The Amish Teach Us About.....Pt. 1

School Shooting, Justice & Peace

Almost 6 months after the school shooting, many of us are still stunned by the reaction of the Amish community to that hideous massacre. Little bits of information may leak out, but their community is so reclusive that getting a handle on what they did, why they did it, and HOW they did it is very difficult.

Scheduled Speaking Engagement

As part of a series of discussions at Ashland Center for Non-Violence, an articulate and known Amish gentleman was scheduled to speak about the astonishing forgiveness the community showed, not only to the murderer's family, but to the murderer himself.

Reclusiveness or Privacy?

Indeed, the Amish are so private that this gentleman who had agreed to speak about this was actually silenced for a year, by his entire community. He was not present to speak.

The meeting went on as planned, however, now the speaker was a Mennonite, who focused on the similarities in theology and religious understandings that correspond between the Amish and Mennonite communities. It did shed some light on questions, and yet it was not the same kind of powerhouse it might have been.

Wise as Serpents, Innocent as Doves

I stayed for the entire discussion, question and answer period, and briefly for a bit of socialization afterward. I took notes, asked questions, made comments. By the time I was going to my car to leave, I felt the Amish community had made the correct and wisest decision possible.

Contempt: Flaming, Oozing, Dripping, Double-Edged Dagger Style

As part of this series on peace and justice, there is scheduled an Islamic speaker to discuss these matters in Islamic religion & theology.

He was in the audience for this talk as a participant, most likely to be as informed as possible about the mindset and thinking of the 'peace community' in America. Also part of CAIR, in accompanying documents he was presented to be an expert in Islamic peace.

((The series continues with a presentation on forgiveness in Islam at 7 p.m. March 1, also in Myers Convocation Center. Isam Zaiem, chairman of the Cleveland branch of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, will speak on "Forgiveness Teachings and Practices in Islam."))

This representative also participated, commented and asked questions of the Mennonite speaker. However, his questions were so full of contempt for the Amish, for their Christian view, for activities and lifestyle issues, and decisions they made, that the entire room filled with an atmosphere of sharp bitterness. He was repeatedly called upon to ask questions or make comments, and repeatedly brought the same contemptuousness with him, and yet, NOT ONE OF THE ORGANIZERS IN THE ROOM CONFRONTED HIM ON THAT.

There is plenty of room to disagree with how the Amish conducted themselves, about the theology and community practices that made their forgiveness so natural. Yet all of us who understand what the Amish lost, the magnitude of their innocence, the horror of the actual event, what price they've paid, and the price they are still paying, will not hold them in contempt for doing the best they can and remaining faithful to themselves and their God.

It is evil to hold them in contempt and in hatred for it. Yet that evil presence was in the room, given voice, in barely restrained viciousness, all in the context of an ecumenical movement for peace.

Problems with the Peace and Justice Movement

The goals and ideals of the peace and justice movement are important ideals, and something every reasoning Christian encultured person can advocate. We understand that one cannot have a secure and reliable economy, safe schools, or life, liberty and a pursuit for happiness without peace (def.: the absence of violence to the degree possible).

The ideals and benefits of living in a peaceful society are NOT the problem. The problem comes in with foundational assumptions of definitions and practices that virtually guarantee that not peace, but slaughter, will be our future. I will discuss these things in future posts.

Get Out of Her, My People, That You Do Not Share in Her Sins!

The Amish were, once again, very wise in sparing themselves the exposure to this contempt. It is a function of an intractable misunderstanding of their lives, their thinking, and of what forgiveness truly is for them. They could explain it. They will not be heard. Most of us don't even understand what forgiveness IS, don't know whether we have forgiven or not even when we try. This is not confused for the Amish, or for Islam, as it is for the rest of us.

They have done as their consciences have dictated. Their God knows the situation in far more depth than anyone else can. That, in the final analysis, is the only important thing. No further explanations are necessary or beneficial.

The One Commonality with Islam

The Amish have one commonality with Islam. They LIVE, and pay the price for, what their Holy Book says. It defines for them exactly what 'Peace' and 'Forgiveness' really is. They are willing to genuinely live that, to pay the price, and have everyone in their community pay the price, for that peace and forgiveness. Islam too, has their own understanding of 'Peace' and 'Forgiveness.' They also are willing for everyone in their community, indeed, everyone around them outside of their community, to pay the price to bring it about.

For the Amish, Jesus IS peace. The crucifixion is forgiveness.
For Islam, global Islam IS peace. Conversion to Islam is forgiveness.

