Remembering Knoxville
It was just a year ago today when the peace of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church in Knoxville (TVUUC) was shattered by gunfire that took the lives of two and injured several others. The Knoxville Church Shooting, as it came to be known, was a traumatic not just for those who were there that terrible morning, but for Unitarian Universalists around the world.
Yesterday, at the request of TVUUC minister the Rev. Christopher Buice and the Rev. Mitra Jafarzadeh of Westside Unitarian Universalist Church, many of whose members were in the audience that morning for a children’s performance of Annie Jr., our congregation, the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Woodstock joined many others across the country in lighting the Chalice in memory of shooting victims Greg McKendry and Linda Kraeger.
Rev. Brice has written movingly about the shooting and its aftermath in Their Spirit is Still with Us, an article posted on uuworld.org. I urge you to read it.
Besides paying tribute to the many heroes who came to the fore that dark day and in its aftermath, he reminds of the special resilience of the children, whose performance was interrupted by horror. He recalls how they volunteered-no insisted-on being a part of the city wide memorial service conducted two days later at the near-by Second Presbyterian Church which was attended by UUA President William Sinkford and Knoxville residents of all religions. At the close of the service the children united to sing the song that they never sang that Sunday--Tomorrow. The crowd, moved to tears, rose and spontaneously joined in the song.
That’s what I had in mind when I wrote the following poem, which I first posted on this blog a few days after the shootings. I read it again in church yesterday, following the chalice lighting.
KNOXVILLE: 7/27/2008 10:26 A.M
They are about to sing about Tomorrow,
as fresh and delicate as impatiens in the dew,
when Yesterday, desperate and degraded
bursts through the doors
barking despair and death
from the business end of a sawed of shotgun.
Tomorrow will have to wait,
Yesterday-grievances and resentments,
a life full of missed what-ifs
and could-have-beens,
of blame firmly fixed on Them,
the very Them despised by
all the herald angels of perfect virtue-
has something to say.
Yesterday gives way to Now,
the eternal, inescapable Now,
flowing from muzzle flash
to shattered flesh,
the Now when things happen,
not the reflections of Yesterday
or the shadows of Tomorrow,
the Now that always Is.
Now unites them,
victims and perpetrator,
the innocent and the guilty,
the crimson Now.
Tomorrow there will be villain and martyrs,
Tomorrow always knows about Yesterday,
will tell you all about it in certain detail.
And yet Tomorrow those dewy impatiens
will sing at last-
The sun will come out Tomorrow,
bet your bottom dollar on tomorrow
come what may…
How wise those little Flowers
To reunite us all in Sunshine.
--Patrick Murfin