Uncovered: Life Beyond
Join the conversations of Rebecca and Naomi, two ex-Amish Mennonite women who jumped the proverbial fence in their younger years and later experienced college as first-gen, non-traditional students. They discuss pursuing formal education while raising a family, navigating the hidden curriculum of academia, and other dimensions of reimagining a life beyond high-demand religion. Send your questions to uncoveredlifebeyond@gmail.com.
Uncovered: Life Beyond
18. Cousin Weekend In Review: Processing the Past to Understand the Present
Listen in as Rebecca and Naomi rehash a weekend last fall with a few far-flung cousins where the coffee and conversation flowed freely.
Items mentioned in the show:
- Help plan future episodes! Click this link to Vote for Upcoming Topics
- Behalt: Amish & Mennonite Heritage Center
Naomi’s Book Haul:
The Narrow Way of Self-Denial: An Amish Man’s Counsel for His Children by D.J. Stutzman (1917; reprinted by Sweetwater Publications, 2006)
History of our Parochial Schools and Newspaper Clippings of Prosecution Times compiled by Henry and MaryAnn Raber (2021)
Ich Kann PA Deitsch Shreiva by Tomas Beachy (Carlisle Press, 2011)
Speaking Amish: A Beginner’s Introduction to Pennsylvania German by Lillian Stoltzfus (Eckshank Publishing, 2013)
The Amazing Story of the Ausbund: The Oldest Hymnal in the World Known to Still be in Continuous Use by Benuel S. Blank (Blank Family Books, 2021)
Grounded upon God’s Word: The Life and Labors of Jakob Ammann by Andrew V. Ste. Marie and Mike Atnip (Cross Bearers, 2020)
Report for Duty by Lily A. Bear (Christian Light Publications, 2016)
Pacifists in Chains: The Persecution of Hutterites During the Great War by Duane C.S. Stoltzfus (Young Center, 2013)
Rebecca’s Book Haul
Hope’s Table by Hope Helmuth (Herald Press, 2019)
Jacob’s Choice by Ervin R. Stutzman (Herald Press, 2014)
Tom Lyons: The Indains among the Amish by Wayne R. Miller (Ohio Amish Library, 2017)
The Amish in Switzerland and other European Countries by Betty Miller
Memorial History of Peter Bitsche: Complete Family Register 1767-1892 (Trollope Press, 2008)
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This is Rebecca and this is Naomi. We're 40-something moms and first cousins who know what it's like to veer off the path assigned to us.
Speaker 2:We've juggled motherhood, marriage, college and career, as we questioned our faith traditions while exploring new identities and ways of seeing the world.
Speaker 1:Without any maps for either of us to follow. We've had to figure things out as we go and appreciate that detours and dead ends are essential to the path Along the way, we've uncovered a few insights we want to share with fellow travelers.
Speaker 2:We want to talk about the questions we didn't know who to ask and the options we didn't know we had.
Speaker 1:So whether you're feeling stuck or already shaking things up, we are here to cheer you on and assure you that the best is yet to come. Welcome to Uncovered Life Beyond. The episode you're about to hear was recorded last fall and we had planned to release it much earlier, but then life happened, so it's taken longer to get it out than we had anticipated, but better late than never, right? So one of the most parts of a get together is processing it afterward, and that's what we're doing in this episode. And if you like more of these free-flowing conversational style episodes, there's a link in the show notes where you can let us know. Thanks so much for listening and enjoy. Hello everyone. Welcome back to Uncovered Life Beyond.
Speaker 2:This is Naomi and this is Rebecca, so we are kind of excited about our weekend. We got to spend some time together, which is always a treat.
Speaker 1:A few of us cousins got together at Rebecca's house this weekend and we had a great time reconnecting and staying up late, talking and having a great time.
Speaker 2:We can still party like teenagers. Who knew right, it's just the next morning.
Speaker 1:The next morning we're not so good, the next morning we're not quite so teenager like no, no, we have to be adults and do our homework, which we did this weekend, which we did which we did Barely, but we did yes we both had issues with deadlines and getting things in under water.
Speaker 2:That was a treat. We'll have to talk about that some other time, Definitely, definitely. So it was actually a few months ago. You and I were talking about getting a couple cousins together and it's kind of crazy that it actually worked and it actually happened.
Speaker 1:Right, because didn't we actually start talking about this before the pandemic?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we did.
Speaker 1:And then the pandemic happened. Yes, it did.
Speaker 2:I think it's kind of interesting. Especially when you come from an extended family that's quite large, it becomes more difficult to maintain relationships. I think People go their own ways. This weekend everyone came from a different state, literally from the east to the west, and it's just really interesting. Some of us haven't seen each other for years at least.
Speaker 1:Right. Also, when we were together last, it was in a large group. I think it was at Grandma's funeral. I think so, and so that was. It was great to see everyone and see so many at one time, but then that also limits the conversations we can have. It's just more comfortable to talk about the more private, personal things when we're in a smaller group than when we're sitting around with dozens of others.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and I mean face it we change, life changes.
Speaker 1:Respect is change Ideas, change Family structures have changed Right right and we've had more or less distance between some of us. Right we have very little contact.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Because life happens, you know just.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and I think it's interesting. I had to think about it. I think sometimes we are tempted to force relationships for the sake of a relationship, and I had to think about the beauty of allowing not just yourself but others to have time to grow into who they are and to be ready for a relationship too. Just because I might be ready doesn't mean someone else's, and neither should they feel pressured.
