When writing this blog each week, there are several options. I can discuss where I’ve been, where I’m going, or where I am. This week I take you where I am.
The details of how I arrived are not important. Suffice to say, after a series of surreal and strange and exhausting events that unfolded from Friday noon (June 1) to the time I write this, I realized that once again, with little warning, I was surrounded by a vast, unfamiliar wasteland. Too far along to retreat, I found myself trudging along on one more lost road, winding through one more barren and hostile landscape, extending into one more bleak and endless horizon.
The sun is hot and I am faint. Roiling storm clouds threaten in the distance. There are people around me, but I feel alone. A few close friends have my back, but cannot walk beside me. They speak and I hear. Words. Prayers. Some, who cannot think of an original thing to say, tell me, “What doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger.” I flinch. They mean well. But I think that is a vapid, trite cliché. What if it doesn’t kill you, but makes you weaker anyway? Entirely possible. Probable, even. For some, anyhow.
Responding to a recent blog, a reader emailed me, “I think that things don’t always make sense, they don’t always turn out for the better, and they don’t always happen for a reason. Although God has power to control everything, He doesn’t. We have much freedom, and we have to slog at times.” Slog. An apt word. Through the wasteland.
Saturday night. I watch baseball. Then Baseball Tonight. I think about a drink. It would be good. It would relax, mellow me. Take the harshness off the edge of what I have witnessed and heard. The bitter things I’ve just seen and faced. What I will yet face. What I’m feeling now. But it’s really no battle. I take my prescription drugs instead and go to bed at 11:30 and sleep the restless slumber of a troubled stranger in a foreign land.
Sunday morning. I awake. Get up. Stretch. Mix and drink my Superfood. Drink coffee. Eat a bit. Mechanically get ready to go to Westminster Presbyterian. Maybe the pudgy pastor will have some words of comfort, words of hope, a message of strength. I know the singing will be good, at least. Always is.
I am not disappointed. The choir is joyous and outstanding, as usual. We sing. We read through the responsive readings. Psalm 130: “Out of the depths have I cried…..,” the pudgy pastor rumbles dramatically. “Oh Lord, hear my voice…..,” we respond in unison. And so on. We read the answer to Question 1 from the Heidelberg Catechism. We pray the Lord’s Prayer. In unison. We sing again.
And then, something out of the ordinary. The pastor calls thirteen young people, five young men and eight young women, to the front. They are to be taken in as members. All but two young men have already been baptized. The whole group stands on the platform at the front of the church. Young, probably between the ages of twelve and sixteen. He asks questions, ending each with “Do you?” They answer in unison. “We do” or “We will.” And then the two young men awaiting baptism kneel.
Westminster Presbyterian baptizes by sprinkling. Like the Amish. I hadn’t known that. Interesting. Some Brethren churches I know of would have a severe problem with that. A deacon hovers close, holding the silver cup. The pastor dips his hand and waves it over an applicant’s bowed head. Drops of water trickle down. Solemnly he intones:
“I BAPTIZE YOU…..” (Who are these young people and what will their futures hold? What will they know and feel? Joy, right now. Pressure, maybe, from their parents or peers. Sorrow. Happiness. And pain, obviously, we all live with that. How much? How deep? Will they cause more pain to others than they themselves will be forced to bear? And what else? What makes them unique from the 250 million other people in this country, the 6 billion across the whole world? Nothing, probably. Except their souls.)
“…..IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER…..,” (Do they really know what they are doing, what they are promising, do they really grasp it? I suppose so. Enough to comprehend the significance of it, anyway. To know they are entering a new phase, a spiritual birth, a new beginning.)
“……IN THE NAME OF THE SON……,” (But they are also entering young adulthood and they will be savaged by the storms of life. They will betray. Be betrayed. They will bleed. They will cry out into the lonely canyons of the night and not be heard.)
“……AND IN THE NAME OF THE HOLY GHOST……, AMEN.” (They are now a part of the visible catholic (small “c” for you testy types) church, the family of God. Despite human frailties, they believe. They will stumble. They will fail. Spectacularly, even, some of them. But they have faith. And in the end, when death calls them, that will be enough.)
The pastor ambles back to the pulpit and begins his sermon. Today, to initiate the new members, they will have communion. The pastor’s sermon is entitled, “Communion Table Manners.” His message includes instructions on how to prepare one’s heart for the Lord’s table. His sermon is short. He concludes. The choir strikes up a pre-communion hymn. The ushers glide forward to distribute the bread and wine. I’ve decided not to stay. The wasteland beckons. I walk out.
