Today’s guest post is by Pennsylvania-based author Shawn Smucker, who is both humble and talented (a rare combination, I assure you). He is a stone’s throw away from one of my favorite bands, The Innocence Mission, and it appears that he loves them as much as I do (also a rare thing). Mr. Smucker has a brand new book out titled My Amish Roots,” and he is touring blog after blog, drumming up interest and support alike. Consider making My Amish Roots a holiday purchase for your loved ones this year! 

Last year for my birthday, my wife took me to see Natalie Merchant. This proved to be a watermark of sorts for me as I plowed through the thirty-somethings of life. Mostly because, ever since I first heard her voice during my freshman year of college in 1995, I’ve always wanted to see her in concert.

But it was also a life-changing (insert “scarring”) event because everyone at the concert seemed to be in their 50s. I don’t know what I had been expecting. Certainly not teeny-boppers screaming and fainting. Maybe a few more people my age? Could it be that even though I still feel 20, I’m just as close to the age of 50?

The age I feel I am plummets further and further into the rearview of the age that I actually am.

* * * * *

They told you life is long

Be thankful when it’s done /
Don’t ask for more, be grateful /
But I tell you life is short /
Be thankful, because before you know it /
It will be over.

- Natalie Merchant, “Life is Sweet”

* * * * *

Why write a book about my Amish ancestors?

Not too many weeks ago, I reminisced with a friend of mine at church about my grandfather. He told me a few stories I had never heard before. Then he looked around the crowd and made an observation that made us both pause.

“You know,” he said, “it won’t be long before people are telling stories about us.”

“And if those stories aren’t written down,” I said quietly, “it won’t be too long before they’re forgotten.”

* * * * *

Towards the end of the show, Natalie Merchant said that she had read, many years before, that commercial developers had covered up some of the most fertile ground in the world, where I live, with strip malls and shopping centers and parking lots. She found this to be one of the saddest stories in the world.

As each of my ancestors leaves this world and their memories and stories are lost or forgotten, it is as if another acre of fertile ground is covered with concrete. I felt an urgency to exhume these stories before the dump trucks and excavators and heavy pieces of machinery move in and level the hills, haul away the debris of demolished farmhouses, and begin pouring pavement.

So I wrote a book about them. Buy it below.

Shawn Smucker lives in Paradise, Pennsylvania with his wife, four children, four chickens, and a rabbit named Rosie. His most recent book, My Amish Roots, explores the roles of family, death, life, tradition, and legacy against the backdrop of his Amish ancestry. He blogs daily at shawnsmucker.com about writing, the strange things his children say, and postmodern Christianity.

Buy an Unsigned Copy of “My Amish Roots” (below)