jonsjournal

[jonsjournal]

The Simple People

I have always loved the Mennonites. Since I was a kid, I have been fascinated by them and grateful to live by their side. They have amused, intrigued, frustrated and inspired me. Whenever I think I’ve seen all of their life I have access to, something new will appear. Their lifestyle, though structured and straightforward, can seem exotic to us. Though immensely private, they live in close proximity, and enter our lives regularly. They are a part of our lives as much as the hills, mountains, creeks and trees, yet being human, their beauty is more mysterious and profound.

My perception of the Mennonites has changed over time. When I was a small child, they were simply a part of my environment; I knew they were separate from my life, but I didn’t understand how or why. As a young teenager, I looked on them with a bit of derision; who were these simple, out of touch people who seemed to be clinging to a world that had disappeared? Then came a period of detached observation and study, followed by a time of idealization; here were the enlightened people, who lived a life so seamlessly, lastingly connected to family, nature, community and religion. The life of the “English” seemed lacking in comparison. Now, I think I have a more nuanced and balanced view.

There is of course much to admire in the Mennonite lifestyle. They are hard workers who make an honest living, and their work is so meaningful because it is intertwined with the life of their family and community. They often work on farms which have been in their family for many generations. The work itself is often accomplished by the entire family working together. When something is needed which can not be completed by their own family unit, Mennonites frequently look to their neighbors to carry out the job. Not only do they have the ritual of Church, many have the initiation ritual of Rumspringa. They are generally healthy in body and free of toxic substances. Their work, play, romantic and spiritual lives all exist within a system of deep interconnectedness, and the meaning and identity of their lives must be easily apparent.

All of this is either fully or partially missing from my and many other modern peoples lives, and I have personally deeply suffered the consequences. But that said, I have come to realize that for every positive aspect of their life, there is a trade off. I have been given the terrible burden and gift of finding my own meaning and identity in a chaotic world. A wellspring of creativity and possibility exists within this life; it is not to be condemned but accepted. I can never know what it is to truly live their life, but I can continue to observe with respect and amazement that such a life should still exist in our world; I can be inspired to retain those values which must be transfigured in our own time but can and need still exist in some form. It is a blessing to live alongside this incredible, now rare example of what human life can be, as I continue along my own separate but parallel path.

[jonsjournal]

Not Child or Man

As someone just now leaving this era of life, I’d like to share some thoughts on the unique adversity one can experience in their late teens and early twenties. 

I know that, for many, the period between puberty and the end of high school is one of greater suffering; the freedoms, pleasures and ambitions of college come as both a respite and a new beginning. For others, the end of high school is a chance to fully embrace a secure, generational way of life; to set root in their community, enter a family business or begin a reliable career with a local company and, of course, to start a family of one’s own. 

But there are many, myself included, who found themselves caught between these options, struggling for meaning in the lonely middle ground. For me, my various college experiences always felt terrifying and empty; how was I to create a new life out of whole cloth, in this new place surrounded by new people, unsure of myself and what I wanted, amongst a generation isolated by technology and bereft of identity; communal, national, and spiritual. 

Likewise, now out of the school system, I couldn’t establish myself back home. I came to realize that public school, for all its oppressions and restrictions, offered something college did not, or could not, for me; it was, without ever noticing or appreciating it, a touchstone, a foundational community; a place to return each year without choice, with the same group of people, engaged in a common purpose and common activities, academic or not. We all came from the same place, and had never known much else besides each other. At the time we may have scorned, dismissed, or mocked it, but once it was gone I began to feel how essential it was, and what a rare experience, especially today, it is. 

And so, what were meant to be prime years ticked on without much return; no longer a child, not yet a man, in a world that seemed to forget me, I went through colleges and jobs, alone most of the time, only now, at nearly 25 years old, beginning to find his way. 

So what is to be done? 