For many years I have believed that, regardless of one’s surrounding circumstances, life is beautiful. Always. Easy to say, hard to live. But I hold onto and believe that more than ever. Even now. Especially now. Even in the wasteland.
A good portion of the men of the extended Wagler clan have an intemperate inclination in their youth to cast away the time-honored teachings of their fathers and forge their own trails, often winding up at desolate and obscure destinations. What their hands find to do, they do with all their might, with little visible regard to costs or consequences. The blood runs wild and harsh, and they will stubbornly and silently follow their chosen paths through brambled fields and over steep and rocky terrain to the black and bitter end. Behind them, a twisted mass of emotional and spiritual wreckage marks the only vestige of their passing. Barring intervention or a miracle, they are lost.
My nephew, Mervin Wagler, was one of those. To me, Mervin was always a quiet spindly kid; I had fled the Amish scene long before he sprouted into a seething young adult. The fourth son of my oldest brother, Joseph, an Amish preacher in Bloomfield, Iowa, Mervin wrestled with the latent demons that seem to stalk the Waglers: a keenly intelligent and inquisitive mind balanced with a robust but vulnerable conscience, choked to rebellion by the intolerable confines of unbending Amish law. Eventually, after an exhausting internal struggle, he was driven by a fierce and powerful determination to hack and smash his own course his own way, even if his soul might be required as the ultimate price. As is so often the case for young men who depart from the Amish lifestyle, there were no barriers after the major step of leaving home.
Mervin Wagler (Left) and Steven Marner
After choosing to follow that familiar destructive pattern, Mervin rapidly surrendered to the seductive lullabies that lured him deep into the savage and hopeless underworld of hard-core drugs. By his late teens, he was hooked on meth. He wandered, lost and alone, through a desolate spiritual wilderness few of us ever traverse, from which fewer still emerge to tell. But God’s Love never withdraws from or rejects a seeking heart, and through a series of miraculous events, Mervin did escape from that bleak and lifeless wasteland. At the age of 25, he has detailed the account of his unique and astounding journey in his first published book, “The Odyssey of a Heart: Innocence, Drugs, and the Pursuit of Freedom.”
The book is a bit rough in patches and could use a little more editing. Some will find it overly didactic. Despite that, it is honest, raw and piercing throughout in its description of the pitch-black abyss of hopeless despair, followed by the incredible, almost incomprehensible joy of salvation and new life in Christ. Mervin holds nothing back, and writes simply and candidly of his prolonged struggle to truly break free from the bonds of addiction after his conversion. His observations will bring every reader to a fuller understanding of how to deal with those lost souls who seem utterly unsalvage-able. He writes with conviction of what it means to grasp each moment of the here and now and live with a full heart. This book will be beneficial to all adult readers, especially young adults. It should definitely be read by every Amish father. I also recommend it to those (of any age) who are (or know someone who is) attracted to or already inhabiting the dangerous and baneful world of hard drugs. The book is available at Amazon.com on the following link: Amazon.com; Mervin’s book This link will be permanently listed on my Links page as well. As he matures and polishes his writing craft, I look forward to a stream of increasingly productive material from Mervin in the future.
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After deciding to keep my gas-guzzling truck, I made the decision last week to install a Super Chip on the truck to get better mileage. AJ Williams, one of my workers at Graber Supply (and a semi-professional rodeo rider/roper) installed one on his dually GMC diesel and told me he gets 20 mpg since installation. So last Saturday (5/26), I set off with my mechanically-minded, gearhead buddy Paul Zook, to the Liberator Specialty Shop in Carlisle, PA. I wanted Paul along just in case; I know nothing of these things and could easily be ripped off.
