<So…I took the summer off from blogging. It’s been a relaxing 2.5 months. We have had some great family time and if the weather would cool off…everything else for FALL would drop into place. If you have been here before, thanks for coming back. If you are new…welcome…stay as long as you like.>

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In early October of 2006 there was a horrific shooting at a one room Amish school house in Nickel Mines Pennsylvania…killing 5 and wounding 5 more young girls. I think most of us probably remember that event. What I have never been able to purge from my mind is the reaction of the Amish families that were directly involved and the Amish community as a whole.

You see, more than half of those that attended the killers funeral were Amish. And as the money and gifts poured in from all over…the Amish included the killer’s widow and her children in the distribution of the gifts. How do they forgive like that?

So when I ran across this book, Amish Peace, at the first of the summer…it made the top of my reading list.

What a wonderful book and what unique people. The book explores how the Amish view time, money, community, forgiveness and the sovereignity of God. The author, Suzanne Woods Fisher, spent days with them in order to learn their stories so she could share them with us. The attraction that I now have for the Amish lifestyle is summed up in one word…simplicity.

Why is it so hard to live a simple life?

The Amish personify simple living! Here are a few notes on why/how from the book:

• to only live with the things that they really use…and to treasure them.
• Amish farms have no more than 80 tillable acres…on purpose.
• each church district is kept to roughly 20 to 30 families…on purpose.
• their houses and barns are spartan -like; spacious and uncluttered.
• simple dress and grooming…so not to promote pride or status.
• possessions are guided by function and practicality…not by the latest style or trend.
• money is to help others.
• not less choice…but they choose less.

I encourage you to grab the book…the stories read kind of as a devotional. I am not quite ready to become Amish, but I would love to begin living out some of the Amish ways.

The book is full of Amish proverbs and this one grabbed me…“Live simple, so others may simply live”

Share your experience with the Amish in the comment section below or get the book and let me know what you think.

My Dad died in in 1990 when I was 28 years old. But he stopped being my Dad long before that date. Just like too many children in America my parents divorced when I was just a child (3 yrs old). We lived in the same town until I was 7 and I vaguely remember going to his house for weekend visits and events like birthday parties and Christmas. We moved 1400 miles away when I started second grade and the memories of my Father were spaced further apart and are not any more clear. There are two bazaar memories I have of my Dad and they are: I remember his hands…he always had rough hands(from fishing on the weekends), and I remember him always singing “When the roll is called up yonder I’ll be there” as we drove in the car. When he died it was a very mixed up feeling. He was my Father but he wasn’t my Dad because we didn’t know each other, we didn’t have that relationship.

I have unpacked and repacked that suitcase many times over the last 40 years and the hardest part has been trying to identify my emotions for him. I am not mad at him, I don’t blame him, I am not really all that sad…I simply didn’t know him.

 What I have concentrated on…is being a Daddy to my two beautiful daughters. God blessed Marilyn and I with two children (now young women) to protect, nurture and most of all to love . To love like our heavenly Father…Daddy…Abba loves us. I am still learning how to do that. At times it’s hard, at times it the greatest relational feeling I have ever experienced.

This Fathers Day I will be filled with pride and joy because God has allowed me to experience the relationship of Daddy while here in this world. I love you Betsy and Miranda!

And when the roll is called up yonder…I pray he is there.