FOUR YEARS AGO

Nearly four years ago, on June 17, 2015, our collective heart broke when we learned the news of the cold-blooded massacre of nine people at the Emanuel A.M.E. church in old Charleston. Dylann Roof, a twenty-one-year-old white supremacist apparently aiming to start a race war, was soon apprehended. He was convicted and sentenced to death and is now in federal prison awaiting execution.

In many a place in America, such a horrendous racially-motivated crime would have produced violent reactions of proportional scales: mass riots in the streets, neighborhoods in flames, clashes with police, national guard called in, that sort of thing. Not in Charleston. Out of the unfathomable grief came not the expected violence but the unexpected forgiveness. The bravest families in the world swallowed their almost unbearable pain to tell the satanic murdered to his face they forgave him. Our hearts broke again. The very worst of times brought out the very best in these people. They taught us all how to live as the Christians we claim to be. It was truly amazing grace. Today every one of us owes these families profound respect and gratitude.

As we remember now, we have two new outstanding works at hand to help us understand what happened in the event and the aftermath.

The first is the movie, "Emanuel: The Untold Story of the Victims and Survivors of the Charleston Church Shooting." It is an hour and twenty-minute documentary featuring the families of the victims produced by the NBA star Stephen Curry and award-winning actress Viola Davis. The movie will be shown on June 17 and 19 in select theaters across America. In the Charleston area, it will be shown at 7 p.m., at the Terrace, on James Island, Palmetto Grande in Mt. Pleasant, and Charles Town Square in North Charleston. All producers' proceeds will go to the victims' families and survivors.

See the movie website here for trailers and much more information about this landmark production. You can find on the website the theaters in you area screening the film. All indications suggest this movie is a wonderful tribute to the victims, the survivors, the community of Emanuel, and finally to South Carolina. Ultimately the story is not about the evil of the crime; it is about the redemption in the grace that overcame the crime. Devout Christians were put to the worst test imaginable. They passed spectacularly. 

The second new work is a book, Grace Will Lead us Home: The Charleston Church Massacre and the Hard, Inspiring Journey of Forgiveness, by Jennifer Berry Hawes, the tireless
Charleston Post and Courier reporter who covered the story (as she did the schism for the first several years). The book was published this month and has received only rave reviews. The hardcover is available at Amazon for $18.89. I am putting it on my summer reading list.

Here we are four years later, remembering the almost unbelievable crime and the victims, but also remembering the greater almost unbelievable forgiveness that prevailed over the evil. And so, we have have learned great lessons, all to our benefit. We have been changed. We learned how to die with dignity; and more importantly, we learned how to live with courage and faith. Thus the victims and their families are with us, in our hearts forever. Thankfully, we now have a great movie and book to remind us of this.