Muted.

Hi Wolfies!!! I almost bought an excellent fur blanket yesterday, like the one in this picture, but refrained. Needless to say though it made me think of you, as I do often.

The original Wolf Queen picture.

So Hubbs and I are getting all settled in. Sure, I still need an area rug for over there, and a floor lamp for over here, but all things considered we are feeling pretty much at home.
That does not mean, of course, that I am not still going to the wrong drawer to look for a chopping knife (I am going where the chopping knives were in our last kitchen), or to the wrong closet to look for a towel ( I am going where the towels were in our last hallway), or the wrong side of the bed at night (not really); slowly but surely though, I am finding my way through my new dwelling.
We are attempting to adjust to the new schedule of him going to work all day and not spending it with me (not fun), I am trying to find a routine in a schedule that isn't routine (hopefully it gets better), and I have about eight big projects I want to tackle and time only for maybe one. Or half of one. Blah.

But it will come.
And despite all the typical challenges that come with moving to a new city (finding the right stores, the right roads, the right knife drawer, etc) we really are so glad to be "home" and closer to all we know so well.
There have also been a couple really great little moments that stuck to my little soul lately.

Like a little Sunday afternoon tea and coffee service we had.

This little guy never ceases to thrill me.

The glory of summertime fruits.

Living rooms starting to look like home.

Feeling all Ina-Garten-ish and making her Roast Chicken.

No caption really needed for this one.

Hubbs and I went to Chicago this last weekend for a number of things, one of them being to see the excellent Chris Botti in concert. He is one of the world's best living trumpet players right now and since Hubbs is a trumpet player and I love all things jazz, it made perfect sense since we were in the city anyway.

I dislike cities, have I told you this? They make me feel claustrophobic, like I need to wash my hands, and very much like an imposter.
But Jesus is helping me with the last one.

Anywho, we were there and are so very glad we went as both of us agreed it was one of the best concerts we have ever been to. Which is saying something. We have been to a lot of concerts.

At one point he had this insanely good violinist join him and they played this song called Emmanuel.
A really moving tune, I leaned over to Hubbs half way through and said to him "Kind of interesting this song is called Emmanuel, isn't it?" (Watch it here--and I apologize for any nasty ad beforehand. They can be unacceptable.)
I don't believe Chris Botti is a Believer. He makes no mention of it, so I can assume. And I don't know if he wrote this song or not, I would assume not, but I still found it curious that, right there, in the middle of this grand musical display is a word that means "God with us." I think I wrote something entitled this at Christmas once and it is such a good thought. Wherever you are, in whatever circumstance you find yourself in, God is with you. "He is at your right hand" the Bible says (I wrote something about that, too. No surprise.).  Sitting right there, he was there, too. God with me. At my right hand. Listening to Chris Botti wail out "Emmanuel."

A neat reminder.

So trumpets have these things called Mutes, I guess (Hubbs told me). My favorite trumpet sound is when the bell has in it what is called a Harmon Mute. It's the classic jazz sound.
Listen to it here when he plays "Hallelujah."
And while I think it sounds so neat and chill and.......sultry, if I do say so myself, it absolutely IS muted. It doesn't have that glorious "brilliance" or "shine" as a trumpet can. It's not crisp, clear. It's blurry.
It's muted. So appropriately named.

And it made me think.

Romans 8 says that "All creation groans" because it was "subjected to frustration" at the Fall (verses 22 and 20), which would go to mean that THIS TRUMPET is just groaning. Not singing. Not jubilating. Not praising.
For as excellent as it sounds, and great at Chris Botti is, it is not what it could be. Isn't that mind blowing?

To make a connection.............it's muted.

It's a blurry picture.
There is something lost, something lacking.
All of it has been subjected to frustration.

Doesn't that make you homesick for what a SINGING trumpet will sound like? For how well a non-groaning instrument will sound?

And then it occurred to me. When Jesus comes back, he is coming with trumpets (I Thessalonians 4:16 and others)!! Not blurred trumpets, no way. Not groaning trumpets, not frustrated trumpets. But loud, brilliant, clear, tolling trumpets.
And what a jubilation that will be. Our ears will hear for the first time a sound that is not muted. The scales will have fallen.

But then it also occurred to me.

Our song will be the same as it was the other night. As it should be every day.

Just like how here on this earth "we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we will see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known" (I Corinthians 13:12), we sing our songs to the Lord in part. We only know the half of it.
Here I sing and I write about Hallelujah.
I sing and I talk about God Being With Us.

But I sing and I talk and I write and I know all muted. In part. Those things are entities that, I pray, glorifies God to the best of it's ability, but it is not brilliant yet. It does not shine as it will, it is not yet fully glorified as it will be.

But my song will be the same.
I will sing with no muting doubts. No fears that blur. No distortions that cast a shadow.

And then I will know it's truth in full.
I will see clearly it's Emmanuel.
I will sing unmuted it's Hallelujah.

I won't see them again.

So, I have been busy.

This whole gang came.

A designer in 5 Month City contacted me and wanted me to know if I could fill in while she was on maternity leave. And she makes stuff like this:

So yes. Yes I could fill in for her. Obviously. Look at those sweet poof things.