I do think a year of mandatory national service following high school is a good idea. It would give young people a sense of structure, responsibility, meaning and connection which can be vital once that which they’ve known for 12 years is gone. It could inspire them to continue searching for that feeling throughout their life. 

As for myself, I can be bitter about all that was missing from my life during this time, or I can move on, find strength where I can, and try to extend a helping hand to the many who must feel the way I do. 

[jonsjournal]

The Cross on a Hill

In his book 'The Power of Myth', Joseph Campbell wrote, "If you want to see what a society really believes in, look at what the biggest buildings on the horizon are dedicated to." Following this theory, most American cities would indicate that, to an overwhelming degree, our society's primary belief is in money. That may be true, but I think a simple observation of our own community's highest point reveals an alternate, much deeper set of values.

The Lutheran Orphans Home was built in 1896 as a compassionate, necessary answer to a pressing problem. In the late nineteenth century, even in rural areas like Berks County, the old bonds that tied families together were beginning to fade away, industrial accidents were creating more fatherless and motherless children than ever before, and the old system, under which orphans relied on close relatives and the community church for support, was dissolving. Two years after the issue was first raised by an unknown member of a Reading church, the Reading Conference proposed that an orphans home be created, and a charter was issued for 'The Lutheran Orphan's Home in Berks County, Pennsylvania.' They decided to build this home in a tiny borough of 500 people, at the highest elevation of the highest town between Reading and Allentown. Topton. Relying heavily on donations, led by a man, R.O. Henry, who felt called by God to run the Home after an orphan girl asked him, "Why don't you come here and be our papa?", the Orphans Home operated on its own for 45 years until, in 1941, the first elderly resident was admitted. By the end of the sixties, the Home belonged exclusively to the elderly.

Thinking about it today, it's easy to forget the purity and virtue of its origins, and to see the Home as just another business, a service industry which employs large numbers of people and competes with others in the area to maintain its position. But, beneath that economic surface, I believe that it's Christian roots remain. For a period of time last year, I was able to work in the dementia ward of the Lutheran Home. On first encountering it, my reaction was shock, and horror. Here was a room full of people; of highly respected men and pioneering women, of mothers and fathers, husbands and wives, teachers, artists, businessmen, and pastors. These people were once heroes to their country and pillars of their community. But they were gone, and all that seemed to be left was confusion, paranoia, desperation, and insanity.

It was hard to understand. How could the world allow this to happen? And how could I possibly see them as my equals, as my brothers and sisters? It's difficult to come up with a rational answer. What emotional, mental, or physical value did these people still hold? How do we understand who they are now in relation to who they spent their lives becoming? What was left? This wasn't an orphan child, with a lifetime of potential and opportunity ahead of them. It was darkness, and emptiness. They required more than compassion. They required understanding.

After a difficult, hesitant first few days working in the ward, I noticed a shift slowly beginning to happen. I stopped thinking so much about the residents dramatic disease, and I began to simply help them; to talk and listen to them, to cut their meat and serve their drinks as if I was providing for my own grandmother and grandfather. I looked into their eyes. I began to see them as human beings.

I wasn't alone. Day after day, I saw family members, obviously crushed with sorrow, give everything of themselves in an attempt to connect and understand. I watched nurses go beyond the pale of duty in order to lessen the suffering as much as possible, to give the residents a brief moment of understanding, pride, and happiness. What once felt like a tragedy began to feel okay.

Perhaps the most fundamental Judeo-Christian value is the dignity and beauty of all human life; the radical idea that we are all loved by our Creator and made in His image. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." This is such a difficult idea to understand; so much of our time is spent becoming resentful to those we deem above us, and arrogant to those beneath us. We're constantly evaluating and shifting our lonely place in the hierarchy. Many mock that a higher, holy value could exist, some violently turn against it, and others insist we can arrive at it through purely rational means. But it's real, and it lives within all of us at an incredibly deep level, whether we recognize it or not. It was there in 1896, and 1941, and it's there today, in those rooms full of screaming, confusion, and suffering. Indiscriminate love. I witnessed it in myself, and in the small, selfless acts of so many others. It lives in the tallest building at the highest point of our town, and it's symbolized by the cross which rises above all, directing us with its message of acceptance, sacrifice, and a love capable of transcending our community's limitations, and our own.

