First things first

Last week, an armed man walked into an Amish one-room schoolhouse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvia. He released the grown women and boys, kept the girls hostage, then shot several of them before killing himself. There are additional, more lurid details to this story, but that’s the gist of it. This took place in a rural area less than thirty miles from my suburban home, so it’s local news around here.

I cannot imagine the grief those families must be enduring right now–both the Amish families as well as the shooter’s family. What I find truly amazing is that the day of the shootings, the Amish who had suffered that day had already forgiven the shooter. Not after several days or weeks of mourning, but right away. The Amish have even set up a charitable fund to help the shooter’s family.

A year after the September 11 attacks, I heard on NPR a series of interviews with families of people who had died in the towers. Most of them were still angry about what had happened, and I could hear the hardness in their voices. It was as if the hate had become what sustained them through their grief. But a few of them had managed to forgive those responsible for the deaths of their loved ones, and although sadness and loss were still evident in their words, they had found some a peace that yet eluded those who were still angry.

How would I respond in a similar situation? I don’t know–I can’t know without being in that situation, and I fervently hope I never am. But like most people, I think, I aspire to be a better person than I usually am, so I like to imagine that I would search for that place of forgiveness.

At our church on Sunday, in lieu of a children’s story at the beginning of the service, the minister talked–in both words and tone appropriate for the children, who hadn’t yet been dismissed to their religious education classes–about what had happened in Lancaster County a few days earlier. His talk was deftly done: he gave enough information for the children to understand that something frightening and terrible had happened to people who live near us, but withheld details that parents might not (or might) wish to share with the children. He concluded by saying, “When you think about the Amish, I want you to think of one thing: they are the people who forgive.”

Concidentally, the main sermon–which had been planned several weeks ago–was on the subject of forgiveness. The minister told a story about his childhood in New York City, and how one day, after some tough kid or bully had pushed him into a snowbank, a neighbor picked him up and gave him hot chocolate in her apartment. An elderly French woman, she told him, “You are angry right now, and that’s natural. But you have to let it go, because the day has more to give you.”

What an amazing sentiment–so simple and so clear. I can’t get it out of my head–and that’s a very good thing, I think. It’s true that when you harbor hatred and resentment and other negative feelings, you don’t have room in your heart/head/soul for the good stuff when it comes along. And the good stuff always comes along eventually. That French woman (who was, unknown to the boy until years later, a survivor of the Nazi death camps) and the Amish have figured that out. Hopefully one day the rest of us will, too.

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