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Noah’s Ark was patched together by volunteers. The Titanic was built by professionals (Anonymous)

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It is a busy life. I am an immigrant. Canada has taken a while longer getting to know me, than I had expected. Born in a family with very little means, my parents pointed me toward a professional vocation that would give me a career the moment I graduated – engineering.

I have taken even longer to get to know me. I could have turned my back on engineering and lead the far more precarious life of a writer, but I was always a scaredycat, unsure of whether I’d ever succeed as an author. So I chose to plod on in the field of engineering, where I remain, an unfulfilled husk of a man, his senses soaked in the smells of surface cleaning spray, machine coolant and cutting oil.

The years have gone by and our lives have finally attained a little stability. Financial freedom, a mortgage-free home, kid graduating engineering school, vacations……. and neighbors who no longer look quizzically at the way I am dressed on weekends, in my kurta-pyjamas.

Of late, there has been this emptiness. Soon I’ll be 69 and the feeling, that I have amounted to very little and that I have made no impact whatsoever on the community at large, that feeling has acquired a studio apartment at the back of my mind.

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One day I open the letter box and there is nothing in there except for this little bland pamphlet, from an organization called Volunteer West Island. Emblazoned over it are the words, ‘The best way to find yourself is to lose yourself, in the service of others’ – Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.

Usually I gather up all the pamphlets with an annoyed sweep and grumble,’I wish those m—er f—ers would stop dumpin’ this shit in my letterbox’ and I proceed to chuck them in the blue recycle bin in my driveway. North America is pamphlet country.

Not this time. This time I pause and I take the pamphlet home, flipping it over and over between my fingers. I fling it on the desk in the den downstairs and there it stays for a month give or take, during which time it gets pushed around the desk by the mouse and the keyboard.

Soon the pamphlet begins to age, acquiring a coffee stain here and a beer stain there (lots of beer stains actually), a few quick scribbles, a couple of phone numbers and some hasty interest calculations. North America isn’t just pamphlet country, it is also credit line, credit card debt, balance transfer and compound interest country.

I peer at Gandhi’s words from time to time. I am an agnostic, steadily tilting toward atheism. One day, my elder bro sends me a short piece that the Indian journalist, Mukul Sharma, had posted in his column, The Spiritual Atheist, in the Economic Times. The title of the post is ‘A caring universe’. Here is an excerpt from it…..

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“Does the universe care about what we do or what happens to us or whether we live or die?

If we were to believe hard-core amoral nihilists who say that the universe is just a physical phenomenon with no spiritual component, that events are random and have no deeper meaning or purpose and that there are no consequences to our actions, then the answer is obviously no.

Yet, even if that were true, it certainly doesn’t mean that we can’t care about the universe because, unlike it, we have evolved into sapient creatures that are capable of wonder and love. Meaning, we can infuse it with the same whether it cares or not. In fact, with that kind of involvement on our part, who cares whether it cares or not?

If we were to do that, we could begin living in a basically spiritual universe, ordered by recognition of good and evil; a cosmic order that would in turn, underpin and motivate all our actions. It would be like a moral force where our actions have definite effects that we carry with us. In this respect, its meaning would then be close to the Hindu concept of Karma.

The notion of a moral universe would also buttress spirituality and form the basis for kindness, compassion, altruism and caring for others. This is because it places a value on human life and living things that goes beyond what seems suitable if we regard people and living things merely as a collection of atoms, and essentially no different from any other unfeeling, non-sentient structures such as rocks, soil, mountains or planets”.

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Like Mukul Sharma, I have chosen to believe in a moral, caring universe, though somehow I do not believe that there is a connection between religion and morality. One can be good and caring without having to lean on the crutch of religious fervor. Why, it is now well on its way to be scientifically proven that goodness and caring are actually the work of certain identified neurons in the brain and can actually be tweaked and fiddled with, through a fast emerging science known as neuroscience. It is a matter of time before a psychopath can actually be converted into a deeply caring individual (and vice versa of course), through treatment.

Back to me now and one day, pre-Christmas, on my way to work, there is this radio program calling for volunteers at St Anne’s, the Military Veterans’ hospital, a long-term end-of-life care facility, to help the 90+ year old war veterans through the especially crushing loneliness of the Christmas holidays. Numerous activities are planned for the seniors in order to keep them occupied and not dwell upon why even their own don’t find the time to visit them.

‘I have nothing special planned this Christmas’, I say to myself. I get to the den and look around for that pamphlet. It has gotten so badly crumpled that I can barely read it. I call the number and a Ms Grenville, head of Volunteer Services at St. Anne’s, answers.

The 50% discount at the cafeteria makes up my mind.

I fill out a form and the RCMP checks me out. It takes another week for me to become a volunteer, with my own volunteer’s badge and ID. I am now one of the 12.5 million registered Canadians (that is 1 in 3 Canadians), the second largest volunteer population density after the Dutch.

