Amish think outside
revengefulness box
By
Sherman N. Miller
Imagine if
someone crashes in your neighborhood, takes your children hostage, and
kills five of these children. Does this horrific scene conjure up
disdainfulness or even revengefulness? If you don’t retaliate, are you
sending a symbolic message that you are a wimp?
As the daily body counts from murders escalate in many cities and localities, we quiver at the evening news murder reports. We might even feel that street gang revengefulness underpins many of these murders in retaliation for some of their fallen gang cohorts. Therefore, today the civil rights struggle has morphed into everyday inner city people holding public demonstrations trying to take back their neighborhoods from their thug overlords. I felt sympathy for the people living in thug-infested neighborhoods as I watched a television news anchor, on a Philadelphia, PA station, struggle to share that the city had reached over 300 killings in 2006. I find myself pondering, “Is forgiveness or compassion for my fellowman or woman now out of vogue in inner city America? Is revengefulness the new paradigm because street gangs cannot afford to appear weak?” Think about it, the appearance of weakness might open up gangster-purported turf to rival gangs, so murder is now the weapon of choice to enforce inner city border patrol.
When murderous carnage finally found its way into the lives of the Amish people in Nickel Mines, PA, these gentle people showed there is another way to respond to the loss of loved ones without exploiting revengefulness. But it is good to hear how other non-Amish people felt about the murderer. Three middle-aged ladies working in Pennsylvania felt very strongly that the murderer should burn in hell. These ladies were very upset with the murders and didn’t mind sharing their judgment on the eternal fate of the murderer even though some of their religious faiths may teach against their prejudging individuals. Obviously these ladies’ stance ran counterpoised to the action taken by the Amish who forgave the murderer, went to his funeral, and are sharing some of the money given to the families of the victims to the help the family of the murderer.
I chatted with a young lady who struggled with not seeing some sort of retaliation by the Amish on the family of the killer. A fellow in his mid-sixties was initially mum when asked to comment on the Amish murders, and then he shared that the Amish decision to let the schoolhouse where the murders occurred be razed would help to erase all vestiges of the horrific crimes. This senior citizen felt that a monument would have continued indefinitely to recall the hurt of the awful day.
A Christian conservative chap offered a holistic look at the Amish actions that was underpinned by Biblical Scripture. I told this Christian minister-without-portfolio that I had misgivings after putting money into a special collection in church for the Amish when I learned that they were going to share it with the family of the murderer. This minister-without-portfolio argued that when we gave our money to the Amish we offered them the right to use it according to their beliefs and customs. Therefore, there was no need for me to have reservations with their using portions of the money to help the murderer’s family.
This minister-without-portfolio argued that the killer’s family also needed help for they had lost a breadwinner and father figure. He shared his vision of the long-term fallout of this horrific crime by saying that the murderer’s family would have to carry this awful shame for the remainder of their days.
As I ponder the Amish actions in light of the comments of the minister-without-portfolio, I no longer feel reservations over giving money to the Amish cause. It was also clear that Amish had turned this tragedy into a lesson on forgiveness for the nation because they are showing us that the cycle of violence now commonplace in many inner cities has the potential to be stopped if we start to think outside of the revengefulness box.
