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
31. From Quilts to Inquiry: Reflections on the Amish Heritage Scholars Symposium
This week we start out with an update on Naomi's recent health adventures and then turn our attention to recapping the first weekend in June when we attended a Symposium on How Our Amish Heritage Influences Our Education and Career at Elizabethtown College.
It all started with a very social Costco run to kick off our girls' weekend with all the necessary supplies (cheesecake, almonds, and salsa, FTW). Next, we reflect on the Symposium and themes that emerged over the course of the day. Specifically, there was a consensus on what didn't matter nearly as much as we'd feared (being smart enough) and what did matter (moral support and resources). Surprising challenges included things like the difficulty of finding new social circles and the loneliness of having no one to understand or celebrate your academic successes with you.
Finally, we look ahead to possible future Symposia (join us!) and wonder about the need for a memoir writing workshop/group/retreat of some kind. And if you listen to the end, you'll learn how to enter to win a copy of Lizzie Hershberger's memoir, Behind Blue Curtains!
Links to all the things we mentioned (or should have):
Sonder: The profound feeling of realizing that everyone, including strangers passing in the street, has a life as complex as one's own, which they are constantly living despite one's personal lack of awareness of it (Wiktionary)
A City at Work: 1912 and 2012, specifically Mercy Hospital Operating Room: 1912 vs. 2012
A Heart for Truth (Cousin Erma’s podcast)
How Our Amish Heritage Influences Our Education and Career: A Symposium (event recap on Saloma Furlong’s blog)
Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College
Amish Descendant Scholarship Fund (Naomi Kramer Yoder and Emma Miller)
Lizzie Hershberger, author of Behind Blue Curtains: A True Crime Memoir of an Amish Woman's Survival, Escape, and Pursuit of Justice
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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've 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. Hello everyone, welcome back to Uncovered Life Beyond. This is Naomi.
Speaker 2:And this is Rebecca. So we are back. Look at us. It's been a summer, hasn't it?
Speaker 1:It feels like almost every episode is us explaining why we've been gone. Yeah, and I don't know, maybe we're just going to have to surrender the dream of a regular production schedule and we're going to have to be satisfied that, in this phase of life, we're fitting this in between the cracks and it's just not going to be perfect. Yeah, We'll get it. Get it out when we can.
Speaker 2:And since we have people that love us, we're good right. So what's been up with you?
Speaker 1:You've had a lot of stuff going on, oh my goodness. Well, so, for the main part, today we're going to be talking about the symposium that we went to in, well, the first weekend of this month, and so we'll be talking all about that. So that was a big thing that's happened. And then I came home from that trip and a day or two later I had surgery and I had a laparoscopic hysterectomy and I you know the coming out of the anesthesia and everything was just as delightful as as you can imagine, yeah, and I wasn't going to be staying overnight, but then I ended up staying overnight. The doctor had said that you know, very soon I'd be feeling 70% better and at the time I was just, I was barely able to speak. That just seemed like a real, that seemed like a pie in the sky kind of.
Speaker 2:Kind of like, yeah, promises, promises.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly Exactly. But I mean, within a week after the surgery I was feeling better than I had for months. Like the fatigue and some of those things that had been bothering me were really relieved, and so that was great. I'm so glad to hear that. Well, thanks and I feel like a hypochondriac saying this but one of the symptoms that had been bothering me was waking up at night and being super hungry, and I think probably that's where the extra weight has come from. And so in the last two weeks since the surgery I was Googling some of my symptoms and I have a hunch that I have a stomach ulcer and one of the causes can be taking lots of ibuprofen. Well, I have been living on ibuprofen, and so once I figured that out, then I was able to make some dietary changes, so like cut back on caffeine and stuff, and, and that has really been improving too. So, slowly but surely, I hope you're figuring this out.
Speaker 1:I hope so, I hope so, and you know, and it's so, it's interesting to how, when in life sometimes we're we're looking one way, we're looking for cars coming from the right, and then all at once, while we're not looking, a car comes from the left. You know, we get T-bone from the left right.
Speaker 2:Or an airplane hits us from on top.
Speaker 1:Exactly, exactly, and I have been thinking oh, you know, my weight issues are all about emotional eating and this is all this. You know the whole mind body thing and absolutely I mean, I'm sure that's a factor, but I'm going, oh, if I have an ulcer, yeah, that's the pain I'm feeling. Basically, what was happening is I was confusing hunger, I was confusing ulcer pains for hunger pains. I think, and so was it emotional eating. I think it was eating to deal with physical pain.
