It’s gone. The place where 10 little girls once went to school.

A one-room schoolhouse in Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania. Amish country.

A pasture will remain in its place, a gentle memorial to the innocent ones caught in one man’s tragedy.

‘Be ye not unequally yoked with believers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? What fellowship can light have with darkness?’ II Corinthians 6:14

The Amish take this scripture literally. They attempt to live separate lives, devoid of modern conveniences like telephones, televisions and cars. It’s their own little Tranquil Haven, except that it’s not being built for selfish reasons. They want to be separate from the secular, to be pleasing to God.

Still, man encroaches.

We want to see how they live. We peek, buy their quilts and pies, and marvel that they can live in the foothills of the Alleghenies as if nothing else on the planet exists, except their little spot of heaven.

And, every now and then, we remind them that there’s a big world out there. If you haven’t heard by now, on October 2nd of this year, 10 little girls were shot at point blank range in their Amish schoolhouse. Of the 10, five died. The other five are presumed still hospitalized (the Amish, being very private people, have asked that the hospital no longer give any information on them). The killer also killed himself.

Just as we learned with racial segregation, separate but equal rarely works. Those children were innocently slaughtered, and to all of us it was a tragedy.

Which brings me back to the Scripture above. What did righteousness and wickedness do when combined? Create death. Apparently, the Bible is right on this one, the two cannot coexist.

It’s something that the rest of us should think about as we make our ethical decisions today, and choose carefully.

The life we save could be our own.

See you at the top!
Wendi