Crossing Over

by Ruth Irene Garrett

  “I dreamed that the world had evaporated and I was lost. I was going to hell.”

  In the final analysis, he says, God will assess a person’s character and commitment and decide who goes to heaven and who goes to hell.

  “After all, God is the one that is going to right the end. R-I-G-H-T. He will right the end.”

  Fifteen

  If you have questions about the ban and marriage, the answers are plain in the prayer book you have. It’s in the articles in the prayer book. The last couple of pages are the list of ministers and elders who read, approved, and adopted these articles as scriptural.

  —LETTER FROM MOM

  The letter I knew would come arrived about six weeks after leaving the farm. It was from my uncle, Elmer T. Miller, the bishop of our community, and it formally closed the door on my past.

  Dear Irene:

  Greetings in Jesus’ Holy name, unto thee every knee shall bow and every tongue confess.

  Had a nice shower today and cooled off nice. Oats are in shock and corn is growing, making a beautiful scene of God’s creation.

  It is now past six weeks that you left home, family, neighbors and church—in search of ???? This leaves a hollow, empty spot in the above mentioned places and also in my heart, as I at times think it can’t be true.

  According to the scriptures, we cannot feel this is pleasing in the eyes of the Lord, as Jesus himself spoke: ‘That whosoever shall put away his wife, saving for the cause of fornication, causeth her to commit adultery, and whosoever shall marry her that is divorced committeth adultery.’ Matt. 5:32. In Gal. 5, verse 19, we read of the works of the flesh, and adultery is named among them and concludes by saying that they that do such things shall not inherit the Kingdom of God.

  We may think that God forgives, but God only forgives when we repent, and unless we repent we will never be able to inherit the Kingdom of God.

  As you well know, it is the duty of the church not to tolerate such things in the church. So, by voice of the church, you have been excommunicated from the church. This was done yesterday.

  You may now think that nobody likes [you], nobody wants (you), etc., but wait, my heart still aches for you and your soul as many a tear has been shed since you left.

  Oh that you may repent while living in the days of grace.

  This is written out of love and concern.

  Your neighbor, uncle, and bishop,

  Elmer T. Miller

  The verdict was hardly a surprise. In fact, it was somewhat anticlimactic. The real gut-wrenching stuff had occurred several weeks earlier when my family had called our house in Uno to tell me precious little time remained before the church rendered its decision.

  We had heard through others that the Kalona Amish were convinced I had been drugged and held against my will, or that I had become pregnant and fled out of embarrassment. It was logical, then, when my parents repeatedly asked me during the phone call if I was okay.

  “Did he give you drugs?’’ my father asked.

  “No.”

  “You sure he didn’t give you a shot or something?” my mother inquired.

  “No. Everything’s fine.”

  Most of the conversation was not as lucid. My parents spent a lot of time crying and wailing, and that brought tears to my eyes and made it difficult for me to speak. I knew the only way I could ease their sorrow was to say I was returning, and that was not something I was prepared to do.

  By the time Elmer got on the phone, I was so devastated, I could do little more than listen and sob as he discussed the church’s stance on shunning. It is spelled out in the Mennonite Confession of Faith, the same document I had been baptized under:

  “As regards the withdrawing from, or the shunning of, those who are expelled, we believe and confess, that if any one—whether it be through a wicked life or perverse doctrine—is so far fallen as to be separated from God, and consequently rebuked by, and expelled from, the church, he must also according to the doctrine of Christ and his apostles, be shunned and avoided by all the members of the church (particularly by those to whom his misdeeds are known), whether it be in eating or drinking, or other such like social matters. In short, that we are to have nothing to do with him; so that we may not become defiled by intercourse with him, and partakers of his sins; but that he may be made ashamed, be affected in his mind, convinced in his conscience, and thereby induced to amend his ways.”

  The ordeal continued when my brothers and sisters got on the phone. They tearfully described how my leaving had cast a pall over the family, how my parents were losing their minds and might have to enter a mental institution, how my mother was experiencing heart pains and didn’t know how much longer she could hold out.

