The writer Sue Bender was interested in how a person could care for her spirit in a world that had other concerns.
She told about watching her son, a gardener, wash his truck. It was an old truck, but it looked new. The young man cleaned it weekly. He worked slowly and carefully.
When he finished, Bender told him it looked like an act of devotion, rather than a chore.
The young man replied that he wasn’t sure he knew what devotion meant. But he said that having a clean truck said something about the way he went about his business. It said something about him.
Some people read a Sue Bender story and ask if that’s all there is. Other readers go off and think.
• Sources: Sue Bender, Everyday Sacred: A Woman’s Journey Home; New York: HarperOne, 1996.
Trip Gabriel, “Sue Bender, Who Wrote About Living With the Amish, Dies at 91; The New York Times, Dec. 18, 2025. It’s here:
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