Today's senseless shootings of children in an Amish schoolhouse were splashed across the news stations most of the day.
"Ironically, it happened in a place called Paradise," one announcer said.
Another commented on how the Amish cannot separate themselves from society and the problems around them. Others queried as to whether the Amish even knew of other school shootings. There were interviews of authors of books on the Amish, those who grew up Amish and shot after shot of the surviving children sitting outside their one room schoolhouse, flanked by adults who silently supported them.
The news slowly emerged that the gunman, a father himself, entered the school, pulled a gun and ordered the boys and several adults out, then lined up the remaining little girls in the front of the room and bound their feet. As police surrounded the building, he demanded they pull back or he would shoot.
As the message was being relayed, gunshots went off. Three little girls are dead. Of the seven survivors, three have gunshot wounds to the head. Execution style shootings. The gunman then shot and killed himself.
News reports indicated that there is evidence the shooting was the result of a 20 year old grudge the gunman had.
Forgiveness. It's a complicated thing. Holding a grudge is easy. I'm right, you're wrong. There's no middle ground, no looking at our part in things. We stagnate and the old wounds fester, deepening in time .The word enemies forms in our minds. The word hate appears.
If a gun is handy, tragedy is the outcome.
We see this around us all of the time. On our city streets, children are shot and killed every day . In our schools, kids are being shot and have to go through weapon detectors. The violence grows.
And now, even in Paradise, even in a one room Amish schoolhouse, the ugly reality intrudes. This is what happens when people cannot or will not forgive.
Senseless tragedy.
2 comments:
It's a terrible tragedy. The survivors are mostly in critical condition. The violence in our schools is frightening to everyone and our kids need to be able to feel safe. I don't know about everyone else but hearing about this shooting was a shock.
My prayers go out for the surviving children in critical condition, those poor parents, all the children in that school, and the Amish community as a whole. They've done everything they knew how to do to insulate themselves from the evils of modern life, but the devil is still there.
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