Speaker 2:Your body was telling you that you needed it. My body was telling me something.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, exactly. So anyway, glad to figure that out. I mean, I'm not a doctor, I can't diagnose myself, but if whatever, whatever it was, feels like it's, it's starting to be resolved, so that's a really good feeling. And then, cherry on top, last night I was at Aldi. And then, cherry on top, last night, I was at Aldi and picking up a few things for dinner and I recognized one of the. Of course didn't recognize me, but I stopped her and introduce myself. Which she? She put it together then and I just told her yeah, I just said I know, you know you probably don't get to see the outcome, right, the surgeries, right, she's, her job is prepping.
Speaker 1:And then she never knows what the outcome is, and so I I told her. I just wanted her to know that I really appreciated her care and the care of everybody.
Speaker 1:They were wonderful and and that I'm feeling so much better. Like you know, just within a week I was feeling so much better and and she, she like opened up her arms for a hug. I love it, I made her day. So that was a really sweet moment.
Speaker 1:And I think not to get philosophical and everything, but I think of institutions within our communities, like hospitals, like I don't most of the time I don't give a hospital another thought Like it's this whole microcosm of things going on. And then it's like when I had my appendix out years ago, then for this surgery, it's like you drop in and there's this whole system that is all set up like clockwork to do what needs to happen, and I'm in and then out and the world goes in that place and it's like, I guess it's. It's that sense of realizing how the world and there's a word for this. I think it's maybe a German word, I don't remember what it is, but there's a word for like, that sense of like oh, there's this whole microcosm going on over here that I'm not even paying attention to.
Speaker 2:But it gives me a sense of security to know that that exists, you know. And the other part? Of it is how amazing it feels when you've got good people giving you a good experience, even in the angst of it, exactly Compared to if you get a lousy experience yeah, and how, how scary it can be yeah, that would have been very different.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember thinking when they wheeled me into the um, the operating room, um, and, and and they last time I had a surgery they put me out before I went into the operating room. This time I was there and they were like everybody's like introducing themselves and I'm like people. I can't talk right now.
Speaker 2:I cannot make small talk right now. I'm freaking out.
Speaker 1:Okay, Okay, I'm going to stop rambling, but I have one more thing that's interesting to me anyway. But one more thing that's interesting to me anyway Back in the year 1912, there were these anonymous photographers that came around Dubuque and were taking pictures of people at their daily work, and somehow these photographs were like the negatives were on glass and someone just never bothered. Usually the negatives would on glass and someone just never bothered. Usually the negatives would be cleaned off. Someone just never bothered to do that, and they were stuck in a shed somewhere for years. And recently, within the last 20 years, somebody rediscovered them. And then, so that was 1912. In 2012,. Then they recreated a book of snapshots. You know, kind of in the same kind of style snapshots of people at work around the city. One of those is and then a lot of them are, like you know. Here's the picture of this place in 1912. Here's the picture in 2012. There was a picture of the room that I had my surgery in in 2012. Oh my goodness, and the corresponding room in 1912. How?
Speaker 2:cool.
Speaker 1:And I've taught, I've used it in class with students and I was like oh, this is that room.
Speaker 2:I know this.
Speaker 1:We've analyzed the differences between 1912 and 2012.
Speaker 2:You know, in this picture and here, I am, so that was kind of that is that is super neat.
Speaker 1:Yeah, anyway, that was a lot about me.
Speaker 2:Tell me about you you know, I just feel like we are going from one thing to the next. It's good, it's busy. We had a kind of redid, a room downstairs which it needed to be done, but oy, that's a process.
Speaker 1:The guest room or the the guest room.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and it. We. My 20 year old was still in a bunk bed and at one point they were like, is there any chance I could just have a regular bed at some point. And I'm like, oh shoot, yeah, you're not five anymore, are you? And it needed to be redone. So we did that this spring. And then I got talked into doing a garage sale, which, oh dear, I'm glad we did it. I'm glad it's done. I got rid of two carloads of stuff at the Goodwill on top of that.
Speaker 2:So you know, yay, cheers, that's a good feeling. Yeah, it is a good feeling. I think we should talk about Elizabethtown in Pennsylvania that was quite good. Let's do that.
Speaker 1:Yes, but before we do that.
Speaker 2:We do have a giveaway that we're going to be mentioning at the end of the podcast, right?
