Whatever Dismays You, Do The Opposite: Thoughts on Charlie Kirk

It feels like the world changed yesterday. The shooting of Charlie Kirk rocked me in a really weird way. I don’t watch his stuff all the time, but I was familiar enough and admired his willingness to talk to ideological opponents. When I heard of his brutally senseless public murder it hit me in a place I didn’t expect.

‘Microwavable Hearts’ 2015.

This represents how I feel today. My heart is soft, and it hurts for a father, a husband, a person my age who was shot for having politically unpopular things to say.

It hit my spirit. It hit deeply. I have some thoughts for people who love free speech, are dismayed at the death of a person who championed SPEAKING and DIALOGUE to resolve differences, and people who share the Christian faith in the weeks and months to follow. This is one of those times where I’m like “Gee, someone needs to say something” and usually, when I have that thought, I’m challenged: why don’t you say something?

PS. This post will have nothing to comment on Charlie’s very USA-specific views around guns or other political topics that don’t translate so simply into other cultural contexts. I really don’t care where anyone stands on politics. I am more interested in the faith, courage and commitment to free speech and open dialogue that he embodied in a very hostile cultural landscape. Those are the things I truly admire and wish I was brave enough to emulate. This post really isn’t about politics, because not everything is about that. He was a political figure, of course, but underneath that, the driver of that, was a sincere and bold faith that I am way more interested in.

Charlie said recently when he was asked in an interview what he’d want to be remembered for: “I wanna be remembered for courage for my faith that would be the most important thing. The most important thing is my faith in my life.”

Here are my thoughts:

1. Don’t Be Surprised 

We are surprised in the face of senseless depravity. We shouldn’t be. We’ve been sleepwalking for a couple of generations now in a cultural context of peace, freedom, and the ability to engage as faith people in the public square. This cultural context isn’t normal, this isn’t the way the world has always been, and this freedom of expression and religion is more fragile than we realise it is. We should not be surprised in the face of senseless violence for speaking one’s mind (and then the secondary evil of people cheering it on) but we should allow this to wake us up, and to remain awake now, and realise we actually need to fight a little harder for the principle of being able to speak, and for our enemies to speak, without the threat of death.

Jesus addressed opposition directly. We should expect challenge and hatred. If the world hated and crucified a man as perfect as Jesus….I mean, in Jesus’ own words:

John 15:18-25: 18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. 19 If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. 20 Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’[a] If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. 21 They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. 22 If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. 23 Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. 24 If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. 25 But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’[b]

2. Whatever Dismays You? Do The Opposite

Whenever depraved events happen, it exposes the hearts of people who cheer depravity. It also exposes that they are ultimately not powerful and will not win. Image from my book No Matter What, 2019.

I had a boss several year ago who said the single most helpful piece of advice that I’ve held onto.

We were discussing something that bothered me, and she said the advice that worked for her was this:

She was once bothered by someone’s behaviour and someone in her life said to her, “well, don’t you do that”

So, when people delight in violence, I say to myself, and to you: Don’t you do that.

Don’t you be gleeful when someone you dislike is killed

Don’t you be quick to justify violence

Don’t you approach debates in bad faith or be too close minded to learn from others

Don’t you stifle speech with violence

Don’t you be dishonest (“When you deliberately distort and selectively present the truth, you lie” in the words of Charlie Kirk)

Don’t you be cruel or malicious to others

3. Build Virtue

…Even when that is a quiet pursuit that you can’t demonstrate to applause on social media. Do it when no-ones watching. Do it especially when no one is watching. 

We are so unfamiliar with the concept of virtues in a landscape that celebrates quick takes, the appearance of things and cares NOTHING for a person’s character. Why waste effort becoming virtuous? Where will that get me, career wise? That won’t lead to more content. That won’t allow me to be the loudest voice on a popular topic that I can get clapped for. Why bother with virtue?

…Because it is what will save us and restore our humanity. We need a world of more careful, virtuous people.

It doesn’t matter what the ‘world’ throws at you or accuses you of (I was personally accused of being a ‘rancid little freak’ recently on social media..lol. I appreciated the creativity of the wording) if you quietly know you are doing the best to conform your character to Christ. (by the way, even he isn’t compassionate enough for woke people or hateful people).

