The Amish Groom ~ Men of Lancaster County Book 1 (27 page)

“I’ve always believed that,” I quipped, but she didn’t get that it was a joke.

“Do you have a Bible? One that’s in English, I mean. If you don’t, it’s not that big of a deal. They put the verses on the screen, but I like bringing my Bible with me anyway.”

“Me too,” I said, trying again with the humor. “The screen alone never feels like enough for me.”

She still didn’t catch on. “So I’ll see you at ten thirty?”

“Ten thirty.”

We hung up.

Talking to Lark had lightened my mood, which both cheered and irked me. I wished I could punch in a few numbers and talk to Rachel the way I had just talked to Lark. I tossed the phone onto the couch beside me and let the TV lull me into a half stupor.

Brady showed up at ten. He seemed to have had a good time with his friends, but he didn’t elaborate and I didn’t push him. I asked him if he’d like to come to Lark’s church with me in the morning.

He kind of laughed. “I don’t think so. I have homework, and there are two football games I need to watch.”

“Oh. Okay.”

“But you go ahead.”

I let his reasons for not wanting to come fall away. I hadn’t really expected him to join me, but I sensed I should continue the conversation. It had been a long time since I had gone to church with Brady, probably the summer I was fifteen. He would have only just turned six. That suddenly seemed like a million years ago. And even though I’d always tried to be an example of my faith when I was with him, it was clear to me that he hadn’t applied any of it to himself. In the Amish culture, there was always an awareness that the younger boys looked up to the older ones. Emulated them. Wanted to be a part of their group. In church, we sat in prescribed sections—males on one side, females on the other, children with their mothers—but it was a known fact that every little boy yearned for that right of passage when he would be allowed to enter the service not with his mother but with the big boys and sit with them instead.

As such, we men were always taught to live as an example, ever mindful that younger eyes were watching. I had taken that responsibility seriously since I was sixteen or seventeen and had become part of the older crowd. Yet here I stood now, realizing with piercing clarity that the most important young eyes of all had been watching yet hadn’t been influenced by me in this way one bit. If anything, he had a blatant disrespect for everything I stood for.

I prayed, asking God to open Brady’s eyes to a closer relationship with Him—and to show me what part I could play in that. I thought it might help to get him involved in a good youth group out here, so when Brady stepped into the kitchen, I followed and asked if he’d ever been to Lark’s church before.

“No.”

“It sounds like a great place. You should try it sometime.”

Brady opened the fridge and withdrew a can of Dr Pepper. “So you guys are, like, spending a lot of time together.”

“What?”

He popped open the can, took a sip of the soda, and then turned to me. “Whatever, man. She’s pretty. She’s available.”

Words failed me for a couple seconds. “It’s not like that. Not at all.”

Brady took another drink. “Okay. Like I said, it makes no difference to me.”

“No, seriously. It’s not like that. I’m not…I have a girl back home.”

He moved past me. “Whatever.” His tone was relaxed and nonchalant. As though he really didn’t care who I saw or who I might possibly hurt in the process.

I gently reached for his arm. “There is no ‘whatever.’ I am not interested in Lark in that way. I simply want to see what her church is like. I thought you might want to see it too.”

Brady looked down at my hand on his arm and he slowly lifted it out of my grasp. “It’s none of my business what you do, Tyler. You don’t owe me any explanations.”

He started to walk away, but I could not let him go. Perhaps I should have prayed about it or thought about it or just waited to say something. But that’s not what I did.

“Hey, I’m your brother,” I called after him. “I’m not just some person your parents hired to look after you while they’re gone. I came here because Dad said you wanted me to come.”

Brady swung around. The nonchalance was gone. He was mad. “Well, I’m real sorry you feel that you’re wasting your time with me. I’m sure I can stay with a friend until my parents return. If you want to go on back to your Amish people and your Amish life and your Amish girlfriend, no one’s stopping you.”

He turned from me and I followed him.

“That’s not what I meant. I’m not wasting my time here. I just want to know what you’re so angry about.”

“Who says I’m angry about anything?” he said as he continued on toward the stairs, Frisco following him.

I went after them.

“Who says? Well, let’s see. You’ve been distant with me since the first day I got here. You barely talk to me, you don’t want to do anything with me, you resent my asking you any questions. What else am I supposed to think? Did you tell Dad you wanted me to come?”

There on the stairs, poised between the floors, Brady’s gaze met mine. He was two steps ahead, looking down on me as if I were a grubby beggar pleading for money.

“I did,” he finally said. “My mistake.”

With that, he turned and continued up the stairs to his room, quietly pulling the door shut behind him.

T
WENTY

S
leep eluded me after I went to bed and turned out the light. I prayed for the better part of the hours I spent tossing and turning, asking God to show me what had come between my brother and me.

I felt God’s peace and presence calming me and encouraging me, but the lightning bolt of clarity I pleaded for didn’t come. I awoke late, at least for me, and had no new insights on why Brady was acting the way he was.

Frisco was scratching on the other side of Brady’s door when I walked out into the hallway. I opened the door as quietly as I could to let the dog out, but I couldn’t help but peek inside. My brother was soundly asleep, his face turned the other way. I closed the door softly and Frisco and I went downstairs.

