I’m a little slow on updating our house progress. (Here’s where I’m supposed to give an excuse: I still have six children in single digits, some of them sick, none of them of babysitting age…) Greg was up there last week to check on things. He took pictures and video, but I figure most of it is exciting only to us.

The rough plumbing is done. The wiring is mostly done. The broken windows were replaced with fancy schmancy tilt windows. I didn’t know we were getting these, but apparently, you can tip them in to clean the exterior. (Great. I’ve been enjoying the fact that I couldn’t reach windows from the outside all this time.) The HVAC system is partly done. It might be finished now.

So it’s still a mess. The drywall installation begins next week, and then the parts that I care about begin: paint colors, trim, flooring, cabinets. Greg tells me those things are minor, but that’s the fun part in my opinion. This other stuff? Just details. You have to remember that I’m married to an engineer who took a hacksaw to our dining room wall just to check for termites. (There were none.) Just make the construction parts work—that’s my attitude. I’ve got a smoky blue/deep red/taupe theme with hardwood and white trim going on throughout the house. That’s the good stuff.

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Very exciting, eh?

Our builder is a Mennonite who was Amish until five years ago. I will refrain from highly recommending him until the project is over, but we are more than pleased so far. He has taken care of water damage and crooked floors without readjusting the bid (though he’d be justified in doing so). Owning a few sub-par properties over the years, we’ve dealt with a lot of contractors. I can’t say there’s anyone I’d deal with again or recommend. In fact, our pool guy walked off the job last year with our money– leaving a cracked, unfinished deck. Our rental units are a whole ‘nuther story worth its own book. So, it’s interesting to me that people seek out the work of the Amish—you know, “Amish built” or whatever—but my experience has been to steer clear of anyone with a business ad and the little fish symbol. There are some great Christians, yes, but they are harder to find (presumably due to the large number of people who say that they are but aren’t). It seems you don’t have to wade through a few dozen Amish/Mennonites before you find one who won’t rob you blind.

Anyway, our contractor talked with Greg about his experience with converting from Amish to Mennonite. He says that when he was Amish that he and his wife traveled everywhere together in their buggy and life was much slower. Now, he and his wife have separate cars and go their separate ways. Much of the day is spent apart, you know, but that seems to be the cost of living with technology. There are trade-offs for sure, but time is definitely one of the casualties.

Just as an aside, last year a few readers hammered on me for romanticizing the Amish. For sure, there are theological concerns with some sects, works-based salvation being chief among them. I am a Presbyterian, after all. However, my point wasn’t a theological one, but a practical one.* Mainly, how much do we evaluate what we do, the choices we make, the technologies we adopt in light of how it affects the greater community? It is important to ask the questions, to think about their answers. The Amish are great at this; evangelicals less so. They at least consider these things, even if we don’t agree with all their conclusions. (Though, I’d argue after reading The Riddle of the Amish Culture that they are more right than we are in many cases.) I mean, we don’t even have communities, let alone have the problem of deciding how our decisions fit into the larger context of it.

I might be wrong here, but it’s my observation that organic community life occurs more often when people of similar lifestyles coexist geographically. This, in contrast, to the artificial communities we attempt to create based on theological sameness. There are many reasons and examples I can think of that would support this. It’s a thought I’d like to discuss sometime, but this post is already long enough.

*I often yammer on about how our theological beliefs have practical implications. If what I believe about God is “a”, then “b” necessarily follows. In other words, the sacred and the secular co-exist; ideas have consequences; faith has feet. But just go with me here on the point without dissecting that sentence…