The Super Chip is a little digital gizmo that plugs into the electronic schematics of your truck and you can manipulate the computer for better mileage or more power. Paul seemed impressed, so I bought it. I told Shawn, the installer, that I wanted economy settings all the way. As he installed it, he explained how the gizmo works. He punched all the settings in their proper modes. I also bought a High Performance Green Air Filter made of cotton, not paper like regular air filters. It is supposed to allow the truck to breathe much easier and will last forever with annual cleaning. Total cost: Just over $500.00. By my calculations, if I save 10 gallons of gas a week for five months, it will be more than paid for. I immediately noticed that the gas gauge crawls to the left much more slowly than before. As of the time of this post, I am getting 14 mpg, a dramatic improvement from the 10 to 11 mpg before. And this is local driving with much starting and stopping and turning. Anyone can purchase and self-install the Super Chip. It is available at the following link: Liberator Performance
We may soon have a new Nascar driver to cheer for. Last Saturday, Patrick Miller, investor at Graber Supply (and my new boss), went to the Pocono 500 track and rode a stock car around the track for several laps. Patrick claims the experience was quite heady, even with the G-forces of the hard turns, but some doubt remains as to whether his wife, Mary June, is quite ready to allow him to pursue a new career as a stock car driver.
Patrick Miller
On Monday afternoon, I hiked the Susquahannock State Park, which is located south and east of the Buck in southern Lancaster County. Monday morning was still dreary and overcast from the previous night’s rain, but by the time I got to the park, the day was clear but muggy. A large flock of Amish youth was picnicking and playing ball at the park, as Memorial Day this year also happened to be Pentecost Day (Pingst Montag), an Amish religious holiday. Small knots of Amish girls rolled and swept along like waves from point to point, giggling and chattering. The park has several hundred acres of woods and half a dozen trials. I started down a trail skirting the park’s perimeter. About ten minutes in, just after the trail turned tough and steep, I heard children’s voices approaching from the opposite direction. Around the bend came a bent and weary Amish lady with four young children, the smallest probably four years old. They seemed startled to see me. “Interesting trail,” the Amish woman remarked tiredly. “Yep,” I replied, resisting the urge to say something in PA Dutch and truly freaking her out, “steep too.” They clamored away. How she got those kids down and up that rugged, rocky trail is beyond me.
I stumbled across this stone structue in the woods, away from the trail.
Straight up.
Though the trails are marked in the park, I always seem to wander off the path. Same thing happened this time. I did follow a path, but suddenly realized there were no painted trail markers on the trees. I kept going until the trail ended in some farmer’s meadow. It was a deer path. I decided to strike out through the woods until I stumbled across a marked path. It took some doing. I went straight down a ravine, crossed a small creek, then straight up again, smashing cautiously through thick brush and many sharp and cutting brambles, stepping over logs, and generally attracting who knows how many deer ticks with Lyme’s disease. Finally I stumbled onto a trail and followed it for another fifteen minutes. Eventually, two hours after entering the woods, I straggled from the brush, right beside a ball field where the flock of Amish boys was slugging it out with much hollering and whooping. I visited briefly with an Amishman standing off to one side. He told me the youth group comes every year on “Pingst Montag” and divides up into teams and plays round robin until only one team is left. Dirty and scratched, with soaked shoes and muddy pants from fording the creek and sloshing through mud holes, I walked the half mile to where my truck was parked and left. Upon arriving home, I threw all my clothes, including my hiking shoes, into the washer and took a long and thorough shower to get rid of any ticks.
A flock of Amish on the ball field.
Anyone following the Stanley Cup playoffs? It’s about the only time of year that I pay any attention whatsoever to hockey, although my brothers and I grew up as rabid hockey fans in Canada. I transferred my affections to football over the years, I guess. This year the Ottawa Senators are playing the Anaheim Mighty Ducks for the Cup. I’m for the Mighty Ducks, because any team that has to bear such a moniker (they probably get derisive comments from opposing teams) all season long deserves to win it all. As of the time of this post (6/1), the Ducks are leading 2 games to none. But I really have no duck, I mean dog, in this hunt.
Before the next post, my site should get its 10,000th hit. That is a remarkable achievement for a site that was launched eight weeks ago on Good Friday, April 6th. I continue to be amazed that so many of you keep coming back each week, and I am grateful to each and every one. I would still post regularly if far fewer read this, but it makes my task of writing a weekly blog a lot easier knowing that you, all of you, are out there. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. And I should mention again that anyone is welcome to comment. You don’t have to agree with me; disagreements are interesting. Use your own voice and don’t be intimidated by other commentators and hifalutin’ writing. And you don’t have to write a dissertation. (Unless you want to, of course. This is cyberspace. There’s room in the comment section for a book.) All comments are deeply appreciated. Finally, if the person who makes the 10,000th hit emails me his or her picture, I will post it on my next blog with great fanfare.
YOU ARE WELCOME TO POST A COMMENT ON THE LINK ON THIS PAGE ONLY.