  “She takes sleeping pills at night,” one of them said, “energy pills in the daytime, and she doesn’t eat anymore.”

  “What has Ottie done to you?” another asked.

  “Nothing,” I said, weeping. “I love him.”

  I stood up to the barrage only once—when my father recited a biblical phrase he had mentioned several times in his letters:

  Ephesians 6:1–3: “Children, obey your parents in the Lord: for this is right. Honor thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise; that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth.”

  I told him bluntly he should read the next verse, too:

  Ephesians 6:4: “And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.”

  From that moment on, he never again raised the issue of honoring mother and father. He must have known he couldn’t pass muster with the fourth verse.

  Later, I bristled at other inconsistencies in the behavior of my family and the rules of the church. My uncle had said in his letter that the ban was done “out of love and concern,” but there is nothing loving, nothing Christian, about shunning.

  Those who are put in the ban and remain living among the Amish are ignored in social settings. When meals are served, they eat separately, and others are instructed not to pass food to the accused, lest the sins should pass from hand to hand. The only acceptable excuse to talk with someone in the ban is to try to show them the error of their ways and encourage them to repent. In short, the life of an excommunicated person is a lonely one, akin to solitary confinement, or worse, a leper colony.

  I once mentioned to my father how ironic it was that the Amish follow the teachings of Jacob Ammann, who himself was excommunicated, albeit voluntarily. But my father dismissed it as nonsense. Most Amish either don’t know the history of Jacob Ammann or choose to ignore it.

  I was also miffed that my parents had not tried to see me in Kentucky, even though we had given them our phone number and address, and invited them to visit. If they, in fact, believed I had been shanghaied, wouldn’t they do everything in their power to free me? Wouldn’t they hold off on the excommunication until they could be sure of my circumstances?

  I don’t know the standard length of time before shunning someone who’s left, but I’ve been told by other Amish that six weeks is on the hurried side. Why the rush, especially when so much was at stake? Why didn’t they come see for themselves first?

  These thoughts further galvanized my determination to stick with my decision and make a life for myself on the outside. And they softened the blow just a little when the bishop’s letter arrived.

  I was tired of the drama, disturbed by the contradictions, and reasonably certain that God would not abandon me in my time of greatest need.

  The Amish believe that if a person dies in the ban, they will forever be condemned to hell. It is yet another fear tactic to keep people in line.

  But it seemed to me that the God I knew wouldn’t approve such punishment—that his own son, when he was on earth, never turned a person away. The God I knew was kind, considerate and forgiving. And I was praying to him still—at home and in church.

  “Well, I guess it’s official now,” I said
after opening the bishop’s letter.

  I had no tears or regrets—at least not on that day. It was over.

  But only for the moment.

  Even though I was no longer Amish, I felt like a cast-off, and there was a part of me that wanted to find a way to have the ban lifted, if for no other reason than to bring a symbolic peace of mind.

  Just as disturbing, I didn’t know when I would see my family again.

  Sixteen

  The choice you have made causes pain in my heart deeper than the loss of my companion!!! . . . Love not the world! Its dazzling show conceals a snare of death.

  —LETTER FROM MRS. TOBIAS MILLER (GRANDMOTHER)

  About a year after arriving in Kentucky, we moved out of our little rented house in Uno—the one with the bathroom tacked on when outhouses went out of style—and into a somewhat larger, $375-a-month rental along Old Dixie Road near Horse Cave, just off Interstate 65 in Hidden River Valley.

  We call it the Home Place and it is in a pastoral little strip of hollow (holler) with sparsely situated, modest homes and gently sloping meadows. It is an area of language oddities where tourists come to visit the labyrinth of caves that wind underground, where tobacco (tabacca) fields and warehouses dominate the landscape and the economy, where driving a rock-bottomed creek (crick) to get somewhere is common, and where ferries carry cars across the Cumberland and Green rivers because it’s apparently cheaper than building bridges.

