Reflection / Sean Gallagher

To change the world, seek to change yourself: a response to the killing of Charlie Kirk

It is said that the early 20th-century British author and Catholic convert G. K. Chesterton was, among other writers, asked by the editors of a newspaper for his answer to the question, “What is wrong with the world?”

His answer was simply, “I am.”

The society in which Chesterton lived was in need of reform, just as ours is. And in many other places in his voluminous writings, Chesterton commented, usually in ways both witty and wise, on challenges facing the people of his day.

Chesterton’s answer to the newspaper editors, though, pointed to the more fundamental work needed prior to and in the midst of any work aimed at solving a specific societal problem. And that is the task of self-reformation.

Many people in Chesterton’s days, as in our own, gave lip service to such a call to the constant conversion of self. But too few, then as now, prioritize this mission above efforts to change other people.

In the immediate aftermath of the assassination of popular conservative political activist Charlie Kirk on Sept. 10, social media was saturated with calls from people across the ideological spectrum for people holding political principles opposite from their own to change.

Liberals need to tone down harsh characterizations of their opponents that some perceived as giving permission for violent action. Conservatives were told to curb their perceived fierce opposition to people with moral and social views different from their own.

Arguments can be made for and against such positions. I instead suggest that our country could greatly benefit at this sad and violence-ridden time from a good dose of the humility that Chesterton suggested in his terse answer to the newspaper editors. We need to change ourselves first before seeking to change other people. Let’s make it a top priority to concentrate our hearts and minds each day on reforming ourselves with the help of God’s grace.

I acknowledge that accomplishing this mission is challenging. The ongoing effects of original sin often lead us to take one step forward and two steps back in our conversion process.

But we Catholic Christians are called to cling firmly to the theological virtue of hope, something especially appropriate for us in this Jubilee Year of Hope.

Our hope for a better future for ourselves and our society can rest secure on our faith that the grace of God is always there to help us to take steps to better ourselves, even if they seem tiny and incremental.

We can then extend that hope for change within ourselves to a hope for a better society for ourselves and those who will come after us. God’s grace can help us to have a firm hope that small daily changes made in each of us, accumulated across society through time, can pave the way more and more for a growing revelation of God’s kingdom in our world, even while we acknowledge that it will only be manifested in its fullness in heaven.

The violence plaguing our society more and more today is sadly not new to America. The year 1968 was marked by several brutal acts of political violence.

On April 4 of that year, Martin Luther King, Jr., was gunned down in Memphis, Tenn. Then-presidential candidate Robert Kennedy was in Indianapolis at the time.

Kennedy cancelled his scheduled political rally and instead made a short speech in a city park to a crowd made up largely of Blacks. He pleaded with them to seek compassion and understanding within themselves rather than resorting to violence against others in the wake of King’s killing.

As it turned out, Indianapolis remained at peace that night while other cities across the country dealt with violent riots.

At the end of his speech, Kennedy invited his listeners to prayer, something that is essential both to the task of changing our own hearts and minds and, ultimately, changing society, too.

“So, I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King … but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love—a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke.

“ … And let’s dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world. Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.”

Sadly, the savageness of man struck Kennedy down just two months later when he was killed by an assassin’s bullet in Los Angeles.

But his call for understanding, compassion and prayer in the face of violence holds true today as much as it did in 1968. Despite the troubles facing our country today, let us cling to hope and move forward to change our own hearts and minds as a first necessary step to a better society.
 

(Sean Gallagher is a reporter and columnist for The Criterion.) †