My People Are in Pain

I know as a person who is “almost” a Minister I should not feel any different about who people are when a tragedy occurs, but the shooting in a Knoxville Unitarian Universalist church today has hit me squarely in the chest. Although I do not believe that I know anyone who belongs to this church, these are my people and they are hurting. So therefore I hurt.

I mourn with the people who are in that congregation, folks who I could have easily known had my life taken me to live in Knoxville. I cry for the family of the man who has died, and the families whose loved ones lie gravely ill in the hospital. I hurt for the Minister, who has lost a congregant and probably a friend and who now must care for all those in his community who hurt, even with his wounds so open and tender. And I care deeply for the man who fired the shots, wondering what in his life has hurt him so profoundly that he came to take such a drastic action as this.

These are my people and I mourn for them, their lost innocence and sense of safety, their loss of a friend and for the violation of the sanctity of their church, their beloved community.

I send to them my love and care, my hope that they can hold each other close and heal from this tear in the fabric of their lives.

Take care my friends and know that you are tenderly held in the hands and hearts of many of us that you will never know. Rest assured that tonight we are reminded of our shared humanity and have felt the rip in our interdependent web of existence. Tonight we are all members of the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. We are all your people.

Praying for Strength, Courage and Wisdom,

Suzanne