Love Thy Neighbor refers to the Biblical phrase “thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself” from the Book of Leviticus and the New Testament. The phrase refers to the ethic of reciprocity known as the Golden Rule.
“do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Matthew 7:12)
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My writing about Moise and the Amish, who are now my neighbors, is, to me, a personal diary, a story of a friendship, and of a flawed man – me – who is finally learning at the age of 73 (almost 74) that he can heal from his own intolerance and impatience.
I grew up in the fading days of the Judeo-Christian ethos, largely abandoned today by the politicization of religion and by extremist activists on both sides.
The tragedy is that there are no longer many common values for us to build on or share. Anything goes. Remorse, like sincerity, is a joke. Lying without shame is the new virtue.
That sound you hear is the devil dancing.
Love Thy Neighbor and “Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You” were both Golden Rules of our major religions.
When I got to know my Amish neighbors, I was surprised to learn that these two foundations of religious, moral ethics are front and center in their value system, even as they have largely vanished from ours.
If Jesus Christ were ever to return to the earth, he would be more at home in the Amish Church than in any other I have seen, and he would be horrified at the awful greed and hypocrisy that has befallen much of Christianity.
I had no idea that some of the central values that rule Amish lives are the same that inspired mine, while many of them are alien, even offensive, to me.
I do love my neighbors, and they love all their other neighbors and me. That’s what they do.
I believe that the Golden Rule is the potential salvation of human life. If we really treated others the way we wish to be treated, we would find peace, prosperity, justice, even paradise.
Jesus had the right idea; too bad so many of his descendants have forgotten it. The Amish have not, they live it every day.
There is nothing in the Sermon On The Mount that I can’t accept, especially in comparison to the hateful dribble pouring continuously from religious and political leaders.
But I learned something else too since my neighbors have arrived.
Loving Thy Neighbor in 2021 is only popular if thy neighbor believes everything you believe and lives the same way you live.
Unfortunately, in America, the Golden Rule has descended into a hate-a-thon I am proud to not be a part of – more and more, we hate everyone different from us. Since many people in America are different from everyone else, there is often nothing but hate.
Loving thy neighbor is a controversial position to take now if thy neighbor happens to be Amish or doesn’t fully embrace the political winds of the moment.
As I read the preachings of Christ, there were few conditions on who we loved or on how we could treat other humans well and compassionately.
According to many of the messages I receive, you cannot love your neighbor if he is part of a Patriarchy, or if he treats his dog himself instead of going to a veterinarian or can’t support same-sex marriage within their church. (I take my animals to vets all the time, and I have always supported gay and trans rights and same-sex marriage.)
It seems they cannot be loved or treated as we would like to be treated ourselves; they must be ostracized, criticized, and kept at arm’s length. This is all new ground to me, but it’s coming into focus.
A lifelong person who has stayed outside the boundaries of conventional religion, I suddenly find myself a reluctant defender of the golden rules that promoted love, civility, and community. Those were the morals and ethics that guided us, even if we could never fully live up to them.
I don’t really find our new system of red and blue values better, or healthy, or leading us to a kindler or gentler way of life. They lead us to hate, lies and cruelty.
I will not be bullied into hating my neighbors; they have so much to teach me.
I am not a Christian, but I find it amazing that of all the messages I received, good and bad, the one that most resonates with me and inspires me and calls to me is the same one that governs Amish Life – Christ’s call to us to be generous, caring, humble and empathic.
To love our neighbors and to treat people the way we wish to be treated.
Not judging means not thinking I know best what is good for others. The Amish call it humility. One of my golden rules is that I don’t tell other people what to do. That stops judgment cold – there is no point to it.
I have come to see that the people who hate me because I love my neighbors are not moral; they are the amoral people who have lost their way.
They believe they are fighting for justice. Instead, they promote hate, not understanding, in me, in others.
People write me every day to tell me that I have literally lost my mind and perspective and judgment because I love Moise and my Amish neighbors, which they deride as a “bromance” or “naivety” or “betrayal” of moral values, an indictment of my enabling of sexism, animal and child abuse and fanaticism.
How could one love people who treat their animals differently or believe men should be in authority when it comes to family life?
I can, and I will, and I don’t believe that men should be the absolute rulers of anything for one second.