The words of a 69 year old Albanian-Indian nun, standing in front of the world and accepting it’s highest honor, the Nobel Peace Price, Oslo 1979, are at the back of my mind – ‘everyday, each of us goes for a walk on the Jericho road.’

I am a registered traveler on the Jericho road now and I am scheduled to travel that road for four hours every Wednesday and Thursday.

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“If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your redemption is tied up with mine, then let us work together.”

— Lill Watson, American aboriginal activist  – to all wannabe volunteers

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Six months have slipped by at St. Anne’s and that anguish that I constantly felt before, at a meaningless wasted life, has vanished. In these six months, I have been around a good deal of illness and even death. Witnessing the challenges residents face on a daily basis has helped me appreciate my own life all the more.

Besides that, volunteering in a hospital has connected me with many like-minded people, volunteers like me, men and women trying to find fulfillment. I have formed personal bonds with nurses, doctors and of course, the residents and it has been gratifying. I have been treated with a different kind of respect, one that is reserved for those who offer a helping hand.

Here’s what I do at St.Anne’s. I come in straight from work around 6pm. It is a sprawling complex which is easy to get lost in. I did get lost trying to find the employees’ entrance the first time, but only that one time.

I swipe my card through and get straight to Volunteer Services, which is this tiny room with a closet where volunteers hang their coats and store their backpacks and stuff. I stoop and fill in my attendance in the file that is always lying open on this table.

After I sign in, I straighten and on the wall right in front are these two white boards, both having names written on them with a clear legible hand. One is always full of names with numbers scribbled next to them. Like ‘Bernard Bonneville (805) – Bingo’ or ‘Martin Beauregard (904) – Cribbage’ and so on.

If the name is crossed out it means another volunteer has come in ahead of me and taken charge of that resident. The number beside the name is the room number, 805 – Room 5 in the 8th floor. If it is Mr. Bonneville, it is his Bingo evening and the volunteer has to proceed to his room, take charge of him, wheel him down in his wheelchair to the Bingo hall. It is supper plus Bingo night. Afterward, the volunteer will take him Mr Bonneville back to his room and keep him company till he falls asleep. That’s the way it works.

My conduct with the resident in my charge is governed by a few very strict ground rules and taboos that Ms Grenville warned me about, right at the start. Here are some of them…..

‘Almost all the residents are veterans of WW2 or the Korean War. Never talk about the war unless the resident opens the subject. ‘Latent’ PTSD is a real issue and many of these 90+ year olds are actually afflicted with it and have never known it. So, please, don’t be a shmuck and rekindle painful memories. If you plan to blog on war stories, it shall have to wait till the resident opens up on his own.’

– ‘Do not ask about a resident’s personal life unless he starts talking about it first. Most times he has no family. I mean family that cares. Wife long gone, siblings probably long dead too, children grown, with no time to visit, the desire to catch just a glimpse of them and the grand kids, all that yearning and the abandonment – it can be crippling.’

– ‘Smile and be positive, sunny and cheerful when talking to them. They crave that. Most have been enlisted men and then, after the war, blue collar workers. They love to listen to raunchy humor, no matter how old they get. Bring along a stock of dirty jokes if you want to brighten up their evenings.’

– ‘Do not get emotionally attached to a resident. Most likely he will not live long and the separation can be very painful. Do not take a resident home or out on a drive with you, even if he begs you to. If anything happens, you will be held responsible. The hospital does not cover the costs and neither does your own insurance.’

– ‘Some of the residents, especially the lonelier ones, will try to show their gratitude because you chose to spend time with them. It’s understandable. Aren’t we all overwhelmed when perfect strangers step forward to help us? But in your case, they might offer money as a tip or reward. Do not accept it. Remember that you are a volunteer and you are here because you want to find meaning in your own life.’

– ‘If you promised a resident you will visit him on a particular day, make damned sure that you keep that date. You have no idea how much they look forward to your visit and how despondent a resident can get if you don’t turn up. Besides it may be the last you see of him or her.’

– ‘Do not try to contact the resident’s family under any circumstances, even if the resident implores you to. His family may not welcome the contact. Call the nurse in charge of the floor and let her deal with it.’

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“When we feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean and won’t make any difference at all, we must remember that the ocean would be less if that drop was missing.”

– Mother Theresa

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I told you about 2 white boards and I explained about one, if you have been paying attention.

Now let’s get to the other white board.

The other board has a shorter list, with two, maybe three names on it. It has reddish orange poppies and lilies all around it. Sometimes there are real flowers, roses and cards stuck behind it.

This board has a heading and it says, “Décédé la semaine dernière”.

Once in a while, I recognize a name on the second board. Like, today. Today there is one name on the second board that I immediately recognize and stare at in disbelief – Ron Nimitz, Corporal, RCN (Retd).

Once in a while, the no-emotional-attachment rule is fated to be broken, as in the case of Ron, a 96-year old ex-sapper. He was a dear dear little man whom I loved spending time with. He had no qualms about talking about the war. I looked forward to seeing him more than he did, seeing me.

