one persons view on The Amish killings.(http://ginmar.livejournal.com/904108.html)

"Shoot me first."

When Marian Fisher was tied up in the one-room Amish school house, she
saw how terrified the littler girls--some as young as five----were.
"Shoot me first," she offered the killer, hoping it would spare the
younger ones.

"Shoot me second," said another one of the older girls, stepping forward. Marian was the oldest, remember. She was thirteen.


The killer's family kept vigil outside his house as the funeral
corteges, one by one, rolled past his house, with many of the Amish
drivers exchanging nods with the family. They invited the murderer's
widow to the funerals, and included his children and widow in their
charitable funds.

It's important not to think of the Amish as
dewy innocents, perfect and spotless, for their own good as well as
ours. Perfection is a stupid thing to aspire to. No community is free
from problems, yet it's how they respond to those problems that show
their measure. In this crisis, the Amish have reacted not as did a man
who lost his son at Columbine---blaming his own enemies for his son's
death, to make some bitter profit off his son's death-----but by
forgiving and most crucially, remembering. They have not blamed
telephones and electricity for these murders. They have not blamed at
all. They have forgiven and included, remembering the murderer's widow
in their hearts and in their practical plans, including her rather than
casting her out, remembering their decency, remembering the others
around them. We tend to forget many things in the modern world, but
first and most often we forget other people who remind us of ourselves,
in their frailty, moments of idiocy or weakness, or even viciousness.
We don't want to think of ourselves in those terms, becuaes it's those
things that people remember. The Amish might remember those, but they
also appear capable of seeing the whole, which makes forgiveness
possible.

They're not perfect, not by a long shot. Yet in
their attempts to live by their beliefs, for this week, they have shown
how memory has to be full, how in fleeing from our fears we have only
been entrapped by them. By reaching out with forgiveness and with
inclusion they have removed some hatred from their community.
It's impossible not to look at their behavior this week and think about
forgiveness, about atonement, about possibility. It's impossible not to
look at them and think of that angry bitter man from Columbine, using
his son's death as an opportunity to increase his anger and bitterness.
The Amish, instead, asked for the killer's family to be included in the
charity.

Will there still be anger at this? Of course; we're
all human, and anger is the measure of how we value ourselves. There's
healthy anger and unhealthy, of course, and to keep the one from
turning into the other it has to be channeled into justice rather than
revenge. The killer is dead but his family is alive, but that doesn't
mean they are appropriate targets. In fact, the causes of this killer's
actions are diverse and difficult to fight, and the temptation would be
to what drove him and focus on the easiest target---the family left
behind. By all acounts, he seethed with rage for decades and then
turned that rage upon the very people he wanted to harm.
Turning our anger upon people who did nothing to deserve it---his
family----is no different from what he did, finding blame to justify
our hostility. By killing himself, he left his family behind as his
proxies, leaving them as targets. The Amish refused to take the bait,
knowing the difference between a killer and those he left wounded but
alive behind him. In other school shootings, the killer's families have
been ostracized and reviled, and it's human to want to do so.
In the emotional storm after a murder, the last thing a survivor needs
is advice from someone who has not experienced tragedy, who has not
lost someone to murder, who has not gone through what the victim has
gone through. Maybe forgiveness is not immediately possible or possible
at all, and it's important under any circumstances to draw the line
between the victims who lost their lives or their health with the
family of the killer, who at least keep their lives. But we have to
try. That's all. We all fail, we all screw up, we're all stupid and
impatient and angry and bitter and bad-tempered. What matters is that
we keep trying, even that we just try.