The Amish knew they had no business at that meeting, playing games of 'kumbaya' and sacrificing their spiritual power, or placing it in the way of hatred and contempt. They were right.

More later.

Big Brother Takes Candy from Babies

Mary Slabaugh, a wonderful Amish cook, has been visited by the Ohio department of agriculture, and told that her traditional way of managing her food will no longer be permitted. As she is quoted as saying: "I can't believe they're taking my livelihood away!"

Mary, and the rest of us had better believe it.

Walmart is purchasing 'organic milk' from the Chinese at $.50 per gallon, organic milk that was so poisoned with toxins that over 250 Chinese school children got terribly ill, and yet the Amish, who have never poisoned anyone, are the subject of big brother's intervention.

We can't do ANYTHING about that, though, can we?

Taking on the Amish is a LOT easier for lazy localities than taking on corporate agriculture, and in the process they get to appear as though they're 'earning their pay.' They can vigorously enforce the letter of the law on local organic farmers and say 'I've done my job.' While these departments of state complain about having too few staff to monitor the quality of food sold in the big box retailers and corporate agricultural manufacturies, they have all the time in the world drive for hours to go and bother peaceful Amish women, families and communities.

When corporate agriculture poisons people, it does it by the thousands, across wide swaths of America. Consumers count on the Department of Agriculture to prevent those events, and have few other options for purchasing their groceries. We are all sitting ducks for the antibiotics, hormones, toxins and other contaminants in mass produced foods.

The Amish sell to a few, local, satisfied, repeat customers. If something happens with those customers, only a few would get sick. They wouldn't go back for more. The small organic farmers and roadside stands are critical to the success of the local food movement, people who want healthy, well made food.

No, Crystal Penn, from the Ohio Agriculture Department, WE ARE NOT IMPRESSED. Your job performance is just as spectacular and just as noble as taking candy from babies.

No Home Births? Without a License?

It is characteristic of the Amish to be big supporters of those who do as they believe in. Government Intrudes in Home Births

The government has decided to do what it can to discourage midwifery and home births, by threatening $40,000 in fines for a woman who assists the Amish community to do what they've always done: birth their babies at home. The Amish have come out in the hundreds to support the victim of socialistic government over-regulation.

Childbirth is pretty much a thing that happens by itself, whether in a field by a worker, on in the back of a taxi, or in an understaffed and overcrowded hospital. Whether there is another person present or not, when it is time for the baby to arrive, the baby comes.

Medicine helps when there is a crisis, yet the Amish have no phones or means to contact an ambulance or EMT when labor begins. They already know this may come up. This knowledge has not motivated them to have modern conveniences installed in their homes. The Amish that I know, if they feel they need or want medical care, find their own ways to see to it.

This is their RIGHT. Government intrusion, by micromanaging even the smallest details such as an experienced woman to be present at a home birth, is one more way governments are TAKING OUR RIGHTS.

That the government wants to begin this with the Amish is VERY TELLING.

Another attempt to eat the Amish lifestyle alive will increase the insatiable government's appetite for more. Will you be next?

Amish Angels for Emma

Angels in the Schoolhouse

This wonderful article reports that angels were actively trying to help the little victims of that hideous schoolhouse massacre.

Emma Fisher explained that she survived because she was told to 'get out', and she did. The murderer was preoccupied with window blinds and Emma got away. None of the people in the room had told her to get out.

The Amish newspaper also reports that those visitors, who had been released by the gunman, saw an angel over the schoolhouse when they were leaving.

In many circumstances, ordinary and extraordinary, people report angels helping them.

It is a great comfort to know that the Angels were helping the Amish then, and now.

It is reported that one of youngsters was terrified to go back to school, until she saw the schoolhouse full of angels.

Merry Christmas, and Praised be Jesus.

Michigan RFID Program

The Amish in Michigan are also facing RFID chipping of their animals. In Michigan, the approach of the government is different than the other states who are implementing a chipping program.

This expensive program is required of all small farmers in the upper peninsula of the state, for the reason that there has been herds of deer afflicted with tuberculosis.

Some Amish in those areas have chosen to give up animal farming rather than participate in this program, and have decided to go into produce farming instead.

In the lower peninsula, the Amish are not required to chip their cattle until it arrives at the market. Once there, and prior to slaughter, the farmer must purchase a radio chip to be attached to the animal's ear. This accomodation is available to any cattle farmer in the lower peninsula, who may have a patriotic or religious objection to the chipping program.

In any event, the markets themselves feel this to be a burden they don't really want to take on. A citizen concern is that it will inadvertently create a new influence center with the power to affect state policies relative to farming operations.

