Such is forgiveness

Our often violent and vengeful world got a valuable lesson in the power of forgiveness from an unexpected source last week: the Amish of Pennsylvania.

What happened to those gentle people, when a man broke into a one-room schoolhouse, methodically slaughtered five of their children and critically injured five others before killing himself, is almost beyond belief. And yet similar, equally incomprehensible tragedies happen often in this crazy world—when a bomb falls by mistake on an Afghan village, when a suicide bomber blows himself up in a crowded Baghdad café, when a drunken driver plows into a group of school children standing at a bus stop.

The usual reaction to such events is to lash out in anger and to desire revenge, but that’s not the Amish way. Deeply religious, they responded instead with a Christ-like compassion for the murderer, even mourning at his funeral and offering financial support to his widow and children. From the depths of their suffering, they sent out a message of profound loving kindness and acceptance.

If only we all could be so forgiving. Think of the peace it would bring.