**Stepping away from the regular, let-me-help-you-with-content kind of episode. Please step away from the internet this weekend and hug your family.**
No music, no intro, you’re listening to The Morgan Snyder Show.
I’ve tried to record this episode a couple times this week.
I get to this screen. I stare at it. I write a few sentences. I delete them.
I close my laptop.
I don’t have the words. They’re not coming.
Now it’s Friday, and my chances of people listening to this are pretty small, but I’m putting it out anyway.
I’m just going for it. Maybe this will help sort out my feelings.
I wasn’t at Charlie Kirk’s assasination. But my neighbor’s kid was.
He watched him get shot from 10 feet away, and crawled around on the ground hoping that he and his friend were going to make it out alive.
I can’t even imagine how he’s dealing with that right now.
Of all the places, it had to be Utah.
On campus, in broad daylight, as he tried to have conversations about big ideas.
Doesn’t feel real.
My friend texted me today, he works about a mile from UVU campus, and his daughter was there during the shooting.
“I’m numb and overwhelmed. Saw the police and motorcade go by. I had tons of friends there.”
I was reading in a couple of different places that after Kirk was shot, the protesters were cheering his death and taunting his supporters about it.
It's a level of evil that's hard to imagine.
Then you zoom out to the rest of the nation, and senseless violence is happening to normal people riding on busses or sitting in classrooms, or praying in church.
I can hardly read a handful of articles on my news app. It’s so depressing.
In the last 48 hours, while all of this was going on, the only thing I could really do is distract myself by writing posts for my clients.
I wrote a lot of posts.
I shut myself in my room and typed away for hours, avoiding the dread sitting in my chest, a cloud over my head making it difficult to concentrate.
And then when I went to bed, I had this wave of anxiousness come over me about the future, about my kids, about all the pain that we’re collectively feeling about the state of the country and its people.
What are we going to do about it? What am I going to do about it?
There are two voices in my head.
One comes from a dark, damp cave, somewhere deep in my mind that I don’t often explore. It whispers, “Better get used to it. This is the new normal. You’re going to watch more and more of it happen.”
Don’t like that voice very much.
Then the other one comes from a recording studio with cool posters of early 2000’s bands. It assures me, “You’re going to be the leader that people will look to. You have to stand tall and walk the walk.”
That voice has high standards for me.
My dad was in town yesterday and stopped by. He and my mom took a trip to England, Scotland, and Ireland and had gifts for the kids.
There were kilts, Liverpool jerseys, and a family crest refrigerator magnet.
It was from the Morgan family.
Yes, Morgan is my first name, but funny enough, I have Morgan family ancestors.
The name comes from the early Celtic 'sea-bright', and also exists in Old British, Cornish and Welsh.
The Motto: "Manu forti" is Latin for "With a strong hand".
The Crest: The symbol is a dagger, representing strength and readiness.
While my daughters danced around, and the boys took pictures with their new soccer kits, I held the magnet.
I suddenly got emotional.
Hey, it happens to me. I’m an artist. I feel things.
I don’t have to face obstacles like my ancestors did, nor do I have to grapple with dangerous situations.
But I still need to be brave. I still need to be steady.
I need to provide a home of safety and security for the 7 other Snyders who live with me.
I need to be a man of character, someone who can be relied on to do the right thing.
I need to make sure that the world I’m leaving behind is better because I was here.
That’s my calling.
Manu forti.
