The Response is On You

From this week’s headlines: a man stomps a puppy to death in front of his three-year old son, a sixteen- year old brutally murders and decapitates a “friend,” and yet another child is missing. Where is God? How can He allow such atrocities to happen, especially to the innocent? I cry for all who live in fear or terror of what should be their sanctuary, a place of love – their home. God blesses us with free will and there are those who use their free will to hurt others. This energy they send out in the world will return to them at some point, greater than what they sent. That is one law of the universe. What you give, you will receive. Be hate; receive hate. Be love; receive love.

Why would anyone choose to hate, hurt, and to control another more helpless than them? Perhaps it makes them feel better about themselves. They operate from a position of lack, of powerlessness. Power over a helpless other creates a sense in them that they are powerful.

I struggle with the perpetrators of violence whether it be in thought, word, and especially in action against others – including plants, animals, and our mother earth. But I want to love them. They do not love themselves. If they just knew they are love and not who they seem to think they are, hopefully this may yield change.

The evil men do is that which harms another, especially the innocent. This is so heinous; we as a culture cannot tolerate this and need to punish/teach/reprimand/rehabilitate. Yet we cannot physically live without causing another harm – it’s a matter of if we do it in alignment with the All Good or if we do it in alignment with our own self-centered natures.

All people make poor choices at one time or another, often without intention and in ignorance. However, a few people make very bad choices and intentionally torture and hurt another. If we or a loved one is the recipient of their bad choice, how can one believe that all is as God wills? It is easy to ask how can God allow suffering to happen?

How can one not be angered at the abuse we witness on the news towards a child, a young woman, a young man, a dog, cat, horse, etc... We see people making very poor choices. How can we not feel? How can we trust God that All is as it should be?

It is not God hurting the innocent ones. It is man. Why does God allow this to happen? Because God blessed man with free will. The innocent ones who are hurt – how does God soothe them? God is love and is there for everyone, including the aggressor as well as the innocent. God does not label and loves them both equally. God is in them both equally. God sees all, God hears all. God hears the cries of pain. God weeps for our insanity.

This is hard for so many of us. We see the pain; we empathize with the pain. We want all to be a Garden of Eden with loving one another with no anomalies. BUT we do not live in a Garden of Eden. Man has freedom of choice. Man has left the Garden on his own choosing, placing himself above God. Man has choice through conscious thought. Man must evolve and choose again to live as one with God. Before, man lived as one with God unconsciously; in evolving, man must live as one with God, consciously.

But we are not there yet. Many barely choose to be conscious. Many make poor choices that take them farther away from living in Oneness.

When you, or even more so a loved one, are the recipient of pain from someone’s poor choices, you then have a choice, of course, after ensuring the victim is safe and protected. You can either see the perpetrator for what they are – a Child of God, making very poor choices, and react to them as a Child of God, or you can choose to focus on the heinous acts and react with anger, rage, sadness, and fear.

The following is an old news story, but the forgiveness of something so heinous touched me.

Image by Ciprian Pascal from Pixabay

“NICKEL MINES, Pa., Oct. 2, 2006 — A dairy truck driver, apparently nursing a 20-year-old grudge, walked into a one-room Amish schoolhouse here Monday morning and systematically tried to execute the girls there, killing four and wounding seven before killing himself, the police said.

[A fifth child died in a Delaware hospital early Tuesday of wounds from the shooting, The Associated Press reported.]

The heavily armed gunman first ordered the 15 boys in the room to leave, along with several adults, and demanded that the 11 girls line up facing the blackboard. As the gunman lashed the students’ legs together with wire and plastic ties, the teacher dashed from the room and called the police around 10:35 a.m.

The gunman, identified as Charles C. Roberts, 32, killed himself as the police stormed the West Nickel Mines Amish School, which is set back in a cornfield on a street of stone houses, barns and silos in Lancaster County, about 50 miles west of Philadelphia.

Mr. Roberts had no criminal record or history of psychiatric illness, the authorities said. But notes he left at his home — where he lived with his wife, Marie, and their three children — said he was distraught about a slight that had occurred more than 20 years ago.

When the state police arrived around 10:45, Mr. Roberts had barricaded the doors with bolts and lumber he had brought in his pickup truck, Colonel Miller said.

After a brief cellphone exchange with his wife and then with the state police, Mr. Roberts began shooting, aiming the handgun and a shotgun at the children as they stood lined in front of the room. As the police began charging the building around 11, Mr. Roberts fired a shot into his head, Colonel Miller said.

The police did not release the names of the victims but said all had been girls from 6 to 13.

Once the police entered the building, they found a cache of weapons and supplies that indicated Mr. Roberts had prepared for a long siege. He had a 9-millimeter semiautomatic pistol, two shotguns, a stun gun, two knives, two cans of gunpowder and 600 rounds of ammunition.

In a toolbox near his body, the police discovered bolts he had used to barricade the school doors with two-by-fours, pliers and wires he had used to bind the girls’ legs. Another five-gallon bucket he brought into the building contained earplugs, bathroom tissue and a clean change of clothing, the police said.

Mr. Roberts lived just over a mile from the school in the town of Bart, in a modular home that had a trampoline and sandbox in the yard and was already decorated for Halloween. Neighbors said he was jovial and generally well liked, and they were struggling to understand what had driven him to violence.

Colonel Miller said that once the gunfire began troopers charged the building and broke in through several windows in the school. By the time they arrived, however, the children lay dead or wounded in the front of the classroom and Mr. Roberts’s body was a few feet away. One child died in the arms of a trooper as he rushed her out of the building to get medical help, Colonel Miller said.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/03/us/03amish.html

In the midst of their grief over this shocking loss, the Amish community didn’t cast blame, they didn’t point fingers, and they didn’t hold a press conference with attorneys at their sides. Instead, they reached out with grace and compassion toward the killer’s family.

The afternoon of the shooting an Amish grandfather of one of the girls who was killed expressed forgiveness toward the killer, Charles Roberts. That same day Amish neighbors visited the Roberts family to comfort them in their sorrow and pain.

Later that week the Roberts family was invited to the funeral of one of the Amish girls who had been killed. And Amish mourners outnumbered the non-Amish at Charles Roberts’ funeral.

It’s ironic that the killer was tormented for nine years by the pre-mature death of his young daughter. He never forgave God for her death. Yet, after he cold-bloodedly shot 10 innocent Amish school girls, the Amish almost immediately forgave him and showed compassion toward his family.” (http://lancasterpa.com/amish/amish-forgiveness/)

Forgiveness of an atrocity is very difficult. I am not sure I would be able to follow the compassionate example of the Amish. We want to be angry at those who hurt us and our loved ones, even minor or perceived hurts cause intense emotions at times.

The choice we each have is to either have faith in Love or to live in fear of others making poor choices. It is not easy. If it was easy, man would have evolved eons ago when Jesus first taught us the lesson. Jesus knew and understood. He died a painful, horrible death at the hands of those choosing to be cruel and ignorant. He is our example as he said on the cross, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)

Pray for those who live in the darkest conditions. Send love to them. We will not be free until every soul is free.