Full of mischief, Ron Nimitz raised hell at Bingo. “Sonuva bitch! I’ll never get the numbers! What the f—k am I doon here?” “Hey, get lost, chump, that’s my seat.” “Oh baby, come n light mah fayah.” The last one to Rosy, a 94-year old WW2 radio operator who screams back,” You shut your foul mouth, you dirty old man! Sally (**Rosy’s volunteer minder**), come here! Move me to another table, will you?”

I haven’t finished reading Ron’s name on the second board and I am racing through the corridor toward the elevator banks. I dive into an elevator that is about to go up, I get off at the 6^th floor and hurry down the short distance past the nurses’ station, to Ron Nimitz’s door.

It is open. The wall above his bed is bare. His beloved war photos, of his regiment and his buddies, grinning, legs dangling over the mud skirt of an M4 Sherman tank and all those family photo collages – they are all gone.

The room is empty, completely sanitized, ready to take in the next vet. It is almost as if Ron Nimitz had been just a figment of my imagination.

There had been a short memorial service the previous evening, the nurse on the floor tells me. There had been no visitors, except for a younger sister who had flown down from Halifax. Seeing my eyes brimming with tears, the nurse, a plump matronly woman, holds me in her arms for a while.

I stumble down to Volunteer Services. I am empty. Devoid. I just want to skip and go home.

At Volunteer Services, I pick up my stuff from my locker and I am on the way out the door when my glance falls on the first white board. No one has picked up David Boucherville yet and I know how much he loves his Bingo. My eyes light up and I chuckle. Dave Boucherville and his Alzheimers makes friends with me all over again, every time. Every ten minutes or so, Dave asks the same question as he sizes me up suspiciously,” You’re not Cheryl? Where’s Cheryl? Has she come home yet?” I have been taught by the nurses to answer with a cheerful tone, as if I heard him ask that question for the very first time,” Oh she’ll be here in a half hour’.

I stash my stuff back into my locker and I head for the elevators to fetch Dave.

There is a spring in my step.

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“I want my Mommy…” – dying US Marine, La Drang, Vietnam, 1965

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You might have seen this image before. These folks are Pakistani-Americans, Khizr Khan and his wife, parents of fallen US Army Captain Humayun Khan. The Khans are seen here, speaking at the DNC Convention, July 2016, waving a pamphlet version of the US Constitution

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For those of us living outside America, the concept of ‘gold star families’ is an interesting one. These are folks who have one tragic thing in common – they are the immediate family of American soldiers who have lost their lives while on active duty.

Main sub-groups are Gold Star Fathers and Mothers – Gold Star Wives and husbands, you get the hang. There is even an officially designated Gold Star Mothers’ Day – the last Sunday in September each year.

Last Sunday was Gold Star Mothers’ Day, therefore this ‘homage’.

Displaying a Gold Star lapel button projects immense prestige and honour. If you have one on, people will treat you with hushed reverence. If you are in a line, you get served first. Once in a while, the meal at a restaurant might even be on the house.

Everybody treats you differently. It is awesome. The principle is interesting……get your son killed in a war of aggression 7000 miles away and get to jump the queue or eat free at the local diner.

You can even get to address a political convention. Like in the case of the Khans of Charlottesville, Virginia……

Khizr Khan, a Harvard-educated legal consultant, had his wife Ghazala with him when he delivered a moving address at the national convention of the Democratic Party of the US a few months before the 2016 US Presidential Elections. At that point, late July, Hilary Clinton had turned cocky, certain she was going to be Pres.

Getting back to Khizr Khan, it is amazing how the man held it together, remaining stoic while he spoke, his wife looking up at him from time to time, with a mixture of concern and pain in her eyes. Their dignity added to the impact of his speech. You can watch his address here, on YouTube.

After Mr Khan had said what he had come to say, all hell broke loose. The talk shows united on one thing – that he had struck a chord. Even among many Republicans, Trump’s standing took a brief nose dive.

Here’s what their son did for America, as per the citation that his parents received from the US Army…..

In 2004, Khan Jr was assigned to the 201st Forward Support Battalion, 1st Infantry Division in Vilseck, Germany, when he was deputed to Iraq.

Three months into his tour of duty in Iraq, on June 8 near Baqubah, Khan was inspecting a guard post when they observed a taxicab approaching too quickly, raising concerns that it was going to ram the guard rails and detonate an explosive device. Ordering his subordinates away from the vehicle, Khan ran forward 10–15 steps to the taxi to caution it to slow down.

His suspicions turned out to be well founded. At the wheel was a suicide bomber and the car had been rigged with a powerful remote-controlled explosive device that went off the moment Khan came close. He caught the blast before it could reach the gates or the nearby mess hall where hundreds of soldiers were eating breakfast. By that single act of bravery, he probably saved 100-200 Americans that day.

Capt. Humayun Saqib Muazzam Khan rests at the Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia, USA. That he has not been cited for the Medal of Honor for his heroic act of sacrifice is inexplicable. Not that it matters to someone who is dead.

