I loved this little book (just 152 pages, I read it in a few hours). It was not only a delight to read, but also aesthetically pleasing and nice to hold in my hands.

It is an autobiography, but also a spiritual book. Although Sue does not claim to have “found God”, she did discover a different way of looking at life by two short periods of living with the Amish. She was a modern, individualistic woman, and artist and therapist, from New York and California who liked to stand out from the crowd. She finds Amish quilts by chance and is enthralled. She knows enough about the Amish to know that the women are supposed to be humble and that the people describe themselves as “plain” and “peculiar”. But the quilts are so artistic and stick in her mind. She ends up spending several weeks with different Amish families, trying to discover why she is fascinated, and later just enjoying their lifestyle. She learned how the Amish, especially the women, can be so similar, home-oriented and community-minded, yet have a rich understanding of who they are and where they belong in the world.

She learns to simplify and somewhat calm her scattered life. She slows down and learns to find enjoyment in every day tasks. Not just enjoying the finished product, but actually taking pleasure in the process of doing.

In the end, Sue compares life to a quilt: life comes to us in patches. Some are bright, some are dark. They may not always make sense, but if we wait, we may find meaning down the road. Beautiful quilts can be made from ragged-edged, hard-used fabrics. These are even more treasured and valuable than quilts made from shiny store-bought artificial cloth. And instead of feeling we must choose one extreme or another, in a world of blacks and whites, we find that we need contrasts to make life interesting and worthwhile. We have these contrasts, yin and yang, light and shadow, within us and all around us. One cannot exist without the other. Like quilt-making, the entire process is a joy, not just the end result of a beautiful quilt. The ends and the means are all art.

Bender’s spiritual journey really appealed to me, especially in the parallels to my own recent shift in thinking about the world. When we focus on achievements and success, life seems somewhat bleak: graduate high school, go to college, get a job, raise a family, get rich, grow old, retire, and die. This always scared me as a child to think about growing up. It’s the small details of life: the smile of a child, a kiss from a lover, the taste of home-cooked meal, and the feeling of fresh air rushing into your lungs as you are working outside on a crisp spring morning, that make life tolerable, even enjoyable. So many people spend their whole lives working towards a goal that they never reach. Instead of appreciating the details, the process, we end up bypassing these and even sometimes missing our goal, reaching on to the next step like a child on Christmas morning demanding “What else?” after opening all his presents.

I would recommend Plain and Simple to everyone, but especially the overworked, always busy movers and shakers of the world.