In their grief, the Amish will be sustained by faith in forgiveness, writes Rev Robert Dunlop, once a guest of the community
Waking up in an Amish settlement is an unforgettable experience. Morning breaks with the clip-clop sound of horses and buggies carrying farmers to the activities of their day. When the place is called Paradise it is even more special. We spent a few days in Paradise visiting the local Baptist church and taking up a rare invitation to call at a small, one-room schoolhouse out in the sprawling countryside. I have memories of the young boys' hats and black coats hanging on the back wall, demure teachers, happy children and a treasured hand-made dressing-table cover presented to us as Irish visitors.
The tragic happenings at the small rural Amish school in Lancaster County, Pennslyvania, have stunned people around the world. It has special poignance for me and my wife Olive, as we recall walking those quiet rural roads and waving at those traditional and resourceful people. I have memories, too, of trying to steal a photograph - the Amish resist photographs on the grounds that they violate the biblical injunction not to make graven images.
There is an irony in the fact that this visitation of death happened in the settlement called Paradise. It is hardly possible to think of a more peaceful place. The Old Order Amish, with their distinctive dress, quaint ways and simple lifestyle, emit an enduring presence. Their farms are neat and well-maintained. They are a people who, while turning away from modernity, have a special integrity and devotion. Families are large and are bonded in deep community. They live their own lives calmly and, while conservative in their beliefs, are not a cult. Therefore, they, the "plain" people, have dealings with their "fancy" neighbours.
They are pacifists and renounce all violence as part of their Anabaptist heritage. They are named after Jakob Amman, a 17th-century elder of the Swiss Brethren at Erlenbach in the canton of Berne.
Known as the Pennsylvania Dutch, they speak a German dialect which reflects their European origins. With their horses and buggies, they follow their daily tasks with dedication, worshipping fortnightly, not in church buildings but in each other's homes.
The film Witness, starring Harrison Ford, captured many aspects of their lifestyle and showed their communal bonding in the barn-raising episode. Some of its scenes were shot in the settlement of Intercourse, a short distance from Paradise.
The brutal invasion of the innocence and simplicity of an Amish school will leave a permanent scar on these likeable, old-fashioned, hard-working, peace-loving people. The loss of at least five of their children will never be forgotten.
But they will grieve in their own cultural and spiritual setting. Their bishops, senior members of the community, will minister comfort as they draw on scripture, sing hymns and look to God in prayer. Like all bereaved parents, their tears will flow and their hearts will break, but their deeply held principles will determine their actions in the face of tragedy.
Perhaps because of their Swiss/German origins, the Amish will show a stoical, steadfast, faith-based reaction. While holding a strong belief in divine providence, they are not fatalists.
Consistent with their pacifism and emphasis on forgiving wrongdoers, they reached out to Marie Roberts, the widow of the man who killed their children, and asked her to come to the funeral services. Understandably, she declined but the Amish families will stay in touch with her.
Millions who prayed for them this week feel a sense of pain and grief that such inoffensive lovers of God and nature should be so harshly violated. The shockwaves have echoed far beyond the wide plains of Pennsylvania, where the Amish have ordered their lives and lived their faith for nearly three centuries. Sympathy flowed all the way down to Dunmore East in Co Waterford, where the only Irish Amish Mennonite community live and worship.
As the horse-drawn hearse wove its way through the lanes around Paradise to the neat rural cemetery this week, tears came to many an eye. This is where Mary Liz Miller (aged eight), her sister Lina (seven), and their friends, Marian Fisher (13), Anna Mae Stoltzfus (12) and Naomi Rose Ebersole (seven) now rest. They sleep among their own people to await the resurrection of the righteous in the paradise of God, where day will dawn and every tear will be wiped away.
• Rev Robert Dunlop is a retired Baptist minister at Brannockstown, Co Kildare. He has close associations with the Mennonites and sees the Amish as the most traditional and conservative part of the Anabaptist tradition