[jonsjournal]

This Kingdom of God

A few Sundays ago, I voluntarily attended church for the first time in my life. Leaving the house at 8 AM, I set out into the chilly, early winter breeze, and thought about the distance I had traveled from my secular childhood, my atheist adolescence, to now; inexplicably, undeniably called upon to make the brief walk to Topton’s Trinity Evangelical Lutheran Church.

Growing up, church meant nothing to my life. I rarely went, and when I did, I felt a strange mixture of confusion, fear, and especially, boredom. The spirit of the three year old boy who used to write “God” on a piece of paper and give it to his mother, who would ask and think and talk about God as if he was an unconditional friend, a birthright, couldn’t find a home within the church. If anything, these innocent, natural feelings seemed to be starkly opposed by the harsh, regulated, disciplined world which the church presented. This was school with an incomprehensible curriculum, without the possibility of human connection; even the windows, which on the dreariest school days could offer the promise of a better world outside, were covered in symbolic imagery which seemed beyond anything I could understand. Church rarely seemed relevant to my friends and classmates, either. If someone was religious, it seemed self-enclosed, meaningful to them and their family but never a part of our common language, our common experience.

As I grew older, past the blind cynicism of my adolescence and into young adulthood, I began to be interested in religion. A deep respect grew for its value, for its human function. I could experience a Christmas Eve ceremony, or a late night walk past a lighted church with a gentle, wistful appreciation, but in my heart, in my soul, the church remained but a footprint in the snow; a sign of human life and of a human search, wearing down a track I could safely follow but which would never lead me home.

About a year ago, I began to feel a vague yearning for the church. Like a bud slowly blossoming into a flower, this feeling grew within me until I could no longer deny or control it. The significance behind it seemed deep but impenetrable, and I did not know what to expect as I climbed up the steps and opened the massive red doors of the church.

The service had already begun by the time I arrived, and I quietly found a seat in one of the back pews. Throughout the course of the next ninety minutes, I witnessed a baby boy’s baptism, stood up and exchanged a greeting of Peace with those around me, closed my eyes and listened to the Hymns, said the Lord’s Prayer, and took Communion.

As I stepped out into the brighter, warmer day, I walked down Home Avenue, and thought about all that had happened; the kind, welcoming lady behind me, the tears in the eyes of the pastor as he spoke of Noah, and Jesus, and the long list of families who needed our support and prayer through their adversity; families with familiar, Pennsylvanian German names I knew so well from yearbooks and graveyards. I thought of the faces, the Eagles jackets and red dresses, the restless children and the elderly couple sitting in front of me, wife leaning on her husband for support. I thought about the pure, eternal poetry of the Lord’s Prayer, and the hope and humility that comes with the taking of Communion. I thought of the beautiful stone building, and all the bodies it must’ve housed on cold December mornings like this one. I thought about the communal importance of church, how it directs us towards a common good, gives us time to reflect on ourselves and eachother, and then sends us back out into the world. I thought about how much I’ve missed this experience in my life, this feeling which I’ve never had before. I thought about my own suffering, and my grace. Then I stopped thinking. I merely walked home, hearing and feeling and seeing the pastors words in the trees, in the clouds, in the cars and carriages going by.

For some time after, I tried to understand why the service had been so affecting, why I felt as if something irreversible had begun to grow within me. I kept looking for an answer until, one morning, relieved and grateful not to know, I let it go, and set out upon the work of the day.