For those interested to lay flowers, the location of his grave is identified below….

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KHAN, HUMAYUN SAQIB MUAZZAM
CPT US ARMY
DATE OF BIRTH: 09/09/1976
DATE OF DEATH: 06/08/2004
BURIED AT: SECTION 60 SITE 7986
ARLINGTON NATIONAL CEMETERY

Fresh flowers around Capt. Humayun Khan’s gravestone at the Arlington National Cemetery.

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He might not have known it then, but Capt. Humayun Khan died fighting a war that is now universally recognized as an insanely unjust and unnecessary war. It is a war which has left the Middle-East in tatters, a war whose incomprehensibility shocks us and makes us wonder why those leaders who started it have not only not been convicted of war crimes and horrendous human rights abuses, but how it is possible that they are today walking freely among us – proud, strutting, puffed up men – holding forth on the lecture circuit on how they brought democracy to the Muslim world.

Instead of a prison cell at The Hague, George W. Bush drives around his Texas ranch when he isn’t appearing in TV talk shows with the Kimmels, the Fallons and the DeGenerreses of America, greeted as he steps on the stage with deafening cheers and standing ovations.

But of course. I am being naive to believe that those cells at The Hague were ever meant for folks like Bush and not just for leaders of tiny Eastern European countries and black African heads of state. After all, look at the sterling pedigree he sports – his dad, George H W Bush was the one who pardoned all those thugs in the Iran-Contra affair and prior to that, took it upon himself to persuade a US Attorney to go easy in the prosecution of one of America’s most corrupt politicians, Spiro T. Agnew.

28-yr old Capt. Humayun Khan was duped into taking part in an invasion of a sovereign country, on the side of the invaders, for reasons as blatantly and ludicrously facile as the invasion’s military code name – ‘Operation Iraqi Freedom’.

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But here’s the thing – in 2016 when he gave his address, Khizr Khan must have known for almost a decade that America had lied to the world about the WMD. He must have known he was being used as a pawn by the very folks at the Democratic Party who had voted for the invasion of Iraq, among them, Hillary Clinton herself. He must have realized that they were indirectly responsible for his son’s death?

Or is the message hidden inside Mr Khan’s address telling us that sacrifice, any sacrifice, is noble? That war, any war and dying in that war is heroic and must be honored, regardless of whether the hero fought for the invaders or the invaded?

“You have made no sacrifice, you have lost no one,” said the bereaved Mr. Khan, addressing Donald Trump in his speech, making it seem like there is no difference between a just and an unjust war, as if sacrifice and being martyred is all that matters.

I don’t know, help me out here – if the parents of a foot soldier in Genghiz Khan’s western divisions or Attila the Hun’s hordes made a speech about how their son gave up his life while actively engaged in the effort to subjugate and annihilate thousands in the overrun territories, were their audience then supposed to tear up?

After all, if we look closely, there is no difference between a Hun Chieftain in Attila’s legions and Capt Humayun Khan. One died securing the fig orchards in overrun Anatolia and the other gave his life securing those billion dollar no-bid reconstruction contracts for the Bechtels and the Haliburtons of America.

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When I watched Khizr Khan and his wife proudly announcing their Gold Star status, it struck me that my country of birth, India, has no such exclusive club of parents. Thousands of Indian Army soldiers die every year trying to secure their motherland’s borders against Pakistani and Chinese infiltrators, but you don’t get to see either the Indian Government or the public going overboard and forming cult-like fraternities of Gold Star families. They honor the sacrifices of their martyrs and they move on with their lives.

I am sure it’s the same on the Pakistani and Chinese sides. Neither do the Europeans nor even the Russians have anything close to ‘Gold Star’ families. America is the only nation which raises the parents of dead soldiers to a kind of God-like status.

An even bigger irony is that those American soldiers that do survive and manage to get back home, maimed and psychologically scarred, they are shunned and treated like crap by their Veterans’ Affairs Department and in general, by American society itself.

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The ancient Spartans had moms who handed their 6-year old male children over to the state, to be groomed to do battle and die as heroes. When they did inevitably die, the parents were honored – if only symbolically – pretty much like the American Gold Star parents of America today.

There is however a difference between the Spartan parents and the American parents. In the case of the Spartans, that was the law and the parents had little say in the matter. It was either give up your child to go get trained to be a soldier and die in battle or let him remain at home and have the authorities snatch him when he is an adolescent, to go work in the hazardous arsenic-laced gold and silver mines and die there. Spartan parents had little choice.

There is another huge difference – the Spartans drew their soldiers from all strata of the society, the elite as well as the hoi-polloi finding equal representation. In fact, the Spartan elite led the way. In sharp contrast, members of the American elite do everything in their power to avoid serving in the military. Remember Donald Trump and his bone spurs?

