Lest innocent life be lost

March 27, 2025, marked the second anniversary of the Covenant School shooting in Nashville, located on the same street where we now live. Two blocks away from our home. At the time we lived ten minutes away.

Devastated by the event, Nashvillians are still trying to understand and cope with its lasting impact. Flowers and photos of the three elementary students and the three school employees killed by the shooter, who was also killed, adorned the school entrance for many months. 

As I listen to the news today of the agency-gutting of our federal government, I’m aware of the cataclysmic affect of the closing of USAID, NIH/CDC, the Department of Education, Medicaid, et al. on our world’s children. Carnage toward our children is as fresh as today’s political actions.

I worked my way emotionally through the Nashville event with the creation of photographs. On this anniversary, I share some of those images with you.

I chose mature flower blossoms, their buds, and their relationship each to the other as the metaphor to hold my grief. Parent and child, adult and child, madonna and child. These botanicals hold for me the beauty, fragility, vulnerability, innocence, and loving connection of the life lost through this and every school shooting event and all governmental acts that withdraw support for children. The flowers I found in the yards and on the dining room tables of friends as well a local flower farm. Most of the photos below composite more than one image in each rendering, adding texture and color that nuance the depth and complexity of the lethal impact of these events.

I invite you to sit with these images for a bit, letting them say what they will say to you.