The years are walking in his brain, his father’s voice
is sounding in his ears…His living dust is stored with
memory…He has never been here, yet he is at home.

—Thomas Wolfe
_____________

I live in Lancaster County. Smack dab in the heart of one of the largest Amish communities in the world. Not to mention the oldest. And coming from where I’ve been, I sometimes feel like the odd man out there, drifting in a sea of cultural blue bloods.

Since my readership has increased pretty drastically in the last few months, it might be good to tell of how that happened. Some of you out there are probably wondering. Lancaster County. What’s up with that? Did the guy ever really leave the Amish, as he claims? Why can’t he seem to shake them for good?

Well, yes, I left. For good, back there at the end of the book. I never returned to Bloomfield or to Goshen, except to visit. But never to try again. That was my final departure. And at that time, there was little about the culture that attracted me. I wanted to shake it all off, the last vestiges of those chains. I was free at last. After all those years of turmoil. Free. And it felt great.

And yeah, there was some resentment bubbling inside me. A little bit of anger. I didn’t wear it on my sleeve, but it was there inside my heart. And I spoke it now and then. These people were stuck in their backward ways. They were welcome to stay there. The memories were still so raw inside, and so fresh. I was done. Gone. For good. I would never look back, except in gratitude that I had finally escaped. That’s how I felt.

I settled in Daviess, hung with the Mennonites and Beachy Amish, and they welcomed me. Then in the summer of 1989, I came to Lancaster County. Not out of curiosity, but for strictly economic reasons. That fall, I was set to enter college at Vincennes. I had a connection in Lancaster. And he told me. Come on in. Wages are way higher. You can make some real money here. More than you ever will in Daviess. Come on in. And the decision was easy. I had been a rolling stone for most of my adult life. So it seemed like a good idea, to roll on some more. Lancaster. I’d heard so much about the place. Remembered how odd they had seemed, the people from there, way back when they visited us in Aylmer.

And so, in May of that year, I loaded my ugly tan-gold T Bird and headed east. Arrived in Lancaster safely. It’s a beautiful area. Old, for this country. Lots of history. Tiny narrow ribbons of paved roads wind and twist through the countryside. Countless tidy little farms dotted about. Ancient stone houses and great red barns, owned by the same family for generations. Real roots, here. None of the vagabonding like my father had done, decades ago. These people were planted here. Born here. Lived here. Died here.

And the strange Amish buggies with rounded tops and straight sides practically clogged the roads, hitched to wild, high-stepping horses. You couldn’t have paid me to ride those buggies on those roads. Still couldn’t. I almost felt like a tourist, seeing this brand of Amish for the first time.

And that summer I worked long hard hours and saved my money. But I didn’t meet a whole lot of Amish people. I had no desire to, really. Sure, I said hi when passing in the regular stream of commerce. Mostly, I hung out with the Beachy Amish youth at Pequea church. They were friendly and accepting, welcomed me. Invited me to their social activities. It was a good summer, and a short one. In August, I left for Daviess and Vincennes, still convinced that the Lancaster Old Order Amish were one strange bunch.

The next summer I returned to Lancaster. And again, I made no attempt to meet any Amish people, or get to know them. Still wanted nothing to do with them. The summer passed, and I returned to Daviess and my second and final year at Vincennes.

The third summer, that’s when things started shaking. And changing. I boarded with Ben and Emma Stoltzfus and their family. On their farm just east of Honey Brook, over the line in Chester County. Upstairs, in the third floor attic of the farm house. A cozy little place that would be my Pennsylvania home base for about the next five years. Ben and Emma became as close to my surrogate parents as any couple ever has. I treasure the memories of their kindness. And their love.

And one summer evening, after I’d returned from a long day of working in the sun, Emma had a message for me. Some Amish guy had called that day. David (not his real name). Asked lots of questions. Was I staying there? Was I David Wagler’s son? Emma told him yes, and promised she would tell me. And she did. I was supposed to call him back. Here’s the number to his phone shack.