Speaker 1:Right, because I think sometimes when there's a feeling that you know because relationships are good, therefore we should try to make them happen at all costs. We should force them to happen, even, and I think that the success of this weekend, as you say, was because we let things happen Right when they did, and we've all gone our separate ways and we've had all lived very different lives and, in time, here we are having a weekend together again and having a great time. Yeah.
Speaker 2:I had to even wonder if it wasn't nicer I don't know if that's the right word If it wasn't more beautiful it happening now than maybe even five years ago before the pandemic. Was that four years ago? However, long ago it would have been, Because it allowed us all to think about it. It allowed us all to kind of I don't know work through whatever. I felt nervous. Did you feel nervous A little bit, or did I just make you feel?
Speaker 1:nervous. Well, you were hosting and you had midterm, so you had things to be nervous about, but I think it was. Maybe it's the realization that that time gave us plenty of opportunity to think about those differences and all those changes and to become aware of them and to wonder how is this going to mesh? Are we going to rub each other the wrong way? Our politics have changed, and that's such a huge thing. The theology has changed.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so much has changed and knowing how those changes, knowing how those differences are going to impact our conversation. What we find funny, what we feel comfortable talking about when we see someone again that we haven't seen for a long time, we don't always know if we're going to have a point of connection that we used to have. Is that still there or do we have anything to talk about? Yeah, yeah, Because I know there are plenty of family gatherings of people that are related to me where I'm pretty sure there wouldn't be a lot to talk about, and sometimes it's not the ones. I would have expected that I don't have much to talk about with anyone.
Speaker 2:And while at some level, you're going to always have those surface relationships that are lovely, I'm not sure that those surface relationships can bring healing and can bring a sense of oh, that's what was going on. Or a sense of making, or a way to make sense of the past and some experience.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely, and it helps us make sense of our lives.
Speaker 1:It helps us make sense of our own issues. It helps us make sense of those things and even when it's unpleasant things, I think it can at least help us gain a sense of peace, just from a sense of like oh that's why I had that weird feeling about this thing, or oh, that's why that person behaved that way. I couldn't understand what was going on. I thought it was because of this, but actually, when there was this whole other thing going on, that was completely unaware of, and even the way you perceive things as a child.
Speaker 1:and then you become an adult and you're like oh my God, what was that? Right, right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Well, and there's the opportunity to talk through those perceptions or misperceptions of where you say, well, we were doing this thing and you did this and you said that, and the person goes. I have no memory of that and I was like what happened there? That?
Speaker 2:was a huge and important memory. How could you not remember this?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I think, in the same way that there's a beauty of relationships that have been stable for a long period of time and stable and consistent For a long period of time, there's also a beauty in relationships where we can pick up where we left off. Yeah, and I think that's what we experienced this weekend and that's really wonderful.
Speaker 2:Well, and it's so cool not to have to explain jokes or explain a certain individual's behavior or a certain individual's humor or lack thereof, right.
Speaker 1:Quirky personality course Right.
Speaker 2:Yes, you don't have to explain the nuance and the things. You just knew, right Right that you never thought about having to explain to someone, and we all understood the importance that grandma had a locked room that only a few privileged people were ever allowed to enter.
Speaker 1:This was such a moment for me to realize that my grandma who never heard of Virginia Woolf, I'm sure, or much less ever read a room of one's own had her own Right, Right.
Speaker 2:And so what struck me was it felt like we kind of came from a family or a culture where women especially well, no one really had boundaries. We weren't taught or encouraged to have boundaries, autonomy, but dang it, she had a locked room and no one was allowed to go in there.
Speaker 1:And she would go in that room to write her letters. She wrote letters to so many family members and birthday cards, and so she was connecting with other people and maintaining those family relationships.
Speaker 2:In that room. In that room and wasn't there just like an ungodly amount of books in that room? There were a ton of books in there, yeah, yeah, that reminds me of my bookcase all over the house. Yeah, and she had it in one room.
Speaker 1:Yeah it was amazing.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:It's interesting to think about how some of those boundaries were there and I think maybe in some ways previous generations hadn't been guilt-tripped out of some of the people pleasing that so many women have been encouraged to embody.
Speaker 2:Well, weren't our parents kind of the generation that had this rebirth of faith, and they took it to levels that the previous generation never did, and I'm not sure that it necessarily served us well.
Speaker 1:Exactly exactly, and that's what we talked about Saturday morning when we met with an uncle for breakfast.
Speaker 2:We sat there for three hours.
Speaker 1:Was it three hours?
Speaker 2:It was three hours All of a sudden I'm like we have been here three hours. No wonder my butt hurts Wow.
Speaker 1:We split that haystack. Is that what it was called? It was amazing it was so good. It was like carbs for weeks. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Happiness just all in one place. It was worth it.
Speaker 1:It was worth it. The haystack, haystacks, oh, and we all had fried mush. Yeah, yeah, it was very good yeah.
Speaker 2:By the way, when you have someone from the previous generation who is willing to be reflective and listen and curious with you, it is like the best gift you can receive. I will forever be so appreciative of the way he listened, the way he shared, the way he reflected, and he had this incredible ability to be honest about people, about events, without demonizing or getting ugly about it or defensive.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. It's like a rare level of emotional intelligence and wisdom and wisdom and insight yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I feel like it was such an incredible gift.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. This is an uncle on my mom's side. You're a cousin on my dad's side, yeah, and so now you've become an honorary niece of his as well.
Speaker 2:And the cool thing is, in the Mennonite world everyone kind of knows everybody, right.