I have had a number of calls about weddings this. So collections like this have been taking place more and more frequently:

The zoo also had a baby:

You know that line from Dispicable Me when the little girls wins that stuffed animal at the carnival and says "It's so fluffy I could die!!!!"

Well that was me.

Except it was a baby elephant.

And in stead of saying "fluffy" I inserted "already wrinkly."

But the excitement was the same.

Seriously, it was the cutest baby I have ever seen and I pretty much lost my mind.

He even was taking his little trunk, filling it up with water, and spraying himself.

Slay me.

And then two days later, this happened:

Hubbs and I loaded almost all of our earthly possessions into a UHaul and left 5 Month City.

What a strange feeling it is to put your stuff in a box. It makes me wonder what really life is made up of.

Despite the fact that 5 Month City was not very nice to us, and it was not a place we felt particularly drawn to, as we were going through the packing process we both had our moments of sadness.

This was our first house together. This was our first city we lived in together. This was a place where we were together literally 24/7 and didn't get sick of each other. Be what the city itself may, we had created some semblance of a life there.

Yes, we wanted to leave, yes we are so happy to be back, yes the grocery stores here are nothing short of miraculous and I ordered meat at the butcher yesterday for probably twenty minutes, we still had to do our share of saying goodbye to 5 Month City. We even both might have had a few melancholy moments.

Leaving some place makes you take stock and sum up all the experiences you now call yours.

And I couldn't stop thinking about this one experience specifically.

It was a typical Monday. I had gone grocery shopping, I had gone to WalMart, I had had numerous typical unnerving experiences at both places.

Much like Jo in Little Women when she is asked to go visit friends with her sister, ("Come, Jo, it's time."

"For what?"

"You don't mean to say you have forgotten that you promised to make half a dozen calls with me today?"

"I've done a good many rash and foolish things in my life, but I don't think I ever was mad enough to say I'd make six calls in one day, when a single one upsets me for a week.")

I feel that way about shopping. Especially in 5 Month City. I had already gone to TWO stores, not one, (and a single store upsets me all week), and was "ready to get home" as one might casually say.

Zipping down The Pothole Road, I really was almost to my road, when out of the corner of my eye I see two women at a bus-stop, one of them flat on her back and the other standing over her.

And it wasn't like she was taking a nap. That was obvious.

Feeling certain they were in trouble I whipped my car around, delaying my longed-for return home.

"Are you alright?!?!" I said immediately as I pulled up.

"I don't know! I think she is having a panic attack!"

There she lay on the ground, almost convulsing, uncontrollably sobbing, hyperventilating, and overall out of it.

What is a girl to do?! I called someone I know who has dealt with this issue in the past and she walked me through how I could help.

Breathing exercising, supporting their weight, reassuring them, telling them it's ok to feel how they are feeling, etc.

I sat there with them for about twenty minutes and we got the woman calmed down enough to sit up and be able to tell us how she was feeling.

They told me that they were a "couple" and their names were Beth and Madalyn, and we made small talk and self-help talk as best we could in a situation like this.

Seeing as they were at a bus stop they didn't have a car, so when Madalyn mentioned she wanted to go to the hospital, I knew I was the one to do it.

I called Hubbs and had his come down, pick us up, and take us.

They were so thankful, we told them about ourselves, what we were doing in 5 Month City, what we had done the day before for Easter.

They were not religious, so they had gone to one of those all you can eat Buffet places.

We helped her into a wheelchair at the ER and sent them in.

And then we drove home.

From that point on every time I drove by that bus stop I looked to see if they were there.

They weren't.

For weeks after I couldn't stop thinking about them. How different their lives were from mine. What their stories might be that had led them to that lifestyle. What background things brought on the attack. Why did no one else stop. Thanking the Lord that I listened to him and went back.

And then we started packing up our houses. And it really hit me: I will never see them again.

God placed me there for that time, to come into their life during that need.

To be a breathing coach.

To let them know they weren't alone.

To give them a ride to the hospital.

To tell them we were praying for them. And we are.

We left 5 Month City early in the morning and as I drove past I looked at that empty bus stop. Remembering the day I wanted to get home and God wanted me to stay. To be a tangible force in their life for good.

I won't ever see them again. I won't ever know how their story ends. I won't ever know how their story started.

But God does.

Jesus saw them born. He will see them die. He saw them in their panic and sent me.

He knows. He loves. He cares. For two women so far away from him. For two women with deep seeded need and pain.

And so I trust. I trust that he has seen them their whole life. And he will continue to. Whether I continue to drive by that bus stop in 5 Month City anymore or not.

Because I am not.

Idle

I made a kimono this week.
A sweet and stylish Jesus-loving friend of mine who has got the cutest little babes in the world posted a picture of herself and some gal pals while wearing this sensational little floral jacket number. In simply having to ask her where she procured it she told me it was indeed a "kimono" not a jacket and went on to mention the store.
Not one much for shopping, I thought "I bet there is a sewing blog that can tell me how to make it" and sure enough, Pinterest led me to the great treasure trove as it has a tendency of doing.
Immediately upon finding the pattern, and I mean immediately, I left the house and zipped off to the closest fabric store. To my elation, I walked in to find sale tables brimming with the kind of fabric I needed! Hurray and Huzzah and Hallelujah! Now to pick which pattern and color! Typically one given to patterns like...black, and colors like....black, I did away with "typical" and decided that I really do probably need more color in my life and settled upon something paisley, 70's-ish, and done up in red tones. I am also not typically one much for red in my clothes either, but I really liked the muted backside of the fabric and decided I would make the thing wrong-side-out. Because I do things like that: make things backwards.