Speaker 1:That's right, that's right. So keep listening all the way to the end and then we'll tell you how you can get entered to win a giveaway. So, yes, the symposium. Maybe I'll give the name of the symposium and then we can just kind of give a run through of the weekend. The name of it was how Our Amish Heritage Influences Our Education and Career, and this was put together by Saloma Furlong and Steve Nolte and held at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College. So when we first read about this a couple months ago, we thought, oh, we got to be there. Yeah, I can't miss that. No, so we decided to make a weekend of it and get an Airbnb really kind of make it a girl's weekend and it was, it was. It was really really good. So we were there with our cousin Irma, your sister Leona and your friend Rebecca and we we started our and before we even got to the Airbnb, we thought we would start the weekend with a quick trip to Costco.
Speaker 2:I mean like, why would you not start the weekend with a trip to Costco?
Speaker 1:Well, and especially because the rest of us don't have Costco memberships and you do and everybody was going I want in, yeah, yeah. So you had a whole row of ducklings.
Speaker 2:Well, and the hilarious thing was in my head. I was like, oh, we'll be fine, we'll be fine. But then, at the very last minute, I called Leona and I'm like, hey, you should join us. And she's like, yeah, I should join you. If we wouldn't have had her vehicle, we would have been in so much trouble. I know, there wouldn't have been room. Like guys, we had two vehicles and, granted, there was luggage in ours too, but we had two vehicles absolutely filled to the brim and and for, for clarity's sake, there was a single mom that we were buying some stuff for too. So, I mean, you know, there was. There was a lot of different things going on. It wasn't just for the weekend, but right, it wasn't just for the weekend, but yikes, the vehicles were packed.
Speaker 1:They were.
Speaker 2:And I don't know, is Costco just crazy every time you go there? Is it because it was a Friday afternoon? I don't know.
Speaker 1:It's the first time I shopped there, but I've never seen Sam's Club that busy. I've been to Sam's Club plenty of times. I've never seen Sam's Club that busy.
Speaker 2:I've been to sam's club, uh, plenty of times.
Speaker 1:I've never seen sam's, oh really no, and, and who knows, I mean sam's club in the midwest, you know, in a small midwestern town is different from sam's club in harrisburg, pennsylvania, right right or not? Yeah, when costco.
Speaker 2:Leona got there before us and she's like, look, look, I can even save you a parking spot. And she was there for like five minutes and someone's tapping on her window and asking her to make herself small and she was like yeah, sorry, I tried.
Speaker 1:Well, it was funny because this was all coming through the speaker, so like your car was reading the the text messages, so it was even funnier coming through this robotic voice. Yeah, yeah, it was fun yeah oh, and then people kept talking to us. I was, I thought man, I did not remember people in pennsylvania are so friendly, but people kept talking to us, like making comments, asking about where's this or where's that, and did.
Speaker 2:Maybe it was our carts.
Speaker 2:They thought we were kind of experts or something oh, yeah, that the cart, yeah, did end up looking like an ocean liner yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah, you know, I have tried to decide and I don't know, this might be absolutely, I might be totally wrong on this. I mean, maybe it was just because there was four of us having fun and giggling and everyone wanted to be a part of that. I think I felt really mennonite again, yeah, I think there is something about the way mennonites present themselves and maybe mennonite females present themselves, that they look more approachable and more open. But again, I could be wrong. I could be wrong.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think also our familiarity with each other and we were laughing and having a good time and, yeah, I think that that also contributes to-.
Speaker 2:It draws people in. People want to be a part of that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and you even got free advice about what kind of olive oil you should be buying.
Speaker 2:At some point, though, it's like just let me buy my olive oil without worrying whether it's in a glass bottle or a plastic bottle. You're messing up my brain and my space, and my brain was just fine before that. But for the record, if you're wondering, do not ever, ever, ever buy olive oil in a plastic bottle. Always make sure it's in a glass bottle. I was good not knowing that.
Speaker 1:I know, I know, because you're sure to fall ill of some horrible disease. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, get cancer from it or something, so okay. So there were friendly people, but not quite everybody was so friendly.
Speaker 2:Then when we headed toward the cash registers and it's wrong with that guy, but he was not part, he was not feeling our vibes.
Speaker 1:No, no. And the cashier noticed that we were using different methods of payment for each of us individually and he goes oh no, no, no, you can't do that.
Speaker 2:You. You interacted with him. He didn't say it that kindly, he's like you can't do that. Okay, I'm like. He's like, the same person that has the card has to pay. And so I just grabbed everyone's credit cards and I was just going to give them my card and then use their credit card to pay. Well, no, rebecca needed a pin. And that made him angry and he like canceled the whole transaction.
