Crossing Over Read Free Page A

We’d take water and mix it with dust until we had the right consistency. Then we’d shape the mud into patties, put them on sheets of tin, and set them in the sun to dry. Later, we’d top the patties with seeds from lamb’s-quarters. They looked just like sprinkles on a cookie.
    We didn’t eat them, of course. We’d pitch ’em when we were done.
    I also remember riding ponies, ice skating on our pond, playing church and school, competing in a pool-like game called carom, frolicking in the corn crib, hayloft, and silo, and engaging in a bit of role-playing unique to the Amish.
    Instead of playing with cars and trucks, as many English boys and girls do, we’d play horse and buggy. My mother would make harnesses and reins out of scraps of denim and we’d take turns playing the horses and drivers, pulling tiny wagons or carts around the yard and reprimanding the horses when they grew unruly.
    These sorts of romps had to be worked into busy schedules that included chores around the farm, schooling, and lots of prayer.
    Because we were Old Order Amish—the most conservative of the so-called plain people—we adhered religiously to not owning cars, electricity, or phones, considering them too worldly. That meant most of our work was done by hand or with the aid of gas-powered engines.
    On school days, my father would awaken us at 5:30 A.M. with a shout up the stairs. My jobs were to help milk the dozen or so cows, help Mom with breakfast, and wash dishes before heading for school about 8:30 A.M. The milk was a cash crop; a man would come by twice a week to collect it.
    Breakfasts were usually pancakes with syrup or with sausage or hamburger gravy. Sometimes we’d have hot and cold cereals—oatmeal, cracked wheat, corn flakes, and the like.
    About 4:20 P.M. , I’d get home from school and gather eggs (another cash crop) from the chicken house, fill the house’s lanterns and lamps with kerosene or gas, and help milk the cows again. Winters, I’d gather wood for the stove.
    Because lunch was the biggest meal of the day—meat loaf, fried hamburgers, or chicken, mashed potatoes, and vegetables—dinner was light. Maybe soup. Cheese. Homemade baloney. Some fruit and cake.
    Before breakfast and at bedtime, we’d kneel on the floor and Dad would lead us in a German prayer. We’d also bow our heads at the table and have silent prayers at the start and finish of every meal.
    Then we’d pray at school and in church, which we attended every other Sunday.
    The silent praying was baffling to outsiders who’d occasionally visit. A few of them were in the middle of talking when, without warning, our heads would suddenly drop. I can only imagine what they must have initially thought—and felt once they realized what we were doing.
    All this praying, the Amish believe, gives them a chance at going to heaven. And it is only that—a chance. Unlike other religious faiths, which virtually guarantee repentant sinners a place aloft, the Amish believe that by works and deeds they might find themselves worthy in God’s good graces to go to heaven.
    Ask an Amish person if they’re going to heaven, and they’ll say, “That’s not my choice. That’s God’s choice.”
    They can never be sure they’re going, because they might misstep between now and the moment they die.
    It doesn’t make sense. Romans 10:13 says: “For whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” That leaves little doubt.
    But I, especially, had to strictly follow the Amish’s inflexible beliefs and stern rules of the Amish church (the Ordnung), which govern everything from dress and modes of transportation to dating etiquette and reading habits. My father, grandfather, and two uncles were ministers. Another uncle was a bishop. As such, they were important, respected leaders of the community, and their families, by association, were