Delightful. $6 worth of soon-to-be-kimono-fabric and utterly delightful.

Zipping back home then I immediately set to work. And I mean immediately.

I love projects. Have I told you that? ;)

Hubbs keeps remarking how I really wasn't lying the whole time we dated when I said "I love projects," and is now always saying to me, "I think it's so neat how you always have a project going..."

Isn't he just the best?! (yes.)

And here is said 70's-ish kimono:

I was talking to another very dear friend the other day, who also has the cutest little babes in the world, and she was asking what I had been up to lately.
"Oh...just the usual, I suppose. Reupholstering chairs; I refinished a couple tables over the last few weeks. I just read this nuts-o book about climbing K2 so now Hubbs and I can't stop watching YouTube documentaries on mountaineering. Let's see, what else....well, I really am getting into this whole bread making thing....um....AND MY PLANTS!! I have started all these seeds so I am tending to them and it's a great joy! Oh, I decided to take some classes, too, and I am working on a couple headpieces and am really enjoying making Asian food lately. And then I just started Teddy Roosevelt's autobiography and this whole book on the brief republic that pirates had in their hey-day......blah blah blah...." I kept rattling.

"Wow, B. That's a lot you have going on," she said.

Well. I suppose.

I was thinking more about what she said a couple days later, about how I have a lot going on, and I thought to myself, "Well, what else would I be doing?! I can't be on Pinterest collecting ideas ALL DAY...."
And then I pondered some more. Much like Winnie the Pooh would ponder....

Why is it that I have so much going on?!

I guess it's because I figure that right now I don't work outside the home. Right now I don't have children. Right now, in 5 Month City, I don't know anyone. Right now there are projects to be had.
And right now this time is fleeting.

I told my friend after she commented on my busyness, "Well, I look at my life with all this open time, and if two years from now I look back and have nothing to show for all this free time, then I pretty much fail at life and being responsible. I mean, I won't ever get this time back. So I better have a whole trove of things to show for it."

And I believe it. Probably never again will I have time like this on my hands with no demands made upon except things like Hubbs and I should probably eat today so I will have to cook at some point.

This all had strolled back and forth through my brain over the course of the last few weeks and then it flared up again when I was immediately making my kimono.

At the juncture of all of these thoughts and things I was in my devotions in I Thessalonians and I came to the verse in chapter 4 that reads: "Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands just as we told you." (verse 11)

I have had a box drawn around this verse since I was probably 14 years old. Most likely due to my growing up with the Amish (which you now know about) and my burning love of pioneers and all things Laura Ingalls Wilder, I have always thought that quiet lives are better than loud ones. The loud ones pass away, and pass away quickly at that, but things with less pomp and circumstance are better. As Doug Wilson would say about modern trends and policies that have no Biblical glory in themselves, "they are lame, they need everyone to applaud enthusiastically. This is the only way to compensate for being so lame."
My thoughts exactly.
Trendy is lame. And a quiet life that honors the Lord is not trendy.
So the box around this verse remains.

I was thinking about this and thought I should look up the words in the Greek. Because I am a wannabe aspiring philologist like that.

In my study I came across that those people in Thessaloniki were given to idleness because they thought that Jesus was going to come back at the end of the week and they didn't have time to spend on daily life. Basically. So Paul needed to set them aright.

In Greek, then, the definition for this "quiet life" says, "To be still. At rest, not running hither and thither. The manifestation of a quiet, in awe spirit and mind."

WOW!! Isn't that so neat?! So it's not just "not flashy," there is something more to it. It's a life of deep and profound peace. A life that has been quieted by the grace and sovereignty of God, for what else has the power to still?

And then for kicks and giggles I thought, "I wonder what the definition for 'hands' is?"
:)

It reads: "The instrument one uses to accomplish his purposes."



Whoa.

Babies.

This verse says a lot.



While I would like to think that I have always had a good handle on not letting myself be idle with my time (hence my cache of projects to show), this verse begs a couple further questions: Is my life a manifestation of a quiet, in awe spirit and mind?
But, and maybe more telling, does my time have PURPOSE that I am intentionally fulfilling with the work that goes through my hands?

Look at that definition of hands once again:
"The instrument one uses to accomplish his purposes."

Everyone has a purpose for what they do, of this I am convinced.

But do you KNOW yours?

Are you spending your time on purpose? Like, is there a goal you are trekking towards that is determining whether you do one thing with your time or don't do it?
In all your coming and going---or all of your NOT coming and going (if your life is quiet)--- does what you're doing have a meaning? Or is it just lame, too? With no glory, as Wilson would ask (things that do not carry a God-given glory are lame in his thinking.... for if it does not glorify, then what can it be doing?)

