To say I'm hurting this morning would be an understatement. The killing of Charlie Kirk yesterday has devastated me, and enraged me at the same time. I get so tired of people pointing to his being a Christian as a reason for me not to be devastated. I've already heard the unending platitudes of: "He's in a better place," or "He's with his savior," and "he's resting in the arms of his Lord"..etc. etc. etc ad nauseam. There are very few men that I hold in high esteem, Charlie Kirk was one of them. I remember the first time I ever watched one of his videos on social media. It was obvious that he was a force of nature. I didn't know then that he'd not been to college, and assumed he had. He possessed wisdom beyond his years, so I naturally assumed he was ten years older than he was. His kindness, and deep abiding concern for those he debated was very rarely returned. However, on those rare instances when one of his opponents admitted that they might be wrong, he never gloated. At double his age, I found myself wishing I could be as much a man as he was.
Yesterday, someone changed all of that for me.
A coward, (not a judgment just an observation) killed Charlie Kirk with malicious intent. My 'Sparrow's Perch' blogs are usually created in response to the antics of the birds and sparrows I encounter in my daily life. But, I don't even have a way to tie this into something I've observed in nature. I can't talk about sparrows, or squirrels, or anything in nature, because there isn't anything in nature that even comes close to the evil of someone killing another person in cold blood just for the things they've said. I would like to believe that Charlie's life was ended by a mentally ill individual who has no grasp on reality, or human compassion. I keep hoping that law enforcement will find some kind of social media rant or manifesto that will reassure us that a normal rational person could not do something this heinous or cruel. It would be easier to accept that Charlie was killed by a sick, demented person than to believe it was a political hit job, born out of political desperation. What makes it even more political is that there had already been talk of Charlie Kirk running for President. I don't even know if I'll still be alive in the next election, but I would have voted for him in a heartbeat. More like than not, it was an ideological killing in response to the raging vitriol pumped out by the left leaning legacy media that Charlie often spoke against?
In many of the past killings, and attempted killings, we discovered a frustrated, clinically diagnosed mentally ill person who was ill prepared to escape, painfully obvious in their chosen place of attack, and driven by a need to be found. These kind of deluded people long to be martyrs because without martyrdom they are just another person. A nobody, feeling small and insignificant. They are they kind of person who often leave behind 'suicide' notes along with their manifestos blaming everybody else for their sickness. They chose a famous person to kill because by doing that they end up being famous themselves. They also chose a person who was viewed by them as the personification of their pain. That would be so much easier to understand than a cold calculated hit job.
I'm old enough to have lived through some of the most heinous killings, and mass murders of the last seventy years. I can't help but believe that this one has all the earmarks of a professional assassination. Dear God in heaven, I hope I'm wrong.
Either way, as I was doing my prayer walk this morning, I couldn't even pray. I could only cry. I cried because the only image I had of Charlie Kirk was of him holding his kids while surrounded by his wife looking at him adoringly. As I trudged along in sorrow for his devastated family, I didn't want to stop walking. "What if I just keep walking?" I asked myself. "What difference does it make?" Nothing mattered anymore. It was the same feeling I had when my wife Glenda died. I stepped out of the hospital moments after holding her lifeless hand one last time to find out that life goes on, people go about their business, and the world keeps on spinning unaware of the massive pain in your heart. As I'd watched the coverage yesterday afternoon I kept wondering who cares that this young father won't be coming home to his precious children? It would have been strangely easy to just keep on walking. Running away is my usual coping mechanism. I wanted to run, and get as far away from the situation as possible. In this case, where can I run to? As much as my heart was hurting I wondered if I could keep walking long enough for it to stop altogether. That would let the monsters win, so, I walked another quarter mile up the creek bed till I reached a point where I knew I wouldn't have the strength to walk back to my car. I felt empty and helpless, but I wasn't about to let the leftists win. They were revealing themselves for the cold heartless monsters they are. When I made it back to my house I was confronted with the cold, and callous reaction of the legacy media who somehow blamed him for his own death.
WHY? Because he championed free speech? Because he challenged the liberal elites who have captured our education system with lies, and half-truths? Because he challenged those who make money by normalizing mental instability, and destroying the lives of those who aren't mature enough to make rational choices? There is a huge cultural divide that is being shaped by powers beyond our shores, who wish to sow division, and create chaos. Did those powers pay for and issue the hit on Charlie Kirk? Did they subvert a young man's mind and make it appealing for him to murder someone in cold blood. For right now we don't have that answer.
I would love to say all the mushy Christian rhetoric that the left loves, like; "We have to be forgiving." No, I don't. I don't have to accept Charlies death. I don't have to make sense of it or say things like God will bring good out of this. A monster picked up a rifle with a scope, put the cross hairs on Charlie's head, and pulled the trigger. That fact alone is the only reason I believe he wasn't a professional sniper. It's obvious he didn't account for the distance. Somehow the killer escaped. Another 'conservative activist' silenced by a monster. Actually, I'm tired of people describing Charlie as a 'Conservative activist', as if that somehow has anything to do with his murder. I'm a conservative activist and have been all my life. I just never took it to a college campus and challenged the ruling elite, because I wasn't ever in my wildest dreams as well read, or intellectually acrobatic as Charlie Kirk. He wasn't a radical in his Christian beliefs, nor did he belittle those who debated him. Charlie was a better man than me. I would have never been able to do what he did. Sadly, I'm one of those who would berate the idiot standing in front of me. Not Charlie. If anyone ever felt humiliated, it was because Charlie confronted them with the truth, and with facts. For me the better descriptor would be: Charlie Kirk, husband, father, and truth speaker was killed by a coward.
I can't change the rage I'm feeling right now, I can't fold it away. This is the way I react to senseless killing. Maybe tomorrow, or the next day I'll be able to put away my sorrow for the loss of someone I enjoyed watching on social media. Being a worn out seventy year old man who loved watching Charlie speak common sense to confused young people gave me hope for our nation's future. Please don't get me wrong, as a Christian, I know I will have to let my rage go. I'll have to focus on what is in front of me, and accept Charlie's death. Eventually I'll find the strength to be like my savior and pray for the one who killed Charlie, BUT, it will never be my responsibility to forgive his killer. I'll pray for the killer's salvation, and ask God to be merciful to him, but forgiveness has to come from Charlie's wife, and kids. Even now while I'm still consumed with anger, and rage, I hope Charlie's family finds the grace to forgive the one who took their loved one from them for their own sake. If they don't, then the bad guy wins, and that angers me more than the death of Charlie Kirk.
Rest in peace, Charlie. An old man in Arkansas will miss you.
