AURORA, CO & NICKEL MINES, PA MASS SHOOTINGS AND FORGIVENESS 26JUL12

I remember this terrible shooting in a small Amish community in Pennsylvania and my amazement and sense of awe when I heard members of the Amish community, including some parents and family members of the victims, of those killed, attended the funeral of the shooter, the man who murdered their daughters, sisters, nieces, granddaughters...I think the Christians of the Amish community have something to teach us about how to cope with the mass murder in Aurora, Colorado on 20JUL12 and especially about forgiveness. Here is the section of the transcript from the PBS show American Experience, The Amish which aired 28FEB12, links to the transcript webpage and the video of the program are below. You might also be interested in another post on my site on the Aurora mass murder Sermon about Mary Magdalen, the massacre in our town, and defiant alleluias 22JUL12 http://bucknacktssordidtawdryblog.blogspot.com/2012/07/sermon-about-mary-magdalen-masacre-in.html

News Anchor 1 [archival]: Steve, a shooting has been reported at an elementary school in Lancaster County...
News Anchor 2 [archival]: Lancaster County, number of people killed in a shooting, at a one-room Amish schoolhouse today, that word from a state trooper...
News Reporter 1 [archival]: People are gathering now, near the crime scene, blocked off by state police, investigating the carnage here in Lancaster...
Jeffrey Miller [archival]: Good afternoon. My name is Col. Jeffrey B. Miller, I'm the Commissioner of the Pennsylvania State Police. With me is Mr. Don Totaro, the Lancaster County District Attorney...
Slate: On October 2, 2006, a non-Amish man entered an Amish schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania.
Jeffrey Miller, State Police Commissioner: When we landed there, and walked around the fence, the first thing I saw were the troopers that came to greet me. And some of them had blood all over their clothing... Over their uniforms, so you knew that it was not going to be a good scene to survey.
Jeffrey Miller, State Police Commissioner [archival]: The call came in from a schoolteacher, stating a male entered the school, and had taken hostages. He apparently told the kids to line up in front of the blackboard. He began to tie the females, the children's, feet together. He then took the boys; there was exactly 15 boys there, between six and 13. He let them leave.
Jeffrey Miller, State Police Commissioner: Within 20 minutes of that call, we had troopers surrounding the school. And they were just breaking down the front door, and that's when the shooter looked and saw that the trooper was coming through the window, and was going to kill him. He turned the gun on himself. But he had already shot every single one of those girls.
Slate: The gunman shot ten Amish girls. Five died.
Mother of Victim (Amish Woman 3): It was about 11:15, when we found out about, what's going on. We didn't know if she's in a hospital somewhere. Or if she's at the school, because we knew there were some at the school that had died. Those five hours were a very long time, to not know whether our daughter had survived or not.
Janice Ballenger, Assistant Coroner: The families were obviously very distraught, not knowing where their children were, were their children alive, dead, they didn't know. We didn't know who was who. The girls all wear the plain dresses. They don't have any ID on them. Had they had things that children wear in public schools, I mean, even these -- the young ones now have cell phones, and backpacks and things. And these children did not have anything like that. There was no way to even begin to try to identify them.
Mother of Victim (Amish Woman 3): We were so ready to find out where she's at, if she survived, we just wanted to know. The hardest part was coming home, and telling the ones at home that she's gone.
Jeffrey Miller, State Police Commissioner [archival]: We have identified the suspect; we have a positive ID on him. His name is Charles Karl Roberts the fourth. He's 32 years of age, and he resides in Bart, Pennsylvania, which is very close to here. He is a truck driver, drives a tanker truck, works the night shift...
Slate: That same day, Amish neighbors visited the killer's family.
Dwight Lefever, Pastor to the Roberts Family: It was a very, very difficult place, and a very desperate place, and in the middle of that situation, eight, nine o'clock that evening, the Amish neighbor walked in. And one of the things that I share with people who I've been able to talk with, that, in a sense, grace walked in the door. And with grace walking in the door, hope walked in the door. And we didn't know it at the time, but that's what happened, that was the effect of him coming, and saying, "Chuck --" specifically, Charlie's dad,  "-- we will forgive you."
Slate: Three days later, the Amish began burying the murdered schoolgirls.
Mother of Victim (Amish Woman 3): To me, when I think of forgiving, it doesn't mean that you have forgotten what he's done. But it means that you have released unto God the one who has offended you. And you have given up your right to seek revenge. I place the situation in God's hands and just accept that this is the way it was. And I choose not to hold it against Charles because it really doesn't help me anything anyway.
Slate: More than 30 Amish attended the burial of Charles Roberts. Among them were the parents of several victims.
Father of Victim (Amish Man 6): Somebody told us, invited us to go to Charlie's burial. And first I said, "Nah [sigh] I just don't think I could. I don't think I want to." But the Saturday morning came around, and we decided, "Ok, Yeah. We want to go." And I came home from the burial thinking, I was so thankful to God that I don't need to make a judgment on his soul. And there was just a wash of peace. For me it was like unloading baggage. It was just like, "Wow. I don't need to deal with this. This is God's territory."
Steven M. Nolt, Historian: Forgiveness requires giving something up, giving up your right to revenge, giving up feelings of bitterness, whatever you define it. For the Amish, that means that it is of a piece with so many other aspects of their life, because all of Amish life is structured around rituals of giving up, of self-surrender. I think for many of the rest of us, forgiveness is a hard thing because we think it's unnatural, because it's so unlike anything else we do. We're all trained to never give up anything. For Amish people, it's hard, but it's not unnatural.
Mother of Victim (Amish Woman 3): Obviously, sometimes we would like to say to God, "you made a mistake!" But we're taught that God doesn't make mistakes. It's a form of humbleness, in realizing that God is supreme, he's much bigger than us. I sometimes think of it, as my soul, my soul is kneeling before God. I might be working. I might be washing dishes, but my soul is kneeling before God, and saying, "Thy will be done." I cry. It hurts.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/transcript/amish-transcript/
http://video.pbs.org/video/2200745636