In total silence he perceived a distant melody. It could be coming from the stars, from the bottom of the sea or from the night itself... It was not like any other, not even like the purring of the sea on tranquil nights before the storms... Juan sang drawn by the music that reached him, and, like the night, his song made him brother to the trees, the seagull, the mollusks, the wild flowers that spring up in the sand. "This melody is the murmur of the sea that covers all humankind."
I was invited to a barn raising near Wooster, Ohio. A tornado had leveled 4 barns and acres of prime Amish timber. In just three weeks the downed trees were sawn into girders, posts and beams and the 4 barns rebuilt and filled with livestock donated by neighbors to replace those killed in the storm. I watched the raising of the last barn in open-mouthed awe. Some 400 Amish men and boys, acting and reacting like a hive of bees in absolute harmony of cooperation, started at sunrise with only a foundation and floor and by noon, BY NOON, had the huge edifice far enough along that you could put hay in it -- a vast work, born of the spirit.
~ Gene Logsdon in AMISH ROOTS by John A. Hostetler
