deepbrew

…..

The day when Christ came back to life… in this my favorite poem… “morning at the brown brink eastward springs….” There is much hope for this world.

GOD’S GRANDEUR

THE world is charged with the grandeur of God.
It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;
It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil
Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?
Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;
And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;
And wears man’s smudge and shares man’s smell: the soil
Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;
There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;
And though the last lights off the black West went
Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —
Because the Holy Ghost over the bent
World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.

– Gerald Manley Hopkins

May I present “Joseph Kanagy: the Greatest Amish Man Ever,” by my senior David Miller. Joe was David’s great-grandfather and my great uncle.

Mr. Hershberger

David L. Miller

7 April 2009

Literature 6

Joseph Kanagy: the Greatest Amish Man Ever

            Joe squirmed, frantically trying to free himself form the awful grip of the tractor. But it kept coming! Helplessly, he pulled his face as far from it as he could and it eased on by. How could a man “just happen” to get underneath a moving tractor? How could some one be so crazy? Joe Kanagy was the only person who could have ever gotten into such a predicament. God must have had twice as many angels around him than he does us.

            Joseph Levi Kanagy was born to Jake and Salina Kanagy on January 8, 1908. He grew up on an Old Order Amish farm in Allensville, Pennsylvania in what is known as the Big Valley. Joe was the firstborn of fourteen siblings, eleven brothers and three sisters. As a young boy, he used to read a lot and was somewhat quiet, but had lots of friends. His family received the daily paper and were fairly well educated, but were somewhat known to be redneck and definitely not traditional.

            In his early teen years, the home situation was not the best and Joe, by invitation from a friend, ran away out West to enjoy life and do some sightseeing. The story is told that as they were traveling through Death Valley the car had a flat tire. While Joe’s friend went back to get help, Joe was left to sit out in the hot deserted desert and think about life. It got close to noon and still his friend had not arrived. By this time Joe was extremely thirsty and his tongue was so swollen that it hung out of his mouth. Joe claimed he could see buzzards circling around, waiting. In desperation, Joe cried out to God and told him that if he would get him out of this place, then he would clean up his life and serve God with all his being. His friend showed up by evening and it ended up being a major turning point in his life.

            On February 13, 1930, Joe married Leah Mae Peachey. In December of that year they had their first son Ben. Joe was a farmer like any other Amish and prospered. Nine years later in 1939, Salina was born and in April 1943, they moved to Stuarts Draft, Virginia. Joe did not like the strictness of the ban in Pa, but came to Virginia for more spiritual enlightment and was one of the founding members. The story is told that one day when things were not going the best that Joe climbed up on the silo, faced the Big Valley and cried for his good friend Jake. He was, by that time, close to forty years old.

When he and his family first moved down to Stuarts Draft, they settled down on a farm of very hilly, infertile land on the outskirts of Stuarts Draft. Joe also worked with the county to experiment with the new progressive tools that were just being manufactured. One day on his new farm as he was closing a gully by plowing close enough to throw the dirt in, his tractor tire slid over the edge and he, of course, could get no traction. Joe left the tractor in first gear and tried moving a rock underneath. It worked except the rock needed to be moved in a little farther and so he used the toe of his boot to push it in the rest of the way. But, unfortunately the tractor tire caught hold of his boot and not the rock. As it started climbing, Joe felt himself being thrown to the ground and the tractor started slowly traveling up his leg. As it kept coming over his chest he could hear his ribs cracking like toothpicks. He soon noticed that it would run right over his head if he did not move it so, he twisted it away as far as he could, but the tire still scraped hard enough against it to leave tractor tire marks and pop his one of his eyeballs out. With the tractor finally out of the way, he got up, stopped the tractor, and went into the house where he was soon commanded to go to the doctor by his vehement wife. Joe was not afraid to borrow money and in 1947, he sold his farm and moved down the road about four miles and bought two farms of beautiful rolling fields. At this farm he became the first farmer in Augusta County to install a Herringbone parlor.  He ended up selling these farms in 1972.