Speaker 1:Like the gene pool is kind of shallow, but also there's so many acquaintances in common Right. Even if you have never met this person before, you're sure to have acquaintances in common Right. And so, and because he is from our parents' generation, he could explain some things to us, and you had some questions about some of that, and I think that's relevant to that dynamic. We're just talking about that. People pleasing that has really been encouraged, particularly in women in, you know, throughout much of the 20th century in many Christian circles. One of the things we talked about with this uncle was how some of the church communities yeah, how some of those things evolved in some of the that community history took place and some of those dynamics that he would have witnessed that we just heard about.
Speaker 2:We were part of the result of those teachings. Teaching movements, yes yeah, I've always been trying to figure out the dynamics of so. We have the Amish and then we have Amish Mennonite churches, we have Beachy Amish churches, we have fellowship churches, but influential in my world was the Beachy movement brought on by the Shetler group, which was different but a subset of the.
Speaker 1:Beachies, right, and so it's not always been clear what the dynamic was or what that relationship was. And just for anyone who isn't familiar, in the early 20th century there was a movement of some Amish folks who wanted to become a little more progressive, a little more mainstream, a little more evangelical, and they were led by a preacher named Moe Beachy, and so that's why they're known as a Beachy Amish. But then, of course, this is happening in one part of the country, right. Similar movements are happening in other parts of the country and other Amish communities in other states, and so it's not a monolithic movement. And then, of course, within those movements you have charismatic leaders who gain a following and who Sometimes almost like reform the culture.
Speaker 1:Well, I think they try to, and sometimes they're successful, right, and what's interesting to me is how often we are influenced by these different streams of individuals or ideas or beliefs or theology, and aren't even aware of it, right, or aren't aware of where it comes from. We aren't aware where it comes from, yeah, and we aren't, and that's what came out of this conversation too, right.
Speaker 2:So I had asked him. What question did I ask?
Speaker 1:him. You asked him what the relationship was between those who were considered Beachy and the, the Shuttler movement.
Speaker 2:Right yeah, Because up until that point they were called Beachy Amish correct.
Speaker 1:It's not my understanding that the Shuttler movement changed the naming. I think that naming is still. That naming convention is still inconsistent. I mean even churches that still count themselves among the Beachy Correct Subdenomination, as it were. Some will call themselves Amish Mennonites, some will say Beachy Amish, some will say Christian Fellowship Right, the church we attended.
Speaker 2:So the first Beachy Church here in Holmes County was birthed by the Shuttler movement and the place my parents were living was disrupted and at some level shifted to the Shuttler theology leadership. And come to find out, the Shuttler leader had ended up spending time in prison as a youth and was influenced by a Baptist preacher who came into the prison and he had a new birth experience through this Baptist preacher and he took this faith back to his Amish congregation and eventually became a leader in the Beachy settings Right, because he was not.
Speaker 1:This new perspective was not welcomed in the Amish communities, and so he moved to a different community and eventually landed in a leadership role in a Beachy Amish community Right.
Speaker 2:This uncle just said he amped up their traditions to levels that he'd not seen before as far as women being submissive, as far as what women were allowed to wear. I'm trying to remember other things he talked about.
Speaker 1:Was there an element of real spirituality and like Rigid Rigidity? And yes, in a sense it was the kind of message that would attract really sincere, earnest young people. And he described having younger siblings who were really drawn into this Right, just because I know them, I know they did not stay there and I'm really curious about that experience, yeah, how that went, but it is, he was just old enough. It seemed that he wasn't as influenced by that charismatic message and he said, yeah, I think I'm gonna pass, you know, and so he never got involved, but he witnessed it as a young man.
Speaker 2:It just made me really curious how much the Baptist teachings of this minister took what he now presented as a stronger faith and shifted our culture, the Amish Mennonite culture, into a more evangelical frame Right, because I've for so long given credit to folks like James Dobson and Bill Gothard for those evangelical influences, but they came later than this.
Speaker 1:They did, they did. This was earlier. This would have been in the 50s already, right and so that was really interesting to me, and I think my parents weren't as influenced by the Shetler movement either as much as yours were, your parents got more into Bill Gothard Huge, yeah, yeah, very much in Bill Gothard, very much.
Speaker 1:And Dobson, that was huge, influential. Part of this also had to do with rigidity and, if not downright abuse in child training, child brewering practices. They were big on that, yeah. And what we found out was that there had been significant abuse in the home of this Shetler leader and in fact he had, as a teen, actively rejected you know, had actively fought back against it Right, and actively walked away from that abuse. And yet we know that the fruit of his teaching was more abuse.
Speaker 2:Yeah, only it was framed in a religious context. Now, right Now, you're beating your children for God. Well, you're not beating your children.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's right. You're spanking them.
Speaker 2:That's right To break their will, because their will is evil. Their will is Is their sinful nature, is their sinful nature and it needs to be broken. So he framed it in this religious context that now the parents were actually doing their kids a favor and they were building the future of God's kingdom by actively breaking their kids as well, and through corporal punishment Right, and what that did long term, it seemed, was strip kids of their autonomy.
Speaker 1:And it broke down the relationship between parents and kids, because the way that this uncle was talking about his relationship with his parents was so different, right From the kind of relationship that we have seen promoted.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Between parents and kids. So it seemed that the parenting he experienced was it did include some corporal punishment, but it was overall much more gentle, much more nurturing than what was taught in these movements that came along later. Right, and I just I think it's heartbreaking to see how the mix of a culture that is already patriarchal but has some, you know, release valves built into it, as all cultures do, it's like for our generation, all those otherwise what would have otherwise been release valves got plugged by this evangelical influence and now we became our own thought police and we were taught that people pleasing was a virtue and criticized, demonized, for having boundaries.
