"Be careful out there among them English"

In case you didn't get to see it, all during April Fools Day this site became "Plain Blog written by Brother Christopher Knight". In true Amish style, it was a black page with white Times New Roman font (to be as "plain" as possible, and I also didn't use italics because that would be akin to the whole thing about buttons on clothes that Amish have) and it announced that Lisa and I had chosen to join the local Amish community.

As you've no doubt surmised by this post, Lisa and I have not decided to "be plain" after all. I couldn't resist doing this.The idea came last year to do an April Fools prank with my blog, and from the getgo the plan was to write about how Lisa and I had decided to join the Amish and give up the Internet forever. But it was like late evening on April Fools last year when I remembered that I'd wanted to do that... so I've been saving this gag up for the whole past year.

Anyway, April Fools for this year is over and this blog can get back to "normal", whatever the heck that is supposed to be around here. But for sake of posterity, here is the complete text of the post that was up for the past 24 hours...

Plain Blog written by Christopher KnightSunday, April 1 2007 12:01 a.m.

Dear friends and faithful readers of The Knight Shift blog:
As of today, I am surrendering my presence on the Internet. I will also no longer be involved in film production. Or anything else involving computers.

Why?

Lisa and I are joining a community of Old Order Mennonites... more commonly known as the Amish. As you probably know, the Amish have very limited use of "modern conveniences" like cars and electricity. Which is going to take a lot of getting used to being without those things. But the Amish also practice a concept called Gelassenheit. It means "letting the will of God be". I've come to realize that the emptiness in my life is because I have tried to control it according to my own will, instead of surrendering it completely to God. I've let the things of this world come in between me and God, and that relationship is something much more important than petty materialism.

I've spoken with the elders of the local Amish community and they have no problem with our joining their congregation. One of them joked that my entire life leading up to this has been one long period of Rumspringa. Maybe so. I've seen and sampled a lot of this world's pleasures and they are not for me. I'm tired of them. I can turn my back on them now and fully toward what God would have me to be.

Your thoughts and prayers would be appreciated. We are so new at this. I'm going to have to learn to speak old High German in order to understand the worship services. I have also found employment as an assistant to a farrier, where I'll help in making horseshoes for my Amish brethren. Speaking of which, I'm going to have to learn to steer a horse for the first time in my life. It has also been agreed that I can teach school... which since Amish only go to school up to eighth grade, I'm more than qualified to be an educator. We'll be living with a young Amish couple for these next few weeks, until the brothers can get together for a house-raising, which is where we will spend the rest of our lives in peace and contentment.

Do you know that this means that I'm going to have to grow a full beard now? Yeah, I can hardly see myself with one either.

You have to understand: we are not only doing this for ourselves, but for our children too. We've seen what this world is becoming, and we don't wish for our offspring to be brought to despair because of it.

So to everyone who I have come to know and love - and will still love in all the years to come - during this past decade and more, I want to wish you farewell, and please be careful out there among them English.

Gott segnen,
Brother Christopher Knight