Back from Galapagos and happy to be safe and home...

We are back now from a wonderful trip to the Galapagos Islands and Quito, Ecuador (pictures coming soon). Shane's back at work, Tabitha started school this morning, and I'm back at the office (faculty retreat is in one week...).

As many of you know already, we were at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church when the shooting happened on 7/27. Although we regularly attend the new branch of this church in Maryville, we were there at my old church (member for 5 years or so) because Tabitha was in the play that morning (though not on stage at the time). I'll paste below two emails I sent to some folks that day and the next day. Otherwise, I don't feel like recounting everything here. Thank you for all the thoughts, prayers, and kindnesses during the rough couple of days afterward and still now....

Email #1:

I wanted to let you all know that we are okay. Shane, Tabitha, and I were at the Unitarian church in Knoxville when the shooting happened today. We are all pretty shaken up and grieving the loss of two wonderful people, one from our congregation and another from a different local unitarian church. We normally go to the new Unitarian church in Maryville but went up to Knoxville today for Tabitha's performance. None of us were hurt. Tabitha was as far away from the shooter as she could have been, thankfully, and ran out to the parking lot immediately. Her mom was there for the performance and was close to the exit, so she got out and put Tabitha in the car and left. Shane and I were very close to the door the shooter came through. Shane and I hid under the pews with everyone else when we realized after the second shot what was happening. When Shane saw that a couple of men were tackling the gunman, he jumped over the pews in their direction as well. Thankfully, he was not hurt. The gunman was subdued and someone got his gun away. Then Shane and another guy started evacuating us out the exit door. The rest is a chaotic blur, but we are all okay. We spent a few hours this afternoon with our church family in Maryville then a little while with some friends this evening. We are still leaving tomorrow (although later, after the debriefing and memorial service) for Atlanta then Galapagos Islands. Please forward this to anyone who might be worried, as I'm just sending to the first people I think of and we'll be away from email for almost two weeks.

Thank you for all your thoughts and prayers for the families of those who died and for our church families in general.

Email #2:

I wanted to send an email to all of you especially now that we just heard from the press conference that the shooting yesterday at the Unitarian church was an attack on "liberals and gays" (acc. to the letter the gunman left). I know you are all praying for those who lost their lives (and their families) and the children and adults who witnessed it all, but please say a special prayer as well for those who stand up for the rights of all people, no matter what race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, nationality, etc. etc. Please talk to people you know, especially our children, about love and compassion and diversity and tolerance and appreciation of differences... my heart is so heavy right now as I think about the many many GLBT young people over the past decade who have experienced the programs of that church and were made to feel just a little bit safer at their schools and churches and just in general and all the young people in general at the church whose values are what this man was attacking... please pray for them as they (and we) continue a very difficult struggle for social justice and peace.

Our faith is a crucial voice in this struggle. This is why we are here.