“Where there is hatred, let us sow love.” These words of St. Francis pierce the heart in the aftermath of hatred — stoked by President Trump — displayed by the vicious participants of last Wednesday’s insurrection against our government.

I could not help but contrast their savage reaction to imagined grievances with the response, in October 2006, of the Amish community of Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania, to the massacre of several of their children by a deranged gunman. They answered cruelty not with revenge but with love so profound that the world will never forget it: they forgave the psychopath who had slaughtered their little ones before committing suicide, and they comforted his family.

In a letter to The Day on Oct. 9, 2006, I wrote, “It is hard to conceive that a community so assaulted…would consciously choose nonviolence over vindictiveness… Our Amish brothers and sisters have…obeyed the divine commandment of love and forgiveness when it would have been so much more natural — and comprehensible — to exact retribution and redress.”

Last week’s terrorists sought vengeance over the results of an election! The shattered families of Nickel Mines, who had every legitimate reason to expect “retribution and redress,” chose instead to extend love and forgiveness. What a lesson to be learned.

Anne Carr Bingham

Salem