Lessons in Avoiding Blindness

It was one year ago today that the peaceful serenity of the Amish in Lancaster was shattered by the shooting in the one-room schoolhouse in Nickel Mines. See Troubles in Paradise. Not surprisingly, the Amish will not be commemorating the day. As the Inquirer noted, 1-year anniversary of Amish school massacre marked privately:

Amish families kept to their homes on Tuesday as they privately marked the anniversary of a schoolhouse attack that killed five girls a year ago.

In keeping with Amish custom, no public observances were held for Tuesday's anniversary. Local Amish families marked the occasion Monday with prayers, songs and a meal.

* * * *

Tuesday was an especially quiet day in the placid Lancaster County countryside. The roads in and around Nickel Mines were empty and Bontrager said some families chose not to work. There were no classes at the new Amish school that replaced the site of the attack.

See also, Troopers' chief recalls Amish shootings.

I've written about this incident several times, see The Resurrection and Gone, but Not Forgotten, especially the ability of the community to forgive the man who perpetrated this violence and his family. Knowing the "anniversary" was drawing near, I also reflected on the shooting and it's impact on the Amish community as I drove through Lancaster last month on my way to our annual Family Reunion.

Donald B. Kraybill, an Elizabethtown College professor and coauthor of "Amish Grace: How Forgiveness Transcended Tragedy," speaks of this "remarkable empathy" that is part of the culture -- and faith -- of the Amish, in an op-ed piece in the Inquirer, Lessons in compassion and empathy. I was saddened to see that the ability to forgive, despite the travesty that befell them, was itself questioned by some:

The remarkable story of Amish forgiveness that followed the schoolhouse shooting at West Nickel Mines School on Oct. 2, 2006, evoked many responses. Some pundits lauded the Amish for having the courage to forgive the killer, Charles Carl Roberts IV, within hours of the massacre. Others raised questions. Would the Amish have showered the shooter with forgiveness had he lived and shown no remorse? Did forgiving a killer who brazenly shot 10 girls in a one-room school, killing five and seriously wounding the rest, mock the magnitude of the crime? Might such hasty forgiveness actually condone evil and encourage more?

The Amish subscribe to a two-kingdom theology, shaped by their history of religious persecution in Europe. As they see it, their church, as an expression of God's kingdom, operates under a different ethical standard from worldly kingdoms. The Amish church embraces a pacifist ethic that avoids the use of force to achieve results. The ethics of Jesus - love for enemy, nonretaliation, nonviolence, and forgiveness - guide their spiritual kingdom.

In contrast, the "worldly kingdoms" - the governments of the world - rely on force, or at least the threat of it, to achieve their goals. The Amish believe the state is ordained by God to maintain order in society. They affirm the state's prerogative to organize a police force, imprison lawbreakers, and defend the country.

As citizens of the "churchly kingdom," the Amish flatly refuse to participate in state-sponsored activities that may require the use or threat of force: joining the armed forces, pressing charges in court, suing those who wrong them, and holding political office.

As Art Carney notes in another retrospective piece, Among the Amish, a grace that endures:

The way the Amish are handling the anniversary is of a piece with their behavior throughout. F. Scott Fitzgerald once defined style as "an unbroken series of perfect gestures." That could be said of the Amish response. But those gestures, undergirded by faith and moral resolve, surpassed mere style and became displays of grace.

* * * *

"Over the centuries, the Amish have learned that hostility destroys harmony and that if there are ill feelings among people, you have to confront them," says Herman Bontrager, an insurance executive who serves as spokesman for the accountability committee. "Forgiveness is a very important part of that. It's a decision that you're not going to let your life be controlled by vengeful thoughts, which are destructive for the self and for the community."

* * * *

"So much of Amish life is about submitting individual will to the will of the group and the will of God," says Steven M. Nolt, a coauthor of Amish Grace and a professor of history at Goshen (Ind.) College. "For them, there's a clear connection between that lifelong process of sacrificing and giving up and what one needs to do in the process of forgiveness - give up grudges and the right to revenge."

In dealing with sorrow, the Amish are helped by distinctive rituals of grieving. As they readily admit, however, they are not saints. They fail and they sin like the rest of us, and they do not want to be put on pedestals. Nor is practicing forgiveness easy.

~ ~ ~ ~

It also seems fitting that today is Mahatma Gandhi's birthday.

“The law an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.” -- Gandhi

Tags: News, Pennsylvania, Religion, Amish, Quote of the Day