Joe used to hunt quite a bit. One evening, he was driving his tractor down the Howardsville Turnpike looking and listening intently for turkeys when his pant leg caught onto the gas pedal. Somehow in the process he ended up underneath the tractor being dragged down the road. Once the tractor ran into the bank at the side of the road, the tractor stalled, but he couldn’t get out. Fortunately there was a turkey hunter nearby who heard his cries for help. I guess he ran out of turkey luck that time.

In 1958, Joe finally joined the Mt. Zion church and along with that change, bought a car. Joe tried to be a mediator between the old Amish church and the new division of it since there was a lot of contention between them, but it didn’t always work out.

His relationship with his wife was not always the best. He made impulsive decisions and sometimes his wife did not agree with him especially when he had traveling notions or did not do things in the traditional Amish way.

Joe loved to travel and was famous for his crazy Amish trips. In 1955, he and several friends traveled to Germany for the World Conference. Since he was this far he decided to go on around the world with a few of his friends. Joe made many stops including Greece, Israel, Egypt, Pakistan, Japan, and many more. In Egypt though, he had some trouble trying to enter the country because of his middle name Levi. At that time Israel was at odds with Egypt and any Jewish or Jewish-looking people were not allowed into the country. Because of his Amish-Jewish look and his “Jewish” middle name, they did not let him in. But he got a great idea of how to change his passport. Why not simply erase the “vi” so his middle name could be Le? When he went back the next morning, the officials realized he had tampered with his passport and jailed him overnight. Somehow after much hassle, he cleared up the trouble with the officials. Joe also had a brother in Japan as a missionary and stopped in to visit him before flying back home. This incredible trip took two months—probably the first time an Amish man traveled around the world. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, he traveled to Canada (several times), Mexico, the West Coast (at least twice), and to the Holy Lands.

After he sold the farm in 1972, Joe helped Milmont Greenhouses get started. He did a lot of odd jobs and helped grow tomato plants. One day as usual, Joe was helping water the plants. Backing along, not watching where he was going, he backed right into an unprotected circulation fan and gashed his elbows nicely. During the winter, he and his wife traveled down to Florida. One day, while walking down the sidewalk, Joe was struck in the back by a car driven by a drunken teenager. During the accident, Joe was thrown onto the hood and though not seriously hurt, he never seemed to totally recover from it.

Since Joe always had time on his hands, he always loved to take trash to the landfill. One day as he was driving down the road, Dr. Miller happened to be right behind him and notice how he weaved around. This coincidence brought the decision that he couldn’t drive anymore, which displeased him. His children had to forcefully take the keys from him so he wouldn’t drive.

The last year and a half of his life he was bedfast and had Alzheimer’s. Being a sociable person in his younger years, he now was known for not wanting company around very long and usually would loudly ask when they would leave. One of his favorite verses in this last chapter of life was Ephesians 2:8, “For by grace are ye saved through faith, and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God.” He clung to the promise of this verse and died on June 20, 1988. An extraordinary man, Joseph Levi Kanagy may not have always been a Christian example, but at least left a spark in a few people’s lives.

Leaving tomorrow for a flying trip to Poland. :) Yay!!!

Some very good commentary notes written by Dr. Constable are here: http://www.soniclight.com/constable/notes.htm.

I don’t think I need to mind when my blog posts are not impressive. I had this revelation a while back. It went like this: “my blog is about what I feel like doing with it, instead of being what I think other people want to read.” Now that sounds like a terribly selfish philosophy, but really, I think it is the best strategy both for me and for readers. If posts are real they’re more likely to be interesting.

Hello. I was looking at some previous posts and just noticed that last year about this time I did not post anything for several months.

That was not good.

I don’t want to repeat past mistakes. Last year I was rather burned out with school about that time. I was up to my ears in work.

I still am. But I don’t mind it as much. Life is MUCH BETTER than it was than, for more reasons than one. :)

My brother Daniel and his family are visiting Poland in two weeks. I’m green.

Life is good. I’m happy. God is so generous.

Tuesday it snowed. School was an hour late. :) The world was gorgeous.

It worked. :)

(Continued)