I can’t help but feel confused. I’ve been reading headlines, searching for insight, trying to meddle through all of the public reaction to the Kirk assassination. I’ve read plenty of accusations attributed to the left and the right. Does it matter that I said left before I did right? Would the other way around matter? I’m having a hard time choosing sides. I continue to fall back to my original account and that no matter the political leanings, a person does not deserve to be gunned down for expressing their viewpoint. 

I have to add to it today though, no matter how scathing or polarizing the statements might be. I don’t agree with a lot of the quotes and statements attributed to Charlie Kirk. In fact, many of them make me sick. But at the same time, so do the fresh new accounts of people selling their souls online to get their point across. People are losing their jobs or their social status because their views are being expressed openly in social media and quickly misconstrued and slammed. People are agitated and the Kirk assassination has brought a lot of that anger to the surface. That will be a dangerous precedent as we move forward. We need a leader who can blend everyone’s opposition and agreements together to create that mosaic that Jimmy Carter imagined. 

“We have become not a melting pot, but a beautiful mosaic. Different people, different beliefs, different yearnings, different hopes, different dreams.” -Jimmy Carter

But that is not happening in the world we live in today. Instead, viewpoints are being polarized leaving people feeling helpless and inevitably agitated. So where do we go from here? I’m looking for answers or at least something to feel connected by, but it is few and far between. My greatest worry is the negativity and blaming continues to build. I’m left with a final statement by another welcome influencer: 

“Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don’t give up.” -Anne Lamott