When was the last time you took a really good stock of your life? Looked at all your activities and asked "But WHY am I doing this?! WHY am I putting my family through this? WHY are we getting in the car AGAIN???" Is it accomplishing what I want to be accomplished?

Sometimes I go through the day almost mindlessly, I am shamed to admit. I get up, make breakfast, we drink our tea and coffee, I do my quiet time, and then I fill in the space with the current projects before I start into dinner prep.
But do I KNOW WHY I am making that cup of tea? Why I am prepping that dinner? Is there any reason behind it, or do I just do it? Because I think it's what you need to do?

How about you?
Are you running here and there because you think it's what the world wants from you?
Because you are afraid of what the alternative is?

Like silence.

And quiet.

And not being busy.

And having a second to breathe and thank the Lord.

And having a better, and I will go so far as to add, a counter-cultural, reason to make dinner than well-we-have-to-eat-today-sometime. But rather an "I am making dinner to be a good steward of what God has given us and to provide for my family the tangible reminder that Jesus provides for us by giving us this bounty we eat every day." Or "Because some of the greatest human connection happens around a dinner table, with people sharing a common meal....which is sharing a common grace, which is blessing the name of the Lord."

And having a better reason to go to work (because we do all our work as unto the Lord).

And having a better reason to talk to your neighbor (because we believe that we have never met a mere mortal).

And having a better reason to stay home (because the people who live inside your house are your closest "neighbors" you have been commanded to love well).

Are we afraid of all of these things? Thinking maybe we might receive the scorn of a world who does not understand a stilled and quieted heart and life.


I saw this on Pinterest a while back and was struck.

Isn't this so revealing?
Because it's absolutely the truth.


It's a thought, Wolfies.
What are we using our time for?
And what are the purposes we are accomplishing with our hands?

Love you. Happy Sunday.

Amish don't apologize {Part III}

Every year in the Fall I always get a hankering to read an Amish novel series, typically the ones by Beverly Lewis, but that's neither here nor there. It makes me feel all warm and toasty and homey, much like a really great thick sweater does.
Why I have been thinking Amish things (albeit not reading Amish novels) this spring then is beyond me, since it is so out of seasonal character.
Maybe it's because 5 Month City is so far away from the little Amish hamlet I grew up in. Maybe it's because I am getting cynical about the world and want to hide. Or maybe it's because I think they are on to something. Not everything, mind you, but something.
Now, one thing that has to be said is that Amish are not necessarily Christians. Sure, the Bible would be their holy book if asked, but they have a tendency to be governed by things other than the Holy Spirit and the Word of God (money, traditions, peer pressure, respect of elders, and the like). It's true, my family has known some Amish that are sincere Believers, but for the majority---at least from what we know based on all of our interactions and conversations with them---this, sadly, is not the case.
Jonas and his family, for instance, wonderful salt-of-the-earth people, but not Believers.
That being said, I still think they are on to something.
Or maybe the more accurate thing to say would be, I think they are a good visual aid for something.

The other week I was reading my devotions in Hebrews and came across a familiar passage with a now-new thought for me. Hubbs and I have recently been commenting about how our lifestyle is seemingly becoming more and more counter-cultural. We don't mind this at all, as neither of us care much about the opinion of others if we feel like we are walking in the ways of the Lord, but have just been aptly observing and surmising from interactions we have had with folks lately. Ergo, when I came to this Hebrews passage I felt it was all too apropos.

"And they admitted that they were aliens and strangers on earth." (Hebrews 11:13b)

Think about that. That can be a tough admission. It, by nature, makes you admit you are at odds with the world; in a separate camp from those who gladly make their home here. From the "natives."

I don't know if you have spent any time outside of the country (or even in different regions in this country), but there are some places in particular that when you are there it is obvious to everyone involved that someone in the group is a foreigner.....and it's not them. To use the cliche, you stick out like a sore thumb. You feel like you are an intruder, and they all know it to be the case.

I think that's what this verse is getting at. When you admit you are a stranger and, as some translations say "foreigner," it is an immediate claim that you do not do things the way those surrounding you do. You are, with no other options available to you, different. Weird. Strange.

So basically like the Amish. They are strange according to worldly standards.

However. And this is where the difference, unfortunately, comes in.
Amish don't mind. American Christians seem to mind.

Have you noticed it? More and more I see how we don't look any different from the world. We don't act differently, we don't speak differently, we don't entertain ourselves differently, we don't think about time and talents and money and possessions and jobs differently. By all observable standards WE ARE THE SAME.

But what about this big call on my life to be "In the world, but not of it"? I asked myself that morning as I was sipping my decaf and wondering what the sum of my life is. How can I be in this world--- BUT NOT OF IT? How can I stop from looking the same as those who do not claim to know Christ personally?

So basically how can I be more Amish? Without of course being Amish?

The issue comes, though, in that Amish are not in the world hardly at all. And primarily due to their choosing, although it can't go without being said that the world (or at least the town where I am from) doesn't really want them there either. It's like the Amish make them uncomfortable.
But imagine if you can what it would be like if the Amish DID try to be a part of the world. If they remained exactly as they were, strange, foreign, and with a completely different worldview, but tried to live in the world up to the extent that their way of life let them. Just mingling with the natives, yet being nothing like the natives.

