“Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires.”
If only I could live with this as my motto. Sometimes, I wish our lives were
simpler. I got to take a brief look into
this kind of life style over this past long weekend—Monday, I believe it
was. Sunday night, we stayed in a hotel
in Lancaster, PA.
The next morning, we awoke, ate breakfast and went out to explore the Amish Village. Beforehand, however, we visited an
information center where we saw an informational film on the Amish and
Mennonites. And right now, you may be
thinking “What are Amish? What.are Mennonites?”
Well.
The Amish are a religiously strict group of people that do
not believe in the use of electricity for things. They live with minimal contact with the
outside world, and believe in a life devoted to God, hard work, and
tradition. Mennonites are basically a
version of the Amish, though they are not as strict in their dress and
lifestyle. They can dress like normal people, and they do use some modern
conveniences.
I learned a lot of interesting things about these people
when we took a tour of an Amish house and farm:
-Though the Amish don’t believe in using electricity, they
use alternative energy to fulfill basic needs.
These methods include natural gas, batteries, and various types of
generators.
-The clothes worn by the Amish are in solid colors, as they
prefer to be plain and draw less attention to themselves. You will seldom find any patterns on
clothing
-Kids go to school in a one-room schoolhouse, only up until
8th grade.
-The Amish conform to a strict set of rules called the Ordnung.
These rules stress virtues such as simplicity, humility, and obedience. If one strays from these rules, they run the
risk of being shunned (yes, shunned!) by all of their friends and family.
So there’s a bit of a history/humanity lesson… I know if I were
to write about everything I learned,
it’d be a purty long post…
So.
While surrounded by the beautiful, simple farmland of PA, it
made me stop and think for a bit. Why
can’t life be as simple? Is society
getting, if you will, “too linked in”?
Here’s just a glance at some of the cool things I saw over
the span of our visit in Lancaster:
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| Nothing like letting Mother Nature do the drying! |
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| There were a couple horses that we could pet! This one wasn't too friendly, though... |
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| PIGGIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (Need I say more?) |
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| GOAT YESH |
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| The cute little junction sign in the middle of the farm/complex. (Also-- heh-- "intercourse that way" *snigger*) |
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| Outside view of the one-room schoolhouse |
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| What a lovely wind mill thingamabob |
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| Inside of said one-room schoolhouse! |
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| Aren't you loving these candid goat shots? |
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| Two goats going "head to head". There was a lot of horn banging... |
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| They had peacocks!! Why, you may ask? Well they serve as watchdogs of sorts. And if you've ever heard one scream... it is almost the scariest thing ever.... They could literally wake the dead.. |
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| What's a farm without chickens? |
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| MOAR GOAT! |
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| This picture does not do this guy justice... He was so much more vibrant in real live... His female counter is sitting on some chicks next to him, btw. They were the cutest things... little balls of fluff, they were. |
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| Covered bridges are a big thing in PA-- they help protect the actual bridge from rotting caused by inclement weather. |
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| The farm at almost sundown = gorgeous |
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| Perhaps my favourite shot of all-- this buggy was on display, and it was fully climb-in-able! |
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| Gorgeous. |
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| ...^ditto. |
xoxo
