What Wondrous Love Is This?
Like everyone else who has heard about it, I am horrified and dismayed at the terrible tragedy in the Amish schoolhouse in Pennsylvania.
But I am even more amazed at the strength of the faith of the Amish community. Outsiders have begun to take up collections for the support of the surviving victims, who will need very expensive medical care. The Amish, who ordinarily are strongly separatist in their engagement with the outside world, have said that they would never participate in the solicitation of such assistance, but that they would accept it with gratitude and humility. And then -- here's the stunner -- they said they would not accept it without sharing it with the widow and three children of the gunman, whom they forgive and whose suffering they count equally with their own.
"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you." Who among us would be able to keep that commandment so selflessly in such a time of anguish?
posted by fausto @ 10/06/2006 09:19:00 AM
2 comments
2 Comments:
The Amish give me hope. It's good to see groups that have a conservative theology and yet are truly pious and humble.
Matthew Shephard's mother, for one. She is the one who pleaded not to impose the death penalty on the guys who brutally murdered her son.
It's a beautiful thing when people react with compassion instead of revenge and anger, but it happens. It just doesn't usually seem to be news.
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