Speaker 2:So I'm like OK, so what was the sense? You said you needed Forty three. Ok, well, here, here's 20 cents. Ok, just a second. Just a, just a second. Okay, here's, here's 40. Now let me count my pennies real quick. And so I counted out every single cent to hand to him, just to like annoy him, because I was like nicer, and so I paid for that transaction in cash. And then I'm talking dutch to my sister and I'm just put everything on one, just put ours together, it's fine, and she's like but they're different, and I'm like just put it on one transaction. I can't deal with this guy. She was a little late in getting the message, but I guess, I guess there's signage up now about that whole thing, which I still don't understand.
Speaker 1:I didn't either, but I don't know why they care if they're getting your money or my money, it's all the same yeah, because I'm not gonna buy a membership right like that policy is not going to prompt me to to get a membership right, right, right, yeah, so they lose that sale then yeah, so that was a bit chaotic and that was one angry cashier.
Speaker 2:I guess he wasn't feeling our happy Mennonite vibes, whatever it was.
Speaker 1:No, and he called over a supervisor too, like he meant business.
Speaker 2:What a hot mess he meant business, so yeah.
Speaker 1:And then we went out to the parking lot and played parking lot Tetris, trying to fit everything into the cars yeah, which we managed to. And then went to the Airbnb and had cheesecake, and I got to give Costco props for their really wonderful cheesecake Amazing. So that might almost convince me to get a Costco membership. Just for the cheesecake. Just for the cheesecake, yeah. And we were celebrating your birthday late, yeah. But it was still a celebration and of course we stayed up late that night talking.
Speaker 2:Solved most of the world's problems, so you guys can thank us for that. That was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we'll be, and then announcement will be coming shortly. Yeah.
Speaker 2:The government will be calling us tomorrow. So then, saturday morning we got up bright and early and headed over to elizabeth town and you know, I knew this, but I always forget, um, how beautiful some of those towns are in pennsylvania, most of those towns like old buildings and gorgeous old buildings. I was like, oh here. And then I'm like, well, maybe I want to live here. And then I'm like, well, maybe I want to live here. And that was the mental conversation the entire way over. Right, but we were hosted by Saloma Furlong and Steve Nolt at the Young Center for Anabaptist and Pietist Studies at Elizabethtown College. And did you have mixed emotions about this?
Speaker 1:Yes, because the center represented for me kind of ground zero for a lot of the academic Amish studies that you and I have taken issue with, and we have critiqued a lot of the work that's come out of there, some of the work, a lot of the work for leaving out the stories of those who left or that they deemed not legit Amish. That means there's some really important stories that have been cut out of the field of Amish studies and that's been really problematic. My sense has been that it kind of represents not so much scholarship but a PR outlet to the culture, and when I say that I mean the culture is not organized. In a way there's no central organization. It's not like there's a Vatican or a temple in Salt Lake City or something like that where there's like this central structure to do that kind of PR right, and so but and for the record, for the record, that was a very strategic move.
Speaker 2:when the whole Anabaptist system was set up, they didn't want any main central authority, right, right, right. So that was not an accident.
Speaker 1:Right, very true. And I think also this sense of the field of Amish studies being more about PR than about academic critical examination has to do with the way that the Amish culture was not seen as worthy of serious study for a long time, and so there was a sense that they needed to be shown that they are worthy of serious study. But then that has sometimes translated into this PR.
Speaker 2:And it easily sets people up as experts and they can be experts in the tangible parts of the tradition without addressing the more messy and nuanced parts. There tends to be a very minimal focus on the core Anabaptist values of particularly mutual aid and non-violent resistance. Um, they people like to kind of glorify the parts of where the community is important, like everyone has heard about the barn raising, which which is fabulous, it's a really neat part of it, but no one talks about what happens when the barn raising doesn't happen for certain people.
Speaker 1:Yeah, or the barn raising is a special event even in that community's life. And isn't there a stat that the average Amish person only experiences one barn raising in their whole life? So what's happening the rest of the time? Right, right, right right right right.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I agree. So, like the tangible traditions end up getting and I think that also feeds into this idea it kind of allows outsiders to look at the culture and think that it's those tangible traditions, like the clothing and the rules and the way they deal with technology, that that's what makes them different and overlooks a lot of the more subtle and philosophical things that make them different. And how do?
Speaker 2:you trust an expert or a leader when they are now in a position where they can freely tell someone else's story instead of giving those people a platform to tell their own stories Like it really feels complicated.
Speaker 1:Well, my sense is that you know and this is not just about Amish Mennonite culture, but any culture there are things that can be said about it and observations that can be made by someone who is an outsider right that an insider misses. And also there is knowledge that only insiders have. And, according to standpoint theory, the lower you are in the hierarchy, the more knowledge you have of how the hierarchy works. And yet what has concerned us about a lot of the scholarship is that it only is taking the view of those at the top of the hierarchy, that's the only people the quote experts tend to want to talk to is the people at the top, the ones with power, the ones with position and authority.
