Category: Paths and Traditions

I spent summers on my grandparents’ farm from the time I was five years old and slaughtered my first chicken. I was curious about everything. Grandmother was Amish and grandfather was Mennonite, and both took silence seriously. My grandfather seldom talked and demonstrated how to do things instead of explaining things. My grandmother would insist I help in the fields and farm. I wasn’t going to be able to ask either of them anything. I had to learn by on my own by reading books written for adults. I also had to listen into the silence in order to try to hear “that of God.”