[jonsjournal]

Oh, Willie Mae

Twenty four years ago, John Hammond Jr. made a documentary called ‘The Search for Robert Johnson’ about his trip through the deep south looking for friends, lovers and witnesses to the great Blues musician Robert Johnson. Over 50 years after Johnson’s death at 27, he was trying to understand as much as he could about this man’s mysterious, mythical life and work. The highlight of this film is a brief interview he conducts with Willie Mae Powell, a former girlfriend of Johnson’s and his inspiration for the song ‘Love in Vain’, one of the greatest and most influential blues songs of all time. Hammond meets with Powell at her home in the small town of Austin, Mississippi. Sitting on her porch, she describes her brief affair with Johnson in the early thirties, over sixty years in the past. She tells Hammond she was “much in love with him.” After a few months, Johnson had to leave Austin to get back on the road. Johnson needed the road, not just for financial reasons but as a way to satisfy or perhaps escape his restless, troubled spirit. Presumably, although they both felt strongly about each other, they realized they’d most likely never see the other again. Out of this feeling comes the moan of lonesome agony that is ‘Love in Vain.’ Over sparse guitar which is the only instrumentation, Johnson’s vulnerable, tortured voice sings lyrics which seem both direct and cryptic, using minimal detail to describe a kaleidoscope of pain. 

I followed her to the station, with a suitcase in my hand And I followed her to the station, with a suitcase in my hand Well, it's hard to tell, it's hard to tell, when all your love's in vain All my love's in vain

When the train rolled up to the station, I looked her in the eye When the train rolled up to the station, and I looked her in the eye Well, I was lonesome, I felt so lonesome, and I could not help but cry All my love's in vain

When the train, it left the station, with two lights on behind When the train, it left the station, with two lights on behind Well, the blue light was my blues, and the red light was my mind All my love's in vain

Hoo-hoo, ooh, Willie Mae Oh oh hey, hoo, Willie Mae Hoo-hoo, ooh, eeh, oh woe All my love's in vain

After Willie Mae finishes the description of her time with Johnson, Hammond plays her ‘Love in Vain’. Sixty years after the end of their relationship and the writing of the song, this is her first time hearing it. At first, she seems to delight in the simple sound of her old lover’s voice.  Her face seems joyful yet contemplative as a bittersweet remembrance falls over her smile. Then, after Johnson’s last verse, she hears the heartbreaking, longing coda; ‘Oh, Willie Mae.’ Her eyes fill with tears; she is obviously touched yet by no means shocked. She doesn’t react as if she’s just heard her name and love become immortal, she seems to just listen to the sound of his pain as it calls out her name; engaged in a one way phone call with a man who’s been gone for generations. Nobody on the line but her and him. 

The song ends. Smiling slightly, eyes filled with tears too heavy to release, she looks at Hammond but doesn’t say a word. We like to elevate great art and great artists as something beyond ourselves, beyond our own experience. Their creations touch us in a profound way which we can’t quite understand, and perhaps don’t want to. We often make them icons or mythic figures (there is a story about Johnson accusing him of selling his soul to the devil in exchange for musical ability). Yet, in the end, they’re just people using their own experience and imagination; their own eyes and hands and ears to create something powerful and lasting. Robert Johnson was a man. And, for a brief time, a girl named Willie Mae was his love. And then she wasn’t. ‘Love in Vain’ is a masterpiece which will endure beyond all of our lifetimes, yet it arose as all art does; not from the heavens or stars, but from the raw pain and glory of our lives; its true story just two people trying to connect in a time now forever past, feeling the love and heartbreak known to us all. 

[jonsjournal]

Mertztown, 1945

Last summer, I was given an opportunity to volunteer at the nursing home where my mother works (a home within Berks County but many miles away from Topton). In the few weeks I was there, I sometimes struggled to make the connections that I wished to. However, one day towards the end of that time, I began speaking with a frail, kind-eyed woman in her late 80s. A short while into the conversation, she asked me where I was from.

"Mertztown," I said. "It's close to Topton."

"I know where it is," she replied. "I'm from there myself."