Speaker 1:The ones for whom the culture is working just fine. Right, right, yeah. So the intent of this symposium was to create a space where scholars of Amish descent could gather and tell our stories, and so most of us started our academic journey without high school. Many started it without high school. Many started with, you know, maybe a GED or something else, who eventually found their way to academia.
Speaker 2:And you know that part of it really was kind of. Actually the whole event was really nicely done. It was lovely A huge shout out to Saloma and Steve for putting this on but it really was kind of and I don't know why the only word I keep thinking of is beautiful. It was really powerful to be able to integrate those two worlds Right and you didn't have to explain.
Speaker 1:Right, because when you have this one part of your identity, like the plain culture, then when you enter the world of academia, the world of academia just doesn't even have a frame of reference, right? So if you even bring up your background, you have to do a lot of interpreting. But then also, if you even talk about your, there's no place for your academic experiences in the plain culture, and so if you even try to integrate them, you have to do so much explaining it, kind of like, you know, analyzing a butterfly to death. But one way that we integrated the two worlds was by trying to sing the Lopli a verse of the Lopli at Kick Things Off in the morning. And the Lopli is the song that's traditionally sung in every Amish church service and it's translated literally it's the love song.
Speaker 1:So it's hard to sum up an event like that. I mean. So the idea was that we were there to tell our narratives, we were there to tell our personal stories. So it's hard to kind of difficult to sum that up, but maybe we could talk about some of the themes we observed that came up more than once. What were some things that came up for you?
Speaker 2:So you know, it was interesting to me how initially there was almost this sense of the American hyper individualism or this notion of bootstrapping and hard work that got us there, and it took time, but eventually we got to the parts where we were able to admit that there was loneliness, struggle, disappointment, and it made me wonder if the whole thing of connecting these two worlds is actually harder than many of us maybe admit to ourselves. The outside world typically doesn't respond well. I mean, come on, leadership skills are not taught using Anabaptist values. No one loves to bootstrap more than we Americans. No one bootstraps alone. We know this. But yet initially it's easy to kind of fall into that narrative and all it took was one person to be like, you know, it was really lonely. And then it's like, yeah, it was, and all of a sudden it changed the narratives.
Speaker 1:And I think maybe part of it too might be a sense of defensiveness or a type of defensiveness. And I mean that in the most charitable way, because when you've transgressed in the context of your family's culture, when you have struggled to fit in to your, adopted, your new culture, there is a sense that to fit with that bootstrapping narrative, you have to be okay and any struggle reflects poorly on you as an individual.
Speaker 2:Well, to be fair, for many people, for many of us, when we do leave the culture, any sign that you are failing or any sign that you're struggling is typically seen as oh, it's not as easy as you thought, Our community is the way to be, or oh, it's God working in your life to break you and bring you back. So there is that sense of defensiveness and also independence. I mean, you've got to figure it out.
Speaker 1:Right right, there's no room for vulnerability. If you are vulnerable, it will be weaponized against you at some point. Yeah, Another difference, I think. Well, we talked about the differences between many of the experiences that the men who were presenting talked about, but then also, well, when you contrasted them with the narratives the women gave, there were, but then I also thought that there was maybe a generational difference there too. I'm not sure what was going on there. Maybe it's safer to be vulnerable now. Maybe it was that space was a place where people felt comfortable being vulnerable, because there was some incredible vulnerability that I really I found very moving.
Speaker 2:Agreed, agreed. I do think it would be fascinating, though, to do a study and see how it impacts males versus females, because I do think, um, what you said regarding generational differences, um, also what you said regarding, um, it being safe to be vulnerable, that type of thing is true, but my gut feeling tells me that males and females experience both the community and leaving differently, absolutely, and I mean, you can look at it from a lot of different angles, and I think there's probably angles that I'm not even thinking about, but women are the ones that carry the responsibility of distinctive identity of their specific church community, so when you're in the community, you can typically tell what church the family is a part of based on how the females dress and the more conservative churches. You can usually tell that within the men as well, but it's usually not quite as distinctive.
Speaker 1:Yeah it's the shape or style the cut, the pleats and the covering, even the pleats on the dresses, you can tell, yes, how the dress is constructed, whether or not it is held together with straight pins or zippers or yeah, there's significance in all of it, and right, and women often expect to do the emotional labor, and since women are expected to be in a subservient role and often placed there, that also makes them more vulnerable to abuse, and so maybe that's why more of the stories that involved abuse were coming from women. But then I think, yeah, what you were getting at earlier is very true Women often don't have the skills that can make leaving feasible.
