MADNESS! Madness is the only word that I can conjure up in my mind for these killings.








Photo by Carolyn Kaster, AP

Two of the girls were pronounced dead at the schoolhouse, and a third died later in the day at a nearby hospital. Two more girls died of their injuries overnight, hospital officials said. Miller identified the slain girls as Lena Miller, 7, and Mary Liz Miller, 8; Naomi Ebersol, 7; Anna Mae Stoltzfus, 12; and Marian Fisher, 13.

Two of the injured girls are eight years old, Miller said; the others are 6, 11 and 13 years old. The only other girl in the schoolhouse when Roberts entered, a 9-year-old, managed to escape along with her brother, Miller said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/03/AR2006100300229.html

Let us to the scripture go for a lesson?

Gen 4:8-11
Cain said to his brother Abel, "Let's go out to the field." And while they were in the field, Cain attacked his brother Abel and killed him.

9 Then the LORD said to Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?"

"I don't know," he replied. "Am I my brother's guardian?"

10 Then He said, "What have you done? Your brother's blood cries out to Me from the ground! 11 So now you are cursed with alienation from the ground that opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood you have shed.
(from Holman Christian Standard Bible® Copyright © 1999, 2000, 2002, 2003 by Holman Bible Publishers.)

Let us first consider God's question of Cain, "Where is your brother Abel?", and Cain's rather smart retort, "Am I my brother's guardian?" Seems in the back of my mind I can hear God's unspoken answer, "Well, yes. You should have guarded you brother."

Seems I can hear God ask of an Amish father, "Where is your daughter?" Would I also hear him respond, "Am I my daughters guardian?" The father's answer to his own question is a very simple, "No, I am not." That is obvious. Then the father continues the conversation with God according to the news reports, "Not only am I not my daughters guardian, but it is obviously your will that my daughter has been killed!"

God hesitates, "Excuse me? You don't think I would want you to protect your daughter? You think it is my will that your daughter was murdered?"

Rather like madness seems to me. And yet there is more.

God now says to the self deflecting father, "What have you allowed done? Your daughter's blood cries out to Me from the ground!"

The Hebrew is interesting here for the Hebrew word 'blood' in actually plural and would more correctly be translated 'bloods'. What God would actually seem to be saying is that not only has the daughter been killed but all the children, grandchildren, etc. that she would have born...are all gone and crying out to God.

God doesn't endorse Cain's killing of Abel, rather his response is, "So now you are cursed with alienation from the ground that opened its mouth to receive your brother's blood you have shed." Hummmm...Yet the father of the girl says, "Oh, by the way God, I forgive the person who killed my daughter...don't you?"

So, to me this is MADNESS!

XtnYoda Shalomed