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Only one modern-day parallel to the American Gold Star parents exists and that is in North Korea. I am told that the North Koreans have a well established system of badges of honor doled out to the parents of dead soldiers. The parents walk around with those badges proudly displayed on their drab tunics and total strangers walk up to them to shake their hands.

But then, there is a distinction even in the North Korean analogy – those strangers are mandated by law to shake a Gold Star parent’s hands, unless they want to find themselves eating rotten potatoes inside a gulag.

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For America, it is a perfect win-win situation – the nation starts a war, invades another nation that was simply minding its own business half a world away and just when the body bags begin coming home and morale begins flagging, it is artificially boosted with organizations like ‘Gold Star Mothers Inc.’ and ‘Gold Star Fathers Inc.’

“Always give ’em something to look forward to, even in death”, seems to be the dictum. So what if the real hero is dead. Make his parents the heroes by giving them fancy titles like ‘Gold Star Mother’ or ‘Gold Star Father’. They’ll be thrilled when total strangers walk up to them and shake their hands and repeat the same inane bullshit…. ‘thank you for your son’s service’. It will make them forget the fact that their son or daughter died fighting a war in which they had very likely been active participants in some kind of atrocity or the other, against the innocent citizens of another sovereign nation whom they loved calling ‘gooks’ and ‘barbarians’. Remember Mai Lai? Abu Ghraib?

Perhaps those Gold Star Moms just can’t wait to be on the receiving end of those flag folding ceremonies, where three or four soldiers, members of the coffin bearing platoon, begin folding the flag that had been draped over the coffin, in an excruciatingly slow and painstaking process that takes several minutes and makes you grit your teeth.

At the end of it, the flag turns into a tightly wrapped triangular bundle that resembles a hard sofa cushion. The bundle is then handed over to the Gold Star Mom, who receives it with an expression that says she is the one who should be grateful.

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‘Gold Star’ status is a ludicrous farce, especially for a nation that does not have to worry about an invasion, since it is bound by two vast oceans on either side and friendly neighbors in the north and the south. Therefore, for an American GI mom, Gold Stars can only be won when her Li’l Billy catches a bullet between his eyes or an IED between his legs, while engaged in an act of naked aggression, against a country half a world away that never did America any harm.

My God, this has got to be the perfect jerk-off.

If I was an American parent of a dead soldier, I would respectfully refuse that triangular seat cushion flag and the freebie at the diner and I would wait my turn at the queue.

I know what I would want to be – just a father, not a “Gold Star” sucker.

 

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“To air-dry clothes by choice is counter-cultural.

And who, more than any other group in twenty-first-century America, is counter-cultural?

Who have intact families, healthy communities, home-cooked meals and uncluttered homes?

Who are restrained in the use of technology, have strong local economies and no debt?

Most of all, what group has kept simplicity, service and faith at the center of all that they say and do?

The Amish!

Few of us can become Amish, but all of us can try to be…… almost Amish.”

― Nancy Sleeth, in Almost Amish: One Woman’s Quest for a Slower, Simpler, More Sustainable Life

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Giving his Dad a hand (Photo courtesy: Amishphoto.com)

Close-knit, in a world of their own, an Amish family on the way to church (Photo courtesy: efoodsdirect.com)

A road sign alerts drivers to an Amish community ahead (Photo courtesy: Wikimedia)

October the 3rd, 2006, was just like any other day for me. We had bought our first car in Canada just the previous day. Albeit, it was 8 years old but it was our first car and the feeling of suddenly being able to just take off any which way we could, was exhilarating.

We named her Bertha, tanked her up, flipped a coin and took off west on the Trans-Canadian. Just like the Grant Trunk Road does in India, the Trans-Canadian cuts right across Canada. Bertha is no longer with us, having long been sold off to a college student for $500.

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For pretty 13-year old Marian Fisher of the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, and her little sister, Barbie, October 3rd 2006 was a vastly different day. It was the day when the two girls unhesitatingly put into practice what had been preached to them all their young lives – sacrifice.

At 10 am, 32-year old Charles Carl Roberts IV, a non-Amish milkman from the nearby Bart Township, entered the one-room Old Order School where the two girls were taking lessons along with other little children like them. With him, Roberts had a 9 mm handgun, a 12 gauge shotgun, a rifle, a bag of black powder, two knives, tools, a stun gun, 600 rounds of ammunition, wire, and plastic tie-wraps. Aiming to stay there a while, he had also brought with him, change of clothing and a toothbrush.

He first let the boys go, all 15 of them, and then he ushered all the adult women with infants out of the school unharmed. The remaining 11 students, all girls, aged from 6 to 15, he bound their hands with plastic tie wraps and began to load his guns.

Suddenly, in an attempt to buy time for the rest of the girls, Marian Fisher stepped forward and asked that she may please be shot first. Her younger sister, 7 year-old Barbie, then fell in behind her and asked Roberts to ‘shoot her second’. He acquiesced. He shot them both and the other 9 girls. Only five survived, maimed for life. Marian and Barbie were not among them.

The deranged Roberts turned his gun on himself when the police stormed the school.

