For Pittsburgh
Sunday October 28th 2018, 9:43 pm
Filed under: History,Life

I wanted to say something yesterday but it was just too close. People I love knew people who were in the synagogue (link to their stories) where so many lives were taken and so many were hurt.

Here in our local Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, we have two wards that share the same building, switching off morning vs afternoon meeting times. We’re in the afternoon time slot this year.

Seats in the classrooms are set up by the morning crew for both wards to use and then put away by the afternoon one so that vacuuming can happen.

But there are not normally plastic chairs on the stand in the chapel. And they most especially are not left there for the second ward to deal with if there are–I don’t think I’ve ever seen that before. It was startling to have a random set of them facing the audience that no one was using and that there seemed to be no reason nor plan for, at least as far as we were concerned.

And yet.

I have no idea if someone realized that this is what they were doing, and no mention was made of it.

But there they were, off to the side of the rise from where the choir sings and the speakers speak, some stacked, some single: somebody’s subconscious had apparently insisted they remain there.

Eleven empty chairs set before the congregation.

There could have been more below the table for the wounded, including the police who had tried to protect, but those eleven were the ones seen.

Eleven empty seats in that house of worship facing us, silently asking us throughout the meeting what we will do now, what we must do, so that someday there might be no more chairs emptied by hate.

Love and kindness, one simple human interaction at a time. We must.


3 Comments so far
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Yes…we must, indeed.

Comment by Jayleen Hatmaker 10.29.18 @ 6:51 am

Thank you, Alison. I can see the 11 chairs, and that means a lot. And yes, love and kindness.

Comment by Joanne 10.29.18 @ 9:14 am

Your comments gave me goosebumps. ?

Comment by Soozie 10.29.18 @ 6:33 pm



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