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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The sun was still shining brightly when I pulled into the parking lot of Christ Presbyterian Church here on Tuesday. Traffic was backed up outside the church, and I was a few minutes late for the start of a prayer service for the victims of the Covenant School shooting that had occurred just a few miles up the road the day before. Christ Presbyterian is a sister church of Covenant Presbyterian Church, a member of the same evangelical denomination, the Presbyterian Church in America, PCA for short.
The church was packed. The pews were full. Men, women and children lined the walls. Faces were streaked with tears. As I walked into the room, Nate Morrow, the head of Christ Presbyterian Academy, spoke to the congregation. "Prayer," he said, "is the first and most powerful thing we can do."
If you're a parent of a schoolchild in 2023, you've perhaps gotten some form of the "lockdown" text. It could come from the school itself, announcing that a dangerous, or at least suspicious, incident is underway at school or nearby. More likely it would come from your network of friends. "Does anyone know anything?" someone will ask. They'll have heard about an incident elsewhere in town, and the rumors cascade across social media and group texts.
On Monday, I was finishing recording a podcast when my phone lit up. I saw the words "school shooting." Then, "Covenant School." I froze. I know Covenant. I belonged to PCA churches for 18 years, until my family and I moved to a new church late last year. I've been to meetings at Covenant Presbyterian. I've spoken to the pastor. The PCA is a very small world, and I knew that I'd be at most one degree removed from the victims. I learned later, to my heartbreak, that the pastor's daughter, Hallie Scruggs, was one of them.
The rest of my day was torn in two. My professional self locked into an all-too-familiar fact-finding routine. Who did it? Which weapons did they use? Do we know their motive? Does this shooting fit the patterns? My personal self, by contrast, was focused on a single, overriding question: "Who is hurt?"
As the day dragged on, there were bursts of good news and terrible news. One friend's daughter had been there but was safe. News trickled in that other families were breathing sighs of relief. And throughout the day, the same words came across my screen, short prayers. "God have mercy." "Lord have mercy."