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church, connections, David Olney, East End, East Nashville, Family, music, Nashville, tornado, United Methodist Church
I missed the service of remembrance and hope held outside the destroyed sanctuary of East End United Methodist Church in Nashville. I am not able to go to the memorial service for David Olney. The two lives are connected.
I lived in Nashville from 1988 through the end of 2009 when I left the city. I lived in East Nashville, the section of the city hit by tornadoes in 2020 and 1998. East End United Methodist Church, the congregation in which I participated, survived the 1998 tornado with minimal damage. Not so in 2020. Photos of the remains are grotesquely painful in the way of the wreckage of every building.
I grieve the loss of that familiar building even as I celebrate memories of place.
My family and I began going to East End five months after moving from Virginia to the Historic Edgefield neighborhood. I developed and edited children’s Sunday school resources. Soon I began testing curriculum ideas for preschoolers in the East End Sunday school. I also edited a resource intended for church after-school programs. Thanks to what I learned from the East End after-school program, that resource was redeveloped for a much broader age group.
I met David Olney at East End. He lived down Holly Street. One Sunday David said, “You play piano. Could you handle a synthesizer?” “Sure,” I said, though I’d never touched a synthesizer.
“I gave Kenny a couple of songs I wrote for Christmas and he arranged them for the church. It’s like I gave him ‘Row, Row, Row Your Boat’ and he turned it into Bach.”
David gave me directions to Kenny’s house for practice. I didn’t know Kenny Moore beyond a nod and the passing of the peace at church. At his house I saw gold and platinum records on the walls and learned that he had played with David Allan Coe and Steve Earle. Kenny later served as organist at East End.
My spouse and I divorced. East End was warmhearted enough to make space for both of us and to give support to our children.
East End was a curious blend of the old and new Nashville. The neighborhood was undergoing transition. Dick and Dorothy Battle represented the old East Nashville. They lived in Dorothy’s family home Dick worked at The Nashville Banner as a reporter-columnist for more than 50 years. On the other side of the East End membership mixture, Bill Purcell, a newer resident, served two terms as mayor of the city. Homeless people and people in transition participated in the life of the church. 12-Step groups were important.
The neighborhood continues to change. I am proud that East End is part of the Reconciling Ministries Network in The United Methodist Church, a congregation inviting all people to know the love of God.
For the ten-year remembrance of the 1998 tornado, the church commissioned music. Our choir sang that musical prayer—four pieces—for the city, for nature, for the Vanderbilt student who died, and for all losses. Perhaps another work will be commissioned in remembrance of the 2020 tornado.
To say that a church is more than a building is a theological cliché. I know that East End United Methodist Church will continue to reach out to the larger community in love and grace.
With gratitude and love.