undeserved forgiveness

JEFF JACOBY
Undeserved forgiveness

By Jeff Jacoby, Globe Columnist | October 8, 2006

``THERE WAS not one desk, not one chair, in the whole schoolroom that was not splattered with either blood or glass. There were bullet holes everywhere -- everywhere."

That description is from Janice Ballenger, a deputy coroner in Lancaster County, Pa. She was among the first to enter the West Nickel Mines Amish School after Charles Roberts murdered five girls and severely wounded five others there last week. One of the bodies she examined was that of Naomi Rose Ebersol , a 7-year-old who had been shot 20 times.

How do civilized human beings react to such an atrocity? With horror? Anger? Hatred?

Not the Amish.

Asked by a reporter if the community was angry about the killings, one Amish grandmother, Lizzie Fisher, was adamant. ``Oh, no, no, definitely not," she said. ``People don't feel that around here. We just don't."

Roberts planned his attack meticulously, making a list of supplies he would need, then gradually buying them over a six-day period. It makes the skin crawl just to read the inventory: nails, bolts, wrenches, bullets, guns, earplugs, wooden planks, rope. Roberts brought plastic ties to bind his victims' feet, chains and clamps for restraint, and tubes of K-Y Jelly, a sexual lubricant. Apparently he ``planned to dig in for the long siege," a Pennsylvania State Police colonel surmised, and ``intended to victimize these children in many ways prior to executing them."

Confronted with such premeditated malevolence, what decent person wouldn't seethe with fury and revulsion? What parent or grandparent wouldn't regard such a massacre as not only unspeakable, but well nigh unforgivable?

The Amish wouldn't.

``I don't think there's anybody here that wants to do anything but forgive," one Lancaster County resident was quoted as saying. ``We don't need to think about judgment; we need to think about forgiveness and going on." Many townspeople announced their forgiveness of Roberts directly to his wife and children .

On CNN, a local pastor recounted how the grandfather of Marian Fisher, one of the murdered girls, told younger relatives not to hate Roberts for killing her.

``As we were standing next to the body of this 13-year-old girl, the grandfather was tutoring the young boys, he was . . . saying to the family, `We must not think evil of this man,' " said the Rev. Robert Schenck. ``It was one of the most touching things I have seen in 25 years of Christian ministry."

I can't deny that it is deeply affecting to see how seriously the Amish strive to heed Jesus' admonition to return good for evil and turn the other cheek. For many Christians, the Amish determination to forgive their daughters' murder is awe-inspiring. In his Beliefnet blog, the eloquent Rod Dreher marvels at CNN's story of the Amish grandfather. ``Could you do that?" he writes. ``Could you stand over the body of a dead child and tell the young not to hate her killer? I could not. Please, God, make me into the sort of man who could."

But hatred is not always wrong, and forgiveness is not always deserved. I admire the Amish villagers' resolve to live up to their Christian ideals even amid heartbreak, but how many of us would really want to live in a society in which no one gets angry when children are slaughtered? In which even the most horrific acts of cruelty were always and instantly forgiven? There is a time to love and a time to hate, Ecclesiastes teaches. If anything deserves to be hated, surely it is the pitiless murder of innocents.

To voluntarily forgive those who have hurt you is beautiful and praiseworthy. That is what Jesus did on the cross, what Christians do when they say the Lord's Prayer, what observant Jews do when they recite the bedtime Kriat Sh'ma. But to forgive those who have hurt -- who have murdered -- someone else? I cannot see how the world is made a better place by assuring someone who would do terrible things to others that he will be readily forgiven afterward, even if he shows no remorse.

There are indications that the killer in this case may have been in the grip of depression or delusion . Perhaps it was madness more than evil that drove him to commit this horror, in which case forgiveness might be more understandable.

But the Amish make it clear that their reaction would be the same either way. I wish them well, but I would not want to be like them, reacting to terrible crimes with dispassion and absolution. ``Let those who love the Lord hate evil," the Psalmist writes. The murder of the Amish girls was a deeply hateful evil. There is nothing godly about pretending it wasn't.

Jeff Jacoby's e-mail address is jacoby@globe.com. 
© Copyright 2006 Globe Newspaper Company.

The awkward encounter that began Amish school nightmare
By Sam Knight 
timesonline

(this article features somedetails I did not pick up on earlier...)

The man at the classroom door was wearing a baseball cap and holding a clevis, a U-shaped piece of metal with holes at each end. He asked the teacher whether anyone had seen one lying around in the road.