Speaker 2:And something else they did and we haven't really talked a lot about this and I know, if people know nothing else about the Amish, they know about room spring is which let's let's not, let's let really go into that.
Speaker 1:But insert verbal eye roll.
Speaker 2:But at the same time they came down really hard on this. Youth were almost held to a standard that the adults in the church weren't held to. Oh, definitely, yeah, yeah. Like they almost took room. Spring is and what's the reverse of it, like the pressure put on youth I still believe was just cruel.
Speaker 1:Right, it took a tradition that had given young people a new level of autonomy, and it's a release point. Yes, yes, and actually give them less autonomy. Right and and and, and really did everything possible to force them into a certain path in life.
Speaker 1:To be fair, there were probably some decent and real concerns about bed courtship, about alcohol abuse, about well, and those were issues that had prompted my grandparents to leave the old order Amish in the 1940s and move to Western Maryland yeah, and it was. And that's where they joined the New Order church, where they, well, eventually they had, you know, electricity in their homes and they would use tractors for farming, still drove horse and buggy, you know, still wore the were the traditional.
Speaker 2:Would.
Speaker 1:If they practiced room springing, though, then at all Well, it was much more like what we knew growing up. Which there was. There was the Sunday night. This is my understanding is that there was the Sunday night singing, where youth would gather in a home and there would be a young man might take a young woman home Right and so there would be definitely no parties.
Speaker 2:No no dancing.
Speaker 1:No, yeah, not the kind of room springer that makes for really salacious documentaries.
Speaker 2:Right.
Speaker 1:Right Right Point of clarification for anyone who's confused that is still room springer. Room springer was something we only talked about as a verb. It wasn't until years later, when I was reading what sociologists were writing about Amish culture, that I saw room springer referred to as a noun, and it was. It was bizarre to read these descriptions of it as though it was like a ceremonial kind of thing, right, because that was not at all the way it was experienced Well what room spring is means is running around.
Speaker 2:That's the literal translation. So it gave kids an opportunity to run around.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And when we say run around, what that meant was socializing Right Sunday evenings yeah, and in very, in very innocent ways.
Speaker 2:Right, right. So anyway, all that to say. We talked about that, so we did have a three hour breakfast. The one cousin is downloading slides and if you're too young to know what slides are, ask your parent. We've come a long way on pictures, but she is scanning and downloading slides, so we saw some old family pictures which are really kind of cool.
Speaker 1:So after we'd finish our carbo loading breakfast, we drove around to do some sightseeing in the area. We went to see the home place where two of my great grandparents had lived. The one was where my great grandmother lived until she was 100 years old and I remember attending the funeral there at the farm in 1987, 1986, somewhere in there, and remember it as an experience that was very different from you know my day to day experience and I'm glad I have that to look back on, having the service in the barn sitting on the backlist benches, having the bean soup for the meal afterward, and just the way it was served was very unique. And one of the things I remember about my great-grandma and I tell this to my son when he requests oatmeal for breakfast is that she would have oatmeal every morning with brown sugar and cream and that was her secret to longevity. That's funny, fiber, if nothing else, right, exactly exactly, and cream and sugar.
Speaker 1:So we went to the site where the house stood, where my mom was born, and then we also went to where her other grandparents had lived, and there's one of I guess it would be one of my second cousins is living there now and he has this really cool business where he makes live edge slab furniture. It's beautiful, isn't it so beautiful? So beautiful as these slabs of lead and then creates these epoxy filled rivers in the tabletop, and it's just gorgeous, beautiful. And this is all without electricity. There's this furnace that runs the auger or the generator right to power the machinery, but it's really incredible. So we stopped in and saw that, and then we went to the behalt, the Amish Mennonite Heritage Center.
Speaker 2:Every time I go there I am just I don't know amazed, impressed, fascinated, and I think in some ways it displays this incredible tension of learning and of persecution, but then also sometimes being the persecutor, but trying to grow and be more and understand God and theology. So what behalt is is they first allow us to watch a short film about the Amish communities here in central Ohio. So my favorite tour guide ever, karita, gave us a tour and the mural is amazing. So it is like this 10 foot tall, 260 foot long cyclorama and it illustrates the heritage of the Amish men and I people from. It starts with Jesus and then it works all the way around from their Anabaptist beginnings.
Speaker 1:The church history to Anabaptist beginnings yeah yeah. To the present day, right, yes, you start with the New Testament and images of the early church, and then they have the scene of Constantine making Christianity the official state religion of. Rome, and then, you know, one thing leads to the other right, and so it just gives us this church history in like five minutes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's amazing.
Speaker 1:But it provides a framing for the Anabaptist beginnings in Zurich, switzerland, in 1525. Yeah, and to the point you were making earlier, that's what really stands out to me too is, throughout history you see this cycle of a group really needing to fight for their liberation, and then they become liberated, and then the question is, what are they going to do with the liberation? I think we see time and again where that liberation then can very easily get turned into oppression of others.
Speaker 2:Right, well it's. You have this oppression, and so you learn to fight. You have grit, you have determination and we've seen it over and over it leads to a certain amount of wealth and invariably well, if you're successful, if you're successful.
Speaker 1:Yes, if you don't die in the process, if you are one of the lucky few, because there were lots and lots of Anabaptist deaths Right, right, early on.