Morally, I’m not sure how to respond to all this; I’m still trying to work it out. But, it is a truly profound shift in culture, values, and our own long-held beliefs about God and morality.
And it is hurting us as a people.
The New Testament seems to have little hold on our modern society. The Judeo-Christian ethic has been destroyed by partisanship, the country’s division into two nations with completely different morals and ethics.
The Amish give priority to the writings of the New Testament, especially the teachings of Jesus.
Only New Testament texts are read aloud in the church service, and three-quarters of these come from the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, which recount the life and teachings of Jesus.
The Amish especially revere and adhere to Jesus’s Sermon On The Mount, with its pledges to be meek, merciful, and pure of heart; to love and forgive enemies, and to put complete trust in God’s Providence.
Moise and his family have not undertaken to change me or educate me or preach to me in any way. They’ve never asked me what I think about faith. But, like me, they do not tell other people what to do or live or judge them for it.
They have changed me simply by existing, and letting me into their life, and by letting me know them, and teaching me to re-visit some of the truths and certainties that have guided much of my life.
They have changed me by accepting me in so a complete way and judging me in no way.
In the course of that experience, I have come to love this couple and their remarkable children. I refuse to see this as a bad thing, as many people insist on telling me it is.
The experience seemed profoundly important to me – it is a big deal to change and learning at my age.
However, I never give up on being a better human than I am, and I am forever surprised by how far I have to go, no matter how far I have gotten.
This journey is one of the most remarkable experiences of my life, and it really never occurred to me that it would become just another symbol and reflection of the hatred, intolerance, and rage that is engulfing our country.
I suppose I should be flattered. I’ve never been important enough to hate.
I’m just another thing to fight about; if I stopped loving my neighbors, these angry people would vanish into the fog.
I understand now that Donald Trump did not create this fury; he simply unlocked the door that kept much of it check. But, sooner or later, we would have to confront it as a people and in our personal lives.
He did us the great favor of waking us up.
I have pissed off many people by writing about the Amish and even more by daring to love some of them and respect many of the very different ways in which they live.
The idea of the aging Jewish/Quaker progressive becoming a dear friend of a 50-year-old elder in the Amish church’s deeply conservative Old Amish sect is nearly unbelievable.
Can we love our neighbor if he’s Amish? Jewish? Muslim? Asian? Mexican? Gay? Trans? Black?
If not, then what does religion mean at all?
I am told repeatedly that Moise’s wife and daughters must be coerced, oppressed, abused, and intimidated for them to remain in the grip of the Patriarchy. Still, I have found the opposite is true – they are mostly content, fulfilled, strong, freely spoken, and endearing.
It’s not a life I would want or want my daughter to live, but I admire these women and respect their choices. They are worth loving in every way.
I have repeatedly – every day – been told how the Amish abuse dogs, engage in unscrupulous puppy mills, work their horses to death and kill them without mercy.
This is not what I have found. It is simply not the reality of what I see.
The Amish, who do not believe in veterinary medicine, have cared for animals for hundreds of years and have their own ways of treating them mercifully and well. And differently than most of us.
That is not a crime and should not ever be.
If the Amish culture is a Patriarchy, then all of its women must be victims, and the fathers especially cannot be loved or befriended. That is how we look at the other worlds.
If an Amish father chooses to heal his wounded dog’s paw using his own tools and medicines, then he must be hated as an abuser of animals.
When I wrote how Moise saved a dog’s life by staunching her bleeding and cleansing the wound before she bled to death after a saw severed an artery and took a paw off, I was accused – as I am daily – of liking him too much.
Of having lost my judgment and my often remarked on skepticism.
I have become an enabler of evil. Perhaps if they treated me better, I could listen to them more gracefully.
The problem isn’t just that I’m right or wrong. The problem is that I love the wrong people and that this has caused me to lose my judgment and perspective, even my mind.
As Dorothy Marsh says, she just doesn’t get it.
So I will try once more to explain it. To me, it’s simple to grasp.
Dorothy Marsh wrote, “I do think that You are letting Romanticized view of the Amish Influence your thinking and writing. Think about what you wrote above –he took her to the barn and Cut Off her dangling paw. Would you condone that way of treating an injury from anyone other than the Relatively backward Amish? No anesthesia — he just hacked off her leg! If you think this is an acceptable treatment for an injury of that magnitude, you have let this Amish bromance get really out of hand in your own head. I just don’t get it.”
