The Wisdom of the Amish?

Howdy folks and greetings from the Great Plains of North Texas!

Ya know I lived in Northeastern Ohio for a number of years and
one of the best things about my location was the fact that there
was a large Amish community about an hour South of us.

We thoroughly enjoyed going down into Amish country to shop
or just to see the beautiful countryside with rolling hills and all
the Amish farms.

One of our favorite trips was to visit Lehmans Hardware Store
in Kidron. It was the town that time forgot. It was like stepping
back 100 years into the past because it was in the middle of
Amish country.

When you enter the town on Main St there are horses and buggies
everywhere and both side of the street are full of parked buggies.
Hardware stores like Lehmans haven't changed much in the last
100 years except for modern refrigerators which run on propane.
It's the best place to buy new woodburning stoves.

I have alot of respect for the Amish because they don't let the
tech crazed world bother them too much. But is that wise and
are they foolish not to adopt major technology like the rest of
the world?

Do you know that the Amish are watching us? Yes it's true!
We're their guinea pigs. The Amish are not stupid and are not
"backwards" because of close-mindedness or stubbornness.

No. When new technology comes out they wait and see what
it does to our society and then discuss it among the leaders to
see if the result is negative or positive.

The two main technologies which they reject are cars and
television. Well when they saw that the teenage pregnancy
rate sky-rocketed because for the first time teens had an easy
way to get away from their parents...that didn't sit too well
with them, too damaging to the fiber of their society.

And television with all the junk being brought into their homes
from a lost and carnal world... you can understand why they
didn't want that pollution.

Both of these technologies tend to damage family and neighbors
in that they bring separation instead of keeping friends, family
and neighbors in a close bond. This is paramount to the Amish.

How many of your neighbors do you know? I guarantee you that
the Amish know all of theirs. I'm not saying that we need to but it
certainly works for them as one of their foundational principles
to live by.

And they ain't changing anytime soon. Just look at these stats:
In the 1960s and 1970s, 75% of Amish children would decide to
become Amish adults. The most recent statistics show that’s up
to 95%.

Amish teens are allowed to go into the "English" world to see if
they like it or not, like getting a job at McDonalds for instance.
If they want to join the outside world they can and then are free
to come and go as they please as far as visiting family and
friends but they have to move out from their parents house.

But nowadays almost all of them are choosing to become Amish
adults and stay with the community full time. In other words they
go out, take a look at the way the English are living with all the
chaos and messed up values and they're saying NO THANKS!

The Amish are the most stable community group in America and
instead of looking foolish they make the rest of us look foolish!

thanks for stopping in folks, God bless you all!
-jonboy Texas
the gentleman redneck

ps- you might be a redneck if:

this is how you water ski!