Growing up Amish - Ira Wagler - 2011

 

Full disclosure I am listening to Amish paradise by weird al as I write this jajaja. His song is not wrong. Jaja. Anyways, Scott this is worth reading. Elton John and Educated are better but it is still good. 

The problem with this book is I am not sure what the point of it is. You go through this long and interesting Amish story and at the end the author “finds peace” but to me not that much has changed. The author I guess means the story to be a lesson about God, but it is hard for me to see it that way. 

Actually this book is a lot like Educated in the sense that the author gets badly trapped between two worlds and in the end has to choose one over the other. He has just as hard of a time as Tara deciding what to do. The main difference is that Ira’s family is not abusive or crazy, they are just ignorant because they are Amish. 

A big problem the author has with the Amish is that they essentially choose ignorance. I totally agree. They choose ignorance because of their religion which is good enough for them. This is the problem with religion. Religion is “right” therefore you follow it blindly. If you follow something blindly you stop thinking. This is wrong. You have to think always. I never trust anyone who says they understand life or have found the “right” way because I don’t think the “right” way exists.

Another thing Ira struggles a lot with is if he is going to go to hell for not following the precepts of the Amish church. I also always wonder this about the Catholic Church. In the end, I think he determines that he can still be saved even without the Amish. For me it is a total mystery, and I recognize that I don’t understand and just do the best I can. 

But anyways some of the stuff is kind of cool: some Amish communities allow bicycles, when voting for a new priest his community voted by whisper which I found hilarious, and the Amish are really good at welcoming you back (if you stray into “the world”) with open arms. 

So no I do not want to go become Amish (and this is possible, the books discusses it) because as far as I can tell the Amish are a religious cult of friendly but uneducated farmers. I don’t think their religion is that good. In general I think religion just stresses people out because they are constantly worried about meeting the dictates of the religion. 

Worth reading but not awesome. 

Also the Amish are really good at getting rides from English people (that’s us). They are also really good at writing letters and taking greyhound buses and trains. They are also really good workers but you probably already knew that. This book is not that long. 

Ok peace. Idk what I am reading next. I have been reading better material lately by sheer luck. Hopefully this will continue.