religious studies

This book was given to me as a birthday gift by a friend with whom I was in business. Unkowingly, this friend, also named "Sue", gave me the key to relaxation. When things get hectic and chaotic in my life, I read Plain and Simple. From the time I start reading, there is a peace that comes over me and I feel so calm afterwards. The writing seems to put me where Sue was when she was visiting the Amish...the same quiet peace I feel when gazing over miles of farmland dotted with homes with barns and silos - - and no electrical poles! Unfortunately, I am not surrounded by that environment, so reading Plain and Simple brings me there! Having loaned my copy to an elderly friend who was rehabilitating after heart surgery, I waited for her response. She didn't think she could read it since she was having trouble "concentrating on more than a paragraph of anything printed". I left it with her anyway, and at my next visit, she not only thanked me profusely, but told me she was adding it to her book "gift list"! So, I knew then it was not only me who benefited from the peace of the book. My thanks to the author!

I have read and re-read this book several times. It is a lovely story and written very well. It let's us know that everyone is human and in all communities there are good things and not so good things. Take the good and leave the rest. I have drawn on some of Sue Bender's experiences with the Amish and applied them in my own life. How wonderful to be able to read about someone else's experience and feel like you are there by their side.

I read Plain and Simple when it was first published in 1991. I can't believe it took me this long to review it. Sue Bender, a Berkeley artist and mother of two with grad degrees from both Harvard and Berkeley, just up and left town one day and went east to spent time with the Amish. Not as easy as it sounds, folks, because the Amish are intensely private people who don't routinely welcome outsiders. Somehow, however, Bender managed to convince two families to take her into the folds of their farming communities in Iowa and Ohio. She was transformed - and in this book that reflects the plain and simple lifestyle of the Simple Folk, she explains why and how this transformation occurred and what it means to her now.
Bender had always lived a life of moving from one list item to another, checking things off from the top only to add more at the bottom. The Amish, not unlike the Zen Buddhists, savor and honor each daily task, finding meaning within the most mundane chores. A book as meaningful and beautifully crafted as an Amish quilt, Plain and Simple deserves to be treasured.