TVUUC healing one day at a time

Since the deadly shooting July 27th, the congregation of Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church has been trying to heal, one day at a time.

"The man who came in here was trying to divide us into different categories: liberals, conservatives, gays, straights--trying to fragment the community, and the community said 'No. We are one. We are one community," said Rev. Chris Buice, sitting in the sanctuary the church has since rededicated and reclaimed.

As the leader of the TVUCC, Buice felt a need to attend Jim Adkisson's court hearing Wednesday morning.

"I needed to see a human being not on a printed page or on television, so I did that," said Buice. "I just needed to see him. I needed to acknowledge that this was a human being. And that's all I did. I didn't make any great interpretations."

Greg McKendry died in the shooting. Linda Kraeger, visiting from Westside Unitarian Universalist Church, was also killed.

"We've lost just a beloved member. We've invited guests in, and they've experienced this horrible trauma," said Buice.

The shooting during a children's musical production has changed the way church members think.

"A guitar case -- we look at it a different way," said Buice. The shooter pulled a sawed off shotgun from a guitar case. "I remember after September 11th, I saw a plane flying over, and I got viscerally upset and it was just a plane."

The death penalty is something Unitarian Universalists have historically opposed.

But individuals at the local congregation are free to make up their own minds about it, and they are free to decide how they think it could apply to a man who disrupted the peace of their sanctuary.

"We've got a lot of people here going through a lot of different emotions, and my job is to listen and to learn and help people reflect," said Buice.

Church members are starting to discuss among themselves how to continue healing. They have some ideas, but nothing definite.

"Places for people to center and to be calm and to mediate or pray or talk and hug and create spaces for healing," said Buice.

One day at a time will stretch to months and years of remembering the tragedy, yet moving forward.

"I guess Martin Luther King said 'Where do we go from here, chaos or community?' We're going toward community. What that looks like, we only dimly know, but we're going to move toward community, both here and in the larger community," said Buice.