"under His wings..."

"How can you run
when you know?"

Today on Facebook, a friend shared this video of Crosby, Stills, and Nash's  "Ohio."  It is still a chilling reminder of a day I will never forget.

It was Monday -- a beautiful, early spring day in rural New Jersey. I was in typing class when our Assistant Principal came to the door and called our teacher into the hallway. He returned ashen-faced and visibly shaken. He announced that when the bell rang we were to go to the school auditorium.

I remember looking down at the rows and rows of "the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog" that I'd just typed, as a warm up for that day's dictation. When I looked up, there were tears streaming down our teacher's sideburn-framed cheeks. I was terrified. We'd lived through the Kennedy, King, and Kennedy assassinations, what could possibly evoke a teacher's tears -- again?

I looked across the room and questioningly caught a friend's eye. She shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. I returned to my typing, but all I could think about was, "what now?" The windows were open and the scent of peonies wafted in on a soft breeze. To this day, the scent of peonies is the scent of paradox.

After the bell sounded for a change of classes, we filed into the hallway and made our way like lemmings towards the auditorium. For some reason, I needed to find my sister. She was a year younger, but she was my rock. I thought if I could sit with her, whatever news we were being gathered for would be less frightening. But when I finally caught sight of her, she was on the other side of the auditorium surrounded by friends.

The room was eerily quiet. We didn't talk as we waited for the principal to take the stage. When he did, although his suit was its normal crisp perfection, he seemed disheveled. He ran his hand through his hair as he paused at the microphone. It made me feel frightened. Like when my mother cried, or my dad sat staring out the window after paying the bills.

Before he spoke, he cleared his throat, paused, and cleared his throat again. Then he explained that there had been a terrible tragedy at a university in Ohio. The National Guard had opened fire on protesting students and four of those students had died. Others had been injured. We were instructed to return to our next period classes.  I noticed that our principal's shoulders shook - I assumed he was quietly weeping - as he left the stage with his head down.

We were in shock. We'd never heard the story of Kent State - it hadn't happened yet.  It wasn't in our rolodex of possibilities.  We'd heard of recently graduated classmates being killed in Viet Nam, but this was in Ohio - only two states away.  We'd never been exposed to news of our own government killing college students.  We were so close to being college students ourselves. For me it was only two years away. For the youngest among us, four years. We didn't speak, we didn't move. I remember thinking, "this is what shock feels like."

This was 1970. There were no trauma counselors. We were dismissed from the auditorium and told to go to our next class. At the end of the day, we boarded school buses for home, changed into gym clothes for track practice or field hockey, or we made our way to the same auditorium for play rehearsals.

It felt like walking through water. We had no further information. We wouldn't have any more information unless our parents let us watch the nightly news, on one of three channels at 6 o'clock. The newspaper wouldn't arrive until morning. There was no cable news, no internet, no online resources, no Facebook posts, or breaking news updates. Just the 6 o'clock news and the morning paper.

Had there been a coup? Had war been declared in Ohio? Were children -- and yes, we still thought of our friends in college as children -- now the enemy of the state? Was the consequence for disagreeing with your government, death by firing squad?

It would be days before we saw photographs. It would be months before we'd get anything more than cursory information. It would be years before we'd know how that day in May, would change the landscape of our collective experience as students - and parents.

The massacre of student protesters on a grassy knoll at Kent State University would alter the course of history. Within a week millions of high school and college students went on strike, others marched in protest at the Capitol, and many of us wrote out our grief in poetry, songs, and essays.

As with the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, I turned to a resource I'd come to trust -- my Sunday School teacher. I had to wait six days, but I knew she would give me a spiritual way to process what I'd been living with for almost a week.

On Sunday, she too was still shaken by the event. I loved that she wasn't stoic and matter-of-fact about it. Her response was honest. She told me that she'd been praying all week about how to talk with us about what had happened in Ohio. And then she asked us how we had been feeling. She didn't tell us how we should feel.

I don't remember all of what we discussed that morning, but I do remember leaving church with a sense of courage about standing up for what is right and good. I also left with her encouragement to memorize the 91st Psalm. And I did. It has stood the test of time. It reads:

"He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most high shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and fortressL my God; in Him will I trust.

Surely He shall deliver thee from the snare of the fowler, and from the noisome pestilence.

He shall cover thee with his feathers, and under his wings shalt thou trust: His truth shall be thy shield and buckler.

Thou shalt not be afraid for the terror by night; nor for the arrow that flight by day; nor for the pestilence that walketh in darkness; nor for the destruction that casteth at noonday.

A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee.

Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.

"Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling.

For He shall give His angels charge over thee to keep thee in all thy ways."

Over the next two years I would participate in a number of protests, and this Psalm would be my marching song. In the ensuing years it has been my companion whenever I have felt threatened or afraid. I do not run when I know that something needs facing. I stand with angels -- who have charge over me, and mine, and all.

offered with Love,

Kate

This video from Dan Rather's report on the event is helpful in understanding what happened that day  "Kent State."