It begs the question. Would the natives accept them? Would they let them continue to be as they are while still doing business and rubbing shoulders ?

In all honesty, that does not seem likely. Being different is not a highly accepted form of existence.
And this I think is where the rub comes in. Christians, by Biblical definition, ARE different. We are called to different lifestyles-- ones of holiness and purity, we are called to different attitudes-- ones of joy and thankfulness and hope, we are called to view earthly treasures and possessions differently--with contentment and generosity. I could go on and on. In view of the Word of God, there is not much we are to do that looks like how the world does the same thing.
But the world does not accept us to let us be like that. They are fine with us in the world, so long as we are of it. They are fine that we are with them, so long as we conform to the patterns they have set forth. They don't mind us, so long as we stop being so strange. So foreign. So very different.

Which is no problem of theirs.
I have no interest in changing the world's thoughts about me. My interest is in changing their thoughts about Jesus and his Word.
My real concern then can only be with the family of God.

We have been called by a saving grace and to a very different lifestyle. Something that should look almost "Amish" according to the worlds standards it is so strange.
And so we get our lives on track with the Lord, head on out into the world so we can be in it while trying not to be of it, but then at the first sight of the world going "We don't like how you do things differently than us," rather than us responding with "That's ok, I don't need your approval to be a Christian" (Galatians 1:10) we start saying "Oh my! You don't like how we do things?!?! Oh! Ok! Which conviction and command by God upon my life would you like me to change to make you feel more comfortable??!?!!!" and therefore conform to "the pattern of this world."

Listen, I am not by any means saying that we should throw all niceties to the wind. Even though I say I love a good conflict, I really would rather not have one. And I firmly believe in what Hebrews says just one chapter later: "Make every effort to live in peace with all men and to be holy." The trouble is, I believe in both of those commands. The peace and the holiness. And whichever way you slice it, an unholy world does not like holiness-seeking people.
 I also confirm what Romans 12 says when it admonishes "If it is possible, as far as it is up to you, live at peace with everyone." This denotes the great chasm, though: Sometimes, it is just not up to us. No matter how much effort we exert they do not want our peace if it involves us not changing our positions and world views. As I Peter 4:4 says, "They think it strange that you do not plunge with them into the same flood of dissipation, and they heap abuse on you."
The darkness hates the light. It cannot comprehend it (John 1:5). It could not thousands of years ago, it still cannot today.

And this is what I love about the Amish. They are so strange. Really, truly, unlike anything else in this country, this society.
Yet---and this is the visual aid----, strange as they absolutely are, they never apologize. Amish don't ever try to change how they live because of what WE, the "Englishers," think about them. You could tell Jonas and his family that you don't like how they live. That how they view the world and what they believe offends you. And you know what? They wouldn't care. And they most certainly would not apologize to you. After all, why would they? They never agreed to meet your standards, so they will not make amends when they miss your mark.

Wolfies , we are called to be respecters of persons, for all "persons"  are made in the image of the God we say 'Yes' to.  We are called, as far as it is up to us, to live at peace, but we are called, above all else, to be holy. Set apart. Sanctified. A people reserved for God. In this world, but so very not of it. Strange. Foreign.
And, even when abused for the sake of Christ and his gospel,  unapologetic. It would be one thing if we were Amish and our rules and codes of conduct were man-made , but ours are not. We are not the King, just the King's messengers. May we never apologize for the claims and call of Christ upon our lives.

Amish don't apologize {Part II}

....Continued.

Years ago, when I was in high school, the season of Autumn arrived, as is typical for it to do. And Autumn, being a particularly lovely season in our neck of the woods, being particularly resplendent with deep colors and perfectly crisp air, has always been what I would consider to be a particularly good time for a wedding (yes, I intended to use "particularly" three times in a one sentence).
My young Amish neighbor apparently thought so too.

She....we will call her Edna....had been engaged to a man with a cheerful disposition for a while, but as is their custom it only became public knowledge two weeks before when they got "announced" at church.
Wedding prep is a flurry in those two weeks. Friends and relations from literally all over the country make arrangements to halt their life and travel in, all the preparations that have to be done in broad daylight have to be arranged, and goodness sakes is there ever a larger amount of food to make...
Weddings are a BIG DEAL to Amish. This is where you meet potential future spouses, this is where you see family and friends you haven't seen since the last wedding, this is where you get caught up on everyone's life in more detail that what you put into a hand-written letter. It truly is a central feature to their social life, and unlike typical American culture, the men love weddings just as much as the girls do.

But cooking for a crowd as big as a wedding affords poses a problem when you are doing it in a house without refrigeration. In October most things can just be kept out in the cooled-by-autumn-air porch.... but what about all that MEAT?

That is something English-speaking neighbors come in handy for.

Our neighbors further down the road were happy to lend them their spare freezer and they piled and piled and piled in something like 100+ pounds of chicken.