Let’s deconstruct this. And I sure have thought about it.
Dorothy knows nothing of how the dog Tina was treated or how much she was bleeding, or what tools or skills were brought to her full recovery in less than two days. Moise loves this dog, and I trust him to care for her well.
It’s not for me to tell him how to do that. I’m not his God or anybody else’s.
I see Tina almost daily; she is healthy, content, and much loved. To me, the injury was handled well and happily and with a good outcome. So I don’t need to make it mine.
I’m sorry, Dorothy, but I want to know more while you want to judge more.
What I am eager to learn from the Amish – and what I am beginning to learn – is how to engage respectfully, even lovingly, with people who are different from me and make different choices about life.
The point isn’t that I am wanting to do everything they do; the point is that I want to do very little of what they do but still chose to remain friends and neighbors.
I don’t judge them or tell them how to live or what I believe. I don’t assume that my way is superior to theirs, just because they believe in God and I don’t, or they are Patriarchal, or ride around buggies and wear funny clothes.
Dorothy – and many others -think the Amish have caused me to lose my mind. But I think I may be just beginning to find it. Thinking will do that for me.
Because of what I write, my thinking and writing must have been compromised. This is a new kind of social bigotry.
I can’t simply be wrong (or right.)
My Amish “bromance” is just the latest popular word to ridicule men who dare to show their emotions or, God forbid, speak of loving men. If they show a little emotion, they are ridiculed. I’m wise to it.
Would any woman choose or dare – to use such a demeaning term to describe a friendship with another woman?
The Golden Rules are fading from our consciousness; they are replaced with something that seems wanting and cold to me: the new sin-loving someone different.
It is easier to understand why the country is being torn apart. We are diverse people, many of us different from everyone else.
Without a common moral compass, someone is thus hating everyone or being hated by someone.
Jesus Christ and the Judeo-Christian ethic both promoted the idea that what we loved most was our differences. Now they are what we hate the most.
This is no big news to refugees, women, gay or trans people, or Mexicans and South Americans desperate to feed their families and escape violence by violating our borders. Unfortunately, we are now a country that hates them and persecutes them for fleeing to us.
Fortunately, the Amish got here when they did. They could never get in now.
The Judeo-Christian ethic always seemed stuffy and hypocritical to me in a world with so much prejudice and persecution.
The term first appeared in a book review by George Orwell in 1939, with the phrase, “the Judeo-Christian scheme of morals.” The term followed decades of work by Jewish and Christian leaders trying to create a liberal value system that emphasized our common ground.
The world is more complex and diverse now; there are many more elements to the world’s spirituality than Christians and Jews.
But I always loved the idea that the foundation of morals and law in the United States shared one between different people with different values and beliefs.
The Judeo-Christian ethic is in shambles now, but so are our current values and morals. Maybe it’s time for a new one.
I’m not a lover of nostalgia, the old days were not always better than the new ones.
But at least we knew morality and cruelty and greed were wrong, and not to be celebrated. No politician dared to go out in public and lie as nakedly as ours are doing.
We know now that the Judeo-Christian ethic failed many people in many ways – African Americans, gays, the poor, and women especially.
But it gave people of goodwill – and many political and religious leaders – something to unite around, something to aspire to.
It was just too white, too male.
Martin Luther King and John Lewis embraced this ethic and used it to broaden support for civil rights.
Even if we didn’t always do right, there was a sense of common values around what the right thing was. To me, the passing of this common ethic has created a giant sinkhole, good is just something for everyone to fight about, not a mountain to climn.
The idea of a common ground of moral values is the one that catches my eye and my heart. My writing about the Amish and the very mixed response tells me that the Amish are important.
The Amish have found common ground, love their neighbors, and treat people the way they wish to be treated. That’s why I love them and love writing about them.
That’s why I will keep on writing about them until they ask me to stop.
