Please Forgive Me...

“To forgive is to forget…”                

“Kill ‘em with kindness...”                

“Take the high road…”

"Turn the cheek…”       

"Do unto others as you would have done to you..."

These are all common expressions we hear when it comes to dealing with forgiveness.  Sometimes it is easier to say these things than to actually do them.  How many of us are able to forget when someone has wronged or hurt us in the spirit of forgiving?  It might not happen overnight or even over several months’ time, but eventually, the pain and the anger subside until it is just a dull reminder of what upset you in the first place. 

The other day, in my counseling class, we discussed this concept of forgiveness.  One of my classmates brought up the Amish shooting story.  Since I’m in school in North Carolina now, a lot of my classmates were unfamiliar with this story as was evident by my professor's casual comment about vaguely hearing something about the story but that he had not followed it....before continuing on with our lecture.

It took all I could to get through the remaining 45 minutes of class because I, for one, will never forget when the Amish shooting in Pennsylvania, happened for many reasons.  During lunch on October 2, 2006, I was sitting in a pizza shop in my hometown with several high school friends.  Some of these friends I had known since elementary school while others I had met in middle or high school.  We were all gathered together that Monday, around noon, to say goodbye to one of my best friends from high school.  We had spent the morning at the funeral parlor and the cemetery before wearily gathering for lunch at the pizza shop before heading our prospective ways back to our own lives.  

Mere, Meg, Jess, & Niki ~ Senior Formal '98

It was surreal to us to think that one of our own was not physically with us anymore….we were 25 and 26 year old kids working in the “real world”…many of us were embarking on our first jobs or in grad school…we were too “young” to have to deal with death.  Amidst our conversations about where we had moved to, what we were doing in our occupations, and talking about our shock over what had happened to Jess, someone drew our attention to the restaurant TVs in the corners of the restaurant.  A hush fell over our table as we watched the news in growing horror…

We were already reeling from the death of a good friend who had just turned 26 less than a month prior to her untimely death.  Now, according to the news, ten girls, between the ages of 6 and 13 had been brutally murdered while attending a one room school in an Amish community!!  Lancaster is about an hour from where we were gathered for lunch that day and is one county over from where I was teaching at the time.  As the story unfolded, we learned that a gunman had taken over the one room schoolhouse and eventually killed himself after executing the children.

What really stands out in my mind about this story, other than the horror, and the sad sad day that it was for Jess' family and for me personally….is what happened next……Just hours after the massacre, these were quotes that were heard from the Amish (Taken from Wikipedia): 

• 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."

• The shooter’s family spokesman said an Amish neighbor comforted Roberts’ (the shooter’s) family hours after the shooting and extended forgiveness to them.  Amish community members visited and comforted the shooter's widow, parents, and parents-in-law. One Amish man held Roberts' sobbing father in his arms, reportedly for as long as an hour, to comfort him.  The Amish have also set up a charitable fund for the family of the shooter.  About 30 members of the Amish community attended Roberts' funeral, and Marie Roberts, the widow of the killer, was one of the few outsiders invited to the funeral of one of the victims.  Marie Roberts wrote an open letter to her Amish neighbors thanking them for their forgiveness, grace, and mercy. She wrote, "Your love for our family has helped to provide the healing we so desperately need. Gifts you've given have touched our hearts in a way no words can describe. Your compassion has reached beyond our family, beyond our community, and is changing our world, and for this we sincerely thank you."

• 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, which remembers forgiving martyrs including Dirk Willems and Jesus himself. 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.

I don’t know about you but I don’t know how I would have acted in a situation like that!!  How admirable of the Amish for swiftly forgiving the shooter.  Can you imagine how different our justice system would be if more of us had this mentality?  Or how different the world would be??  Would we have fewer due process cases??

Amish School Shooting.  (2006).  In MSNBC.  Retrieved from http://www.bing.com/videos/watch/video /amish-school-shooting/686a1a0 .

Amish School Shooting.  (2011).  In Youtube.  Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amish_school_shooting.