Speaker 2:Right. Well, and back to the thing of women being expected to do the emotional labor. I do wonder if that allows men to kind of check out at some level and not even be aware of what is happening. I was surprised at the men who believed they were loved by their family of origin, compared to the women who were making that statement, I mean. I think it's something to look at.
Speaker 1:Yes, there didn't seem to be any of the conflict, or if it was conflict, it was easily resolved. There didn't seem to be any of that tension that many of the women had experienced or at least were talking about. And yes, I think generational differences come into play there too, because I think we'd find very similar narratives if we were talking to someone with that same demographic profile outside of this context, right, like in a mainstream context. Right, correct, yeah.
Speaker 2:Agreed.
Speaker 1:Now, one thing that was also championed, kind of along with that bootstrapping thing, was the work ethic, and a lot of credit was given to individuals' work ethic for their success. And there were some very successful people there, folks who had really risen in the ranks professionally, and I think that, again, that's the narrative we have right, that's the narrative American culture gives us, and what's tricky about it is that it's true. A good work ethic is one of those skills many of us do have who leave right, I mean like that's what we've got, and it's not to say it's not a thing, not to say it doesn't help absolutely, but I think what the danger of not looking further than that is that it can start to sound like well, if you're not achieving that, then you must not have a good work ethic. And I think the message of our podcast is that it's not for lack of intelligence and hard work that is keeping people from our background out of college, but it's that there are intentional barriers that we want to shed light on.
Speaker 2:Well, and within those stories, when people talked about their good work ethic which again very important the other part of that that I think we missed is how important grit is within work. Work ethic you have to have grit as well, and grit is what gives you that bounce back, and usually if you have grit, you've got decent mental health. And good work ethic only helps you when you have opportunities presented. I mean, we have single moms who are working hard to feed their family, so it's not, it's work ethic combined with so many other things. Right, and not that work ethic isn't important, but having people who believe in you and having people who, even if it's just one person who supports you and tells you you can do this, it can change the whole narrative and the whole belief system, and I think there were a lot of.
Speaker 1:Now that I think about it, there were a number of stories like that, where people had that one person who had encouraged them to go to college, one person who had told them they could do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and one person can change the whole, not just the whole narrative, it can change an entire life.
Speaker 2:And so I would like to suggest that we look at our lives with a little bit more humility and a little bit of grace, both for ourselves and others, because what you said, as far as you know, it's not a lack of intelligence at all. In fact, I think the thing that surprised me the most about college is the fact that I'm more than capable, like that surprises me every day. But the truth is, it's not just me that's capable. The majority of us are capable. We're more than capable. We're more than capable.
Speaker 1:It's just having someone who will help you challenge your own personal belief systems and give you that sense of you know what you totally can do this Something to build our confidence on, yeah, our self-confidence on Right, right.
Speaker 1:That was also a theme that came up was this fear of not being smart enough and we heard that from lots, lots of the speakers most, if not all, correct, and it was interesting how there was a lot of agreement around this idea that, yes, we worried we weren't smart enough and then we found out, no, and that's not even the hardest part. Being smart's not the issue. The hardest part was more coming to terms with how alone experience was From the really practical things, like needing to figure out how to read a syllabus, or I have to remind myself of this all the time with my own students what happens during finals week? Yeah, the time with my own students, Like, what happens during finals week? Do you keep going to class or are you doing finals in class? Are you doing finals out of class?
Speaker 1:And when they talk about a blue book, what's a blue book? I don't think they talk about blue books anymore. Scantron what's a Scantron? Right? Like you know, I remember those from my own experience, and so those are the more practical things, but also there are bigger things, like if there's no one there to celebrate your A's or your graduation, or even just to be curious. One of the speakers was talking about dissecting animals in a lab and how interesting it was, and kind of what I was hearing in her story was that these were animals she was very familiar with at home on the farm and here she was getting a chance to see them, and I have had similar kinds of situations where I've experienced something or I've learned them.
Speaker 1:It's that I think they would be interested in and, to my surprise, they're not and so I think anyone who kind of has that hybrid experience can have that experience of not feeling like they fully fit in in either culture, and we're surprised at how difficult it can be to develop a new community.
Speaker 2:And, truthfully, we go to college or we make changes in our lives and we mostly come from a very almost enmeshed community.
