Growing Up Amish - Ira Wagler [46]
I already knew that Marvin, Rudy, and Mervin had started joining the church a few weeks before. I wondered if it would be too late to join with them. Not because I had suddenly seen the light and turned over a new leaf. Not because I had turned from my sins in a dramatic conversion. But simply because I wanted to be with my buddies.
And so, the very first day after returning home, on that Sunday morning in church as the preachers walked solemnly from the room, I got up with my friends and followed them.
It’s an impossible jolt to the mind, the thing I was attempting—running wild, from town to town and state to state for months, then abruptly changing back. And not only that, but changing to the point that I was joining the church. I should have known better than to try. And the church leaders should have known better than to allow me to try.
The effort was doomed from the start.
At least I finally discovered what goes on inside the preachers’ conference for baptismal instruction. It’s all pretty formal. The applicants, my buddies and I, sat there solemnly as each of the preachers, beginning with the bishop, instructed and admonished us for about five or ten minutes. Nothing unique or personal. They never addressed us directly or spoke our names. They barely even glanced at us. Mostly they spoke pious clichés and vacant generalizations: “We thank the Lord this morning for his blessings. Today, we have much to be thankful for. We have life, and health, and the church to guide us. And this morning, we are thankful that the future of the church will come through young people like all of you. We are so thankful that you have made the choice to come and take instruction and admonishment and be baptized. This is one important step in your lives that you will never regret.” And so forth, and so on. And so on.
But their words, although relevant and at least partially true, were devoid of life and passion. After about half an hour, they wrapped it up, and we were dismissed to return to the congregation.
So we went through the motions and waited for the internal revelations. The mental transformation, where all would be clear to us. Where we could see and walk the path our parents wanted for us.
Sadly, it was not to be.
A mental choice, absent real internal change, is no choice at all. We couldn’t force ourselves to be something we were not. That just couldn’t happen. And it didn’t.
Most of the group stayed with it, but Marvin Yutzy and I ran into trouble almost from the start. We weren’t quite ready to give it all up, not just yet. And the more we resisted, the harder the preachers crushed their heels on us.
We were closely watched.
And strongly criticized, everything from our attitudes to how we combed our hair. And, of course, the classic gripe—our sideburns were too long. Like countless others before us through the years, we simmered under the pressures. Hung together. Sneaked around. And as the weeks passed, we knew—at least I knew—we could not continue. Marvin might have made it had I not been in the picture. But as my best friend, he remained intensely loyal. Whatever happened, we were in it together.
The preachers saw it coming. So did our parents. They did all they knew to do to stop it (which wasn’t a whole lot). They fussed and scolded. Pleaded and threatened. We were deluged from all sides. We should just straighten up and behave. Decide to do right. But their words seemed empty, like so much sound and fury, signifying little of value to us.
And so things continued uneasily for a few months until it all came to a head one Sunday night at the singing.
Church had been at our home that day, and the singing was that night. After supper, we hung out as usual, and as eight o’clock approached, we filed into the living room to sing. Marvin and I sat together, not quite at the back. We were having a merry old time, whispering and laughing between the songs and during the singing. We weren’t greatly disruptive,