The night before the wedding Jonas, along with two cousins who traveled in from Ohio, went to get the chicken from the neighbor, and on their way home stopped in to hang out with us for a while. Jonas said that he wanted us to meet his cousins, but whether or not that was true, and whether or not that was actually just a ruse so his cousins to see our house and drink our orange pop is neither here nor there.
I remember sitting and talking and having a fun little time like usual with them. Amish or not, 20 year old men are just 20 year old men, with the only exceptions being that a 20 year old Amish man quite potentially is married, has his own business, knows how to build a house with his bare hands from the ground up, can speak and write at least two languages fluently, has a bowl-cut haircut, writes in beautiful cursive much like the forefathers of America, and is essentially an expert in all things equestrian. But besides that, nothing much is different. :) So we had conversation like anyone would have conversation with 20 year old men.

I suppose they left our house around 10 that night and we didn't think much of it. I got ready for bed as usual, and had just retired to my room with a novel when knock-knock-knock, my mother comes to my door.
"Are you up for an adventure?" she asks.
Never one to turn down a closing-in-on-midnight escapade, I responded with a hearty affirmation and got myself redressed.
Upon entering the kitchen I was met by my mother, now also dressed, who said, "Well, the horse has run away.."
"What horse?"
"Jonas' horse. The one that was tied to our house while he was in here with us. The one that is carrying 100 pounds of chicken in the buggy strapped to it for the wedding in the morning....!"
"OH. MY. WORD."
Amish weddings without protein are not to be borne!!

Jonas returned with his cousins, as well as their fathers this time, and we decided that I would take Jonas and two of the cousins in my car, mom would take the dads and a cousin in her van, and off we went; like a fleet of rescue ships in the night.

Not knowing which way the horse had retreated, mom went one way with her troupe and I went the other, declaring the wedding site as our next meeting spot.

Now, despite the fact that the entire wedding meal for 300+ people was hanging in the balance on our Christopher Columbus skills did not seem to dampen our spirits. Even if the stakes are high, chasing a fleeing horse in the midnight hour with a car full of Amish boys and galavanting around the country-side can only be something that elicits quite the blithe set of emotions. We were all in something of a fuss.

On we gaily travelled, turning into every field driveway we came across and scanning the earth with my headlights, surveying every security-light lit yard,  and chattering to each other in a cacophony of English and Pennsylvania Dutch, blending together like the proverbial oil and water, until I yelled to be heard "HEY NOW!!! If we are in my car, we speak English, because I know you boys are talking about me!!!" which was met by an even louder chorus of hoops and hollers and whatever the 20-year-old-Amish-boy equivalent to giggling is.

Onward still, ahead into the night we progressed. With no avail of finding the runaway horse with a buggy full of chicken, we came to the home where the wedding festivities were taking place in something less than 12 hours. Now this "driving in the driveway" business might not come across as a strange feat to you, but how often do you think that, not one, but two cars with bright shining headlights drive down a long Amish lane at midnight?!
Exactly.
Strange as it might seem in our hypersonic society, this was not something that goes unnoticed and was most definitely something you write home about, all the more clearly evidenced by every window pane being filled with at least three sleepy Amish heads peering out to see who had come for an ill-timed visit.
The boys rushed the house in a flurry of denim and straw hats to be met by kerosene lanterns now illuminating every crook and cranny of the large abode. Not two minutes later my boys emerge with more flashlights....and more Amish boys.
Everybody wanted in on the midnight foray.

Exceeding the seatbelt limits of my car, into my Dodge stratus now piled two more 20-somethings, making us a hunting party of 6.

The buzz in the vehicle now would have exceeded any hive and I had to lay down my English-only law again in almost no time at all. Do you know how hard it is the understand a punch line when it's said in Pennsylvania Dutch?!!! I would not accept to be left out of all the good jokes.

In a blaze of red tail lights we zipped out of the yard, heading for another place the horse might have known to go, still surveying the land for our runner.

But how had the horse gotten UNTIED I kept wondering? It all seems to me that something was smelling a little fishy...

At last we come to Jonas' best friends' house, thinking that maybe the horse knew to go there because it had been so many time, and to our delight as my headlights scanned the yard..............there was the horse!!!

And there was the buggy!

 And there was the chicken!!!




All of them nicely tied up to a post.



WAIT.

What?!?!

Tied up???



:)


It would seem we all had fallen for quite the practical joke.


I don't know that stealing a buggy could quite be considered Grand Theft Auto, but it seemed to me from that point on that I really was right about all these boys. Amish or not, bowl-cut haircut or not, strange accent or not, a 20 year old boy.....is a 20 year old boy.

Amish don't apologize {Part One}

I'm pretty sure I have told you that I spent the majority of my life living in an Amish community.

No. Of course I was not Amish.

Do I look Amish?

I never thought I looked Amish, but maybe I have been sorely mistaken all these years...

Anyway, I think it's time that I tell you one of my favorite stories about life in the midst of them.

But first, a little background. I have three older brothers and when the youngest of them went to college I thought my dad might go into permanent hibernation, seeing as now for the first time in 24+ years he was a in a house that was by population now dominated by women and not men. We can only imagine it must have been quite the adjustment.

To his elation, this predicament lasted only about two weeks.

Now, less than half a mile down the road from my parents'  home is an Amish farmstead. All through my childhood years it had been residence to a quintessential Amish family, straw hats and horse & buggy and all the trappings, whose first names may or may not have been Benji and Fanny, and they may or may not have had a son named Benedict. How perfect.
The last handful of years, however, their house had sat empty, because they had moved to Missouri.