Instantly, we felt closer. Our shared home now took precedence, giving us a common ground stronger than the 70 years separating us. We spoke about the beauty of the area, of the cornfields and the distant mountains. She told me she had lived in Mertztown, close to the Longswamp Elementary School, for her entire life; she said it had changed very little since she grew up there in the 30's and 40's. I began to ask about her childhood. She seemed happy to answer, and at times her memories were quite clear.

She told me she had grown up on a farm, where her close-knit family supported each other through a difficult life. She would almost close her eyes as she recounted certain details, such as the pie made for her birthday, the clothes she would knit, or how she'd go back and forth from work on the farm to cooking in the kitchen. Then she told me about the war; how her father and brothers left to fight and she was forced to take on a much greater responsibility. As a young teenager, she was, along with her sisters and mother, the primary caretaker of both the home and the farm. Life was hardest at this time, she said; many nights her family did not have enough food for supper.

Our conversation ended and we said goodbye. I left with a full heart. I felt a union with this woman even stronger than the bond usually experienced after such a conversation; something unique had happened. That night, as I drove around Mertztown, I wondered where exactly she had lived. There was no way of knowing, but as I drove down the country roads, I saw my town in the rare way one can sometimes see their family; not as an isolated group existing only in the present and recent past, but as a continuum, as an invisible chain extending back hundreds of years; holding the love, struggle and courage of so many ordinary human lives.

[jonsjournal]

In Memoriam

In Topton, the beautiful and the communal often seem to be lacking. I'd like to share a couple of observations through which I was surprised and proud to discover how untrue this impression can be.

Sadly, quite a few young people in Topton have died of drug overdoses over the last few years. There are no easy answers as to why this has happened or what can be done to help. The problem itself is one which both relates to and transcends whatever limitations and issues Topton may have. As heartbreaking and dispiriting as these deaths have been, I've found solace in the love which has been expressed in their aftermath.

Beyond the outpouring of sentiment on social media and the customary funeral service, I think there is a strong desire in people who have lost a loved one to go further, to create their own memorial, their own ritual, in a manner which is authentic to their specific experience of that person. For example, when Tyler Beans died a couple years ago I remember seeing a car parked across from the Lutheran Home which, I believe, in white marker written across the rear window simply read, "R.I.P. Beans". The car remained there for a while, perhaps the entire summer following his passing, if not longer. It was almost certainly either a car belonging to Tyler himself or to a close friend. This means it was probably a vehicle in which adventures had taken place and friendships had been deepened. It was parked in an area close to the entrance of inner-Topton, as if to say, "Before you enter this place, remember this man, my friend, who lived here and whom I loved."

Another example of this kind could be seen following the death of Daniel Desrosiers. Daniel's parents owned Herman's Drive-In, and Daniel himself often worked there. When Daniel passed away, I remember seeing, after dark, multiple cars parked in the small Herman's lot. Sometimes people would step outside and speak with the others who had come, and other times they would simply remain in their cars, quietly beside each other. This occurred for many nights following his death. Herman's had closed for a shirt time after Daniel died, so there was no practical use for the building. But I believe it represented Daniel in a way, for he had spent a great amount of time there. People knew they could see him inside and talk with him. He probably made friends there. Perhaps it was a place which seemed to hold both his spirit as well as tangible memories of him.

Although there are other instances such as the white t-shirts worn for Nathan Fulmer or the memorial near the site of Jamie Amato's death, I hope I have expressed what I wish to with just a couple examples. Topton has a reputation as a spiritually barren place devoid of human expression. There is truth in this view, but I believe there is also a great amount of love in Topton. There are people coming together to support and honor one another; people helping each other through hard times. There is life arising from the emptiness, and beauty from the pain.

[jonsjournal]

Jamming at the Grey Fox Music Festival in Oak Hill, New York.

[jonsjournal]

Grey Fox Music Festival in Oak Hill, New York.

[jonsjournal]

Grey Fox Music Festival in Oak Hill, New York.

[jonsjournal]

Grey Fox Music Festival in Oak Hill, New York.