t argue with that logic.

Another thing is that they’re willing to make very small accommodations when new technology comes along. Gas-powered tilling machines, for example, are allowed in some Amish communities, but they’ll strip the wheels of the rubber tires because the rubber makes working the fields too easy and a sudden increase in ease could lead to laziness and lack of appreciation for hard work. They don’t have phones in their houses because it decreases sense of community by reducing face-to-face communication. Phones are also looked upon as an intrusion of the outside world, which interrupts daily life. I couldn’t agree with that one more. Being Amish is almost worth it not to have telemarketers call ten minutes into every DVD you start watching.

Those Amish DVD players, by the way, fueled by the alcohol they don’t drink.

Fig.3 Light switches: overrated

Technology jokes aside, the Amish have got it goin’ on. They are old school devoted Christians. They live the holy life to a T. You remember how they handled that schoolhouse shooting in Lancaster County in ‘06? They not only thought no ill of the guy who killed five of their young daughters and injured five more, they went to his home and comforted his widow and family. I bow to the Amish. They get it. They know how to live a life of purpose: to make the most awesome peanut butter pie on the planet. Okay, that’s not their entire life’s pursuit, but if you’ve ever been to Yoder’s restaurant in Sarasota, you might be convinced it is.

Fig.4 They do believe in watching cable

Whenever I see my father operate one of his numerous coffee machines, the bit of Amish in me rears its simple head. He has this one multi-purpose monster that makes lattes, espresso, and regular coffee, all through the inclusion of an extravagant quantity of little plastic “pods” filled with perfectly pre-measured coffee grounds and powdered milk. It’s fast and easy and looks so Star Trek-like with its futuristic minimum brain-power procedure. Juxtaposed against my old-school pour-boiling-water-into-a-cup-and-add-tea-leaves-and-wait-for-five-minutes breakfast ritual, his method of caffeine intake appears insanely wasteful. Tastes great, I’ll be the first to admit, but anti-Amish.

If we happen to be in the kitchen at the same time at the morning hour, I repeat my Amish-inspired mantra, “If it’s too easy, it’s not worth doing.”


Fig.5 True rebellion

This didn’t apply to my orchid-avoidance in my gardening activities, though. I wrote them off as too high-maintenance and I prefer the relatively well-adjusted African violets in my bathroom. That is, at least, until my sister gifted me three beautiful orchids that I have managed to care for so well that I coaxed a flower spike out of one of them in only five months. And guess what? It was totally worth it. I am addicted to the motherly kind of pride I get whenever a spike appears on one of my orchids, and witnessing the blooming bud weeks later is more sweet than the iced tea from Texan Wal-Marts.

Now I’m full of pride. Crap. I will make up for it by ridding myself of buttons.

We all take the rubber off our tractor wheels in our own ways—I make fancy tea the long way and my Dad prefers to sketch his interior design drawings by hand instead of with some expensive computer software—but we mostly leave the tires on in everyday situations. We’re Americans, after all. Not that the Amish aren’t Americans, but they may be too good at Christianity.