I should also mention that the community I grew up in the midst of was not a modern Amish community. They were not "new order" Amish, but "old order." They didn't wear light colors, they had very distinct looking hats and capps (what the women wear) and buggies. No running water in their homes. No electricity. These were not your tourist Amish. They were not either, however, the Amish you see plaguing TLC or Dateline. In my personal opinion, Amish like that are definitely not the norm, New Order OR Old Order. It's like most things, Wolfies, don't believe everything you see.

But in spite of their being an exceptionally conservative and private sect, my parents had somehow gotten to be in good standing with their community. My  mom would drive them places when I was a kid, all of us packed into her van like sardines and me and my brothers turning green over their lack of soap and deodorant use. Sometimes on blustery cold winter mornings if we were out and saw the little children walking to school in the frigid temps we would give them rides. We would let them use our telephone for nothing, even though after the passing of a few calls here and there we were gifted with a pie. We were VIP customers to their Christmas candy stands every winter, knowing which shops to pass over because their candies tasted like kerosene and which ones were safe to take to our fancy city Christmas parties.
So maybe things like that is what gave us our good name with these people. I really do think, though, it was because we treated them like people and not like aliens, which is how a lot of people in our area treated them. We accepted them for what they were and built as much of a relationship with them as they would allow.

Ok, that's the history.

So sure enough, fast forward to two weeks after my brother moves out when, right before our eyes, a semi pulls into the neighboring yard one Saturday and out comes a small troupe of Amish we had never met before. Not from the area, they moved to our community because two of their daughters had married men from our community and moved here. So the rest of the family moved, too.
But this family was small and that was unusual to say the least when the average Amish going rate was somewhere north of ten, and somewhere south of 17. What was also unusual was that there was no father. Apparently the dad had left the family to become....one of us.... an "Englisher" as they say. And so as it stood there was a single mother, a daughter (about 24 yrs old), and.....(drum roll please)....a son!!! There was another man in the neighborhood! At about twenty years old, he would definitely fit the bill for the vacant male spot in my dad's life and in virtually no time he became what we started to call "the fourth son."

We will call him Jonas.

And Jonas was different. Not like most Amish boys that we knew. He was not a a head-nodder; one who followed their rules without questioning them. So maybe he was a kindred spirit to us and that's why we all hit it off so well. Oh he didn't do anything bad, don't go thinking that. For instance. He showed up at my house one day not long after they moved in and asked if we had a DVD player. "HOW IN THE WORLD DOES HE KNOW WHAT A DVD PLAYER IS???" my mom and I asked each other after we showed him to our movie room. But the truth was that we did and we didn't think it was a sin for him to use it. After all, it wasn't like he was watching some R-rated nastiness, he was watching an instructional video that came with the deer stand he just bought.

And then there was the time that he came over and asked if he could ever ride one of our bikes....under the cover of darkness, that is. He would return it right to where he had found it, he promised. And so we let him. Sure enough, he returned it, just as he had said. So we kept letting him. Or then there was the time(s) when he and a couple buddies came over and drank orange soda and ate the frozen pizza we made for them while they watched the 1997 comedy For Richer or Poorer, which hilariously depicts what might happen if two Manhattan-ite millionaires evade their taxes and flee to an Amish community to hide. And then there was the time when he and his sister and her fiancé came over and we all played a roaring good card game of Dutch Blitz.
Naturally then, we kept letting Jonas and his friends come over to our house to do these kinds of things because
A. We didn't think they were bad things.
B. We figured they would end up probably staying Amish and not turning into some runaway horror story if they had the ability to "rebel" in our house (i.e. orange pop, bike rides, deer hunting instructional videos, John Wayne movies, non-gambling card games, and the occasional Tim Allen comedy). And
C. My dad said, "Listen, our society would be a lot better if the worst thing our rebels did was ride bikes after dark..."

So we got to know a whole bevy of Amish boys and it made for many an entertaining evening.

But I think my very favorite story......

Will have to be continued.....

Divisions.

I sat at my computer and cried.
A while back a distant acquaintance of mine posted something to social media, claiming it was detestable, and I read it and, rather than thinking it detestable was so happy I said, "Praise the Lord!"
Some time later, still apparently in the throes of anger that had flared in them due to said post, they made a comment saying that if anyone did not feel their sentiments towards what they had posted that they could count their friendship over. Finito. Done-zo. They were not going to associate anymore with anyone who disagreed with them.

My heart sank.

That would mean me.

I was tempted to send them an email saying that, while I did agree with what they had posted, I would be heartbroken to know that some issue like THAT would make them want to cut off our relationship.
I reconsidered, wondered what the benefit of an email like that would be, suspecting that I would be fanning the flame of their in-vogue wrath all the more, once and for all sealing any kind of good standing or voice into their life I may ever have in the future.
I pronounced then to myself that if the relationship, indeed, was going to be fractured, that I would not be the one casting the final stone. If they wanted it broken, then they were going to have to be the one to break it.

