cross-posted from Sum of Change
In 1994, one of the worst atrocities of my lifetime happened while the world calmly looked the other way. For 100 days, "one group slaughtered another at the rate of 10,000 a day." It was cruel and inhuman, things beyond the nightmares of our worst horror films. When all was done, some brilliant, courageous minds called for forgiveness.
Click here to watch the PBS video report on reconciliation in Rwanda (won't accept embed code for video)
I have forgiven those who killed my niece, and they peeled off the flesh off her arms to the wrist, and they left bare bones, and they gang-raped her, and I forgive them because forgiving is not only benefiting the criminal, it benefits me.
Those are the words of Bishop Rucyahana in northern Rwanda.
While it may be rare, this type of forgiveness is certainly not unheard of in our own country:
Church bells clanged in parts of rural Pennsylvania this morning. It was a week ago today that a local man walked into a small Amish community schoolhouse and there shot and killed five young girls. Five other victims survived. Almost as soon as the awful details of the shooting started to come out, some of the victims' families were already offering forgiveness to the man who shot their daughters. It's hard to understand that reaction, such quick forgiveness for such a brutal crime...
Prof. KRAYBILL: In many ways forgiving and forgetting is really part of the rhythm of Amish life, and we see it expressed here in this horrific incident, but in a dramatic way, from the Amish.
PALCA: But it seems to me - I mean, I've read that it's not just forgiveness. There have been - there were Amish people who attended the funeral of this man, and there's even a fund, as I've read, set up not only for victims but for the shooter's family. So this is going beyond just forgiving.
Prof. KRAYBILL: Well, you're exactly right. It's more than just words. On Saturday, when the funeral was held here, there were about 75 people that attended the burial, and at least half of those were Amish people actually coming from the same families who had lost their children less than a week before, and they greeted, personally, the widow of the killer, greeted the three children, and it was just a very touching and moving moment.
These people are heroes. I have to ask: how would our nation respond if someone asked us to forgive the men that attacked us on 9/11? And what kind of actions would make that forgiveness "more than just words"?