tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30752286.post116032961279516748..comments2023-05-29T07:57:01.804-06:00Comments on The Front Porch: Rebecca Valentinehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14152618745135315858noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30752286.post-1161001202720631982006-10-16T06:20:00.000-06:002006-10-16T06:20:00.000-06:00having grown up camping every year in and around l...having grown up camping every year in and around lancaster, the amish were somethin i was familiar with. or so i thought until i read your article. i did not know about this respite they allow their teenage children. interesting to say the least. <BR/><BR/>sadly, what struck me most about this horrific event? is that the families have no photographs of their children. i cannot begin to imagine never seeing my daughter's face again. not having something tangible to hold and cherish. sadly, given enough time, some memories fade. i know this. i live this. photographs are all that remain in faded memories...<BR/><BR/>i am not certain i will ever learn to be as forgiving as the amish. it is an on-going process that i work on each and every day.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30752286.post-1160507850897653702006-10-10T13:17:00.000-06:002006-10-10T13:17:00.000-06:00So much of what we've been fearing comes from a wo...So much of what we've been fearing comes from a world outside our own. Though it's more frightening this way, it's also somehow easier to take, because we can label that kind of evil "Other." <BR/><BR/>This evil was so much worse because it had a face, and that face was one of our own. Not some "terrorist" from overseas, but a nondescript, unremarkable face that belonged to one of us. I'm sure none of us is in a hurry to claim Charles Carl Roberts as "our own," but he was. <BR/><BR/>He was of our culture, one in which we are becoming so alienated from one another that it's somehow not quite truly shocking any longer when a grown man ties up little girls and shoots them in front of each other because of some guilt he harbored from a long-ago episode of poor judgment and sick behavior. <BR/><BR/>One in which someone this sick is allowed to walk free because we're socially loathe to get too far involved in others' business, while the government is now free to pluck any of us off the face of the planet and hide us away pretty much forever without due cause or having to prove anything, just because one lone man with judgment proven equally poor thinks it should be so.<BR/><BR/>Like you, Rebecca, I am shamed. I am shamed by a country whose citizens get more worked up about the outcome of a freakin' football game than they do about a horrifying situation like this, or about a government that's constantly and steadily eroding the civil rights granted us by our own constitution.<BR/><BR/>And now North Korea has entered the nuclear fray, and that same, scary little man is again making threats. No wonder the Amish choose not to participate. Can you blame them?<BR/><BR/>Indeed, God help us all.Mary A. Shaferhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03157096669944996000noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30752286.post-1160480668807035492006-10-10T05:44:00.001-06:002006-10-10T05:44:00.001-06:00I fear it's a continuation brought on by the evil ...I fear it's a continuation brought on by the evil of the adults that preach war and hatred. <BR/>When those we trust deny others basic civil rights it's bound to cause intolerance in countless ways. <BR/>The hypocrisy is nauseating.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-30752286.post-1160480640316629362006-10-10T05:44:00.000-06:002006-10-10T05:44:00.000-06:00I fear it's a continuation brought on by the evil ...I fear it's a continuation brought on by the evil of the adults that preach war and hatred. <BR/>When those we trust deny others basic civil rights it's bound to cause intolerance in countless ways. <BR/>The hypocrisy is nauseating.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com