NRA Meeting in Houston Likely to Be Met With Protests After School Shooting

As a hospice chaplain who served in two pediatric trauma hospitals, Teresa Kim Pecinovksy says that she will never forget witnessing the death of a child. Hearing a mother keening over her son or daughter isn’t a feeling she can articulate. “We don’t have a word in English to encapsulate the sound,” she says.

When she learned about the May 24 elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas — which has claimed the lives of 19 children and 2 adults — Pecinovksy thought she would throw up. She is pregnant with her third child; a Houston resident and ordained minister with the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), she is geographically far from the scene, but it feels near to her as a Texan. She says she felt called to do something with the rage and indignation she feels. “As clergy, we should be at the forefront leading the way,” she says.