Speaker 2:But if you're one of the lucky few that grit, that determination, that hard work, that perseverance oftentimes leads to wealth, which eventually tends to lead to power, which can't lead to corruption. I mean, it's like this cycle.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And sometimes I worry that we somehow think we're exempt from that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, I agree. It's like when a culture gets stuck in the persecution complex or when a culture gets stuck thinking of themselves in 21st century North America, right, with the same kind of defensiveness that someone in 17th century Europe and Anabaptist in 17th century Europe would have experienced. I mean, that's just that. That's ludicrous, right? And yet you do see that persecution complex continue and and we'll get to that in the, in the books and some of the books we found there.
Speaker 2:The other thing that I thought was super cool that we need to point out is there's even a painting of our ancestor Jacob Hosteller, which is pretty cool and there's also a painting of at one point in their persecution they were invited to Paraguay.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which also affected me, because, even though our ancestors came through the Swiss Anabaptists Right, the Anabaptists from present-day Poland, right Then moved to Russia and then later Russia didn't quite hold true to their promise Right. And so they later immigrated to Paraguay. And then, yes, and then years later.
Speaker 2:My family would join them as well. So yeah, that was yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and I remember reading books when I was a kid about some of that migration. Yeah, henry's Red Sea.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so then when you go to the bookstore at Behold, it's like going back to the Shady Grove School Library. It is. It is I'm like oh, I had forgotten about that. Like I totally forgotten about some of these books. It was like literature class all over again.
Speaker 1:What that's funny. So in that museum they had a diagram of a barn, so you could see what the inner workings of one of these famous barn raisings might look like. Also, there was a display of the Ausband, which is the oldest hymnal in the world known to still be in continuous use. I take that from the subtitle. It's a hymnal that my mother would have sung from in the church services oh, it's church services when she was growing up and it's that first hymn, the little lead, is one that I've I heard as a kid Right when we go, yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, our idea of a parlor dang. Growing up was getting my mom to sing it for us.
Speaker 2:Oh really, that's so funny.
Speaker 1:After dinner. Entertainment, then, but I think maybe my favorite one was the wall of coverings that they have, and this was a collection of all these different styles of Amish and Mennonite coverings, and of course, it was easy to identify the one I used to wear. You noticed several of them, right. Did you identify with several of?
Speaker 2:them. I think I had worn at least four of them at some point.
Speaker 1:Awesome, which.
Speaker 2:I always kind of joke that my parents were kind of like Amish Mennonite hippie yeah, and when I saw that I'm like Kind of all over the place.
Speaker 1:I kind of went crazy in the bookstore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was, it was fascinating it was.
Speaker 1:It was, and I found a bunch of books, some of which have to do with topics that we've already talked about and some that we might want to talk about in the future Probably topics we should talk about.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly, and so I'll just run through them and in the show notes will include links to all of these titles. So first I have here the narrow way of the self denial and Amish Man's Council for his Children by DJ Stutzman. I was fascinated by the title and I, when I saw it was only four dollars, I was like, yeah it's, I'm not sure what to expect here, but I'm gonna grab this. I think sometimes you know it can be helpful when we're trying to put words to dynamic cultural dynamics, or you know cultural experiences that we've had and we kind of know it but we don't really have the particular words for it, and it can be helpful to see exactly how that kind of thing was talked about by true believers Right. Another one that is relevant to our Wisconsin versus Yoder episodes is called History of our Perochial Schools and newspaper clippings of prosecution times. Our sacred heritage the right not to be modern.
Speaker 2:I mean, like I know we're not their editor, but did they mean persecution?
Speaker 1:Well, that's what I'm wondering, because that's certainly what they used. They used persecution as a word to describe themselves in Wisconsin versus Yoder, but technically, yes, they were being prosecuted at the time of this, so prosecution is the correct word. But curious. So this is just a hardcover book of newspaper clippings and also written up reports of different individuals who were involved in disputes about compulsory schooling and Amish children, and so that I think will be interesting to read through. I also picked up the amazing story of the Alspen. It's going to be the oldest human in the world and this is a softcover book that gives the history and the context of it. I almost bought an Alspen.
Speaker 2:I did too almost. Yeah, I did too almost that English.
Speaker 1:But I kind of think maybe I already have one. I think maybe my dad got me one at some point, because I know at some point my parents had given me some. You know, oh, that's cool, yeah, yeah, some relics like that. So what else do we have here? I also got a book called Speaking Amish, another softcover book. This is by William Staskus and she is someone who I during his past or past across. I didn't know her well, but our past across years ago.
Speaker 1:And but this is a beginner's introduction to Pennsylvania German. It's a CD and you know, until recent years Pennsylvania Dutch, as it's known, which is a dialect of German that Amish speak. We both spoke as as young children. In recent years it's been written down, and so this is a really sweet book. It's like a workbook, and I also got the teacher's edition of IHKAN, pennsylvania Dutch Shriva. So that's translated. I can write Pennsylvania Dutch.
Speaker 1:I learned in a history of the English language class in grad school that when a language is only passed down orally and not written, it changes so quickly, and you see that in the different accents. You see that in how misunderstandings, how words are not communicated or not communicating correctly from one generation to the next, and so it's a real privilege to now have this written down. After what? How many centuries right not being written. Another book I picked up is, grounded Upon God's Word, the Life and Labor's of Jacob Amon, and this is by Andrew V, saint Marie and Mike Atnip. This is interesting because Jacob Amon, who was the leader who started the Amish as a breakaway from the Mennonite movement back in I think it was right around the year 1600. He is someone who has not had much written about him and what he didn't.
Speaker 2:He didn't write much either.
