August 16, 2025

Have you ever been to Amish country?  It’s a marvelous place where buggies with bearded drivers and bonneted passengers coexist on paved roads with SUVs, V6s, and 4x4s.  The Amish community does not reject the world (according to Jn 3:16, God so loved the world, he gave his only Son), but chooses instead to keep things simple and slow things down so as to not miss the point of it all.  This vision of life might be especially attractive to those of us who experience the constant emotional whiplash of a fully blown phone-screen-to-face society that gets increasingly complex with each passing day, but consider the perspective from the front porch of the farmhouse—instant communication, boundless information, up-to-date maps, and weather forecasts in a low-cost, tiny electronic device that fits in your front pocket.  Let’s not waste too much energy trying to figure out who’s right or obsess about converting.  Let’s just meet in the middle, where innovation and tradition coincide.  There we will find Christ, who was both rural rabbi and street preacher, and who just wants us to be integrated people, comfortable with horses and cars, with this life and the next.  Ave Crux, Spes Unica.