Saturday Good Reads: In Memoriam Charlie Kirk

I had a whole set of links planned and ready for this edition of Saturday Good Reads, and then Wednesday happened. 

I didn’t know Charlie Kirk personally. I followed him on Instagram, in news reports, and on other social media. I was amazed at his steel-trap mind; he could talk with anyone, anywhere, on an any issue. He could be firm, but he never went in for ad hominem attacks; he attacked the argument, not the person making it. 

 

He also made no secret of his faith in Christ. So many of us wondered why we felt his death so deeply and personally. It’s because Charlie Kirk was a member of the Body of Christ.

 

As the news reports of his shooting poured in, and then the news of his death, where should my thoughts go but to Facebook.

 

I try to avoid politics as much as I can on Facebook and other social media. I post book reviews, faith-based poems, and photographs, usually of the flowers in my garden and the sky. Or historical things we’ve seen in England. Or the Missouri Botanical Gardens and Shaw’s Nature Reserve. 

 

I have a number of friends, Christian friends, who do not avoid politics. They rage about politics. Or, more precisely, they rage about Donald Trump. The rage is outsized, vicious, and all-consuming. I’m somewhat amazed that people who say they hate the man don’t see how much he’s come to dominate their thinking. Perhaps I should say they don’t see how much the image they’ve created of Donald Trump has come to dominate their thinking.

 

Lately, the rage has been extended to the people who support Donald Trump. It’s classic objectification – separating these “MAGA people” from the rest of humanity and ascribing to them various negative characteristics. President Biden did this when he was in the White House. Objectification is how Europe ended up with a Holocaust. 

 

And this is how we end up with the murder of people like Charlie Kirk. 

 

Language matters. Words matter. Before you repost something vicious and exaggerated from Occupy Democrats, some ignorant thread on Reddit or Blue Sky, and similar sources on Facebook, consider that you’re contributing to the normalization, and embrace, of violence. 

 

And this is far more widespread on the left than on the right. 

 

You need to keep it out of my news feeds. I’m done with tolerating it. Simply done.

 

American Stuff

 

Charlie Kirk believed in free speech. He died for it – Jacob Heilbrun at The Spectator.

 

The Charlie Kirk I Knew – Adam Rubenstein at The Free Press.

 

Charlie Kirk is dead. And I and sad (sad and angry) – Stephen McAlpine. 

 

The Assassination of Charlie Kirk – Rod Dreher. 

 

The Assassination of Charlie Kirk and the Fight for America’s Soul – Ben Shapiro at The Free Press.

 

Charlie Kirk saw himself as holding back revolution – Ben Domenech at The Spectator.

 

A La Carte: Charlie Kirk Special Edition – Tim Challies (links to various statements by theologians and religious figures)

 

Charlie Kirk Wasn’t Just Assassinated; He Was Martyred – Kylee Griswold at The Federalist.

 

‘Ugliest Moment I Ever Witnessed’: House Dems Object to Prayer for Charlie Kirk – Leif Le Mahieu at Daily Wire.

 

This Will Turn Us into Radicals – Melissa Edgington at Your Mom Has a Blog.

 

How Great the Chasm That Lay Between Us – Samuel D. James at Digital Liturgies.

 

Twitter Files: The Muzzling of Charlie Kirk – Matt Taibbi at Racket News.

 

Statement by the Vice President – J.D. Vance on X.

 

Je Suis Charlie – editorial by The Free Press.

 

Photograph: Charlie Kirk at the 2025 Student Action Summit in Tampa, Florida. Photo by Gage Skidmore via Flickr and Wikipedia.

Poets and Poems: Robert Schultz and "Into the New World"

I’m not sure how to describe Robert Schultz. Poet. Novelist. Photographer. Artist. All of the above.  

He’s written one novel, The Madhouse Nudes, the story of an artist who, in painting women, is trying to seem them truly. He’s co-authored an art book, War Memoranda: Photography, Walt Whitman, and Memorials, which also became an exhibition, and We Were Pirates: a Torpedoman’s Pacific War with James Shell . He’s written four poetry collections. His most recent work is Specimens of the Plague Year: notes and art, the “plague year” being 2020, the year of COVID. He’s also helped translate Wonderland: New & Selected Poems by Sarwat Zahra. 

What I’ve first turned to is one of his poetry collections, Into the New World (2020). In a word, it’s stunning. 

To continue reading, please see me post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Don’t Let the Old Man In – Garry Rodgers at Dying Words.

 

Waiting on Spring – poem by Jerry Barrett at Gerald the Writer.

 

Among the missing, among the dead: black poetry in America – William Logan at New Criterion.

 

How an Author Can Prevent Burnout – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry.

 

Sugaring, poem by Raymond Holden – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Peggy Rosenthal’s “Praying through Poetry”

A new word entered the country’s consciousness this week. A new word entered our prayers at home this week.