I had another Christian ( who I actually know, and could have chosen to talk to me via message lol) rebutt me and police a comment I made on a social media post and correct me for my lack of speaking about what they perceived as appropriate to speak about, calling my perspective into question on a pretty public forum. That approach is not helpful. Not virtuous. The tone of: ‘I’m more virtuous than you, so let me publicly correct you, so everyone here knows I’m one of the good ones, and you’re a bigot’ is not it. Less public virtue signalling. More building of real personal virtue.

And if you’re not a Christian? Cool. A good place to start is developing and prioritising these: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control, a list from Galatians 5:22-23 that describes the ‘fruits’ of lives that are influenced by the Holy Spirit. But be warned you might find yourself accidentally behaving in a new way and your life might improve when you pursue and desire these qualities.

4. THINK CRITICALLY

Don’t just accept slogans and chanting and pat yourself on the back for being morally superior.

Weigh ideas up properly. It is not a sin to prioritise logic. Logic and rationality is a gift we have been given as a species. We can know some things via our emotions, our intuitions, or gut instincts- for absolutely sure. But we cannot leave our minds behind and forget how important it is to weigh ideas, test the ones that challenge us, put everything under a microscope to see if it holds up under scrutiny.

Our emotional responses can lead us to places that cloud our judgement- that isn’t good

Our rational thinking can lead us to places that are unnecessarily harsh and devoid of gentleness.

We need both to move forward. Some prefer to chant about empathy (a good when partnered with thinking properly) but it CANNOT be divorced from engaging our minds.

5. EXTEND YOUR HEART, AND THE MIC TO YOUR OPPONENTS

Do what Charlie did. Show kindness to your opponents by bothering to take the time to engage and hear them out and have a dialogue.

I’ve seen people accuse him, in the 24 hrs after his death, of being like the antichrist, or of being hateful. To that I say: Jesus bothered to engage with people. Jesus dialogued all day. He cared enough about people to hear them out. This is one of the most Christlike behaviours we can extend to others. If we give up on the idea of engagement we’ve descended into a dark place. I don’t want to go any further into that place than we’ve already gone. It can be easy to want to retreat into our comfortable silos at times of chaos and even danger. But being prepared to have a debate and discuss ideas (ideas should ALWAYS be on the table to discuss, examine and challenge) will restore us to finding a tiny centimetre of common ground.

My friend asked me yesterday “Can we even hope to win hearts with dialogue anymore?”

My response was this:

We’ve won already.

When we stay committed to dialogue instead of violence, we’ve won already

When we don’t let ugly culture wars warp us into hatred, we’ve won already.

When we don’t let moral confusion get in the way of denouncing senseless murder and political violence, we’ve won already.

When we remember the saviour who is our literal only eternal hope in the darkenss of this world, we remember that He’s won already, and therefore we’ve won already.

1 Corinthians 16:13 and here’s some relevant (though ancient) advice originally given to the church in Corinth:

“Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong”

It’s easy to feel a little despairing. 

But take courage, you’ve already won.

Don’t Let Those Rascal Thoughts Make You Drop Your Gaze, 2017.

For today: Don’t let the beastly hatred in this world shift your eyes off Jesus. Don’t let the twisted morality of the world tell you light is actually darkness, and darkness is light. Hold your gaze.













Impressions From England

The Cost Of Holding Back The Dark

Rather than religious dogmas, I really like the metaphor of light and dark, which is used many times in the bible. Light, we can all agree, helps us see, gives some clarity, and is generally good. We need sunlight to be healthy. Plants need sunlight to grow.

In a spiritual sense, the same metaphor is helpful: ‘Light’ helps us to flourish, and spiritual ‘darkness’ breeds destruction and hatred. I play with these ideas regularly in my artworks, particularly the lighbulb personified as a whimsical character which represents Jesus (as described in the bible as the ‘light of the world’).

‘The Cost Of Holding Back The Darkness’ 2025

Several influences sparked this:

-I made my husband watch True Detective (season 1) which has two of my favourite actors. It is a really powerful story. There’s a dialogue between Matthew McConaughey’s nihilistic, philosopical character (Rust) and Woody Harrelson’s character (Marty) right at the end (so stop reading; spoilers lol) in which they look up at the night sky and discuss light and dark (good in the world vs the evil they have just encountered through the season).

Here’s the dialogue:

Rust: “I tell you Marty I been up in that room looking out those windows every night here just thinking, it’s just one story. The oldest.”

Marty: “What’s that?”

Rust: “Light versus dark.”

Marty: “Well, I know we ain’t in Alaska, but it appears to me that the dark has a lot more territory.”

Rust: “Yeah, you’re right about that.”