Speaker 2:And suddenly we are kind of alone, yeah, and it's hard to know how lonely that is until you experience it. And then it's also hard to know how to create or find that sense of community. And I think one thing that I'm realizing is I don't think it's hard just for us as Anabaptist or Amish descendants. I think finding community is difficult almost anywhere you go outside of it. Agreed, we're just trying to learn new skills. We're trying to learn how to reread the room. We used to be really good at reading the room. Now it's like I have no idea what's going on.
Speaker 1:I love that point that you made, that many of us are coming from an enmeshed context. I mean, I just think of our upbringing. You know there were always either siblings or cousins or others, other kids from the church community who were we knew as well as cousins.
Speaker 1:Right, they may as well have been right and so there was like this cohort that you kind of grew up with, that that was just who your friends were, you didn't have to meet, there wasn't a lot of selection, you were just kind of friends with whoever you happen to be with. And so that, along with enmeshment, which does not set you up for developing friendships outside, like it doesn't give you the skills and I agree with what you're saying this is not just a challenge for us, I agree. It's much, much broader. But I think what is extra challenging for us is learning those skills of getting to know people and developing that community outside of a formal structure.
Speaker 2:Well, and if you think about it, within at least my Mennonite Amish upbringing, none of us had good communication skills.
Speaker 1:We didn't need good communication skills because of the enmeshment Everybody knew in network terms. Our networks were so tight, so closely connected. Yeah, there was a lot that could just be understood.
Speaker 2:Right. So, while this sense of loneliness and the need for community, I think, is very common, I do think many of us with Anabaptist, amish, mennonite roots have an extra hurdle. Maybe, or we've got many other skills that we need to learn, because who knew that in the world, if a woman continues to operate by this whole submissive notion, she's never going to achieve?
Speaker 1:her goals. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. And there's this we have to learn to assert ourselves. I don't mean that we need to have to be rude or aggressive, but just learning to speak up into a conversation is something that we have. It's a skill we never developed, right, and just being clear about what it is that we have.
Speaker 2:It's a skill we never developed, right, and just being clear about what it is that we think or question or want.
Speaker 1:Clear.
Speaker 2:Yeah, clear about what we want, clear about what we're asking for. Learning to do that is a whole other game, and learning how to ask for help.
Speaker 1:Absolutely which. That was something that came up too in relation to the Amish Descendants Scholarship Fund.
Speaker 2:You guys need to check this out.
Speaker 1:So this is a scholarship fund that was set up by Naomi Kramer, yoder and Emma Miller. Okay, naomi was one of the presenters at the symposium. She lives in Indiana and we'll link their website in the show notes. They've created this fund that helps scholars of Amish descent pay for college and I think there is that sense of hesitation to ask for help, that sense like I don't want to be greedy and I think in the world of scholarships and grant writing, you just ask for everything, knowing you won't get everything. You ask for it because you never know what could happen.
Speaker 2:And to your point, I was actually a recipient of this scholarship a few years ago and when I met Naomi, we were talking about that and I thanked her and she heard I was still in school and she's like why haven't you reapplied? And I'm like, well, I can't go back for seconds. And she's like, yes, you can. And so I know I know this thing about scholarships, I know about asking, I know about putting yourself out there, but even in this situation I felt I truly believe that I shouldn't go back for seconds, that somehow that was, I don't know, like not not what greedy presumptuous.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all of that, like it just, I it truly. I did not think about the fact that I could go back for seconds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the next deadline is coming up at the end of July. Have you already applied? Reapplied? I have. So, in addition to the presentations, we also had lots of time for conversation over meals, made a bunch of new friends, met some podcast listeners. This was a rare opportunity where both of these aspects of our identity could be integrated and it really did kind of feel like a.
Speaker 2:It really did feel like a family reunion Right, it did. It did Like most of the people I'd never met before, but it really did feel like a family reunion.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we have that mutual recognition of a common past, common set of experiences that really allowed us to connect, despite many other differences right, Because there's lots of other parts of our lives that are very different and yet those similarities allowed us to connect, and that was really cool. Now Saloma is featuring a lot of these stories a recap of the symposium on her blog about Amish and beyond, and we'll link that in the show notes.
Speaker 2:And I encourage everybody to go check that out. Woma was, I think, the first person I knew of who came from an Amish background who told her own story. She didn't have someone else tell her story for her. She didn't try to be polite or rescue somebody, she simply told her story and I've been kind of tracking her probably for 10 or 15 years and I so appreciate her for doing that. It totally changed how I felt about my voice and even other people's voices. It's like, oh my goodness, we don't have to get other people to talk for us, we can talk for ourselves. We can tell our own dang story, and I have so much appreciation for her for doing that. She truly changed the way I think about it and I am so grateful for that.