Emma Mae Zook, a 20-year-old teacher at the Georgetown Amish School, was put off by his manner — he stood close to her, talking quietly and would not meet her eye — but she stopped her German and spelling lesson and said that she and the children would look out for it.

Then Charles Carl Roberts IV turned around, walked to a pick-up truck parked outside and came back with a shotgun.

Ms Zook, describing the opening minutes of Monday's school shooting in the tiny village of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, told a local newspaper today that that was the moment she ran to a neighbouring farm to raise the alarm.

Interviews with Ms Zook, her relatives and some of the first emergency officials to arrive at the scene of the shooting have shed more light on the half-hour ordeal that ended with the shooting of ten Amish girls — the deaths of five — and the tearing up of the innocence and calm of one of America's most reclusive communities.

Several members of Ms Zook's family happened to be in her classroom when Roberts, a 32-year-old milk truck driver, appeared at the door. When he re-appeared for the second time, she told the Lancaster Intelligencer Journal that she made eye contact with her mother and they both ran.

Ms Zook's sister-in-law, Sarah, remained behind in the classroom and watched Roberts order a boy to chase the two women and tell them that he would start shooting unless they came back. 

The boy's sister, nine-year-old Emma Fischer, ran with him, an instinctive decision that probably saved her life. Their two older sisters were both shot by Roberts: Marian, 13, died, while Barbie, 11, remains in intensive care.

In the minutes that followed, Roberts sent out Sarah, her two young children, and a 21-year-old woman who is eight months pregnant. They stood, unsure what to do, outside the school as Roberts lined up the students against the blackboard. In time, the boys started trickling out of the room and the group started walking to the neighbouring farm.

That's when they heard "pounding" coming from the schoolhouse: the sound of Roberts nailing planks across the doors, shoving desks against the main entrance and, according to police, beginning what he intended to be a prolonged assault of the ten girls under his control.

But two state troopers arrived at the schoolhouse within minutes, followed by eight others, and in the midst of an attempt to make him talk to a hostage negotiator, Roberts started shooting the girls, all of them at close range, before killing himself.

Janice Ballenger, a deputy coroner of Lancaster County, was given the task of checking the dead. She examined Naomi Rose Ebersol, a 7-year-old girl who had died in a policeman's arms, in the school playground.

"She was a 7-year-old angel," she told the Intelligencer Journal. "Kneeling next to the body and counting all the bullet holes was the worst part."

Inside the classroom, "there wasn’t a desk or chair in the room that wasn’t covered in blood or broken glass", said Ms Ballenger. Among stickers of smiling faces and a sign that read "Visitors Brighten People’s Days", she declared Roberts, who had shot himself in the head, dead, and found the body of Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12, by the blackboard.

Two other girls, sisters Lena and Mary Liz Miller, aged 7 and 8, died of their wounds in separate hospitals overnight. Four more remain in a critical condition.

Ballenger's fellow deputy coroner, Amanda Shelley, was also at the scene: "It was something that I never expected to see in Lancaster County. I realize that my job comes with seeing things that most people wouldn’t want to, but the experience has left me in a fog."

In the post below it states that the new school was build as different as possible from the previous one. 

Could that inform our set? We could deconstruct parts of the set and rearrange them as different as possible...

When we were looking at the barn raising before term break we were considering someone representing a child sitting aside on stage building a mini barn with kid´s wooden building blocks. Maybe that could become the new school building? 

I still like the idea of building/ deconstructing something on stage, let it be a barn or a school...

Schoolhouse demolished

The West Nickel Mines School was demolished the following week, on October 12, 2006. The site was left as a quiet pasture. A new schoolhouse, called the New Hope School, was built at a different location, near the original site. It opened on April 2, 2007, precisely six months after the shooting. The new school was intentionally built as "different" as possible from the original, including the style of the flooring.