“But at least we knew morality and cruelty and greed were wrong, and not to be celebrated. No politician dares to go out in public and lie as nakedly as ours are doing.” Jon, I agree with this, and it scares me that our politicians are destroying our democracy with their attempts to suppress votes. But it also scares me that Democrats can’t bend and both sides always have to be “RIGHT”. It scares me that Americans can’t ride public transportation without fear that some idiot is going to have a violent hissy fit over wearing a mask. I’m livid when people don’t value others right to live by not wearing masks. Nor do I agree with everything the Amish do especially when it comes to making their buggies safer (religious beliefs aside) so no one ends up hurt – English and Amish. But in truth most farmers don’t and can’t run their animals to the vet. When a cow stops producing calves or milk, it’s taken to the slaughter house. I’m afraid I couldn’t be a farmer because I burst into tears when I witnessed this.
I’m old and I miss the “good old days.” Life was easier. Neighbors spoke and chatted with each other. We respected each other more, and people were quicker to lend a helping hand. I don’t even know my neighbors’ names.
I understand that cutting off a dog’s paw sounds horrible – but when you don’t have a phone or transportation – the dog might have bled to death before help could have been obtained.
Jon I find your writing and themes healing. Your blog is often one I turn to for solace. I often feel like I can feel the wind moving over the hills where you live blow through my mind when reading your work. You don’t shy away from controversy which I appreciate. Your take on internet mobs (in writing about animal welfare people and cart horse advocates) and your refusal to participate in their fury has influenced me greatly. I love learning more about your Amish neighbors and how they live their faith. Keep up the great work. I’m thankful for you. PS happy anniversary. You both look great!
Hi Jon, I am a long time fan of your writing. Its wonderful that you are able to get to know your Amish neighbors so well and share your insights with your readers. I want to be sure you are aware that there remain many Christian churches whose members continue to “love their neighbors” and to live out the values taught by Christ. Many churches, such as mine, a Congregational church in Maine, have become “Open and Affirming” with the following language being typical – “Because we are all created in God’s image, we welcome into full membership and participation in the Body of Christ persons of every race, ethnic background, age, gender identity and expression, sexual orientation, physical or mental ability, socio-economic background, martial status and faith background. Such churches tend to remain in the background, founding and supporting many local initiatives to help our neighbors, they usually do not make the news. There are also progressive christian groups that do seek to see the teachings of Jesus reflected in our countries policies. “Progressive Christians and Friends” is one such group you can check out on Facebook.
Thanks for telling me this Marcia, it makes me hopeful ..I appreciate the message very much..j
Jon, glad you’re out there articulating. Bearing witness, not “letting things go”. In a good way.
And, I mean… “Donut Friday”. If that isn’t a perfect example of great core American values, what is?
Cheers
Rufus
Hah! Surely we can unite the country around Donut Friday. If not, we really are doomed.
Jon, I don’t see that you are ‘losing your mind’, but instead ‘expanding your mind’ – It is beautiful to witness in your writings. It challenges me to ask where my own intolerance is. I am confronted daily with my old ideas & how they are my biggest barrier. I try & stretch my spiritual muscles daily to keep an open & teachable mind. Reading you blog is often a wonderful part of my own spiritual practice.
Thank you for writing about your experiences with the Amish. I have to admit that my opinion of them was not as loving and forgiving as it should be. I was one of those people, who more than once, repeated the opinion that the Amish operated puppy mills and did not treat the dogs very well. You have helped me to realize the error in my thinking and I a very grateful. I have learned so much from you over the years, Jon. I thank you very much.
I disagree with you that this ‘lack of morality’ and the concept of living ones neighbor is somehow recently gone from our society. The public espousing of fair treatment of all people was present in the past. But the reality was something quite different. Human beings were owned, women were treated as property lacking any self agency, known poisons were marketed as medicines, food was produced in known deficient sanitation, by all by people who knew better but who valued profit and power more. Essentially what was said and what was done have always been two entirely different things. What exists now is the saturated information age, wherein the earlier hypocrisy has laid waste to any concept of following a moral standard because it is obvious that many, but not all leaders, the wealthy, and the powerful have long been playing without rules, why should the rest of us do so. I don’t espouse this belief, I try to live the golden rule and value people as people, deserving my love despite how I might feel about their actions or practices. It does not stop me from trying to change them. I think more people are like me. You are only hearing from people who disagree, in the same way that I don’t write good product reviews in the understanding that if I’m not complaining, I must be satisfied, and conversely, if I’m not, I’ll let you know. Minimize your therbligs…
Thanks Marie a thoughtful message…actually I mostly hear from people who agree with me, as I’ve said, but I think the tone and anger of many of the messages are important and reflect problems in the country. This has nothing to do in my mind with people who fight for good causes. I’m one of them, but it is not what I’m writing about. I appreciate the civility of your message. This is not an argument for me, and when I look at our civic and political (and religious) structure, I just don’t see the moral era embraced by the country as a common cause. There is one side and the other side, each one perpetually stalemating the other. I am sure you are doing much good.
