More Thoughts on 9/11... and Preparing for 10/2: Nickle Mines

This was our 9/11.

       ---------- Amish leader

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_school_shooting

The Amish school shooting was a shooting at the West Nickel Mines School, an Amish one-room schoolhouse in the Old Order Amish community of Nickel Mines, a village in Bart Township of Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, on October 2, 2006. Gunman Charles Carl Roberts IV took hostages and eventually shot ten girls (aged 6–13), killing five, before committing suicide in the schoolhouse...

 Amish community response
On the day of the shooting, a grandfather of one of the murdered Amish girls was heard warning some young relatives not to hate the killer, saying, "We must not think evil of this man."Another Amish father noted, "He had a mother and a wife and a soul and now he's standing before a just God."

Jack Meyer, a member of the Brethren community living near the Amish in Lancaster County, explained: "I don't think there's anybody here that wants to do anything but forgive and not only reach out to those who have suffered a loss in that way but to reach out to the family of the man who committed these acts."

A Roberts family spokesman said an Amish neighbor comforted the Roberts family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them. Amish community members visited and comforted Roberts' widow, parents, and parents-in-law...
Marie Roberts wrote an open letter to her Amish neighbors thanking them for their forgiveness, grace, and mercy.

...Some commentators criticized the swift and complete forgiveness with which the Amish responded, arguing that forgiveness is inappropriate when no remorse has been expressed, and that such an attitude runs the risk of denying the existence of evil; others were supportive.

Donald Kraybill and two other scholars of Amish life noted that "letting go of grudges" is a deeply rooted value in Amish culture... They explained that the Amish willingness to forgo vengeance does not undo the tragedy or pardon the wrong, but rather constitutes a first step toward a future that is more hopeful...

Here we see a refusal to balance evil with more evil.
By refusing to balance an act of violence with equal or more acts of violence, we avoid the risk of over-compensating, and when we over-compensate with "evil", we risk becoming evil ourselves.

http://www.religioustolerance.org/amish7.htm 

Gertrude Huntington, a specialist on Amish children, said:

"They know their children are going to heaven. They know their children are innocent ... and they know that they will join them in death. The hurt is very great ... But they don't balance the hurt with hate."

In Teacher Guidelines for Helping Youth in the Aftermath of the Shooting in the Amish School, we read:

Resist the impulse to always have an answer. We often feel that we need to have an answer or to take away the pain… to give hope when there is fear. Sometimes this is our own discomfort in seeing children suffer. Often the best answer is to reassure children that you don't know how it will all turn out OK, but that you know that the way we get through difficult times is to do it together. Kids and parents, kids and teachers, kids and their friends, that this is a time for us to all be there for each other.

Resist the impulse to always have an answer...
It reminds me of my post on Cynicism yesterday. Resist the impulse to always judge, to always force a clearly cut decision and answer. Resist the decision to start endless bloodletting. Turn the other cheek...

Turning the other cheek does not mean not resisting evil. Nor does it necessarily imply total pacifism... I only have 2 cheeks, actually, so I can only accept 2 of your slaps before other options may present themselves. We seek to restore balance, not to go so far from the port side of the ship that we begin to develop a dangerous list on the starboard side.

Let us remember October 2 is coming up, so let's memorialize it appropriately.

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