  A person can still buy illegal, gut-busting, 120-proof moonshine in the hills of otherwise dry Hart County if they know where to look, and the Confederacy—a remnant of a war the Amish detest so much—is still very much alive.

  North of Horse Cave is the site of the Battle of Munfordville, where 50 died and 307 were wounded when Confederates attacked a Union fort on September 14, 1862. A year earlier, Brigadier General John Hunt Morgan and eighty-four of his followers were sworn into the Confederacy in Munfordville. The marauding band of fighting men went on to acquire a small measure of Civil War fame as Morgan’s Raiders.

  The little town along the banks of the avocado-tinted Green River is also home to the Old Munford Inn, where Andrew Jackson stayed in 1829 en route to his inauguration as the seventh president of the United States.

  Close by is the site of the Battle of Rowlett’s Station on December 17, 1861.

  Kentucky was among the states beset by divided loyalties, where people from the same families often fought on different sides of the war. The sting of those divisions—and of the Confederate loss—are as acute as if it happened yesterday, much the way Tony Horwitz describes the vestiges of the conflict in Confederates in the Attic.

  In a cemetery overlooking the deep hollows of the Munfordville battlefield, weathered gravestones in the shadow of a giant, knobby elm bear witness to the festering sentiments. Some are honored with American flags, some with Confederate. On one grave, both flags fly.

  There is even evidence of the war several hundred yards from our home in Horse Cave. Cloaked in a grove of pine trees on the other side of Old Dixie Road is a monument to a fallen soldier of the Confederate States of America. The memorial is a composite of geodes and mortar with an American flag positioned at the top. It tells of an unknown warrior who fought under General Clay Anderson, Division 11th, Louisiana, and who perished September 9, 1862. It was erected in 1934 by one Sam Lively.

  Still sadder is a monument erected south of Horse Cave near the Tennessee line in the parking lot of the Alpine Motel overlooking the Cumberland River Valley. In the lot’s median—at the foot of a loosely piled bed of shale and a weathered gravestone—is a metal sign that reads:

  “CAPTAIN JACK McCLAIN, COMPANY J, 1st KENTUCKY CAVALRY. Braver men never responded to boots and saddles than the 1st Kentucky Calvary. Jack McClain accidentally killed a good friend. In sorrow he took his own life September 21, 1866. Previously, McClain had requested, “When I die, I want to be buried on top of that highest hill overlooking Burkesville, as that is as near heaven as I will ever get.”

  Even nonbattle tragedies involving southerners are memorialized here in the name of lingering patriotism.

  Northerners aren’t exactly in danger in these parts, but they aren’t exactly loved, either. People in Kentucky have a saying that there are two kinds of northerners: Yankees and damn Yankees. Yankees are the ones who come to Kentucky and keep on going. Damn Yankees are the ones who stay.

  You get the picture.

  Visitors should know, too, that nearly everyone possesses a gun of some sort. Saturday nights in nearby Cave City, Kentuckians even auction guns—among other things—from a downtown storefront that promises “Bargains Galore” in red lettering on a street-side window.

  For some people, the auction is the big event of the weekend, seemingly revered more for its social attributes than the lighting fixtures, plates, and jars of old marbles that pass the bidding table.

  Ottie himself has a .40-caliber Ruger that he keeps for protection. A big, black, semiautomatic pistol with a kick that can easily jerk an unsteady pair of hands skyward and a power that is deadly.

  One of the first things Ottie did upon our arrival in Kentucky was teach me how to fire it—in case I ever needed to fend off a mugger, robber, or burglar. And early on in my training, he pronounced me a natural. A sure shot if there ever was one.

  It sounds odd for a pacifist ex-Amish who had never before held a gun in my hand. But then, I was eager to experience everything in my new world. Moreover, I had already bought into his argument about the need to maintain one’s liberties, even if it meant shooting someone, even if it meant going to war.

