Fantasizing about the Amish

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Kendy

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So, part II of my should I becoming a US citizen rant.

While I believe that the Catholic Church is the church founded by Christ, I am not all that impressed with my day to day experience as a catholic. And lately, I have day dreaming about the Amish. I am particular impressed by how they got the government to leave them alone from all their social programs by showing that they can take care of their own.

So, I am planning a little retreat with an Amish community. I hope to come back, but it might be difficult. 😉

No point. Just sharing.
 
Tune in, turn on, drop out ?? Kind of a '60’s thing you seem to have going.

I wish you well, but ask you to remember one thing, Christ commanded his disciples to go out to the world and baptize all nations. Kind of hard to do that when you disengage yourself from the everyday world.

Of course, I guess you could say that about monastic life, too.

So good luck, hope you find what you are looking for.

Just sharing.
 
joeybaggz said:
Tune in, turn on, drop out ?? Kind of a '60’s thing you seem to have going.

I wish you well, but ask you to remember one thing, Christ commanded his disciples to go out to the world and baptize all nations. Kind of hard to do that when you disengage yourself from the everyday world.

Of course, I guess you could say that about monastic life, too.

So good luck, hope you find what you are looking for.

Just sharing.
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Tune in to what? I still believe in the creed. I don’t think I will do it. I am just fantasizing.

Kendy
 
Kendy said:
I am particular impressed by how they got the government to leave them alone from all their social programs by showing that they can take care of their own.
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They had to fight hard to get the government to leave them alone. Lots of court cases on a wide variety of issues (for example, Social Security, child labor, public schooling) were involved.

But the Amish, as I understand it, are a closed society. They don’t easily accept outsiders.
 
wapsi said:
They had to fight hard to get the government to leave them alone. Lots of court cases on a wide variety of issues (for example, Social Security, child labor, public schooling) were involved.

But the Amish, as I understand it, are a closed society. They don’t easily accept outsiders.
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Well, it’s just a fantasy. Expect for my retreat. I have been contacting someone by mail, and that should be fun. 🙂
 
We have a fairly large Amish population within a hour’s drive from here. Being a nurse and having cared for Amish people in the burn unit, I can only say that personally, I’m too spoiled by modern conveniences to embrace that sort of life. I’m not talking about cell phones, computers, and all of that…I’m talking about deodorant and modern “feminine hygiene” products! But to each her own… 🙂 Enjoy your retreat.
 
CarrieH said:
We have a fairly large Amish population within a hour’s drive from here. Being a nurse and having cared for Amish people in the burn unit, I can only say that personally, I’m too spoiled by modern conveniences to embrace that sort of life. I’m not talking about cell phones, computers, and all of that…I’m talking about deodorant and modern “feminine hygiene” products! But to each her own… 🙂 Enjoy your retreat.
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No deodorant! What do they do for feminine hygiene? Do they smell? :o
 
Kendy said:
No deodorant! What do they do for feminine hygiene? Do they smell? :o
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Well, not to be gross or un-PC or anything, but…yes! :o I apologize in advance if I offend anyone. Most of the Amish folks I have encountered do have body odor. I don’t know if the no-deodorant thing is the standard practice, and I’m only reporting my own observations. Anyway, since our hospital has the only burn unit in the area, we would occasionally get an Amish burn patient from down by the Michigan-Indiana state line area because they will use hospitals as a last resort for life-and-death stuff. Shipshewana is about an hour from here, and that is big Amish country. Often the whole family would come up with the patient, and they would camp out in the waiting room. You could smell the B.O. when you walked past. One of my friends took a train trip across the country and wound up seated near an Amish group, and she reported the same thing. As far as the feminine hygiene products, I don’t know if they all use the old-fashioned rags instead of disposable pads and tampons, but just in case, try to schedule your retreat when it isn’t “that time of the month!” Actually, the “crunchy” crowd is all about reusable cloth pads these days, but the Amish won’t be using those cute LunaPads, that’s for sure! Just thought I had better give you the heads-up about that part of life. And I’ll bet they don’t have any Midol on hand, either. 😊
 
It’s not easy to see the warts of a quaint closed society like the Amish. But they have had their child abuse scandals–physical and sexual and incestuous–and it’s easy for the closed communities to circle the wagons and protect the abusers from social services investigators. No amount of piety makes that right. The forgive and forget ethic can be used to perpetuate injustice. Just google Amish child abuse and start reading.

I used to live and work at a Quaker boarding high school and was a little too impressed. That can only survive at soft focus and briefly. The Quaker families that ran the school thought it was OK to do drugs with the high school kids, and to permit one of them to be the drug supplier for the community (assisted by her mother).

Yeah, shocking, but it awakened a moral sense in me and was a major step to moving me past my relativism and indifference.

