What a book. What a story! I’m fairly certain I read a book years ago—maybe when I was 10 or 11—that told the story of the schoolhouse shooting. It was written from an Anabaptist perspective, and what I remember of it was good. Since then, I’ve thought of the story a few times, but when I saw that Shawn Smucker had a hand in the crafting of this book, I knew I wanted to read it. Not only did it have the potential to be a life-changing story; I appreciate the way he writes, so I knew I was in for a good reading experience.

I wasn’t disappointed. What surprised me, though, was my reaction to the story. Since first reading about the Nickel Mines School shooting, I’ve experienced some tragedy in my own life, and watching the different community members respond to these precious girls’ deaths challenged me in my own responses. I tried to make the right choices at the time—I knew what could potentially happen if I did not—but watching these families walk through something so difficult, even in the few short chapters in this book, challenged my thinking and reactions. Does Jesus’ way of love, peace, and forgiveness really hold up in the 21st century? Yes, I believe it does—and after reading this book, I’m even more convinced that it does.

This is a beautiful, moving, heartfelt read. I had to gulp down tears a time or two, but the overarching theme of hope and forgiveness left me awed as I finished the book, instead of depressed. I’d recommend this book to anyone who appreciates true, redemptive stories. ( )

The nation—and much of the world—was shocked in October 2006 when headlines screamed the news of the shooting deaths of ten little Amish girls in their one-room schoolhouse in Pennsylvania. A day later, when the news got out that the Amish parents had visited the family of the shooter to offer forgiveness and reconciliation, the shock was even greater and the news spread even farther. How could such a horrendous act of violence against innocent children be forgiven?

Jonas Beiler grew up in an Amish community. As a teenager, he chose to leave because of his incurable love of automobiles. Think No Evil is Beiler’s memoir of the shootings and the events that followed. Writer Shawn Smucker, whose mother grew up Amish, was Beiler’s professional guide in the writing. At the time of the events about which they write, both men were living in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, where the shootings took place. It was more than an Amish tragedy; it was a tragedy for everyone who lived in the area.

Beiler and his brother had operated an auto parts business until his brother’s accidental death. It was this death, as well as the death of his three-year-old daughter and a crisis in his marriage, that eventually motivated Beiler to found a counseling center. His status in the community as a counselor gained him access to the crime scene when others, even the parents of dying children, were kept behind the crime scene’s yellow plastic tape.

Beiler’s story is a very personal one. He begins by describing the community where he lives as an “English” (the Amish term for non-Amish) and where many of his friends descend from families who have occupied the area for more than two hundred years—as far back as the earliest settlements, before America’s United States had come into existence. Amish farmers in the area sell their produce and crafts—exquisite quilts, beautifully fashioned furniture, home-baked goods, and more—at weekend markets, festivals, and by the roadside. Sometimes roadside stands are not attended. Buyers choose their produce and leave their payment in a box.

It is in this atmosphere of trust and diligence that the unthinkable occurred.

There is no way to describe the scene Beiler witnessed without a sense of horror—the sight of ten little girls, blood-covered and lying on the grass outside the schoolhouse, as the first two EMTs arrive and begin their work to save whom they can and urgently move on to the next when it’s too late or looks to be too hopeless. Beiler, though, tells it with compassion and quiet dignity. He does not exploit the terrible anguish of the situation, and never ventures into the seamy journalistic language of shock and terror to prey upon his reader’s emotions.

The shooter was a local man. Charlie Roberts drove the milk truck that called on Amish farms to collect their day’s production to be taken to the dairy for bottling. They knew his face. They knew he had a wife and children who lived in the area. They knew he attended a local church. Nothing about it made sense.

Beiler describes the wakes, the funerals, the Amish meetings with the Roberts family to share in their loss. He describes the tearing down of the schoolhouse where the shootings took place and the building of a new one, farther from the road, hidden safely behind trees. He tells us how things were a year later, about the picnic where he saw the five young girls who survived the shootings, how one of them who was expected to die now lives on in a wheelchair.

When he completes his telling of the tale, Beiler attempts to answer the question that everyone has been asking, “How can they forgive?” and the question that he and others asked themselves, “What can we learn to help us more gracefully carry our own burdens?”

His answers begin with a history of the Amish, their founding 500 years ago in Germany, their settlements in the New World, the forming and honing of their commitment to forgiveness and reconciliation. He tells of his own challenges—the deaths of his brother and daughter, the affair that nearly destroyed his marriage—and how they were overcome with the help of caring therapists and the practice of forgiveness.

Whether you simply want to know the inside story of the Amish schoolhouse shootings, or you want to understand more deeply the practice of forgiveness that Beiler addresses in his last two chapters, this is a fine personal memoir of an event that captured the attention of millions across the globe—not because of its senseless brutality, but because of the nearly impossible-to-believe forgiveness extended by the victims.

“The Amish will be the first to tell you they’re not perfect,” Beiler writes, “but they do a lot of things right. Forgiveness is one of them.” That is the story he set out to write, he tells us, “how ordinary human beings ease their own pain by forgiving those who have hurt them.” ( )

I have read this book and Amish Grace by Donald B. Kraybill, et al., which deals with the same tragic events. I found both very interesting, but the books have different strengths. This book is better for those who want a detailed accounting of the events. It is also more personal, and the author reflects on tragedies in his own life in view of the need for forgiveness, and the difficulties that still haunt survivors. His own daughter was accidentally killed by his sister-in-law, and while he says that he found it easy to forgive her, the tragedy still nearly tore apart his marriage.

Amish Grace does a better job of considering the sources and implications of the Amish insistence on forgiveness. They explain what it means; the Amish distinguish forgiveness, pardon, and reconciliation, all three of which are often included under the term forgiveness. The Amish also shun people who marry outside the faith, for example, which those who are shunned regard as lacking in forgiveness. The Amish say that they forgive, but they do not pardon, an issue that also comes into play when acts have legal consequences. ( )

Wow, an amazing look into the mindset of the Amish. Make one re-think how you think about forgiveness. A must read. ( )