Churches gather to comfort, remember

4:45 p.m., Blacksburg Baptist Church, Blacksburg

Members of six Blacksburg churches gathered on North Main Street beneath 32 flags representing the countries of origin of the victims of April 16th. They congregated, in the words of Blacksburg Baptist Church music director Charlotte Smith, "to move into hope."

People and pastors came from Blacksburg United Methodist, Blacksburg Presbyterian, Luther Memorial Lutheran Church, St. Mary's Catholic and Christ Episcopal churches. They assembled in the Baptist church's parking lot to break bread together in anticipation of a community remembrance service planned for 6:30.

"We're expecting, actually, 266. But I can feed as many as 350. You're welcome to stay," organizer Nancy Reneau said to the curious who stopped by.

Three of last year's shooting victims attended Blacksburg Baptist: Austin Michelle Cloyd, Caitlin Millar Hammaren and Brian Roy Bluhm, Smith said.

There a combined choir from the six churches was scheduled to sing "The Presence of the Lord," a song composed on the day of the shootings by Earlene Rentz. The song, originally commissioned by Berea College in Kentucky to honor its founder John Fee, proved difficult to write, Rentz wrote in a statement to the church. Until the day of the shootings.

"I had stared at the words for days, not knowing which ... I would set to music for the choir ... As I looked at one of the passages of John G. Fee, written to comfort and encourage fellow abolitionists in the 1800's ... I would want to say these words ... to the grieving families," Rentz wrote.

The words she chose: "Hold on, stand still, and you will see the face of God."

In the song, Rentz also uses the Hebrew word "Shekinah," included as a tribute to Liviu Librescu, a survivor of the Jewish Holocaust and Tech engineering professor who died on April 16 barricading the door of a Norris Hall classroom to protect his students.

To Rentz, Shekinah, or the presence of God, "went before him to lead him across Jordan ... along with others on that dark day."

Submitted by Tonia Moxley | The Roanoke Times