“As a bird that wanders from her nest, so is a man that wanders from his place.” (Proverbs 27:8)
In my opinion, our place is obeying God, wherever we are.
I met a young Amish woman working in the farmer’s market yesterday. She asked if she could help me, and I told her that I hadn’t seen any organic food in there.
“We don’t sell organic food,” she said. “There are only a few items.”
She wore head attire I’d never seen before so I asked if she was Amish or Mennonite, and she said she was Amish. She wore a pleasant looking blue and white dress. It was a uniform. I had a black baseball cap filled with silver for 5G radiation protection, a tee shirt and jeans, and black construction boots. It was not really a uniform, as a businessman’s suit, or a uniform a police officer or a soldier would wear.
I told her my friends and I like the Amish and have visited them in Lancaster. “My friends are from North Jersey and Philadelphia, and we visited LANcaster,” I joked about the common mispronunciation of the Pennsylvania city’s name. “We were typical tourists that thought it was called LANcaster, not LANKaster,” I said. It’s pronounced LANKaster.
She told me she lived near some places I’d never heard of in Lancaster. I was new to the area. It was a slightly awkward moment.
I told her my parents brought me to Sight and Sound Theater, in Lancaster. “We live near there,” she said. I noticed that she said we live near there, and not I live near there, indicating her strong ties to her community, which I thought was good.
“My parents and I saw a play production of the time after Adam and Eve got kicked out of the garden of Eden at Sight and Sound,” I said, and asked if she had ever been there. “We don’t go there,” she said. “We have the Bible.” I couldn’t argue about that. And I was impressed that she said it.
I wanted to move to Lancaster, from New Jersey, but I only made it to Reading, Pennsylvania. I wish I’d gone all the way and moved to Lancaster. I’d like to live and work there, someday, but in an area like she lives in, the Amish area, far outside the city of Lancaster, far away from city problems. I’ve driven through Amish areas, which are lovely. Even at night, though it’s very dark because there are no streetlights in that farm area, and their house lights are very dim, it seemed very peaceful. Although, I have to admit, it seemed a little eerie, but that was probably because I wasn’t used to such darkness.
We spoke for a while. I told her that my friends and I were serious Christians. She probably liked hearing that. I explained to her that God wants to be our focus. “If he blessed us with a new car, just as an example,” I told her, “He would provide that car for us. And we wouldn’t have pride that we bought it ourselves. And brag about it.”
A short time after that, I had to go. And I didn’t want to overstay my welcome. I told her I would stop in there, again. I asked her what her name was, and she asked me mine and I left.
She was kind, and inquisitive, but poised.