Oh. To be Amish.
Yes, I really said that. I have a tattoo, several piercings, enjoy my 2009 Hyundai, and probably couldn't live without electricity. But in a recent seminar about some basics of Amish beliefs and histories, I stumbled upon what, I think, is one part of the answer of the "problem" of our culture.
I've been discussing in recent weeks the struggle teenagers and middle-school kids have with purity. purity of thought, speech, interactions, respect for the opposite gender, sexuality, dress, etc. And we've got a great message: Jesus calls you to be an example in purity. And the best part - the Holy Spirit can give you the power to actually combat all of the cultural bombardments that tell us otherwise. Great stuff. But, still insanely hard. Why? main reason for young girls (read: those who engage in sexting) is because they are missing fathers, mothers, are products of divorce, step-parents, second and third marriages, and so on. Thus, with their disconnected and often self-centered parent(s) or guardian(s), they feel the need to be loved. Girls, being so emotionally centered, feel it very acutely in their junior high years. They may or may not know it, but they search for someone, anyone really, to say "I need you. I love you. I want you. I can't resist you, you are beloved and you are mine." with any sort of intonation behind those words. If they're lucky, and maybe a little determined, they'll hear Jesus whispering that through connections with churches, nature, mentors, and so on. If they're the majority, they will look for those words in guys without their best interest in mind, in relationships in general, in unfortunate addictions such as alcohol and drugs, sometimes pornography (junior high girls are the fastest rising market for porn), and many, many more places.
How do we stop this? Often, girls realize that they need to live better lives, that there has to be something beyond the drama,the gossip, the boys touching them, the parents and fighting and abercrombie, etc. something. anything. anything to save them from this havoc-creating world.
My husband preaches that we have to cut off problems at the root. Any good psychologist/counselor would say the same. Not that we can just uproot our entire culture and say "its time for a change, lets head back into the direction of our puritan roots," but that if we strive to live selflessly, the way God meant for us to live, these problems will, literally over time, start to evaporate.
Here's where I see the root of the problem, and why I brought the Lancaster County phenomenon up: Broken families. Yes, I'll even say it, Jesus says it, and Paul says it: Divorce. Its the result of living focused on one-self, not focused on your spouse, as God designed it to be (note: I'm not barring legitimate, biblical reasons for divorce, namely adultery and/or abuse. Check out Gayle Haggard's response to even this one exception: Gayle: "I know your hearts are broken; mine is as well ... What I want you to know is that I love my husband, Ted Haggard, with all my heart. I am committed to him until death "do us part." We started this journey together and with the grace of God, we will finish together."Source: NewLifeChurch.org 11/5/2006).
Its an ugly truth. Ugly to our culture, ugly to the direction we've been going in for literally centuries. But God's pretty clear about this one. We don't like to hear it. Divorce is a nice option when you realize you're not "compatible," sexually satisfied, the center of the relationship, the one calling the shots, and on and on and on down an endless and fatal road. Its nice to know you can date other people, maybe even remarry.
But its wrong. And you know why I think this - other than the very obvious biblical statements? Because I can see the Amish community.
Fact: The Old Order Amish in Lancaster county (black buggies, no electricity, home churches, no state or national overarching organization) retain 9 out of 10 of the kids and youth that grow up in their culture. 90 percent. 90 PERCENT. Show me ONE church that claims to do that. The Catholic church comes close, or used to anyway, because of their youth catechism classes and their ritualistic practices ingrained for life in their parishioners. Not anymore.
And its not like its a blind following here. Every teen gets like four years to go out and do whatever they want, and they will be welcomed back with open arms if they choose to join the church and be baptised around the age of 20. They taste our culture. And not once, not some sort of American streamlined shock, but for years! and they choose to go back to their life. Why? arguably, its simpler with less drama. But there's less individual focus, less privacy, and face it, more hard labor!
Here's why: family. With an average of 7 kids in each family, the Amish children aren't neglected or left to fend for themselves. They grow up spending their entire lives knowing that they are loved. Individuals in Amish communities often have their own special nicknames. They are part of a collective whole that live and move and support each other in everything they do, and they are treasured individually, from birth, for the part they play in that. There is no divorce (or only on the rarest and often rough occasions). Death is a part of life. Hard work is a given, frugality is a must, caring for one another is the bottom line. Widows are loved like mothers, orphans are embraced like biological children. Hurts are healed, pain is born, connection is uppermost.
