The Moment Spirituality Starts

At 7:30 A.M. in the women’s correctional facility, T. called me over in the still-darkened dorm. The TVs were broadcasting the story that Charlie Kirk had been shot.

We don’t talk politics much. Every now and again there’s a moment of eye contact or a head nod when we hear about Trump’s First Step Act or a story about weaponization. I walk slowly over to the television. 

There’s a field like that around hospitals. It’s invisible, but you bump into it regardless. There is grief here. The illusion of permanence or divine justice is shattered. The truth is revealed: in this life, this strange mystery, bad things happen to good people. 

I’ve said it before—this is where spirituality starts, where Job had his mettle tested. This is one of those moments for the nation.

I watch the newscasters, who so often resemble cardboard, a monotone that portends objectivity, visibly stunned. There are three of Charlie’s friends, two young Black men and a woman. This says everything.

That this heart of his—true to conservative principles, not conventional dogma—would betray any stereotype of “patriarchal white male.” There are many who will speak of his legacy.

For me, it is as simple as that: a man who espoused a religion based in love and then visibly, in front of all of us, lived that belief. He forged open a new door for that expression with young, profoundly intelligent, and at the same time kindhearted youth. I’m a 58-year-old woman who grew up in the ultra-liberal Gavin Newsom territory of California. I am incarcerated because I aimed to introduce a practice that works with women and sexual energies. I am likely one of the last people most would expect to be mourning today, to feel a hit to the heart that is not the kind of thing you express in a women’s prison. Because my case is one of religious freedom. 

Because this is what, at a certain tier, you learn. You learn that people with real character—determined neither by the color of skin, the animal of their party, nor the religious book they refer to—for those with eyes to see deeper than surfaces, they are beholden to truth and freedom. They may argue about the fruits of the tree but recognize a meeting ground in the roots.

It takes much for one to live at that depth, a moral compass that allows one to find their way through the political storms of the day. Make it through the clouds, and you can only rely on that compass to navigate your way. 

There are those who take the easy way out and only stick with like-minded. But there are those who live the truth of their convictions and find their way to the like-hearted. Charlie Kirk was one of the brilliant and rare few who allowed himself to be tried by fire to purify the heart, and for this we all benefited from his presence. And because of this, we will all mourn his loss.