A man from the North was on a business trip in the South when he stopped at a restaurant for breakfast.

He ordered scrambled eggs, bacon, a biscuit and coffee. He was stunned to find his meal served with funny white stuff called grits.

Catching the waitress attention, the man pointed to the grits on his plate and said, "What's this? I didn't order this."

"You don't order grits," the waitress responded. "They just come."

I think this story is a good way to explain the nature of God's grace and how it works in our lives.

You don't order grace. It just comes. I read the book "Amish Grace" over the Labor Day holiday weekend while taking a break from swimming and boating on Lake Hartwell. The book explores how the Amish community has been able to practice forgiveness even in the face of great tragedy.

Outsiders often regard the Amish as an old-fashioned culture which shuns today's technology and still works the rich eastern Pennsylvania farm land with antique farming equipment. Horse-drawn buggies along with the Amish preference for 18th Century-style clothes further serve to reinforce this stereotype.

But the Amish have an interesting viewpoint on the subject of forgiveness which runs directly against the grain.

In October of 2006, a deeply disturbed man shot 10 girls in a school house in the Nickel Mines Amish community in Pennsylvania.

Five of the girls were killed in the horrific shooting. One family lost two girls.

Within several hours of the shooting, several members of the Amish community had already reached out to the killer's family to express their sorrow and forgiveness.

The parents of several children invited members of the killer's family to attend their daughters' funerals. When the gunman was buried, the "Amish Grace" book notes more than half of the 75 mourners were Amish.

The Amish people even donated money to help the gunman's family.

This response by the Amish community falls in sharp contrast to the Old Testament teaching of an "Eye for an Eye. Tooth for Tooth." It doesn't fit well either with Jesus requesting people turn the other cheek when someone hurts them.

How do you deal with the natural reactions of anger and bitterness in a world which tells us revenge is okay?

What does it mean to love another person, even if it's our enemy? Is forgiveness always the loving thing to do?

I have found myself wrestling with these questions in much the same way three academic scholars struggled to make sense of the Amish's unusual stance on forgiveness in the book

"Amish Grace." The 183- page book was written in the months following the Nickel Mines tragedy by academic scholars Donald B. Kraybill, Steven M. Nolt and David L. Weaver-Zercher.

The authors interviewed Amish community residents in an attempt to answer the questions raised publicly about their quick ability to forgive.

In reading the book, it becomes clear forgiveness for the Amish is not just a one-time event.

The book cites several stories where the Amish responded to a fatal car accident, shooting, or family member's tragic death with forgiveness and gracious acts towards the offenders.

"Amish people understand that evil deeds carry consequence — which are often meted out by the state — but they are keen not to allow that worldly process to entice them to seek revenge," according to a passage from "Amish Grace."

The Amish place a great deal of importance on the Lord's Prayer in their worship activities. They emphasize the prayer's line about "forgiving our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us."

One Amish carpenter quoted in the book explains this attitude more simply:

"If we don't forgive, we won't be forgiven."

People can learn more about this radical concept of forgiveness by reading the book "Amish Grace."

Kraybill, one of the book's authors, will speak November 16 at Limestone College. His lecture concludes a fall speaker series called "Through the Darkness: Toward the Light" organized by the Limestone College chaplain's office.

In a world where repaying evil with revenge is often the first response, the Amish remind us there is another way. Their ability to practice forgiveness goes right to the heart of spiritual ideals about how we should treat each other.

Scott Powell (spowell@gaffneyledger.com) covers education issues for The Gaffney Ledger.