The Amish are the American puritans before the industrial revolution. A family that prays together, stays together, lives together, loves together. Their love is not, cannot be self-focused. There is no place for that. There is no teaching for that (I'm not undermining self-confidence, that's a whole 'nother topic that I happen to think being a beloved child both at birth and forever after contributes positively too). There is no premise for choosing self over family, siblings, or friends in the community.
Not that its utopia. There are many glitches and inconsistencies in that community. But their basis of culture maintains the family structure as God created it in perfection to be: whole.
So, yes. In many ways, I wouldn't mind being Amish.
4.20.2009
4.13.2009
Wine spilling everywhere
From Luke Chapter 5:
33They said to him, "John's disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking."
34Jesus answered, "Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? 35But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast."
36He told them this parable: "No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. 37And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.' "
The new living translation of that last verse reads: But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine,’ they say.”
I was intrigued by this parable over the weekend. Partly because I was sitting in an Easter Sunday service that included a rendition of “You Found Me” by The Fray, rather than the marchy-nazarene song “Up from the grave he arose!” and partly because I usually find Jesus’ parables both so profound and so cryptic that I love to try to take them apart and explore the context. This one is interesting. Jesus just went around healing bunches of people. Each time he heals them, he says not to say anything to anyone. Either a clever marketing ploy or a genuine strain towards secrecy: it doesn’t work. No matter where he goes, people know who He is and the power He has. Both those who have faith and wish to be healed, and those who lack faith and don’t think they need healing. The Pharisees and saducees, namely. So sometimes, Luke tells about the person who comes up and says “if you are willing, heal me.” But other times, Luke writes very blatantly about how church leaders questioned Jesus outright.
This case is of the latter. Self-important people (for this is not an inquisitive-type question, this is a challenge question) ask Jesus why everyone else who is supposedly religious fast and pray, but Jesus apparently nourishes himself all the time. His direct answer confuses them. He basically says “party with the King, dude, why mourn when you’ll have time for that later.”
But His parable is the real answer to the question. The parable, talking about very practical things like clothes and wine, two staples of Jewish life, discusses the quality of each. No one decides to half-heartedly update and old, holey garment with a shiny new patch of fabric. It looks stupid. If you are going to patch an old garment, use old cloth. Ah, but if you are going to have a new shirt, then have one! Don’t do the job half-way.
Same with the wineskins. This example is a little more graphic. If you pour new wine into old wineskins, it will literally burst the old skins at the seams, and wine will spill everywhere. If you want to do it right, you have to get new skins to hold the new liquid. There’s no two ways about it, no shortcuts. New goes with new, old goes with old.
Gentle though it is, this rebuke is still explicit. You cannot say to Jesus, Yo, why aren’t you doing everything the way we always did things. The way we’re supposed to do things. The way it makes sense to do things?!
And Jesus said – because you can’t fit new stuff into old clothes. The skins will burst. The outfits will be ruined. The reputation will cease. If you want new stuff, and believe you me, He came with some new stuff in His mission statement, you gotta go the whole way. 100%. New. Not old. You can’t just hang on to that old pair of pants and replace the shoes and the shirt. It’s gotta be all new.
And here’s the cool part.We don’t have to be or get the new stuff ourselves. It doesn’t outline in the Bible where sinner have to change their ways, and then Jesus can take a look-see, maybe set up camp. It doesn’t say we have to use our own willpower and goals list, be our own heroes and change the world (see post later from my husband about the mis-step in the Men’s Frat teaching), and when we’re good enough, humble enough, successful enough, missional-minded enough, sacrificial enough, then Jesus will hang out with us.
Nuh uh.
It says, He’ll go ahead and give us all the new stuff Himself!! Because, lets face it, we can’t be all that. We can try really hard, and we can make resolutions and to-do lists and suffer through, but we will never be as Christ-like as Jesus Himself without letting Him commit and do the cleansing. (Note: I’m not for the “I’ll lay on the couch and think Christian thoughts and let Jesus figure out how to fix me” at all, I’m all for going out and serving and sacrificing and building relationships. I just want to make the point that we can’t do it ourselves and then sometimes talk to Jesus. It’s a God-thing. He’s all over it.)
