The Mennonites of Delano (Intro)

In reference to GK Chesterton, CS Lewis once wrote that “It might have been expected that my pessimism, my atheism and my hatred of sentiment would have made him to me the least congenial of authors...[yet] strange as it may seem, I liked him for his goodness.”  After three days with the Mennonites of Delano I know what Lewis means.  I’d easily have been able to dismiss them as irrelevant if not for their simple goodness..    

There are many reasons to dismiss old order Mennonites, or plain people as they tend to be called.  They practice a literal interpretation of the Bible.  They have a great, perhaps even extreme distrust of modern culture that leads to their isolation from society.  And perhaps most difficult, women play what at first seems like a secondary role in the community.   These beliefs flow into practices that are equally odd.  The women wear head coverings, the men refuse to shave their beards.  They drive buggies instead of cars and reject electricity and modern plumbing.  They refuse military service, government assistance and public schools.  There is enough in their way of life to offend everyone be they liberals or conservatives.  No getting around it, they are strange.  Yet, as Flannery O’Conner once said, “you shall know the truth and it shall make you odd.”  Instead of quoting Flannery, the Mennonites would have simply pointed to the apostle Paul who wrote in his letter to the Corinthians, “The foolishness of God is wiser than man’s wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than man’s strength.”  No doubt about it, the Mennonites are fools.  So what does it say about me that they are starting to make sense?

          My attraction to plain folks began in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania.  In 2006 a mentally unstable milkman entered a one room school house and murdered 5 of the Amish girls.  As horrific as it was, it was not the violence of this tragedy that grabbed my attention, rather the response to it.  According to the tales of the girls who survived, one thirteen year old girl named Marian Fisher was shot only after she offered to go first in hopes of saving the others.   What would it take for a child to do this?  How does one train a child that they might act in such a way?  You might rightly call her act ludicrous, but you most certainly would also have to conclude that it was very much like Christ.  Later, the world would learn that such behavior was not relegated to the children but also the adults.  At the funeral of the man who murdered these girls over half the attendees were Amish.  Had it been me, I might have come to the funeral, but only to spit upon the grave.  Not so with the Amish.  They came as a sign of forgiveness.  They even came to offer their help to the grieving widow and children.  Again, you might rightly claim their action is ludicrous, but you must also conclude that it was like Christ.  Now I ask you, what does it take for a community to respond in such a manner? 

          This question haunted the recesses of my mind and even played no small part in my move to pacifism.  So, a few years later when I heard a Mennonite community had settled just 20 miles from my hometown in Tennessee, I knew I had to visit.  And so it was in August of 2011 that Erin, the kids and I drove to investigate the Mennonite market in Delano.  

Next: The Eye of the Needle