Posted on 10/07/2006 1:19:17 PM PDT by NYer
Dozens of Amish neighbors came out Saturday to mourn the quiet milkman who killed five of their young girls and wounded five more in a brief, unfathomable rampage.
Charles Carl Roberts IV, 32, was buried in his wife's family plot behind a small Methodist church, a few miles from the one-room schoolhouse he stormed Monday.
His wife, Marie, and their three small children looked on as Roberts was buried beside the pink, heart-shaped grave of the infant daughter whose death nine years ago apparently haunted him.
About half of perhaps 75 mourners on hand were Amish.
"It's the love, the forgiveness, the heartfelt forgiveness they have toward the family. I broke down and cried seeing it displayed," said Bruce Porter, a fire department chaplain from Morrison, Colo., who had come to Pennsylvania to offer what help he could and attended the burial. He said Marie Roberts was also touched.
"She was absolutely deeply moved, by just the love shown," Porter said.
Leaders of the local Amish community were gathering Saturday afternoon at a firehouse to decide the future of the schoolhouse, and of the school year itself.
The prevailing wisdom suggested a new school would be built.
"There will definitely be a new school built, but not on that property," said Mike Hart, a spokesman for the Bart Fire Company in Georgetown.
Roberts stormed the West Nickel Mines Amish School on Monday, releasing the 15 boys and four adults before tying up and shooting the 10 girls. Roberts, who had come armed with a shotgun, a handgun and a stun gun, then killed himself.
Roberts' suicide notes and last calls with his wife reveal a man tormented by memories — as yet unsubstantiated — of molesting two young relatives 20 years ago. He said he was also angry at God for the Nov. 14, 1997, death of the couple's first child, a girl named Elise Victoria who lived for just 20 minutes.
Hart is one of two non-Amish community members serving on a 10-member board that will decide how to distribute donations that have come in following the global news coverage. One stranger walked into the firehouse Saturday morning and dropped a $100 bill in the collection jar.
The condolences flowing into the Bart Post Office filled three large cartons on Saturday — two for the Amish children and one for the Roberts clan.
"(It's) envelopes, packages, food and a lot of cards," clerk Helena Salerno said.
More than $500,000 has been pledged, some of which is expected to cover medical costs for the five surviving girls. They remain hospitalized, and one is said to be in grave condition.
As the Sabbath Day approached, close friends expected to spend Sunday paying visits to the victims' families.
The funerals for the five slain girls — Marian Fisher, 13; Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12; Naomi Rose Ebersol, 7, and sisters Mary Liz Miller, 8, and Lena Miller, 7 — were held Thursday and Friday.
One Amish woman, an aunt to the Miller girls, set out Saturday to retrieve some of the flowers dropped near the school and bring them to the families.
She was traveling on an Amish scooter and tried to balance two potted plants before going home and returning for the task with a child's small wagon.
The massacre sent out images to the world not only of the violence, but also of a little-known community that chooses to live an insular, agrarian way of life, shunning cars, electricity and other modern conveniences.
By Saturday, the hordes of satellite trucks and stand-up reporters had mostly left the country roads, and a semblance of routine returned. Early in the morning, Amish farmers hauled farm equipment past the boarded-up school.
"It was just getting to be too much," said Jane Kreider, a 48-year-old teacher's aide in Georgetown. "It was just, 'Get out of dodge, get out of our town and we'll pull together.'"
Acts 26: 20 -- "I preach that they should repent and turn to God and prove their repentance by their deeds."
and this:
Luke 13: 3 I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish
This one-sided "forgiveness" is not in our best interest, nor in the best interest of the person who hurt us. It devalues the significance of repentance and robs both the offender and us of the opportunity to grow in Christ.
Scripture does not teach that we need to forgive our enemies. Instead, we should love them and pray for them. Love and forgiveness are not synonymous.
L
And realize both can co-exist and enrich each other. This is not an either/or situation.
I've passed many an Amish child pushing one of those along the road.
You should take heed in contradicting what God has commanded us to do,what your saying is anti biblical and your saying it in a very aggressive tone.
Exactly.
The hobbits in the Shire lived in peace and innocence only because the Rangers fought the darkness and protected them. The Rangers did it willingly and with no strings attached because they wanted to preserve the way of live that they themselves could not lead.
Mineral Man usually gets it. He has got to be the most spiritual athiest I know of. :-)
Try Luke 17: 3 on for size: "If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him.
Offering forgiveness without repentance does not follow the biblical model of forgiveness.
L
Oh, I see. You're one of THOSE Christians. Sorry I spoke to you.
Well, you should have stopped there. That was the brick wall of your argument."
Well then, if we can never presume what God wants, how can we know what to do? Sure, He has laid out some pretty simple guidelines, but even with those guidelines we have to make some interpretations. Surely you can see that there are differences in the way Christians interpret God's will. That why there are different denominations.
We are *required* by God to divine His will. He doesn't tell us how to carry out our day to day affairs. That would be ridiculous, right? We need to figure out how to act in accordance with His will.
I mean that's pretty simple. I get the impression from your comment that you disagree with me so, therefore, you are calling me stupid for trying to figure out how God would judge certain actions... I guess that also means we can't judge certain actions as "good" in God's eyes either, right?
As democrats and republicans fight tooth and nail for the high moral ground in the wake of the foley scandal, all of us, to a man, have just been humbled.
You mean one of those who takes what's written in the Bible as actually meaning exactly what it says?
Yea...then I guess I'm one of 'those'.
Here's a little tip for you. Looking down your nose at people that way can give you a nasty crik in your neck.
Sorry I spoke to you.
That's mighty Christian of you.
L
Same as my reply to blu...
...with the following addition...
Obviously I don't presume to divine all that is God. Still, we have plenty "God-would-approve" moments and no one bats an eyelash. When someone does a great good, we are thankful and we *presume* that God is pleased. Does God come down and give a speech for the person? No - we know in our hearts that the person is acting in the will of God.
This is the same situation, only in the reverse.
I can't seem to find it.
Appreciate the help...
L
No, they rushed the building at great risk to themselves - they had to go through the windows when they found the doors barricaded. And then they carried the bloodied victims in their arms outside.
Do they, the warriors on the scene, decry that the Amish were not armed to fend off this monster? No. They realize that it is a statement to this country that we can have people such as the Amish in our midst, living a lifestyle from a hundred years ago. The Amish in turn took a brutal tragedy and turned it into spiritual inspiration to a country so jaded that it needed a kick in the head to start feeling anything again.
I would never be a pacifist or turn the other cheek. But I also will not decry the Amish for having such profound faith that they will accept that their lifestyle means they will have to foregive sometimes because they are what they are.
Media = Vampires; same action. Suck and run.
You got that right! It's not about politics. It's all about faith.
There is one thing that differentiates the God of the bible, the God the Amish worship, the God I worship, the God that allowed and encouraged our founding fathers to feel righteous .. righteous, I say .. in claiming sovereignty from their own countrymen to the point of fighting to the death for the individual liberty and freedom they believed God meant for man .. it is God's desire and will to forgive man and his sins.
That God is a forgiving God.
Now the gunman may burn in Hell if he is not saved, but it is equally true, if he is saved .. whether you agree with the biblical theology or not ... he is in heaven .. no longer tortured.
.
The Amish know this.
.
And I believe they desire we "English", by God's grace .. to know it also.
I think Christ offering forgiveness to man as he's dying on the cross is all the verse and chapter we need.We are to be followers of Christ and live as he lived.
It don't get no clearer than this. God offering forgiveness to man even as man was mocking,laughing,beating and executing him.
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