By: Reverend Richard Beal
A minister feels blessed when he or she receives an e-mail such as the one read for our opening words. It was a kind of cri-de-coeur of faith, and linked what we Unitarian Universalists
should be about with the grace with which these Old Order Amish dealt with their tragedy and demonstrated what they
are about. Ministers teach, and preach, and despite our human imperfections try as best we can to model this faith we’ve been called to make more evident in the world. Sometimes we wonder if anyone is listening, or listening in a way that means the sacrifices made to witness to the Unitarian Universalist faith are worth it. And then someone speaks, or writes, or sends an e-mail that let’s us know that they have listened to, and heard, at least one of us. When it happens, or when we observe it evident in the lives of a parishioner, it means a great deal.
I was also moved that the sender of the e-mail was so inclusive as to be moved by the Christianity that motivates and fulfills the members of a religion which on the surface seems so very different from our own. For the Old Order Amish are the most traditional of all the conventicles descended from Menno Simmons, the 16th century Dutch Reformer and Anabaptist. Believers in adult rather than infant baptism, and in being separate from the ties to and temptations of the world, the most recognizable image of them is driving along the rural roads of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Wisconsin in their horse and buggies, through a landscape of beautifully tended fields and pastures and spotless farms.
There are many groups of Amish, about 200,000 in all, with 16,000 to 18,000 of the Old Order living near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where they have strict customs about dress (many of them rejecting the use of buttons), the amount of technology they will use, and remaining separate. In their homes they speak a form of Low German dialect called "Pennsylvania Dutch," in their church services High German, which is almost a separate language, and the English they learn in school, which lasts only until they are about 13 years of age. Ethnically they are a mix of German, Swiss, and Dutch, and came to this country to escape bitter persecution by both the Protestants and Catholics. They have a long history of martyrdom and a strange affinity for freedom. Because they believe only those who choose to do voluntarily should be a part of their community, their teenagers are required to go out and live in the world. Whatever these kids may do or get involved with out in the world is forgiven and forgotten if the choose to return and make a full and final commitment to the Amish life and religion.
To forgive and forget is one basis of Amish life, for they take seriously the model of Jesus’ life and recall that even on the cross he is said to have cried out "forgive them, for they no not what they do." At he funeral of the man who killed six of their daughters and seriously injured four others, half of the 75 mourners were Amish. An aunt of the three Miller girls killed gathered the flowers that had been dropped near the school where the shootings took place. She delivered them to the families which had lost a member, including the family of the shooter. An Amish grandfather who had lost a grand daughter went to the killers house on the day of the shooting to embrace the man’s family and to tell them he had forgiven him. The community, which does not customarily accept charity of any kind has allowed the setting up of a fund to help with the survivors medical and other expenses. It will be shared with the devastated family of the shooter.
My e-mail correspondent said "Please help us by reminding us how hate destroys both the hater and the hated, while love has the power to transform both the lover and the beloved." But that has already been done, both in the beautiful language of the original message and now by quoting it again. As with so many other things of good profit and respite, the reminders are always all around us. The spiritual quest is mostly to remember to look for and be aware of them, and the spiritual life is to live gratefully in their presence and act toward others within the assurance of that gratitude. As Gordon McKeeman said "even an ordinary day can be a graceful event," and he could also have said "even an ordinary day can be a graceful and grace-giving event." For to feel graced can be a burden if we do not lighten our load by passing grace on to others. Which the Amish have shown us a model of doing. They seem to know that anything hoarded, anything not shared, even - perhaps especially - the good and beautiful things, can become a burden, an accumulation that dulls our senses to the bursting out of blessings about us and the dawning of a new and greater appreciation always spread out around us for absorbing into ourselves.
There are ways to learn better both how to observe and how to be changed for the fuller sensibility observation brings. One way is simply standing or sitting quietly and emptying our attention of all those things that dull our capacity for appreciation and which dumb us down to being beasts of our own choice of burdens. There is a freedom and a lightness to be had in choosing to fix our entire attention on the progress of a drop of moisture sliding down the incline of a bending blade of grass, or losing our self- preoccupation in the coming, the passing, and the dwindling away of the whistle of the train ... a symbol of movement and journeying and things to be discovered.
There is another discipline equally enlightening, which I’ve come to practice myself.
It’s often referred to as devotional reading, but is not confined to religion, poetry, philosophy, or hymns and other passages from our hymnals. All kinds of readings from science (The Lives of A Cell) to travelogues (On Foot To the Golden Horn) and biography - where it would be possible to come across Abraham Lincoln saying "I have always found that mercy bears richer fruits than strict justice." Simply building times into our day to pause and say "Thank you" to the Universe cab be sufficient. The only necessity is training ourselves to do so, from a note on the bathroom mirror to a piece of string ties to a finger. It does not require miracles, only attention.
Again, this quote from my e-mail correspondent, who desires us "to struggle to live our principles daily, with generosity of spirit, and open [hearts and] minds.
So may it truly be. Blessed be. Amen.