I don’t know if you could do it.
I don’t know if I could do it.
And while I absolutely hope that neither of us ever has to find out…what I DO know is that they DID do it. They didn’t talk about doing it. They didn’t tell everyone else that THEY should do it…they just did it. They did it because their world, their beliefs, their authenticity is not a badge of feigned respect, it is not a status symbol, and it is obviously not a convenient excuse used to judge or condem others. They did the unimaginable.
In 2006, a man forced himself into a one-room school house in rural Pennsylvania and took 10 little girls hostage. After several horrifying minutes, he shot the girls, and then killed himself. Five girls survived. Five died. And just as that shooting rattled the very foundations of that small community, how they responded to the shooting, rattled me to mine.
The main difference between this particular community and any other average American town is that this all happened in an Amish community. Faced with the murder of their own children, faced with the kind of grotesque violence that few of us can even fathom, these people in this community didn’t put on a show, they didn’t rant or rage against the outside world, they didn’t DO what any number of us would do. Without thinking, without having to be asked, without blinking, their first instinct was to forgive.
Before their own daughters were buried or out of the hospital, the people in the Amish community of Nickel Mines, PA, reached out to the family of the shooter. They reached out to comfort his widow and children. They reached out to his elderly parents and comforted them too. They didn’t send word of comfort, they didn’t write a letter or mail a card, they went and visited them. The Amish people of Nickel Mines, PA, held the shooter’s father as he sobbed, and kept a sympathetic vigil over the killer’s wife – seeing them all as vitcims of this horror too.
A fund was established to help the children of the shooter, and around 30 members of the Amish community attended the shooter’s funeral in support of the family left behind. What’s more, this very private and guarded community invited the widow to attend one of the little girls’ funerals.
These people lead with love. When times were at their worst, they sought to be their best. They didn’t just talk about how we “should” forgive, but they offered forgiveness in their own saddness. They didn’t define their faith by a convenient platitude or condescending tolerance. Instead, they opened themselves to live what they love and to offer genuine grace amidst their gut-wrenching grief.
With all the talk of “vengeance” and “justice” and “retaliation” and “getting even” in our news, in our conversations, in our beliefs, and in our lives, the people of Nickel Mines may be the last true Christians in America. Faced with a situation in which nearly everyone in the world would have understood had they responded in anger, incredulity, or hatred, they instead chose to love, to forgive, and to comfort. They chose to be what they believe to be Christ-like. They chose to extend mercy. They reminded us that regardless of our spiritual or religious beliefs, the human capacity to meet and exceed the most trying and unthinkable circumstances is governed not by law or government, not by creed or ideology, but by the singular and personal decision to engage it; not to always BE right, but to always DO right.
I am inspired by these people; but mostly, I’m grateful they exist at all.
From Left to Write 