The Recess Yard

I know the road like the back of my hand.
It is the road I take through Amish country.
It is the road that brings me to my favorite little shop.
I saw orange detour signs pointing in the direction I was going.

Road closed except local traffic were the words I read.
I needed to drive down that particular road no more than three miles.
I had no idea why there was a closure.
I wondered if the part I needed would be accessible.

I am glad that I have GPS.
Back roads in Amish country all look the same.
They look wonderfully the same.
Farm after farm, horse after horse, buggy after buggy, they all blend together after a while.

I saw a car coming from the closed road and decided that I would try it as well.
I wondered if local traffic meant those people who have a destination on that road.
Local traffic probably meant those people who live on that road.
I drove down the road about a mile with no issues whatsoever.

However, as I looked down the road a bit I could see that men were working on a bridge.
The road was completely blocked.
Large equipment blocked both directions.
Local traffic except if you lived near the bridge.

I pulled into a path so I could turn around.
I pulled up my destination on my phone.
The GPS began to talk to me through my speakers in the car.
I was minutes away from my destination; however, with the detour it would be much longer.

I knew that I was being rerouted in a perfect square.
I was being taken down roads I had never traveled before.
The scenery was beautiful.
Farm after farm, horse after horse, buggy after buggy greeted me as I drove past.

As soon as I turned down the suggested road, I saw an Amish schoolhouse.
All the children were in the recess yard.
They were playing stick ball on the field.
Their teacher, who looked not much older than the oldest student, was watching closely.

In the recess yard, there was a miniature horse feeding at a trough.
Lined up against a fence was a row of scooters.
Except for their clothes, these Amish children looked like any other group of children.
Their play was the play of childhood.

I was only going a few miles out of my way.
I might as well have been in another world.
Fields that are usually various shades of green, were now brown, and orange, and yellow.
Some fields were already harvested; while others had men working in them as I passed.

An Amish girl on a scooter was going up a steep hill with ease.
Laundry, hanging on clotheslines, was flapping in the breeze.
Sheep and goats, cows and even a few llamas dotted the landscape and made me smile.
I was thoroughly content on my detour.

Had I not been rerouted, I never would have known this other world existed.
It ran perpendicular and then parallel to the road I usually take.
It was worlds away.
It was a wonderful step back in time.

I noticed that the schoolhouse had a graveyard beyond the gate.
Small white stones, all the same size and shape, marked each grave.
Next to the field where the children were playing, people in their community were buried.
Rather than dismiss it or hide from it, the reality of death was before them every day.

Tim Keller wrote a wonderful book, Walking with God through Pain and Suffering.
Keller was asked: Why is suffering peculiarly traumatic for modern Westerners?

Most cultures—unlike our own—expect suffering as inevitable and see it as a means of strengthening and enriching us. Our secular culture, on the other hand, is perhaps the worst in history at helping its members face suffering. Every other culture says the meaning of life is something beyond this world and life…In each case suffering, though painful, can actually help you reach your life goal and complete your life story.

But in secular culture the meaning of life is to be free to choose what makes you happy in this life. Suffering destroys that meaning. And so, in the secular view, suffering can have no meaning at all. It can’t be a chapter in your life story—it is just the interruption or even the end of your life story.

I thought of this passage in Keller’s book as I passed the recess yard/graveyard.
Our culture is all about what makes us happy in THIS life.
We do not have time for suffering.
Suffering is seen as an interruption to our pleasant little lives.

Here on this detour, I saw life and death side by side.
I saw children playing ball next to the place where relatives and friends were buried.
This seemed so much healthier than they way our culture handles death.
Death is put off at all costs; suffering gets in the way of our happiness.

We live for now without any thought of things that are unpleasant or difficult to fathom.
So when death does come, it is an intruder we are not prepared to meet.
All along, we have only been thinking about the here and now.
There has been no time to think of eternity.

We ward off aging with surgeries, enhancements, and denial.
We nip, and tuck, and color, and camouflage so that we are unrecognizable.
Because I could not stop for Death – He kindly stopped for me. (Emily Dickinson)
All of our denial will not hold back the inevitable.

Somehow, the children and the teacher in the recess yard understood that truth.
Death is a natural part of life.
Even though it is natural and inevitable, we must prepare for one aspect of death.
We must prepare for eternity.

The grave is not all there is.
Heaven or hell awaits us.
There is no other alternative.
We must prepare for eternity and life beyond the grave.

Very truly I tell you, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be judged but has crossed over from death to life. (John 5:24)

Natural death is inevitable but eternal death is not.
Jesus died so we might live.
Jesus rose from the dead and thereby defeated death.
Death has no sting for those who are in Christ.

The graveyard next to the recess yard solidified that truth as I drove past.
Natural death is inevitable.
Eternal death is not.
Come to Jesus and LIVE!

2 responses to “The Recess Yard”

1. Wonderful blog today–so true! Our culture is going in the wrong direction. We need to remember Who is truly “the way, the truth and the life” and what determines where we will spend eternity.

   Reply

   • Sue,
     The sight of these two things side by side impressed me so much.
     I am glad that God allowed me to see it and ponder the truth of what I saw.
     Gina

     Reply