random, disjointed thoughts about the Amish murders
I've been thinking a lot about what happened at the Amish school on Monday. I still find it so difficult to process, much less understand. Some guy, claiming this is somehow in response to something 20 years ago which didn't even involve the Amish, bursts into a schoolhouse and sends out all the boys and the adults and...ties up all the girls and murders them. And then kills himself so he escapes punishment. It just...none of it makes any sense, even more so than any random murder. I mean, you could say "he's crazy" but he certainly planned for this--he picked the softest target imaginable, since the Amish don't have any weapons. So there certainly was an element of calculation, an awareness.
I keep thinking about those little girls. Like lambs to the slaughter. I think this is about as clear-cut example of evil as you could ask for. How could anyone do that? How could anyone actually point a gun at the face of a little girl and pull the trigger?
I called up my Mom on Tuesday night--she's been pretty much bedridden the past few weeks because of her leg and had only a vague knowledge of what had happened. I was almost hysterical recounting the events to her. When I heard the words that were coming out of my mouth, I just kept sobbing. My mind just keeps stopping at that horror--"he sent all the boys and adults out of the room"--man, you just know what's happening next.
The information that kept coming out just made it worse and worse, even more horrifying. On Monday the news was saying he had a 20-year-old grudge and I'm thinking "Oh great, another loser bound and determined to make every female pay because some girl didn't smile at him in middle school." Like one of the Jonesboro murderers--there's always some stupid grudge against a female, and females are disproportionately murdered (and not just in school shootings) (article about school shootings targeting girls). Then it comes out on Tuesday--this isn't because of some girl who turend him down. This is because of something HE did! He says he molested a couple of little girls, relatives, when he was 12 (which would probably mean he was molested himself). AND his wife miscarried a daughter, for which he's "angry at God." And because of this--he thinks about it, decides upon a schoolhouse where he knows they have no defenses whatsoever, stocks up on ammunition, boards, nails and some truly terrible things that almost certainly mean he's planning to molest THESE little girls, and then ends up murdering them. He makes THEM pay for what HE did? He lost a daughter and he's upset about it...so he's killing someone else's daughter? What? Some of these girls had almost 20 bullet wounds in them. Children. 6 years old, 7 years old. IT MAKES NO SENSE.
And when more information comes out, it becomes even less comprehensible--the two relatives he claimed to have molested 20 years ago, deny it ever happened. (Which, I should point out, doesn't necessarily mean that it didn't. Memory is a curious thing and a lot of abuse survivors block it out.)
I just keep thinking of those terrified little girls, the really young ones, being tied up by this sick fuck. I want to hold them in my arms, to soothe them, say "it's going to be all right. It's okay." What do you say when you see the face of evil? How do you react when the monster that lurks under the bed...comes into your schoolhouse and orders all the adults and boys out and pulls out a gun? How do you comprehend that?
And faced with this nightmare, this horror--reading about how the Amish have responded, with compassion for the killer's family, with forgiveness, with love and community--this too is incomprehensible. They are better Christians than I am. My heart is frequently filled with hate and I've never had to deal with what they're facing. Reading this brings me to tears.
"All around the family watched, crying softly, even the little children, who listened as their grandfather told them not to hate the gunman who did this.
"Forgive," he was instructing them... "forgive, as God forgives us..."
They teach humility, submission to God's will. This is something I find fundamentally difficult--I'm pro-active, I seek to make things happen, I'm the quintessential Westerner. I don't know if I could ever achieve that level of serenity, even without what these family members are facing. I'm thinking about a passage from a Madeleine L'Engel book, The Moon by Night, when the main character, Vicky, says:
I remembered Uncle Douglas saying that we're always yelling, Do it MY way, God, not YOUR way, MY way.
Sometimes He picks the most peculiar ways.
I have a lot to learn about being a Christian.
He who learns must suffer
And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
And in our own despair, against our will,
Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
--Aeschylus
I keep thinking about those little girls. Like lambs to the slaughter. I think this is about as clear-cut example of evil as you could ask for. How could anyone do that? How could anyone actually point a gun at the face of a little girl and pull the trigger?
I called up my Mom on Tuesday night--she's been pretty much bedridden the past few weeks because of her leg and had only a vague knowledge of what had happened. I was almost hysterical recounting the events to her. When I heard the words that were coming out of my mouth, I just kept sobbing. My mind just keeps stopping at that horror--"he sent all the boys and adults out of the room"--man, you just know what's happening next.
The information that kept coming out just made it worse and worse, even more horrifying. On Monday the news was saying he had a 20-year-old grudge and I'm thinking "Oh great, another loser bound and determined to make every female pay because some girl didn't smile at him in middle school." Like one of the Jonesboro murderers--there's always some stupid grudge against a female, and females are disproportionately murdered (and not just in school shootings) (article about school shootings targeting girls). Then it comes out on Tuesday--this isn't because of some girl who turend him down. This is because of something HE did! He says he molested a couple of little girls, relatives, when he was 12 (which would probably mean he was molested himself). AND his wife miscarried a daughter, for which he's "angry at God." And because of this--he thinks about it, decides upon a schoolhouse where he knows they have no defenses whatsoever, stocks up on ammunition, boards, nails and some truly terrible things that almost certainly mean he's planning to molest THESE little girls, and then ends up murdering them. He makes THEM pay for what HE did? He lost a daughter and he's upset about it...so he's killing someone else's daughter? What? Some of these girls had almost 20 bullet wounds in them. Children. 6 years old, 7 years old. IT MAKES NO SENSE.
And when more information comes out, it becomes even less comprehensible--the two relatives he claimed to have molested 20 years ago, deny it ever happened. (Which, I should point out, doesn't necessarily mean that it didn't. Memory is a curious thing and a lot of abuse survivors block it out.)
I just keep thinking of those terrified little girls, the really young ones, being tied up by this sick fuck. I want to hold them in my arms, to soothe them, say "it's going to be all right. It's okay." What do you say when you see the face of evil? How do you react when the monster that lurks under the bed...comes into your schoolhouse and orders all the adults and boys out and pulls out a gun? How do you comprehend that?
And faced with this nightmare, this horror--reading about how the Amish have responded, with compassion for the killer's family, with forgiveness, with love and community--this too is incomprehensible. They are better Christians than I am. My heart is frequently filled with hate and I've never had to deal with what they're facing. Reading this brings me to tears.
"All around the family watched, crying softly, even the little children, who listened as their grandfather told them not to hate the gunman who did this.
"Forgive," he was instructing them... "forgive, as God forgives us..."
They teach humility, submission to God's will. This is something I find fundamentally difficult--I'm pro-active, I seek to make things happen, I'm the quintessential Westerner. I don't know if I could ever achieve that level of serenity, even without what these family members are facing. I'm thinking about a passage from a Madeleine L'Engel book, The Moon by Night, when the main character, Vicky, says:
I remembered Uncle Douglas saying that we're always yelling, Do it MY way, God, not YOUR way, MY way.
Sometimes He picks the most peculiar ways.
I have a lot to learn about being a Christian.
He who learns must suffer
And even in our sleep pain that cannot forget
Falls drop by drop upon the heart,
And in our own despair, against our will,
Comes wisdom to us by the awful grace of God.
--Aeschylus