Speaker 1:So he there's. Oh, that's a good point. He didn't, he didn't there's not, he didn't write much, so there aren't texts to remember him by.
Speaker 2:There aren't texts to remember him by, and I think his, his theology and his teachings kind of got they.
Speaker 1:Well, they weren't written down and so they changed, just like language changes, right? And so it's not clear, really, right.
Speaker 2:What they were. Yeah, and because there was nothing written, it kind of left the Mennonites to tell the story to write the histories.
Speaker 1:And since the Amish have always been more of a rural culture and have not embraced education, formal education, so there weren't the historians within the movement to to write those documents.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure that he knew how to write and why. I think that I'm not sure. If he did know, he was not very educated.
Speaker 1:Okay, well, I'm gonna find out. I haven't read it, I haven't read this yet, we'll find out. But I hear that this book is something of a polemic. So I guess sometime, when I need to get a worked up about something, I'll pick up this book. But I hear that it does include history, does include facts, it is research based. But hopefully I'll be able to separate out the research from from the opinion, especially if it disagrees with my perspective. Hello, all right, that was a joke. In case anyone missed that. Okay, what else? And then I also found a book called Report for Duty, the true story of John Whitmer. Though drafted into the army, john followed a higher calling one with a cross by Lily A Bear. This is about the Anabaptist objection to violence in the context of war, and a surprisingly small amount of stories have been written about this, and so I'm interested in seeing. I think this is set in World War One, and this is. This is from Christian Light Publications. So this coming from a very conservative, minimum perspective.
Speaker 1:I had also heard about a couple of Hutterite men who had been marched in the winter snow with minimal to no clothing, I think so to Leavenworth prison in Kansas and the really, really awful conditions that they experienced because of their refusal to fight. And so I've heard about this story, but I didn't know where to find it in print. And so the title of that book is pacifist and chains the persecution of Hutterites during the Great War by Dwayne CS Stahlsfuß. So now that the title, hopefully I can find it. That is a lot, but you found some too.
Speaker 2:So, yes, I did find some books, and it was actually kind of hard to know what to get, not to get, so I took pictures of books that I might still get. But anyway, the first book I picked up was actually a recipe book. It's one of my favorite recipe books. It's called Hope's Table by Hope Helmuth, and it's a gift for my nephew and his girlfriend. She wants to learn how to cook and no one knows how to cook like Mennonites right. Another one I picked up was Jacob's Choice by Irvin Arstitzman, and I picked it up mainly because I think I have read it before. I'm pretty sure it was in the school library. Oh really, or wasn't it? I don't know, is it too new for that?
Speaker 1:I think it's maybe I didn't read it. Okay, my assumption was that it was newer, but I don't know.
Speaker 2:I should have checked that out. Yeah, anyway, so this is actually about our ancestor Jacob Hausteltler, when he first came to Ohio, actually, and dealing with the indigenous people that he met. So I'm kind of fascinated to hear about that.
Speaker 1:I've heard this story. I don't remember the details, I don't either. But I know it's really interesting and it has some twists and turns, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:There's actually, I think, three books in the series, so I just got the first one and now I'm really curious how the book is, oh, 2014.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay, so it was 10 years, so I guess it's been. Yeah, probably was not in the Shady Grove School.
Speaker 2:Library. Then I also picked up Tom Lyons. Actually Naomi gifted me this book.
Speaker 1:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Of course it's the Indians Among the Amish by Wayne R Miller, and I think this is a follow up to Jacob's Choice and that series. So it talks more about Jacob Hausteltler and him settling here in Sugar Creek and Walnut Creek.
Speaker 1:Looking here on the back of the book. It says it's about Tom Lyons, who was a Native American who encountered the Amish in central Ohio. He is infamous among the Amish for his participation in the Jacob Hausteltler cabin attack of 1757. Now the author has newly discovered evidence that he that refutes that claim and adds it to the growing list of legends attached to his name. So, yeah, curious. Yeah, that's about.
Speaker 2:And then we have the Amish in Switzerland and other European countries by Betty Miller. I kind of picked it up because it was cheap. Plus, I just wanted something for reference because all those dates and all those locations and all that still get fuzzy in my brain.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's a real little book and it's in fact it looks like typewritten, oh yeah. It literally looks like it was written by a typewriter Staple together and it probably was yeah, so lots of atmosphere.
Speaker 2:For the record, this Jacob Hausteltler we talk about. A lot of people are here thanks to him, Like he was huge in the.
Speaker 1:So when we say he's our ancestor, it doesn't make us special.
Speaker 2:No, no, not really. I mean, not every one probably has him as their ancestor, but a lot of us do, a lot of us do. And then I have Memorial History of Peter Bishi by she how did we say, okay, here is the pronunciation that I found online.
Speaker 1:So first there's this one, Vici. So that last one might sound more familiar to anyone who has grown up around Amish communities.
Speaker 2:And, interestingly enough, pichi, which is our maiden name, came from the Well. Isn't the story when they came over? As, as different families came over, the people at immigration were left to their own.
Speaker 1:Well, it was anglicized Right In different ways and some were anglicized. Some took the spelling with a B, some with a P. Right, and they were left to their own understanding of how to spell it yeah, and so that first one is the standard German pronunciation, and then, but then the second one is the one that we would use to American or the English, and I think that's all my books.
Speaker 2:We were tired by now we were. It was a long day.
Speaker 1:It was a long day, we had a lot of talking, seeing a lot of things, thinking about a lot of things and a ton of books to read. So you headed back to your house to get dinner started and the rest of us swung by a bulk food store. Well, which one was it?