Regardless, I still sat at my computer and cried.
I pondered the vehemence of their words. The frenzied fierceness I knew blazed in their eyes based on what I saw written in their typed words. How could it get to this, I queried.
We had grown up together in a sense. Family friends that lived a long ways away, we still would have the occasional summer weekend together at some middle point between the family homes, I always felt like we were on pretty good terms. Never would I have called us friends now, but never would I have called us enemies, either. When we were children we were closer, but then you know, when you don't live by each other, and when I spent my growing up years in a Believing home and they did not, a divide, no matter how amiable our childhood play times may have been, inevitably came. Somewhere along the way we spent that occassional summer weekend, even though in the same house, in isolation of each other. Our lives no longer overlapped and so our paths eventually stopped crossing.
We were always distant after that, something that grieved my heart both as a child when it first happened and now still, I realized, as an adult. But to be honest I hadn't thought much about it for a long time until I saw that post.

How had it gotten that far, I kept asking myself.
A few days later I was watching something, my mind still plagued by what had happened, and it brought to light the fact that sin divides. The devil wants nothing more than to separate people.

And he always uses sin, for what other tool does he have in his arsenal?

In the case of me and this acquaintance, I could see that our division came all those years ago due to this very thing. As a born-again Christian I was seeking different things from life than they were. I was trying desperately to run away from all of my sins, daily asking the Lord to bury them with him so that he might raise me to new life in him every day, and they did not self-nominate as knowing the Lord. It was the classic example of "The closer you get to Christ, the less like the world you become."
Our stances on sin, it seemed, had divided us.

Jesus talks about this very thing in Mark 3 where he says "If a house is divided against itself, that house cannot stand" (verse 25). Jesus is clearly pointing out that the enemy's Mode #1 for taking territory is Divide and Conquer; nothing with a sandy foundation can stand against the world, the flesh, and the devil's tempestuous winds (Matthew 7:26-27 & I John 2:15), and so we live in a world of broken, conquered people.

I think I was crying that day because I could see it. In those words on that screen I could see the fire that blazed out of hollow, broken eyes. This acquaintance of mine does not believe in the Lord of the Bible (their own admission, not mine), and therefore the only natural outcome of that can be that they don't know the peace he gives that is unlike anything else, the comfort from his love or the fellowship with his spirit that brings meaning to all our situations, the joy of knowing that all our days are written and are in his hands, and that he will make all things right and bring true justice to all.  If "The eye is the lamp of the body...." (Matthew 6:22) as Jesus says, then that day I could see into those blazing eyes, and there was nothing but emptiness behind the fire. Their words on the screen a plea with the world that they had a voice, too; that they did indeed have vindication, is what their desire was.
But it seems they are seeking those things from a world that cannot give it.

And so I wept. I wept over the path of destruction they are following in because it's the trendy path to follow these days. I wept for the emptiness I knew premeditated their biting words. I wept for a heart that did not yet know what it's like to be turned into beating flesh. I wept for their admission that they want no relationships in their life of people that don't agree with them; for the narrow world view that demands that.
And strangely, I wept for me, too. I know, I know, it sounds selfish.
But, and much as is the trend these days, their opinions are the norm. What they think is detestable I think is a "Praise the Lord," and what they think it a good feat for civilization breaks my heart because I believe the Bible says that it breaks His, too.
So in a way I was crying for myself, because I know that in the days ahead I will have fewer and fewer companions on my journey Home. I will have attacks on all sides. Not that I am surprised by this. The words of Jesus have always been true: "In this world you will have trouble, but take heart! For I have overcome the world," (John 16:33) and "Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn 'a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's enemies will be the members of his own household.'" Jesus did not come to bring peace like they wanted (governmental peace that would overthrow the Romans); he brought a different peace. He knew that his words were divisive; what he asks of us some cannot give, much like the Rich Young Ruler who walked away because he could not accept what Jesus had said.
What Jesus has called his people to do has always been hard and it has always been divisive, in that it separates his chosen ones from the World (I Cor. 1:18). We are a people who do not serve two Masters (Luke 16:13) and therefore, we are alienated from the servants of the other master (Romans 6:15-23).
So I am not surprised by the events and trends of a post-modern culture. It just saddens me. If I didn't trust the Lord it would make me fearful; but I will choose to not be anxious. God is still God and he is still on his throne.

In a way it felt like they were persecuting me, even though of course they are unaware that they were. And it made me think about all those times in Acts where the disciples and apostles were flogged and imprisoned and beaten, and they always went away rejoicing that they could be persecuted for the name of Christ. I would hope that if a day like that were ever to come for me that I, too, would end in rejoicing, but I wonder about the other emotional response to persecution; the one I kind of felt like I was having. What about, like Stephen.....like Jesus.....when you look at your persecutors and those who agree with them and say, "Forgive them Lord, for the know not what the do"?

It must be both. Surely it must be both.

And so I encourage you, dear Wolfies, as you face trials of various kinds, do not let your hearts be troubled; but rather, in a spirit of thankfulness that you are a people approved by God and entrusted with the gospel (I Thess. 2:4) and will therefore suffer like him, give all your praise unto the Lord. And pray for your enemies. Or distant acquaintances. Or un-believing spouses. Or close relatives. Or wayward children. Or your sweet as a Georgia peach but still unregenerate neighbor: They know not what they do.