Amish common sense

On October 2, you may recall, a troubled young Charles Roberts entered a schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, and shot eleven Amish school girls, four of whom died.

The Amish response has provided a lesson to the world. The horrified community met on the evening of the shooting with mental health counselors to process their grief. They discussed ways to support their traumatized children. Then, they discussed how to help the Roberts family, whose son had committed the atrocious crime. They organized a horse-and-buggy caravan and visited the family with food and condolences.

The Amish may appear strange to many people, since they reject modern technology, televisions, and computers. However, they have preserved the core message of all true religious traditions: love your neighbour. Even your enemy. Is this not what Jesus taught? We can see in Belfast and in fundamentalist warmongering that not all Christians got this message.

The Amish alternative appears in contrast to a world driven by revenge. The War in Iraq was fueled by American revenge for the attacks on their nation. An eye for an eye. Someone has to pay. We throw desperate, homeless youths in jail for petty crimes. Society gets its revenge.

According to the suicide note of Charles Roberts, he was driven by revenge for some unknown injustice he believed he had incurred.

But the Amish in Pennsylvania broke the cycle of revenge with compassion. And there is the lesson for us all.

See the NPR report.

This was posted on Friday, January 6th, 2006 at 1:23 pm and is filed under Spiritualism . Feel free to respond, or trackback.