In the immediate aftermath the horrendous deed, the first announcement that went out from the community leaders to the international press was, “We do not think that there is anybody among us who wants to do anything but forgive and not only be there for those who have suffered a loss but also to reach out to the family of the man who committed these acts…”

Accepting. And grieving. An Amish family after the massacre (Photo courtesy: Ibelieveinlove.com)

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Members of the press reported that neighbors of the deceased girls met the father of Charles Carl Roberts and embraced him. Roberts’ widow was even invited to attend the funerals. It is not known if she went. Here are some excerpts of blog posts from journalists and writers…..

Columnist Rod Dreher wrote:

“Yesterday I saw an Amish midwife who had helped birth several of the girls murdered by the killer, say that they were planning to take food over to his family’s house.”

Journalist Tom Shachtman, author of the book Rumspringa: To Be or Not to Be Amish, said:

“This is a stark imitation of Christ. If anybody is going to turn the other cheek in our society, it’s going to be the Amish. I don’t want to denigrate anybody else who says they’re imitating Christ, but the Amish walk the walk as much as they talk the talk.”

Gertrude Huntington, a specialist on Amish children, said:

“They know their children are going to heaven. They know their children are innocent and they know that they will join them in death. The hurt is very great, but they don’t balance the hurt with hate.”

Lancaster Online reported:

“During the service, which lasted just over an hour, heads were bowed and tears flowed for the loss of schoolgirls’ tender lives and for their killer, a man described as a loving husband and father of three young children.”

I recall that the beheading of the freelance journalist, James Foley, by the ISIS in Iraq, had made me think of the whole concept of evil one more time and this time, from a new angle. I thought that if I wanted to understand evil, I would have to understand good first, or more appropriately, why there is good at all and to what purpose this good exists. Have the ISIS ever heard about the Amish, I wondered.

Of course they haven’t. The ISIS are an isolationist community of individuals who use terror to the ends that they see as true and just. For the Amish the ends are the same, only the means are the opposite.

The Amish practice what is known as ‘intercessory prayer’, which is pleading with God on behalf of others, not the simplistic bargain or unsaid agreement that we all try to contract with God when we pray. The Amish way is practiced by the Buddhists too…..

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The story goes that after the People’s Republic of China annexed Tibet, there was a mass destruction of Tibetan monasteries, holy libraries and other cultural artifacts. Along with it, whole groups of Buddhist monks too were imprisoned and made to do forced labor.

One such labor group happened to be carrying their prayer beads with them and would chant their mantras from time to time, till it came to the notice of their guards who confiscated the beads. No matter. The monks began praying without them till, once again, they were told not to talk aloud. Unfazed, they then began reciting their chants silently in their minds.

Then one day the order came down for them to be executed by firing squad. Lined up facing the executioners’ rifles, the monks began praying again, which appeared ludicrous to the Chinese since nothing could possibly save them now.

One PLA officer approached the monks and asked what god they were praying to and what they had to gain by praying at this juncture, when death was a certainty. One monk replied, “Actually we are not praying for ourselves. We are praying for you.”

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2000 years prior, there had been another man who believed in intercessory prayer. Beaten and tortured and then impaled to a cross, he had raised his eyes to the heavens and said,” God, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” This piece is on folks who follow that man more closely than any other religious group or sect on earth – the Amish.

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The Amish are an orthodox Anabaptist Christian sect that believes in remaining as close to Jesus Christ’s teachings as possible. The more I read about them, the more I love what I am reading…. and the more stark the contrast between the Amish and the rest of us appears.

Let’s get to know them a bit. Very interesting folk they certainly are, sprinkled sparsely over parts of the US, like roses growing inside a cesspool of consumption. (Yes, I said cesspool. Only in America does a father gift his 8-year old son an Uzi automatic assault rifle for Christmas. This actually happened in 2010 in Manchester, Conn. The boy accidentally shot himself in the head and died on the spot).

The Amish were a part of the European Free-Church along with Mennonites, Brethren Quakers and other denominations that first broke away from the Roman Catholic Church in the mid-1500s with the German reformist and founder of the protestant church, Martin Luther. They generally hailed from Germany, Switzerland and The Netherlands.

Breaking away from an entrenched and essentially evil institution like the then murderously oppressive Roman Catholic Church, was not easy. What followed were decades of persecution and wholesale murder, as the Catholic Church tried to wipe out ‘emerging competition’.

But the Free Church survived and soon after, one of Martin Luther’s colleagues, Menno Simons, formed his own sect, the Mennonites, a sect that believes in living a simple life, of peace and brotherhood, single-mindedly dedicated to the way Jesus Christ intended life to be led.

As time went by, a group within the Mennonites emerged, that wanted stricter adherence to the Christian faith. Led by a Swiss tailor turned Anabaptist leader, Jacob Amman, the Amish movement was born. The Amish belief is – if you want to live as a true disciple of Christ, you have to do without some of the comforts, pleasures and conveniences that others around you take for granted.