All that to say. I hope I can become the kind of person who doesn’t stick to “the old is just fine,” Parts of the church, my soul, and my life. Because, the old isn’t just fine. The old has gone, the new has come. I want to live like that’s the reality in my life.
33They said to him, "John's disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking."
34Jesus answered, "Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? 35But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast."
36He told them this parable: "No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. 37And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.' "
The new living translation of that last verse reads: But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine,’ they say.”
I was intrigued by this parable over the weekend. Partly because I was sitting in an Easter Sunday service that included a rendition of “You Found Me” by The Fray, rather than the marchy-nazarene song “Up from the grave he arose!” and partly because I usually find Jesus’ parables both so profound and so cryptic that I love to try to take them apart and explore the context. This one is interesting. Jesus just went around healing bunches of people. Each time he heals them, he says not to say anything to anyone. Either a clever marketing ploy or a genuine strain towards secrecy: it doesn’t work. No matter where he goes, people know who He is and the power He has. Both those who have faith and wish to be healed, and those who lack faith and don’t think they need healing. The Pharisees and saducees, namely. So sometimes, Luke tells about the person who comes up and says “if you are willing, heal me.” But other times, Luke writes very blatantly about how church leaders questioned Jesus outright.
This case is of the latter. Self-important people (for this is not an inquisitive-type question, this is a challenge question) ask Jesus why everyone else who is supposedly religious fast and pray, but Jesus apparently nourishes himself all the time. His direct answer confuses them. He basically says “party with the King, dude, why mourn when you’ll have time for that later.”
But His parable is the real answer to the question. The parable, talking about very practical things like clothes and wine, two staples of Jewish life, discusses the quality of each. No one decides to half-heartedly update and old, holey garment with a shiny new patch of fabric. It looks stupid. If you are going to patch an old garment, use old cloth. Ah, but if you are going to have a new shirt, then have one! Don’t do the job half-way.
Same with the wineskins. This example is a little more graphic. If you pour new wine into old wineskins, it will literally burst the old skins at the seams, and wine will spill everywhere. If you want to do it right, you have to get new skins to hold the new liquid. There’s no two ways about it, no shortcuts. New goes with new, old goes with old.
Gentle though it is, this rebuke is still explicit. You cannot say to Jesus, Yo, why aren’t you doing everything the way we always did things. The way we’re supposed to do things. The way it makes sense to do things?!
And Jesus said – because you can’t fit new stuff into old clothes. The skins will burst. The outfits will be ruined. The reputation will cease. If you want new stuff, and believe you me, He came with some new stuff in His mission statement, you gotta go the whole way. 100%. New. Not old. You can’t just hang on to that old pair of pants and replace the shoes and the shirt. It’s gotta be all new.
And here’s the cool part.We don’t have to be or get the new stuff ourselves. It doesn’t outline in the Bible where sinner have to change their ways, and then Jesus can take a look-see, maybe set up camp. It doesn’t say we have to use our own willpower and goals list, be our own heroes and change the world (see post later from my husband about the mis-step in the Men’s Frat teaching), and when we’re good enough, humble enough, successful enough, missional-minded enough, sacrificial enough, then Jesus will hang out with us.
Nuh uh.
It says, He’ll go ahead and give us all the new stuff Himself!! Because, lets face it, we can’t be all that. We can try really hard, and we can make resolutions and to-do lists and suffer through, but we will never be as Christ-like as Jesus Himself without letting Him commit and do the cleansing. (Note: I’m not for the “I’ll lay on the couch and think Christian thoughts and let Jesus figure out how to fix me” at all, I’m all for going out and serving and sacrificing and building relationships. I just want to make the point that we can’t do it ourselves and then sometimes talk to Jesus. It’s a God-thing. He’s all over it.)
All that to say. I hope I can become the kind of person who doesn’t stick to “the old is just fine,” Parts of the church, my soul, and my life. Because, the old isn’t just fine. The old has gone, the new has come. I want to live like that’s the reality in my life.
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