Come Let us Reason Together... Thoughts on the Assassination of Charlie Kirk

An Ordinary Day…

I was having a bit of a spa day. Something I never do, but it sort of evolved. Sitting in my car outside the nail salon, I was pondering whether I might have better luck with the hairdresser than I had had with my pedicure.

I had created quite the ruckus in the place by making a few simple requests. It became a problem that I didn’t want the foot bath (someone I knew had unrelenting athlete’s foot and those tubs skeeve me) but I did want a clean looking towel. Then, apparently, I chose the wrong color for my particular toenails, and the nail stylist seemed like it would really break her heart if I went with the muted mauve. Reluctant to cause any more static, I acquiesced to her choice for me.  

Turns out frosted peach toenails make my bulbous big toes look even more like mini wieners than they usually do. Who knew?

I was sure the nails were more than dry when I slipped off the crazy excuses for flip flops they give you and slid back into my sandals. Mistake number two was not making this transfer of foot apparel while still inside the salon. If the polish had smeared while I was still inside, I more than likely would have had them retouch it. But to reenter after all the fuss and feathers – I just didn’t have it in me.

I opted instead to make plans with my daughter-in-law to go to an early dinner. Our plan was to meet at Bertucci’s after she did a few things and I got my hair cut.

Let’s just say the service at Hair Cuttery far outweighed its counterpart in the nail business. The stylist chatted amiably and it seemed we had many of the same values. Always nice to find a like-minded thinker. The jury’s still out on the cut itself, but two out of three ain’t bad.

Turns Extraordinary

Then I saw the news alert. Charlie Kirk had been gunned down. My first thought was, ridiculously, he won’t be hurt any worse than Trump was in Butler. It didn’t even cross my mind that he wouldn’t survive. I immediately mobilized my prayer teams and did my own part while waiting for my DIL to arrive.

She was running late, so I gobbled up the news channels. Rich Zeoli seemed positively sedate. I’ve never heard that guy on slow, let alone subdued. It was like all the stuffing was knocked out of him. The guest he had on sounded about to break down at any moment.

What influencer in his right mind who holds Kirk’s positions isn’t upping his life insurance and beefing up his home security system in the wake of this murder?

The question is, though – where will we land?

Not just the guys in Charlie Kirk’s league, the ones with the most visibility and the most to lose. Where will the days ahead find those of us who get up every morning only to punch in at work or, like the students this fallen icon loved, show up for class? Will we continue to shake our heads and close our mouths when ideologies are forced upon us that we don’t believe in? Will we commiserate with like-minded friends with whom we feel safe, only to keep silent when the winds are against us?

Will we join with the voices that will blame this horror on the gun that ended Kirk’s life, even though he would be the first - still - to defend laws that allow Americans to defend themselves?

Kirk would never have supported giving madmen guns, but he did believe in trying to reason with his opponents in the spirit of Isaiah 1. His philosophy was simple: if you let people speak, then dialogue with them, maybe you can come closer to agreement. If you find points of agreement, minds can be shaped without bludgeoning your opponent into submission. In other words, if people can be helped to see common sense based on morality and decency, rather than terrorized out of sharing a dissenting opinion, maybe – just maybe – we can all play in the sandbox safely.

With or without guns.

I’m not going to take the Second Amendment any farther, nor am I prepared to offer an argument any more robust than that. I will say, however, that in this unprecedented era of school shootings during which I worked as an educator for 23 years, I did wonder many a time whether or not I’d be coming home at the end of the day. And you know what? It would have given me peace of mind if I had been aware of any levelheaded, licensed gun owner(s) on the premises, should our safety have been threatened by outside agents who maybe weren’t so levelheaded or concerned with silly things like following the law.

More than any public figure I can think of at the moment, this gentleman - this gentle man - allowed opposing voices the time and courtesy he felt they deserved. I’ve watched reels in which he hushed his own supporters to allow spouters of views he held abhorrent the chance to speak.

So they could reason together.

Let that sink in, America.

A Time to Reason

I’ve recently begun dipping my peach painted toes into some online debates. Not because I enjoy the experience. My parents didn’t raise a combative daughter. My nature is to go along to get along. I didn’t shrink from getting into it with my kids when I was raising them (in fact, whatever poor excuse for parleying skills I have, I owe to those two loophole finders). But sit me in a meeting where I’m the lone voice and I become laryngitic.

But I’m coming to realize there’s a real danger in playing it safe. Safe only goes so far. As far, actually, as it takes to lock ourselves into our own homes with our own opinions and let’s just keep them out of the public square, shall we?

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”

Reuters claims the authorship of this quote is in question, so I’ll leave it unattributed, but with deep appreciation for the wisdom it conveys.

Charlie Kirk understood this. I’m sure he held a large life insurance policy (if anyone would insure him). He hired bodyguards. He wasn’t looking to get poached like a game bird, but he was willing. Both he and his wife must have been well aware of the peril-laden plateaus he embarked on each time they kissed goodbye.

The thing is, they counted the cost and found it reasonable.

He was, after all, first and foremost a man of reason.

“Come, let us reason together,” implores our Lord. Can his creation do any less?

So, let’s reason together about what happened on Wednesday. While resisting the urge to paint Charlie Kirk as a savior – I’m sure his family and those who knew him best could disavow us of any such notion – I don’t think it’s a stretch to state that this man represented the interests of both sides of the political aisle. Those who appreciated his message and those who didn’t. If that were not the case, why would he have spent so much precious time that he could’ve had with loved ones trying to reason with dissenters? To try to win rather than silence them?

I want to follow in God and Kirk’s footsteps in this regard, and I’ll start with the pain I saw on the face of my left-leaning friend the morning after the assassination. I could imagine her thoughts while listening to me share my grief about the loss of this conservative icon. “What of the brutality done to individuals from the Democratic party?” her eyes seemed to lament. “Shouldn’t their wounds, some of them fatal, hold just as much relevance as those of a man honored by your side?”

My response is threefold. First, while I shrink at references to sides and camps and for a second even tried to find alternative words, I chose in the end to call spades spades. Every war has sides and we are most definitely in a culture war that seems to be advancing us ever closer to a wasteland. I can’t in intellectual honesty deny the existence of partisan lines, but one thing I will try to do is avoid an “us” versus “them” mentality. “We” are all part of the human race, made in God’s image, and I will not deny someone’s humanity regardless of how repellent I may find his or her beliefs.

Second, at least in my book and my dealings, those from the opposite camp who were injured or killed for their political beliefs won’t go unremembered. Rep. Gabby Giffords, Rep. Melissa and Mark Hortman, Rep. John and Yvette Hoffman, the horrors that happened to you matter just as much to me as does this latest episode of violence against someone with whom I’m more politically aligned. Last time I checked, you all spilled the same color blood as that of my fallen hero. I will neither forget nor diminish your tragedies, and I ask the same of you.

Third and finally, I will dare to pray and hope we are entering the turning point Charlie Kirk stood for.

God rest his soul. God comfort his family. God bless America.