I hoped that Brady would get up before I left for church so that I could at least tell him good morning. But when it came time to leave, his bedroom door was still closed and there was no sound coming from behind it.

Lark was in a happy mood when I came for her, and she talked the whole way, for which I was thankful. She also didn’t insist on driving, which meant I had the distraction of the road to keep me from dwelling too much on my predicament with my brother.

Her church looked more like an auditorium for a play than a place to meet with God, but as I settled into the strange environment, I began to see that the people around me definitely were happy to be there and eager to worship. Everyone sat wherever they wanted and laughed and talked before the service began, as if they were at a social event. But when the service started, the social atmosphere grew more worshipful. The music was loud, which I didn’t mind, but it seemed to be aimed at sounding good to the listener instead of pleasing to God. At least that’s how it came across to me. The songs were also incredibly short, with lights to change the mood for each one and animated projections of the lyrics on the giant screens on either side of the stage. I couldn’t sing any of the songs, and I had a hard time concentrating on God with such contemporary-sounding phrases that often seemed like words we were speaking to each other about God instead of to God.

But the pastor’s message, taken from Psalm 103, was thoughtful and inspiring. After the message, another pastor came on stage and the screens began to detail how many ministry and growth opportunities were available. Homeless outreach, life groups, couples night, financial freedom classes, recovery support groups, midweek Bible studies, an upcoming trip to Haiti, and more. I thought of my list.

Opportunities for service and involvement abound.

The question was whether everything else was as loud and frenetic as the worship hour had been. By the end of the service, in fact, I felt an odd fatigue. I longed for just a quiet moment without any kind of directed appeal to my senses, just to refocus on God and God alone.

But there was no quiet moment. As we walked back out to the main foyer, conversations and laughter erupted all around us. Lark saw some people she knew from her life group, the meaning of which I hadn’t quite figured out yet, and we stopped so that she could introduce me to them.

I was glad she didn’t say, “This is Tyler Anderson. He’s Amish.” She just told them I was someone visiting family in Newport Beach and that I lived in Pennsylvania. Her friends were kind and seemed genuinely interested in me. They even invited me to their midweek get-together that coming Wednesday night. As we walked back to the car, Lark asked me what I thought of the service.

“It was…” I searched for the right word. “It was busy.”

“Busy?” she asked, laughing. That was apparently not the word she was expecting.

“There was so much happening. So much for the eye and ear to take in. I’m not used to that.”

“Well, what is your worship service like?”

“Not so busy,” I said. And she laughed again.

“For starters, we sing a cappella, and each hymn lasts about twenty minutes.”

“Get out!”

I nodded. “It calms the heart and quiets the mind. Brings you to a far more worshipful place.” I went on to explain what the rest of our services were like, with Scriptures and prayers and three sermons.

“
Three
sermons? No way!”

I smiled. “Yep. And we don’t have fancy church buildings. We take turns meeting in our homes—living rooms or basements or barns. Then, when the service is over, we share a light meal together.”

“That part sounds really nice.”

“It is,” I said, surprising myself with how much I believed that to be true.

We reached the car, but Lark suggested we wait for a few minutes for the lot to clear some. The day was warm and beautiful. We leaned against the Honda as a steady stream of other vehicles inched past us.

“Does that mean you didn’t like the service?” she asked.

“I wouldn’t say that. It was just so different from how I have always worshipped. It seems to me that life here in Southern California is so very busy. Complex. The one place you might opt for simplicity is in your worship.”

“I haven’t ever thought of it that way before.” She was quiet for a moment. “I suppose there are churches out here that are like that. You know, less busy and all. But I don’t think I would be happy at it. I love the artistic approach at my church. I’m afraid I’d get bored at a service where there was so little happening. I guess it’s all about what brings you closer to God.”

It seemed strange to me that a hectic approach to worship would draw someone closer to the Lord, but I didn’t say this. What seemed hectic to me was obviously meaningful to Lark and everyone else who attended her church.

In my search to figure out where I belonged, I knew I had stumbled on a major discovery. I would probably always want to worship God in the most simple of ways. But did that make me Amish?

Did my preference for an uncomplicated life make me Amish?

Did my view on nonresistance make me Amish?

Did my love for Rachel make me Amish?

If those things didn’t make me Amish, and I found that I instead belonged in the non-Amish world, where in its vastness was my place in it? I didn’t think it was in Southern California, where the pace of life didn’t appeal to me. And yet that’s where my family was. Where else could I possibly go?

With this as my only viable option, it was clear to me that I didn’t belong to either world. I was still a man without a place.

And even if I thought my place might be here, Brady certainly did not agree.

“Tyler?”

I turned to Lark. “What?”

“You were a million miles away. Did you hear what I just said?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“I said do you want to grab something to eat?”

I was in desperate need of advice and completely disconnected from the people I trusted most to give it to me.
Daadi
,
Mammi
, Jake, and Rachel. It wasn’t that I wanted to share yet another meal with Lark, but she was the only friend I had at the moment.