Faith Works 9-19-2025
Jeff Gill
Standing in the surf as the tide rises
___
Earlier this summer, Charlie Kirk said on X: "When things are moving very fast and people are losing their minds, it's important to stay grounded. Turn off your phone, read scripture, spend time with friends, and remember internet fury is not real life. It's going to be ok."
I remember being surprised by this. His reputation was more for provocation and challenge and defiance, but this recommendation was itself pretty solidly grounded. I clicked "like" and scrolled on. I'd like to say I made a mental note to check him out more thoroughly, but it was June 17th and if I did I never got around to it.
My wife and I were on vacation when the news came, tragic and shocking. We were about to make my first visit to the Pacific Ocean, and Charlie Kirk's death was on my mind as I stood in the waves, feeling the sand itself move under my feet as the tide was surging in. You can stand and watch breaking waves, one after the other, roaring in your ears and spraying your legs, for some time. It's a contemplative place, timeless and yet indicative of inexorable time passing, one wave after another. Plus the reality that with each stronger wave you could really tell the ground beneath you was not stable. And it was cold.
Walking back to the rental car, I worked to get the sand off my sandals before getting in, never a task done to completion. The grit and kelp was woven into the straps of my sandals, and stayed with me all the way back to our hotel. The news I'd heard, and the details of the assassination, were stuck in my thoughts as well. In part, I was sorry I had heard about it; self-pityingly, I wished I'd stuck to old pop music and anodyne entertainment, and not let my notifications pull me into the strong currents of daily news. Looking at iconic Haystack Rock, I was still mindful of a new widow and small children sure to ask when Daddy was coming home.
From Minnesota legislators shot at their own front doors to an Atlanta police officer killed trying to stop a shooter spraying a government building, all the way back to our summer vacation last year coming to a halt for a day with the attempt on President Trump's life, there's no way to look around and think this is too much, it's building and growing in ways we can't seem to control, and the world is feeling unstable under our feet. The knowledge that just as inexorably, the tide will go out just as it has come in, is not much of a comfort right now. Are we at a high tide, or is it still to come?
Which is where a number of people, all over the political . . . spectrum? Arc? Sphere? Two dimensions don't seem to do it these days. But all sorts of us recalled and pulled back up that June aside by Charlie Kirk himself, as a surge of political furor was washing up around our ankles, and no doubt his, since he was one to wade out deep into troubled waters. And we recall what he said:
"When things are moving very fast and people are losing their minds, it's important to stay grounded. Turn off your phone, read scripture, spend time with friends, and remember internet fury is not real life. It's going to be ok."
I really can't improve on that. I promise to try, in coming weeks, but for now, I'd like to give Charlie Kirk the last word. "It's going to be ok."
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he has a variety of political opinions, most of which he doesn't preach about. Tell him how you stay in touch with real life at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
Jeff Gill
Standing in the surf as the tide rises
___
Earlier this summer, Charlie Kirk said on X: "When things are moving very fast and people are losing their minds, it's important to stay grounded. Turn off your phone, read scripture, spend time with friends, and remember internet fury is not real life. It's going to be ok."
I remember being surprised by this. His reputation was more for provocation and challenge and defiance, but this recommendation was itself pretty solidly grounded. I clicked "like" and scrolled on. I'd like to say I made a mental note to check him out more thoroughly, but it was June 17th and if I did I never got around to it.
My wife and I were on vacation when the news came, tragic and shocking. We were about to make my first visit to the Pacific Ocean, and Charlie Kirk's death was on my mind as I stood in the waves, feeling the sand itself move under my feet as the tide was surging in. You can stand and watch breaking waves, one after the other, roaring in your ears and spraying your legs, for some time. It's a contemplative place, timeless and yet indicative of inexorable time passing, one wave after another. Plus the reality that with each stronger wave you could really tell the ground beneath you was not stable. And it was cold.
Walking back to the rental car, I worked to get the sand off my sandals before getting in, never a task done to completion. The grit and kelp was woven into the straps of my sandals, and stayed with me all the way back to our hotel. The news I'd heard, and the details of the assassination, were stuck in my thoughts as well. In part, I was sorry I had heard about it; self-pityingly, I wished I'd stuck to old pop music and anodyne entertainment, and not let my notifications pull me into the strong currents of daily news. Looking at iconic Haystack Rock, I was still mindful of a new widow and small children sure to ask when Daddy was coming home.
From Minnesota legislators shot at their own front doors to an Atlanta police officer killed trying to stop a shooter spraying a government building, all the way back to our summer vacation last year coming to a halt for a day with the attempt on President Trump's life, there's no way to look around and think this is too much, it's building and growing in ways we can't seem to control, and the world is feeling unstable under our feet. The knowledge that just as inexorably, the tide will go out just as it has come in, is not much of a comfort right now. Are we at a high tide, or is it still to come?
Which is where a number of people, all over the political . . . spectrum? Arc? Sphere? Two dimensions don't seem to do it these days. But all sorts of us recalled and pulled back up that June aside by Charlie Kirk himself, as a surge of political furor was washing up around our ankles, and no doubt his, since he was one to wade out deep into troubled waters. And we recall what he said:
"When things are moving very fast and people are losing their minds, it's important to stay grounded. Turn off your phone, read scripture, spend time with friends, and remember internet fury is not real life. It's going to be ok."
I really can't improve on that. I promise to try, in coming weeks, but for now, I'd like to give Charlie Kirk the last word. "It's going to be ok."
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and preacher in central Ohio; he has a variety of political opinions, most of which he doesn't preach about. Tell him how you stay in touch with real life at knapsack77@gmail.com or follow @Knapsack77 on Threads or Bluesky.
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