Here’s another timeless lesson from the New Testament:
“Judge not, that you be not judged.
For with what judgment you judge, you will be judged;
and with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.
And why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye,
but do not consider the plank in your own eye?”
Matthew 7:1-3 (New King James Version)
Far too many who clamor about piety in their Christianity. I’m reminded of a sentence posted in a pastor’s office: “If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you.” I saw that once 40 years ago and it remains a powerful imprint still.
I keep my eyes open for true Christians.
Literally, “little Christs”. In their hearts resides the true church.
Much of what masquerades as “Christianity” today is a front for political and economic gain and influence at anyone else’s expense. I say this as an ordained deacon and licensed minister. I know how it works.
Were Jesus to enter many churches today, he would be an unwelcome guest, just as He was in his earthly days. Spreading his gospel of LOVE, redemption, change, grace, and more of the attributes we so desperately need evert day. Firey political churches have no use for that, it extinguishes anamosity, which is easier to feed and build a following and a robust income and fame upon. “The love of money is the root of all sorts of evil” is STILL true today and continues unchanged.
Good men are always in short supply and the demand for them is always keen. At least two are found. One is Moise, the other is reading this. May your tribe increase.
Jon…
Your curiosity led you to the Amish. You reached out and your new neighbors cautiously accepted. You found what you saw interesting, and wanted to learn and write about it.
But this process was initiated by your open mind and finding out for yourself rather than making blind assumptions.
The Amish, like other minorities that might “look funny,” speak differently, or “do strange things,” have faced the brunt of prejudice while strengthened by their common traditions, customs, and beliefs.
I juxtapose the Amish, steady in their ways, with the young Bishop Maginn graduating class of newer arrivals, now trained in the rudiments and eager to seek their futures. I hope they will find success and remain steadfast to their values while facing the best and worst of American society.
I have never endorsed hating the Amish!! That is putting words in my mouth and drawing a conclusion about me. I live among them and get along with everybody just fine. But my eyes and mind are open and I see things they do that are not something that I support or condone. That does not equal hate.
I am certainly not blind to the ways of rural living and farming. I grew up on a dairy farm and I have horses and household pets today. I live in a rural community with many Amish. I have no problem at all with people using their horses for work. In fact I think it helps enrich horses lives to have a job. I do think that a living, breathing, feeling being does deserve to be treated in a humane manner. What I don’t like is the actions of anybody doesn’t do that.
What I take issue with is your writing about them in such flowery language and that they are near perfect and telling readers that it is acceptable to cut off a dog’s paw in a barn. There are a lot of people out there who take you at your word. You have written books about animals. People may see you as an expert on animal husbandry. A lot of people are going to look to you as a resource in how things should be done. Who knows if a reader will have a dog with an injured paw and choose to cut it off themselves based on your belief and statement that Moise did an appropriate thing.
1 of the reasons I have followed your blogs is that you seem to have a very common sense approach to animals. I like that. But I cannot see you bypassing vet treatment and taking Zinnia to the barn and cutting off her paw if it was injured. If it’s good enough for Tina then why would it not be good enough for Zinnia? It seems like you are compromising your values to try to fit in and support the Amish because you seem to be enthralled with them right now.
I will correct something that you said: you said it is no business of yours how he treats an injury to his dog. Yes actually it is. It’s all of our business as a society. That’s what animal cruelty laws are about. Animals may be considered property, but in a civilized society, we have set some limits as to what is cruel and what is appropriate treatment. Thank goodness. I still stand by my opinion that is based on what you wrote–that he took her to the barn and cut off her paw–as being inhumane. I think the likelihood that he had anesthesia and antibiotics to treat this dog is highly unlikely. But if I am wrong about that, please enlighten me to the facts.
