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Shootings at the UU Church in Knoxville

applewuud

applewuud

Active Member
A day later, Dr. Barnhart was interviewed on the Today show (see full text and video at Shooting survivor ‘thought I was dying’ - TODAY: People - MSNBC.com )

​
Reflections on hate
Investigators described Adkisson as a former member of an Army airborne unit who trained as a mechanical engineer, but had been out of work since 2006. In a four-page letter found in his SUV, Adkisson expressed his belief that the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church was a haven for liberalism in the typically socially conservative
area of Eastern Tennessee.
A former teacher of ethics and social tolerance, Barnhart identified Adkisson as a textbook sociopath.
“There’s a psychiatrist up in Harvard who wrote ‘The Sociopath Next Door,’ ” Barnhart said, referring to a 2005 book by Martha Stout. “And I think she describes a sociopath rather clearly. They can appear nice and pleasant on the surface, but basically they think of other people as objects — as things, not persons.
“[Adkisson] did not know Linda Kraeger, a good, decent human being — an author, a caretaker, a good wife for her husband,” Barnhart went on. “He didn’t know me. He didn’t know my brothers, my daughter.
“He just picked a row out and shot down the row.”


P.S.: They found a letter in Adkisson's apartment from the state, cutting his food stamp allocation. Yeah, those liberals, they want to send our jobs overseas and cut our welfare...oh, wait, that's what Reagan did..;)

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J. Miles Cary / Knoxville News Sentinel / Polaris
Shooting suspect Jim D. Adkisson is taken away by police.

Notice his Tennessee t-shirt...a sociopath attempting to portray himself as a righteous son of the Confederacy:cover:.
 
uu_sage

uu_sage

Active Member
My prayers and healing thoughts are with TVUUC, and others involved in this tragedy. Although our larger faith is experiencing a dark night of the soul, I am confident in God's all encompassing, and everlasting love will bring the shooter to wholeness. I had a chance of attending two or three separate vigil services for those lost, and injured in Second Life as well as contributing funds to the congregations involved in the hope that they will make it through, and resume the important work of being co-creators with the Eternal in transforming the human race into the human family. Sadly, I wasn't able to make the vigil at my real life church but nevertheless I was there to comfort, and to be comforted.
 
lilithu

lilithu

The Devil's Advocate
IMO the best response to the shootings thus far is not a response to the shootings at all. It was written almost two years ago, in response to a UU church's rainbow flag being vandalized. From Rev. Peter Friedrichs:

What, then, are we to do in response to this attack on our church,
this desecration of a sacred symbol? How do we react when we encounter
such a blatant display of hatred from someone in our community? I am
reminded here of the old children's game of Rock, Paper, Scissors. Do
you remember how that's played? Standing toe to toe with your opponent,
on the count of three, you throw out your hand in one of three shapes.
Scissors beats paper, rock beats scissors and paper beats rock. It's
this last combination that intrigues me. Paper beats rock. In this
game, the rock is symbolized by a fist. The fist is a sign of power.
You raise your fist in anger or in hatred. The fist is violent; it is
an instrument of pain and suffering. A fist, like a rock, can inflict
serious wounds. When rock meets rock, you have nothing but a stalemate
and a repeat of the contest. But if rock meets any other opponent,
you'd think that rock wins out every time. But paper beats rock. And
how does it do that? It does it by wrapping rock. Paper beats rock
because it is soft, because it is flexible. Look at what paper does. It
envelops and overwhelms rock.

Love, that soft force, the force that is supple and flexible, the
force that holds and caresses and envelops, beats hate. Like water, it
wears down the rock of hate, bit by bit. It shapes and changes the
rock, conforming the rock to its own contours. It's a slow process, for
sure. It doesn't overpower, but eventually it overwhelms. Love
overcomes hatred and power and violence. It does this through its
persistence and its persuasion. The writer Anne Lamott says it best
when she says, "This is the most profound spiritual truth I know: that
even when we're most sure that love can't conquer all, it seems to
anyway."

The full text of the sermon is available on my website:
Paper Beats Rock | wizdum.net
 
applewuud

applewuud

Active Member
A friend sent me the following reading by the Rev. Jeanne Lloyd, a UU minister in Western Massachusetts:

