I'm enjoying reading Plain and Simple. A Woman's Journey to the Amish by Sue Bender. I love quilts and like the writer was thrilled when I first came across the old Amish quilts and wanted to know more about the women who made them. The picture is of an Amish quilt I own, though sadly I know nothing of its history.
The Amish people live very simply, eschewing modern technology, including cars and electricity.
What, I wonder, becomes of those Amish who are intellectually curious, restless, creative, competitive even? There is scope within their lives to be all these things - except perhaps competitive - but only within very limiting and very strictly enforced constraints. I imagine that we can't all find contentment in simple things. Even if we are told that it is right, and is the will of God. Some Amish leave, some are shunned.
But their belief in a simple life, their unhurried pace, their conviction that they are but custodians of the land they farm so sustainably, and the support that they give each other are very attractive.
'I who worked hard at being special fell in love with a people who valued being ordinary.' says Sue Bender. She writes with clarity and honesty, and hers is an unusual perspective. A book to be read, and reread....
RSS Feed