Some of the Amish parents in the region are reluctant to send their children to the new school and instead prefer to educate them at home.

wiki

names of the girls in the school- wikipedia

Victims

[edit]
Fatalities
Naomi Rose Ebersol, aged 7, died at the scene October 2, 2006.[37][38]
Marian Stoltzfus Fisher, aged 13, died at the scene October 2, 2006.[38][39]
Anna Mae Stoltzfus, aged 12, was declared dead on arrival at Lancaster General Hospital, Lancaster, Pennsylvania October 2, 2006.[38][40]
Lena Zook Miller, aged 7, died at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center in Hershey, Pennsylvania on October 3, 2006.[41]
Mary Liz Miller, aged 8, died at Christiana Hospital in Newark, Delaware on October 3, 2006.[42]

[edit]
Injured

All of the surviving Amish schoolgirls were hospitalized.
Rosanna King, 6 years old, was removed from life support at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center and sent home at the request of her family on October 4, 2006.[43] Some reports claim the child showed signs of recovery and was sent back to the hospital. Her condition improved, though she is still greatly impaired from the shooting and remains at home. [41][44]
Rachel Ann Stoltzfus, 8 years old[45]
Barbie Fisher, 10 years old[46]
Sarah Ann Stoltzfus, 12 years old
Esther King, 13 years old

The girls wounded in the shooting have made measurable progress in the year since the shooting. Sara Ann Stoltzfus, now 9, does not have full vision in her left eye but is back at school — she was not expected to survive. Barbie Fisher, now 9, pitches in the school softball but just underwent another shoulder operation in hopes of strengthening her right arm. Rachel Ann Stoltzfus, now 9, returned to school in the months after the shooting. Esther King, now 14, returned to school in the months after shooting, graduated and is now working on the family farm.[47] The youngest victim, Rosanna King, 6, wasn't expected to survive and was sent home to die there. She had serious brain injuries and does not walk or talk as of October 2007. Rosanna is confined to a wheelchair, but is said to recognize family members and frequently smiles.[48]

after Dogville

Hi all, after we watched Dogville today we had a bit of a chat regarding the piece. Stuff that came up was:

blackboard floor? possible to outline the set in chalk, wipe out, redraw (mopping up chalky water might give some nice milky effect)
which could in detail be picked up by someone with video camera (following, overview from top of a ladder, passing the camera on, etc)
We all liked how actors were miming props and doors and the sounds they would make were to be heard
Will we create sound on stage? (thinking "All quiet...", coconut shells...)
Shall we prerecord sound and operate on stage?
everyone is teching, everyone is acting- operating sound, video and light from the stage

For anyone who could not make it, these are ideas, nothing has been decided, please comment!!
Am I forgetting anything?

Amish Forgiveness- transcript

Amish Forgiveness is Christ-like

(Transciption of you tube video)

Keith Olbermann:
It was just one of the many extraordinary gestures of forgiveness contained in our number three story in the countdown tonight.
The family of Marian Fisher, 
one of the Amish girls killed in a school house on monday, 
invited the widow of her killer 
to their little girl`s funeral this morning.
That funeral, one of four, on this sad day there, 
the fifth is scheduled for tomorrow.
The funeral procession today is simple and humble 
from a community 
that has met an awful event 
with dignity and abiding humanity.
Our correspondend in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania , is Rheema Ellis.

Rehema Ellis:
The horse drawn carriage processions were in step with age old Amish tradition. 
First the body of seven year old Naomi Rose Ebersol. 
Hours later the body of thirteen year old Marian Fisher.
And late this afternoon the seven year old Lena Miller 
and her eight year old sister Mary Liz.
Keeping with tradition the families prepared the bodies. 
The young victims clothed in white dresses, 
handmade by their mothers.
The services are plain and private.
There is a short sermon and scripture is read.
There is no eulogy.
Just respect for the life.
But not praise.
They reserve that for god.

Kevin King:
There will be ah 
Words of comfort.
Read from the bible.
From the german bible.
Ähm
It will be a solemn time.
It will be a time of we´re coming together once again
And just being together.
Ah-Crying on each others shoulders.

Rehema Ellis:
While the non-Amish community was not part of the processions 
Many are showing support in other ways.
Much of it in the form of money.
More than 500.000 dollars has been donated to charities
set up for the Amish,
something they are unaccustomed to accepting.

Kevin King:
Far and wide the churches are bringing meals.
We are hearing of co-operations and companies providing food.

They said to me: 
you know,
we could handle this on our own.
But- that would not be Christ-like.
Why should we stop people from being a blessing to us?

Rehema Ellis:
And although the Amish recognise the community outpouring as a blessing
What´s needed most now, they said,
are prayers.

Tonight four other girls remain hospitalised,
another student reportedly has been taken off life support.
There is another funeral tomorrow.
But members of this Amish community fear 
it may not be the last.

Keith-

Keith Olbermann:
Rehema Ellis
Great
Thanks