Rust insists that Marty help him leave the hospital, and Marty agrees. As they head to the car, Rust makes one final point to his former partner. 

Rust: “You’re looking at it wrong, the sky thing.”

Marty: “How’s that?”

Rust: “Well, once there was only dark. You ask me, the light’s winning.”

I’ve been siting with that conversation and thinking about the cost that comes to those who engage with that battle to keep darkness at bay. In the fictional show, Rust nearly loses his life while bringing to justice a serial murderer. The cost is high.

Real Life Costs

I just finished reading Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s 2007 autobiographical novel Infidel, in which she chronicles leaving Somalia and fighting for the rights of Muslim women in Holland. It’s intense and eye opening. Ayaan talks about the brutal murder of her friend, the Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, due to his association with her (for collaborating on a film about Muslim women’s rights). Ayaan was in fear of her life and was forced into hiding. The cost for her to expose some of the deep darknesses she experienced in her culture and community was high. I found this really inspiring, as a reader in a Western country, surrounded by a general sense of apathy about right and wrong, good and evil. These ideas are either rejected as being too dogmatic, in favour of relativism: “who’s to say what’s right and wrong? You do you” “Everything depends” or a kind of hesitancy to address evils for fear of being seen as some sort of “phobe (“That’s just culture, don’t be racist”)

This drawing is also inspired by my pastor, Mari-Shell Scott, because she has shared publicly parts of her story about darknesses she has experienced in her life, and has taken up the responsibility and cost of holding the curtain back for others too.

Some of the elements I want to highlight in this image:

  • The mouths represent the sneering that comes from some places when you get involved in the light. Dennis Prager said something that resonated which is this:

“Those who don't fight evil hate those who do; and those who don't fight real evils make up little evils”

There will always be people who lurk in the dark, and enjoy it there, and who try to obstruct those who have stepped out of the dark. That tension seems perennial.

  • There are monsters hiding behind the stairs and claws ready to grab. This speaks to the ongoing existence of real, genuine evil in the world: and a challenge to those who love the light to not be fearful, and to not ignore the existence of evil. It might require some skin in the game, some toughness, some courage to challenge it rather than shrink away and pretend we don’t see what people in our communities are facing in their darkness. The darknesses might be domestic violence, serious mental health challenges, drug issues, a kind of spiritual and existential emptiness, voids of meaning, relational poverty, loneliness, it goes on…the ‘dark’ is there, whether we face the other way and pretend not to know or we have the courage to look at it squarely as courageous people. This challenge is to do the latter.

  • The room is crumbling, despaired, damaged. The extent of the decay probably isn’t even fully visible until the curtain is pulled back. This room is a metaphor for the consequences of darkness: it shatters us, damages us and those around us.

  • The hot air balloons- a sense of adventure, of momentum waits: not stagnant, not boring: the Light comes with a call to adventure, challenge, goodness.

  • The figure holding back the curtain: reminiscent of Jesus being wounded to the end of his life on the cross. The figure represents anyone who picks up the challenge to stand up, do something, care about justice, fight the darkness.

It also occured to me afterwards that there was a curtain in Jesus’ death story too:

Mark 15: 37-39 (MSG) “But Jesus, with a loud cry, gave his last breath. At that moment the Temple curtain ripped right down the middle. When the Roman captain standing guard in front of him saw that he had quit breathing, he said, "This has to be the Son of God!"

I know there are other things going on in that story of the temple curtain ripping in half, but I like the idea that the curtain tearing takes my drawn idea to the next level: The curtain isn’t just held back, temporarily, it’s destroyed, ripped, finished. That to me speaks of hope. Hope, like the dialogue in True Detective suggests, that despite the territory the darkness claims: light is winning; it has won.

Artmaking as Prayer: Introducing our project w/ Dr. Emma Austin

Hello!

It’s been a little while between cyclones…the year absolutely flying by…

Dropping in to share some great news!

My friend Dr. Emma Austin and I have collaborated on a project we are both really excited about.

Prayer/ faith life and spirituality (particularly from the Pentecostal tradition) is a passion of mine, and art making is inextricably linked to how I express this. I am very grateful to have a friend like Emma who saw and helped craft this project into something that could be understood by a broader audience.

We have just had our paper published. See our article here (though it is behind a paywall for most; please contact either of us to read the full version).

We have also been accepted to present on this paper later in the year in the UK at Regents Theological College for a global Pentecostal conference.

To see our full chat about this project:

Artmaking as prayer: full conversation