I awoke to the news that it looks like they got the kid who killed Charlie Kirk. It sounds like his dad turned him in. It’s surprising because I’ve been having discussions lately about whether I would protect my child if they committed crimes. I like to think I’d be there, at the door, telling the police he doesn’t live here. Who’s going to protect them in the world if not their own parents?

But, something like this? An American icon shot in broad daylight in front of hundreds of people on a college campus? Loyalty has an end. Truth and justice do mean more. For us, for God, for any sense of good in the world. I won’t argue about that anymore.

Telling the truth

Even before I saw this news, I was thinking about what it means to love someone. To truly love someone. I’ve been having issues with some of my family and friends around what it means to love them and to tell the truth.

This has been an issue for me for a long time. I’ve always sort of seen a lot. But often times saying something about it hurt someone. I would get in trouble, typically, because I probably didn’t say it very well, or simply because it’s hard to hear the truth (both are going on), and then I’m the one who gets smaller, feels bad, never says anything again, tiptoes around because I love them. I don’t want to hurt them.

Obviously, that’s not the correct response.

But as a child, I didn’t have a very good reference for how to hold someone compassionately and still be with truth, together.

I grew up in a family where we didn’t really consider each other’s emotions. I can think back to often being met with criticism. With cruelty. “You’re going to wear that?” Behind the back comments about my aunt looking like a “stuffed sausage” (classic). My sister making fun of me for acne. Each other’s tenderness uncared for. My mom was more worried about whether my boobs were showing too much over if I thought I looked or felt pretty (I’m fucking huge-chested, they’re gonna show).

It’s taken me a long time to see how this affects my relationships. Because it’s one of those behaviors that become so normal as part of your engagement with each other. It’s a family dynamic. It’s the culture. No one shuts it down, and no one seems to give a better example.

And there’s truth in some of this. It is that to love someone is to tell them the dress they're wearing is ugly. The caveat is that we have to tell it COMPASSIONATELY.

Compassion

Compassion, is a surprisingly slippery skill that you would think is easier to cultivate than it is. A lot of us come from families where compassion was not the norm. Culturally, compassion seems scarce (especially right now). And compassion, although it seems like we should just know how to do it, is an active skill.

Brené Brown defines compassion as a core belief in human interconnectedness that requires clear, non-negotiable boundaries to be genuine and effective, allowing individuals to hold others accountable while still extending empathy and support.

She found that the most compassionate individuals, regardless of their spiritual or religious background, were those with "boundaries of steel," understanding what is acceptable behavior and refusing to tolerate abuse. This is crucial for self-love and for treating others with kindness, as compassion without boundaries can lead to resentment.

Charlie Kirk talked about this, too. That to love someone is to tell the truth. We tell the truth because we love that person. Because we might be able to see reality a little better than they can, and we can bring them up to it when we do. And we use compassion, care, and kindness to show them what we’re seeing, to be together in the world.

The Buddhists talk about idiot compassion vs wise compassion.

Idiot compassion is the compassion that’s afraid of truth. It’s the version of love that tells you what you want to hear, or says nothing at all, because it doesn’t want to disturb the peace. It’s the parent who covers up for their child no matter what they’ve done, the friend who watches you spiral and says, “I support you no matter what” while secretly knowing they don’t and should say something. It feels kind in the moment, but really it abandons both people. It abandons truth. It abandons growth. It abandons God and something greater than both of you.

Wise compassion, on the other hand, is fierce. It risks being misunderstood, risks being rejected, risks losing the relationship for the sake of love. It doesn’t coddle. It dignifies. It assumes you are strong enough to hear the truth and worthy enough to be told it. That’s the kind of compassion that heals, even if it burns on the way in.

And I think this is the question so many of us are facing right now, in our families, in our country, even in ourselves: Will we practice idiot compassion that enables what is sick, or wise compassion that confronts it? Will we keep each other in the dark, or will we walk each other toward the light? And, can we do that with a kind of care and love that demands and invites both of us to rise.

I have not been the most compassionate

I have not always lived up to wise compassion. I can think of plenty of times where I moved with sharpness instead of care, where I thought I was telling the truth, but really I was just spilling cruelty. That’s the danger of confusing honesty with love: you can wound someone in their softest place and call it righteousness. I’ve done that. I’ve broken trust that way.

The skill I’m learning is that you have to hold, like the boundaries Brené talks about, the value, the deep belief of what you accept and what you don’t. Without that, “truth” can become a weapon. But with it, truth can actually become medicine. Boundaries let you stand in both: the immovable ground of what is right and the open heart of love.

It means telling the truth not because you want to win, or prove yourself right, or finally get the jab in (because you’ve been called a stuffed sausage so many times), but because you care so deeply that you can’t leave someone stranded in illusion.

It means remembering that the person in front of you is a soul, and their dignity matters more than your relief.

Wise compassion isn’t soft, and it isn’t hard. It’s strong. It’s clear. It’s honest, but it’s wrapped in the kind of tenderness that says, I see you, I’m with you. That’s not cruelty, that’s love in its truest form.

Missing the mark

So what about when we miss it? 

When we fail to show up with compassion, and in its place comes sharpness, cruelty, silence, or abandonment?

The only way I know is to come back with the very thing I failed to bring in the first place: compassion. 

To name where I was wrong, without self-pity, and to let my love be louder than my pride. Sometimes that means apologizing not just for what I said, but for how I said it, for the fact that I made someone feel small instead of seen.

Repair asks us to hold both truths at once: I had a point, maybe, but I delivered it without care. And to make that right is to look someone in the eye and say: you mattered more than my need to be right.

Relationships break at the exact places where compassion should have been present and wasn’t. But those places can also be the very ground where compassion is finally planted. That’s how you rebuild trust. That’s how you dignify each other again. But hopefully, we just don’t have to get it wrong anymore in the first place. I’m sorry to those where I’ve gotten it wrong.

Even in writing this, I’ve gotten it wrong. I’ve hurt some people because I can be cutting with my words. I believe that naming the truth is worth it. I use this platform to name the truth about who I am and what moves through me. But, I’m learning, although like an elephant in a china shop, that you matter more to me than anything I want to write here (you know who you are).

And in the end, I hope that’s what these words are for. To name my own messy truth a little better so that you can name yours and that together we both see a little clearer, feel a little deeper, and maybe—just maybe—walk each other closer to the light.

Love,
Val

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