Ferguson.

It’s a suburb of St. Louis, with some 21,000 people, and about 10 miles in a straight line from where we live in St. Louis.

Ferguson entered the world’s consciousness this week. A friend form St. Louis traveled on business to Bangalore, India, turned on the television set in his hotel, and on the screen was a news report from the United States.

Ferguson.

A new word for our prayers. It joined other words, like Iraq and IS. Ukraine and Russia. Ebola.

I found myself reading more in the Bible this week, and reading more poetry.

And I read a small book, 83 pages including three pages of notes: Praying through Poetry: Hope for Violent Times by Peggy Rosenthal. It was published in 2003, although parts of it were published in The Christian Century in 2002. Rosenthal wrote it after another word entered our vocabulary and our prayers.

9/11.

She went looking for hope after the fall of the twin towers, and she found it in poetry.

She takes 10 poems, explains why each leads her to hope, and then suggests several ways each inspires her to pray. The poems included were written by Polish poet Adam Zagajewski; Lucille Clifton; Scott Cairns; Jane Hirshfield; Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish; Denise Levertov; Wendell Berry; Daniel Berrigan; Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai; and St. Francis of Assisi. What all of the poets have in common is that they write about faith, belief, doubt, God, and humanity.

Here’s “God Has Pity on Kindergarten Children” by Yehuda Amichai:

God has pity on children in kindergartens,

He pities school children – less.

But adults he pities not at all.

He abandons them,

Sometimes they have to crawl on all fours

In the roasting sand

To reach the dressing station,

And they are streaming with blood.

But perhaps

He will have pity on those who love truly

And take care of them

And shade them,

Like a tree over the sleeper on the public beach.

Perhaps even we will spend on them

Our last pennies of kindness

Inherited from mother.

So that their own happiness will protect us

Now and on other days.

Rosenthal says that, for her, the transition from what begins as a rather dark poem to one of hope is the phrase “But perhaps.” At that point, she suggests the poem is like a psalm, some of many begin in darkness, too, and end with hope in God.

It’s small book, now more than a decade old. But Praying through Poetry is still current, and likely will remain current for a long, long time.

Top photograph by George Hodan via Public Domain Pictures. Used with permission. 

Violence in the Wilderness

Last week, my wife and I were watching the conclusion (fifth of five episodes) of an old televised series of a P.D. James mystery novel, starring Inspector Adam Dalgliesh, who investigates murders and writes poetry. We had actually seen the series when it was on television (probably PBS Mystery) back in 1989 or 1990. As we watched each succeeding episode, it became more and more familiar. I remembered more than my wife did. As we approached the horrific conclusion, I remembered what happened, and I cringed, knowing what was coming.

Even in fictional life, I hate violence. I won’t watch war movies; I never saw “Saving Private Ryan.” I can watch murder mysteries if the violence stays off-stage (and in the case of our Netflix rental, the goriest stuff did). But slasher movies? Forget it. Halloween Part 23 or stories about families being held hostage by homicidal maniacs? No way. Stories about the World War II death camps? I’m a basket case. And that one’s particularly odd because years ago I use to read all about the Holocaust.

But it seems that, as I’ve gotten older, my tolerance for violence on television or movies, and even books, had diminished considerably.

So I was not looking forward to reading chapter 6 of Gerald May’s The Wisdom of Wilderness, which I’ve been reading and writing about as part of the online discussion group at the High Calling Blogs. Chapter 6 is entitled, “Violence at Smith’s Inlet.” I didn’t know what to expect, but it certainly wasn’t what May wrote: a squirrel swimming in the middle of a reservoir and likely to drown; a box turtle mutilated by young idiots with nothing else better to do; a swan killing a small duck; May himself breaking a carp’s jaw when he tried to remove a fishing hook; and (okay, one expected thing) a body of a young woman found floating in the inlet. He also adds some scenes from his military tour in Vietnam and the years he spent as an institutional psychiatrist.

The young woman’s death (and Vietnam) aside, May suggests that violence is part of the natural order, and that there will always be “within and around us… a violence that just is, just exists, just happens. It is a quality of destructiveness that is completely wild, unreasoned, unforgiving, relentless, and inexplicable” (pages 118-119). He goes on to say that unless we can accept this “shadow side” of ourselves, “we will never be able to appreciate being an integral part of things.”

He’s right, but I don’t know how willing I am to accept that shadow side. I can accept it in nature; I know it’s part of the (sinful) human condition. But I don’t think I can accept it in the way May seems to suggest here – almost an embrace.

More than any of the chapters so far, I found this one the most troubling.

Related links:

Maureen Doallas on The Enigma of Violence.

Today's discussion group at High Calling Blogs: When Mountains Scream.

Monica Sharman's Such Was I.