A further concern is that the gracious accomodation of the state for farmers who object to this program will change when current personnel move on or retire.

Legislative guarantees with constitutional standards will be important to avoid going down a slippery slope.

Amish Beslan

Its another sign of our times, that even the peaceable Amish communities, single room schoolhouses, can be horribly victimized by a guy with a very old grudge. Separation from society doesn't guarantee safety from the worst of it.

It seems the demons just haven't feasted on enough innocent blood yet.

The Amish community, being so self-sufficient, will fade back out of the larger society. and lick its terrible wounds the best it can. It can't take comfort in the things the rest of society does. Flowers, while nice, are no comfort to people who take no pleasure in luxury. They won't understand the undignified piles of stuffed animals that show up at sites of tragedy-a pathetic substitute for a rejected faith in the God they know LIVES.

Amish funerals will follow; affairs with no wake, no embalming, just a plain and simple church service and burial. They will offer their executed children to the grace and love of God, beg His mercy on the man who slaughtered them, pray for those whose lives are hanging on by a thread, pray for the families victimized this way.

Shock and Awe

Then they'll have to live with this trauma and wonder what else could come their way. They don't have the 'benefit' of having the daily diet of murder and horror the rest of us get. They can't even imagine, in the worst of the worst nightmares, things like this. All of it is 'shock and awe.'

The Evil Question

As always, we ask 'why?' of God, of the world around us, but 'why' is an evil question. 'Why' can never be answered to any satisfaction. The truth is- someone decided to do some serious damage, and do it to people who simply couldn't defend themselves. The Amish don't ask that question. The question heard from their lips is "who is responsible?"

It is an unimaginable horror, especially for those children. Society's children have heard about Columbine and other incidents on television. In some way, they're a little bit prepared. For these Amish children, who never watch television, who are completely innocent to the worst things in the world, it was a nightmare directly from hell. In their worst imaginings, this could never have occurred to them.

Amish Beslan

But even for us, the ones acclimated to the horror and bloodspilling of our age, were horrified by Beslan. We couldn't have imagined such a thing-that planning, which took place over months, came out 'without a hitch' leaving all of us with the shock of realization of how evil things really are becoming in the world. The children who survived Beslan will never get over that experience, and even experts in pediatric medicine have said they've never seen children so terrorized, never seen such effects in children. Those doctors and experts are powerless to really help those little ones in the face of raw evil terror. Experts won't be able to do anything for the Amish children either.

Amish Comfort

The only help for them is each other, and their faith. Their faith, thank God, is a strong one, stong enough for them to genuinely live as 'no part of the world'. The promise of God to people like them is that they won't share the penalty for the sins in the world around them.

I hope, and pray, that the promise comforts them. It scares me.

RFID Chips Forced on Amish Farmers

Here is an interesting article floating around the web. It seems that the Indiana Amish farmers, along with others, are being forced to participate in the State of Indiana's RFID microchip program for their livestock. This is a national program, occurring throughout the United States, but recently it was pressed on the Indiana Amish farmers.

The federal government and the USDA have complained for some time about the difficulties in monitoring and tracking farm animals. This has come to the forefront with the two cases of mad cow disease, originating in Canada. Just one case of mad cow put the American grown beef industry in serious straits, with Japan and other countries banning beef grown in the USA.

These two cases were months apart, which is suspicious by itself, and for the skeptical types, has the whiff of deliberate but controllable infection. There are those, including the Amish, that believe there is a '1984' style plan to chip every human being in America. The Amish are quoted in several places that they believe that these RFID chips are the 'mark of the beast' spoken of in the biblical book of revelation.

Certainly, after the experience with England, and the patients who died from mad cow disease, we can be fairly alarmed and interested in controlling this disease. The question must be, is chipping the Amish farmers' animals, and all livestock in the country, a helpful way to control mad cow or other possible diseases?

Those are a couple of the questions for us. For the Amish, however, the position is different. Since their religious beliefs make it impossible for them to cooperate with the federal government's chipping program, what will happen to them?

It is reported that the Board of Animal Health is authorized to fine non-cooperating farmers $1,000 per day. During a time of economic down turn and low farm prices, this represents a grave financial hardship for these small Amish farmers. If they are also required to pay for the chipping and the monitoring, this will increase their costs without improving farm revenue.

Do you think the Amish should allow their animals to be chipped or should they be forced? Do you think the chips will help to prevent disease? There are a lot of interesting questions about this new topic affecting the Amish community.