Sin is everywhere but there is a real problem when good is called evil and evil is called good. :eek:
 
CarrieH said:
Well, not to be gross or un-PC or anything, but…yes! :o I apologize in advance if I offend anyone. Most of the Amish folks I have encountered do have body odor. I don’t know if the no-deodorant thing is the standard practice, and I’m only reporting my own observations. Anyway, since our hospital has the only burn unit in the area, we would occasionally get an Amish burn patient from down by the Michigan-Indiana state line area because they will use hospitals as a last resort for life-and-death stuff. Shipshewana is about an hour from here, and that is big Amish country. Often the whole family would come up with the patient, and they would camp out in the waiting room. You could smell the B.O. when you walked past. One of my friends took a train trip across the country and wound up seated near an Amish group, and she reported the same thing. As far as the feminine hygiene products, I don’t know if they all use the old-fashioned rags instead of disposable pads and tampons, but just in case, try to schedule your retreat when it isn’t “that time of the month!” Actually, the “crunchy” crowd is all about reusable cloth pads these days, but the Amish won’t be using those cute LunaPads, that’s for sure! Just thought I had better give you the heads-up about that part of life. And I’ll bet they don’t have any Midol on hand, either. 😊
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Thing is, they won’t notice eachothers’ smell, and they probably think that we all smell of all the weird chemicals we eat and put on our bodies.

I remember seeing an American town that they covered in the news over here during the Pope’s visit to the USA, which was a Catholic version of an Amish-like community. I don’t think they were anti-technology like the Amish, but a bunch of families had gone there to live a separated life which revolved around Catholic piety and traditional values. Not sure what it was called, but it looked like a fairly new innovation.
 
DL82 said:
Thing is, they won’t notice each others’ smell, and they probably think that we all smell of all the weird chemicals we eat and put on our bodies.
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That’s right. I remember back in college in the 1970’s, when we had a growing population of middle-eastern students. I don’t know how this conversation came up (that was a long time ago!), but we were chatting with a Lebanese guy and we mentioned the “natural” odor of many who had just arrived from his corner of the world. He replied that they smelled “normal,” and that we Americans smelled like soap. 🙂

Anyway, I was just answering one of the OP’s questions. I didn’t want her to think that a retreat to an Amish community was going to be like stepping onto the scene of that old movie “Witness.” 😉
 
CarrieH said:
That’s right. I remember back in college in the 1970’s, when we had a growing population of middle-eastern students. I don’t know how this conversation came up (that was a long time ago!), but we were chatting with a Lebanese guy and we mentioned the “natural” odor of many who had just arrived from his corner of the world. He replied that they smelled “normal,” and that we Americans smelled like soap. 🙂

Anyway, I was just answering one of the OP’s questions. I didn’t want her to think that a retreat to an Amish community was going to be like stepping onto the scene of that old movie “Witness.” 😉
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Thanks Carrie. Has anybody heard of the Catholic town though?
 
kentuckyliz said:
It’s not easy to see the warts of a quaint closed society like the Amish. But they have had their child abuse scandals–physical and sexual and incestuous–and it’s easy for the closed communities to circle the wagons and protect the abusers from social services investigators. No amount of piety makes that right. The forgive and forget ethic can be used to perpetuate injustice. Just google Amish child abuse and start reading.

I used to live and work at a Quaker boarding high school and was a little too impressed. That can only survive at soft focus and briefly. The Quaker families that ran the school thought it was OK to do drugs with the high school kids, and to permit one of them to be the drug supplier for the community (assisted by her mother).

Yeah, shocking, but it awakened a moral sense in me and was a major step to moving me past my relativism and indifference.

Sin is everywhere but there is a real problem when good is called evil and evil is called good. :eek:
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I did read about that. I thought their six weeks of shunning sex offenders was ridiculous. But I also have a problem with how we NEVER forgive sex offenders in our society. There has to be some middle ground between these two extremes.

Kendy
 
Kendy said:
Well, Ave Maria is a little too upsacle and suburban for my taste.
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Yeah, I just looked at their website. :eek: I don’t know about chastity and obedience, but there isn’t much of a spirit of poverty there, from what I saw! The cheapest homes start in the high $100K’s.
 
Kendy said:
I did read about that. I thought their six weeks of shunning sex offenders was ridiculous. But I also have a problem with how we NEVER forgive sex offenders in our society. There has to be some middle ground between these two extremes.

Kendy
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The unfortunate fact is that real sex offenders (rapists, child molesters etc., not statutory rape) have the highest recidivism rate of any crime, approaching 100%.

I’ve heard estimates that thes offenders average 8-10 victims BEFORE they are caught the first time.

Forgiveness is all well and good, but they basically need to be confined (prison or mental institution) for life to protect society.

God Bless
 
bilop said:
The unfortunate fact is that real sex offenders (rapists, child molesters etc., not statutory rape) have the highest recidivism rate of any crime, approaching 100%.

I’ve heard estimates that thes offenders average 8-10 victims BEFORE they are caught the first time.

Forgiveness is all well and good, but they basically need to be confined (prison or mental institution) for life to protect society.

God Bless
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Circles of Support and Accountability seem to have a much higher success rate in preventing sex offender recidivism.
lucyfaithfull.org/circles.htm

These involve a forgiving encounter. I think when we look at God’s standards for sexual purity, we have all been offenders at some time. That initial empathy, and a desire for the person to be healed and become a productive and accepted member of society, has a real effect.
 
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