Speaker 1:I have admired her work ever since her first book came out too. What was remarkable to me about her writing was how she was able to tell a story in such a straightforward way. A very complex story I have not. I've written very, very little about my background, and there are things that I want to write about, but just the thought. How do I put this, even on paper? It's too complicated. The symposium where I got to meet her was a chance for me to ask her about her process, and I said how'd you do that? How did you manage to write cross-culturally without getting bogged down in explanations, cross-culturally without getting bogged down in explanations? And I should have known what her answer was.
Speaker 1:The answer was 17 drafts I was like well shoot.
Speaker 2:There's no shortcuts. That's why I'm still writing. There are no shortcuts.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I thought that was a really wonderful part of it. There was also discussion about future symposia like this one and what kind of format we'd want that to be, and I think there was general agreement that we would want it to be limited to folks of plain descent. And, let's be clear, this is not just for those who have been to college, this is for folks who are interested in it and are interested in expanding their education right, who are from Plain Descent. So this is not just for it's not like a special club, just for people who've been to college. You know, if anyone who's listening, who is from Plain Descent, who is interested in future events like this, text us your info. I mean you can also send it to Saloma Furlong, or you can text us your info and we will forward your information to the right person so that you're on the mailing list for future announcements.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, we lost Rebecca because of some technical difficulties on my end, so I'm going to go ahead and just wrap up our last few points that we wanted to talk about today. One of the ideas that came out of the symposium was we need a writing retreat or a writer's workshop of some kind to support aspiring memoir writers from plain backgrounds and, again, no college required, but just if you have a story to tell, if you're not sure how to tell it, getting in a community, having the support of others who are on a similar journey, can really make a big difference. So I'm not sure what this would look like, but this looked like a real in-person kind of gathering. Would it be some kind of a Zoom online Zoom gathering? I don't know. If you're interested, reach out to me, let me know. To be honest, I'm not sure if that's something that I can spearhead at this point in my life. Someday I hope that I could organize something like this, and partially just for my own selfish benefit of having a group of writers to work with. So if that's something you'd like to hear more about, drop me a line, let me know. Finally, we get to the giveaway. So Lizzie Hershberger was one of the participants at the symposium, and Lizzie, of course, warmed my heart when she revealed that she was a listener. It was the first time that someone I had never met before told me that they listened to the podcast, so that was really cool.
Speaker 1:Now Lizzie is an author. She wrote a book called Behind Blue Curtains, a true crime memoir of an Amish woman's survival, escape and pursuit of justice, and this is her personal story. It's riveting, it is told in a way that is very readable, very much within the true crime genre, and that it will keep you hooked. I'm really enjoying it, even though it's very honest and raw at the same time, and that's just a real, that's a real challenge to be both raw and honest and also engaging at the same time. But Lizzie really nails it in her memoir. Now I wish mainstream readers were just as interested, or even just half as interested, in Amish true crime memoirs as they are in Amish themed romance novels. But more books like Lizzie's, which is very much in the similar genre as a Saloma Furlong's. You know, maybe this is going to open the door to more of this. So the reality is that truth is so much more complex and intriguing than fiction. So that is certainly true of Lizzie's book.
Speaker 1:So I happen to have an extra copy of Lizzie's book and if you would like to enter the giveaway to win her book, send us a text using that texting link in the show notes at the top of the show notes.
Speaker 1:So, to enter the giveaway drawing, send us a text telling us from what part of the world you're listening you can be as specific or as general as you'd like and then, for a second entry to up your chances, tell us what topic you'd like to hear more about on the podcast. And, oh, I need to give you a deadline. So let's say that we need all the entries in by Friday July 5th at midnight, so 1159 pm on Friday, july 5th. So if you'd like to be entered in the drawing, send us a text telling us where you're listening, and then a second one just telling us what topic you'd like to hear more about, and you'll be entered in the drawing. So I think that is all for today. Thank you so much for listening. We love spending this time with you and we will be back as soon as we can, as soon as life allows us, and we look forward to hearing from you, because a one sided conversation gets kind of boring, right? All right, take care, we'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 2: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? We know you have your own questions and experiences and we want to talk about the topics that matter to you. Share them with us at uncoveredlifebeyond at gmailcom. That's uncoveredlifebeyond at gmailcom.
Speaker 2:If you enjoyed today's show and found value in it, please rate and review it on your favorite podcast app. This helps others find the show While you're there. Subscribe to our podcast so you never miss an episode.
Speaker 1:Until next time stay brave, stay bold, stay awkward.
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