I looked at the slip of paper and shrugged. This was about the last thing I needed, some Amish guy tracking me down. I had just broken away a few short years back. I knew plenty of Amish people, even a few I still considered my friends. Why would I want to get to know any more? I pitched the number. Didn’t return David’s call. He’d go away if I ignored him, I figured. Another nosy Amish man with all kinds of invasive questions. No way, I wasn’t playing that game. He probably wanted to admonish me for leaving. Tell me to go back, to “straighten up and settle down” where I should be, back in Bloomfield. I didn’t want to hear it. Not this time. That song had been played too many times. No more, I would listen to it no more.

And a week or so later, another message. Emma smiled almost apologetically and told me as I walked in, exhausted, from a hard day’s work. David had called again. Insisted that he wanted to see me. Again, I shrugged. Who was this wacko Amish man? So persistent. Well, I could be persistent, too. And again, I pitched the phone shack number. Ignored the man.

And then, David unlimbered the big guns. He didn’t call Emma again. Oh, no. He waited, craftily, until evening the next time he called about a week later. I don’t remember who answered the phone. But it was for me. It’s David. The Amish guy.

I gave up right then. Any man that persistent at least deserved an answer directly from me. So I walked into the front room, off to the side, kind of a parlor. Took the phone. Hello. And a calm pleasant voice spoke. Precisely stating the words. Good evening. This is David. Is this Ira? Yes, it is. A few brief polite pleasantries. Then, hey, would you stop by some Saturday soon? We would love to meet you, my wife and I.

And there I stood, stuck. No. I don’t want to meet you. No. I don’t need to be admonished by any new Amish “friends.” But I couldn’t just say that. Too rude. So I hedged. Yeah, that might work. What did you have in mind? Of course, the following Saturday afternoon suited David just fine. And, of course, I had nothing else planned. So, reluctantly, I agreed. Where do you live? It’s simple, David claimed. We live just off the highway….and he gave me specific directions. OK, I promised. I’ll be there this Saturday afternoon. He looked forward to meeting me, he said. I mumbled in response. We hung up.

That Saturday afternoon, I headed out, shortly after one. In my old T Bird. Someday, I will write of how just ugly that car was. Not the shape, necessarily. But the color. Tan-gold. It was just gag-me awful. I haven’t owned that many vehicles in my lifetime, but I have owned two of the ugliest colors in the spectrum. The old avocado green Dodge. And that awful tan-gold T Bird. Other than the color, though, the T Bird was a decent car. It got me to where I was going, for a good many years. As a destitute student. So I guess I should honor it a little more.

I drove down the crowded two lane highway toward Lancaster. Turned right onto David’s road. A mile or two in. And then I turned into his drive. Nice place. Clean as a whistle, like most Amish places in Lancaster County. Not even a wayward leaf on the ground anywhere. Neat freaks, like all Lancaster Amish people. I parked. Got out and walked toward the house. Strangely, I wasn’t particularly nervous. This meeting was coming down, and it would be what it would be.

David met me at the door. We shook hands and introduced ourselves. Then he welcomed me into his home. I walked in. Met his smiling wife, and their clan of quiet children. All of them milled about. I scanned the room, amazed. Stacks of books were strewn about everywhere. Not fluff books, either. Literature. Theology. Bestsellers. I was instantly impressed. And as I looked into their faces, I suddenly knew that they were genuinely happy that I was there, in their home. It wasn’t just their smiles. It was their eyes. There was no hint of judgment in them. None. Nothing but pure honest joyful welcome. I didn’t know such a thing even existed in the Amish world.

And that was my first taste of how it can be, and how it could have been so much earlier in my world. To be accepted as I was, who I was, by someone from my background, my culture. Truly accepted. And truly welcomed. There was not a shade of a cloud of any reservation. None. I don’t think I could quite grasp, quite wrap my head around what that meant to me in that moment.

