Much of the remodeling and landscape work on my son’s renovation of a 200-year-old house and barn in Pennsylvania is being done by Amish. Their work is exemplary, consistent and dependable.

Amish settled in southeastern Pennsylvania in the 1720s, leaving behind in Europe the persecution of their “strange” and separatist beliefs. Amish emphasize humility, family, community and separation from the non-Amish world, which includes a reluctance to adopt modern conveniences such as cars and electricity.

The Pennsylvania Amish community in Lancaster County is the largest in the United States, numbering about 30,000, double its size of 20 years ago. They’re distinctive for their simple dress, beards, bonnets and horse drawn buggies.

We wanted to give visiting relatives an authentic Amish experience, without being “ugly Americans” who gawk or get our legs caught in tourist traps that exploit this set apart people. So, who better to ask for advice than Aaron, a white bearded, retired farmer now working for his son’s landscaping company on our project.

To my delight, Aaron suggested simply that if we wanted to experience Amish life in Lancaster County, “Come to my farm. I’ll show you around.” We made a date two weeks hence.

I texted a couple days before the appointment and was concerned that I didn’t hear back. But on a beautiful fall afternoon we pulled into his manicured yard and Aaron and Barbie, his wife of 40 years, appeared immediately. Since they hadn’t heard from me, they wondered if we were coming.

I mentioned the text I sent earlier. Then we both laughed. Their telephone is in a building separate from the house, to be used for business purposes only, and of course, is not mobile.

We took seats in their recently constructed house, modern and perfect in every way except that there are no electrical outlets, nor lamps, nor counter appliances, nor overhead lights. Designed to let in lots of sunlight, a propane tank on wheels with a filament bulb on a tall rod provided light when darkness falls.

A propane powered refrigerator graced the kitchen. While electricity is considered a convenience too worldly, workarounds with generators for power are apparent in the barns. Rules and restrictions governing humility and simplicity vary by area bishop.

We asked Aaron why farm implements roll on bare steel wheels, with no rubber tires. He said it’s a bishop’s rule to keep people from going fast.

Daily life is guided by simplicity and a pace slow enough to appreciate the smell of freshly turned earth or cut grass or a grandson’s grasp of your leg as you walk the fields together. No doubt outsiders romanticize these things about Amish life, but the truth is starker. Anyone dependent on modern conveniences woven so completely and unconsciously into daily life that we don’t even realize our dependence, would find it very difficult to shed them in favor of a slower, harder, more deliberate life.

For that reason, Aaron said, they do not encourage people not born into the Amish community to “convert” to their faith and culture.

As a young sharecropper, my grandfather walked behind a mule pulling a plow. But when he gained access to a tractor, he embraced the innovation and convenience wholeheartedly. Amish farmers are content with their mules. Whether tractors, telephones, automobiles or microwave ovens, they recognize that innovations do not necessarily contribute to a better, fuller, deeper life.

Sitting together in a comfortable living room, a Bible and reading glasses atop a small table by their chairs, we asked this 62-year-old couple if they were granted permission to embrace any single modern convenience – the kind of utility they see every day as they live among “outsiders” – what might it be?

Silence.

After a while I suggested to Barbie that I thought she might say “electricity.” She smiled meekly and said, “I considered that.” When pressed for his answer, Aaron said, “I’ve never thought about it.”

Whoa.

Aaron farmed 50 acres with mules, raised eight children, six of whom have 33 children, raises dogs and tobacco for extra income, gave the farm to a son and now works another son’s landscaping business, is a stalwart in church and community, and he’s never thought about what mechanical, transportation, electrical, communication tool available to others he might like for himself?

All the while he lives among outsiders who think camping out overnight to be first in line for a new phone model is logical and that instant gratification is too slow. We’re bombarded by constant messages that we will be happier if we grasp, strive and reach for the next purchase, entertainment, or experience that will somehow endow us with the satisfaction Aaron has just by living a simple life in a caring community of like-minded folks.

“Content” is the only word to describe a man whose lifestyle barricades him against the onslaught of television and social media, who has never thought about embracing modern conveniences. He is content and committed to a way of life that is set apart, not conforming to the world. Romans 12:2 He evidently thinks about such things no more than a fish considers water.

Few modern Christians are consciously set apart from the world. Our most significant symbol – the cross – has been so co-opted and adulterated that it no longer retains significance as a Christian symbol.

Maybe that’s why we admire the simple, quiet, slow – contented – pace of Amish life.

Before I met Aaron, I’d never thought about it.