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'The innocence is gone'
04/10/2006 22:20 - (SA)
Paradise - From the countryside they came, wending through the corn and alfalfa on foot and by buggy, leaving behind fields and flocks to seek solace in one another's words and comfort in each other's arms.
But when the Amish men and women of the Cattail District congregation in Pennsylvania gathered around a neighbour's shed in the early evening coolness, it was not for themselves for whom they wept and prayed.
No, Rebecca Smoker says, the tears they shed were for the children - too young to comprehend what had been lost.
"You sorrow because the innocence is gone. They're no longer going to be just children," said Smoker, who raised six of her own here and now worries about the 23 grandchildren that have followed.
"It's not going to be the same again ever, I don't think."
In a community whose very existence is premised upon maintaining distance from the outside world, there is nothing more cherished by the Amish, or more vigilantly guarded, then the fragility of childhood.
Loss of innocence
So, when a gunman laid siege to a one-room schoolhouse on Monday, killing five Amish schoolgirls, this community suffered the most-grievous kind of wound. It has forced people here to grapple with a world they cannot control.
"We know it happens," Smoker says, of the violence and hatred of the larger world. "It just has never happened here."
The Amish expect their children to learn about the world beyond their own.
But, as with any parents, they take great pains to control the way their youngest are introduced to that world, to always maintain a respectful distance.
Now, that world has invaded their own, confronting Amish parents with a truth they have long known. The delicate cocoon they have built around their children can hold back the world for only so long.
Massacre in a sanctuary
By Tuesday morning, Smoker says, her eight-year-old grandson already knew what had happened and declared he was too afraid to return to his own school.
Another boy reasoned it out this way - his school is so far back in the countryside no gunman could find him there.
The truth of what has happened is particularly painful because the massacre took place inside a place the Amish consider almost a sanctuary.
In a community where the faithful meet in homes and there are few worldly possessions, the dozens of one-room schools that dot the rolling countryside are among the only public gathering places the Amish have.
'A coming together'
The Amish build each school themselves and it is the centre of the community.
The shootings have led many Amish to ponder what God has in store for them and their children.
It would be a mistake, though, to think their insulation from the outside world has left them ill-prepared for a crisis, say Amish and those who know them.
While the community has been badly shaken, it remains intact, offering support and comfort.
When Brad Aldrich, a family counsellor, was called to the school on Monday to talk with students who had fled, he found children and adults in tears, holding each other.
But to him the most-remarkable thing about the Amish community is that it is unthinkable to suffer alone.
"There is a coming together," Aldrich said. "That's how they deal with everything. They come together."
- AP
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