Some Amish and Mennonites migrated to the United States, starting in the early 18th century. They initially settled in Pennsylvania. There they spoke a language that gradually morphed into a guttural tongue that is today known as Pennsylvania Dutch. Other waves of Amish immigrants established themselves in New York, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Missouri and Ohio. Around the same time, one group traveled north and settled in southern Ontario.

Over the years, the Amish have attempted to preserve the 17th century rural European way of life, consciously avoiding the use of modern technology and developing practices that isolate them from modern American culture. Many ordinary Americans, especially the bible-belt folks, think of the Amish as freaks who belong in the looney bin.

Innocence, bewildered by excess. A group of Amish teenagers in New York’s Times Square (Photo courtesy: nypost.com)

The Amish are more fundamentalist than the Mennonites, the differences being in how they practice their faith. While the overall doctrine followed by both is similar, the Mennonites are generally more tolerant of technology and the outside world than the Amish.

A few Mennonite congregations accept higher education. They believe that it strengthens their religious beliefs. The Amish, on the other hand, feel that the outside world and its ways only corrupt the purity of their faith. They forbid education beyond secondary school, believing that today’s high school curriculum corrupts young minds by introducing moral sciences that teach students to accept alternative lifestyles such as homosexuality and the study of Darwin’s theory of evolution as the accepted origin of mankind.

Amish children are truly angelic. Go through the photos at the website amishphoto.com and you’ll see what I mean. The kids go to Old Order schools that are one-room joints where they learn only the basics. Here are some of pics I took from amishphoto.com, that are especially cute…..

Cuddling must be a major pastime among Amish adults, with angels like these. Amish kids walk around without any footwear (Photos courtesy: Amishphoto.com)

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When the children reach adolescence, they enter a period that the Amish call Rumspringa, in which boys and girls are given greater personal freedom and allowed to form romantic relationships, usually ending with the choice of baptism into the church or leaving the community. Rumspringa is a Pennsylvania German word for ‘running around.’

Amish men keep untrimmed beards and wear jackets and coats that have hooks and eyes instead of buttons. Their women dress in plain 18^th century-style rough cotton clothes with long sleeves and ankle length skirts. In the case of Mennonites, you might find a few dressed the way we do.

The Amish mode of transportation is horse and buggy and the farm lands are tilled with horse-drawn implements that are forged in coal-fired black-smithies. They don’t draw power from the grid and have no electricity, either at homes or at the places of work. Mennonites differ in that while they do not go overboard with the latest gadgetry, they do not believe that using electricity or motorized farm machinery and trucks shakes their faith.

The iconic Amish horse-drawn buggy (Photo courtesy: kidsbritannica.com)

The Mennonites have historically sought to increase their fellowship through missionary activities throughout the world. Today, there are Mennonites churches from Bolivia to Ethiopia and Nigeria to Indonesia. There are 1.7 million Mennonites worldwide.

On the other hand, the Amish have never felt the need for reaching out across the seas and converting others to their faith. Today there are just 290,000 Amish in the world, of whom 250,000 are living in the US and another 2000 in Canadian province of Ontario and the rest in Europe.

Two hours’ drive south-east of Montreal is a tiny Mennonite community of 15 families in a picturesque village called Roxton Falls, population – 1300. These Mennonites are making plans to leave their homes and farms behind and move to neighboring Ontario so that their children will not be forced by the Quebec government to attend government-sanctioned schools.

Provincial Quebec officials have threatened the families with legal action, including the potential loss of their children to the Child Welfare Services, if they do not abide by the mandatory education curriculum taught here.

But leaders of the community have decided that they will leave Quebec before giving up their children to ‘state indoctrination’.

It is sad to see them go, given that there is something refreshing about them. They lead clean healthy lives devoid of alcohol, drugs and crime. They bother no one and in fact, except for their quaint lifestyle which makes them something of a tourist attraction, they enjoy a good rapport with their non-Mennonite neighbors.

A couple of years back we packed a picnic basket and headed to Roxton Falls to see and maybe meet some of the Mennonites but the congregation was at church and while we couldn’t hang around we did love seeing the old-style barns and farm machinery everywhere. And horses, lots of horses and windmills and just about every structure made from wood. Mennonites being not as rigid as the Amish, we did see cars and electric lines.

Amish beliefs are quaint and one would imagine that the Amish would gradually disappear from the face of the earth, overtaken and overwhelmed by the technology and the avarice of the outside world, but quite the opposite has happened. The Amish have grown in numbers. From 165,000 in the US in 2000, they are now 250,000 strong today.

Inside the community, there are no secrets. Grudges or resentment toward others or rivalries over a girl’s attention are normal human emotions and these are discussed and resolved peacefully, without any fallout. As we saw in the Nickel Mines shootings, the Amish’s capacity to collectively forgive and move on is deeply spiritual and moving.