By your writing about condoning this behavior, you are setting an example for your readers to potentially follow. All I ask is that you consider the impact and influence you have on your readers. You are in a position of power with your blog.
Dorothy, thanks for your reply. From my reading, you are simply repeating what you wrote in your first message. I didn’t agree with the message, and I don’t agree with your reply to my post. I’m comfortable with what I wrote and appreciate your concern for animals. I consider the impact and influence of everything I write, but I do not write in order to influence other people, I write to express myself and my own opinions.
Nobody appointed the God of animals, I write about what I think, not what you think.
As I wrote, you have no idea what medicine or equipment the farmer had to treat his dog, and rather than ask, you make what I consider an unfair and quite hostile – even cruel – judgment. You suggest my “bromance” with the Amish has affected my writing and my mind. I consider that offensive and cheap. I don’t need you to tell me to think, that’s what I do for a living.
I did not represent what you wrote in any way, you just repeated most of it here. And I have no idea whether or not you hat the Amish. I never said you did. Accusing someone falsely of animal cruelty and neglect is pretty close to hatred in my mind.
Dorothy, you have the right to feel whatever you want to feel. Personally, I don’t believe you have the right to instruct me on what my business is or isn’t. That is a very personal decision. I believe you sailed right over my point. It’s not for me to approve of what he did or didn’t do, I don’t judge other people and tell them what to do, I would consider that serious abuse of whatever power I have. You think I should because you do disapprove of what the farmer did. To me, that kind of thinking is why the country is in such a mess, I don’t want to join that parade. We’re just going to have to stay stuck on that, we have very different feelings about judging others.
I think we’ve each had our say and it seems we each stand our ground, and you have my respect for that. But I wouldn’t change a word of what I wrote. The problem is not that my affection for the Amish has softened my brain, the problem seems to be that we disagree. And in a free country, that’s not such an awful problem. I’ll think about what I write and perhaps you might do the same. I’ll read your message again later and consider it again. So far, we’re just repeating one another.. Best, Jon
P.S. Dorothy, I very much believe in vets. If my dog got caught in a saw I would rush him or her to a vet immediately and without question unless I thought she might bleed to death before I got there (which was the case here). That doesn’t mean that you or anyone else have to do what I would do, or that I have the right to condemn everyone who would act differently. That’s where I disagree with your scolding. I also don’t understand people who sit behind computer screens and tell people many miles away what they should be doing. That’s always been a mystery to me. I just don’t have the gall to do that. I trust your thoughts are sane and rational, and I’d appreciate the same respect.
Hi Jon, long time reader, all your books and now your blog. Love them all. I think you said that the Amish don’t believe in, or go to Veterinarians, but I believe thats not true. The TV show, “the Incredible Dr. Pol) a wonderful show about a fantastic vet in Michigan, who, with his team of vets, treats every animal from pet pigs, kittens, dogs, in the office, to draft horses, milk cows, beef cattle, goats and sheep at the farms. Dr. Pol is in his seventies, has a bad ankle , a huge laugh and very involved in the local fairs and the kids in their four H programs. He has visited Amish farms, often, to treat injured draft horses, pregnant cows in trouble,etc. These may be a different sect from your Amish, and I have never seen an episode when they brought a small pet? to the office, but these huge animals are a big investment and they call on him when they need help. Their faces and names are never shown, but they are Amish. Plus here in the Mohawk Valley, we’re surrounded by farmers, I remember hearing one talk about when his favorite horse was too hurt/old to go on, he fed him a geat meal, took him to his favorite place in the field and shot him, and buried him with help from his neighbors. Not much different from what you have to do when your sheep get too sick or old. Vet bills are very expensive, and not taken lightly when you have many animals your’re responsible for.
Thanks Karen, for the message. I’m sure some Amish sometimes see vets, but the Old Amish near me to not believe in veterinary care and they don’t go to doctors themselves unless it’s an extreme emergency. I ‘m sure ther are exceptions, but just as most Amish don’t go to dentists – lots of missing teeth – they don’t go regularly to veterinarians. I’m sure Dr. Pol was a wonderful guy, but this is a very well known Amish trait. I do know some w ho have called large animal vets when their horses hooves get cracked..