Friday, October 19, 2007 12:23 AM CDT
CLERGY VIEWS: Forgiveness is a journey taken with help
By Rev. Dr. E. Michael Jones, Wesley United Methodist Church, Charleston
It was a cloudless morning on Oct. 2 of last year when the school bell called the Amish children of Nickel Mines, Pa., in from play.
Their teacher, Emma, read to the children from the Bible, they prayed the Lord’s Prayer in German, and then they sang hymns in both German and English.
Around 10:15 a.m. a local milk truck driver named Charles Roberts entered the schoolhouse bearing an arsenal of deadly weapons and a grudge against God.
He ordered the girls to lie on the floor, face down, and then he called his wife on his cell phone. He told her that he was angry at God about the death of their daughter Elise nine years before. Then he closed his phone and opened fire on the girls with a semi-automatic pistol, shooting them execution style.
Five of the girls would die and five more be gravely wounded before the police were able to storm the schoolhouse and Roberts killed himself.
The peaceful, quaint world of the Amish of Nickel Mines had been invaded by the most horrific acts of violence imaginable: the murder of innocent children.
And then came a second invasion: the national media. What they saw and what the world learned through their reporting was a remarkable witness of caring for one another and forgiving the one who had murdered their children.
The Amish, practicing their traditional habit of “mutual aid,” which is firmly grounded in Saint Paul’s command “to bear one another’s burdens,” reached out to one another in their loss and sorrow to offer words and acts of kindness and love.
Then with a swiftness that startled the world, they forgave Charles Roberts and his family. Three of the Amish men went to his home and comforted his widow and children. Another went to see his father and ended up holding him for an hour while he cried. When Roberts was buried next to his daughter Elise, more than half of those present in the cemetery were Amish.
A reporter asked one of the Amish grandfathers:
“Have you already forgiven?”
The man replied: “In my heart, yes.”
The reporter asked a follow-up question: “How is that possible?”
The grandfather answered: “Through God’s help.”
Bill Moyers in a recent episode of his PBS show recommended the book “Amish Grace,” which tells the story of the schoolhouse shootings and the remarkable response of the Amish community of Nickel Mines to it.
Moyers noted that Amish grace is not cheap grace. The Amish were the victims of religious martyrdom at the time of the beginning of their faith and have suffered persecution since.
Grief is not a stranger to the Amish, who know that healing is not easy. One of the grieving fathers observed that in releasing the killer they had released themselves from anger and bitterness, but not from pain.
In a statement issued on the anniversary of the shootings, the Amish of Nickel Mines said:
“Forgiveness is a journey… you need help from your community of faith and from God, and sometimes even from counselors, to make and hold on to a decision to not become a hostage to hostility… hostility destroys community.
“Hostility destroys community. But the fruits of the Spirit — love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control — build community.”
What decision will you make about your response to being hurt by another person, to being the victim of violence? Will you decide to go with our culture, which tells us, “Don’t get mad. Get even!” or with the quaint culture of the Amish, which practices mutual aid and amazing forgiveness?
Will you, with “help from your community of faith and from God, and sometimes even from counselors” practice Amish grace? For your sake and for the sake of the world, I hope and pray that you chose Amish grace!
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