This is not to say however, that violence does not exist at all. In October, 2011, there was an altercation between two religious groups within an Amish community in Holmes County, Ohio, where members of one group used shears to chop off the hair and beards of a 79-year old Amish bishop and his family, accusing them of ‘not living right’.

Inside Amish communities, crimes such as robbery or homicide are practically non-existent, though there has been one case of cocaine trafficking at the Alberta/US border in 2013. There are no locks on doors. Every member is aware of everyone else’s lives and problems and involved in trying to make sure everyone is cared for. Male members call themselves ‘brethren’. Love is expressed as a spiritual kinship within the community. The community provides social and economic support, sheltering its members from cradle to grave.

A bit of ‘Rumspringa’ – Adolescent Amish girls happy in a ball game. Rumspringa, in Pennsylvania German, means running around having a bit of fun and frolic (Photo courtesy: Wikimedia)

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The Amish believe that only within a stable community will individuals find security and satisfaction, not by being individualistic. No one strikes out on his own or refuses to share. It’s a society that is devoid of alcoholism, divorce, alienation and loneliness in old age and this ensures a suicide rate far below the national average in both, Canada and the US.

The Amish foster group activities and there are many things that they do together, besides those related to farming. One is called barn raising, an event that looks more like a social event than hard labor that it really is.

Occasionally, there is a need for a new barn to be built in an Amish community. A new member may be starting up farming. Sometimes disaster strikes and a barn may burn down. The men get together and build a new barn for the member. Even little children help out, running chores, handing tools and stuff to the men. The women gather together and lay out tables full of food and refreshments for the workers.

An Amish community gathers together to construct a barn for a fellow family – an amazing feat that is typically accomplished within a just few days.  (Photo courtesy: Pennsylvania Dutch Convention & Visitors Bureau / Terry Ross).

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Though women are involved in almost every activity, even the more arduous ones such as tilling, sowing and harvesting, the Amish are still a staunchly patriarchal society, with women playing second fiddle. Amish women are expected to obey the dictates of their men, cook and feed them and bear their children.

There have been exceptions though. Like Katy Stoltz.

Growing up, Katy was forbidden from having her picture taken because of tradition. On top of school work she spent hours in the fields pitching hay as well as cooking, cleaning and looking after her siblings. Before school she would go out and feed the cows. After school she had to take care of the calves and then make dinner for the family. She spent six hours at a time out in the fields raking hay. Her clothes were shapeless dresses and bonnets and she had to cover her head at all times.

But in 2012, Katy’s life changed forever. She appeared in a reality TV show Breaking Amish. Soon afterward, she was signed up by a modelling agency and now she looks gorgeous in saucy lingerie shoots.

Amish model, Katy Stoltz, before and after. Innocence transformed (Photo courtesy: dailymirror.com)

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Amish women are startlingly beautiful, with flawless complexions and direct, guileless eyes. It was just a matter of time before one of them did what Katy did. But Amish elders think modelling is one of the worst things a woman can do. They see it as flaunting your body and being vain. The elders in the community took Katy’s photo spreads with sighs of resignation.

Katy’s parents have forgiven her transgression. They did not engage in honor killing as some other fundamentalist societies would probably have done. They keep urging her to come back home, but Katy has no desire to return to the Amish way of life. She in fact signed up to do a second series, Return to Amish.

Will girls like Katy start an exodus from the Amish way of life? The world is changing faster than the Amish can hold it back. I am afraid she might have set in motion a trend among other Amish girls.

Amish girls are startlingly beautiful, with flawless complexions that are born from eating organic farm fresh foods. The sport direct and guileless stares and ready, innocent smiles. I am considering asking the Lord to make me an Amish man the next time. With a woman like one of these, who needs electricity? (Photos sourced from Google Images)

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The Amish way of life is led by the truths as taught in the Book of James, which exhorts followers to live with simplicity, grace and obedience to elders. Not being very literate, the Amish avoid immersing themselves in any deep theological study. Besides, with all the hard manual labor, farming, tending, fixing and mending, there is very little time for sitting around deep in spiritual reflection.

Constancy is valued above novelty and innovation, qualities that they view with suspicion. The Amish take pleasure in repeated patterns of life, greetings, and rituals. They do not believe in multi-culturism either. You are welcome to visit them as a tourist but you would be discouraged from living among them if you weren’t from the community. For them, other values, practices and beliefs are not legitimate and therefore not to be tolerated.

Marriages outside the community will lead to immediate expulsion. Congregations being small, the ban ensures a limited gene pool and consequently, genetic birth defects are not uncommon. On the other hand the clean living, supported by fresh organic farm produce, endows Amish communities with 60% less incidences of heart disease and cancers than the North American average.

While I look upon the Amish’s quaint lifestyle and isolationist beliefs with amusement, I cannot help but admire their courage in believing in themselves and their faith. I hope to visit one of these ‘islands of sanity’ that are settled in Ontario, some day.

Better still, as Nancy Sleeth dreamed of in the quote at the start of this piece, I dream that some day the world shall turn ‘almost Amish’.

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