Where Does It All End? Ideally With Love.

​Twenty-four years ago, I was in the middle of the Croatan National Forest in eastern North Carolina, leading a team of people working with troubled youth. That’s where I was when I saw the first images of planes flying into buildings across our country.

I can still remember the feeling, the world had tilted, and even in the middle of the woods, I felt it.

In those days, processing tragedy was mostly done in solitude. There were no constant news feeds or social media threads to scroll through, no endless stream of voices telling me who was to blame. There was silence, prayer, shock, and grief. In some ways, the stillness of the forest mirrored the stillness of the nation - we were stunned, united, and unsure of what came next.

Yesterday, I sat alone in my home as news of Charlie Kirk’s assassination began to flood the internet. But I wasn’t really alone. This time, I was processing a national tragedy with the world, millions and millions of voices chiming in at once.

What I felt, though, was not unity but division. Finger-pointing and blame poured in faster than condolences. Outrage spread quicker than prayer. Being “right” seemed to take precedence over being human.

I couldn’t help but notice how much has changed in 24 years. The solitude that once gave me space to grieve has been replaced with a chorus of noise. Some of it is human, some of it is not; algorithms, bots, AI-driven commentary. Do we even realize many of our grievances are with robots these days?

And yet, all of it shapes how we see each other in moments when we most need to see each other clearly.

What hasn’t changed, though, is the pain that lingers. The families who lost loved ones on 9/11 still live with that absence. No amount of debate or political rhetoric can take it away. And now, in this moment, the pain that will not go away is the pain Charlie Kirk’s wife and two young children will carry, the pain his friends and followers will feel as they try to make sense of their loss.

I have seen this enough to know in the last 24 years: long after the hashtags fade, heartache and pain remain. No amount of vitriol or finger pointing in the world can point pain away from pain those who most want to be directed away from its suffering.

This is not a new story. From the very beginning, after Adam and Eve chose to break humanity’s perfect union with God, God stepped into the aftermath not with more blame, but with an invitation to healing. He clothed them in their shame, promised a redeemer, and made a way for relationship to be restored.

Even in the ruins of Eden, God’s posture was not to leave them in their brokenness, but to guide them toward redemption.

And that same choice still sits before us. We can add to the noise - to the division, to the endless cycle of anger - or we can choose what God invited from the start: to bind wounds, to comfort one another, to trust that healing is always possible even in the darkest aftermath.

Where does this all end?

I remember quietly asking that question 24 years ago in the middle of the wilderness. I find myself asking it again this morning. Maybe today the question feels more chaotic, lost in the noise, lost in the opinions of millions of humans and robots who all seem to know where it will end.

But to me it is still a question.

I would like to think it ends where it has always been intended to end, with each of us choosing, in the quiet of our own hearts, whether we will add to the noise or to the healing. For no opinion has ever answered the desire to heal, only love can do that.