The Knoxville, Tennessee Shootings on July 27, 2008

In Tragic Times Like These,
We Come Together in Love, Compassion and Support

Rev. Susan Karlson
Gulf Coast Unitarian Universalist Fellowship
August 3, 2008

I need the parable of the mustard seed this week. I have been reading news articles and minister chats, and op ed pieces all week long about the shootings in Tennessee. My heart has a little kink in it—I can’t seem to get the knot out. It feels like when they drained the fire hydrants outside my apartment because the pipes were sending out brown rusted water. Something in my soul needs flushing. Some hope needs tending. Some mustard seed needs to flourish. But it feels instead like something is broken into shards like the shots fired out last Sunday in Knoxville, Tennessee.

In the fall of 2001, I began my internship in Annapolis, Maryland. I took a few seminary classes at the same time—one on the Psalms and the other on Job. Looking back, I can see how much I needed those two classes. Less than a week after I started my classes and internship, the Twin Towers toppled and the Pentagon plummeted under the attacks of 9/11. I remember feeling numb, contemplating my daughter’s welfare who had just moved to New York, the world spiraling out of control before me.

That is where the Psalms came in. My professor, Denise Hopkins, had just completed a book on the Psalms. In it, she talked about the four seasons of that poetic book. The four seasons included a time of beginnings, excitement, passion; a time of dissolution and disorientation, a time for readjustment and reorientation, what I call the in-between-ness of life and a time for renewal and the birth of hope and vision. There in that numb, dislocated place, I pondered the question of the Psalmist—oh my God, why have you forsaken me? Why have you forsaken us? What is wrong with us human beings that we could do such a hideous thing? How will we ever live to hope and dream again?

Well of course we do. The human spirit is resilient. It is wise and brave and daring. It is that spirit that infused the Tennessee congregations even when they were in the midst of their personal agony. It is that way of life that becomes your default setting when you are in the midst of a crisis. You live out the fears, the ingenuity, the backlog of your life that informs how you are going to approach a rudderless time in your life. Greg McKendry had his default set and it was pretty clear that he didn’t need to think or worry; he just acted in the best interest of those children, their parents and the rest of the congregation. Those brave souls that wrestled Jim Adkisson to the ground also had their default system in place. They acted on auto-pilot within seconds of the attack. They are not just heroes—they are wise intuitive souls and their love and compassion and bravery showed up in that moment.

But I am not saying that it is bad if our response, if our default position, is set differently. We all wonder if we would act in a similar vein if something of such horrific magnitude happened to us. That is where the seasons come in—they strip our egos of right and wrong, presumed patterns we all should follow. They put us in the now of life as Eckhart Tolle describes in his book, The New Earth. They allow us to be aware of what we are feeling in this instant, to immerse ourselves in this moment, not to moralize ourselves into some future place we ought to be in.

I think we jump too quickly sometimes from disorientation to new beginnings. We push away the doubts and try to put a band aid on our wounds so we won’t know we hurt. We wipe away all the natural feelings we have in a tragic time like this so we can feel happy, certain and safe. My friends, life is just not ever certain. There is one certainty on this physical plane and that is that we have a body and we will lose this body one day. Meanwhile, we have this present instant—this second here now—the golden present. Feel that now-this one second-tick tock. Now we are on to the next one.

These days following the Tennessee shootings of our sister congregations is a wake up call. I am not saying we need tragedy to give us a wake up call, to call us to attention. But often tragedies mobilize that awareness within us; they transform us through the crucible of fire and cause some shift within us. We can ask ourselves where we are right now—in a time of disorientation and pain, undergoing a period of crisis, feeling that we are forsaken by those we love, perhaps even our understanding of God or the Divine in our lives. Or are we in a holding pattern, managing in the in-between spaces. Are we facing new beginnings, an exciting time of possibility or adventure? Or are we reorienting, resetting our compass to true north, aligned with the core of our being?