Speaker 2:Troy or Troy's.
Speaker 1:So many around here and it was so different from. It was different from the bulk food stores that I remember growing up and also the ones that we have in the Midwest or further west in the Midwest, because it's so much like a regular grocery store, it was almost so much like a supermarket.
Speaker 2:It is, it really is. Yeah, yeah, and you're right, I didn't think about that. But yeah, the bulk food stores we would have had growing up compared to this is like light years yeah.
Speaker 1:I think a Christmas madness.
Speaker 2:I mean, this was like a McGroge, wasn't it yeah?
Speaker 1:Yeah, but they have the bulk foods that we.
Speaker 2:And it's a lovely store. It's lovely, it's beautiful.
Speaker 1:Oh, the mums. I wanted to bring all the mums home with me, yeah, yeah. And then we came back and had vegetarian burrito bowls with avocado cream, and this is a wonderful recipe. None of us are vegetarian.
Speaker 2:No, but my daughter is dairy free and her roommate is vegan, so I had to come up with some new recipes and I figure, if it worked for one weekend, I can do it the following weekend and not have to think about it twice.
Speaker 1:And it was delicious. It is actually kind of good, isn't it? It was so good. Yesterday was this rainy, foggy, dreary day, and so it was like the perfect evening.
Speaker 2:And my favorite thing always is chips and salsa. I love chips and salsa. Oh yes, and we had like this fun, like the cousin from Oklahoma brought a cranberry salsa and was it you that picked up another salsa no, someone else picked up another salsa at Troyer's. It was amazing.
Speaker 1:It was so good. And then you had cowboy cabbys.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so we had that. And then Naomi brought home ice cream and we had pumpkin bars, it was delightful and you make coffee. Oh, we make coffee, so that we could stay up all night and talk.
Speaker 1:Yeah, keep talking, just perfection. And from there. Yeah, we need a lot of coffee to keep us going for several more hours, because we had more stuff to talk about.
Speaker 2:The funny thing is, like you would think, eventually we run out of words, but no, no, I kept right on talking.
Speaker 1:I think most of the time when one of us was talking, the rest of us were standing there just ready to jump in, just waiting for some second, because everything somebody else is saying was bringing three more things to mind.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean from we talked about family history and the fascinating thing I think with this is it's so easy to assume that your experience was the experience and that your perception was what was Everyone else Was everyone else's perception too, yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when you all of a sudden have four or five different narratives and perspectives and perceptions, and yeah, but did you know that happened as well, and it's like, oh really, and it's such a lovely way, I think, to make sense of one's history, of a grumpy uncle or a quirky aunt or what have you it kind of helps make sense of all of that and I think in some ways, like, okay, that makes sense, or you can as a group decide, yeah, that just didn't make sense and that was crazy, and it was crazy, and let it go Like it was. You can't make sense of that, and I think there's points for that's really important too Absolutely, absolutely.
Speaker 1:It helps give us a much more nuanced understanding of ourselves and of those that we know and loved growing up, those who we claim as family or not. Yes, those times where the uncle, who seemed so nosy to us at the time, we realize now was probably getting us out of a really sketchy situation.
Speaker 2:Isn't that freaky? Right, right, yeah, and it makes you a little humbled that he was often the one who was dist.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Is that the best word?
Speaker 1:He was often he's often been the uncle you rolled your eyes at.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And sometimes the adults in the room did too, right, right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, there's also. It's also confidence building, which I think this is what you were saying a minute ago when we can say you know, this happened. I've never been able to make sense of it, right? Does that seem weird to you? And to have everybody around the table say, yeah, that does not make any sense, that something weird was going on there. You're not imagining it, that was creepy. And it's affirming. It's like yes, it's like, oh, I can trust my gut, because and we might look back now and say, why didn't I tell an adult, why, why didn't I say something?
Speaker 1:But when it's communicated to kids that they will always be at fault, when it's communicated to kids that their caretakers are going to assume the worst about them and their motivations, it is not emotionally safe, right? And you know, one of the things that came up here, too, is when we talked about how we are or have raised our kids in ways that are different, and I don't think any of us claim to have this figured out Not quite Right, but I do think that, like remembering these things and remembering the importance of children trusting their caregivers, when I think about this, it reinforces for me that, even though having a parenting style that some would see as being more or too permissive is worth it. If my kids trust me Right, and if my kids, as they grow older, as they mature, as they see more of my faults and become more aware of my flaws. If I still have credibility with them, that's what really matters. That will increase the chances that I will have a relationship with them after they turn 18.
Speaker 2:Right, which is what we all want, absolutely. We all want that Right. Something else I think about is a story came up about grandma, who had so often felt shame and guilt for breaking something. If she broke a dish, if she broke a glass as a child she was the youngest in her family and it was something she had decided that she would never make a big deal out of because it's a broken dish. It is not a broken person and how she changed that narrative and how she didn't yell at us when we broke something.
Speaker 1:As a very conscious decision on her part, right, because we also remember when she did freely express annoyance. It's not that she was so laid back.
Speaker 2:Oh no, no, no, she was a feisty little chick.
Speaker 1:She was totally feisty and I think that's why I appreciate this even more. Yeah, that this was a very conscious choice she made Right. That was really her showing up for her kids.