[FONT=&quot]
[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Minister’s Reflection[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I know Knoxville. My parents were married at Broadway Baptist Church in Knoxville. My grandfather was a policeman in the Knoxville police department for most of his life. My father’s uncle ran the Hamilton National Bank in Knoxville for all his life. My mother’s father and she herself ran several White Store grocery stores in Knoxville. My father was the first child in his family to go to college at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville, and I went there too for a short while. The church I attended in Knoxville, when I was a child, was the Second Presbyterian Church on Kingston Pike, next door to the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church. I know Knoxville.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I know its people. Its people are kind and gracious people who extend to all, and especially strangers, a gracious, friendly, southern hospitality that welcomes you into the fold. These are good people.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]I also know Powell, Tennessee. It is the place where my grandfather, uncle, and aunt lived for at least 20 years. It lays half way between Knoxville and Oak Grove, where my mother was born on a farm. It is a land of rolling hills, lakes and fields. It is a land of good people, many of whom dedicate their lives to practicing Jesus’ teachings of loving oneself as one’s neighbor. It is a place, they say, that Jim Adkisson dwelled before choosing to enter Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church on Sunday morning, July 27th, 2008, intending to kill as many liberals and gays as he could, before dying himself in the heat of battle. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Friends, this is what hate looks like. This is what evil looks like. Let us plainly name it as such. Evil is when one’s life events and others’ hate shape one’s beliefs so much that the easy answer is to blame an entire people for the sorrows of your own life. Evil is when we label people as “the other.” [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]As Unitarian Universalists, we are the religious liberals that he and others like him hate. [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]But, we are a people who, for hundreds of years, have fought for individual freedom and democratic representation. We as Unitarians and Universalists help found this country, right here in Massachusetts. We are a people who promote fair and equitable treatment of everyone, regardless of their race, color, sex, ability, affectional or sexual orientation, age, national orientation, or religious beliefs. We have fought and died for several hundred years for the civil rights of people of color, women, people with disabilities, people with different gender preferences, and, children. We believe in supporting each person’s search for health and wholeness, truth and justice. We do not tell people what to believe, but we do ask that you and I hold each person sacred while respecting each person’s search for truth.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]As Unitarian Universalists, we worship that which calls us to bring health and wholeness to our lives and to others. It is a senseless tragedy when the evil that is hate creates so much prejudice that people come to believe that secular and religious liberals who work in shelters, serve community meals, and promote fair treatment and dignity for all people . . . are the enemy. We are not the enemy. We work to change patterns of injustice. And, we weep to know that Jim Adkisson’s soul was so corrupted by others spewing hate and his life’s experiences that he believed to his core that our sisters and brothers at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church were his enemy. Plainly said, they were not. We are not.[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]We weep for the tragedy of hate that brought death to brother Greg McKendry, age 60, and Linda Kraeger, age 61, who did nothing more than arise on Sunday morning, and go to church to seek spiritual nourishment and to extend a welcome hand to strangers who came to the door. We weep that the hand of hospitality they offered received such violent hate in return. We weep for our brothers and sisters, injured, wounded, and still recovering:[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]We hold in our hearts, the Barnhart family, of whom three were wounded: Joe Barnhart, age 76; Jack Barnhart, age 69: Betty Barnhart, age 71; and for Linda Chavez, age 41; John Worth, Jr, age 68; Allison Lee, age 42; and Tammy Sommers, age 38. We pray for their recovery, physically and spiritually.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]We pray for all of our brothers and sisters who sat on Sunday in the Knoxville UU sanctuary, wanting nothing more than to enjoy the gift of childrens’ song, laughter, anxiety and bravado, as they performed for their loving parents, relatives, friends and grandparents. Most of all we pray for the children, who practiced hard to deliver their joyful performances, looking for pride from their family and friends; but for whom, now, their memories will be forever shattered by horror, betrayal and blood caused by a stranger who came to their door, for the sole purpose of killing them. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]Where will their trust in humanity come from, as they go through life? We pray that they will come to understand that there are good people in this world, many people in Tennessee, who deserve their trust, and to whom they can go to for help and reassurance in troubled times. We pray that they and their families will not also be mortally wounded by betrayal and fear, but will, with courage, stand again for equal rights for all people, no matter the cost.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]We pray for the rebuilding of our Unitarian Universalist sister congregations in Knoxville and Farragut.[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]We pray that they will continue to hold close to their hearts the words of Francis David, the Unitarian martyr who died in prison in 1579 for believing these words that he scratched on the walls of his prison cell, “We need not think alike, to love alike.”[/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“We need not think alike, to love alike.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]Friends, “We need not think alike, to love alike.”[/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]As Unitarian Universalists we believe that [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]“Love is the Spirit of our faith and Service its law. [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]That THIS is our great covenant: [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]To dwell together in peace, [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]To seek the truth in love, [/FONT]
[FONT=&quot]and to help one another.” [/FONT]

[FONT=&quot]May it be so.[/FONT]
 
Trey of Diamonds

Trey of Diamonds

Well-Known Member
I had the opportunity to visit the Tennessee Valley UU Church after the shootings. Business was taking me to Oak Ridge and the office was only 20 miles from the church. So, I went to my church here in Houston and told them I could stop at the TVUUC and offer our condolences in person. Well, as with all UU churches everyone jumped on the idea and decided we should do something special if we could.

After a few gatherings amongst the members it was decided that we would have our children create a painted canvas to give to the children of TVUUC because it was their special day that was ruined. So, the weekend after the shootings we had our children gather and place their hands in paint and then place them on a canvas in the shape of a peace sign. The following Monday I flew to Knoxville with the rolled up canvas.

I presented the canvas to Brian Griffin, the Director of Religious Education and he was very pleased and excited to get something for the kids. I was able to spend a little time with Brian and I must say, he is a remarkable man. I’d, of course, read many of the articles about the shootings and saw his name many times but I didn’t realize what a man of strength he was until meeting him. In such a time of darkness it will be people like him that show the way to the light.

While there was a touch of the somber about the church there was also much activity surrounding the beginning of RE. There were many smiles freely given and I have no doubt this is a congregation capable of moving past the events that shattered their world. I felt humbled just being in their presence and wished I could have stayed for a Sunday service. But I had to hop a plane back to Houston to be with my family and the extended family of my church.
 
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