Geesh, what a day! It is toward the end of the day at 10:02PM as I am writing this. So much has happened today, but in the time of celebrating the youth of the United Church of Christ there has been a great tragedy here in Knoxville. I feel this is important and needs to be addressed first. Today, about a mile from where I sit right now, a gunman walked into the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church during their worship time where 25 children were performing a play and the man opened fire into the congregation. No children were hurt, but 7 were shot and 2 of them were gravely injured. Shortly afterwards one gentleman died, and just before I started writing this, I checked the news and the second victim had passed on.
This news spread quickly through campus this morning around 11AM. Many of the kids were scared, shocked, but offering prayers of safety and protection to all. All of the advisors were tasked to communicate to the youth that it was very important to call home to let their families know that they were ok because it hit the national news very quickly. I too took the opportunity to call home. In the midst of this happy time it was also a somber time. We encourage the youth that they were safe and pointed out the amount of security guards, and as I now step back and look at this I realized that while on campus I did not see one person that looked out of place. Every kid and adult attending NYE had name tags, lunch arm bands, and some UCC related shirt on. I felt pretty safe here.
On the grounds of the campus there is a rock that had graffiti on it from University of Tennessee students, at some point today it was painted over in white paint. The youth of the UCC painted on this rock, “UCC Cares, Prayin’ 4 the Unitarian Church.” By the time worship was over many people wrote their blessing and prayers on it myself included. I took some pictures and if I can figure out how to include it to this post I will. This is not time to be proud, but I am very fortunate to be down here with these loving and caring kids. They have shown me what it means to care unconditional for anyone that needs it.
My thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the victims and to the victims that the Lord be with them as they go through their healing and for the families that lost loved ones that they may know the peace that the Lord will bring to the fallen ones. And to the assailant, that he finds the treatment to help him through his struggles and to understand the ramifications of his actions to those he has hurt throughout his judgment here on Earth. My prayers also go out to the community who are trying to understand why, that they may find the way to cope with this tragedy.
With this being said, I will try and recap the day as it seems to be quite a blur right now. I woke up well rested at 7AM and got cleaned up. I went to the dining hall with Joel and had pancakes for breakfast. After breakfast we headed down to the arena for the morning plenary. We had a wonderful story from Valerie about peace she is so awesome! I guess because of my tiredness the night before I forgot to mention that I had an opportunity to meet Valerie last night. I introduced myself and thanked her for her inspiring stories. She asked if I had any and I told her about my experience at PL when God was showing me where I needed to be. She reminded me this is a sacred story and every time I tell it, the listener makes it sacred to them and she said when it come a time that she tells my story it will become sacred to her listeners. I was humbled but honored to be in her presence and she is so down to earth.
John Thomas, the President and General Minister of the UCC, was up next. He gave a very inspiring speech too. After plenary it was time for another workshop. The one I attended was called “My Dad is Gay and I’m not.” There were 14 people there, ten kids and four adults. The kids all took the opportunity to talk about their experiences all of which had same-sex parents. Six of the kids went to the same church in Texas, three were from California, and 1 was from Montana. Two had were conceived through a sperm donor, three were adopted into a same-sex family, and the rest one parent came out after a divorce. For one girl it was very emotional because she lived in a conservative state and her mom’s coming out meant she and her brother had to come out too (she is not gay, that was a figure of speech. It was difficult for her and I commend her on her bravery to tell us the story. I really learned a lot about teens of today and how they handle things. They have the wisdom to find their true friends and brush off the words of mean kids by surrounding themselves by those true friends and that must take a lot of courage. I also learned that we need to talk to these kids and find out where they fall into the spectrum of doing nothing and being an advocate. It was a great workshop and I am glad I was able to squeeze it into my busy schedule, both personal and NYE related.
After the workshop I headed over for lunch and then went back to my room to start packing. We had a brief advisors meeting that covered what had happened in the morning and cover the logistics of the morning. The meeting ended and I called Uncle Herman to meet with him. The stupid lock on our room had been fussy our entire stay, but I was over tired as everyone else was so I gave up after a couple of minutes and sent Joel his first ever text message to try and get my Maine NYE t-shirt for our photo later on. I headed down to Cumberland Avenue to the McDonald’s to meet Uncle Herman.
Again, it was so nice to have the opportunity to see family while I was down here. We talked about everything from family history to retirement plans. My family down here is so great and Uncle Herman is so funny too. I wished there was a way that I can see them more often than every 8 to 10 years. I didn’t have a chance to see my other cousins Lauren and Aaron, but Aunt Marilyn brought me up to speed as to how they are doing.
I headed back to the courtyard after saying good bye and the Mainer’s gathered for a group photo. After the photo I went up to the dining hall to eat dinner. We had really good southern fried catfish and collared greens and hushpuppies which was a true southern treat. We headed down to the arena for the final worship service. The depression was starting to set in because our time down here was coming to an end. It was also sad knowing that a community was struck with tragedy and suffering today. As I was standing outside of the arena and watching the almost 3000 kids walking in put things into perspective to how lucky we are and that these kids are our future leaders and what a great group they are.
The service of course was very powerful and held with such high energy, yet we did have a prayer for the families that were involved, the community, and the victims. Tonight being the last service we had communion which is always such a huge feat to pull off with 3000 people, but it went pretty well, a little chaotic but went well. During the service I got a couple of phone calls.
Carl called me to say good night and to have a safe trip and I had the chance to talk to Nick and Ryan. After hearing the news of what happened and knowing that I was less than a mile from where it happened, they were very concerned. By this time I was really missing everyone back home so it lifted my spirits to hear from them. I think this is the first time they told me they loved me without me initiating it since they moved in and they really missed me. Uncle Herman called me to let me know that the shooting was right down the hill from us and to have a safe trip back. My mom called during communion, but I called her back afterwards. Again, as I was talking to Mom I realized how important these kids are going to be to my future someday. I stopped by the rock that the youth had painted for the UU and I wrote a message and got some pictures. I headed back to the dorm room to get the boys organized to start packing and I also jumped in on some pizza that was being ordered. We filled out evals and everyone started packing, then the pizza showed and I took a pizza for Joel and me. We ate most of it too and gave the rest to my group. I checked in with my group to see how packing was going at midnight and to my surprise it was going well so I told them I wasn’t going to check on them again for the night. Around 1AM I did have to text Ben and Alex to quiet down, but they respond well to texting. This is it for today, what a day it was. God bless everyone and God be with the TVUU church and the West Knoxville community.
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