We are driving along a dirt road somewhere north of the small Saskatchewan city we call home. Farmers are working hard; the harvest is in full swing. There is something intrinsically satisfying about harvest time, whether it’s from our backyard garden or fields of grains, oilseeds, and pulses being brought in. Something like “we have enough to see us through another winter,” or “the work of spring and summer has come to fruition,” or “it’s almost time to rest”.
I’ve got a low-grade headache from the motion of the car on the gravel. I’m also a tad cranky for no particular reason, and am trying to move past it. Letting my mind wander and my eyes linger on passing farmland helps. I watch the combines and trucks and think about my ancestors, who farmed just enough land to support their families, and the contrast with the farms of today.
Somewhere south of us, at a university campus in Utah in the United States, a single gunshot has been fired at a 31-year-old husband and father of two—a son who turned one in May, and a daughter aged three—who will never know their Dad but will grow up under his shadow. I have never heard of this man, but before this day is through, his name will be embedded in my consciousness. Charlie Kirk. He will die from the bullet wound. I won’t know any of this until we get home in a couple of hours.
The next morning, I will dip into the news and wade through vitriol on social media, trying to understand who he was and what has happened. My heart will hurt. How can anyone understand a world where something like this happens, and our collective response is “oh, but what about this,” and “what about that,” said while climbing back up on our political soapboxes?
I will be sickened by the rhetoric and the right-fighting, even as I pull out a mirror and look at my own self-righteous face staring back at me. I will be sickened by my crankiness and temptation to say something less than charitable when my husband neglects to push his chair in after we finish eating a bowl of tomato soup at lunchtime, and will realize that my heart is no different, despite my continual conscious effort to be kinder.
I will ponder the pain of living in a world where such ugliness no longer surprises us, and contrast that with the fact that we who cause it are made in the image of the Divine and come from so much love, and God help me, I won’t be able to reconcile the two. I will wrestle with a desire to withdraw from everyone and everything. And just. Shut. Up.
I will pray for Charlie Kirk’s family. I will go out to the garden, gather ripe tomatoes, and make a pot of soup. I will go to yoga and stop at the grocery store on the way home. I will make some art. I will come here and tap out some words to try and make some kind of sense of it all, but fail to do so. I will practice—my faith, my craft, my who-I-want-to-be-in-the-world—because, to be honest, I’m not especially good at any of those things.
The day will end, and another will begin, and I’ll still be trying to wrap my head around the mess we have made. Paradoxically, I’ll still believe that it’s a beautiful world. I won’t understand how these two things can be true at the same time, but I’ll know that they are.