I won’t claim that I was suddenly, magically relieved of my resentment toward the Amish in general, right then. I wasn’t. I won’t claim that I decided right then that Lancaster County would be my future home. I didn’t. I was a rolling stone. Heading off to Bob Jones University in South Carolina that fall. I had no idea where I’d end up. I didn’t think ahead that much. I was focused only on working summers to earn enough to survive another year of college without loading up on too much crushing debt. I’d settle where I’d settle, when the time came.

I will say that when I met David and his family, that was my first real taste of people from my culture who accepted me, even though I had chosen to walk away. And that was a profound and startling thing to me. A minor miracle. To realize that such people could exist. I thought I knew the Amish as a group, and all their mindsets. I didn’t. Because I had never been exposed to certain elements of the Lancaster County Amish before.

The blue bloods came through. That’s all I can say. They fully deserve the status they claim for themselves. They are the real thing. What the Amish could be and should be.

That said, they’re not all like David and his family, the Lancaster Amish. Not nearly all. Even here, most are more like the type of Amish I knew growing up. Especially down south. South-enders, we call them. They’re mostly grim and humorless. Hard core. I can usually tell, when I meet them. Who they are and what they are. By how they look. I can sense their spirit. And tell who they are, from certain shadows in their eyes.

That was right at twenty years ago, when David finagled me into coming to his home. After that first time, the place became a regular Saturday afternoon stop for me. I soon developed a deep, quiet friendship with his family. Off and on, I’ve been there, a character in their lives as the children grew into adults. Married now, some of them. With children of their own. There were a few stretches through the years where I lost contact with them for a while, but I always circled back. Back to a zone of comfort that welcomed me, offered shelter from the storms. Back to real true friends.

And in time, my mind relaxed as well. My journey looped back, back to my roots. And I settled in, where there was comfort and support. I will never be accepted as a true Lancastrian. No one not born here is. But I’m settled, in my head. This is my home. Today, some of my closest friends are Old Order Amish. Right here, around me, in Lancaster County.

It might make sense, or it might make no sense, to those who have broken away from restrictive religious backgrounds. That I hang so close to the culture that caused so much pain. It might be mostly an Amish thing, I don’t know. Years ago, my brother Joseph was traveling by bus somewhere through Texas. At the bus station in some big city, a guy walked up to him. Completely English. Spoke to him in broken Pennsylvania Dutch. He had left the culture decades before. Lost pretty much all contact with his roots. And sometimes he randomly drove over to the bus station just to see if some Amish people might be passing through. And that day, Joseph was. They visited for a while, and the guy left. Still then, years later, he could not deny his longing for some connection to his culture. Something in his heart moved him to do what he did. There is no way to really disconnect, however much one might want to.

I chose to circle back, to live among them, the Amish. I could have chosen not to, and that would have been perfectly OK as well. I certainly don’t live like them, their lifestyle. Couldn’t do that if I tried. And I have no desire to. When I go “home” to visit, I stay in a motel. Because after spending the day in what used to be my world, I’m always quite ready to return to modern conveniences.

I guess for me, the dividing line is this. If, back there in the culture you have fled, there are people who still accept you as you are, stop. Reconsider your thoughts. Not your path, your journey is your choice. Just open your heart to those whose hearts are open to yours, and you will likely see with new eyes where you’ve been, and where you’ve come from.

My people, and my culture, will always be a part of my identity. Always be a part of who I am, how I react, how I see things. And nothing will ever change that fact. I can deny it. Or accept it. Either way, it’s still true.

It’s important, I strongly believe, to face and make peace with the past. And all it ever was, good or bad. Whatever the flaws of those in that world, to accept them. Whatever the hurts, to forgive those who inflicted them. Whatever the wounds, to seek healing. Which can be no small thing, sometimes, I know well enough. It wasn’t a small thing for me, and my journey was a walk in the park compared to that of those who have endured and survived every imaginable form of abuse. But it can be done, and it must be done. For a whole lot of good reasons. But mostly, for the sake of your own heart.

Because a heart that refuses to be healed will never be truly free.