Seams

Slender sky-blue halos round gaping jet black pupils.

“Our ways are not God’s ways,” Bishop Amos Yoder cleared his throat and, staring at his feet, continued his eulogy, “Young Samuel on his scooter had only a half mile to go yet. Then he’d be at his great uncle’s farm, yeah.” The congregation, all beards and bonnets nodded. “Samuel then, his time had come. And that milk truck rolled him down. And it was done. Nothing anyone at the children’s hospital could do. It is finished.”

284 humans in black, gray and white, old and young, aged two weeks to 97 years, held aloft Silence like pall bearers.

“Now,” intoned the bishop, finding his voice in fellowship, “let us sing.” It was an ancient Germanic dirge from the heights of the Swiss Alps, four centuries old. Relieving pain, promising salvation, and lending to each who joined in the hymn a sense of hope. And Hope was sparse currency in these COVIDian days amongst the Amish of Lancaster County, PA.

Bishop Yoder tended to his duties in receiving lines of the child’s funeral, then withdrew to a tighter enclave of fellow dairy farmers. Prices were plummeting, milk had no value, everyone was dumping their supply to keep from curdling. His own farm was over $15,000 in debt and the interest payments mushroomed each month. Farmers’ markets were abandoned, tourists absent, and grocery chains weren’t buying from them. In short time, his whole congregation would be impoverished. The death of one boy was indeed sorrowful, but the prospects of an entire community starving to death were catastrophic.

Bishop, they asked with one voice, what are we going to do?

“Have faith,” he said, more to himself than the huddled cluster of wide-eyed farmers, “He will bring us through.”

Cold comfort is allaying the fears of unknowing others when your own knowledgeable worries eclipse theirs. Band-aid on a scooter-riding 10-year old flattened by a semi.

Let us all got to bed. And pray for better days.

~*~

The phone rang. The electric phone. The screen phone machine chirruping as a digital nightingale traversing the expanse from outhouse to bedroom.

Amos Yoder blinked blue halos over pitch black pupils and shuffled across the garden. Ordnung law stated no telephones were permitted in the house; but a separate structure for plumbing meant a permissible space for tools of the “English” world.

Following innumerable cybernetic chimes, Amos manipulated the machine to a mode called ANSWER. The voice of his accountant from Manheim came over the receiver. It was a flurry of questions, numbers and overriding undercurrents of urgency.

“Amos, she asked, you mentioned your wife could sew –“

“The best quilter in the county!”

“Could she sew from a pattern?”

“My wife could sew from the spots on a cow or the stars in the sky. If the Lord made a pattern and gave us leave to follow it, she can do so and then some.”

“Yeah, yeah. And does she have friends? Can she get other people in your community to sew things like hospitals gowns, gloves and face masks?”

Bishop Amos Yoder, blue halos round the dark wells of his pupils, was party to no international trade deals. He watched no partisan TV and didn’t vote. Ever. But his faith was unwavering and his community was in need.

How can we help?

The pattern was sent from a hospital in New York City. Could they sew it? Amos asked his wife, Mim to which she declared, “Only one size, one cut, one stitch? One minute each!” The request came for a prototype.

A slick Lexus sped down from the diseased dizziness of Manhattan passed the barns and homesteads of Lancaster County. It raced up the lane to the Yoder farmhouse, nearly getting stuck in the mud but backing away before it fell in too deep. A double-face-masked driver with a plastic shield sprang from the car in all the accoutrements to inspect Chernobyl. Instead, he fingered a handmade surgical gown, glanced at a box of masks, and presented a laminated contract to be signed with a hypoallergenic grease pen.

Amos looked at Mim. Prayerful shrugs were followed by a signature in tortured cursive.

Five hours later the order came for 200,000 one size one cut one stitch surgical gowns to be sewn as quickly as possible.

*CRACK* went the whip of the buggy driver, word went out across the mist-enshrouded fields. Salvation came in the form of an opportunity to work.

There was no excel spreadsheet, no Quickbooks, or anything of the kind. Instead, Bishop Amos Yoder of the haloed eyes with pupils deep and dark as wells, took notes in his little black notebook which served him every bit as efficiently and better.

Within 48 hours, as the screen phone machine in the outhouse would claim, 122 families across the county had heard the news. An hour later the sewing started. Stitching, serging, folding and packaging began in earnest. The old and young, the strong and the lame all gathered together in barn and living room, in field and loft to sing and sew and box and move. By the light of lantern from Quarryville to Bird-in-Hand three hundred stitchers sewed humming ditties of old whilst suckling newborns at their breasts. The markets were closed, the world was in panic, but here, in the sewing circles, was family. Hope was present. Faith and love and firelight were woven into every mask and glove and gown.

No soulless machine cranked out PPE or mass-produced masks; a human; soulful, hopeful, and loving, sat in the chilly darkness of a candle lit kitchen and stitched a fairer future for all. Needles and fingers, thread of life manifested in protective gear, Ephesian armor against diseased despair. Every seam infused with sincerest wishes of well-being, and every box of 50 gowns blessed by a humble bearded bishop who felt neglectful of his milk flock.

He notes it down in his black book. The blue rims round his pupils grow wider.

Within a week word had come down the pike – a floor of nurses in surgical gowns hand-sewn by the Amish felt strengthened, saved, secure and sent pictures through their screen phones to the whole wide world. Intubated patients regarded their caretakers as halo-ridden angels for donning robes fashioned by the saintly simple folk of Lancaster County.

Orders soon came from retirement homes in Cleveland, assisted living centers in Eastern Kansas, and rural health clinics in New Mexico. Before long the healthful hopes of a nation hinged on the knuckles and needles of 122 families in Lancaster County, PA.

Bishop Amos Yoder and his wife Mim, the greatest quilter in the county, made the rounds up hill and dale to offer advice, assist in packaging and tabulate every boxed gown, and every inch of thread. Every one of them scribbled carefully in Amos’ little black book. Neat rows of names and numbers with scribbled Pennsylvania Dutch Bible verses beside each.

100 days passed. From harvest time for winter wheat through the full cycle of spinach and strawberries, the women of the Amish community labored to mend that which was broken amongst the English world.

A white box truck lumbered down a serpentine lane up to the Yoder home and idled in the mire between it and the outhouse.

An exasperated, citified driver trudged through the mud and presented an envelope to Amos. His bright blue eyes with pinprick pupils blinked twice at the contents. A puff of his pipe and the adjustment of his straw hat. Mim came over to have a looksee.

A stack of paychecks for all 122 families across the county for all the work they had done. At the bottom of the pile was an extra check for Amos and Mim. A yellow sticky note was affixed to the AMOUNT box which read,

“For all your hard work organizing and keeping us in your hearts. Please accept the included bonus. THANK YOU.”

The check was for $20,000. Enough to pay off all their debts from the loss of the dairy season and then some.

He turned it over, holding it firm against the cover of his little black notebook, and meticulously scrawled in tedious cursive:

“Make payable to Lancaster Children’s Hospital.”

He handed it back to the puzzled and mud-splattered deliveryman.

Our ways are not God’s ways.

But maybe we can help.