Speaker 2:And it was her attempt at making the next generation batter yes, which kind of takes us back to how we started in the beginning, talking about the different subsets of our churches and the different movements that happened and I think to a degree, even with some of the misguided influences, I think the goal was to better the next generation.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and sometimes it's hard to remember that because it makes things more complicated. Yeah, if family members we fundamentally disagree with were thoroughly evil, terrible people, it would make things so simple it would be so much easier. We'd feel so much less complicated about things. Right, we would not have mixed feelings, we would have very Well, it would be more defined, it would be so defined yes Instead of this nuanced. It's this, it's this, it's also this.
Speaker 2:There's definitely damage and there's definitely wrong. I mean the idea that a parent would beat a child to break their will for the Lord, or that a parent would disown a child because they believed they were going to hell, or that a parent would do whatever. We can all agree that that is probably not good, but then it's difficult. It becomes more difficult to see that they got there out of a sincere desire to better the next generation.
Speaker 1:Right, it's not just that they were doing the best they could, but they were also willing to try something new. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:Which, in many ways, is what we did.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and so seeing them with compassion is so freaking complicated it really is. It really is. It's like so complicated, it's so complicated, but I also think it's worth it. I agree, because it also allows us to have more compassion for ourselves, allows us to have compassion for our kids too.
Speaker 2:And I think maybe that's a really important part of the whole healing process, right.
Speaker 1:And also maybe that's why we were able to gather this weekend and have such a wonderful time, such have such wonderful connections and such wonderful conversations, because we can see each other in a nuanced way and, despite our differences, we can still appreciate where each other has been Right and where we're going, and we get a stronger sense that we haven't seen the whole picture. And it's like the more we see, the more we learn, the more we realize we have to learn, as they say, yeah. And so when we think about a family member who is so exasperating to us, that healing the kind of healing that's possible in weekends like this might prompt us to get curious about what might be going on behind that, rather than either reacting with anger or turning it inward on ourselves and assuming that we are somehow to blame.
Speaker 2:But if we can just get curious and expect that it's nuanced and complicated and not as simple as we might want, and an important clarification here is I don't want to leave you thinking that every time you reach out and attempt to create a relationship, it's going to be successful and I think, or to reconnect when there has been a lot of distance and trauma.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and I think it's very important. Like, in many ways, I think it was good that we have four or five years to think about it. I mean like we weren't necessarily expecting that, but I think it's been good for us. I think timing is very important. I actually react pretty strongly against the notion that all relationships have to be healed. I totally disagree with that.
Speaker 1:That only works if relationships aren't two ways.
Speaker 2:Right, right, and even if both parties are wanting to restore the relationship, now might not be the right time Right, like it's okay to say.
Speaker 2:You know, I think I need a little bit more time and I think we need to trust ourselves in that.
Speaker 2:The other thing that we talked about I want to leave you with is for many, many years, I firmly believed that if I had just prayed a little bit harder, if I had just tried this yet, if I would have just danced this way, if I would have done this, or if I would have tried this, or if I would have read this book yet, or if I would have just done it better, I could have changed things for the better in relationships and in situations when the truth was, I was still a child and the sometimes the adults in my life actually chose to treat me badly.
Speaker 2:Sometimes there were people, sometimes I chose, as an adult, to treat people badly, and I think we have to step away from this notion that we have that power to control others. But I think we do that because it hurts to actually acknowledge that people in your life might choose to treat you badly. And if you're at that point, if you're like, oh, maybe it's not me, maybe maybe the other person actually doesn't want me in their life. That's painful and that's hard, but it's okay for you to acknowledge that, it's okay to sit in the truth of that and in the pain of that, and it might not be your job to fix that.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely. I think that is such an important message because some of us might feel guilty for not twisting ourselves into knots to make a relationship work, but the reality is, if you hug a cactus, you'll get stung and the cactus will be just fine. The cactus will be just fine and the cactus won't understand why you're surprised that you got poked. So hug a cactus with care, and this is a thing that I have learned recently. Growing up, when we would talk about accepting things, my understanding of accepting realities in life was that it was a very passive kind of acceptance. If I accept this, that means I'm just going to sit here and let whatever, let the cactus poke me and you'll forgive the cactus.
Speaker 2:And you'll forgive the cactus and you'll shelf again tomorrow and we're going to try again.
Speaker 1:And yes, even though we have every reason to believe the cactus is going to poke us again, right? What I've learned recently is then, when we talk about acceptance in the context of mindfulness, meditation, acceptance there is not that same attitude of passivity. Acceptance in that case is saying this is a cactus, this is a cactus, and a cactus is going to poke me as long as it has stickers, so we can accept what is. And sometimes accepting what is means accepting that a relationship is not repairable, or at least not for the present. And that doesn't mean that you aren't forgiving. It doesn't mean that you're a bad person. It means that you are willing to recognize what is directly in front of you. It means you are willing to believe what you see, to believe what you experience.
Speaker 2:And it might mean that you don't take an X to the cactus. You're going to allow the cactus to be, but you don't need to put on armor and try to hug the cactus. You can step away and live your life without the cactus.
Speaker 1:Because you deserve to live a good life Right and you do not deserve to be poked by a cactus. And it's not your job to change the cactus, but you are well within your right to stop hugging it. Well, I had planned to get halfway home today. At this point, I don't think that's going to happen, but it's probably time for us to wrap this up. It is. We want to do this again sometime, don't we?
Speaker 2:We do so. First of all, thanks for following us and listening to us about our weekend. Thank you for spending time with us today. The resources and materials we've mentioned are linked in the show notes and on Facebook at Uncovered Life Beyond.
Speaker 1:What are your thoughts about college and recovery from high demand religion?
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Speaker 1:Until next time, stay brave, stay bold, stay awkward.