At the end of the course on the Psalms, we planned a chapel service and let everyone pick a color of yarn of their choice representing the seasons. I chose gray because I felt that my life was dissolving—not a negative thing. One has to die to be reborn, to thrive and grow. Four short months later, my mother had surgery for cancer and my cat was diagnosed with a lymphoma and died within the month. The dissolution continued, the grief and sorrow were indescribable but out of that chaos, a new life began for me and for my mother. Like the phoenix rising out of the ashes, sometimes the disorientation cycle brings us to a new birth, a greater hope, a brighter calling.

Out of the desperation and despair, hope shines forth. And that cycle of the seasons in the Psalms is like the first tiny shoots of the mustard seed in the Parable of Jesus recounted in our story for all ages. The mustard seed sprouts, emerging from the cold, barren ground. The mustard seed parable has deep meaning if we ride with it down all its metaphorical meanings. The mustard seed is that small bit of infinity that is programmed to just “be”. It is our nature to set seed, to nurture that fragile growth of this birth, to tend to one another and support one another as we realize our true nature and the spirit that is our essence. In that place, we grow from the tiny mustard size to the fully embodied spreading mustard tree, sheltering and nurturing all life that we are connected to and in deep relationship with.

And so it is with us in solidarity with sisters and brothers in Knoxville or other places where prayers and support dispel that false notion of isolation. For deep down we are all connected by a mighty taproot and we cannot really dislodge that connection through acts of hate or bitterness.

Knowledge of trauma and recovery processes tells us that one trauma will reactivate a past trauma. That is actually the way of the mind and the ego altogether. It will latch onto something that fuels its engines and run with it. In these times, it is often necessary to be gentle with ourselves, to not fault ourselves because we are moving slowly through healing, forgiveness and getting on with our lives. There is no right or wrong speed of moving through disorientation, orientation, reorientation and renewal. We just observe ourselves and our thoughts and feelings.

We can’t stand the uncertainty of life—not knowing if we might be targeted, if disaster may strike or strike again! We need to safeguard our children, put trauma response protocols in effect and do what we can to handle a future emergency. But no security policies or personnel, no emergency preparedness, locks or gates or lockdown procedures will guarantee awful events won’t happen. As the Buddha revealed, the human life is full of suffering but there are ways to awareness, a way through the darkness and the pain. There are ways to plant the mustard seed of hope and heaven on earth that will flourish as it unfolds in its time and in its unique way.

The good news of the past week is that people from every denomination and religion rallied around the Tennessee congregations with an outpouring of prayers, love and support. More people are learning some truths about Unitarian Universalism, and liberal religion through this tragedy.

The mustard seed parable plants a larger vision in our hearts—it is the power of love that continues to grow though it is threatened by larger and more pernicious weeds and vines. The love keeps right on growing, irrespective of the force bent on killing it. There are some things that cannot be eradicated. In Knoxville, the hate that burst out last Sunday could not drown out the spirit of that church—for “love is the spirit of that church and service is its law”. That is the birthright of each of us as mustard seeds in the fertile ground, becoming more aware of how closely we are tied together in a “network of mutuality”.

I read a beautiful illustration of the power of love and hope and the season of renewal recounted by the religious education director at Tennessee Valley, Brian Griffin. First Baptist in downtown Knoxville held an ecumenical service with more than 150 people in attendance. Two candles symbolized the lives of Greg McKendry and Linda Kraeger who died last Sunday. After the altar candles were lit, Brian Griffin lit a third. “This candle sat in the middle of a chalice decorated with a painting of smiling children holding hands that Griffin carried to the church.”

He said he grabbed the chalice almost instinctively as he left the church. The chalice means a lot to the “children who were traumatized last Sunday, who saw one of the worst acts I have ever witnessed in my 51 years, and they lived through it.”

“And it is their resilience and the resilience of this community that has caused me to see the hope that will come.” Lighting the chalice there was “a symbol of love.”

“I lost sight of that during the shooting; I lost sight of that for moments [on Monday]. But I have not lost sight of it now. I have never felt more confident in the power of love.”

Let us not lose sight of the power of love and hope—a force so strong that Martin Luther King reminded us: “hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear, only love can do that.” May each of us find the season of our life in our midst. May we find reassurance and a calm center in us that grows as the tiniest mustard seed and spreads out to Knoxville to shelter our own spirits and those who feel great suffering and in pain at this very hour. May it be so.