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News Analysis: Out of tragedy, God makes a way

Posted by Melissa Lauber on

By Melissa Lauber

United Methodists of the Baltimore-Washington Conference are called to be the presence of Christ in the world. Some days that role is harder and more sacred than ever.

On Tuesday morning, March 20, just before classes began, Austin Rollins, 17, walked into Great Mills High School in Southern Maryland, armed with his father’s handgun, and shot Jaelynn Willey in the head.

That same bullet hit Desmond Barnes, 14, who was wounded in the thigh as he sought shelter in a classroom.

A school resource officer rushed to respond. He fired a shot, hitting Rollins in the hand, while at the same moment, Rollins turned the gun on himself, firing a fatal shot to his head.

Churches in the area immediately opened their doors to the community for prayer and provided students and their families places to gather to try to make sense of the violence, each in their own unique way.

While many prayed, a handful of United Methodists confronted nightmares.

On the day after the shooting, the Rev. Meredith Wilkins-Arnold, pastor of Calvary UMC in Annapolis, exited the elevator at Medstar St. Mary’s Hospital and encountered Jaelynn Willey’s parents, Melissa and Dan. The pair had just been notified that their daughter had lost brain functions.

“When Melissa saw me, she just threw her head back and wailed in a way I never heard someone cry. The only thing I can liken it to is Jeremiah 31, Rachel weeping for her children,” Wilkens-Arnold said.

Wilkins-Arnold’s daughter, Karis, grew up with Jaelynn Willey when Wilkins-Arnold served a church in Southern Maryland. The girls became very close friends, swimming together on competitive swim teams. Wilkins-Arnold was Jaelynn’s Girl Scout leader.

Melissa Willey invited them to come to the hospital. While she went to accompany her daughter and to be a friend to Melissa, the necessity for her to be a pastoral presence became immediately apparent.

Wilkins-Arnold watched her daughter sit at the bedside, take Jaelynn’s hand and whisper, “I love you; thank you for being my friend.”

Several of Jaelynn’s other friends came to the hospital in the days that follows

On the Thursday following the shooting, as a way to help those young people and Jaelynn’s family grieve, and to give them a ritual to hold their grief, Wilkins-Arnold baptized Jaelynn.

“I didn’t need to baptize her to know God would welcome her to her next home,” she said. “It wasn’t for me, it was not for Jaelynn; it created a moment of comfort for the people in the room,” who stood around what would soon become their friend’s deathbed.

One of the girls there, who had known Jaelynn since they were little girls swimming together, was Roman Catholic and had brought with her a container of holy water.

“I asked her, ‘Do you want to help me with the baptism?’” Wilkins-Arnold blessed the water and poured it into the girl’s hands.

The girl then gently poured the water on Jaelynn, offering an ancient gift of grace and a sacred encounter into the tragedy.

When Jaelynn died March 22, Wilkins-Arnold was asked to lead the community prayer vigil and the funeral service.

As she prepared, she found herself immensely grateful for her fellow clergy who had been lifting her up in prayer and assisting her in thinking about what message to bring the community. One of the strengths of the connectional system, she said, is having clergy colleagues with which to share experiences, ideas and support.

Preparing for the service, Wilkins-Arnold found herself remembering back to April 20, 1999, when 15 students were killed at Columbine High School in Colorado.

A new pastor then, she realized she had to address the shooting from the pulpit. But the right words felt elusive.

Today, she still remembers what she talked about and how she lifted up the image of the Columbine flower, which “appears really fragile, but is incredibly sturdy and able to stand crazy amounts of wind and weather to come up year after year because that’s how God made it,” she said.

“It would be easy for some to say that God was absent during that tragedy, but God, Jesus, was right there, lying next to every person wounded,” she said.

Throughout the prayer vigil and funeral service, Jaelynn’s family and friends kept repeating to themselves and one another, “there are no words, there are simply no words for what we’re living through or how we’ll face the future.”

But standing with the Rev. John Wunderlich, of All Saints UMC in Leonardstown, Wilkins-Arnold had the Word, and she spoke it with tenderness and power to all who suffered.

Responding to her holy calling, she whispered and proclaimed words of solace, of healing and of hope.

In this same tragic story, Desmond Barnes is a beacon of hope.

Barnes is a member of St. Luke UMC in Scotland, the southern-most church in the Baltimore-Washington Conference.

When she heard that her son had been shot in the leg, Desmond’s mother, Kimberly Dennis, rushed to the hospital where she was joined by their pastor, Delonte Hicks.

Hicks, a certified lay minister, rose to the occasion of his holy calling, offering prayers and reminders of God and God’s abiding power.

Following surgery, Barnes was released from the hospital. His mother made a public statement, offering prayers for Willey and her family, for the students of Great Mills and young people around the country, urging everyone to “work and fight for a world that is safe for our children.”

“Our entire family is eternally grateful that Desmond is alive, doing well and in good spirits,” she said. “He is an amazing testimony.”

Hicks noted throughout the aftermath of the shooting that the agape love of the church and the community shone through as they supported the students and one another with their faith and presence.

“God did not only show up when I got the phone call Tuesday, March 20, at 8 a.m. God was with us the entire time and still is,” Hicks said. “When I arrived at the hospital to be with Desmond and his family, Desmond’s first words to me were, ‘Hey pastor, I knew you were coming.’ … There were many times my faith was tested, but knowing that my youth was in the hands of God, smiling with a joyful spirit, I knew God was still working.”

To his people, Hicks preached, “despite the hell of last week, when everything turned upside down, we never lost our hope. … Praise is not a style, it’s a substance. We never lost our praise.”

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