Charlie Kirk’s Assassination Feels Like a Hinge Point (by Peggy Noonan)

 

What a disaster for the young. It will forever shape their understanding of politics in America.

-- The Wall Street Journal: September 11, 2025

During recent national traumas we’ve heard the side argument over “thoughts and prayers.” Something terrible happens, someone sends thoughts and prayers, someone else snaps, “We don’t need your prayers, we need action.” They denounce the phrase only because they don’t understand it, and give unwitting offense. (I always hope it is unwitting.)

Prayer is action. It’s effort. It takes time. Christians believe God is an actual participant in history. He’s here, every day, in the trenches. He didn’t create the universe and disappear into the mists; his creation is an ongoing event, he is here in the world with you. When something terrible happens and you talk to him—that’s what prayer is, talking to him, communicating with concentration—you are actively asking for help, for intercession. “Please help her suffering, help their children, they are so alone.” “Help me be brave through this.”

It’s active, not passive. Catholics, when they’d pray over and over or with friends, used to call it storming heaven. It isn’t a way of dodging responsibility, it is (if you are really doing it and not just publicly posing) a way of taking it.

So pray now for America. We are in big trouble.

How To Tame Your Thoughts

[Taken from an article by Leah Marie Ann Klett | published by christianpost.com]

Four years ago, Max Lucado was sitting with a diagnosis that could have ended his life. Doctors had just informed the bestselling author and pastor that he had an ascending aortic aneurysm, an alarming and potentially deadly condition.

“I spiraled,” the 70-year-old Oak Hills Church in San Antonio, Texas, told The Christian Post. “The first three or four days after I heard the diagnosis, I’m not proud of the anxiety level I permitted.”

Then came a moment that changed everything. During a time of prayer, Lucado said he received a vision: God’s hand gently wrapped around his aorta.

“It may sound supernatural or mystical,” he said, “but I can’t deny that God gave me that vision. I believe His hand is on it, and it always was, even when I didn’t recognize it.”

The aneurysm, he shared, has grown only slightly since the diagnosis, and today, he’s grounded in a peace that can only come from God, regardless of what the future holds. 

“I do not want to leave my family. I do not want to leave my precious wife. But I’m excited to see Jesus whenever that time comes,” he reflected. “I really am at peace. That doesn’t mean I want to leave. I don’t. But I don’t have a bucket list. My best life is after this life. I’m very, very grateful for that blessing.”

The Joy of Obedience

“The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. 24 Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. 25 Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. 26 If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him." (John 12:23-26)

In this Gospel lesson, Jesus reminds us, as he had proclaimed many times before to his disciples, "If you really want to be my disciple, take up your cross and follow me." And if we listen carefully and deeply to the lessons of today for a few moments, I think we will discover in a very deep way what Jesus means by that, and also we will be aware of the challenge it takes truly to follow Jesus. And first of all, I think it's important for us to realize that in what Jesus is to undergo.

You see, we have to understand that the incarnation, Jesus in his humanness, is totally separate from his identity, and so he's one like us. He had to trust in God just as we do, and he found that very difficult, just as we do. If you listen carefully to that passage from the letter to the Hebrews, you find Jesus described in a way that I think is almost shocking: "In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverence. Although he was a son, he learned obedience through what he suffered. And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him." (Hebrews 5:7-9)

The Dangers of Isolation

I have been thinking a lot about isolation lately. Since my divorce a year ago, my life workflow looks radically different. When you couple that life change with selling our house and moving to an apartment, and at times I struggle to even recognize my "new" normal.

‘Time-alone’ is a sought after treasure.  A time to think, read, and ‘do what I want to do.’  The menu is simpler, conflicts are reduced, and no one is around to question decisions made or decisions postponed.  We all need ‘time-away’.  Time to seek God’s voice, reflect, relax and recover.  We ask ourselves important questions and listen for the Spirit’s voice.  Jesus was reported to regularly retreat and seek out places of solitude and prayer. However, I am coming to understand the dangerous differences between being alone, loneliness and isolation. Social distancing has consequences.

However, the very first warning in the creation story is “It is not good for man to be alone.”  When people are alone, many struggle with burdens, anxiety, addictions and the sorrow of opportunities lost.  Temptation knocks. Loneliness can enhance feelings of depression and can flood your mind with accusations and bitterness.  

But you know what is worse than loneliness? 

Isolation.