We were having a wonderful evening. Our family was still in town after our daughter’s wedding and we decided to take in a Riverdogs game. It was a perfect June evening in Charleston.
As we were leaving, I received a cryptic text from a pastor friend in New York City. “Just heard. Is there anything I can do?
I just assumed that it was meant for someone else…until I got home and turned on the news to learn that while we were at the baseball game, a shooter had gone into Mother Emanuel Church and opened fire. At that point we didn’t know how many victims there were.
But all of us were victims.
The next day we attended a vigil at Morris Brown AME Church attended by all our governmental officials. For the next week all the major news networks broadcast live from Broad Street. President Obama game to the funeral where he was so moved that he broke into Amazing Grace. There was a vigil that stretched across the Cooper River Bridge, hands held in hope that our city might not break out into the violence that we had seen played out in so many other places.
Our city changed.
I changed.
I just knew that we would do something after the massacre of school children at Sandy Hook, but nothing happened. But this….this was in our town. I knew Rev. Pinckney, more as a state senator than a pastor. This was personal. As my wife says, my preaching changed. I was no longer willing to be subtle on the issue of gun violence. I addressed it in my sermon the next Sunday, along with the racism that had given it fuel.
In the next months I became active in Gun Sense SC, a move to help prevent more gun violence. For Stand Up Sunday, a move to involve congregations, synagogues, and mosques to make a difference I ended up on the cover of the Post and Courier. Our church placed crosses in front of the church to remember, and to recommit ourselves to making a difference.
It came with a cost. A year and a half later we were in Nova Scotia. A friend asked me, would you do anything different? I thought about it and said, “No.”
June 17, 2015 changed me and the trajectory of my life. I just hope it changed our world for the better.