Forgiveness

I don’t know for sure, but I’d bet that before last week, a lot of people made fun of the Amish. They ride around in horse drawn buggies, don’t use electricity, and live much the same life they lived two hundred years ago. Amish folks don’t follow college and professional sports, have cable TV(remember no electricity) or care much about Brad and Angelina. They’re probably aware of current events like war, crime, and some popular culture, but those things are not a part of their consciousness or life.

What an indescribable jolt it must have been to the Amish community in Lancaster, PA when a gunman and would be molester walked into the Nickel Mines Amish School, shot 10 children, and killed five little girls? What would that type of tragedy do to anyone? How would most of us react?

Here’s what I can’t get out of my mind. The Amish community issued a statement where they offered forgiveness to the gunman, and set aside a portion of the contributions intended for the victims’ families, for the gunman’s family. They said that part of it was to help with his children’s education. To even think or say the word “forgive” just days after such an unimaginable event is beyond most peoples’ understanding.

Spiritual thought and tradition says that God will forgive everything we do. And everything means everyhing. If you accept that, then you may also agree that a person who can forgive the cold blooded murder of their child must not only have an unshakeable belief in God, but be themselves God-like. They truly are living and thinking the same as God. What a different life we would all be living if more of us not only believed in God, but lived as God.