  I was also quick to obtain my driver’s license, realizing that mobility was an integral part of the English world, if not just a wonderful, efficiently fast creature comfort. In fact, it seemed to me that driving an automobile was a darn sight safer than steering a buggy. At least there wasn’t an unpredictable horse in front of you that might take off in the wrong direction at a moment’s notice.

  We had purchased a new, smaller van after the other one burned, and I practiced driving it in the Haywood Acres subdivision owned by Ottie’s father on the outskirts of Glasgow. It is the same subdivision where Faye lives, where the streets are named after Ottie Sr.’s grandchildren. Angela Court. Dana Court. Phillip Drive.

  I’d circle the subdivision over and over while Ottie and his father watched from the red-brick patio out front. For at least an hour at a stretch, or until I tired of the routine. Whichever came first.

  Six months later, I got my learner’s permit, and six months after that my formal license. I was a natural at driving, too, although somewhere along the way I acquired a lead foot. Just like Ottie.

  It was a land of discovery, this new place of mine. And a safe one to explore from our little den along a narrow stretch of blacktop that once served as the main highway—our white house with the four clipped soft maples in front, the porch on the side with two hummingbird feeders and a wooden sign above the door that says “Ottie & Irene Garrett,” and the assemblage of feeders along a fence that attracts goldfinches, cardinals, bluebirds, orioles, and sparrows by the dozens.

  On the other side of the fence is my second sanctuary. My garden. It is an ambitious 50-by-75-foot plot tilled in the rich, red Kentucky earth, and each year it bears lettuce and radishes, peas and beans, corn and zucchini, tomatoes and pumpkins, all of them bordered by bright yellow marigolds and deep-red cockscomb.

  It is here that I find solitude and an unmatched closeness with nature and God. Sometimes, Ottie goes out on the porch, props up his bad leg, and talks to me while I weed and harvest. More often, though, I am alone. With my thoughts. And prayers.

  There is a perfect symmetry to the things in the garden, the reaping and sowing, the spring rains, the plants growing. If there can be one place where God has put his hand, it must be here, because in the garden, there is no turmoil or conflict. There is only hope, promise and, if all goes well, the sustenance of food at season’s end.

&
nbsp; The fresh fruits and vegetables are our main staples in the summer and fall.

  Winters, we eat what I have canned.

  Some people might assume my garden is abundant because I was once Amish and therefore a prodigious farmer. But truth be told, I have discovered a wonder of the modern world that helps the plants become robust.

  Miracle-Gro.

  No self-respecting Amish person would ever use the stuff for gardens. But then, that was no longer a concern of mine. If something works, why not?

  Beyond the health benefits—to soul and body—the garden helps save money. And that’s also important. Especially when you’re living in a one-income family, and that income is Ottie’s disability pension—and whatever business projects we can develop.

  In the first year out of Kalona, Ottie contracted with a local Amish artist to use Ottie’s photographs in painting scenes for yet another Amish calendar. Only the artist’s name—and a company moniker (Country Roads Art) in my name—appeared on the calendars, thus keeping Ottie’s involvement a secret.

  But even that enterprise went the way of the others. The artist eventually threatened Ottie with a boycott and Ottie had to sell the business at a loss, or lose everything.

  We were back to square one.

  Ottie would—and still does—bring in a little money playing the horses. It is his only real vice besides food, and it is a small one at that. Five- and ten-dollar bets mostly, sometimes less.

  I help him from time to time, especially when I can inspect the horses. I seem to have a knack for picking winners without the aid of complicated racing forms.

  The first time we went to a track—in Lexington—I studied the field and took a fancy to a three-year-old coal-black filly named Wild Lucy Black. She was a frisky animal, full of spirit and spunk. Never mind that she was a 30-to-1 shot.

  Ottie laughed when I suggested she was the one to bet, humored me, gave me five dollars, and sent me to the window. I came back a winner, and a $155 dollars richer.