I grew up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania and was around “plain folk” for most of my formative years. They live all around the county and really are a part of the culture and fabric of the area. Most people in the county seem to view them with an amount of respect and leave them alone. In the worst case their buggies are a traffic hazard and the “road apples” annoying. The massacre at an Amish school a few weeks ago shock me as it did everybody else. The response of the Amish did not surprise me. It was one of forgiveness and gratitude, pure and simple, this is their way. This type of community is the backbone of the county. People there will always take care of their own. I didn’t see that until I moved to Boston 9 years ago.
My mother sends me clippings from USA Today that she thinks I might find interesting. One was a letter from a man in Texas, pretty much hit the nail on the head for my thoughts about this whole event:
“The dignity and constraint of the Amish in Light of this tragedy are a lesson in life for all of us.
You will note they did not flood the streets and burn the state flag, not did they place a fatwa on the window of the killer. They did not say it was a racist act, nor did they declare religious persecution. You will not see a gaggle of lawyers nor will they be calling for Senate hearings or the formation of a bipartisan commission to investigate the matter.
Instead, the Amish will accept this as a rare act of a single deranged man, and they will bury their dead in their own private and reserved way.
The dignity of their response is a lesson not only for the state, but also for the nation and the world.”
I’ve been in the section of the county where the shootings took place. Driving through there you feel like you have stepped back in time. The Amish live, for the most part, as they did 200 years ago. This extends beyond the practical and to their morals and culture. They are the real conservatives, not those that pay lip service to “tradition” or “morals.”
In the modern age we have lost what the Amish value and hold dear, and relegate them to the thoughts of those who could be called Romantics. This is a sad event. Something that can only be fixed on the individual level. For myself I choose to help people who I think share my end goal of individuals making each other’s lives a bit easier. You don’t need a tragedy or religion to motivate this, you just need to be.
A tangent… Think about the problems and stress in your life. Make a list. How many of them are caused by humankind or its inventions (physical or abstract)? How many of them could be fixed by mankind? I think you will find the answers to be “Most” and “All.”
