Growing Up Amish - Ira Wagler [30]
That sure made for some messed-up minds and messed-up lives. Not for the drones—those who accepted without question what they were told. But for anyone with a speck of spirit, it could get a little crazy.
Think about it. You are in a box—a comfortable box, but a pretty confining one. You wonder what’s outside. You peek out a bit now and then, and peer around. But deep down, you know that if you step outside that box, you are speeding directly down the highway to hell and could arrive at any instant. Boom, just like that.
That kind of pressure is a brutal thing, really, a severe mental strain. And it’s the reason that in most communities, when Amish kids run wild, they usually run hard and mean. Because once that line is crossed, there are no others. Nothing they can do, short of returning, can make any difference.
Believe otherwise, as do the Mennonites and the Beachy Amish, who drive cars and prattle on about being saved, and the devil’s got you right where he wants you.
That’s what we were taught and what we believed.
* * *
Compared to what goes on in many other communities, my friends and I were pretty harmless, really. We weren’t destructive. We didn’t terrorize people. But somehow, we managed to frequently trigger a great outpouring of dramatic groans and intonations from parent and preacher alike: “How could my son act so wickedly?”
“Dee boova sind so loppich. So veesht.” (The boys are so naughty. So wicked.)
“You know better. Why can’t you just be good and behave like other boys? Such decent boys, so nice, and such upstanding members of the church.”
They were nice and upstanding, all right. And utterly dull.
We gagged at such drama. Ignored the incessant scolding. Despised the pious boys. Hunkered down and persisted in our “wicked” ways. The more our parents and the preachers tried to crack down and suppress us, the harder we “kicked against the goads.” Whatever discipline they designed and threw at us, we resisted. They plugged a leak here; the water slipped through over there. They tried to separate and divide, and it drew us that much closer to one another.
I’m not condoning—or bemoaning—what we did. It’s just the way it was. And history is not undone just because one pretends it didn’t happen or destroys the evidence.
And yet somehow when I look back on those times, I can’t bring myself to be too harsh on anyone involved on either side. Oh sure, on occasion I can still dredge up mild resentment at a few pious, nosy, long-bearded busybodies who made a mission of trying to straighten out other people’s kids. Who secretly harbored their own dark skeletons in their own closets. But overall, the years have tempered the rage and frustrations of our youth. And, I hope, softened the deep pain we inflicted on those closest to us at the time.
Although far from perfect, our parents had given up a lot. They had uprooted their lives. Moved to this new settlement in hopes of establishing a community where the youth would be respectful and behave, not drag in all the bad stuff, the wicked habits practiced in other places. I couldn’t see that then. I can now.
And looking back, not that far from the age my father was at the time, I remember the vast chasm that separated us. The harsh, hollow words that echoed in anger and sadness across the great divide. Words spoken but not heard. Words better left unsaid. I was a hothead, strong willed and filled with passion, rage, and desire. Stubborn. Driven. As was he. I was my father’s son.
I misbehaved. He fumed and hollered.
I seethed. He lectured and fussed.
I sulked. He watched and worried.
Mostly though, our communication was pretty much nonexistent.
In reality, my father had reason to be concerned. He knew all too well the blood that ran through me—blood that could never be tamed by force, only by choice—and a will that would not bend.
He knew. He wouldn’t have admitted it, or ever told me. But he knew.
Perhaps he felt a slight chill inside, a